Dear Cary

by Dyan Cannon

  “We’ll search for her in the car,” Cary said. “Come on, Dyan. It’ll be all right.”

  Cary drove slowly along the street, turned a corner from the main road, and we wandered into a residential neighborhood of small, stucco houses with cacti growing in the yard. “Cary, I can’t even think of losing Bangs. She’s like my baby. I’ve had her since she was eight weeks old.”

  “Here, Dyan.” Cary gave me his handkerchief. There is something about a lost pet that tears your heart apart like nothing else. I thought of Bangs running to greet me when I got home from work, Bangs sitting in my lap when I was driving the Thunderbird, Bangs nuzzling my ear early in the morning when she wanted to go out for a walk. We’d only been out five minutes and Cary’s handkerchief was already soaked. Cary stopped by the side of the road. “Dyan, why don’t you try calling her? Maybe we’ll just get lucky.”

  I lugged myself out of the car and hooted and hollered, yipped and yowled and howled. I stood in the middle of the street, crying. “My God, Cary, what if I don’t get her back? What am I going to do?”

  “Dyan.”

  “She’s my baby, Cary. Why the hell did we have to go out for lunch? We could have just ordered something!”

  “Calm down.”

  “Cary, I think I heard her! Honestly. I think I heard her!” I ran along a driveway to a backyard where children were playing and a dog was yapping. But it wasn’t Bangs. I went back to the car, dejected.

  After two hours more of fruitless searching, my eyes were swollen, my nose was red, Cary was exhausted, and Bangs was still missing. “We’re not going to find her this way,” Cary said.

  “We’ve got to keep looking.”

  “Dyan, you’ve got a show tonight.”

  “I’m not stopping until I find her.”

  “Let’s at least swing by the hotel just to check.”

  And there was Bangs, happily accepting cookies and milk from the manager’s wife. “We were trying to find you,” she said. “Your dog walked right into the office five minutes after you left. I think she was looking for you.” Bangs ran and jumped up on me. I swept her up into my arms.

  “We tried to pet her but she is definitely a one-woman dog!” the manager said.

  “And I’m a one-dog woman!” I said, my heart melting.

  “I’m a one-woman puppy myself,” Cary said, wrapping Bangs and me in his arms.

  With Bangs’s return, I happily pulled myself together for the show. We had a great night, Cary was beaming and had high praise for my performance, and we got Bangs into the restaurant for dinner (with a little help from Cary’s star power).

  The next morning, Cary had to leave for L.A. after breakfast, and I was walking him to his car when he stopped, reached for my hand, looked me in the eye, and said, “I am completely enamored of you, Dyan.”

  He kissed me, got into the car, and drove off.

  Enamored. I thought I knew what it meant, but I wanted to make sure. I ran back to my room and called my mother. “Cary just said something to me, something important, but I want to make sure I know what he meant,” I said.

  “What did he say?”

  “He said he was ‘completely enamored of’ me.”

  “It means he loves you so much it makes him feel like he’s on fire.”

  “Wow! Are you sure?”

  “I’m sure. But go find a dictionary and look it up.”

  Just to make sure, when I got home, I looked it up. In Webster’s Ninth: enamored: inflamed with love.

  Strange, I thought. That’s exactly how I feel about him: inflamed with love.

  He had said, “I’m completely enamored of you, Dyan.” And that was almost as good a feeling as finding Bangs.

  My sense that our relationship was deepening into something quite serious got a real boost a few days later. Cary called me from New York, where he was finalizing the agreement to star in Charade. He started out by grousing about the “obscene age difference” between himself and his costar, Audrey Hepburn, which was the only thing that had him wavering about the film.

  “I don’t want to come off looking like some lecherous old cradle robber,” he said, sighing.

  “But, Cary,” I pointed out, a touch perplexed, “Audrey is nearly ten years older than me. How come it bothers you in movies but not in real life?”

  “Silly girl,” he clucked. “Real life, my real life, isn’t anybody’s business but my own—except for the parts I choose to make public. But my image on the screen is bound by the shackles of social convention. A certain degree of wholesomeness is required of me. Or what most people consider wholesomeness, which doesn’t really have much to do with true wholesomeness.”

  “Cary, I don’t think it’ll take a big leap of imagination for women to see why Audrey’s character would be attracted to you.” To say the least, I thought.

  “Still . . .”

  Then he dropped the bomb.

  “Dear girl, I’m going to make a visit to England in a couple of weeks, and I’d like very much for you to come along.”

  “England?”

  “Family visit, mostly.”

  “Family visit?”

  “Yes. I’d like to introduce you to my mother.”

  That, of course, is what every girl wants to hear. And now I was hearing it.

  From Cary Grant.

  “Make way! Make way!” Cary swept his arms out, dispersing an imaginary crowd from my living room. Victor was right behind him, pushing a trolley stacked high with glossy boxes and hanging garment bags. My eyes nearly popped out of my head. It looked like a caravan of Arab merchants had wandered off the Silk Road and into my apartment.

  “I took the liberty of picking up a few things for you while I was in New York,” Cary said. “England isn’t known for its balmy weather, you know.”

  “My goodness, Cary. I don’t know what to say.”

  “I just want to make sure you keep warm,” he said.

  Cary was just off the plane from New York, and he’d come straight from the airport.

  “I dropped in on a few designer friends, some of the best in the business,” Cary said, holding a cashmere sweater to my shoulders and checking the color against my eyes. “They’re like shamans. I described you to them and they just went to town.”

  For the next hour, Cary appraised each outfit with the keen eye of a professional wardrobist. The clothes were exquisitely tailored. Skirts, suits, and dresses in silk, wool, and cashmere. Even shoes and handbags. I sprinted in and out of the bedroom, trying on each outfit and making a grand entrance with every change of clothes. Cary sat back and smiled approvingly, enjoying my remaking. So did I. But at one point I hesitated in front of the mirror and wondered, who was the girl looking back at me? She had my face and my body, but she was dressed like a stranger. The new wardrobe was beautiful. It was a totally different look. It was a great look. It just wasn’t my look. Maybe that was a good thing. I wasn’t quite sure how I felt about it.

  “How do you like your new look?” Cary asked.

  “How do you like it?”

  “It’s smart, elegant, and sophisticated. I love it.”

  “Then I love it,” I said. “You’ve got the most amazing taste of anyone I’ve ever known. Did someone teach you like you’re teaching me?”

  “If I’ve got any sense of style at all, the credit goes to my father,” he said. “When I was a young fellow, I started hanging out with a bunch of dandies. What a bunch of fops we were! Jazz suits, hideous plaids, silly scarves. But we thought we were the cat’s kimono. One day, my father took me aside and told me something I’ll never forget. He said, ‘Archibald, when you’re walking down the street, it’s you walking down the street, not that ridiculous, garish shirt, which incidentally makes you look like a poof. People should notice you first, then the clothes. The best clothes are always graciously understated. Good clothes never call attention to themselves.’

  “For once in my life, I knew good advice when I heard it. I took that as my g
uiding principle. You know, I don’t think it’s so much knowing how to dress. It’s how not to dress that matters.”

  A week later, Cary left for London for a script conference on Charade, and three days after that I was packed and ready to follow. The night before my flight, I went to bed excited and, yes, a little nervous about the trip. I soothed myself with visions of what a fine, wholesome impression I would make on Mrs. Leach. My dear, I am so happy that Archie has found such a healthy, lively girl, she would say, extending her hand, which I would take in both of mine. And she would compliment me on my wardrobe, which would be perfect for the occasion: And you’re dressed like a fine English gentlewoman! What exquisite taste. And I would reply, Thank you, ma’am, and thank you for bringing Cary Grant into the world.

  That was my conscious mind talking. My subconscious, though, was up to no good.

  Nerves. That’s the only explanation. Nerves. It couldn’t have been anything I ate. It wasn’t natural. I never in my whole life even had a pimple. But when I awoke the next morning, my face felt funny. I touched it. I rushed to the mirror.

  I had hives.

  Big, huge, red, blotchy welts, running from my forehead, down along my face, along my neck, even my ears.

  I called Cary.

  “What do you mean you can’t come?”

  “I’ve got hives. Big old blistery, nasty hives, the color of red velvet. I look like a leper!”

  Cary laughed heartily. He thought I was joking. “Just like Doris in A Touch of Mink!”

  “Yes!” I wailed. “Just like Doris in A Touch of Mink!”

  There was a pause. “Dyan, you’re not joking?”

  “No I’m not joking!”

  “Well, if this isn’t life imitating art . . .”

  “Cary, I can’t go. They’ll take one look at me at the airport and put me in quarantine for a year.”

  “Can’t you put some cream on it?”

  “Cary—it’s all over my face!”

  “Put on a hat, put on a scarf. I miss you, I want you here.”

  “Cary, I cannot do this. I can’t. I won’t. No. I’m not going anywhere.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  Time Flies

  I and my red blotches took the red-eye to London as scheduled. I wore a hat pulled down low over my face, which was so swollen I could barely crack a smile even if I’d wanted to. As I checked my luggage, I thought the flight attendants must have wondered if I were a spy.

  The flight wasn’t crowded, probably because it left at midnight, and I had a row to myself. Across the aisle from me was a guy about my age, with dark tousled hair and circles under his eyes that suggested sleep deprivation. As a stewardess came toward us, he signaled her for a drink.

  “We’ll be taking off in just a moment, sir, but I’ll take your order just as soon as we reach altitude,” she said. He forced a smile. He seemed to really want that drink.

  Soon it was time to buckle up, and the young man moved to the window seat right in front of me. “Might as well have a last look at this wretched place,” he said. His accent was distinctly English. I nodded beneath my hat.

  The plane started moving, then gained speed, and we were in the air. I looked out the window and watched the night-blanketed city fall away, its lights spilling out from underneath us as we climbed into the sky. “G’bye and good riddance!” the fellow in the seat muttered. I momentarily dozed off but awoke as he thundered his drink order to the stewardess. “. . . and not that Kentucky swill! When I say whiskey, I mean scotch whiskey. Double. No, make that a triple.” He turned around in his seat and got on his knees to look at me. “Can I offer you a drink?” he asked.

  “No, thank you,” I said, recoiling from his respiratory fumes. He’d clearly had a few belts before boarding.

  “I’m celebrating.”

  I raised my head an inch but kept my cover. “That’s great.” He had big eyes and a slightly crooked nose. There was something sweet about him. “What are you celebrating?”

  “My surrender. I give up. Been in Hollywood three bloody years, and all I have to show for it is a walk-on part in a B-movie about a haunted coal mine. Cheers!” He knocked back his drink in a single gulp. “Beats me how anybody makes it out here. Connections, that’s what it’s about! If you don’t have connections . . . well, my old man’s in the insurance business and he’s been after me since I was a kid to join in with him. I guess he wins.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said in a low murmur, trying to avoid a full conversation.

  “Me too.” He sprawled out across the open row of seats.

  It was strange to me how Hollywood flung open its gates to some and reeled up its drawbridges when others beckoned. I felt sorry for the guy. For most, that was how it happened, and that included a lot of very talented and very determined people. There was a lot of kismet involved. For me, the whole thing was a fluke. Or destiny. I sure didn’t know which.

  I got to Los Angeles by accident in the first place.

  In a nutshell, I got there because of a completely loony set of circumstances.

  I came to L.A. because I was saving myself for marriage.

  Or at least I thought that was the reason. I never set my sights on L.A. as a destination or stardom as a goal; in fact, in Seattle, Los Angeles was considered Sodom and Gomorrah by the sea. Anyone in Seattle who went to L.A. was assumed to be getting either a nose job or an abortion, and either way your reputation was slimed. I think it was inevitable that I’d wind up there, and maybe my detour to Phoenix was a subconscious way of easing into the idea of it.

  In Phoenix (after my job as first secretary to the Minister of Gropiness) I’d met a nice Jewish boy named Sonny. He was in his early thirties and worked in real estate in Los Angeles but visited Phoenix every other weekend to see his friends Gail and Marty. He took quite a shine to me, and we’d go out whenever he was in town. In a way, I hadn’t changed that much since high school. I was a passionate kisser, but when the boy started trying to score, I was as fierce as a goalie in a hockey rink.

  “Is it me?” Sonny finally asked in frustration.

  “No, Sonny,” I said. “I’m an old-fashioned girl. I’m not going there until I’m married.”

  “If that’s all it is, let’s get married!”

  And just like that, we went off to look for a justice of the peace, with Gail and Marty as witnesses. As to what was going through my mind . . . all I can figure is I must have had heatstroke. We found a justice, who asked some basic questions: our dates and places of birth, residencies, parents’ names, and so on. I turned to look at Sonny and said, “I can’t do this. I don’t even know you. This is crazy.”

  “Okay,” he said. “But I still want to marry you. Why don’t you move to L.A. and we’ll get to know each other and take it from there?”

  I did. And we took it from there. It wasn’t very far from “there” to “nowhere,” though. Sonny and I were rapidly losing interest in each other, but now Los Angeles was my home. When I’d gotten into town, Sonny had generously offered me his extra room. That was clearly a case of the fox guarding the henhouse, so I told him flat-out no. So he hooked me up with his friend Ann, who had an extra bedroom for rent. Ann worked for a dress manufacturer, and two days later she took me downtown to meet an acquaintance of hers, Oscar Levinson, at the Eleanor Greene Company. Oscar and I hit it off, and the next day I was hiring models for the company’s low-key fashion shows. I couldn’t believe how quickly everything was falling into place! Everything except Sonny, anyway. He soon decided that marriage was too high a price to pay for sex. Neither one of us walked away brokenhearted.

  Ann was wonderful. She had an extra set of keys made for her car, so I could borrow it from time to time. She’d come home with boxes of chocolates. And once she even gave me a beautiful cashmere sweater. I felt lucky to have such a kind and generous person in my life. There were a couple of minor hiccups, but I guess that happens in every friendship. Once, for example, when one of my friends called, Ann picked up t
he phone and said, “She’s not here,” then hung up. In front of me. I was right there, on the couch, reading.

  “Why’d you tell her that?” I asked.

  “She’s not a good person,” Ann declared flatly, and left the room. Another time she called my mother and told her I was running with a bad crowd. Naturally, my mother called me, concerned. I assured her my friends neither wore prison blues nor had rap sheets, and in fact were first-rate people, and together we puzzled over Ann’s strange behavior.

  Then one day at work Oscar approached and asked me if I was happy living with Ann.

  “Sure,” I replied. “She’s great.”

  Oscar squinted at me. “But are you of that, uh, persuasion?” he asked dubiously.

  “I didn’t know Ann was religious.”

  “Diane, what I mean is, Ann prefers women.”

  “To what?” I said, confused.

  “To men,” he replied.

  “Oh?” I said. “Oh . . . Are you sure?”

  “I’m sure. You didn’t know?”

  This rattled me a little. When I got home I asked her point-blank about her “persuasion.”

  She was certainly up-front about it. “Yes, sweetheart, it’s true. I prefer women, and I really like you,” she told me breathily.

  “Well, Ann, I . . . of course I like you too, but I don’t like-you like-you. I mean not like I like men . . . and, you know, not like you like women the . . . way . . . you . . . like women.”

  Ann just gazed back at me blankly as I stammered on. “I mean, if I liked women the way you like women, then I’m sure I’d like you, but you see, I like men the way you like women, and . . . I just don’t think this is working.”

  My next roommates were, shall we say, cut from the same cloth as I was. I moved into a two-bedroom, one-bathroom apartment with three other gals. Two girls to a room, four to a bathroom. We got along great, or at least as great as four female nine-to-fivers could get along with only one bathroom among them. Which was pretty good, really. We called our place “The Tender Trap Incorporated.” We had a great time. We worked hard, played hard, and dated hard, though not very seriously. It was a nice time in my life. I continued working at Eleanor Greene, but I had graduated to modeling work.