Dear Cary

by Dyan Cannon

  “How can I lose the most money fastest?” I laughed.

  “Craps is a good start. Come on, I’ll give you a personal lesson.”

  So Frank steered me to the craps table. I had beginner’s luck, because within a few throws, chips were piling up. I picked up the dice, blew on them, and tossed them. “Way to go, Cannon!” Frank exclaimed, clapping. But now a large crowd was gathering around us. “Blow on them for luck, Dyan!”

  Snake eyes.

  “Never say die!” Frank said as my chips were raked away. Even though I lost, I felt more lighthearted than I had in a long while.

  The next thing I knew, Cary was murmuring in my ear. “Dyan, will you come with me please?”

  “Cary Grant!” Frank said, draining his cocktail and clapping Cary on the shoulder. “You just jinxed a hell of a roll. Would you mind standing at least ten yards clear of the table? I’m trying to make your wife an independently wealthy woman.”

  Everyone at the table laughed.

  Cary forced a smile and led me firmly by the arm into the corridor.

  “Where have you been? I’ve been looking for you everywhere.”

  “Just having fun. Frank was teaching me to shoot craps.”

  “Would you mind very much trying not to make such a spectacle of yourself?” he said quietly.

  I was lost. I had just joined in with Cary’s good friends, at their invitation.

  “Honestly, Cary, I don’t understand. Explain this to me. How am I making a spectacle of myself? Don’t you like to see me having a good time?”

  He spoke under his breath. “Of course I do, Dyan. But you have to remember who you’re with.”

  “You weren’t more than a hundred feet away. How was I going to forget?” Cary didn’t answer but continued to look at me accusingly.

  “I don’t know how much longer I can take this,” I said. “Honestly, Cary, I feel like I’m losing my mind.”

  “You see how you’re talking? Can’t I say anything without you feeling attacked?”

  “I’m feeling like I’m about to have a breakdown, Cary. That’s how I’m feeling.”

  “Then why don’t you have one and get it over with? It might be a good thing.”

  “I can’t believe you said that.”

  Cary took a step back, shrugged, and exhaled softly. “I didn’t mean it the way it may have sounded, Dyan. I’m thinking you just need to let it all go.”

  I broke free of his arm and ran to hide in the ladies’ room. A few moments later, Mia Farrow came in looking for me. “Is everything okay?” she asked. “Cary said you were feeling sick to your stomach.”

  “I’m okay. I’m better now.”

  And I was. I’d realized something. I had gotten into a terrible habit of beating myself up for not meeting Cary’s expectations—whatever they were. I decided that for the rest of the weekend, I would let go of the idea that I could do anything at all to satisfy Cary. I would refuse to let anything he said get to me. It actually worked. He came at me a couple of times with one disparaging remark or another, but I smiled and pretended not to hear them. Remarkably, he eased off.

  We partied like college kids for the rest of the weekend.

  Just when things seemed like they couldn’t get any worse, they did. Right after we returned from Vegas, Cary stayed home to devote a full day to me—or at least to pointing out my flaws and imperfections. He practically trailed me around the house from morning until night, calling out my shortcomings. He had developed an obsession with knobs and handles. It seemed that I turned them too hard or not hard enough. I overtightened the knobs on the shower and stripped them. I didn’t turn the knobs at the kitchen sink tightly enough, so they dripped. I was ruining the stove by not turning the burners on gently enough. I was ruining all the doorknobs in the house by forcing them instead of jiggling them. I pointed out that we were renting the house temporarily, but Cary said that was all the more reason to treat things with respect. I hadn’t learned to treat things with respect, he said, because I had no respect for myself. And because of that, I had no respect for anyone else, especially him. All of these were acts of rebellion, he said. I resented him, he told me—again—because I had set him up as an authority figure when he wasn’t.

  On and on and on it went. I didn’t place a coaster under my water glass. I parked my car in the driveway crooked. I shouldn’t be so friendly to the mailman because he could get the wrong idea. I shouldn’t be so friendly to the maid because it was good to keep a distance.

  I needed a solution, a coping mechanism, similar to the one I’d used in Vegas. It was on that day, about the time he was pointing out that my wardrobe needed an organizing principle, be it by color, style, or weight—the choice, unbelievably, was up to me—that I started experimenting with the art of disconnection. In a way, this had been where it was leading for some time. It was impossible to field Cary’s criticisms one by one—impossible. But if I didn’t find a way to deal with them, I would surely die the death of a thousand cuts.

  Really, I’d begun to see the assaults as an energy form, a kind of entity, and I could tell when the entity was taking over. It was black and menacing. I thought of the black cloud of termites that had chased me from the dining room in the old house. It was like that.

  “I want you to look at something,” Cary had said, taking me by the arm to my bedroom closet. “You see, this indicates no sense of order whatsoever. You need to . . .”

  It happened spontaneously. I stopped hearing him. His lips moved, but all I heard was the sound of wind. It was a pleasant, soothing sound, even if Cary’s lips were moving to it. I started hearing the wind more and more after that. It was the only way I could survive. Cary noticed on some level that it was harder for him to get to me, though there’s no way he could know that I was spending more and more time with the wind.

  I felt myself come briefly to life when I got a call from the director David Swift, who offered me the lead in the movie version of How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying. “You’re not just my first choice, you’re everyone’s,” he said. “We all agree that you own that role.”

  Needless to say, I was thrilled. I told him I’d call later to confirm, after discussing it with Cary. Then I asked myself what was I confirming, and why did it have to be confirmed? I felt my heart sinking.

  I knew presenting this news to Cary would be a touchy affair, and it was important to catch him in the right mood. So when he came home, I waited for him to finish his Manhattan.

  I told him about the offer. He sighed wearily and said, “Dyan, you know how I feel about that. I don’t want you to work. You’re the mother of a young child.”

  “Is this open for discussion?”

  “No.”

  “Cary, you’ve got many friends and colleagues who’ve balanced children and career very successfully.”

  “What other people do doesn’t concern me in the least. Dyan, you wanted to start a family. I’m holding up my end of the bargain, and you should hold up yours.”

  I began to retreat into silence, but Cary was attacking one of my few surviving hopes for the future. I couldn’t allow him to rewrite history. “My end of the bargain never included a word about me not working, Cary!”

  “Does your end of the bargain include putting family harmony ahead of your own interests? Because right now things are too fragile to survive the stress of you being away on a movie set.”

  “All right,” I said. I thought about it. Maybe he was right. Viewed from a certain angle, he was right. But then, viewed from a certain angle, anybody could be right about anything.

  I no longer had my own view.

  Another couple of weeks of life in Zombie Land went by, and the time for me to go to Portland for the surprise unveiling of my parents’ love shack arrived. My mother was still unsettled about Dad’s quirky behavior. Luckily, Mom had a bowling tournament near Portland that weekend, which made it easy to set up the surprise. And what a coincidence—Dad had “business” in Port
land until the end of the week. So Dad told Mom he’d come to watch her bowl in the tournament. That by itself made Mom happy; she could at least be pleased that he could take time out of his secret life for her.

  Mom had driven to Portland with two friends who were in on the conspiracy. After the tournament, they pretended to get lost and found themselves in front of a gate that had a dirt road leading up to a house. There were lights on inside. Mom was appointed to go to the front door and ask for directions. When she rang, I answered. It was good that she was healthy and strong, or I’d have worried about giving her a heart attack. “Hi, Mom,” I said. “Welcome home!”

  Then my father stepped into view with open arms, laughing heartily and with a ton of emotion. Mom’s tear ducts were about to burst. “I needed a place to take my girlfriend!” he said. “You are my girlfriend, aren’t you?” Mom squeezed his cheeks with her hands and gave him a mock slap. “You sneaky thing,” she said, kissing him. “I just can’t believe my eyes.”

  Dad had done a lot more than just build the place. The kitchen was already set up with her favorite plates, pots, and pans. There were new shoes and dresses in her closet. He’d put all of her favorite cosmetics in the bathroom, right down to her brand of mascara and her favorite lipstick. For my father, Mom’s happiness was his own happiness. That, I thought, was a true fairy tale marriage. And it was real.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  Shrinking

  “Dyan, sit down,” Cary said the next evening, his voice filled with paternal gravity. “We need to talk.” I sat down across from him on the couch. “I’m very worried about you, Dyan. You’re turning into a ghost of yourself.” I looked at him blankly. I thought about shutting out his words, but I continued to listen. “I’m sending you to New York.”

  “What in the world for? I just got off the plane.”

  “Dyan, the time has come for some professional help.”

  “Professional help for what?”

  “For our relationship.”

  “Okay then, are you coming?”

  “No, I’m not. Mortimer has recommended a psychotherapist and I think it’s very important that you spend some time with him. I’ve been on the phone with him myself, and I have to say I’m very impressed. This man, Bernard Martin, has broken new ground in the field, and Mortimer says he’s the best in the business.” Cary went on. “I wouldn’t have you bother with any of the garden-variety shrinks.”

  “If this is for our relationship, then why would I need professional help more than you do?”

  “Mortimer helps me with my issues with LSD therapy. But you’ve made it very clear that that’s not for you.”

  I couldn’t argue with that. Cary was indeed doing LSD with his mahatma. I didn’t want to do LSD with his mahatma. I didn’t want to leave Jennifer either. I told him I wouldn’t go without her, and if I couldn’t take her, then I wasn’t going. Cary insisted that it wasn’t practical since I’d be having daylong sessions with the doctor and that I needed to keep my attention solely on that. We argued over that one for a while, and finally I caved because I felt it would be best not to put Jennifer through the disruption of the trip.

  “When do I leave?” I asked with a long sigh.

  “Tomorrow.”

  “Tomorrow? Cary, that’s impossible.”

  “I’m sorry for springing it on you like this, but this is the only week Dr. Martin will have time. He’s extremely busy, and he’s cleared his schedule just for you. I would have told you sooner, but I didn’t want you dwelling on it while you were in Portland.”

  Cary had called his friend Johnny Maschio and asked if his wife, Connie Moore, would be willing to go with me to New York. I didn’t know Connie very well. She wasn’t a close friend, but I liked her a lot, though it was odd that Cary would choose someone I hardly knew to accompany me on the Journey to the Center of My Mind. So Connie made the Sunday afternoon flight from L.A. to New York with me. At first it was a little awkward for both of us, but we soon got comfortable with each other.

  That night we checked into the Sherry-Netherland Hotel, on Central Park, and the next morning, just before ten, I went to my appointment with Dr. Bernard Martin. He was in his early forties, with a voluminous body and a little head. I kept wanting to call him Dr. Pillsbury, after the Pillsbury Doughboy.

  “Let’s get started,” he said. The fact that he had cleared his schedule for me made me uncomfortable. I didn’t know very much about psychotherapy, but something seemed amiss with the idea of being head-bombed for a whole week straight. If I really had that many bats in my belfry, it seemed like I ought to either be kept in a cage or rent my brain out to science.

  I arrived in the morning and stayed as long as I could tolerate it. Sometimes the sessions were so draining that I’d have to break after an hour or two and walk around Central Park for a while to air out before we resumed. At other times we talked straight through the day into early evening.

  Naturally, we talked about my childhood, and Dr. Martin alternately seemed deeply disappointed and downright put out that I would not own up to any mind-shattering childhood trauma. Naturally, we rehashed the history of my relationship with Cary. Not so naturally, he seemed to know a whole hell of a lot about my marriage for someone who was supposed to be a neutral, nonpartisan mental health practitioner. He asked me if I was committed to the marriage, which infuriated me. He asked why I was so intent on acting when I’d agreed to give up my career. That absolutely wasn’t true, so it doubly infuriated me. He pointed out that Cary was giving up his career, which first of all was not an established fact, and second of all, well . . . that infuriated me, too.

  “Cary’s in his sixties, and I’m in my twenties,” I said. “Cary has made ten zillion movies, and retiring isn’t the same as giving up your career. I’m just getting started.”

  To which the doctor said, “Hmmm.”

  The doctor said that a lot, and it unnerved me because I didn’t know if that meant I was on the wrong track or the right track. And it added to my already deep doubts about my own actions. I began to wonder if I really had been selfish, which is the message that seemed to underlie everything the doctor said . . . or didn’t say.

  After my sessions, Connie and I would go out to dinner. I liked her, but she seemed like someone who’d been sent on a mission she wasn’t prepared for. “Cary is happy for the first time in his life, Dyan,” she’d say, patting my hand. “He’s absolutely crazy about you.” I wanted to say to her, “What makes you so sure? You don’t live with us. You hardly ever see us!”

  For five days, I felt like I was getting up every morning and going out to stick my head in a blender. I broke down more than once.

  “What is it he doesn’t like about me?” I asked pleadingly. “You seem to know all these details about our marriage. What has he told you?”

  Beneath his doughy poker face, Dr. Martin looked uncomfortable. He said nothing for a minute, but instead of pressing him, I rushed in to fill the void.

  “He seems to want to change everything about me,” I said.

  “He cares about you, Dyan.”

  “Then why isn’t he here? Why aren’t the two of us having this conversation with you?”

  “Sometimes individual therapy is more effective than couples’ therapy,” he said. “I’ve talked to Cary at length, but we’re here now to talk about you.”

  The dialogue went in circles, and so did my thoughts. Dr. Martin obviously thought something was wrong with me, but he couldn’t or wouldn’t say what. He would only say that I should consider my husband’s feelings. Whatever Cary thought was wrong with me changed from minute to minute. Was I so mentally disordered that I couldn’t find the signal in the noise? I began to feel more confused than ever.

  One afternoon, I really lost my cool. “This is all so baffling to me. I zig when I should zag, I go left when I should go right, I look up when I should look down. I feel like I’m being . . . pushed over the edge.”

  “You think Cary is trying,
as you say, to push you over the edge?”

  “When we were in Las Vegas, he actually suggested that a breakdown might be a good thing. Then he backed off it, saying he didn’t really mean it that way. What do you make of that, Doctor?”

  “I don’t think Cary meant it in the way you took it,” Dr. Martin said. “What he probably meant is that he’d like to see you replace some of your old ways of thinking with new ways of thinking.”

  “And who decides on the new ways of thinking?”

  “I see we have a lot to discuss,” the doctor said.

  That was our last session.

  And if I wasn’t crazy before I had those sessions with Dr. Martin, I was probably as mad as a meat axe by the time they were done.

  When we got on the plane, I think Connie was as ready to go home as I was. I settled back into my seat and accepted a cocktail from the stewardess. An hour into the flight, Connie dozed off and I was left to my own thoughts. What a strange journey this marriage has been, I thought. I remembered the women at my baby shower, all believing that because I was married to Cary, my marriage must by definition be wonderful. I’d thought at the time they were naïve, but maybe, just maybe, because he was “Cary Grant,” I had expected more. Maybe because he was “Cary Grant,” I’d done the same thing all those other women had done: made a god out of him, someone who could do no wrong. A perfect man. Poor Cary. What a load. After all, he was only human, with feet of clay just like all of us. He was one in a million and an amazing talent. But like the rest of us, he had problems waiting to be worked through. And I had been too self-absorbed to understand that.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  Tripping and Zipping