Little Me

by Patrick Dennis

  “Fair,” she admitted. “I ordered you a sandwich and some tea. Just stay here and keep cool”—hah!—“I’ll be back to catch the midnight show when this joint really starts jumping.”

  “You’re not going to leave me here!” I cried.

  “I gotta tool over to a dump in Passaic an’ catch the Everleigh Sisters.” (A very vulgar “comedy team” which “Billie” also represented.) “I’ll be back. Didn’t I say I’d be back?” With that she was gone.

  I was served with a “pasteboard” sandwich, garnished with limp lettuce, a radish rose and a sweet pickle (the only edible thing on the plate) and a pot of tepid tea. My nerves were so “shot” that I felt I’d give my soul for a drink. Having to relieve myself, I made my way to the ladies’ room. Le Baiser de Mort was beginning to fill up and, as I passed a table, I heard someone say, “Belle Poitrine? I thought she was dead.” I wished that it were true.

  But in the toilet I spied a crumpled five-dollar bill on the floor! At first I couldn’t believe my eyes. It represented the largest amount of money I had had for my “very own” since the day I first moved in with “Billie.” I tucked it furtively into the bodice of my gown and headed straight for the bar. I had to have a drink—just one—to soothe my nerves. I ordered vodka and hot water, feeling that it would warm me and leave no “telltale” odor. The only other occupant of the bar was the drunken man who had been seated alone during the nine o’clock show.

  “Service is so bad here I have to sit at the bar to keep the supplies coming through on time,” he said thickly. He was quite elderly and seemed far too well dressed for a place such as Le Baiser de Mort.

  “Really?” I said pleasantly, sipping my drink. I felt its blessed warmth coursing through my system.

  “Care to join me in another?” he asked.

  “Oh, no, thank you . . .” I began, but it was too late. He had already signalled the bartender for a “round.”

  “You were great tonight,” he said. “It took me a long way back.”

  “Thank you,” I murmured.

  “Why, I remember you, with Charles King and Anita Page, in The BroadwayMelody.”

  “I beg your pardon?” I asked, mystified.

  “And before that. You and William S. Hart in The Aryan and even in Intolerance. I was a young man then—in the prime of life—and so were you, Bessie.”

  Good heavens! This man was confusing me with Bessie Love—an actress who had been well known in pictures before I even attained stardom!

  With that, I ordered another drink. Anything to give me courage to face this cold, unfeeling, short-memoried audience in the midnight show.

  But I never kept my “midnight rendezvous.” I awoke from a long, troubled, terrifying nightmare in which I was running, running, running with “Billie” chasing after me cracking a long whip. The sun was blazing into my eyes. Squinting against the glare, I made out the form of a large, elderly man standing over me. He was wearing underwear and I was clad in nothing.

  “Who are you?” I asked. He looked vaguely familiar.

  “A. K. Frobisher of 270 Park Avenue and Southampton,” he replied. “Who are you? ”

  “I think I am Belle Poitrine. But where are we?”

  “I’ll try to find out,” Mr. Frobisher said. With both hands—which were shaking worse than my own—he picked up the telephone and made a few direct inquiries. When he rang off, he was so shaken that he had to sit down on the edge of the bed. He was ashen and seemed unable to speak.

  “What did they say?” I demanded. “I’ve got a midnight show and . . .”

  “We are in the Lovers’ Lane Motel in Elkton, Maryland. Today is Thursday, November twentieth, and we have been here ever since four o’clock last Saturday morning when we were married by the justice of the peace across the road.” Saying that, Mr. Frobisher fainted dead away. So did I.

  Mrs. A. K. Frobisher-the new me! 1953

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  I FIND GOD IN SOUTHAMPTON

  1953–1954

  Getting acquainted • Separate honeymoons • Marriage in the “Autumn of Life”

  Our cottage on the dunes • A Southampton socialite • Momma moves in • “Billie’s” visit

  Hurricane warnings • Mr. Frobisher’s strange disappearance • I find God in Southampton

  LIKE INTELLIGENT, MATURE, CIVILIZED PEOPLE, Mr. Frobisher and I decided to sit down calmly and “face the facts.” Over a revivifying bottle of domestic champagne, served by the management of the Lovers’ Lane Motel, we decided that neither of us had made too bad a bargain. We had got ourselves into this situation and now we would face it bravely for as long as seemed possible.

  Mr. Frobisher told me that he was “pushing” seventy and retired from his own prosperous brokerage firm. He was a childless widower who enjoyed travel, warm climates and—perhaps too much so—the pleasures of the bottle. Seeing his bulging alligator wallet, his Patek Philippe watch, his Jaguar sedan and the fine Upmann cigars he favored, I was relieved to know that my husband was, at least, a man of means. While admitting that he had known younger ladies, Mr. Frobisher said chivalrously that he, too, might have done worse.

  I was pleased to see the snug apartment he kept in The Marguery. From there I telephoned “Billie” to inform her of my happiness. After a torrent of abuse—employing language that would not be used by a “dock walloper”— she hung up on me! As there was no answer when I called back repeatedly, I could only assume that she had pulled the telephone out of the wall—a favorite method of “Billie’s” for showing displeasure.

  Ordering a shaker of martinis to be sent up to our apartment, I explained to Mr. Frobisher that my luggage had been irretrievably lost and that I would be needing some new clothes. Say what one will about Mr. Frobisher’s unfortunate drinking, he was generous to a fault. The very next day—my ball gown hastily tucked up to “street length”—I made an eight-hour “assault” on Bergdorf Goodman and returned feeling half-way decently clad. While modeling my trousseau for my “bridegroom,” the fifty-nine-cent strand of plastic “pearls” I had been wearing broke, scattering beads all over our drawing room. Mr. Frobisher gallantly bent down to gather them up for me, but I was suddenly

  struck with a better idea. Removing the thick stack of pawn tickets from my purse, I suggested that, in lieu of buying me a wedding ring, Mr. Frobisher might better get the Baughdie Diamonds out of “hock.” He seemed a little stunned at the total cost but, after a “pony” or two of cognac, he was willing. My husband, after all, was not “getting any younger” nor could he “take it with him.” Better, then, to “make hay while the sun shines.”

  Save for his dependence on the bottle, Mr. Frobisher was quite a sweet old gentleman and I know that he counted himself lucky in picking little me from the “garden of love.” There was a bit of unpleasantness about my being listed in the New York Social Register but, as I said comfortingly to my husband, what can inclusion in such a volume mean to one whose name has graced the pages of Burke’s Peerage?

  As our “honeymoon” had consisted of only a few days, which neither of us could remember, in a common Maryland motel, and as Mr. Frobisher was so fond of travel, I suggested that we go off to Europe on separate honeymoons, have a few minor—but necessary—treatments, and then surprise one another in Paris in the spring. Mr. Frobisher was dubious at first, but later that night he had to admit the wisdom of my idea. Having been bedded down in the guest room of his flat (his snoring disturbed my rest to such an extent that I felt it better for us not to share the master bedroom), he had dozed off, dropping his lighted cigar onto the carpet. I was very nearly a widow again and, had Mr. Frobisher’s butler not discovered the conflagration in the very “nick of time,” The Marguery might have saved much time and litigation in trying to empty its premises of residential tenants. Thoroughly “scared,” Mr. Frobisher agreed to try a sanitorium for “problem” drinkers in Switzerland.

  Early in 1953 we set off—he to a clinic at Bern and I to a gifted and reso
urceful physician near Lucern. Once my bandages were removed, I was speechless with surprise and gratification at what a few weeks’ complete rest and relaxation—plus the teensiest bit of assistance from Dr. Umlaut—could do for a girl’s face, figure and morale. Tiny little lines (undiscernable to anyone except me, but, nevertheless, there) had vanished. My chin, throat, upper arms and bust had taken on a firmness they had not had since my coming-out year. My teeth were pearl-like in their whiteness and even my hair seemed more golden than ever before.

  I telephoned “Daddy” (my “pet” name for Mr. Frobisher) every night, but his progress seemed far less spectacular. After a time the director of his clinic asked me to come in for an interview. Mr. Frobisher, he said, was proving a “hopeless” case, somehow managing to secure beer, “schnapps,” wine or even rubbing alcohol, despite the constant surveillance of the clinic’s staff. From Mr. Frobisher’s “case history,” the psychiatrist said, it appeared that he had only gone on periodic “binges” until his marriage to me. Since then his drinking had become habitual. The best “cure” for “Daddy,” he stated, would be an immediate annulment! I was outraged!

  “How dare you,” I shouted, “try to put asunder a deeply spiritual sacrament like our marriage? No wonder the Swiss are always right in the middle of a war!” Without further ado, I removed “Daddy” from that melancholy prison and took him directly to the Crillon in Paris. The love and devotion of an adoring wife, I felt, could work greater miracles than the cold, clinical approach of a lot of money-mad foreigners.

  Borrowing a “leaf” from “Billie’s” book, I decided to adapt the “1-2-3” system to one more generously tailored to Mr. Frobisher’s needs. Carefully figuring his age, income, constitution and life-expectancy, I placed “Daddy” on my own “1-to-7” formula. I gave him one drink upon awakening, two with breakfast, three before luncheon, four with the midday repast, five at cocktails, six with dinner and seven during the evening. He responded splendidly, making almost no trouble at all, and his gratitude was indeed touching.

  True, my life with “Daddy” wasn’t all “jam.” While he remained happily in his bedroom most of the time, there were isolated instances of his “cutting loose” and creating disturbances. During my shopping tour of Paris he did the most embarrassing things, and right in the middle of such world-famous shrines as Shéhérazade, the Pré Catalan and Christian Dior’s! But most of the time he was docile and, with my “new look,” my jewels and ravishing new wardrobe, I was never at a loss for an attentive “cavalier” to “squire” me about the “City of Light.” But, after “Daddy’s” unusually trying conduct with a blouse buyer from Cleveland in the Crillon bar, I decided that “East, West, home’s best.” Mr. Frobisher would undoubtedly spend a pleasanter summer in Southampton where he was known, loved and understood. However, I took advantage of one of his mellower moments to remind him of my unflagging devotion, pointing out that no matter how young he felt, “we all have to go sometime” and that he had better get his will in order.

  Our little cottage on the dunes was sweet! No other word for it. “Daddy’s” former wife, a spotless martyr named Eleanor, had showed both taste and restraint in arranging its appointments. Wanting to leave the house more or less as a monument to that unhappy woman’s memory, I had Dudley du Pont flown to the east coast to “do over” only an even dozen of the rooms and to install a convenient bar next to “Daddy’s” bed.

  It was a happy summer for both of us and I was the absolute social “wow” among the younger men of that gay resort, leaving many a “deb” angrily tapping her foot while I was “danced off my feet” at the galas and coming-out parties of the “little season.” Only a few isolated “instances” marred our joy that summer: “Daddy” was asked to resign from the National Golf Links after an unfortunate accident in the bar; he very nearly drowned at the Southampton Bathing Corporation over Fourth of July weekend; and we were barred forever from Henderson House. Otherwise we were just like Darby and Joan.

  As our little Park Avenue pied-à-terre had never quite “risen from the ashes,” I took advantage of “Daddy’s” inordinate love of travel, and left Dudley behind to “give it the works,” while we spent the fall and winter visiting Sea Island, Aiken, Palm Beach, Cuba, Nassau, Jamaica, Vera Cruz, Acapulco, Palm Springs, Tucson and Aspen—staying in some of these famed “watering places” for as long as a fortnight before “Daddy” would “break loose” and we would be asked to leave. By this time the results of the Belle Poitrine Frobisher 1-to-7 System had received such “word-of-mouth” publicity that an article on our marriage appeared in Confidential. Twenty-four hours after the magazine “hit the stands,” the receptionist at The Marguery “rang” our apartment and, with disbelief in his voice, announced that “A woman who claims to be your mother is here.” It was Momma! After so many years of hardship and deprivation—not knowing whether my beloved mother was dead or alive—I cannot accurately describe the emotions I felt at having her appear at our little place on Park Avenue, bag and baggage!

  “Families,” Momma said, “should stick together,” and her visit was to be an indefinite one. However, Momma was not without her uses. She was one of the few people in the world who could literally “drink” Mr. Frobisher “under the table.” Another was “Billie.” At long last she was gracious enough to show some gratitude for all that I had done for her and came crawling back begging my forgiveness. The coarse young women whose dubious talents she had tried to sell to stage, screen, television and night clubs had all deserted her. She was “broke” and most definitely “at liberty.” Thus, our little ménage had doubled in size when we set off for our second Southampton summer.

  But somehow the 1954 season was not as serene as our nuptial summer had been. While Southampton society had welcomed little me to its bosom, recognizing me as “one of its own kind,” it was not so simple to win acceptance for Momma and “Billie.” Full of picturesque, “salty” characters as it may have been, Momma’s personality was just a wee bit too picturesque and “salty” for many of the Southampton grandes dames. As for “Billie,” it was openly bruited about the Southampton Club that she was better suited to Fire Island than to the “Hamptons.” Try as I would to outfit her in simple, becoming frocks from the Southampton branches of Saks, Bendel’s or Peck & Peck, “Billie” stuck doggedly to what she called her “own style” of dress. I nearly perished of mortification during the tennis matches when the late Mrs. Livingston Livingston stared long and hard at “Billie” and then said, “A woman? I thought it was Big Bill Tilden!”

  Nor had adversity, nor the fact that she was living on my charity, served to soften “Billie’s” bluster, her bravado, her fits of jealousy or her terrible temper. She referred to my dear husband quite openly as the “old lush,” the “rum pot,” the “old soak” and other epithets far from flattering. She no longer seemed to resent the fact that I belonged to “Daddy,” but her antipathy to my many gentlemen admirers was marked and voluble. In a fit of jealousy she twisted Dudley du Pont’s arm quite painfully. She created a “scene” over me and a young lifeguard, in whose career I was casually interested, that caused us all to be evicted from “Herb” McCarthy’s Bowden Square Restaurant. And one evening, when I had driven quietly to the Hedges in Easthampton for a tête-à-tête dinner with a “juvenile” from the John Drew Playhouse, “Billie” marched in—a perfect “sight” in Bermuda shorts, lumberjack’s shirt and dirty “sneakers”—and all but wrecked that lovely eating place. There can be no doubt about it, “Billie” was rapidly becoming persona non grata throughout Suffolk County.

  So “high-strung” and nervous had the presence of Momma and “Billie” made me that I looked forward, eagerly, to Labor Day when “Daddy” and I could return to town and disperse our “house guests” to the “four winds.”

  Odd that I mention “winds,” for during the last week of August the fine weather that had prevailed during that hectic summer began to change. There were gray, cloudy days, rain, waves and breezes
of a velocity that made it impossible to refer to them as “gentle zephyrs.”

  “Looks like a ‘twister’ might be comin’,” Momma said, glancing out to the sea one morning. “Why don’t we blow this dump?”

  I should have heeded my mother’s wise advice, but, instead, I said, “Oh,

  Momma at 85–dearer than ever

  “Billie”—just a beachcomber

  Momma, don’t be silly! Besides, I’m giving a lawn party on Labor Day to ‘wind up’ the season.”

  “No skin off my ass,” Momma said philosophically.

  But, as the day progressed, the weather grew worse and worse. Storm warnings were posted, every few minutes the radio issued dire bulletins of the impending hurricane—until a power failure caused all of the lights to go off and the wireless to be silenced. By nightfall the gale was at the height of its fury. The four of us had congregated in the “rumpus” room where, by candlelight, we were “roughing it” on a cold repast of pâté, Fritos, left-over ham, fruit, cheese and burgundy. Pushing back from the poker table, “Billie” declared that our humble meal hadn’t been “half bad.” Then she added, “Now for a good cigar. How about it, Rummy?” (By which she referred to my dear, gentle husband.) The search was on—the ghostly figures of “Billie” and Mr. Frobisher, outlined in flickering candlelight, “combing” the house for cigars. Every humidor was empty.

  “Well,” my friend “Billie” said, getting into her old trench coat. “I guess there’s nothing for it but to drive to the village for a box of stogies.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” I said. “You can’t take a car out in weather like this. The roads are awash. You couldn’t make it to the gate.”

  “Well, then let’s ‘hoof it.’ Are you game, Lushmore?” (Again she addressed poor Mr. Frobisher.)

  “I forbid it!” I said firmly. “Are you insane? Here, help yourself to my Virginia Rounds,” proffering my gold cigarette case. “I have a whole carton upstairs.”