An American Love Story

by Rona Jaffe

  There was still the apartment to finish. Somehow Clay was so busy that they never did get to go to an auction together; Laura went with Tanya. He was working longer and longer hours now; up before she was, kissing her gently and telling her to sleep; making her wait an hour in the restaurant (with two phone calls from his secretary) while he was still in meetings; coming home too tired to do more than blow a kiss at the baby. Laura understood all this, but what confused her was that their sex life, which had once been so passionate and loving, was now almost nonexistent. Sometimes three or four weeks went by before he wanted to make love, and when she made timid overtures she would find that instead of becoming aroused under her touch he had fallen asleep, curled into a ball with his back to her, mumbling softly: “No, no.”

  She didn’t know what to say. It was difficult for her to talk about sex—doing it was easy, but discussing it was humiliating, pushy. She was afraid if she made an issue of it things would get worse. The only one she could talk to about it was Tanya.

  “When people get married does the sex go away?”

  “Not away,” Tanya said.

  “But less?”

  “I guess so,” Tanya said. “But I’ve only been married to one man. And I was a virgin when I married him.”

  “You weren’t! You said you’d had lovers,” Laura said.

  Tanya grinned mischievously. “I didn’t want to seem square. Lots of the girls at ballet school lied about our sex lives and pretended we had them.”

  “Well,” Laura said, “I did have lovers, but I don’t know anything about marriage. I never discussed things like that with anyone who was married. It’s so personal.”

  “Ask me anything.”

  “Clay’s so busy and so tired, and he’s always thinking. He’ll get into bed with a pile of scripts and he seems … so forbidding. It’s cozy, and I love being next to him, but I’m afraid to touch him.”

  “You don’t mean he never does anything?”

  “Oh, not never. But it’s just not what I’d imagined. He’s changed. Sometimes I wonder if it’s me.”

  “It’s not you,” Tanya said. “Edward’s the same way. You know how much he adores me, and he thinks I’m sexy, but sometimes he forgets I’m there. They’re so interested in their careers right now. We’re going to be with them forever. If it gets too bad put some anise seeds into a bottle of vodka and let them marinate for two weeks. Then give him a little glass of that. It’s an aphrodisiac.”

  “How do you know?”

  “It works on dogs,” Tanya said. “If you sprinkle a trail of anise seeds all the way to your door a strange dog will follow it and be yours forever. What works on a dog will work on a man. Or kill him.” She giggled. “And don’t strain it. Actually, it tastes very good.”

  But in the end, Laura didn’t dare. She didn’t want to cast a spell suitable for dogs on Clay. She would wait.

  The offer came in when Nina was nine months old. Clay arrived home only half an hour late, with two bottles of chilled champagne. He and Laura sat in front of the fireplace and he opened one. “I have the chance I’ve been waiting for,” he said, his face glowing with excitement. He had never looked more handsome. “You know Artists Alliance International owes a lot to me. I’ve brought in a great deal of money. But now it’s time for me to think of myself—of us—and move on. You remember I told you that the main television shows are on film now and coming out of Hollywood. This is the time of golden opportunity. And that’s with the networks, on the creative end. You know that’s what I’ve always loved. I’ve just been given an offer from RBS to be their West Coast head of drama development. I’ve taken it.”

  He poured them both glasses of champagne, handed her one, and touched his glass to hers. “To the future,” he said.

  “To the future,” she murmured, excited but a little frightened and confused at the quick and unexpected turn of events. “Do you mean we’d live in California …?”

  “I’ll take a bungalow at the Beverly Hills Hotel until I get my bearings,” Clay said. “I’ll get over the hectic part at the beginning, and then you’ll come out and see if you like it. Meanwhile, I’ll come in to see you and Nina all the time.”

  Laura sipped her champagne. She thought of them together, building a new life, striking out on a new frontier. “I guess we have to sell the apartment,” she said. Despite her excitement she felt a sharp pang of disappointment that their beautiful apartment would be gone before they’d even begun to realize their plans for it.

  “Sell it?” Clay said. “Of course not. I’ll never sell this apartment; it’s our home.”

  “But you said …”

  “Honey, those jobs are here today and gone tomorrow. I could be fired in six months. This place is our roots. I’ll keep it until I’m broke.” He smiled at her. “But you know I’ll never be broke.”

  “No, you never will,” Laura said. “You’ll always be the wonder boy with the magic touch. That’s what they called you the night I met you.”

  “Golden boy,” he corrected her. “I remember everything about that night. The minute I saw you I knew I had to have you. And I do have you now, and you have me.”

  They made love that night, fiercely, tenderly, and Laura thought afterward that for Clay at least, success was the only aphrodisiac that worked. “Send for me soon,” she whispered against his lips.

  “I will,” he whispered back.

  But he didn’t, for months and months. He called every morning and night, saying he missed her, and he flew in for five days every month, but his New York days were filled with meetings and she only saw him at night when he was exhausted. He missed Nina’s first birthday because he had to be in L.A. on a project, and although he arrived three weeks later with a teddy bear from F.A.O. Schwarz bigger than his daughter was, an un-birthday party just wasn’t the same. Edward had already given Nina the identical bear, when Tanya and Edward substituted at the real birthday party, and Laura felt sad and guilty for Clay because he meant so well and he hadn’t been the first.

  So Nina would feel surrounded by protection, Laura set the two toy bears in chairs at a child’s tea table; father bear and godfather bear. She missed Clay so much her throat hurt all the time, even though she was busy every moment, losing the rest of the weight she had gained, taking extra ballet classes, arranging just in case for Nina’s future nursery school, finding things for the apartment. She told herself it would be better to visit Clay for the first time when she looked her best, and that finishing the Dakota apartment was a labor of love for the two of them.

  When summer came Clay said it was too hot for Laura to come to California. He gave her the weather report every day on the phone: a hundred, not fit for a human being. He kept insisting he was a New Yorker and different from the people out there, and had bought a little white two-seater Thunderbird convertible because all the other executives were driving around in boring big Cadillacs. She pictured him under the palm trees with the top down and felt left out. “I can’t even take the top down,” he said, as if reading her thoughts. “It’s too hot; I have to use the air conditioning. Why don’t you and Nina go to visit your mother for a while in East Hampton?”

  Laura’s parents had bought a summer house years ago in the Hamptons, on the beach, and ever since her father died her mother had spent most of her time there. Laura had never gotten along very well with her mother, who really enjoyed being alone with everything just the way she liked it, but she took Clay’s suggestion. However, she confined her visits to long weekends. It was much cooler at the beach, and there were babies for Nina to play with. But all the fathers came to see their families on the weekends, and she felt out of place, uprooted. She lived for Clay’s phone calls.

  He came to New York for Thanksgiving and for Christmas, insisting the holidays wouldn’t be the same unless they were in their home together. By now the baby nurse had been replaced by a proper nanny, a cheerful Irishwoman named Mrs. Bewley, whom Nina called Boo. Clay was even missing his dau
ghter’s rapidly expanding vocabulary of new words; an absent workaholic. Laura’s thoughts screamed, but she calmed herself and waited. She had been trained by the great Rudofsky. Rudofsky’s girls were obedient dolls: disciplined, patient, submissive. Stand by your man, whoever he was. All good women did that, even if they’d only been trained by less frightening authority figures like their parents.

  And at last, in February, in time for Valentine’s Day, Clay arranged for his wife and child to come to California to visit him. He had been there for nearly a year.

  He picked them up at the Los Angeles airport, in the famous white Thunderbird convertible, with the top down. Mrs. Bewley followed in a taxi with Nina and their luggage. Clay was wearing a short-sleeved T-shirt with an alligator on the breast and he suddenly looked like a stranger because Laura had always seen him in a suit and tie. Her husband, a stranger … But he was so glad to see her, so protective and anxious for her to like everything, that she gaped like the tourist she was and felt so full of excitement and joy she thought she would cry. The haze over the mountains that he said was smog looked to her like the soft focus of a romantic movie. Although she had never liked L.A. much on tour, now she was sure she could get used to living here.

  They drove through Beverly Hills, past the luxurious homes of movie stars and executives, all the houses silent and deserted in the afternoon sun. And then to “The Pink Palace,” the famous Beverly Hills Hotel, painted cotton candy pink; a crowd of women all dressed up coming out from lunch, waiting for the uniformed boys to bring their cars. Attendants took Laura’s bags and Clay’s car; and with Boo carrying Nina they followed Clay through the lobby to the back where the bungalows were. Everything was neatly landscaped, with tall palm trees and brightly colored primroses bordering winding paths.

  “From now on you can come in through the side,” Clay said, “and avoid the hotel mess. I usually park my car on the street so the attendants don’t bury it. So … here we are.”

  It was so small! A bungalow. But that’s what it was supposed to be. The outside was painted pink, like everything else. There was a minuscule front porch, a living room, a small kitchen, and a bedroom and bath. Scripts, books, magazines, and newspapers were piled up everywhere. He had installed his own private phone, with push buttons. The door to the room next door had been opened and a crib had been set up in there, next to the bed.

  “Do you think this will be all right?” Clay asked. “Is it too crowded for you?”

  “Not unless we entertain …”

  He laughed. “When do we ever entertain?” She realized that so far they never had. “The bar is one inch away,” he said. “I have cocktail meetings in the Polo Lounge, or in restaurants in town.”

  “Then it’s fine.” For now, she thought, but didn’t say it.

  “Why don’t you unpack and rest? I have to go back to the office, and tonight I made a dinner date for us with Henri Goujon—he’s an independent producer who wants to make a deal with me. I’ll be back about five to shower and change and then I have a drink with someone and I’ll pick you up at seven-fifteen. Dress medium.”

  She never did get to rest, but she was too excited anyway. There was scarcely any place for her to put her clothes. Clay’s closets contained a great many new suits, all lightweight, even the winter ones; dozens of ties she had never seen; and lots of pairs of shiny new loafers. He didn’t seem like someone who thought he would be fired in six months, or ever.

  He seemed so settled in, and yet, with all the clutter, so temporary. It was obvious that a family couldn’t live like this, but they couldn’t go on living the way they had been either. She would first get used to this other life of his, and to California, and she would bide her time. There would be a way.…

  They met Henri Goujon at a small dark Italian restaurant that Clay said was one of his secrets. It might have been small and dark, but it was certainly expensive. Goujon was older than Clay, tall, thin, and distinguished-looking, with silver hair. She sat there picking at her food, pretending to eat, listening as the two men talked about people she didn’t know and had never heard of. Goujon never looked at her. He didn’t even try to be polite. Every sentence began with: “Well, you know, Clay,” or even just “Clay …” He didn’t make the slightest effort to include her, and as a matter of fact neither did Clay. She was just a decoration.

  After two and a half hours she became bored, and then exhausted. It was three hours later in New York, so it was almost one in the morning, and she had gotten up at six and had a long plane trip. She held her breath and tried not to yawn as Goujon ordered more wine. She hadn’t the faintest idea if what they were saying was classified gossip or just shoptalk, but neither of them ever bothered to explain it to her and she was finally too numb to try to figure it out.

  When she and Clay got into the car he turned on her. “You were bored and rude,” he said.

  Her heart leaped with fright. “I wasn’t!”

  “You were yawning. How does that look for my wife to be so bored?”

  “But he ignored me. He was the one who was rude. He didn’t have to say ‘Clay this’ and ‘Clay that.’ He could have pretended I was there too.”

  “I’m not going to take you along anymore if you insult my business associates.”

  “I’m sorry. I apologize, sweetheart, really. I don’t know what you want of me.”

  “You don’t have to fit in if you don’t want to,” Clay said. “I don’t want to force you to change.”

  “Oh, please let’s not fight on our first night,” Laura said, her eyes filling with tears.

  “I guess you’re tired,” he said, his voice finally sounding familiar again, not like that angry stranger he had been a moment ago. He had never spoken to her like that before. “I wanted us to be together on your first night here, but now you see what my life is like.”

  “I’ll learn,” Laura said. “I just want to help you. I want to make you happy.”

  “You do make me happy,” Clay said. He patted her hand.

  As the days went by Laura settled in the best she could. She had already found a well-recommended ballet school run by one of Rudofsky’s former dancers, and went to class every morning. She started driving lessons. It was not easy to learn to drive for the first time as an adult. The four-way intersections terrified her, and it seemed she was always screaming in the car because the traffic seemed headed right at her to kill her. You couldn’t go anywhere without a car here. Whenever she met anyone from New York they asked her whether she drove, and then they all talked about how much they hated it. When they weren’t talking about how much they hated driving they were talking about what kind of car they drove. And apparently no matter how long you lived here you still kept getting lost. People kept map books the size of telephone books in their cars. It made Laura feel vulnerable and out of control.

  The only good thing about her daily driving lessons was that they helped her see some of the area. She liked to pass by the Republic Broadcasting System building, where Clay worked; a modem monolith; always hoping she’d happen to see him. Driving down beautiful streets she looked at the outsides of houses and imagined them buying one of those houses for their permanent home. If she had a home she would have something to do. In a hotel, the way they were living, everything was done for her, every need was fulfilled. She could see how Clay had gotten along so well so long without her, and it made her sad.

  Their sex life continued to be almost nonexistent. There was no sense of privacy, but that wasn’t the problem. It was Clay’s lack of sentiment. They would be in bed, he would be reading a script as usual, and then he would put it down as if for a rest break, notice her, turn and make love to her, and then immediately afterward pick up the script again and continue reading as if nothing had happened. She would cuddle next to him and he would tolerate her. At those moments Laura had never felt so lonely in her life.

  She had been a sensual woman once—only a few short years ago—and now she felt her pleasure in lovemak
ing eroding with her self-confidence.

  After that first awful dinner with Goujon, Laura tried very hard to be perky and interested whenever she was included with Clay’s business people. Whatever she did turned out to be wrong. She would venture an opinion and they would look at her as if she were the village idiot. Despite her best efforts, sometimes she wasn’t invited along at all. Wives weren’t tonight, Clay would say.

  On weekends she and Clay sat together by the hotel pool. He read scripts, she tried to teach Nina how to swim. Often he would leave her alone and go off for a business lunch with a writer. She had the pool all week—she needed him. She had always believed that marriage meant togetherness. Perhaps she should have married a man with an ordinary job, who left work at five o’clock and spent the weekends cooking up a family barbecue.

  But she wanted the man she had. Or almost had … The fact that he was talented and successful and obsessed with his creative work was a part of who he was. The sentimental, tender, loving part she had known was hiding.

  On their anniversary they had to go to a business dinner at Chasen’s with two other couples. “I wish we could go there alone,” Laura said.

  “Anniversaries are silly,” Clay said. “You and I are going to be together forever. We can have our own anniversary party anytime.” Before they left for the dinner he gave her a blue velvet box. Inside was a large fluted gold pin with a diamond in it. It wasn’t what she would have chosen for herself; it was much more something her mother would wear; and it made her feel guilty and weak with tenderness for him because he had chosen it for her with love and she didn’t much like it.

  “I hope you like it,” he said in a little-boy voice. “Because it was very expensive.”

  She felt even guiltier that it was expensive. She determined to wear it every day.

  Chasen’s was rich and red and dark and glowing. The six of them were seated at one of the V.I.P. tables in the front. The three men sat together at one end of the table, the three wives at the other. Naturally, Laura thought with annoyance. What could we silly ignorant ornamental women have to say to these so-important men anyhow? Wives talked about clothes and tennis and vacation trips and charity balls; husbands made television. The two other women were older than she was, so they had no interest in discussing babies. Laura wondered if they ever had. Maybe later, when Nina was in school, she could join the PTA and have friends with whom she had things in common. She looked down at the plate that had been placed in front of her: Chasen’s famous hobo steak, encrusted with salt, that had to be ordered in advance; leaking fatty juice and flanked by their famous creamed spinach. It would be another night when she wouldn’t eat and Clay would have to make excuses for her.