An American Love Story

by Rona Jaffe

  At night she watched television: Mission: Impossible, The Carol Burnett Show, Marcus Welby, That Girl. “That girl” was still a virgin even though her boyfriend was around all the time. Apparently having her own apartment (without the boyfriend) was daring enough for TV viewers. Susan wondered what kind of mind could perpetrate such nonsense on adults. Any woman old enough to wear false eyelashes that looked like skunks was old enough to sleep with someone. But television watching was hypnotic and comforting. It was something you could rely on.

  That Christmas Susan and her friend Jeffrey, who was also a free-lance writer, and who was gay and presently unattached, went with a few other waifs and strays to Jeffrey’s parents’ unused house in the country. They bought a tree and a lot of evergreen to drape around, and spent Christmas Eve decorating. Overnight it snowed, over a foot of beautiful feathery white powder. They tramped in it for a few minutes until they got cold, and then went back to roast a turkey and distribute presents. Why can’t it always be like this, Susan thought; this feeling of family and warmth? She called Dana in California to wish her Merry Christmas, and they shrieked “Bah humbug!” at each other.

  “Come home,” Susan said. “We have snow.”

  “Come out here,” Dana said. “We have plastic reindeer leaping across Rodeo Drive between the palm trees. It’s eighty degrees.”

  They talked for a while about how unhappy they were and hung up. She felt both better and worse.

  Things were quiet in New York after the holidays. Susan had money left from her ill-fated movie sale and had her apartment painted white, and bought pale linen slipcovers and plants. It was a really nice little place for the rent, and she liked the way it now looked, but sometimes she thought in terror that it would be the only apartment she would ever live in, that she would grow old and die there, looking at the same ceiling over her bed until it became her deathbed.

  Jeffrey called and she told him what she had been thinking. “For what you’re paying I would want to die there,” he said. “I put your name on a list for a press party. It’s at Pavilion, for a TV movie starring Sylvia Polydor. You remember her, the femme fatale from the Forties. Now she’s reduced to doing TV, and it’s a big coup for them. I can’t go, but it sounds like a good party. You should go. Maybe you’ll meet a man.”

  “I don’t want to go without you,” Susan said.

  “Force yourself.”

  “I used to think this kind of thing was fun, but now I’m beginning to see it as bizarre. Forcing oneself to go to parties to hunt.”

  “Well, you could just sit in your apartment and wait for the window washer to fall in.”

  She laughed and took down the details.

  On her way there in the cab she thought of turning back. She almost told the driver to stop but then talked herself out of it. She would go, have a drink, the free food was bound to be great, and maybe she’d even find something to write an article about. RBS, who was giving the party, had a lot of shows.

  Pavilion was brightly lit, very French, very elegant, and jammed. Men in dark suits were standing in clumps, talking. A lot of people knew each other, and the few who didn’t were hovering by the food, pretending that was why they were there. Susan fought her way to the bar and got a glass of wine, and then looked around.

  There was Sylvia Polydor, much shorter than she seemed onscreen, with her customary entourage of press agent, manager, bodyguard, and gay hairdresser/date. People were pushing and photographers were taking pictures like crazy. There was also a man with his arm lightly around her, who seemed to be in a position of authority because everything he said made everyone laugh. He was just under six feet tall, lean and well dressed, maybe forty. He wasn’t at all conventionally handsome, but he seemed golden, his fairish hair, the way his smile lit up his whole face and made Susan want to know him. His eyes were round and boyish, flecked with green and silver, watching. He was entertaining them, but all that jolliness was surface; she felt he could do it in his sleep. The rest of him was aware of everything that was happening in the room, even of her. Susan kept looking at him. It gave her so much pleasure to watch him that without giving it a second thought she grinned at him.

  Almost imperceptibly, he winked at her without missing a beat. All of a sudden she felt great. There was a press agent she knew slightly near her at the bar and she touched his sleeve. “Who’s that man?”

  “Clay Bowen,” the press agent said. “He’s head of programming at RBS.”

  “Ah. He looks so happy.”

  “He should be.”

  She sipped her wine. The press agent didn’t offer to introduce her and she didn’t ask. It would be too hard to break into that powerful circle. Besides, she was sure he was married; those executives always were, even though there were no wives to be seen.

  “You write television, don’t you?” the press agent said.

  “No, movies.” Well, a movie, which was never made, but her disaster was her own business.

  “And articles, of course. I see your name everywhere.”

  “Thank you.”

  “You ought to write for television. A lot of money in it. Especially if you get a series.”

  Susan smiled enigmatically. She had no desire to be pushed around again.

  “Who’s your agent?”

  “Glenn Galade.”

  “I know him—nice guy.”

  And where was the nice guy when I was getting shafted? On vacation, spending his commission. “Very nice,” she agreed sweetly. She started to move away, then she stopped. Clay Bowen was heading toward where she was standing. He put his empty glass on the bar. “Another vodka on the rocks,” he said to the bartender, and then he looked right into her face.

  “Such bright eyes,” Clay Bowen said. “They don’t miss a thing.”

  “Neither do yours,” Susan said.

  They stood there looking at each other for a moment that seemed very long. “This is Susan Josephs,” the press agent said. “Clay Bowen.”

  “We’ve known each other for years,” Clay said.

  “In fact,” Susan said, “we came here together.”

  The press agent looked perplexed. Clay chuckled at her, such a sweet little laugh … She felt adorable, sexy, irresistible. That was what he had done to her in sixty seconds. She couldn’t remember when she had ever met anyone like him.

  “Lovely party,” she said.

  “Are you having fun?” She nodded. “I’m glad.”

  Then the bartender gave Clay’s vodka to him. He grabbed it with his left hand and shook someone’s hand with his right. They all demanded him, they were taking him away. She didn’t want him to go, she wanted to talk to him, or just watch him. He cast her a look of mock helplessness and disappeared.

  She went to the food table and realized she had totally lost her appetite. She wandered around for a while, catching glimpses of him. She wondered who he was going to dinner with. Certainly not with her. Maybe with Sylvia Polydor and her entourage, and probably with his wife if he had one, or his girlfriend if he didn’t have a wife.

  She could find out tomorrow from Jeffrey about Clay Bowen’s personal life. If he was unavailable then she would forget about him. She might as well do that anyway. A charming moment at a party was one thing, but a date was another. Yet somehow she had the feeling she would see him again, and even if it was a fantasy, it cheered her too much to give it up.

  The next morning Jeffrey told her Clay Bowen had a wife and a child, but they had some kind of strange arrangement where he hardly ever saw them. In the afternoon her agent called. “Susan, how would you like to write something for television?”

  “Like what?”

  “There’s a bright young man named Clay Bowen, head of programming at RBS …” It was one of Glenn Galade’s little affectations to refer to every man under sixty as “a bright young man.” He was forty, the same age as Clay. “He’s looking for a journalist to write a television movie, with the possibility of spinning it off into a series. He s
ays a journalist will bring in a fresh outlook.”

  “And you recommended me.”

  “No, actually he asked for you. Of course I told him how good you would be.”

  “Ah.”

  “Why don’t you have a drink with him and see what he has to say?”

  “All right,” Susan said. She was waiting for Glenn to mention that Clay had met her, but he didn’t. “I’ve met him,” she said, fishing. “He seemed pleasant.”

  “Contacts. That’s the way it goes. He probably remembered you.”

  So he hadn’t said anything. She wondered what all this meant. Did Clay really think she might have promise or did he want to get to know her? Or both? “When did he want to meet?” she asked.

  “Day after tomorrow at the Oak Bar at the Plaza. Five o’clock. He’s only going to be here for a few days; he lives in California.”

  And certainly cleared his calendar fast, she thought. She tried to stay calm. Single men were trouble enough, but getting involved with a married man was putting your head into a lion’s mouth. Married men were never there when you needed them, you waited for them, alone; they wasted your life. She had seen it happen to other people, and she had always said she would never let it happen to her. Even though Clay and his wife were so often apart, there had to be some strong reason they stayed together.

  But … he wanted to talk to her about writing. She owed it to her career to meet with him and see what it was. Perhaps they could become friends and colleagues. She would be very careful.

  And besides, she could hardly wait to see him again.

  It was rather early when Susan got to the Oak Bar, and the noise level was not quite deafening yet. Everything was dark brown; the walls, the leather, the light. Through the large windows she could see the tired horses pulling carriages to rent to tourists, waiting patiently in the winter dusk outside the park. When she was a child she had thought that very glamorous. Clay Bowen was already seated in a corner banquette. He was obviously well known here, and the Captain handed her over to him like a treasure.

  He stood up to greet her and put his hand very lightly on her arm to help her into the banquette, but he did not shake hands. It was as if they already knew each other too well for that. “I’m glad you could come,” he said. “What would you like to drink?”

  “White wine please.”

  He ordered it. She had been through this scene a million times; sit down in a bar, say hello, the man orders your drink, lights your cigarette; but never like this—she felt him overwhelming her, as if his arms were outspread to enclose their place and he was protecting her. How did he do that without even moving?

  “I admire your tan,” she said.

  “California isn’t so bad.” He smiled. “Have you been there?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you’ve written scripts?”

  “Yes.”

  “Television?”

  “Movies,” Susan said. She sipped at the wine that had been whisked to her. His dark suit was perfectly tailored, the edges of his shirt cuffs gleamed pristinely, his cuff links were small and elegant. His expensive silk tie was arrogantly understated. She hoped he wouldn’t ask her for a list of credits.

  “Do you know,” Clay said, “that if a television movie is a flop, still millions more people see it than if a theatrical motion picture is a hit?”

  “I guess I never thought about it,” Susan said.

  “What I want to do now is something people can relate to,” he said. “That’s why I wanted to talk to you. I’ve seen your articles; you know what’s going on, you represent the bright young women of today, working, trying to get along, struggling with relationships. I recently found out about a series starting this fall season on CBS called The Mary Tyler Moore Show. It will be a comedy, but it will be the strongest effort so far to present the independent single woman as she really is. She’ll be in her early thirties, and she’ll represent the new woman of the 1970s. I want to do something on that order with you, about anything you think is relevant today. A movie which would work as a pilot for a television series for next year.”

  “I’m not sure I know how to do that,” Susan said.

  “I’ll show you. It’s easy. I’ll work with you. This will be my pet project, so you’ll only have to answer to me.”

  A series … It was an enormous responsibility, and it was also a trap. If the series was bought, television would be her life. That was not what she had planned for her future, and she was uncomfortable and afraid. “If it went that far would I actually have to stay with it?” she asked.

  “But you’d want to stay with it,” Clay said earnestly. “Do you know how much money you can make if this is a success? You’d be rich for life.”

  “I can’t write comedy,” Susan said.

  “You don’t have to. Just do whatever you feel is right.”

  “I’m funny, though. I can put funny things into something serious.” Already her reluctance was weakening. All her instincts told her this would be different from her debacle with Ergil Feather. She would be creating something new with Clay, and it would be fun. That was one thing she was sure of; if she did this project they would have an exciting time together. He radiated hope and easy confidence, but also, surprisingly for someone who was the top man, there was a modesty about him. He would take care of her, but he wouldn’t push her around.

  He ordered another drink for each of them. “I plan to be spending more time in New York,” Clay said. “We’ll have another meeting. Think about it.”

  “I was just thinking now,” she said tentatively. “When I first got my own apartment in New York, when I moved away from my parents, I had a lot of roommates. There was my friend Dana, who is an actress, and me, and all those girls who kept leaving. It was a strange life: hopes and dreams, living on the edge. That kind of background, but realistic … it might be something … a start.”

  “It sounds good,” he said. He smiled reassuringly. His eyes made her feel that she could do anything well. “Why don’t you jot down a few thoughts, very briefly, and show them to me when I come back in about ten days? Then we’ll talk and put together an idea.”

  “Okay,” she said, her mind already starting to move.

  He took her home address and phone number, and handed her two business cards; one his California office, one New York. “I live in the Beverly Hills Hotel,” he said. “In case you need me.”

  In case you need me. She did, she needed him. In what he had made their charmed circle there was no more loneliness, just two people planning an exciting future, held up by his enormous confidence. This was the man who would heal her. There seemed nothing sexual about his interest in her, unless he was a good actor, but she also felt that he found her winning and beautiful, that he genuinely liked her, and she needed that. “You live in a hotel?” she said.

  “In a bungalow there. It’s convenient. I work all the time, I’m hardly ever around except to sleep, and they do everything for me.”

  “What about your family?”

  “They live in New York. In a very expensive apartment at The Dakota.” He smiled. “I hardly ever have a chance to enjoy it.”

  “That’s a shame,” she said.

  “It’s my own fault. I chose this life. Tell me the truth, if you couldn’t write, if you just had leisure time, how would you feel?”

  “Miserable,” she said.

  “So we’re alike.”

  Alike … “Yes,” Susan said. “But I should work even harder.”

  “You will,” Clay said. He signaled for the check. “I have a meeting around the corner. I’ll send you home, or wherever you’re going, in my car.”

  His car was a long black limousine. It belonged to the company, but still she was impressed. Riding home she leaned back against the soft velour and thought about him. She had never seen such charismatic warmth before in a man. She wondered why he was hardly ever with his wife; if it was really work that kept them apart, if they had nothing in common
, or if they didn’t get along. He was obviously someone who did exactly as he pleased: no one’s puppet, no one’s dictator. He was … an adult.

  During the next ten days Susan worked on her concept and continued to think about Clay. She wanted to make him happy that he had chosen her to work with, and pictured his pleasure when he saw that what she had done was really good. His warmth remained, and she felt he was there with her while she typed. The “few thoughts” he had asked her to jot down became a presentation. Then he called her, back in New York, and they made a dinner date at Pavilion, where he’d had his party.

  “Our place,” he said lightly. “It’s a lot better without the mob scene. I’ll send a messenger for the material this morning so I can have looked at it by the time we meet.”

  They were seated in the front, at one of the red velvet banquettes that were reserved for celebrities and specially important customers. There were fragrant red roses on each table, and next to their table a bottle of very expensive white wine resting in a cooler. He had remembered she liked white wine. Once again, she had been scrupulously prompt, but he was there already. They smiled at each other.

  “I think your concept is wonderful,” Clay said.

  “Oh, good!”

  He gestured to the waiter to open the wine. “I hope you like Montrachet,” Clay said. “It’s my favorite.”

  “I love it,” Susan said. “Although I hardly ever have it.”

  “I drink it all the time. It’s one of my extravagances, but I figure, we don’t know where we’ll be tomorrow.”

  “I wish I could be reckless,” she said.

  “You’re probably much more sensible than I am. I need a little of your qualities.”

  Was she sensible? Not when it came to men, but she certainly didn’t want him to know about all the silly mistakes she’d made in the past. She would present herself to him as a lively but prudent woman, a little bit of a mystery. She wanted him to like her. The wine tasted very faintly of oak and vanilla, her perfume smelled of cinnamon, and his aftershave of citrus. In the background were the roses. It was like being in a garden, scent and taste.