An American Love Story

by Rona Jaffe

  What would happen to their dream of living together at college, free at last? Simon would have to choose one of those big three Ivy League schools. Everyone said he was brilliant. Loneliness clutched her chest like a steel band. They had thought they were like John Lennon and Yoko Ono, two bodies, one soul; but they were really just defenseless kids.

  Her bed was covered with little wads of wet tissue from her grief. She was hunched up into a miserable ball, holding her knees, when a cheery tapping sounded at her bedroom door.

  “It’s meeee,” Simon called softly. She had locked the door so she could cry in peace. He rattled the knob. “Hey, Bambi, let me in.” She got up wearily and opened it.

  He kicked the door shut and put his arms around her. She laid her head on his chest. “The University of Puget Sound is a terrific school,” he said.

  “Fine,” she said, and pushed him away.

  “If it’s good enough for me it should be good enough for you,” Simon said blandly.

  “Well, you’re going to Princeton.”

  “No I’m not.”

  “Yale?”

  “No.”

  “Harvard,” she said, and started to cry again, her face turned to the wall so he wouldn’t see how ugly she looked.

  “I am going to the University of Puget Sound with you,” Simon said. “We always planned to go to college together and we will.”

  She could hardly believe her ears. Her crying stopped and her heart began to pound like crazy. “You’d give up your … no, you’ll hate me,” she said, none too convincingly. “Everybody at school is talking about your great future.”

  “My future is great only if it’s with you,” Simon said.

  “Oh, Simon, I can’t believe you’d do that!” She threw her arms around his neck and covered his face with kisses. Then she drew back as reality hit her. “Your parents won’t let you.”

  “What have they got to do with it?” Simon said calmly.

  “They could threaten not to pay for your college if you don’t go where they want. Parents can be really cold and mean when they don’t get their way.”

  “I’ve already made plans for that possibility,” Simon said. He smiled. “I’ve applied for a scholarship at the University of Puget Sound. They’ll be glad to get the genius who turned down Harvard, Yale, and Princeton. For the rest of the money I’ll take a job at night working in a coffeehouse. It will be sort of like business school, learning and preparing for the day when I open Simon Sez. I don’t want to be a doctor or a lawyer or a nuclear physicist. I want Simon Sez. This will be perfect for us.”

  Us … us … the magical word, her doorway to the future. “My parents are giving me a car for graduation,” Bambi said. This morning she had accepted their offer of the gift dully, but now she was excited about it. “A Volkswagen beetle. I get to pick the color and I told them I want yellow. The school’s only an hour away; I can drive home to get money from them. You and I are going to be a team. We can do it. I love you so much.”

  “I love you more than anything,” Simon said. He reached over and locked the bedroom door. They were brave and comfortable together, a real couple. “Nobody’s downstairs,” he whispered, nuzzling her neck.

  They fell onto the bed together, inflamed and breathless, kissing and rubbing, pressing and sucking, right on top of the crummy little Kleenex wads of her recent and now long ago tears; they might as well have been rose petals.

  The next afternoon Bambi was sitting at the desk in her bedroom, cheerfully making out a list of the people she would invite to her graduation party, when her phone rang. It was Simon’s mother.

  “Bambi, I wonder if you could come over and help me plan a surprise for Simon’s graduation.”

  “Sure,” she said. “When?”

  “Could you come now? He’s not here.”

  “Okay.”

  She put away her list, smoothed her hair, and trotted over. Maybe they’ll give him a car too, she thought. His mother greeted her at the door and led her into the big eat-in kitchen. She was very different from Bambi’s mother, who colored her hair, wore jeans, and went to an exercise class. Simon’s mother had gray hair and didn’t care, and was plump and matronly—she looked almost fifty.

  “Would you like a Coke, dear?”

  “Thank you.” Bambi sat down in a kitchen chair and folded her hands primly in her lap. She had never been alone with Simon’s mother before, and she was a little nervous.

  “A cookie?”

  “No, thank you.”

  “Well.” His mother smiled, but her face looked strained. She poured the Coke into a glass and put it in front of Bambi with a paper napkin. “I’ll tell you why I asked you to come over here,” she said. “It’s about Simon’s future.”

  “Oh?” Bambi said innocently. She sipped delicately at her soft drink.

  “You know he’s refused to go to Harvard, Yale, or Princeton. He says he wants to stay near home. We know he wants to be with you.”

  Bambi said nothing. So far his mother’s voice was sweet and conciliatory; she didn’t seem dangerous. Bambi waited.

  “The two of you have always been so close. I know you understand how bright he is, how much promise he has. I was hoping you might have some influence with him. If you really care for him, and I know you do, you care about his brilliant future.”

  There’s nothing wrong with the University of Puget Sound, Bambi thought. I’m going there, and I plan to have a brilliant future too, you fat tub. She continued to say nothing.

  “And there’s Harvard’s science program,” his mother went on. “It’s just right for him.”

  “I’m not sure he wants to stay with science,” Bambi finally said, mildly.

  “I’m thinking of his financial future too,” his mother said. “If you two continue to see each other, possibly you might get married someday, and it would be important for both of you, and your children, to have a good financial start.”

  Bullshit, Bambi thought. If he goes five thousand miles away we’ll only see each other on holidays, and he’ll meet somebody else and marry her. You think I’m that stupid?

  “We love our son very much,” his mother said sadly. “We’re older, more experienced. Simon is only eighteen, he’s impetuous. We don’t even know what he wants to do with his life. Does he tell you?”

  Bambi looked down at her prim little hands.

  “You young kids think you have no time,” his mother went on, realizing she would get no response. “You haven’t lived long, naturally every few months seem forever. But it really isn’t that way. Believe me. You’ll write to each other, you’ll call each other, there are so many holidays and they’ll be there before you know it, and then you have the entire summer to be together.” Bambi tuned her out. The woman went on talking, her mouth moving, her eyes misting over, and Bambi looked past her plump shoulder at the kitchen appliances and thought that avocado was probably the ugliest color she’d seen in her life.

  Then Simon’s mother’s mouth stopped moving and Bambi came out of her reverie. She gave a little nod. “I’ll try, Mrs. Green,” she said sweetly.

  “Thank you. You are a good girl. Thank you so much.”

  “I have to go home now,” Bambi said, rising. His mother walked her to the door.

  “And you won’t tell him about our little talk, will you? Let it just be … private.”

  “Of course,” Bambi said.

  Simon’s mother took Bambi’s face in her hands and kissed her on the corner of her mouth. Bambi forced a little smile and walked quickly down the street away from her, and as soon as she was out of view she wiped off the kiss and spit on the ground. You bet your ass our talk will be private, she thought.

  When she walked into her own house the phone was ringing. It was Simon. “Where have you been?” he said. “I’ve been calling.”

  “My mom made me go to the market. My parents are having some people for dinner tonight.”

  “Then you and I will go to the library, okay?�
��

  “Perfect,” Bambi said.

  She would never tell him what his mother had told her to say. He did not belong to his mother, he belonged to her; it was settled; and they would go away to college together and live together and be special together. For the rest of their lives. Nobody else would ever get him; she would see to that.

  12

  1971—NEW YORK, HOLLYWOOD, LONDON, PARIS

  Susan had never been so loved in her life as she was by Clay. He acted so vulnerable, so sentimental, so dependent; the anxious suitor who knew he didn’t deserve her love because he was unworthy of her: married to someone else. When she was out he would leave not one but six messages with her answering service, who knew him by now and laughed when they said he had called yet again. Whenever he came back from California he would rush into her apartment desperately when she opened the door, his eyes wide with anxiety: he would say, “I was afraid you wouldn’t still be here,” even though she had given him a key. He brought toilet articles and placed them neatly in her medicine cabinet, asking her first, timidly, if she minded. And when he finally began using the key, finally comfortable in her apartment, he would always walk in calling her name, and when she ran to him he would glow with relief and joy.

  This was the side that others never saw. There was the public, affable Clay, displayed when they went out for drinks with his business contacts before the two of them went off alone for dinner; the Clay Bowen who was invincible. This Clay never bothered to explain Susan’s presence as his dinner companion, and no one ever questioned it. This Clay also occasionally said: “Laura and Nina are fine,” without being asked. Susan knew he was doing it to allay suspicion, but it hurt a little and she would look away.

  She still refused to go on the trip to the South of France with him, so he went alone. Afterward he came back to her apartment with a large tissue paper wrapped package and laid it out on her couch. He opened it and it contained three Hermès scarves and three identically styled handbags from La Bagagerie. One bag and scarf were dark and subdued, another were vivid and chic, and the third were pale pastel. “You get first choice,” he said.

  She looked at them, surprised that she didn’t feel jealous. He pushed the brightly colored scarf and bag toward her, just a fraction of an inch. “I thought that was you,” he said. “The other is …”

  “For a wife.”

  “Too old for you,” he said. “And the pink is nice for Nina, I thought she would like them.”

  Susan thought how inappropriate these expensive presents were for such a little girl, but said nothing. She wondered what Nina would have to look forward to when she grew up. She could see what had happened; Clay had gone into the boutiques he had been told were the best, bought three of the same, and left the fashion decision to her. “These are lovely,” she said, picking up the scarf and bag he had wanted for her all along. “Thank you.”

  If you had to share, you might as well be first choice.

  Summer was here and he wanted her to come to visit him in California. His family was in East Hampton, and Susan could stay at the Beverly Hills Hotel with him. He could have the hotel open the door to the room that adjoined his living room. He had a private phone line with a service on it, in addition to the hotel switchboard, and Susan could be reached through the switchboard; it would be safe. He wanted her to see the way he lived. She could see her friend Dana, wouldn’t she like that?

  Yes, she did want to see Dana, and talk about what had been happening to her life. In spite of how much she loved Clay, her romance with him was so new that she still found herself dancing toward him and away again, still afraid of being hurt. Maybe when she talked to her best woman friend she could sort a few things out. She had always wanted to be independent, and yet she wanted Clay to take care of her, to be there for her. She wanted both: total freedom for her career and his unconditional love, and she wanted never to have to choose between them. He admired that she worked; he had told her to get some assignments in Los Angeles so they could be together more; and then he told her he would always love her even if she decided she never wanted to work again.

  It occurred to her that she was less afraid of losing this man than she had been at the times when she had really liked a man who was free. It was Clay who was afraid of losing her. Those women she had known who waited unsuccessfully for their married lovers to leave their wives had waited in secrecy, living on scraps and promises. She knew she could never live like that, and Clay didn’t expect her to. She would never be a woman who let her real life go by while waiting for her life to begin. She went with him to California.

  In the dazzling sunshine she walked around his bungalow touching things, trying to learn his secrets. The closets were filled with his suits, the summer ones and the winter ones neatly separated, ties bulging from their rotary holder, shiny shoes plumped out with brass trees. There was nothing feminine there at all. It was obviously his lair. He had his books and papers, a few personal mementos, a photo of Nina when she was much younger, a photo of Laura when she was still a dancer, the photographs half hidden by piles of scripts. There was a tape player with all the newest tapes, and a completely stocked bar. She used her bedroom for a closet, and after a few days the hotel maid stopped turning down the bed.

  She invited Dana to the hotel for lunch and they sat by the enormous pool under the palm trees and clear blue sky, and had salads brought to them by a waiter. Clay had made it clear that Susan was to sign for anything she wanted, that this was his home. It was hard to believe that only a year ago she had been fighting for her life in this same city, being betrayed by Ergil Feather, when all the time Clay Bowen had been living so near by, waiting to happen to her, to love and protect her, to be on her side.

  Dana was more beautiful than ever, and people turned to look at her. She had started to work fairly regularly in television, and now had her own apartment in West Hollywood. “I play the person who dies,” Dana said. “First I was the corpse before the title, then I finally got lines before they knocked me off. I have croaked of an obscure disease on Marcus Welby, been shot on the Mod Squad, poisoned on Mannix, and appeared alive and sick again on Medical Center before my demise. They don’t seem to know I’m the same person: I’m thinking of changing my name to Lazarus.”

  Susan laughed. “And you’re happy.”

  “Happy? Are you crazy? I’m never happy. What would make me happy would be not to die, so I could come back somewhere as a continuing character. And I don’t even like television. This is how far I’ve sunk; I want to be a permanent fixture in an industry I don’t even want to be in. God, how I miss my old dreams about the theatre.”

  “I know. We had fun in those days. Also misery.”

  “You’re happy now, though,” Dana said.

  “Yes. I really am.” As always, Dana was completely nonjudgmental. Clay being married had nothing to do with anything as long as Susan was okay. “And you—are you seeing anyone special?”

  Dana shrugged. “I’ve been celibate for three months. It’s restful. I think the next man I fall in love with I’m going to go for the big M.”

  “The big M?”

  “Marriage. It’s the Seventies; I’m tired.”

  Clay came back early and invited Dana to come to the bungalow for a drink with them. Susan knew he had wanted to meet her and was pleased. He and Dana talked about people they knew in the business, and after a while she left.

  “I thought she’d never go,” he said.

  Susan was surprised. “I was positive you liked her.”

  “She’s crazy,” he said.

  “She’s not crazy, she’s funny and unique. She’s my best friend.”

  “I’d rather be alone with you,” he said. He pulled her to him gently and she sat on his lap, curled up, her head on his shoulder, his arms around her. “I’m so content with you,” he said. “I just want to make you happy. We’re going to have such a wonderful life together.”

  The summer weeks went by and Clay made no mo
ve to go back East to visit his wife and daughter. He would call them in the evenings, before he and Susan went out to dinner, and sometimes he held the receiver to her ear so she could hear Nina’s earnest precise little voice telling her daddy about the grown-up book she had just read, the art project she had started on her own, her latest hard-won athletic achievement. The poor little thing tries so hard, Susan thought. It’s as if she’s really doing all this to please him. But she said nothing.

  When he listened to Nina on the phone he beamed, but when Laura began to talk to him his face changed to boredom and then to anger. It was a monologue, not a conversation, and more often than not he would end it by slamming the receiver down. The powerful unknown wife who lurked outside Susan’s dream no longer seemed so threatening.

  Finally, in August, it was Susan whose conscience made her go back to New York for a visit. She had needed the hours lying in the sun with an empty mind, the swimming, the time to read, and above all the emotional rest of being with him; but in the meantime her bills were piling up unpaid, her mail unread, and now she needed to get an article assignment—for her identity as well as financial reasons. She had to reclaim her territory.

  “When will you come back?” he wanted to know.

  “Ten days. I’ve set up my meetings already.”

  “You could have done everything on the phone,” he said.

  “Not my bills.”

  “You could have left checks with your parents and they could pick up the mail from your doorman.”

  “Oh my God, I have to have some privacy,” Susan said. “I don’t want them going through my mail. My mother is still nagging me to give them a key.”

  “You don’t know how to make plans,” Clay said.

  “I know. I don’t even have enough clothes with me.”