by Rona Jaffe
“We said good-bye and gave each other a hug,” Clay said. “And we both cried a little.”
It was hard to picture him crying over Laura, after he had professed to want to be rid of her for so long, but Susan understood. It was the end of a lifetime together, and no matter how unhappy they had been it must have been very sad to know that they had failed.
He seemed vulnerable. He took some papers out of his briefcase and put them on Susan’s coffee table. “These are contracts for Like You, Like Me,” he said. “And for ‘White Collar, White Powder.’ My lawyer says that when I go to the networks our verbal agreement just isn’t enough. You see here we’ve drawn up a schedule of the money you’ll get when I sell them, just as you and I discussed, and what you get now to make it legal is a dollar.” He smiled. “I’ll even give you the dollar.”
Susan looked over the contracts. They were for a three-year option. That certainly should be long enough for Clay to sell the properties to someone. She liked that he would have them for enough time to do something, it made her feel secure. He would have a success and come back to her. “What about my agent?” she asked.
“When I make the deal I’ll work out something with him about the commission. I like Glenn.”
He handed her the pen and she signed the contracts, just below Clay’s signature. Now they were joined. He put the papers back into his briefcase, smiled again, and took a dollar out of his wallet. “Here,” he said.
She smiled back. “For my scrapbook.”
He went back to California on the early evening plane. “This schedule is going to kill me,” he said ruefully. “I’m going to die. But things are moving fast now. Everything is going to be good again—you’ll see.” He kissed her good-bye and held her tenderly, like in the old days, and when he went to the elevator Susan ran after him for another hug. “I’ll call you tomorrow morning, sweetheart, and I’ll see you soon,” he said. “You take good care of yourself.”
“You too.”
Two days later her agent called. “Do you remember that article you wrote about drugs—‘White Collar, White Powder’?”
“Of course.”
“Well, there’s a bright young man named Andrew Tollmalig, you may have heard of him. Very hot producer right now, has a contract with RBS for his next project. What he wants to do is a television movie of the section in your piece that deals with the woman stockbroker getting hooked on cocaine. It would be a tour de force for an actress. This is just what the networks are looking for: fact-based, generic, lots of angst. He’d like you to write the script. I want to start negotiating with him, what do you say?”
“It’s not available,” Susan said. “I gave it to Clay.”
“Oh, well, that’s all right, Clay will understand. This is an actual deal.”
“Clay has a contract,” she said.
“A contract?”
“An option.”
“You gave Clay Bowen an option on your own? I … For how long?”
“Three years from two days ago.”
“Three years? For how much?”
“I get paid when he sells it. And he will sell it. Clay is going to RBS himself.”
“Susan,” Glenn said, “television is very cruel. People are up and then they’re down. I’m sure RBS won’t make this deal with Clay Bowen, and I doubt very much that anybody else will.”
“Clay knows everybody in the business,” Susan said. “He has old friends, he has a financial backer now, he can go after a big star. He deserves a shot at it.”
“Well, I wish him luck.”
So did she. Oh, God, so did she.
28
1986—HOLLYWOOD AND NEW YORK
Bambi and Clay had been living together for over a year now, and she was blossoming in her new career. Besides impressive business cards, she had an expense account, and she could call people and take them to lunch to talk about projects. Of course there were not that many people to call; they were a small company and there were only a limited number of things they could do at once, but this was the most exciting time she’d ever had in her life. She was important. The feeling she had when she phoned a stranger, introduced herself, and set up a meeting, was heady beyond belief.
Under Clay’s tutelage she had also been writing presentations. So far nothing had been accepted by the networks, but he explained to her that it took a long time. He taught her how to do a treatment. She was thrilled when he let her do the treatment for “White Collar, White Powder,” the Susan Josephs story, because there was a lot of meat there; it wasn’t just a newspaper item she had to figure out how to develop. It was about many different people, and when she was finished Clay decided it had the possibilities for a miniseries. Every day with him she learned more.
It still sometimes made Bambi feel she was dreaming, to have Clay Bowen for her mentor and lover. To see a man with so much power reduced to a solicitous suitor—who told her all the time that he loved her, who never took her for granted, who called her constantly when they were apart—made up for Matt and Bob; the lesser men who had treated her like something disposable. She could hardly wait for them to submit something to her so she could reject it. So far they hadn’t, but they probably knew better than to try.
By now certain business associates of Clay’s who were also his friends knew he and Bambi were a couple. Clay had people over to her house for drinks and she put out the cheese. His things were in evidence everywhere, and he kept saying “we.” They were all nice to her.
Eventually he would always tell his glamorous stories about the good old days, the same stories Bambi had already heard endless times. Everyone seemed to enjoy hearing them again, but sometimes, if she’d had a couple of glasses of wine, she would get bored and change the subject. She wanted to know about what was happening now. Clay never got angry at her.
Besides his few good friends, his secretary knew about their secret living arrangement too. That was all right; Penny had to be able to find Clay to keep him advised on business developments when he left the office early, and she knew she had to be extremely discreet. It was part of her job to protect them, and she was not paid to have an opinion. She was paid to type Bambi’s treatments.
Bambi was dying to go to Europe, and Clay had promised to take her there on his next business trip. They hadn’t gone to the MIP last spring, but they would this coming year. He had some projects he hadn’t been able to get done in America that he certainly could make deals for over there. The European countries that had cable now were in constant need of product. And, since the convention was in Cannes, they would go to Paris and London too. He would set up some meetings, they would go to the theatre and the great restaurants. In all the years she had been married to Simon they had never even discussed going to Europe. Now that she looked back on it, it was really ironic. Clay claimed to be obsessed with work, but it had been single-minded Simon who was the real workaholic.
Nina was twenty-six years old, and she knew she was supposed to be a woman, but most of the time she felt like a girl. She had an adult’s job, dealing with authors who were almost always older than she was, she had a live-in boyfriend, she had a close relationship with her father’s girlfriend—which shocked some of her friends—and to the world she seemed poised and efficient. But inside she kept feeling that she was falling through space, with no wings to fly and nothing below but terror. Her relationship with Stevie was not good and going nowhere, her parents’ divorce although long overdue nonetheless made her feel abandoned, and now she knew that her father was lying to Susan.
She had seen his closet with only three suits in it. How could Susan have paid no attention? Nina had seen and instantly understood. He didn’t really live in his apartment anymore; he was living somewhere else, a place none of them were supposed to know about.
She had looked around when she was alone. Most of his underwear was gone too. There were some abandoned damp crackers in his kitchen cabinet, and the fresh food in his refrigerator had been bought all
at once. The apartment had no heart. She had sensed it right away, even though she had been there only once before. It was like a stage set, like a play where the actress comes out carrying a handbag that has nothing in it, flat and false in her hand.
She had been unable to bring herself to tell Susan because she knew how much it would hurt her.
Where was he living? Where? Was he really spending so much time with that Anwar he talked about? Something at the edge of Nina’s mind told her there was another woman. But how could that be? Her father had loved Susan so much.
Of course, how would she know anything about love?
Painstakingly, Laura had made lists of every object in the apartment, waiting for Clay to choose what he wanted. She didn’t even know what she wanted. Everything had a memory—now that she looked back on it, most of them bad—but the future didn’t seem any better. All she could be sure of was that she would never be able to afford to live in an apartment with such high ceilings again.
She had hated the apartments she had seen. “Don’t worry about it,” Tanya had said. “You can put your things in storage and live with us until you find yourself. You’re going to have a new life. Maybe you won’t want any furniture at all.”
Laura did not see herself as a minimalist or an eccentric. She saw herself as discarded and invisible. A woman like that should have clutter, to fill in the empty spaces and hide her lack of being. Nina had come over and begged for several pieces, even tagging them, afraid Laura and Clay were going to sell and give away her past. She seemed to regard her parents as dead, not just divorcing.
Clay alighted briefly in New York and came to see Laura to discuss the division of all their worldly goods. Although they had spoken on the phone often, they had not seen each other face-to-face for almost a year. Laura thought he looked older. He walked around the apartment looking at their things: the antiques, the paintings, the sculptures, the rugs. It might have been a warehouse for all the sentiment he showed. He marked off on her lists the things he had picked to be his, and with each one Laura felt a fresh stab of pain at his departure from her life, fresh anguish at her failure.
“Let’s have a drink,” she said. “Let’s be civilized.”
“All right.”
“We’ll dance among the ruins.”
“Don’t be pompous,” he said. “Don’t feel so sorry for yourself. I have troubles too.”
“Of course. Champagne?”
“It’s silly to open a bottle for me,” Clay said. “I’m leaving in a few minutes.”
“It lasts,” Laura said.
She went into the kitchen to get the champagne, and when she came back Clay was in the den making a telephone call. She walked in just before he hung up. “I love you,” he was saying to the person on the phone.
Not a Hollywood “I love ya, babe.” Clay had never been that. Real love. I love you. She felt a chill. Susan Josephs had won.
“Who was that?” Laura asked. “Your girlfriend?”
“No, my boyfriend,” he said.
Laura looked at him. He seemed perfectly serious. Her head was whirling. “You have a … boyfriend?”
He gave her an enigmatic smile. Then he nodded.
“You’re in love with a man?” Shock made her bold. “Who is he?”
“I won’t discuss it.” Clay said.
“Is it that very rich Arab you keep going to visit?”
“Maybe.” He picked up his glass and looked away.
Oh, poor Clay. He was gay. Now at last Laura understood why he had not touched her for so many years, why he had kept his life so secret and away from her. Susan Josephs had been just what he had said. She wondered if Clay had known he was gay before he married her. He must have. But he had wanted a family. Perhaps he had even wanted her. She had known so many gay dancers, but Clay had been different. He had slipped right under her guard.
“Cheers,” he said. They touched glasses lightly and sipped their champagne. She looked at him; her love, her lifetime obsession. He had certainly fooled her.
“Tell me something,” Laura said. “When you married me, did you love me?”
“Of course,” he said. “I had to.”
It was not her fault. She had not failed him as a wife: there was nothing she could have done. For the first time in years and years she felt strangely peaceful.
When he left soon afterward, for one brief moment he let her hug him gently good-bye.
29
1987—NEW YORK
It was spring. The carts with hot dogs, souvlaki, latkes, candy, and fruit began to appear everywhere on the streets again, and hardy, invisible birds arrived to sing wherever there was a patch of green. Office workers ate lunch outside on steps of buildings. People had already rented houses in the Hamptons for summer, complaining that the prices were even higher this year. And Susan, seeing another empty day, another empty month, another empty year ahead, felt she could not go on.
It was the first time she had felt that way. At least it was a realization, something with some substance. I can’t go on. The endless hours by the phone waiting for Clay’s daily call, the letdown when it was over, the now fruitless attempts to work, or read, or even think, could continue forever if she let them. Nothing would change or get better. Immobilized, she didn’t want to kill herself and had no desire to live.
Night after night, on the telephone, Jeffrey and Dana had been the recipients of her grief. It had been only to Nina that she covered up, and she had no idea why.
“You must be in such pain,” Nina had said to her, finally, when they met alone for dinner.
“Why?”
“The way my father has been treating you.”
“He’s busy.”
“I don’t think he’s been living in his apartment.”
“He spends a lot of time with Anwar,” Susan said. “He loves me. He calls every day and says he loves me. You should see the cards he wrote me all these years, saying I was his life.”
Nina just looked sad.
But to Jeffrey, Susan went over and over her doubts and confusion, thinking as an outsider he might have some answer. “Why don’t you go to a psychiatrist?” he said finally.
“A what?”
“A therapist. You can’t go on like this, you’re too miserable. I know a really good one, Joan Giacondo. I interviewed her when I was doing that piece on shrinks, and then I sent a couple I know to her and she saved their marriage. I could send you to some others, but I think she’s the best. Tell her you want short-term marital therapy. She’s probably hard to get an appointment with, but mention my name, and my friends.”
“I’ve heard of her,” Susan said.
So here she was on her way to meet her potential new therapist, and tell her what she wanted. Help me escape Clay … No! Help me save my relationship. Or get out of it. No! She was even afraid to say the words, for fear this magical therapist would break her and Clay apart.
Joan Giacondo was tall and thin and cheerful. Susan liked her right away. She listened intently while Susan poured out everything she could think of about Clay and the situation. “I feel like killing myself,” Susan said.
“Well, before you kill yourself,” Joan Giacondo said pleasantly, “let’s see if there’s anything to kill yourself over. You want to know, don’t you?”
“Yes … but how?”
“Hire a detective.”
“A detective?”
“Sure.”
“How can I find a detective?”
“You’re smart. You can find one.”
It was like something out of cops and robbers. It had nothing to do with her life at all. Women she knew didn’t put detectives on the men they loved. But … married women did it. She had been with Clay for longer than most marriages. Single women had rights too. That night she called Dana.
“I need a California detective,” Susan said. “I’m going to put him on Clay. And don’t tell anyone.”
“You’re in the right hands,” Dana said. “I’v
e been the handkerchief bringer at lots of extremely acrimonious divorces. I’ll ask around.”
“Be discreet. No one can know who it’s for.”
“No one will know.”
She would be going to Dr. Giacondo twice a week. Dana would get her a detective. She would take control of her own life. She felt better now; for the first time she had something to do about all this, at last something was going to happen.
Dana called a few days later. “Three people recommended these guys. They all spoke very highly of them. Their name is—get this—The Sherlock Holmes Detective Agency. Is that gumshoe or what? This is getting exciting.”
“They sound like something out of a bad movie.”
“I know. I love it. Call them. And you’re to ask for Bill Montana.”
Bill Montana sounded just like a private eye on the phone, including the terminology. Susan said she wanted to know where Clay was living. He asked for home and offices addresses, phone numbers, Clay’s usual schedule, a complete description of “the subject,” and told her to send him a photo. “We’ll put him under surveillance,” he said, adding it up on a calculator. “At thirty dollars an hour, that will be, let’s see, forty-five hundred dollars. In advance. We usually catch them by then.”
“Forty-five hundred dollars!”
“People are hard to follow. We’ll do other things too, call the office, do the package delivery ruse. The detective business is based on lies and deception. Remember that—lies and deception.”
“And forty-five hundred dollars.”
“I’ll send you a contract to sign and mail back to me.”
“What if you find him before my money runs out?”
“It’s nonrefundable, but you’ll see, the hours go by very fast.”