An American Love Story

by Rona Jaffe

  It was high, but worth it. She was glad she had the money.

  She went through her photos of herself and Clay when they were still happy. He had his arm around her and looked in love and protective. Susan had one copied and cut the copy in half. She put the half that was Clay, now smiling at no one, into the envelope with the signed contract and mailed it back with her check.

  There was a link between her and Clay again; unknown to him she would be a part of his life, she would be with him. This terrible mystery would end. She actually felt something akin to elation.

  She called Bill every few days. “We sat outside his house all weekend,” Bill reported, sounding surprised, “and he never came out.”

  “Maybe he wasn’t there,” Susan said. “Did you look for his car?”

  “We can’t go into the underground parking garage. We can’t get that close because someone will see us.”

  After another week Bill reported that an operative had been following Clay’s car in traffic and had hit another car, thus making following him impossible that day. Since Clay had been on his way from a restaurant to his office it didn’t seem like a great loss. Susan reported that Clay was finally coming to New York to see her, and that when he went back to L.A. they should follow him from the airport. She was beginning to think she was the detective and they were the Keystone Kops.

  Clay was in and out in two days. He did not try to make love to her, and although he was pleasant he seemed distant, and Susan wondered if she was too. His presence seemed less real than the person she was having followed in California. She was impatient for him to leave. He took her to lunch before he made his plane and told her he didn’t feel well, that his anxiety attacks were worse and he was afraid it might be something more serious. He promised to go to the doctor, and, as always, she felt afraid that he was going to die.

  He called her that night. “I’m calling you from a pay phone at the airport,” he said. “My plane got in an hour late. I didn’t want you to worry that something had happened to me because I didn’t feel well. I’m feeling much better now. Oh, someone wants the phone. I have to go.”

  “Thank you for calling,” Susan said, relieved and touched at his thoughtfulness. “I was worried.” Now they’ll go after him, she thought. Now, at last, I’ll know.

  The next morning Bill called. “We lost him,” he said. “Usually we get to the airport in plenty of time, but there was a traffic accident on the freeway that delayed us, and his plane was early, so we pulled in to the airport right after he was gone.”

  “His plane was early?”

  “Yes. It wasn’t our fault. I’m really sorry.”

  Clay had said the plane was late. He hadn’t called from the airport; he had called from wherever he lived. He had wanted to reassure her so she wouldn’t call his apartment and find he wasn’t there. Susan would have felt angry if she hadn’t felt so miserable.

  Clay called her the next day to tell her he was going into the hospital overnight for tests. Susan told Bill. She seemed to be the one who was doing all the research here. The next day Bill reported that Clay had been driven from his office to the hospital in his car by “a young gofer who said her name was Bambi. She was about twenty-four and had on jeans. There was no visible sign of affection. She just dropped him off and drove away.”

  “How did you know her name was Bambi?”

  “We were using a female operative who’s very clever. She has ways. I can’t tell you or you’d be in our business instead of us.”

  “Yes,” Susan said, remembering. “Bambi is that girl who works for him.”

  “Well, she’s nobody.”

  The Sherlock Holmes Detective Agency did not manage to follow Clay from the hospital back to his home because that day they were shorthanded and had no one to send. Susan was furious. Another opportunity wasted. She was beginning to think she and Dana could do better by following Clay themselves, but of course, he would recognize them.

  When Bill called two days later he had better news. “You said Anwar Akmal lives in the Hollywood Hills,” he said. “There’s no record of that. So we tried the package ruse. We called Clay’s office after he had left for the day and said we had a package to deliver for him but he had to sign for it personally. His secretary Penny is a very nasty middle-aged woman, right?”

  “She’s not nasty,” Susan said. “She’s very nice.”

  “Well, she was nasty to us. We said since Clay had left we’d just have to try the place in the Hills. And she got all upset and snapped: ‘How do you know about that? You’re not supposed to know about that! Nobody knows about that!’ She wouldn’t tell us anything else, so we called again today and said we still had the package and we might as well take it to his place in the Hollywood Hills, and this time she said: ‘There is no place in the Hollywood Hills.’ So now we know Clay has a house up there somewhere.”

  Susan suddenly felt she didn’t know him at all anymore. What kind of pain was he going through that he couldn’t share with her? He was living secretly in some rented house she didn’t know about and he had never told her. He obviously needed space and time; his life was a disaster. Maybe he was going through his middle-aged crisis and was having an affair with someone they both knew, some old friend. She could stand that, even understand. Or maybe he was all alone. Being all alone in that hideaway wouldn’t make it much better; in a way it made it worse. He had excluded her from his life, and for that the entire structure of their relationship was irrevocably changed.

  “Why?” she asked.

  “I don’t know,” Bill said. “Maybe he’s depressed. He could be on drugs. That would be typical.”

  “Not Clay. Keep looking.”

  When Clay called her the next morning Susan could hardly think of anything to say to him. He talked and she was silent. Finally she took a chance. “I know what you’re doing in the Hollywood Hills.”

  “What?” he said innocently.

  “You know.”

  “What am I doing?”

  “You know.”

  He either knew she was faking or he thought she was too scared to confront him. He ended the conversation sweetly and she felt like a fool.

  It was taking so long to find out what she needed to know. Every time she called Bill she hoped he would have something substantial to report, but it was an exercise in frustration. She was waiting grimly for him to ask her to send another check. But she knew that he would find out eventually, and whatever he found out could not be good.

  As if Clay too sensed the impending disaster, he came back to New York to see her much sooner than usual. And this time he stayed at her apartment all night.

  Neither of them could sleep. They dozed fitfully, trying not to disturb each other. This is the last time we’ll be together like this, Susan thought. I know I’m never going to be in bed with him again. She glanced at Clay, and he held his arms out to her; with such a look of love on his face that it broke her heart. She dove into the safety of his arms and they lay there hugging all night, with fear and love and intensity, holding on.

  In the morning he ate toast and jam at her table while she stood there and watched at a careful distance. “The reason I couldn’t sleep all night,” she said, “is that I know the next time you see me I’ll have changed.”

  Clay’s eyes filled with tears. When he spoke his voice was hoarse with the effort of holding them back. “And you won’t want me anymore?” he said.

  She was surprised Maybe he really is depressed and hiding all alone, she thought. She ran over to him and cradled his head in her arms. “I’ll never leave you,” she said. “I love you.” He burrowed his head into her like a cat. “I love you,” she said again. “You’re a wonderful, wonderful person.”

  He pulled away.

  When Clay left for his plane she called Bill to tell him the number of the flight. He said that it was hard to follow someone from the airport because of all the passengers and the traffic, and it took two operatives, and this would be the
end of her deposit, but if she really wanted them to he would try.

  They lost him again.

  Jeffrey called her that night. “I think you should get rid of those detectives and get somebody really good, the best. Enough futzing around with those guys, this is bullshit. I pulled some strings and asked around, and this is who you call. Worldwide. They’re in L.A., and here’s their number. Ask for Sean Sellar. He’s the head of it. He’s expecting your call.”

  “Thank you,” Susan said.

  She called Worldwide the next morning. The moment she heard Sean Sellar’s voice she felt reassured. He sounded nice and bright and like a real person.

  “I can’t believe you used ‘Dial a Dick,’ ” he said. “They advertise at bus stops and on matchbook covers. Don’t give them another cent. Tell them to get off the case, that you’re dropping it. How much did you give them?”

  “Forty-five hundred dollars,” Susan said. “And they’ve been on this for a whole month.”

  “Do you know what we charge?”

  “What?” she asked nervously.

  “Two hundred dollars. Those people put surveillance on everybody. You don’t need surveillance. We’ll find him without ever leaving the office. Do you have a lawyer?”

  “No,” Susan said. “Do I need one?”

  “Well, I usually work with lawyers, but since you don’t have one, don’t worry about it. I’ll take this case myself because I feel sorry for you. I’ve never worked directly with a client before; it should be interesting. Okay, I need his name, a physical description, and his date of birth.”

  “Date of birth?”

  “So I won’t confuse him with anyone else with the same name.”

  She gave him the information and he asked if Clay had a private line at his office or one he used more than the others, and Susan gave him the number she used. “Don’t you want a picture?” she asked.

  “No. We don’t need it.”

  “I’ll put the check in the mail today. When can you start?”

  “I’ll start anyway. You came well recommended; I trust you.”

  What an angel—what a change! “How long will it take until I hear from you?” she asked.

  “Give me three days and I’ll have everything.”

  Only three days. In three days she would know. She didn’t think about what she would find out, only that the waiting and suffering would finally be over.

  The days were long now, at the beginning of summer, and when Sean called Susan it was still light, the kind of beautiful early summer twilight that makes the heart hurt with the memory of beginnings and endings.

  “I have your man’s address,” he said.

  She grabbed a pen and a piece of paper. She was finding it difficult to breathe.

  “He’s living at 7718 Lookout Mountain. The house is rented in the name of Bambi Green.”

  Bambi Green. Suddenly Susan saw it all. Bambi the young companion, the one who worked for him; Clay who had always been so independent was living in her house, with her. Living with Bambi Green, the girl from his office. In love, living together, working together, a new life for both of them. Susan felt pain smashing through her, the world slipping away, and held on, making herself numb.

  Sean gave her the phone number and she wrote it down. “What does she look like?”

  He gave her Bambi Green’s height, weight, coloring, and date of birth, things from a driver’s license. He couldn’t tell her if Bambi Green was pretty, she just had to try to imagine. What difference did it make, since she was appealing enough for Clay to fall in love with, live with. Bambi Green was appealing to him. Of course she was pretty.

  “Are you really sure he lives there?” Susan asked.

  “That’s where he lays his head at night,” Sean said. “He has everything there he needs—he never goes home anymore. He’s a very familiar figure in the neighborhood. He’s been living there a long time. People know him.”

  “Bambi Green is thirty-four, but Bill Montana said she looked twenty-four.”

  “Slim, in jeans, at a distance … He could have thought that. Clay is living with her. That house is where he lays his head at night,” Sean said again decisively. “Broom him.”

  “What?”

  “Get rid of him. He’s no good.”

  She was trying to hold on to her sliding world, trying to make it real. “What else do you know?”

  “She was married to a coffeehouse owner named Simon Green. He died in an auto accident. Look, get rid of the guy. Forget him.”

  “I can’t,” Susan said.

  “I’ve never been the one to break the news to a client before,” Sean said, sounding sorry for her. “I never realized how much pain there is.”

  “Thank you for your help,” Susan said.

  When she hung up she sat there for a while, unaware of time, shaking so violently she almost could not stand. What was the house like? Did it have a terrace, a garden, a view? Were Clay and Bambi sitting there together now? She finally stood and wandered around her apartment, hardly aware she was doing it. It was dark now, night. Like a good child, she got into bed, under the covers, but she only trembled harder. The apartment was warm and she was freezing cold. She wondered if she would ever sleep again.

  All these years she had known one thing: Clay would never leave her. He had always told her she was his life, and she had thought that having her and his wife was all he could handle; but now she knew that was not true. He had gotten rid of Laura, turned her into the wife, and taken a new love. She felt stunned, betrayed, in shock; tiny and vulnerable. It was as if a beloved, trusted parent had given her away and adopted a new little girl.

  Toward dawn she did sleep a little. She dreamed she was in an ancient and rotting house, the floorboards wet and splintered, creaking dangerously at her step. When she woke up early the grief was so intense she had to get out of bed to pace again. She couldn’t eat, she could still hardly breathe. All she could see was them.

  Bambi and Clay. Bambi following Clay around, to the office, to meetings, learning from him. Bambi Green with her life ahead of her. Susan with her life over. She would have thought she was already dead, except that dead people did not feel this deep, incredible pain.

  There was no air. She dressed and left her apartment, going out into the street. There were cars moving by and she saw them in a blur, a kind of stream. Superimposed over them were Clay and Bambi, the way she imagined them looking living their lives: two pictures—the strips of color of the moving cars and the lives of Clay and Bambi, unfolding before her eyes. The noises of the city were muted; the clatter, the honking of horns, the New York rush hour traffic.

  Because she couldn’t hear them she had no idea the sounds were for her.

  30

  1987—CONNECTICUT

  The private hospital for people who could not survive the world was very pretty; it had huge green trees, and tennis courts, and her room was pink. Susan looked at none of these. She looked at the movie behind her eyelids of Clay and Bambi: the trees outside her window were their trees. She tried not to think of them together in bed.

  A woman doctor came with medication. She had introduced herself several times but Susan had instantly forgotten her name. Her name tag helpfully said Dr. Morris. She kept asking Susan to speak, but Susan had not been aware she was not speaking. She was too occupied feeling the pain that radiated up through her throat and watching the movie in her mind.

  The doctor had said time made things better, that grief would gradually fade, so Susan counted the days. She had been there two weeks, and she didn’t feel any better. Perhaps she was looking for a measurable miracle. The only good thing was the nights, when she had a few hours of gently drugged sleep, but then the nights always ended in dreams of the fragile, rotting house, without structure, without safety, with nothing to trust but herself; she who was the most vulnerable of all.

  Nina came to see her, and Nina and the doctor asked her if she remembered what had happened. She didn’t—
they knew better than she did. Apparently she had been found standing in the middle of traffic, disorientated, unaware. People had been screaming at her, but she couldn’t recall that at all.

  The police had found her, strangers. They had taken her to a hospital emergency room, but she couldn’t remember that either. Joan Giacondo, who could perhaps have saved her, was away for the summer. Analysts did that. The doctor who was covering for Joan Giacondo didn’t even know who Susan was. He had wanted her to come here, so Nina had brought her, and apparently she had been lucid enough to sign herself in, which meant she could sign herself out whenever she wanted to.

  At the moment she had no desire to leave.

  They had given her a pad and a pen, and she had written something secret. She had hidden it afterward, but she kept it, and from time to time she unfolded and reread it, knowing it was about the way she felt. It was the only sane thought she had had since she came here.

  TINY TOMBSTONES

  A long time ago men outlived their wives. The women had a dozen children, many of whom died young, and then the wives died in childbirth and were buried in the midst of tiny tombstones. The husbands married again.

  She wondered if this was the nature of men, or the nature of the world; and if men, barring a death, had to move on. She felt as if she had been the wife, and she had died and been buried among her dead little dreams—of him, of their love. If there had been names on the tiny tombstones which she could read they would have been the names of the projects she and Clay had together.

  But since she had not had the decency to die, Clay had killed her. She thought she would never know why. She knew it would be a long time before she would be able to write again, and that was something else she could never forgive him for, because her work had been her own way of surviving.

  Why had he sent her that song, that message: “our dreams all must die,” on Valentine’s Day, so she would not understand? Why had he stopped loving her, and fallen in love with Bambi Green?