Shadow of the Dolls

by Jacqueline Susann

  There was only one gift here that celebrated something they had done together: the strand of pearls Lyon had given her when she brought Jenn home from the hospital. Anne fastened the pearls behind her neck.

  Much of the rest of it would be sold. She went to the window and looked out across Central Park. The sky was beginning to lighten to a misty gray.

  She tried to imagine everything ahead of them. Would they start over? They could find a way to build it all back, however long it took. Five years, ten years, fifteen years. She would be nearly fifty years old.

  And what would happen to Jenn? The whispers would follow her everywhere. They lived on Fifth Avenue until.… Her father used to, but then.… Anne had seen what happened to the daughters of scandal. She pictured Jenn at eighteen, going off to college, and someone lifting an eyebrow from across a campus lawn. Yes, those Burkes. You don’t remember? Let me tell you.

  Or would they start over and do something different? They could move to a little cottage in the English countryside. Lyon would write books and Anne would garden and Jenn would have a great big sheepdog to play with.

  Eventually he would leave her. She had felt it for years. At the dinner table, at the beach. At the doctor’s office, as she jogged around the reservoir. Every time she went alone to a parent-teacher conference at Jenn’s school, every time she comforted another friend going through a tough divorce. She was no different from all the other women she knew. Eventually it would be her turn.

  She was just this, only this: the first Mrs. Lyon Burke. Stella would take her out (for lunch, not dinner), and Anne would tell amusing stories about going on bad first dates. She would spend a weekend in Woodstock, she would start taking yoga classes. It wasn’t a question of if. It was just a matter of when. Now or later? Thirty-four or fifty?

  She closed the curtains and sat on the bed. I’ll be Anne Welles again, she thought. And then: I’m still Anne Welles. I can still be Anne Welles. It isn’t too late. She might not have the energy to do it for herself. But she thought of her daughter and felt herself grow strong and awake.

  Behind the boxes under the bed were the two big suitcases they used for trips to Europe. She called the garage to have them bring the car around. It took her less than twenty minutes to pack. The doorman was too polite to ask questions.

  Buckled into the backseat with her favorite pillow and stuffed elephant, Jenn slept all the way to Southampton. Anne sang along with the radio, an oldies station that was playing songs from her first years in New York.

  I will survive! The gas station attendant didn’t even blink at the sight of a woman in pajamas and a full-length mink coat. The roads were empty, and they made every light. The sun was rising over the ocean.

  Anne tucked Jenn into bed and turned on the heat. No telephone messages, no surprise. What was there to say? She hadn’t left a note. It was possible Lyon hadn’t even come home yet.

  She got under the covers, pulling the mink across her shoulders for extra warmth, and at long last fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.

  1988.

  Anne sat in the waiting room of the TBK Agency, examining her manicure. Not bad, considering that she had done it herself. She hadn’t had a professional manicure since she’d left Lyon three months ago—it was a luxury no longer within her budget. Her cuticles needed trimming, and there were a few little bumps on her right pinkie, but it wasn’t the kind of thing a man would notice.

  She had been waiting for fifteen minutes. She knew what that meant, to be the kind of client who was kept waiting in an outer office. But what choice did she have? She hadn’t worked in years. She was starting all over again, back at the bottom. After one expensive lunch at the Russian Tea Room back in January, the head of TBK had farmed her out to a younger agent who had been in the business for less than five years.

  “Trip Gregory can take better care of you than I can,” she was told. “He doesn’t travel so much, so he’ll have lots of time for you. He’s young and hungry, which is what you need. And he has great contacts in advertising—you’ll see. He’ll get you a commercial in no time.”

  And now it was early April, and Trip Gregory was keeping her waiting. Well, what did she expect. She had gone on more than a dozen auditions, and so far nothing had panned out. The shampoo company had decided they wanted someone younger. The pain-reliever company chose someone older. The pet-food people thought she was a little too glamorous, and the perfume people found her not quite glamorous enough.

  At last the receptionist waved her into Trip’s office.

  “Sorry to keep you waiting,” he said. “But I have some great news.” A chain of luxury hotels was looking for a spokesperson to appear in all their television and print ads. Auditions were scheduled for June, and shooting would begin in September.

  “You would be perfect,” Trip said. The intercom buzzed. He held up two fingers and picked up the phone.

  Anne knew what that meant, too: being the kind of client you don’t hold calls for. He was talking to another client—from his tone of voice, Anne guessed it was an attractive woman—and after a couple of minutes she tuned him out. She looked at her watch, thinking of her train schedule, trying to guess when their appointment would be over. If she was lucky, she’d have time to walk to Penn Station and would get to save five dollars in cabfare.

  It was unbelievable, how tight the money was now. She had made a budget when she left Lyon, figured out how they had just enough to squeak by, but there were always expenses she hadn’t counted on. When she was rich, she had never paid attention to how much the little things cost. Now it was all she thought about. When she woke up in the morning, she tried to figure out if she had enough cash to get through the day. When the telephone rang, she hesitated before picking it up, wondering if it were a credit-card company calling about a late payment.

  It was as if she were divorcing Lyon only to marry this other person, this constant presence, this financial anxiety that now colored everything she did.

  Trip hung up and folded his hands. “Like I said, someone like you would be perfect.”

  “Someone like me? Or me?” Anne asked.

  “You know what I mean. They want to target the business executive with a big-time expense account, the kind of guy who is on his way to the top but not quite there yet. They’re looking for someone with a lot of class, but not too sexy. Class, because the guy has to feel like he’s staying at the best place in town, the kind of hotel that says he’s at the top of his game. And not too sexy, because he’s sitting at home watching this commercial with his wife, and if he’s spending a lot of time out of town, she’s probably wondering about whether there’s any hanky-panky on the road.”

  Anne smiled. “Attractive, but not threatening.”

  “Exactly,” Trip said.

  She laughed.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “I’m sorry. You wouldn’t have any way of knowing this, but that’s almost word for word what they told me when they hired me to be the Gillian Girl. Anyway, it sounds wonderful.”

  “There’d be quite a bit of travel in September and October. Sure you can handle it?”

  Jenn would just be starting at a new school. Anne didn’t even have a baby-sitter out in Southampton, let alone someone who could be trusted to stay overnight with Jenn. “I’ll think of something. September is a long way off.”

  “Okay, then,” Trip said. “I’ll get something scheduled.” He stood up, her cue that their appointment was over. “You look great, by the way. Let’s talk next week.”

  “But … what about between now and then? I mean, September is months away. There must be some other work I can do in the meantime.”

  Trip sighed and sat back down. “It’s dead right now. There’s nothing out there. It’s practically summer, and you know how it is in the summer. You’ll probably see more advertising people out there in the Hamptons than here in Manhattan. So relax for a few months.”

  Anne leaned forward. “I can’t relax. Trip, it�
��s been months, and I haven’t seen a single check.”

  “Be patient.”

  “I’ve got bills to pay.”

  “That’s what alimony is for.”

  “I won’t get alimony.”

  “Are you kidding me? What kind of divorce lawyer do you have?”

  “A very good one, believe me. It’s a long story.” Somehow her lawyer was managing to get her out of her marriage without any debt and with a custody arrangement that would limit Jenn’s visits with Lyon to four weeks a year.

  “I just assumed Lyon was footing the bills.”

  “There’s child support, but it won’t cover my expenses.” She didn’t want to tell him that she had taken the train in from Long Island—her car couldn’t be trusted for long trips, it needed transmission work that she couldn’t afford. “Do I have to spell it out for you? I’m broke.”

  Trip rolled his eyes. “Love that word, broke. No one is poor anymore, just broke. Oh, honey, don’t get teary on me. Please, anything but that.” He handed her a tissue. “Well, if it makes you feel any better, you aren’t alone.”

  “Really.”

  “You’d be surprised. With the crash last October, a lot of people have it hard. Why do you think some of these jobs are so tough to get? People are taking work they would have raised their noses at just a year ago. You know who took that pet-food job?” He mock whispered the name of an actress who had starred on a prime-time soap opera in the late seventies. “So that’s the competition that’s out there now. If it makes you feel any better.”

  Anne smiled. “Well, it does make me feel better, but it doesn’t change the fact that I’m totally broke.”

  Trip shook his head. “A woman walks into my office wearing three thousand dollars on her ears and tells me she’s broke.”

  Anne fingered the small round diamonds that Lyon had given her on their fifth wedding anniversary. “These aren’t worth three thousand dollars.”

  “My family is in the jewelry business. I know what I’m looking at.”

  “Well, I can’t exactly sell them.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because … I don’t know, I just can’t.”

  “Sentimental value?”

  “Hardly.”

  “Have you ever heard the expression ‘estate jewelry’?”

  “Of course.”

  “And what do you think it means?”

  “When someone dies, it’s the jewelry that’s left as part of their estate.”

  “And why do you think it ends up for sale?”

  “Lots of reasons,” Anne said. “Maybe to pay estate taxes. Or maybe it’s out of fashion. Or maybe the jewelry has been left to a charitable organization, and they get to sell it and use the proceeds.”

  “Let me tell you, there’s no such thing as estate jewelry. Just ask your neighbors on Fifth Avenue.”

  “Ex-neighbors.”

  “It’s divorce jewelry. It’s Chapter Eleven jewelry. It’s my-husband-is-a-compulsive-gambler-and-he-just-spent-the-month-at-Saratoga jewelry. Women like you sell their jewelry all the time. We just call it estate jewelry so the customer doesn’t have to think about someone else’s bad luck when he’s writing a check equal to two months’ salary. If you want to hold on to your ice because it reminds you of some wonderful evening when you were Mrs. Lyon Burke and the world was your oyster, fair enough, but please don’t complain to me that you’re broke.”

  “Now you’re being cruel.”

  Trip leaned back and crossed his hands behind his head. “I’m just being realistic. You want it both ways, Anne.”

  “What does that mean.”

  “You want to start all over again—let’s call it what it is, we’ve talked about it before, the whole Gillian Girl thing was, like, five centuries ago—you want to start all over and make a career for yourself. And at the same time, you want to hold on to this ‘I’m a lady and we came over on the Mayflower’ bit. Well, you can’t do both.”

  “Some choice.”

  “At least you have a choice. You think you’re the first thirty-something divorcée to walk through the door looking for work? We see them all the time. For every hundred that come see us, we agree to represent maybe one or two.”

  “I’m honored.”

  “You should be.”

  “So why did I make the grade?”

  “You know, when they first passed you on to me, they basically told me it was a favor. Professional courtesy to Lyon and all that. We figured you’d go on two or three auditions and call it quits. Find a rich boyfriend, start the hunt for a second husband, maybe get a job at a gallery or a real estate company like most of the Upper East Side types do. But then … well, I’m not sure how to say it. You surprised me.”

  “Really.”

  He laughed. “You aren’t like the rest of them. Underneath it all, you’ve got guts.”

  She laughed with him. “Guts and about two hundred dollars in my checking account.”

  He wrote a name and a West 47th Street address on the back of his business card. “Here. He’s my cousin, he won’t rip you off. Those earrings will take care of you all summer.”

  It was turning out to be a lucky day. First there was the news of a good audition and the check from the jewelers’. Then she made her train with five minutes to spare. And best of all, when she got back to Southampton, her car started.

  Anne stopped at the supermarket to pick up a few things for a celebration dinner with Jenn. After weeks and weeks of living on a shoestring budget, she splurged on a pint of name-brand ice cream and some colored felt-tip markers for Jenn.

  “Special occasion?” asked the cashier at the checkout line. Gretchen was a local girl who always had a joke or story ready for Jenn. Even when the line for Gretchen’s register was the longest one at the market, Jenn always insisted they wait to check out with Gretchen.

  “I had some good news today,” Anne replied. “My goodness, what happened to you?”

  Gretchen had a black eye, and her left arm was in a sling. “Oh, it looks way worse than it is. I fell down the stairs night before last, tripped over a pair of shoes. My own fault for leaving them there. I am such a slob!”

  “Your arm—is it broken?”

  “Yeah, but it isn’t serious.” Gretchen smiled. “I’m just a big klutz.”

  At the end of the counter, another girl was bagging Anne’s groceries and shaking her head. “Yeah, and I can think of someone who is an even bigger klutz.”

  “Shut up, you,” Gretchen said. She turned to Anne with a wide smile. “Coupons?”

  Anne unsnapped her Kelly bag and laid out a half-dozen coupons. “There you go. And who do I see about posting something on the bulletin board?” she asked. She took out a pale pink 3-by-5 index card. “Does the manager approve them first?”

  “You’re looking for an au pair?” Gretchen asked.

  “Not exactly,” Anne said. An au pair was exactly what she needed, but it was hardly within her budget. “I’m looking for someone who would want to take one of the extra bedrooms in exchange for a very low rent and a couple of nights of baby-sitting a week.”

  Gretchen looked at the card. “Wow, this is low,” she said.

  “It’s a very small room,” said Anne.

  Gretchen slipped the card into her apron pocket. “I’ll give it to him when my shift is over,” she said.

  Out in the parking lot, the bagger helped load Anne’s groceries into the backseat. Anne fished in her bag for a loose single.

  “Nice pocketbook,” the girl said.

  “I’ve had it for ages,” Anne said.

  “You don’t get it, do you. About Gretchen.”

  “Get what?”

  “The broken arm. The black eye.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Like she fell down the stairs! What a lame excuse. I mean, how many times a year can a girl fall down the same stairs? It’s her husband who did it to her.”

  “Gretchen is married? She can’t be more
than nineteen!”

  “She’s married, and he’s a real asshole. He has two hobbies, drinking beer and beating up on Gretchen.”

  “Why doesn’t she leave him?”

  “Don’t ask me, I never figured out why she got married in the first place.”

  Anne turned the ignition, but the car refused to start. She waited a few minutes and tried again, but still the engine wouldn’t turn over. There was a knock on the window.

  “Need a lift?” Gretchen asked.

  Anne shook her head and rolled down the window. “It’ll start, eventually.”

  Gretchen pulled the card out of her pocket. “Listen, are you serious about this? Because I was sort of thinking about moving, and this sounds perfect.”

  “Why don’t you come over tomorrow and look at the room?”

  “I’m sure the room is fine,” Getchen said. “I’m kind of in a rush.”

  Anne recognized the look in Gretchen’s eyes: the kind of bravery that wouldn’t last long. “You can move in tomorrow if you like.”

  “I don’t have much stuff,” Gretchen said. They made the arrangements quickly, each woman slightly nervous that, given a few more minutes, the other would change her mind.

  “And Saturday night,” Anne said, “some friends invited me to dinner in East Hampton and I was planning on bringing Jenn along, but it’s going to be awfully boring for her. If you’re free from seven to around eleven, that would be wonderful.”

  “I’m free,” Gretchen said. “Free as the wind.”

  “Perfect,” said Anne.

  Dinner on Saturday was with a gay couple who had moved to the Hamptons in the early sixties. Jerry was an architect, and Curtis ran a party-planning and catering company. Their favorite activity was making fun of all the new people who were moving out to the Hamptons—the same people, Lyon used to point out, who were making them unbelievably rich.

  “Fifty thousand dollars’ worth of landscaping!” Jerry said, finishing a story about a house he had designed for a banker and his wife. “The most gorgeous house I’ve done in years, all simple lines and glass, and then they go junk it up with this dreary English shrubbery. The most high-maintenance plantings you can imagine. They’ll need two full-time gardeners.”