Jacqueline Susann's Shadow of the Dolls (22 page)

“I’ll, I’ll make a call. I’ll try.”

“Good girl,” Neely said. “Have a cookie.”

“I’m not hungry.”

“Have a cookie anyway.”

Liza took a tiny bite.

“Delicious, aren’t they? By the way, I love your jacket. Is it new?”

Liza nodded.

“You look good in blue. You shouldn’t wear so much gray. It washes you out. Blue is much better. Men like to see a little color on a woman.” She looked at Liza’s pale, ringless hands. “You use sunscreen? What SPF?”

“Ten.”

“You should get at least fifteen. And on your hands? The hands are just as important as the face. Don’t forget to put sunscreen on your hands. I wish I had been more careful in my twenties. You know what they say about the sun. Most of the damage is already done by the time you graduate from high school. Twenty-eight. You’ll notice it first around the eyes. That’s where it starts. You want to call your friend from here? You can use the phone in the kitchen.”

F
or her lunch with Perry Hayes, Neely wore a vintage flowered rayon dress that fell loosely around her waist and no jewelry except for her wedding band and a pair of pearl stud earrings. He talked about his ranch in Texas; she talked about her grandparents’ farm in Maryland, what it was like to walk to the outhouse in the middle of the winter, how she had milked cows every day before breakfast.

“You know I want this part,” she said.

“It’s not up to me,” he said.

She knew he was lying. The next afternoon they sat with the director, the scripts open on their laps. Neely had listened to a dialogue
tape on the plane flight out, practicing a Vermont accent, dropping her R’s and swallowing her T’s.

“We’ll call you in a few weeks,” the director said.

After the audition, she went back to her hotel and telephoned Lyon.

“It sounds like it went terrifically well,” he said.

“I’d take this role for nothing,” Neely said. “Listen, I think I’m going to stay back here a few days. I’m not feeling so hot, I don’t want to get back on a plane right away.”

“Darling, shall I come out and fetch you?”

“No, that’s okay, it’s nothing serious. I just don’t want to fly right now.”

In the late afternoon it began to snow. The streets were icy, and all the flights to California were canceled.
A wasted lie
, Neely thought, watching the storm from her window. She fell asleep early, waking at dawn to the sound of shovels scraping against the sidewalk. Her appointment wasn’t for another five hours. She tried to read, but she couldn’t concentrate. She turned on the television and flipped around. At nine she telephoned the doctor’s office.

“Neither rain nor snow,” the receptionist said. “Bundle up, the wind is fierce.”

She paid for the abortion with cash. Afterward there was cramping, and pills that made her feel as though she were floating on a cloud. She had rented a suite in a little hotel in the East Eighties that specialized in guests recovering from plastic surgery. There was a big bedroom for Neely and a smaller bedroom for the nurse. A private elevator at the end of the hall took special guests down, one at a time, to a side entrance where they could come and go without having to walk through the main lobby.

She took an extra pill before she called Lyon. “Sometimes a miscarriage means there was something wrong with the baby,” she said. She talked him out of flying to New York, the airports were
still a mess, and promised him she would hire a nurse to accompany her on the flight back to Los Angeles.

He met her flight two days later. She stayed in bed until there was just one pill left. On the sixth day, she booked five hours at a day spa: facial, manicure, pedicure, haircut. She had already lost five pounds. She put on a tight black dress and took Lyon to a small Italian restaurant that served veal eight different ways.

“We can try again,” she said. “If you want.”

He shook his head. “All I want is you.” He was on his third glass of wine. She knew the signs.

They got into bed and turned on the television. Neely had taken her last pill just after brushing her teeth.

“The accountant did it,” Lyon guessed.

“No, it’s the sister,” Neely said. She kissed him on the ear, pulled at him with her teeth. “You be still,” she said. “I have plans for you.” She took him in her mouth, teased him to the brink, then stopped, then started again.

“Wait,” he said, grabbing her under the shoulders, pulling her back up. “Not like that, not tonight.”

“I can’t,” she said. “Not yet.”

“Sssh,” he said. “I’ll be careful.” His hand was between her legs. “Come on, come on.”

“Don’t,” she said.

He took her hair in his fist and twisted her head back. His mouth looked mean. “Everything your way,” he said. “Everything your way, all the time.”

“Ow,” she said, twisting her head away. “You’re hurting me. Stop it.”

“Tonight it’s going to be my way,” he said. “Turn over.”

He pulled her down to the edge of the bed and stood behind her. He had never taken her this way before. He started slowly; she had forgotten how much it hurt.

“Do you want some more,” he said. “Does Neely want some more.”

She knew she had no choice. “Yes,” she whispered. “I want some more.” It felt as if he would never stop.

He leaned over, grunting into her ear. “Do you want some more,” he said again.

“Yes, I want some more.”

His sweat fell onto her bare back. He covered her mouth with his hand, then one last shove, and he came.

“You okay?” he said later, after he had brought up two glasses of ice water, after she had washed her face and put on a fresh nightgown.

She nodded yes.

He kissed her on the forehead. “My wife,” he said.

They had been married for almost a month. Just as she realized it was the first time he had said it, he said it again.

“My wife.”

He was asleep in minutes. Neely watched the end of the show alone. Lyon had been right: the sister was innocent, the accountant was the murderer. In the morning he would ask her how it had turned out, and in the morning she would lie.

1993.

N
eely didn’t get the part. It went to a twenty-four-year-old actress named Casey Alexander who had done a little television work and not much else. She was married to someone even older than Perry Hayes, a real estate developer who had escaped the Nazis just before the war. The newspapers called Casey “a natural,” which was another way of saying she had no training whatsoever.

Lyon recognized Casey’s picture in
Entertainment Weekly:
She was the actress who looked so much like Jennifer North. He hid the magazine before Neely could see it, but soon more photographs appeared. Lyon knew a full-court publicity press when he saw one. Casey was getting a five-star buildup, including a full-page portrait in
Vanity Fair
.

“Casey Alexander, what kind of name is that?” Neely said to Lyon. “It sounds like someone who should be singing with the Muppets.” She sulked for several weeks, throwing temper tantrums
when the littlest things didn’t go her way. Lyon knew the only cure was either to get Neely back to work or to spend a great deal of money on her.

He made some calls, and Neely took a role in a Mafia film set in New York. She wasn’t in that many scenes, but the cast was pure A-list, and her agent assured her the part had “Best Supporting” written all over it. The Helen Lawson movie opened to spectacular reviews and stayed near the top of the box-office charts for much of the summer. Everyone was saying that a Best Actress nomination was a sure thing. On the last day of 1992, Neely and Lyon closed on a beach house in Malibu.

“Happy anniversary,” Neely said, pushing the mortgage papers his way. They had been married exactly one year and two days.

“Happy anniversary,” said Lyon. The loan was enormous. He had not wanted to take on such a large debt, but Neely was insistent. Wasn’t the house worth far more than five million? Weren’t they both making insane amounts of money? And wouldn’t weekends in the Colony be good for their careers? Everyone knew that some of the best deals started right on the beach.

They drove out to catch the sunset, a cooler of white wine and sandwiches on the backseat.

“Spectacular,” Lyon said. “Worth every penny. Now let’s just hope the damn thing doesn’t slide into the ocean.”

“Oh, pooh,” said Neely. She lifted her glass. “To 1993!”

A
nne spent New Year’s Eve weekend at Bill’s house in Connecticut. They went to a party at the country club and then to a brunch given by a couple who lived one town over. The talk was all about dogs and horses and a fishing trip the men had taken the previous summer.

After coffee, the women decided to go for a walk.

“You won’t be warm enough,” the hostess told Anne. “I’ll lend you a sweater.”

The women walked through the woods, two by two. Up ahead were Cynthia, their hostess, and Mary, who was married to Cynthia’s cousin Jim. Anne walked behind with Diana, whose husband was a partner at Bill’s firm.

“Do you like living in the city?” Diana asked. “I could never. It’s too noisy. I don’t know how you manage to sleep at night.”

“You get used to it,” Anne said. They chatted about movies (Diana thought they were too violent) and music (Diana’s son listened to rap, but it just sounded like noise to her) and the new president (Diana had gone to college with his wife, remembered her as being pushy and not very attractive).

“I guess all this must seem very boring and provincial compared to life in Manhattan.”

“I was just thinking the opposite,” Anne said, “how lovely it all is. You know, I grew up in Lawrenceville, it wasn’t that different.”

“
Those
Welleses!” Diana cried, clapping her mittened hands. “Of course! I had no idea. I thought maybe it was, you know, a sort of stage name.” She gave Anne a wide smile.

Anne recognized the look:
You’re one of us
, it said.

“So, I suppose it’s getting serious,” Diana said as they turned for home. “Will we be hearing wedding bells any time soon?”

“Who knows. We haven’t really talked about it.”

“How long has it been—a year?”

“A little more, actually.” But in some ways it seemed to Anne like less. They had slept together only a dozen or so times—on a summer weekend to Maine, a few times at her apartment when Jenn was staying over with friends, a few times at Bill’s house—and Bill didn’t seem to be in any rush for more. It had taken her awhile to realize that he was waiting for her, waiting for her to decide what she wanted. She thought there might be other women in his life,
perhaps someone at his office in New York or a divorcée up here in Connecticut. Women who weren’t marriage material, women who could take care of his needs with no strings attached. But she was too shy to ask. She knew thinking about it should make her feel jealous, but she didn’t really care. It was as if some part of her had been boxed up and put away, like a pair of outgrown shoes.

“Well, don’t wait too long,” Diana said. “Bill is a catch. And at our age they’re few and far between, right?”

They were back at the house. Anne stomped the snow off her boots.

“How was the girl talk?” Cynthia’s husband asked.

“Anne is from Lawrenceville,” Diana announced. “I had no idea.”

“
Those
Welleses?” her husband asked. He turned to Bill. “You didn’t tell us.”

“Didn’t I?” Bill said. He looked at the three men and shrugged. “I just assumed.”

The men turned to Anne with expert eyes. They knew how to size things up: a hunting dog by the slant of its head, a racehorse by the curve of its back, a man by how he behaved on the tennis court. Anne knew her minor television celebrity carried no weight with them, the kind of talent she possessed meant as much to them as the ability to do a handstand or speak fluent Italian; it was something you learned, as opposed to something you were born with.

“Bill, you devil,” one of them said.

Bill winked at Anne. He had done it on purpose. She realized they were all standing in a circle, with Anne in the middle. Of course they would get married. Of course she would move up here, they would redecorate Bill’s house (starting with the master bedroom), and soon these women would be her best friends. They would play tennis together on the weekends, she would learn bridge again. It was the most natural thing in the world.

That night Bill proposed. They were sitting in front of the fire, drinking a fine old brandy.

He got down on one knee. In a dark blue velvet box was his grandmother’s ring: an enormous star sapphire buttressed by six diamond baguettes.

“Say you will,” he said.

“I don’t know what to say. I want to be married, I want to be married to you. But I don’t feel ready.” She felt foolish saying it, like a schoolgirl, instead of what she was: a few months shy of forty.

“Just try it on, then,” he said, slipping the ring on her finger. The platinum band was slightly loose. He sat down, putting his arm around her.

“It’s beautiful. I just … I just don’t feel completely sure.”

“I can be sure for both of us,” Bill said. “You know, I’ve been sure from the beginning. I knew right away.”

“I mean … what I mean is,” she began, “I’m sure of you. That isn’t it. It’s
me
I’m not sure of.”

He refilled her glass. “Maybe what you’re waiting for, a sign, whatever it is, maybe it’s never going to happen. You know, it isn’t the same, at our age. We know too much.”

“I don’t understand.”

“We know how much our mistakes cost. How much we can be hurt. Anne, I promise you, I will never do anything to hurt you. Ever. I love you, and I want to take care of you. Of you and Jenn. Forever.”

She took off the ring. “I can’t. Not yet.”

“When, then.”

“I don’t know. I know I can’t ask you to wait. I just wish, I just … I’m not sure how to say this.”

“Just say it. I won’t break.”

She shook her head.

“The first time you got married,” Bill said, “were you sure then?”

“That was different.”

“But you were sure, weren’t you.”