The Stork Club (7 page)

The only thing neither of them had was that elusive commodity so idealized by the very industry in which they were thriving, romantic love. Though at some point each of them had tried for it. Ruthie fell hard for Sammy Karp, a black-haired blue-eyed wild-minded stand-up comic who wanted to be an actor. She met him one hot
summer L.A. night at the Improv, after his set, when she was standing at the bar with some other writers and Sammy came over to schmooze. When she congratulated him with a handshake for the good work he'd done, he kept holding on to her hand, looking meaningfully into her eyes. Then he said, "Ruth Zimmerman, I love your work. Let's do dinner."

They did dinner at La Famiglia, dinner at Adriano's, dinner at Musso's. Somehow it was understood that Ruthie was the one with money and Sammy was struggling, so she always picked up the tab. When
he
made it, she told herself, he would pay for the dinners. It was also what she told Shelly when he asked. In the week of her birthday she thanked Shelly but passed on his offer to throw a small party for her. Sammy, she explained, was taking her dancing at the Starlight Room at the top of the Beverly Hilton.

No man had ever taken her dancing. While a piano, bass, and drums played "Call Me Irresponsible," Ruthie and Sammy danced close with her arms around his neck and his arms around her waist the way she'd seen couples dance in high school when she'd stood by the punch bowl pretending not to be watching. She ached to have Sammy make love to her. And when he led her to the suite he'd reserved in her name she could barely wait until he unlocked the door to touch him, thanking heaven the champagne she'd just paid for was doing such a good job on her inhibitions.

She was hungry for him, starving for him, and the things they did in bed made her embarrassed the next morning. When she woke up alone in what she saw by the light of day and sobriety was a very grand suite, she walked naked around the room trying to reconstruct in her mind what she'd said and done. Probably she'd been a complete fool. But then she looked in the mirror and saw the Post-it he'd left on her naked breast that said
You're fabulous and I'll call you later
and felt gorgeous and sexy for the first time in her life.

That week Sammy called her at the office so often that she had to walk out of the casting sessions four different times to take his adoring phone calls. "How's it going, beautiful?" he would ask her, giving her the chance to babble on to him about the people who were reading for parts on the show. But it wasn't a coincidence that immediately after she told him that the part of the young leading man had been cast, his ardent interest in her seemed to end, because that was the night he didn't show up for their dinner date.

"Giving new meaning to the term 'stand-up comic,' " Ruthie told Shelly while she looked out the window one more time for Sammy's car, and tried to make light of the rejection.

Shelly had a wonderful romance with Les Winston, a beautiful, warm, gifted man in his fifties with white hair who always had a gorgeous tan. Les was a furniture designer whose teak outdoor furniture was sold all over the world. Piece by piece he'd rid Ruthie and Shelly's West Hollywood apartment of the tables, chairs, and sofa he called "early thrift shop," and replaced them. Ruthie loved Les's creativity and sense of humor, and their mutual admiration for Shelly sealed their friendship.

The two men talked a few times about moving in together, and probably would have, but one day Shelly got a paralyzing call from Les's brother saying Les had died suddenly of a cerebral hemorrhage. It took Shelly two long painful years to recover from the loss.

But the one who was the biggest heartbreaker of all was Davis. Lovely Davis Bergman. Ruthie met him one night at some show business party. One of those after-the-pilot celebrations at CBS studios on Radford. He was an entertainment lawyer. A partner in a well-known
firm, Porter, Beck, and Bergman. He was Jewish, separated from his wife, they were filing for divorce, they'd never had children, and in the divorce settlement,
he
got the big house in Santa Monica. The perfect man.

"What do you think?" a nervous Ruthie asked Shelly, who'd been standing in the corner at the party talking to Michael Elias, one of the producers of "Head of the Class," when she pulled him away.

"I think he's great. From here," Shelly said.

"Come meet him," Ruthie said. "He's funny. I can't believe he can be a lawyer and be funny too." She dragged Shelly by the hand to where Davis Bergman was standing and introduced them.

"Shelly Milton, Davis Bergman."

"I never trust a guy who has two last names," Davis said, shaking Shelly's hand. They all laughed. Ruthie felt flushed. Maybe it was because of the diet. The strict one she'd been on for six weeks, feeling cheated and deprived and miserable, but she'd lost seventeen pounds, and the healthy eating had made her skin look great too. So maybe this was God's way of rewarding her. Proving to her that good disciplined girls had the Davis Bergmans of the world beating a path to their doors, or at least talking to them at parties.

Davis told Ruthie and Shelly funny stories about being a Hollywood lawyer, and when the party began to break up he looked disappointed, so Shelly—oh, how Ruthie loved him for this—suggested they all go for coffee at the Hamburger Hamlet on Sunset, and Davis agreed. Ruthie, who had come to the party in Shelly's car, rode nervously to the restaurant in Davis's Porsche, looking at Davis's hand as it shifted gears. Wanting to put her own hand on it, but being too afraid.

"Comedy writers," Davis said in the restaurant, as if marveling at the good fortune that had brought these exotic people into his life. "I represent some screenwrit
ers, but they're all very serious." The three of them talked and laughed for hours.

Davis lived in Santa Monica, nearly all the way to the beach, and Ruthie didn't know if he would understand about her living with Shelly, so when they got out to the parking lot at the Hamlet she said, "Shelly can take me home," and Davis looked at her sweetly and said, "Great.'' As Shelly was about to pull his Mercedes out onto Sunset, Davis pulled his Porsche loudly up to their right, opened his window and gestured for Ruthie to open hers, then he shouted into Shelly's car above the din of his engine, "I've got tickets for a screening at the Directors' Guild tomorrow night. You want to come along?"

"Sure," Ruthie said, hoping to sound nonchalant.

"Pick you up?"

"Meet you," Ruthie said hastily.

"Eight o'clock," Davis said, and was gone.

"He's dating you up," Shelly said in a teasing voice as he stepped on the gas. "Filling your dance card."

"Shelleee," Ruthie squealed. "He is
so
adorable."

"Please! I already hate the son of a bitch," Shelly said. "You'll fall in love and get married and I'll lose a roommate, then he won't want you to work anymore so I'll lose a partner too."

He was teasing and she teased him back.

"Shel, you know I'll never leave you. To begin with, you'll come over constantly for dinner, and for every holiday. After a while Davis will probably get so used to you, you'll probably come on vacations with us. We'll be the Three Musketeers, I swear we will."

The next morning she sent Shelly in to work alone and she went shopping at Eleanor Keeshan. She found a new sweater and some black pants to make her look nearly slim, and a royal-blue-and-black silk shirt that also went with the pants, so she'd be ready with some
thing to wear on the next date, and while the saleslady called in her credit card number, Ruthie looked wistfully through racks of beautiful silk dresses and pants outfits, and at the Fernando Sanchez lingerie.

Tonight her social life was about to experience a personal best. She was actually seeing the same man two nights in a row. Okay, so last night Shelly was with them, but it was still sort of a date. Maybe it was finally her turn to have something real. With someone who would appreciate her. If that was true, and they were to start dating, she would come into stores like this one and try on clothes for hours. Looking at each item and asking herself, Would
he
like this? What event do he and I have coming up that I have to dress for? Oh yes, dinner with his clients, and the lawyers' wives' luncheon.

Davis, please, she thought, walking back to the counter to retrieve her package. When she passed the three-way mirror she caught sight of herself looking chunky despite the weight loss and vowed that for Davis she would starve off at least fifteen more pounds. When she arrived at the office and Shelly was out to lunch she sat down at her desk and did something she hadn't done in years. She made a list of possible bridesmaids.

After the film they went to the Old World on Sunset. Ruthie ordered the vegetable soup, and Davis had an omelet. And just the way he reached over and put his spoon in her cup to get himself a taste was so intimate, it made her feel as if she could probably open up to this man. Davis was what she'd heard the girls she'd lived with in the dorms at Pitt refer to as "husband material.''

While they were talking, an extraordinarily beautiful woman walked by their table. Ruthie noticed that although Davis saw the woman, he didn't offer a second glance or ogle her the way a few of the men at some of the tables did. It was a show of respect from Davis for
her feelings, and that made her feel even closer to him. By the time the dishes had been removed from the table and she was finishing her second cup of coffee, she had told him all about her life. Even about her two brothers dying when she was very little. She talked about her love for Shelly and explained why they lived like brother and sister.

Davis didn't make any judgments, make any gesture that could have been construed as a negative comment about what she was saying. He seemed to think everything she was telling him was okay. And Ruthie invited him to come for dinner one night, knowing she could convince Shelly to cook.

"Only if you'll let me reciprocate and make dinner for the two of you," Davis answered.

"Of course," Ruthie said, in a voice that she was afraid sounded too loud and too eager. This was the best result she could have imagined. Davis liked Shelly too.

When her mother invited her for Passover, hinting as only her mother could that it might be her father's last ("With that heart, he's liable to croak any minute. He has to stick a heart pill under his tongue just to watch the eleven o'clock news"), she accepted.

The few days she spent sleeping in her old room made her glad she'd agreed to come back. Her father conducted their own quiet little Seder service, and aside from the store-bought gefilte fish, Ethel Zimmerman cooked all the traditional foods Ruthie remembered eating when she was a child. During dinner, in a rare moment, her mother even reminisced about Martin and Jeffrey. "When they were little boys they used to say, 'Ma, when we grow up, we'll have a double wedding. It'll be the biggest party in the world, and you and Daddy will be the king and the queen of the wedding.
There'll be lots of cake and dancing with an orchestra just like at our bar mitzvahs.' "

"But," her father jumped in, "I told them the difference will be that I don't have to pay for it," and then he added, "I was kidding them, because for a wedding, the father of the bride always pays."

A silence fell over the table then as the three of them ate the matzoh ball soup. All of them were thinking the same thought. That in this family there had been no bride.

Davis. Wouldn't her parents love him, Ruthie thought. Okay, he was divorced, or soon to be divorced, but
that
they could forgive. Once they talked to him and he laid on the charm, her mother would melt, and her father would say, "A good head on his shoulders."

"I have a boyfriend," she said quietly. Her mother dropped the spoon into her soup dish.

"Besides that Sheldon?" she asked.

That Sheldon. After all these years she still referred to Shelly as "that Sheldon."

"So who?" her father asked.

"He's a lawyer. An entertainment lawyer. Jewish."

With every word she could see her mother sit up straighter. Maybe this was a bad idea. Premature. Davis hadn't even kissed her yet.

"Divorced," she said.

"Well," her mother said quickly. "That happens."

For a while there was no sound but the slurping of soup, until her mother had a thought she couldn't hold inside.

"Listen," she said, "Molly Sugarman's daughter, Phyllis, didn't have her first baby until she was forty years old, and the baby is perfect."

"Ethel, please," said her father, "first let's meet the guy and then we'll talk babies."

"Why not plan ahead? You think it's so easy to get a party room at Webster Hall? Sometimes you need to call six months in advance."

"Ruthie," her father said, turning to her seriously, "you'll give us notice? And you won't elope?"

"I promise, Daddy."

That night, after her parents were asleep, she lay in her old bed, remembering the other day when Davis drove her to the airport, and hugged her close, saying he would miss her. She had smiled about that for the entire flight. Tomorrow she'd be back in L.A. and things with him would probably start to get serious. God, she could hardly wait.

Just before she turned over to go to sleep she realized it was only eight o'clock in Los Angeles. She probably should call home and see how old Shel was doing without her. She picked up the receiver of the pink phone her parents had given her when she was sixteen and called her own number in Los Angeles.

"H'lo."

"Hi, it's me."

"Ruthie!" Shelly said, in a very loud voice. "Uh . . . hi there, Ruthie." There was noise in the background. "Let me turn down the music," he said, and then was gone from the phone for a while that was too long for just turning down music in their small apartment. "So, how's it going?" he asked her when he got back to the phone.

"Shel, it's so cute," she said, confiding in him. "My parents have really been wonderful this time. They even talked about my brothers tonight, and maybe it's because they haven't been bugging me at all, but I actually told them about Davis."