Searching for Grace Kelly (28 page)

Dolly slipped her hand into Laura's, and like proud parents they watched from the back as Vivian walked behind the silver microphone amid polite applause.
I love him for doing this
, Laura thought.

Or maybe I just love him.

As Vivian sang her voice became more tremulous, clear and beautiful in its convincing desperation and longing.

 

“There's a somebody I'm longing to see

I hope that he turns out to be . . .”

 

“Someone to watch over me. How about it?” a voice whispered in Laura's ear; Box, reaching an arm around her waist. Delicately drinking her punch, Dolly tried not to sneak peeks and was thoroughly unsuccessful.

“How about what?” Laura asked.

“Someone to watch over you.”

“Are you volunteering for the job?”

“Are you accepting applications?”

They laughed, and he took her hand. “C'mon. Let's get some air.”

“The orchestra is right by the terrace door.”

“I am a man of many methods. C'mon.”

Laura was about to protest—she didn't want Vivian to watch her dashing out in the middle of her set—but Dolly's wild shooing motions and urgent mouthing of
Go, go!
finally made her relent.

They slipped out of the front door and hustled down the hall, walking past the elevators to the stairwell. A minute later they were on the roof, which to Laura's surprise had been landscaped with huge stone urns and patio chairs and tables, and had clearly been used for summer entertaining. Laura turned to see New York laid out before her like a magic carpet, Central Park on the right, the twinkling lights of the Plaza to the left. She gathered her wrap around her. “It's beautiful up here.”

“So are you,” he said, folding her into his arms and kissing her.

“You're always surprising me,” she said.

“The roof can be an oasis. It can take you away. Out of yourself.”

“It's like
To Catch a Thief
. Only we're in New York instead of Monte Carlo.” They'd seen it last month. She nuzzled her head into his chest.

“You're still chasing Grace Kelly.”

“I'm lucky this isn't seven years ago. Or you'd be standing up here with her and not me.”

“I could stand here with you forever, Laura.”

She looked at him, her eyes shining. The pale moonlight washed over the roof, gave it the feeling of standing inside a painting. “I can't imagine anyone ever saying anything lovelier to me.”

“I'd like to try,” he whispered. He stepped back and in one swift motion dropped to his knee, gazing up at her. “I love you, Laura Dixon. And I don't want to ever have to imagine my life without you. Will you marry me?”

Vivian stepped off the number 5 train, avoiding eye contact with anyone, hidden beneath her head scarf and sunglasses. The calendar said late October but the weather said deep winter, and there was a kind of camaraderie wrought by the unseasonable cold that seemed to spread among the passengers as they scrambled up the steps onto the street, bundling against the headwinds as they dispersed.

Vivian didn't feel it. Not the cold, not the wind, not anything. What she needed was focus. Fretting about the weather was a distraction she could ill afford. At least the day was finally here. She would take care of this, bolt-cut this final shackle to Nicky, and move on. She had enough money to get out of New York—maybe not that far, but at least far enough where he wouldn't find her. She would book bus fare to somewhere in the Midwest—somewhere nondescript, anonymous—and would get a room, get a job, hide. She'd start over. Wasn't that her expertise by now, reinvention? Kansas City—that sounded suitably awful. Or perhaps Wichita. At least that had a certain scratchiness to it, like an old saloon town. She would spend a year keeping her head down and her savings up, until she had enough to get all the way to L.A. Anything could happen to you, or for you, in Hollywood.

Vivian separated from the other riders, looking at the directions she'd managed to scribble from the street map. A few more blocks straight ahead, then a left, then a quick right. She picked up the pace. She was early, but in a situation like this it never hurt to be too early.

I need a cigarette.

She leaned against the pole of a traffic light, her hands shaky as she flicked the lighter to life and inhaled a long, slow drag. A woman pushing a stroller was approaching. She looked tired. Her hair was an ashy blond, and she wore an open heavy wool coat thrown over a summer blouse and cigarette pants. She was pushing the stroller with her left hand and holding the hand of a little girl of about four in her right, yanking the child like a rag doll every time she dared to dawdle.

The girl suddenly ripped free of her mother and dashed to retrieve a perfect crisp leaf under a nearby oak tree. “Look, Mommy! Can we put this in my book?”

“Deborah Elaine Marks! You come back over here right now!”

Undaunted, the girl skipped over and held up the leaf to show her mother, as if she were presenting a priceless piece of art.

The mother slapped the leaf out of her hand and grabbed her wrist. The girl dissolved into tears of protest.

“Oh, I'll give you something to cry about, missy,” the mother barked. Vivian stood, her mind going back to a moment at Franklin and Topsy Barnes's party. Later in the evening a gentleman had approached her, introduced himself. He was chairing a gala at his country club out in Westchester, he said. Might she be available to sing? In May.

Vivian stamped out the cigarette butt and pulled her coat around her, began walking again.

At first she thought she had the wrong place. Then she saw the sign, barely discernible from the sidewalk, with its tiny letters:
PRIVATE OFFICE
. For the first time today, she wished she hadn't come alone. She'd almost told Laura the truth, asked her to come—what if something went wrong? But it was better this way. Better not to involve anyone else. This was her mess.

She took a deep breath and buzzed the intercom. It crackled to life. “Hallo. I have an appointment to see Mrs. Hutchins.”

The door opened, and she gasped.

“Hello, Ruby,” Nicola Accardi said, his dark eyes slicing into her. “Come in. I've been expecting you.”

 

The question popped out at Laura on every corner, in every stoplight, in the face of every passerby she saw as she stared out of the window of the taxicab:

What are you going to do?

Dolly sat on the other side, chattering on about one of the many dramas playing inside the Barbizon. Laura didn't hear a word. She kept staring out the window, through the blur of folks hurrying along Fifth Avenue, for an answer. Box's proposal had been romantic and impulsive, but also sudden. As a young girl, she had often daydreamed of her marriage proposal, of sitting in a tree swing somewhere in a park after a lovely picnic lunch and having her great love fall to his knee, ring box in hand, and pledge his undying troth. As the years passed, the proposal changed—sometimes it was on the beach, sometimes in the corner booth of a swanky restaurant—but there was always one constant: She knew it was coming.

Even now, she couldn't remember specifically how she had responded after he'd asked. He'd been hurt, she could tell, that she hadn't instantly fallen into his arms, ready to go back to the party and make the grand announcement. Eventually she'd managed to explain that she was simply out of breath; that she needed time to really think about it; that, yes, she cared deeply for him; yes, of course she had thought about marrying him; and yes, she thought he was the moon and a thousand stars. But she was practical. He hadn't even met her parents, and they had a lot to discuss before they could be sure it was the right thing to do: How soon would he want to start a family? Would she go back to Smith? Would she have to quit
Mademoiselle
? And this way he, too, could have the time to be absolutely sure. And, she'd said with a smile, at least go shopping for a ring.

Two weeks later, she was as confused as ever.

You do love him
, she thought.
You know you do
.

What was holding her back? He was the prince of the city. So why couldn't she silence this little voice, deep inside, asking, “Are you sure?”

“You're not listening to a word I've said!” Dolly said in exasperation, smacking her arm. “Where are you, anyway? It's like you're in outer space these days!”

“Sorry. I'm a bit preoccupied.” She'd told no one. She most certainly was not going to tell Marmy until she absolutely had to. She didn't need any more clutter inside her head. But what was this constant ruminating getting her? She had to tell someone.

“Actually,” she confided, “I've been keeping a secret.”

If there was anything that got Dolly more excited than having a secret, it was hearing one. Her eyes lit up like firecrackers. “What?”

Laura said it casually, the way you might tell someone you were going shopping tomorrow. “Box asked me to marry him.”

It went the way Laura expected: Dolly's jaw dropping, eyes ballooning, mouth inhaling, hands flying to her face, then grabbing onto Laura's forearm like a wrench with a lug nut. “Far-out! I am so
thrilled
for you!!” She almost leapt across the back of the cab, crushing Laura in a bear hug. The cabbie gave a glance in the rearview.

Then: How did he propose? When? When were they getting married? In New York or out on the Cape? Was her mother ecstatic? Where would they live? Had they talked about children? When was the
Times
announcement going to be published? Did Vivian know? Would it be in
Town & Country
?

Laura knew she'd just made a huge mistake.

“Honey, honey,” she said quietly, interrupting Dolly's game of
Twenty Questions
. “I haven't given Box an answer yet.”

Dolly didn't seem to know what to do with this information. Evidently it had never occurred to her that someone—at least anyone with her mental faculties intact—might actually debate a marriage proposal from Box Barnes.

“It's just a lot to think about,” Laura said, relaying how Box had caught her off-guard on the roof the night of the party, and how she had concerns about their future, her work, all of it. “When I get married I want to make sure I do it once, and that I do it with the man I know will make me happy, and I will make happy, for the rest of my life. Is that so unreasonable? It's the biggest decision I am ever going to make. I want to feel completely sure about it.”

Dolly seemed to be trying to actually consider this, though it still appeared to completely baffle her. “How did he take your . . . delay?”

“He understands. I'm doing this as much for him as I am for me.”

“Do you love him?”

“Yes.”

“Then that's all that matters, you silly goose!”

There was something to be envied in that sort of simplicity of conviction. Laura wanted to believe that love was all that mattered. But her own parents' marriage—a slow, steady descent into a chilly garden-party partnership—told her otherwise. She leaned forward in the back seat. “It's here on the right, driver,” she said, as the cab slowly pulled to a stop.

 

Dolly had asked to come to Christopher Welsh's reading for one reason, Laura knew—she was as curious as Laura was to meet an actual author. Dolly admitted she would have much preferred meeting Grace Metalious, the housewife who had written the spicy novel about Peyton Place, but circumstances being what they were, she'd settle for the writer who had captured Laura's attention.

Laura had come for a slightly different reason. She admired Welsh's stories, yes, but more than that she loved how he threaded them together, into one interconnecting narrative that leapt off the page. Deep down she knew there was another reason she'd come. She'd wondered if Pete would be here.

The back of MacDougal Books & Letters had been arranged with a small podium and three small rows of folding chairs. There were about half a dozen people already here; Laura recognized two of them as beats from the San Remo. Connie was at the front, hurrying back and forth between the podium and a side table, where he'd set up a coffeepot and pitchers of cider, soda, and iced tea, along with a tray of sad-looking cookies. His rear left shirttail had come undone from his trousers, and his brow line showed nervous beads of perspiration.

“Why, hello!” he said warmly as Laura approached. He gave her a warm hug as Laura reintroduced Dolly.

Connie filled Laura in on the Village gossip and his own recent adventures, including his recent auction bid on a letter from Jane Appleton Pierce, wife of President Franklin. “Did you know that her eleven-year-old son was killed in a train accident
two months
before the inauguration? Horrible. She spent the entire four years of the administration in mourning. Draped the entire White House in black.”

“And people think Mamie has it tough,” Dolly said.

Laura chuckled. “Who thinks Mamie has it tough?”

Connie was about to issue a comment when he spied someone over her shoulder walking in. “Ah! Our guest of honor has arrived.”

Laura turned.

Pete.

It took only a few seconds for all of the pieces to tumble into perfect, interlocking place. The banter at the San Remo the day she'd first walked in during the summer, her putting his own book on the bar. The probing of her opinion of it that day in Atlantic City. His insistence that she was a writer if she believed she was a writer, his experiment of making her close her eyes and describe the scene on the Steel Pier . . . It all made perfect sense now—why she had been so torn, why she had started to fall for him. He'd understood her from a perspective no one else could.