The Bette Davis Club (25 page)

When the dust settles, the entire expressway is at a standstill. Tully switches off the engine. The road is littered with crumpled automobiles and scattered car parts. The driver of the silver SUV, a very fat man, exits his vehicle, shaking his head. He lumbers toward Boone’s pickup.

But when the fat man gets there, the door of the pickup flies open, knocking him down, and Boone comes crashing out. Ignoring the man on the ground, Boone races at our car. He’s running like he’s on fire.

Tully and I are trapped by the stalled traffic. We sit in the MG and watch Boone hurtling toward us.

“Uh-oh,” I say.

Tully’s head whips round to me. “What are you doing? Go! Take your bag! Take the script! Run for your life! And, Margo”—he grasps my hand—“I enjoyed knowing you. You’re swell. I name you executrix of my estate.” He releases my hand.

I do what Tully says and grab my tote. But it’s too late. Boone reaches us. Shouting obscenities, he flings open the door on the driver’s side. He wrenches Tully—who’s clinging like a limpet to the steering wheel—from his seat. Boone throws Tully onto the front of the car and begins slamming him against the hood.

Sitting in my seat, watching this, I feel sick. “Stop it!” I cry. “You’re hurting him!” I dig in my bag and snatch up the script of
An Innocent Lamb
. “Here! You can have this! It’s what you want!”

Boone ceases assaulting Tully and turns to look. I hold out
An Innocent Lamb
to him. Boone drops Tully and lurches round to my side of the car. He draws closer, extending a large hand. He comes closer still. His fingertips touch the manuscript.

At that moment, the SUV driver appears behind Boone. He’s carrying a detached car door. I watch as this humongous man raises the door up in the air, then slams it down on Boone’s head.

Change of plans.

I don’t give Boone
An Innocent Lamb
. In the lane to our left, some people push their damaged BMW off the highway and onto the median strip. A gap—a way out—opens up next to our car. I shove
An Innocent Lamb
back in my bag and slide over to the driver’s seat.

I turn the ignition key and pull out the starter switch. The MG rumbles to life.

“Come on!” I shout to Tully, who’s rubbing his shoulder and looking dazed. He opens the passenger door and tumbles in.

I steer us left—off the highway and onto the rough, uneven median. Somehow Boone, blindsided and wobbling, is still standing. Mouth hanging open, he stares at us as we slowly bump along.

“I warned you,” I call back at him. “Talking on the cell phone while you’re driving is dangerous. They’ve done studies!”

In the rearview mirror, I see the fat man chuck the car door aside and throw himself at Boone. The two of them fall to the ground, fighting. Kelsey comes running up and looks on helplessly, pulling at her hair in frustration.

We cruise carefully down the median until we’ve passed every stalled and wrecked automobile. Then we get back on the expressway.

Tully gazes at my hand on the gear lever. “I thought you couldn’t drive,” he says, still rubbing his shoulder.

“Can,” I say. “Just not supposed to. Little problem with traffic violations.” I shift into high gear. “How do you feel?”

“Like crap. I haven’t been in a fight like that since high school. Always lost then too.”

“We got away, didn’t we?” I say. “That’s a sort of winning.”

I drive us back to our hotel in downtown Chicago and pull into a stall in the hotel garage. I turn off the engine, and remove the key from the ignition and hold it in my hand. Tully and I sit a moment in the car.

“It’s not over,” Tully says, and I don’t imagine he’s commenting on my parking job. No, he means Boone will make another appearance.

I’d been wondering if Georgia had made copies of
An Innocent Lamb
—photocopied it, perhaps, or scanned it into a computer. Clearly, she did not. Because if she had done that, if a facsimile or two existed, Boone and Kelsey would not have bothered coming after Tully and me in pursuit of the original. Which means I possess the one and only copy of
An Innocent Lamb
. Which means Boone will be back.

“Remember earlier today,” I say to Tully, “after we left Kelsey’s apartment? You voted we take a break. Well, I’m thinking something similar—only on a larger scale. How about we get our bags, check out of here, and drive home to New York?”

Tully gives a sharp laugh. “That’s a ways.”

“Not so far as we’ve already come.”

“You’re done trying to find Georgia?” he says.

“Not exactly,” I say. “But things have changed.” I tap the car key against the steering wheel. “And it’s because of
An Innocent Lamb
. A lot of people want it. Crafting that script with Orson Welles was the best work my father ever did, I’m sure. There’s a dealer in Manhattan—my friend Dottie knows her—who’s an expert on all things Hollywood. I’d like to show her
An Innocent Lamb
. Get her opinion on it, some sort of appraisal.”

“Margo, listen,” Tully says. He sounds serious. “We took this trip because we both wanted to find Georgia. Only we each had different reasons for doing that.”

I feel a pang in my chest, combined with a sort of pity for Tully. I know why he came after Georgia, he told me that first day. He’s in love with her.

“But we came up empty-handed,” Tully says. “When Georgia left me, I knew she was pissed off, but I thought we could patch things up. With what’s happened today, though, after what Kelsey said—”

“You can’t believe Kelsey!” I say. “You have to speak with Georgia yourself.”

Why am I bucking up Tully about his girlfriend? Why am I encouraging him to believe the two of them might still have a future together? Because I care about him, I suppose. I want him to be happy. I don’t want to see him hurt by Georgia any more than I wanted to see him pummeled by Boone.

“Let me ask you a question,” Tully says. “Do you think Georgia sent Boone after us? After that script you swiped?” He takes off his glasses and rubs his face. “Because, jeez, if she did that, it was a lousy thing to do. All this time I’ve been chasing Georgia, worrying about her. Well, maybe you’re right, Margo. Maybe it’s time to give it a rest. Maybe it’s even Georgia’s turn to look for me. Because now she knows the script is gone, she and her lunatic posse will come after it.”

“We can’t be certain what Georgia will do,” I say. “But it’s obvious that pursuing her has become a dangerous game. Which is another reason I’d like to be on home territory.”

“I hear you,” Tully says. “But it could be tricky getting there. Boone will get another car, you know. He’ll show up. Like I said, we’re not hard to find in this little red sportster.”

“If Boone comes after us,” I say, “he’ll look on the interstate. It would never occur to him to search anywhere else. All we have to do is take the old roads, the two-lane roads—like when we drove Route 66.”

“Maybe,” Tully says. He puts his glasses back on and gazes at the concrete wall of the garage. “Or we could just get ourselves out to O’Hare, grab the next flight to JFK.”

“You know I don’t fly,” I say. “And I won’t leave my father’s car.”

He sighs. “Right. Mustn’t abandon the ghost of Cary Grant. Okay. We get on the road, go home to New York. I want to make sure you get there safe.”

Early in the morning, after a good night’s sleep, Tully and I begin the two-day drive to New York. I leave Charlotte a voice mail, telling her that I have her possessions—though not her daughter—and that Tully and I are headed home to New York. Charlotte calls me incessantly, but I don’t answer.

These last two days of our trip, Tully and I are quiet with each other. Not sullen, not angry. Reflective. I imagine Tully is thinking about Georgia, thinking over his life.

I meditate on my own existence. There’s lots of time to gaze out the window and look back at my youth.

Lots of time to remember Finn.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

THE BETTE DAVIS CLUB

O
n the day Finn asked me to marry him, I was scheduled to meet Dottie late in the afternoon at her Greenwich Village flat. No special reason, just gossip and girl talk. But when I arrived outside her hundred-year-old brownstone and pushed the buzzer, I was giddy with love.

I was light-headed over Finn’s proposal, gleeful, filled with joy when I pictured the two of us spending the rest of our lives together. By the time I got upstairs, I had to lean against the wall for support. When Dottie opened her door, I couldn’t stop smiling.

“You look like you’re stoned,” Dottie said.

“Nope. Just happy.”

“Drugs can produce that effect,” she said, peering at my pupils.

I laughed. “I’m not high.”

“Well, come into the kitchen and talk to me.” She wore a rose-colored apron. “I’m starting a sauce for tonight’s dinner. Gerard is coming over.”

Gerard—who would later become Dottie’s husband—was her new beau.

Dottie knew I’d been spending time with Finn—I often mentioned I was meeting him for coffee—but she thought he and I were friends. I had never told her how I felt about Finn, never told her we’d slept together. I didn’t tell her because I knew she’d say he was out of my league. I knew she’d worry that I’d get hurt.

We weaved our way through her apartment (already, even in those days, filling up with French antiques) and into her cozy, cream-colored kitchen. She poured us each a glass of red wine.
“À ta santé,”
she said.

Dottie moved to the sink and started rinsing tomatoes. “So,” she said. “Explain to me why you arrived on my doorstep grinning like you’re on acid.”

She didn’t know the half of it. I was so happy I could have hugged myself. “Well,” I said, “I’ll tell you. It’s Finn!”

“Finn Coyle?”

“I know, I know. He’s older than I am. But it doesn’t feel that way, so please don’t lecture. Whenever I’m with him, I’m so perfectly content. It’s like all the pieces of my life finally fit together.”

“The pieces of your life, darling?” She drained the tomatoes and put them on a cutting board. “You make yourself sound like a jigsaw puzzle.” There was a half-mocking, half-patronizing tone to her voice that I didn’t care for and didn’t understand.

She picked up a knife and began chopping tomatoes, all the while laughing a little to herself as if I’d told the biggest joke. This was the most important news I’d ever shared with Dottie, my most earthshaking announcement ever, and I couldn’t see why it even remotely amused her. Since that day in the pickup truck when Finn introduced us, Dottie had quickly become my nearest and dearest friend, but at that instant, I felt myself growing angry with her.

“I’m telling you how I feel,” I said. “I don’t see what’s so bloody hilarious about it.”

She stopped chopping and took a sip of wine. “You’re right,” she said. “It’s not funny, and I apologize. It’s the shock, I suppose.”

Now I really was annoyed. “The ‘shock’ of finding out Finn likes me?” I said. “A person such as myself, so obviously not on his level?”

This was unfair, and I knew it. Unlike, say, my half sister, Charlotte, Dottie had never tried to make me feel inferior or ashamed. On the contrary, she always encouraged me.

“I didn’t say you weren’t on his level,” Dottie said. “However, yes, imagining Finn with—as you put it—a person such as yourself does surprise me.”

“Well, get over it. Finn and I are dating.” I was trying to sound grown-up and experienced, but the second the word “dating” flew from my mouth I knew I sounded about thirteen years old.

After this announcement, Dottie regarded me coolly. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’ve hurt your feelings, and I didn’t mean to.”

Garlic, onions, and peppers were simmering in a pan on the stove. Dottie picked up the cutting board, slid the chopped tomatoes into the pan, then stirred everything together with a wooden spoon. “I’ll say this for you, Margo”—she moved the spoon round in the pan—“you’ve evidently gotten more attention from Finn than any female in many a moon, and that’s the truth.”

“But women must fall all over him,” I said.

“They do, darling,
absolument
. They collapse. They’d line up if someone were selling tickets. However, this does not signify that he returns their interest.” With the back of her hand, she pushed a strand of hair off her face. “I’ve known Finn for, oh, seven or eight years, and he’s a jigsaw puzzle himself. Though there are people who would say he’s missing one or two pieces.”

“What is
that
supposed to mean?” I said.

“Darling, you must have noticed. You must—”

She’d been going on rather breezily, but now she stopped and took a long look at me. She stirred the contents of the pan. “You are of course aware,” she said carefully, “that Finn has many friends.”

“Everybody has friends,” I said.

“
C’est vrai
. But Finn’s come and go. They are young and unattached.”

I stared at her blankly.

“With—” She wavered, then rushed ahead. “With broad smiles, slim hips, and well-toned muscles. Particularly the abs.”

A picture came into my mind of that summer day, months ago, when we all drove out to the Meadowlands. Those two young men in the cab of Finn’s truck.

“So?” I said, feeling my face redden.

“I’ve had this conversation before, you know,” Dottie said. “Other people have stood right where you’re standing and poured out their hearts to me. Other people who couldn’t fathom why Finn runs hot and cold in his affections, other people who were head over heels in love with him.”

“Other women?” I said.

“No, sweetie. Other men.”

For a moment, nothing was said. I thought I might cry, but I swallowed some wine instead. Dottie glanced at my hands, which were wrapped tightly round my glass.

“Oh, dearheart,” she said. There was a sort of jaded, big-sister exasperation in her voice. “I mean, really! Finn Coyle! That man’s so far in the closet, he thinks he’s a coat hanger.”

No, it wasn’t true. It couldn’t be.

“He loves me,” I said.

“He told you that?”

“Yes, basically.” A marriage proposal was a declaration of love, wasn’t it? “Things have been said, especially today.”

“Well, words won’t make him straight,” Dottie said. “In that department he can’t change himself. No one can. We’re each of us born what we are.”

“We love each other,” I said.

She flicked the burner off and dropped the wooden spoon on the counter. “Margo, listen to me. Affection, in and of itself, does not determine sexual orientation. If it did, you and I would probably be a lesbian couple. Finn may care about you, but—”

“You’re wrong,” I said.

“I’m so sorry, but I’m not.”

“I would know if that—if something like that—were true.”

Dottie shook her head. “Not if he won’t admit even to himself who he is. Not if you’re so infatuated it’s made you blind.”

I pulled out my last and best defense, the one bombshell I knew would shut her up for good. “I’m sleeping with him,” I said.

“Forgive me,” she said, “but so are half the men in Lower Manhattan.”

The kitchen felt close, the smell of olive oil and vegetables in the pan nauseated me. Dottie must have read my mind because she pushed back some curtains and opened a window. I considered jumping, but why bother when I was already dying right there in the flat?

I thought of Shakespeare’s
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
. Titania, queen of the fairies, is put under a spell and made to fall in love with an ass. She spends a good part of the play doting on a donkey. But at least Titania’s story has a happy ending. When the spell is broken and Titania wakes from her dream, she’s freed of her ridiculous fixation. She returns to her husband, Oberon, who loves her.

My eyes were open—Dottie had done that—yet somehow I was still bewitched. Despite all Dottie had said, I knew I was still enchanted, still enamored of my beautiful donkey. Only at the same time, everything was topsy-turvy, and part of me could see how hopeless it all was.

So many things fell into place. Now I knew why Finn kept me at arm’s length, why he preferred the neutral surroundings of our café or the park or a museum, rather than meeting me somewhere more intimate. Now I knew why he went three weeks without calling. Now I knew—

But hang on. Hang on a minute.

“Then why in the world,” I said, “why in the
bloody
world does he—”

“Go out with you at all?”

“Yes!”

“Because you’re young and pretty and intelligent. Because the two of you enjoy the same activities.” She raised an eyebrow. “Up to a point. Also because you’re sweet and kindhearted, you’re fun to be with. And because I imagine Finn often wishes he were straight, that he could blend in. Perhaps he wants children.”

I remembered a day, weeks earlier, when Finn confessed how much he hoped to have a child, that he wanted to be a father, but he worried time was running out. I told him it wasn’t too late, he’d make a great dad. He smiled and asked if I realized that if the two of
us
had a baby, she would probably have blue eyes. It was one of the many times I felt myself falling more in love with him.

“But what does he want from me?” I said. “Why . . .”

“Darling, in this city there are thousands—tens of thousands—of men like Finn Coyle. Middle-aged gentlemen who’ve spent their entire lives in the closet. They did that because to admit they were homosexual meant they could lose their jobs, their homes, their families and friends. Not that many years ago, it meant they could be locked away in prison or in a mental hospital. It meant they might get beaten or murdered, simply because they frequented a certain type of bar. So from a very young age they learned to pretend to everybody, including themselves, that they weren’t gay.

“Only now there’s a sexual revolution going on, and they’re faced with this notion of ‘coming out.’ Well, for some people, coming out is terrifying. They can’t do it. Homosexuals have been living a certain way, living a lie, forever. Suddenly, they’re supposed to stand in the street and scream their sexuality to the entire free world?” She put a hand on her hip. “Come to think of it, I know several boys who’d jump at the chance to do just that.”

“Don’t,” I said. “Please.”

“Yes, all right. But don’t you see that for a man like Finn, gay liberation doesn’t feel liberating? It feels scary. Finn doesn’t want to come out of the closet. He’s so frightened, he’s digging farther in.”

“But what should I do?” I said.

“Do?” she said. “What do you want to do? You could march yourself over to Finn’s place and tell him he’s an awful person for leading you on in this disgraceful manner. You could take down his very expensive china and smash each piece on the kitchen floor while he watches in horror. You could get a revolver, like Bette Davis in
The Letter
, and shoot him repeatedly until he’s undeniably, positively dead.”

Was she mocking me? I looked at her in confusion.

“Or,” she said, her voice softening, “you could try to see things from Finn’s point of view. You could say to him, Look, I get it, the world’s a mean old place. I understand, I don’t blame you, and now let’s be pals the way nature intended, the way we should have been from the beginning.
Les amis pour la vie
. Friends for life.”

Friends? She thought Finn and I should be
friends
?

“He asked me to marry him,” I said.

An expression came over her face like a woman who could see an accident about to happen, but who was powerless to prevent it.

“God, no,” she said. “You can’t.”

She was wrong. This was the one thing I could do that no man was allowed to do. I could marry Finn. Moreover, I could have his child.

“I told him yes,” I said.