The Bette Davis Club (7 page)

I’m still working on my ice-cream cone when Tully finishes his. He wipes his fingers on a paper napkin, then twists round so he’s sitting properly in his seat. He starts up the car. We get back on the road, once again feel the wind in our faces.

“Go on,” Tully says, raising his voice so I can hear him over the hum of the MG’s engine. “What happened with Cary Grant?”

I decide to let Tully’s menopause remark go by. After all, he’s having a rough day. And he and I share the common goal of tracking down Georgia. When we do find her, and I get my fifty thousand dollars, perhaps Tully and Georgia really will make up; perhaps they really will get married. That would make him my . . . what? My nephew-in-law. There’s no reason why we shouldn’t be chums. There’s no reason I shouldn’t tell him my Cary Grant story.

“We went for a drive by the ocean,” I say. “After a while, Mr. Grant pulled up to a place like that one back there.” I point behind us, at the hamburger stand we left down the road. “He bought me ice-cream, yes. But it was more than that. He gave me the gift of himself, his time and attention. He was charming, completely focused on me—a little girl—and the moment. It was like spending the day with a handsome, debonair Santa Claus. He taught me that day how to take a compliment. He said—in that delightful, clipped way of his—‘Whenever someone says you’re pretty, Margo, or that’s a nice frock, always smile and say thank you.’ He told me I should remember that because I’d get a great many compliments in life. He asked me about my friends and if I liked school, and he said I’d grow up to be very beautiful, like my mother.”

“And you did,” Tully says.

Oh, that was sweet. I smile, the way Cary Grant taught me. “Thank you,” I say.

“I was seven years old,” I continue, “and it was the first time I’d ever considered what I looked like. Mr. Grant was the first man who ever made me feel pretty. When he took me home and returned me to my father, something about my life had changed. For the next three years, until I went away to England, I never missed seeing a Cary Grant movie whenever they showed one on television. I’d fallen in love with Cary Grant, or at least the idea of him. Watching those old movies—dreaming over his style, his wit, his sophistication—just made it worse.”

“Must have set the bar kind of high for guys you met later on.”

“You have no idea.”

“Do you work in the industry?” Tully says.

“Films?” I shake my head. “When I was younger, I did some modeling. Now I own a shop in New York.”

Tully momentarily switches his gaze from the road to me. “Manhattan?” he says. “We’re neighbors. I grew up in Los Angeles, but nowadays I live in Brooklyn. What kind of shop?”

“Architectural salvage,” I say. With my free hand, I retrieve a card from my bag and offer it to him.

Tully takes the card and glances down at it. He reads aloud: “Manhattan Architectural Salvage. We Pick Up the Pieces.” He laughs, but he doesn’t sound all that amused.

“If ever you want a chunk of old Pennsylvania Station,” I say, thinking of Dottie and wishing she were here, “I can fix you up.”

“You have some of that?” Tully says. He hands back the card.

“Yes. But do you even know what it is?”

“Sure.” A jackrabbit shoots across the road. Tully downshifts to avoid hitting it.

“Penn Station is legendary,” Tully says. “They tore it down in the 1960s, even though lots of people felt it was important. Felt it should be saved. But it wasn’t.”

After he says this, I find myself warming even more toward Tully. Few people these days remember Penn Station, which was located in midtown Manhattan and was one of the most beautiful Beaux Arts structures of the early 1900s.

“I know something about architecture,” Tully says. “And I have to tell you, I don’t care for your line of work.”

A chill shoots through my body, but it isn’t from eating ice-cream.

“‘Architectural salvage’ is an oxymoron, okay?” Tully says. “It’s ghoulish, gives me the creeps. You salvage people don’t do anything at all to preserve history. You stand around, hands in your pockets, while they knock down some great old landmark. Then you rush in with price tags and a wheelbarrow.”

My ice-cream is nearly gone. I crunch down hard on the cone.

“You carve up these incredible old places and sell the body parts to whoever has the dough,” Tully says. “And they always end up in somebody’s stupid McMansion or in the boardroom of some big law firm. That’s not salvage. It’s sacrilege.” He glances at me as though I’ve just been revealed as a torturer of small furry animals.

“It’s slightly more complicated than that,” I say.

“Yeah?” Tully says. The car picks up speed. “How’d you get into that business?”

“Long story,” I say, determined not to tell it. Who is this person with the five o’clock shadow, plonked down in my father’s car? Why should I explain my life to him?

“So tell me,” I say, “while I’m looting America’s treasures, how do you occupy your time?”

“I’m a writer.”

A light goes on, and I picture both Malcolm Belvedere and Charlotte’s husband, Donald, who works with scriptwriters. “Screenplays?” I say. “You write for the movies?”

“I’m writing a book,” Tully says. “That’s how I met Georgia. I came out here to do research, and we met at a party.”

“What’s your book about?”

“Miniatures. Dollhouses and things.”

I laugh.
“
Dollhouses
?”

“Yeah,” Tully says defensively. “Something wrong with that?”

“You have to admit,” I say, “it’s an unlikely subject for a grown man to take an interest in.”

“Not for me it isn’t,” Tully says. “It’s a collection of interviews and essays, with some history thrown in.”

The topic seems silly to me. I can’t keep amusement out of my voice. “I didn’t realize there was any history to dollhouses,” I say.

“No?” Tully says. “Then read my book when it comes out. That is, if you can read.”

Is Tully taking his anger at Georgia out on me? Well, look out—because I have anger of my own.

“Oh, I can read,” I say slowly. “The question is, can you write?”

“Forget it,” Tully says. We bounce over a pothole. “It’s obvious you’re clueless about dollhouses—just like you’re clueless about architectural salvage and clueless about Cary Grant.”

I no longer care if Tully’s having a rough day.

“And you,” I say, “know nothing about architectural salvage, nothing about Cary Grant, and fuck-all about me.”

He glances over at me. His eyes are blazing. “Your name’s Margo, right?”

“Correct.”

“Well, maybe you don’t live in England anymore, Margo, but you’re sure an uptight Brit.”

I toss what’s left of my ice-cream cone out into the desert. “Stop the car,” I say.

“What?” Tully says.

“Stop the car.” I claw at my scarf, ripping it from my head. “I need air.”

“We’re in a convertible,” Tully says.

“I’m suffocating,” I say. “I can’t breathe. I need a cigarette.”

Tully swings us to the side of the road and brings the car to a sudden, squealing stop. Our bodies rock backward, then forward. We sit there, in the middle of nowhere, engine idling.

I fumble for the handle and push the door open. I swing my legs out onto the ground and stand up.

“Aw, come on,” Tully says. He pushes his glasses back up on his nose. “We’ve got to keep going. I didn’t mean—”

I hold up my hand. “I know we need to keep going,” I say. “But right now I need air, I need a smoke, and I need a few minutes alone.” I’d also like a drink, but forget that. I reach back into the car for my tote bag, which contains my cigarettes.

Tully switches off the engine. When I grab for my bag, he puts his hand on my arm. “Margo, don’t go. Stay here and I’ll . . . open a window.”

“Ha-ha,” I say, pulling away from him. I turn and walk away.

“Why do women run from me?” he calls. He gives a bitter laugh. He’s laughing at himself, I know, not at me. Laughing even though there’s nothing funny about being dumped on your wedding day, nothing funny about sitting alone in a bright-red Love Machine on a deserted highway in the California desert.

I walk off toward a cluster of rocks. One large rock, bigger than the rest, has a scooped-out area, almost like a seat, and I rest against it. The stone is gritty and warm from the sun. I reach into my bag for my cigarettes and lighter, but my fingers brush Charlotte’s cell phone. I stop. I forego the tobacco. I pull out the cell phone instead.

I punch in the number of Dottie’s shop in New York. The phone rings twice, then Dottie answers. “Older Than Sin, French Art Deco and Collectibles.”

“It’s me. I’ve been kidnapped.”

“Margo! I’ve been thinking about you. How was the wedding?”

“There wasn’t one. I’ve ended up honeymooning with the groom.”

She laughs. “Right. Really, how are things?”

“I will tell you. Georgia jilted her fiancé and fled to Palm Springs. Charlotte hired me to go after her. So now I’m riding around in my father’s 1955 MG. Actually, the car part is nice. Oh, and the bridegroom is my chauffeur.”

There’s a moment’s silence.
“
Chérie
,”
Dottie says at last, “you aren’t by any chance on a bender?”

“I wish. More like I’m being held sober against my will.”

“
Merde
.”

“Exactly,” I say.

“Merde,” she repeats. “Darling, I’m sorry, but we’re about to be interrupted. There’s a young couple looking in the window. Bags of money, if I’m not mistaken.”

“Why bother?” I say. “Young people are all broke now.”

“Not the ones who own start-ups,” Dottie says.

Dottie is a wizard at discerning disposable income. I imagine her straining to look out the window, giving the young couple the once-over. “Yes,” she says, “these two are cash cows, coming into my barn. Can you hold?”

I hold. Dottie puts the handset on the counter, and I hear her talking with the customers. From the sound of their voices, I don’t need to see them to know what they look like or where they’re from. Seattle, probably. I picture the corduroy pants, the cotton turtlenecks.

“Well,” the man says, “our accountants say we better start a collection.”

“Something world-class,” the woman says. “Paul Allen already did rock and roll. That’s antique and all, but we want to do something really, really
old
.”

“I see,” Dottie says. “Of course, this establishment specializes in French Art Deco of the early twentieth century. Did you have a specific period in mind?”

“We like the chocolate period.”

“The . . . chocolate period?”

“Fancy stuff. Princes and princesses.”

“The
fancy
chocolate period. No plain vanilla for you.” By the strain in Dottie’s voice, I imagine the wheels turning in her head. “You don’t by any chance mean . . . no, you couldn’t. You don’t mean, rococo?”

“That’s it, row cocoa.”

I can almost feel the air rushing out of the room. Then I hear Dottie’s voice again, deflated: “Other side of the street, half a block down. Good day.”

There’s the sound of the shop door opening and closing, then Dottie is back on the line. “Did you hear that, darling?”

“I did,” I say. “I’ve told you before. The television screens are getting larger, but the heads are getting smaller.”

“Yes, but I’ll have my revenge. I sent them to Starbucks. Anyway, we’re alone now. Tell me about your niece’s fiancé. Do you like him?”

“Not particularly.” I slump against my boulder. “His name is Tully, and I wish he’d fall out of the car.”

“And why is that?”

“He has a chip on his shoulder.”

“That’s understandable, isn’t it? You say he was left at the altar—”

“He’s a know-it-all. He said Cary Grant was gay.”

Dottie laughs.

“It’s not funny.”

“It is a little. But I can see that it’s not the best topic for the two of you to start off on.” Dottie sighs. “Still, he must have some charms, or your niece wouldn’t have agreed to marry him.”

“He probably held a gun to her head. The minute Georgia went to change into her wedding dress, she saw her chance for escape.”

“Does the man have any interests? Besides getting married.”