Dear Cary: My Life With Cary Grant (18 page)

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Emergencies

T
he next day, just after noon, Cary called and said he—
we
—needed to talk, that it was urgent. He did not sound happy. I asked if something was wrong. “No,” he snapped. “There's just something I need to discuss with you.”

I didn't like the sound of this. Whenever anybody announces that they need to discuss something and makes an appointment to discuss it, you can generally assume that you're in for a good tushie-whipping. Then, when you're waiting for the “discussion,” time stands still.

“Okay, how about dinner tonight?” I asked.

“No, I'm coming over
now
.”

Oh dear.

The next twenty-eight minutes felt like being stuck on the airport runway in a crowded coach section for three hours with no air-conditioning. What could he want to talk about that could be so ominous? Whatever it was, it couldn't be good.

I scripted the scene in my head:

I'm sorry, Dyan. Our situation has become untenable. There are things you want from me that I can never give you, and I refuse to keep taking advantage of you . . . Oh, and Leslie Caron and I are going to move into a bungalow in Fiji and have thirty children. We hope you'll come and visit.

Oy!

I heard a crash in the parking court and then a nasty metal-on-concrete scraping sound. A car door opened and slammed. I looked out the window and saw Cary surveying the damage to his silver Rolls-Royce. He'd driven into one of the concrete pillars in the parking court. There was a gash in the front quarter panel, and the paint was badly scratched. Cary kicked the door, walked a few paces, kicked the trash can . . . then he got back in the car and threw it into reverse with a screech. He backed into the street. A horn blew and tires squealed. He threw it into drive and pulled into a parking space. Then he got out and started stomping up the stairs to my apartment.
Cary Grant is stomping,
I thought. Cary Grant was the most graceful man who ever trod the earth, and he was
stomping. Clomp-clomp-clomp
up the steps.
Bang-bang-bang
on the door. I opened it and braced myself.

He stood there with his hands thrust into his pockets—another thing he never normally did—biting down hard on his lower lip. I could practically see green sparks shooting out of his eyes.

“What
is
it?” I asked.

Cary shut the door behind him. A low growl emanated from his throat. Not a
grrrrr;
a growl. He was acting positively deranged.

“Is everything okay?” I said, trying again.

“No, everything is
not
okay!” he snapped. He crossed to the window and let out kind of a karate-chop yelp.

“Cary, are you going to talk to me?”

“Actually, no—no I'm not,” he said. He then turned, flung the door shut behind him, and
ran
down the corridor.

I watched from the window as he got into his battered Rolls, backed over the trash can lid, and pulled into the street. More tires screeched. He lurched to a halt, and then peeled off.

My imagination was having a tea party for every single catastrophe that might have occurred. Had something happened to Elsie? I thought about calling Maggie and Eric, but I didn't want to alarm them for nothing. Maybe Cary had had some terrible financial setback. Or . . . he'd mentioned recently that he was due for his annual physical. Maybe that was it . . . had he been diagnosed with some terrible disease? I thought about calling Stanley Fox. But even if Stanley knew, he wouldn't divulge anything. I tried to settle down and watch television, but my head was spinning with dreadful possibilities.

The hours dragged by. Later that night, I sat in front of the TV, massaging my gums, per my dentist's orders, with the little rubber nub on the base of the toothbrush handle. I had a little itch in my ear, and I scratched it with the nub. After a few minutes, I realized I couldn't hear the TV all that well. I looked down at my toothbrush and realized the little red nub was gone. But I found it—in my ear. I tried to dig it out with my pinky but only managed to push it in deeper. Then the phone rang. It was Cary, but I couldn't hear him very well. Only well enough to tell that he was still agitated.

“Let me switch ears,” I said. “I can't hear out of this one. There.”

“What do you mean?”

“You know that little red rubber thingie on your toothbrush you're supposed to use on your gums? I've got one stuck in my ear.”

“Really? It won't come out?”

“No. It's in there really deep.”

Cary was on the case. His tone shifted to dispassionate medical practitioner. My predicament provided a face-saving opportunity for both of us. “Get in the shower, make the water as hot as you can, and let it run in your ear. Then tip your head and give yourself a few hard whacks. That ought to dislodge it.”

I gave it a try and called him back. “It didn't work. It's still stuck.”

“Jump up and down.”

“Be serious.”

“I
am
serious.
Jump up and down!
”
What a stupid idea,
I thought. A rubber nub embedded deep inside an ear wasn't going to come loose from the impact of jumping up and down. But Cary had said to do it, so I did it. I jumped up and down. For several minutes. I got the predictable outcome, which was a headache. I called him back.

“Still there,” I said.

“All right. Sit tight. I'm coming to get you.”

No more than fifteen minutes later, Cary honked from the parking lot. I went downstairs and climbed into his somewhat beat-up Rolls, and we headed for the hospital. Cary waited in the car while I went into the emergency room. It took the doctor all of ten seconds to remove the little nub. He was about to drop it into the waste can when I asked if I could keep it.

He shrugged and dropped it into my hand. “Sterilize it before you use it on your gums,” he said.

Back in the car, I turned to look at Cary. “My ear is fixed,” I said.

“What did the doctor say?”

“He said that from now on, I'll only be able to hear good things. Give me your hand.” I dropped the nub into it. “From me to you. From the bottom of my ear.”

“Hmmmph.”

He drove a few blocks in a befuddled silence, twisting his mouth around like he'd prefer to be talking to himself but didn't want to be seen doing it. I decided to try to pull him out of his mental grease pit with silliness. I let out a dramatic gasp and flung the back of my hand to my forehead, pretending to go into a swoon.

“What's wrong with you?” he sputtered. Now that the crisis was over we were back stuck being lovers at odds. But I didn't feel like playing a lover at odds. I just felt like playing.

“I've just had surgery! I've been traumatized.”

“And what are the symptoms of this trauma?”

“I have an overpowering craving for ice cream.”

“I suppose nothing but licorice ice cream would do.”

“How did you know?”

There was a Baskin-Robbins a few blocks away. Cary pulled in and I went to get the ice cream. He said he didn't want any, but I got him a scoop of butter pecan anyway and pressed the cone into his reluctant hand. As he was backing out of the lot, a small tuft of my licorice ice cream cone fell onto the seat.

“Dyan, could you be more careful?” he scolded. “You know Elsie used to fine me ten pence every time I spilled my milk on the table.”

“You poor thing. Well, to keep the family tradition going . . . ,” I said. I reached into my purse, scooped up some pennies, and dropped them into his shirt pocket. He swatted at my hand, toppling his ice cream onto the seat.

“Look what you've made me do!” he exclaimed. “Damn it, Dyan.”

“Now
you
have to pay the fine! Give me those pennies back!” I reached into his shirt pocket.

“Damn it, Dyan!”

“Damn it
what,
Dyan?”

He slammed on the brakes, came to a screeching halt in the middle of the street, and smacked the steering wheel with his hands.

“Damn it, Dyan, do you want to get married?”

Now I really
did
gasp. Even with the nagging chorus of beeping horns flying past us, I couldn't take my licoriced lips off his.

T
hat night, for the first time, Cary spent the night with me at my apartment. In his arms, I slept like I hadn't slept in ages. It was as if all this time I'd been sleeping on a thorn without knowing it. Now it was gone, and I was floating on air through a corridor of dreams.

I felt
safe
.

Just after dawn, Cary stirred awake and rolled over to face me.

“Do I know you from somewhere?” he said.

“I had a dream that you asked me to marry you,” I said.

“That was no dream. I asked you in real life. And you said yes. And I'm holding you to it.”

“No matter what I say or do?”

“No matter what.”

L
ater that morning, after Cary left, I took Bangs for a walk. It was early spring, and there were chirping birds and mailmen, lawn mowers and roses. The sounds, the colors, the smells . . . my senses had come alive like they'd never been before.

Love.

From the time I was a schoolgirl, it seemed that love was all we ever talked about and everything we were waiting for . . . without having the first clue what it was, what it felt like, how it tasted.

Now I knew.

When Cary and I first met, we talked about God . . . like he—or she or it—was something out there in the cosmos, waiting to be discovered, like Columbus discovered America or Pizarro discovered the Pacific. Like God was something remote.

But God is in love—the love of another person,
I thought.

I'd found my god, and he'd just asked me to marry him.

I
flew to Seattle to share the news with my parents, who so far were the only ones I was allowed to let in on the secret. Mom and Dad picked me up at the airport. I tried to keep the news to myself until we got back to the house, but Dad had only just pulled away from the curb when I blurted it out: “Cary proposed to me!”

Dad was quiet. Mom was delighted, wanting all the details. How had he proposed? On his knees? Was it going to be a big wedding? Where was my ring?

Hmmm. Where
was
my ring? I said I was sure he had special-ordered it. As for the rest, I told them it was
very spontaneous.

Then Cary called the house and asked to speak to Dad, who seemed a bit perplexed when he took the phone. “Your fiancé apologized for not having come to see me personally to ask for your hand in marriage,” he said. “He just asked for it, though.”

“And?”

“And I gave it.”

“Honey, you let me know anything I can do to help,” Mom said. “I'm sure there's going to be a million details you won't have time for.”

“Where's the wedding going to be?” Dad asked.

“We haven't started planning yet, Daddy.”

“It's never too early to start shopping,” Mom said with a smile. “Listen, I've got a hair appointment in town tomorrow afternoon. Why don't I make one for you too . . . we can combine that with some shopping and some lunch.” She smiled at my dad. “Just us girls.”

It was great. A little lingerie hunting, a little lunch, a little coffee . . . then to the hairdresser, Rachel, who suggested using a rinse to bring out the highlights in my hair. I loved it. Mom thought it looked great. So did Dad, who pronounced it “nice and subtle”—when it came to his daughter's appearance, “subtle” was the highest compliment. “You've never looked more beautiful,” he said.

“Cary's going to think so too,” Mom added.

However, Cary did
not
think so. Picking me up at the curb, he took one look at me and demanded,
“What have you done to your hair?”
There was a vitriol in his voice I'd never heard before. He didn't even kiss me when I got into the car. You'd think I'd just shaved my head with a dull razor. I took a minute to collect myself and then tried to explain.

“Cary, they only put a brightening rinse on my hair.”

“What's wrong with your natural hair color? It makes you look like everyone else.”

We drove for a while in silence. At a stoplight, he narrowed his eyes at me with withering disdain and shook his head.

“I'm sorry,” I said, and I started to cry. He softened a little.

“Silly child, there's a reason blondes have a reputation for being bubbleheads. This isn't scientifically proven, but I've got my theory and I think I'm right. The peroxide is absorbed into the brain tissue and causes mental deterioration.”

That sounded so ridiculous, I didn't say anything.

“Cary, I wasn't trying to displease you. If you'd like, I'll get something to tone it down with tomorrow,” I said with a sigh.

“Do that . . .” But he said it like it was an order. I'd never heard this tone before. Welcome home.

At the end of the week, a letter arrived for Cary from my father.

“Your father is such a good man,” Cary said admiringly.

“You and my dad have at least one thing in common, Cary. You both insist on spelling my name the old way.”

“What can I say, dear girl? I love you the way you were born, every inch of you and every letter. D-Y-A-N is for the stage. But ‘Diane' spelled the old-fashioned way—she belongs to me.”

“Oh, Archie.”