Authors: Roberta Latow
‘It’s a bribe only if it works. If it doesn’t work, it’s just a beautiful bracelet because I love you, much more than I thought.’
Another publisher and agent came to the table to greet them. Jay stood up, and the agent lifted Mimi’s hand to admire the gift. ‘Wow, is this a bribe? Jay’s way of getting what he wants?’ he said. The tease had more bite to it than the man realized.
She began to laugh. ‘It’s a bracelet trying to be a bribe.’
‘Mimi, if he’s been naughty, you leave him. I’ve always wanted to snatch you away from him.’ They all laughed. The three men shook hands, one patted Mimi on the shoulder, the other kissed her on the cheek and whispered in her ear, but loud enough for all to hear, ‘I mean it.’ The pair then left them to finish their lunch.
That evening she wore her new bracelet and a smart, short, black silk dress together with a tiny hat, a small tricorn of black silk set fetchingly to one side with an enticing black veil that just covered the eyes. It was sheer, with an intricate design along the bottom. One of those little hats that women buy because they are fetchingly seductive, and tease men.
With her blonde curly hair, violet eyes and voluptuous figure, and that teasing charm of hers, Mimi seemed impossibly sexy and young, with a newly carefree attitude that Jay found provoking. He couldn’t blame several men who made a play for her at the cocktail party. If she hadn’t been his wife, he would be doing the same thing, and that was what he loved about her. Even as a young girl, when he had picked her up and subsequently married her, it was that
kind of seductive romanticism about her, mixed with a certain reserve, a mysterious remoteness which still didn’t exclude flirtatiousness, that had kept him. Even now, it intrigued him. But a mother? More children, the disruption of their lives, the years of commitment it would take to raise children – could he do it for her? He would do anything to keep her. But that?
The following morning he made love to her. The sex was great, the way it always was for them. Not nearly as exciting as when they did it two nights ago, but great like always. When he felt her come, and was holding her, all warm and female, and they were momentarily slipping out of their routine lives and into a world of bliss all their own, he was certain she would drop this fantasy. He kissed her and left her in bed.
He brought Mimi her breakfast. Their housekeeper had prepared it, but it was he who brought it into the room. He placed it over her lap and climbed in carefully next to her. They ate off the same tray: fresh pineapple and Scottish raspberries, black coffee, toasted wholemeal bread with butter and honey. They usually ate sparingly at that hour in the morning. It was just tea for them, followed by breakfast meetings at some grand hotel for Jay. She had her breakfast later with her father and Sophia. He was being so obvious now, it was easy to be on to him.
‘This is a bribe, like the bracelet.’ She smiled at him.
‘I’m not going to give in on this, Mimi. Much as I love you and don’t want to lose you, I am not going to give in to this whim of yours. It’s all too complicated. We would have to leave here, give up our lovely home, create another. Look, you’ve been wonderful about Barney. Be wonderful one more time about this.’
‘It was easy being wonderful, as you put it, about Barney. He doesn’t affect our lives. I’m only taking in another one of your children. As for Miss Bennington, I saw the look in her eyes. She thinks I’ll leave you. She’s right, I will, but
not because of her. Only because you won’t give me what I want.’
‘Look, let’s give this time. No rash decisions.’
‘Fine. Time you need? Time you’ll have.’
Mimi was remarkably calm. She chose a plump piece of pineapple, took it delicately between her fingers and offered it to Jay. He opened his mouth and she fed it to him. She smiled, and slid naked from between the sheets to walk across the room, slipping into a dressing gown to vanish into the bathroom. He felt uneasy when she returned to the bedroom. He watched her moving several dresses from the armoire to lay them over the chaise.
‘What’s all that about?’ he asked. ‘Are you leaving me? Is that what
you’re
bribing me with, a divorce?’
‘It never entered my mind, Jay. Divorce, that is. I’m leaving you only temporarily, I hope. I’m going to my father’s, I think you need some space to think this out.’
‘And you don’t?’
‘No, I don’t.’
‘Don’t be silly. Stay here. We’ll take some time thinking about it.’
‘No, I think not. It’s not unusual for me to stay there for a few days. I don’t intend to say anything to Dad or anyone else about this matter. You’ll find me there when you want me.’
Jay was at the Stefanik house for dinner that night. Mimi was terribly tired and went to bed early. He stayed up talking to Karel until the early hours of the morning, and then, rather than going home, slept with her in her bedroom in her father’s house. Nothing there for anyone in the house to get suspicious about: they often stayed over.
In the morning he woke and made love to her, fucked her as if nothing threatened their relationship. She seemed to Jay exceptionally responsive to his lust for possession of her. He was tying his tie looking at her in the mirror.
‘Shall I see you home tonight, or will you come with me now? I have to get some papers I left there.’
‘I’m living here now, remember?’
Jay turned. ‘What are you talking about?’
‘I’m not going home until I get what I want.’
‘Are you saying this marriage is over?’
‘No, I’m not. It’s you who’s going to have to say that.’
‘I won’t come round tonight. You need time to think about this.’
Three weeks later Mimi flew to Ceylon to spend a week with Rick. She was pregnant. Whether with Rick’s child or Jay’s didn’t matter to either of them. They were happy. If it ever mattered to Rick or to Jay the paternity of the child could be decided by tests after it was born.
‘And Jay?’ a delighted Rick had asked her when she told him the news.
‘He doesn’t know. He’s busy trying to decide what to do about what he calls this whim of mine. He knows about us.’
‘And?’
‘There is no “and”. He just knows about us.’
It was an idyllic week of sex on the beaches, and in a secluded house with a lush, romantic tropical garden. He was divine, but she felt the differences in their age and their lifestyles more acutely than ever in that tropical paradise. He seemed to her younger, more carefree than ever, directionless, and loving every minute of it, making the most of just hanging out. Although they took a house by themselves, he was very much in Ceylon with his friends, who roamed in and out of their lives as if they too belonged in their affair. All that communal living, all that youthful belief in universal love, it was great for them, for Rick, but seemed more wrong than ever for her. Mimi put those feelings aside for another week: the sex was too good to leave, the bond between them so strong it took more time to adjust to leaving him and their tropical paradise.
At the airport it was not easy for them to let each other go, but they needed no words to know that’s what they were doing.
‘And the baby?’ he asked.
‘I’ll send you a cable.’
‘And what about Jay?’
‘He’ll come round. He loves me and our marriage too much to let either of us go.’ She boarded the plane for the first lap of her long journey back to New York.
Mimi and Jay saw each other. They were husband and wife with a marriage still very intact but a bizarre arrangement of living in separate houses. At least, that was the way New York tongue-waggers voiced it, and more or less how it was. And that was what Karel and Sophia knew to be the case. Only they knew the facts, what had driven the couple to a separation.
Several days after Mimi’s return from Ceylon she went to her father. Karel was in the library, absorbed in a book. Mimi watched him for several minutes. He was still handsome, charismatic. There emanated from him still that special male quality of strength and courage and sexual libertinism that, as his daughter, and once she had understood it, she had always been able to look at objectively.
The room seemed so very quiet, the library a world of its own. How she loved this room, this house, her father. Long ago, when he returned from the war and made this home and a family of sorts for herself, her mother and brother, he had never pretended that theirs would be a normal household, nor even a normal family. He made certain his children understood the state of his and their mother’s relationship. They were all together under one roof because the war had torn their lives apart. In so doing, it had made him appreciate that, no matter what their individual flaws, they needed to be together as a family to reassemble their lives. It had been Karel who had taught her that all families
have their own bizarre arrangements. As long as there was security and comfort in being together, that was about all one could ask for. Except love. In most families that came in its own peculiar fashion.
Mimi had no doubt that Karel more than anyone else would understand what she was doing. But she felt she had to be cautious in explaining her position and the unusual family she herself intended to create. She was ever sensitive that Karel and she could not, even after all these years, bring themselves to talk to each other about her childhood during the war. Mimi had come to terms with it when after his return to her, and over many years, the true picture emerged of Count Karel Stefanik’s heroic flight with her from Prague, and his choice to fight as hero rather than be exiled as a mere father. That he loved his country more than his daughter was a thought that never entered her head. Neither of them could allow that. But still it niggled at them both in the recesses of their minds. Mimi talked freely to Karel about everything she wanted to. That was the way he brought her up. And so it was not difficult for her to go to him.
Very quietly, she walked over and gently placed a hand on his shoulder. ‘Poppa.’
He looked up from his book. Ever the ladies’ man, ever sensitive to a beautiful woman. He smiled. ‘You look particularly pretty today, Mimi. I always like you in that dress. White suits you.’
His compliments always made her feel like the most beautiful woman in the world. She laughed. ‘Poppa, you’re such a flirt.’
‘That’s true.’
‘But I love it.’
‘That’s why men do it, because women love it and because, when a woman is beautiful, it gives such pleasure to a man. Well, this man anyway.’ He raised her hand and
lowered his lips to place a kiss on it. ‘Did you want something, Mimi?’
‘A talk. I know I am interrupting you, but do you mind?’
He left his book open on the reading table and rising from his chair went to sit on the sofa. He patted the cushion next to him, an invitation for her to sit beside him. ‘Important?’ he asked.
‘Yes.’
‘And exciting. I can see that in your face.’
‘Yes, very, Poppa. This odd way I am living with Jay. It’s my doing, Poppa. I’d like to tell you about it.’
Karel removed a strand of hair from Mimi’s cheek, then took her hand in his and nodded. It was as if he was saying: ‘What a good idea.’
‘I have had a very successful and happy marriage with Jay, Poppa. We like being married to each other, that hasn’t changed, but what has is me. A few years ago I met a young man, I mean really young, ten years younger than myself. I think you can guess that it was a sexual thing. But it turned out to be more. Not love the way I love you or Jay, but a carefree, hippie kind of irresponsible love. Fun-love and sex that I missed in my youth. He’s a man with a free spirit, who knows how to play with life. A quite remarkable young man, a doctor, surgeon, most accomplished and respected, but outside the operating theatre still a child who plays with life. There is something frivolous about Rick that stops him from being the great love of my life or my even contemplating the break up of my marriage. It’s quite strange and difficult to explain but I grew up both sexually and spiritually with Rick. He’s a healing and teaching human being. That’s his life. Not marriage and a family. But he did recognize those instincts in me.’
‘I think I met this young man once. A party you gave for Barbara?’
‘That’s right, Poppa. Shortly after that party, he went
away for a couple of years. Then recently he returned. And when he did I realized that there was a bond between us. A closeness, an understanding, and it’s that not the sex or the affection we feel for each other that keeps adding to my life. He finds a way deep into my innermost feelings and brings them to light.
‘As you well know, when I married Jay we agreed not to have children. Neither of us wanted them. Each of us for our own reasons. It’s quite simple, Poppa. Knowing Rick, growing up with him, has changed all that. I feel secure enough in myself now to have children, and almost too late I have decided to have them. Jay is furious, he says no, he likes our marriage just the way it is. I have told him it’s to be children for me, in or out of our marriage. He has yet to make up his mind. I’m three months pregnant.’
‘His or Rick’s?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘And Jay knows that?’
‘Yes.’
‘And accepts it?’
‘He has little choice if we are to stay together. You see, by chance I discovered he has a baby out of wedlock that he acknowledges but keeps a deep dark secret so as to save our marriage. And, unbelievably, he still wants to deny me children. Still he claims he wants no babies to interfere with our life. I have put it to him that this time we do what I want or I leave him. We have this child, bring it up together, and open our family to include Barney, his baby, and the mother of the child, and Rick, as we have always accepted his ex-wives and his children in our life, and we live with our extended family openly. I promised to add those things to our life. They won’t diminish the marriage we have had all these years, only add to it.’
‘And what about your old dad? What is expected of him? That he becomes the patriarch of this horde you are creating? The grandfather of this dynasty you are set on
establishing for us all? What am I expected to say to all this?’ he asked, not quite sternly, but certainly seriously. Until a smile broke slowly at the corners of his mouth. ‘Well, I’ll tell you what I say, my Mimi. Jay would be a fool to lose you. But Jay is no fool, far from it. He will make a fine patriarch and I will be honoured to be the Grand Patriarch of the family. What an adventure for me! To have a chance to love your children as I love you. They will keep us young and gay in our old age, Mimi.’
‘Oh, Poppa.’ She flung her arms around her father’s neck. Tears began trickling from the corners of her eyes. ‘It will be a big, wonderful, crazy kind of family. But I know we’ll make it work.’
‘Of course we will, Mimi, that’s what all families are, one way or another. You have only to look at your own family to see that. Now I think this calls for a grand lunch, anywhere of your choosing, in celebration of new life.’
If Mimi had had any doubt about what she was doing, it vanished with Karel’s delight in her news. She knew that he was looking at her as both daughter and a woman of substance. That he was relating to her more as that woman than as his child. He loved beautiful, adventurous, seductive women who took on life with both hands. It suddenly occurred to Mimi that this was the first time she had showed him that side of her.
By the time Mimi was three months pregnant, Jay had quite adjusted to the idea that she was going to have a child. He still couldn’t be sure whose. Then one morning it no longer mattered whose it was. He couldn’t give her up. They went shopping for a new house, and they found one at 13, East Sixty-Third Street, between Fifth and Madison Avenue, just across the street from the Hammersteins and Jolie Gabor, mother of Zsa Zsa – the estate agent was proud to announce. A beautiful town house, converted for the moment into two flats. Once they had agreed to buy it,
Mimi flung her arms around Jay’s neck, kissed him and whispered in his ear, ‘You’ll never regret this. You’ll be happy, I promise you, you’ll be happy.’ She would make certain that he would be, Mimi vowed that to herself. She did, after all, love him and want to make him happy. A moment after she had said it, she looked at his passive face and felt a pang of guilt, but it soon vanished when a smile broke across his face. He picked her up by the waist, swung her round and put her down.
‘I am, I’m already happy about it. I’ve come to terms with this idea of us being one large extended family. I’m quite looking forward to fixing up this house. But I hope you know what you’re taking on because I have the feeling we’re going to have an interesting, but unconventional marriage from here on in.’
‘You’re sure about this, Jay?’
‘Sure about it? No. But you are, and that’s enough for me. It has to be, doesn’t it, because I can’t take the alternative.’
The worst problem they had during her pregnancy and the moving from the apartment to the new house, the momentous changes in their lives, was the girl Mimi called Miss Bennington – Claire. When Jay told her that Mimi and he were going to have a baby, and wanted to make a family where Claire and Barney were free to come and go openly in their lives, she resisted all thought of it. She was furious that Mimi had accepted the situation. But in time, Barney’s mother, like Jay’s two ex-wives, came round to the reality that Jay was always the winner. He got what he wanted, peace among his women and children. Not always an easy peace.
Mimi had one of those pregnancies that women dream about. Except for the first few weeks, when all she wanted to do was sleep, she felt just fine. Her energy was up, she was buoyant and happy. She carried her pregnancy beautifully, hardly showing until her eighth month. But she’d been clever about the way she dressed. Chic, and no
maternity clothes for her. She got no pleasure from playing the pregnant role, the mother-to-be, as some women do. She simply got on with her life. No fuss, no bother, no classes. She planned to deal with the birth as best she could, once she was in the throes of it, and that would be that.
No one appreciated her attitude more than Jay. Together they renovated the house at 13, East Sixty-Third Street. Mimi was as good as her word to him. Their life-style did not change, only their residence. Her determination that having a child was going to add to Jay’s life never wavered. She happily worked hard on their marriage to ensure that that would be the case. Mimi’s and Jay’s relationship took on a new kind of intimacy during the months of her pregnancy. They both accepted that Claire, as the mother of Barney, would always be part of his life, that Rick as the putative father of Mimi’s child would always be part of hers.
These were tough decisions to take within a marriage, but they had to agree that, if they wanted to stay together, this extended family was the way for them to live. They were more excited by the prospect of an extended family than either of them had expected to be. And what if it didn’t work? If they could not cope with what they were doing, if they should lose the marriage that bound them together so tightly – what then? They would part. It would be as simple as that. They believed they were creating an open marriage because they were strong enough to sustain it.
As Mimi’s time drew near, it seemed increasingly important to her that Rick should be there. She really wanted him to see her baby born. Especially since Jay, larding it with many apologies, told her he could not bear to be involved in the birth of the baby. He had not been present for his other five children. He would not be for Mimi’s. Too raw, too messy, too intimate and altogether physical for Jay. He hoped that she understood. She did, and it did not pose a problem for them. She wanted to tell
him how much she wished Rick to be there, but somehow she couldn’t bring herself to do so.
But Jay was a remarkable man: he did know how to make people happy. It was an instinctive thing with him, giving people what they wanted, no matter how much he benefited. He was still an original, a good man, a generous person. He derived great pleasure from being the giver, more than most people understood. It was out of a deep love and respect, gratitude even to Mimi for not imposing her pregnancy on him. Her having said barely a word to him about the child to come, omitted to talk of hospital or doctors, or any of the stress of being pregnant or giving birth. His obsession to love and possess her motivated him to do what he did. Because, finally, Jay only ever did what suited Jay, what gave him what he wanted. Jay had his own brand of enlightened cunning. It was he who found and asked Rick to come back for the birth of the baby. Mimi knew nothing about it until he appeared. Shrewd and very wise, Jay knew Rick was no threat to his possession of Mimi or his marriage, he knew that Rick represented what both attracted and repelled Mimi. And he could understand that and live with it.
Mimi had a long and difficult labour, but finally gave birth to twins, a boy and a girl. She named the boy Milos and the girl Angelica. And only after they were born and she held them in her arms, nursed them at her breasts, did she fully appreciate what she might have missed had Rick never entered her life. She was happy discovering new kinds of love through her babies. New kinds of caring. But already a mature, middle-aged woman when she had her children, Mimi was able to put the birth of her children into perspective and slot them into the rest of her life. They became her prime concern, her most important loves, but they did not absorb her so much that she lost sight of the rest of her life.