B00C4I7LJE EBOK (21 page)

The next day, the Playboy limo arrived at noon and the chauffeur managed to fit most of our suitcases into the trunk. Again, the rest went into the back seat beside Phyllis, so I rode up front with the chauffeur. I enjoyed looking out the window as we passed from the city into the countryside. In less than an hour, we reached the Playboy Club-Hotel in New Jersey—a warm retreat in a frozen world. The sprawling hotel seemed to have been built right into the hillside. The wood-and-stone interior conveyed a wonderful coziness; huge picture windows looked out on ski slopes. For the next two days we would not have to do anything except a brief rehearsal and the shows.

During the time we were there, I barely went outside, content to sit in the lounge and watch the skiers gliding down the hills. That was partly due to the fact that I didn’t have real cold-weather clothes or snow boots. Packing for the varied climates had been a challenge. Had we been going only to the East, I would have brought all winter clothes. As it was, I had to pack half for the warm weather in Puerto Rico, and half for the cold weather in New York, New Jersey, and Chicago. So for the cold weather I relied mostly on my Spanish cape, which was nearly as warm as any of Phyllis’s furs, I was sure.

As a matter of fact, Phyllis had tried to give me one of her furs, a calf-length, mink paw coat. She never really liked it, and I think she bought it more for the novelty than anything. Her favorite coat was the soft, gray chinchilla. I loved that coat, too. Just holding it made me feel all warm inside. For fun, Phyllis wore the lynx and sometimes the strange-looking yak with the long, stringy hair, which I knew in my heart was really yarn, but I’d never seen her wear the mink paw.

“What are you going to wear in New York?” Phyllis had asked me when the trip started to jell. “You’ve never been there in the winter. Do you have a warm coat?”

“I have my Spanish cape,” I told her. “That’s good and warm.”

“What about a fur? Nothing keeps you warm like fur.”

“No, no fur.” I had to smile. A fur coat in Southern California where I could wear it only a few times a year would be extravagant indeed.

“I have a coat you could have,” Phyllis went on. “Come into the wardrobe.”

Obediently, I put down the schedule we were revising and followed her into the wardrobe room, which I still found rather spooky.

Phyllis headed for the fur rack. “Here it is,” she said, slipping a coat off the hanger. “Try this on.”

“There’s no way it’s going to fit me,” I protested. “I’m much bigger than you.”

“It’s too big for me,” Phyllis insisted. “Try it.”

I slipped into the coat and found that what was midcalf on Phyllis hit me right at the knees. The sleeves were a good inch short of my wrists, and although I could, technically, wear it, I couldn’t move.

“Button it,” Phyllis urged.

“I don’t think I can.”

“Sure you can,” she persisted. I buttoned the middle button. I couldn’t breathe.

“Perfect!” she exclaimed.

I shook my head.

“Come look in the mirror.”

I stood in front of the full-length mirror and saw exactly what I thought I would see—a woman wearing a coat three sizes too small.

“It won’t work,” I said as I shrugged out of it.

“Are you sure? I never wear it. You could have it. You need a fur coat.”

She was certainly no more disappointed than I. Wouldn’t I love to have a fur coat!

“I wouldn’t be able to move, and if I sneezed, the whole thing would rip at the seams.” I slowly hung it on the rack. “No, but thank you. My cape will have to do. Besides,” I said to change the subject, “I’m already taking two suitcases of clothes. I just wouldn’t have room for a fur coat.”

It had been a lovely gesture, and one I appreciated. When I told Ingrid about it later she stared at me in disbelief. “Why didn’t you take it?” she cried.

“Ingrid, I couldn’t wear it!”

“But I could have!”

Which was true. Ingrid stood a few inches taller than Phyllis but was quite slender. The mink paw coat would have fit her to a T.

27

F
rom the Playboy Club-Hotel we went directly to San Juan, Puerto Rico, for a two-week engagement at the Caribe Hilton. I looked forward to the sun and warm lovely beaches. However, it didn’t turn out to be as idyllic as I’d envisioned.

Things got off to a bad start when Phyllis decided to fly to San Juan a day ahead of schedule. Our original plan called for us to travel on Monday, arriving there at about six in the evening. But on Saturday night, between shows at the Playboy Club, she said, “Why don’t we go down tomorrow? There’s no point hanging around here where it’s cold and snowy, when we could be enjoying the lovely warm weather in Puerto Rico.”

I agreed. I never liked cold weather.

“Phone them in the morning and tell them we’re coming,” she instructed.

It sounded easy. I mentally went over all the things I’d have to do—change the plane reservations, alert the limousine, get in touch with the hotel in San Juan, call Mr. B, who had planned to spend Sunday afternoon with Phyllis, and let the bellman know to get the bags out of storage. (We had to haul all forty suitcases with us because there wasn’t any central place to leave the ones we didn’t need. I’d had the bellman put the extra thirty-four bags in the storeroom.)

By then traveling had become fairly routine. No longer did I toss and turn the night before a trip with nightmares of missed flights or unmade reservations. I’d become used to changing flights at the next-to-the-last minute due to Warde’s nasty habit of waiting until the afternoon before we were to leave for a trip, then strolling into the office and saying something like “By the way, Madam has decided she wants to take a later flight tomorrow,” and strolling out again. It was one of the ways he used to prove that he could manipulate Phyllis. The fact that it also made life difficult for the help, as he referred to us, was icing on the cake. The first time he did this, it threw me for a loop. I hit the panic button trying to make five phone calls at the same time. Gradually, however, I got things down to a science. The first call was to Jimmy Retty, Phyllis’s travel agent, who always found us a flight, even at the very last minute. Then I called the promoter of the event, or wherever she was appearing, to let them know we’d be arriving at a different time than originally scheduled, then I notified the limousine service on each end, and let the hotel know the change in expected arrival time. Of course, that often caused problems and inconvenienced people all the way down the line—another bonus for Warde.

On the trip to Puerto Rico, however, I had no travel agent to smooth the way. My first priority was to see if we could actually get the same flight a day earlier; next I had to notify the Caribe Hilton that we’d be arriving Sunday evening and make sure they met us at the airport with the limousine and baggage wagon.

Changing the flight turned out to be no problem. The stumbling block came when I contacted the hotel in Puerto Rico. I had realized after I returned from the Foreign Service how much we in this country take our telephones for granted. It’s almost unheard of to call a number and not get through. However, I was quickly reminded of the vagaries of foreign telephone systems when I contacted the hotel operator and asked how to reach Puerto Rico.

“Oh, you’ll have to go through the operator,” she told me.

“Isn’t this the operator?” I asked. Perhaps I’d dialed room service by mistake.

“No, I mean the big operator. I’ll connect you.”

The big operator placed the call and after two minutes of clicking and buzzing, she informed me that the circuits were busy and I should try again. I tried again. And again. After  nearly two hours of persistent calling, I finally got the desired response—a ringing phone—at the other end.

“Caribe Hilton,” a voice said in heavily accented English.

“Hello!” I answered brightly, relieved to have gotten through at last.

“Caribe Hilton,” the voice repeated. My heart sank. I had the distinct impression that the person didn’t understand the word “hello.” I repeated it.

“Hello?” the voice queried.

The connection had been tenuous in the first place, then the sounds of eggs frying washed over the line.

“Hello!” I shouted, but I was talking to a dial tone.

The hotel operator was sympathetic and continued to put me through to the big operator at regular intervals. At last I was once again rewarded by the sound of a ringing telephone.

“Caribe Hilton.”

I tried a different tack. “
Hable Inglés
?” I asked.

“Eh?”

“
Hable Inglés
?” I shouted.

Silence greeted me. I didn’t know if she was trying to come up with the correct answer to the question, or if she had gone to find someone who
hable’d Inglés
. A moment later another voice came over the line.

“
Hable Inglés
?” I queried again.

“
Si.”

“
Bueno
,” I said, thereby exhausting my entire command of the Spanish language. “This is Phyllis Diller’s secretary.”

“Eh?” the voice said.

“Phyllis Diller!”

“Oh.”

I took a fresh approach. “Is the manager there?” I asked it slowly and loudly which, of course, is a time-tested method for making oneself clearly understood to people who don’t speak English.

“Manager?”

“Manager!” I shouted. “I want to talk to the manager!” I said “manager” even more loudly and even more slowly, clearly enunciating each syllable.

“
Momento
,” the voice replied, and I heard the telephone being set down. Several minutes passed. We didn’t have all day. In fact, we were leaving for the airport in less than an hour. Finally, a new voice came on the line.

“Do you speak English?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“Thank heaven!”

“Eh?”

“Never mind! Listen, this is Phyllis Diller’s secretary. We’re going to be arriving tonight instead of tomorrow.”

“Who?”

“Phyllis Diller!”

“Oh.”

“You know, the lady who is going to entertain in your hotel. Phyllis Diller!”

“Yes?” came the doubtful affirmation. The fact that every response from the other end was a monosyllable had begun to disturb me.

“Is the manager there?” I asked again.

“At lunch.”

“Oh. Well, do you understand? Phyllis Diller is going to be coming tonight instead of tomorrow. You have to have the limousine and baggage car at the airport tonight at six o’clock. Okay?”

“Phyllis Diller,” he repeated doubtfully.

“Yes. Tonight at six. Please have the limousine meet us at the airport. Eastern Airlines.”

“What?”

I knew I had just confused the issue beyond retrieval.

“Never mind. Just have the limousine at the airport at six tonight to meet Phyllis Diller. And tell the manager!”

“Okay.”

“Promise?” I asked, but the line had already gone dead. I figured I’d been talking to a brick wall, but it was too late to do anything else. We had to forge ahead. 

“Did you get through?” Phyllis asked when I went to her room.

“I think so. I talked to someone who said he spoke English, but I’m not sure he understood.”

“Did you tell them it was for me?”

“I did.”

“Well, that’ll be okay then.”

Her faith was a great deal stronger than mine, but I decided not to press the point. We’d see what happened when we landed in Puerto Rico.

What happened when we landed in Puerto Rico was that every English-speaking person on the plane transformed into a native-born Puerto Rican. We became the only English-speaking people in the entire airport. I made sure that Phyllis and I stayed close together, and there was no doubt she had the same idea. For one thing, I had both of our passports and all the money. For another, she had been drinking on the plane and was none too steady on her feet. The flight crew had done their best to keep her champagne glass full while Phyllis seemed determined to get it empty. The only thing in our favor so far was that no one had recognized Phyllis, so we didn’t have to keep a lookout for eager fans descending on us.

We followed the flow of people and eventually ended up in a large, long, baggage area where people from apparently hundreds of previous flights were gathered. It was a mob.

“Where are the bags?” Phyllis asked.

“I’m not sure yet.” I scanned the overhead signs for something that said Eastern Airlines but without any luck.

“Do you see anyone who was on our flight?” she whispered as if she didn’t want people to overhear.

“They’ve gone,” I said. I felt as if we had entered the Twilight Zone.

“Where’s the limousine?” she asked.

From the baggage area I could see a lot of taxis and vehicles pulled up at the curb, but nothing that remotely resembled a limousine. From where I stood, many of them barely resembled automobiles.

“Not here.”

“Did you call them?” she asked with the persistence of the inebriated.

“I called them. They’ll be here. Right now I’ve got to find our bags.”

During the entire conversation I’d been scanning the area for newly arrived bags. I was somewhat alarmed by the many large signs that proclaimed “Do Not Leave Luggage Unattended” in several languages. I decided to check out the baggage area farther afield since nothing seemed to be happening in our vicinity.        

“I’m going down to the other end,” I told Phyllis. “You wait right here by this pillar where I can find you.”

“Don’t leave me!”

“I have to find the luggage. I’ll be right back.”

She peered at me doubtfully. “You better get the bags. And the limousine.”

Oh, yeah, there’s a good idea.
Perspiration started running down my back. It was humid in Puerto Rico, but that wasn’t the reason.

I nodded curtly and started off, torn between finding the limousine, whose driver could help with the bags, and the fear of leaving the luggage, which was still nowhere in sight, unattended. I opted for the former and ran outside for a quick look. Heavens, it was hot! I looked over the parking area from one end to the other. No limousine in sight. I dashed back inside to find Phyllis right where I’d left her.