Jacqueline Susann's Shadow of the Dolls (8 page)

Curtis and Jerry kept telling her it was time to get out there and date, and she kept replying that she wasn’t ready yet, but of course that wasn’t the truth of it. No one had asked her out. No one even flirted with her. Everything her single friends had complained to her about was turning out to be true.

Not that she had ever really dated to begin with. In high school, everyone went around in groups. One chilly night in tenth grade she had found herself sitting next to a boy at a football game, and he had taken her hand and squeezed, and she had squeezed back, and suddenly they were a couple. He was from a fine Yankee family (bankers and lawyers and four generations at Dartmouth), and she was from a finer Yankee family (the money mostly gone, but the breeding flawless all the way back to the 1600s), and everyone just assumed they would marry and settle down in one of the big
clapboard houses in town. Willie liked to kiss a lot, and sometimes after a beer or two he would slide his hand up under her sweater.

He never formally proposed. They came home for Thanksgiving weekend freshman year (Willie from Dartmouth, Anne from Radcliffe), and on Saturday night, after an evening at the movies with friends, he drove her down a wide side street and pointed to a large Victorian house with a wraparound porch. It belonged to one of his uncles, a man whose children had all settled elsewhere, in Boston and Providence and beyond.

“I want us to live in a house like that,” Willie said, coasting to a stop. Anne could still remember the sounds of leaves being crushed beneath the tires, of the car’s engine disengaging, of a dog barking in the distance.

“That’s always been one of my favorite houses,” Anne said. He nodded and pulled out a ring, a not-quite-engagement ring. It had belonged to his grandmother, a small perfect opal surrounded by tiny diamonds.

She had worn the ring all through college. Four years without dates. Not that any of her friends ever went out on anything that remotely resembled an old-fashioned date. They went to parties and danced in a big group and went home with the boys who danced the closest. They stayed in the library till closing and walked home with the boys who played footsie under the table. They went to bars and drank in a group and went to bed with the boys who walked them home.

Willie’s uncle died just before Christmas break of their senior year. They parked in front of the house, and he turned off the headlights. “It’s mine now,” he said. “It’s ours.”

“I want to go to New York,” she said. It just flew out of her mouth. She had never even been to New York, she didn’t even know anyone who lived there—at school, the New York girls were like a group of glamorous aliens, they wore eye makeup and suede
boots and smoked cigarettes and lived in apartments off-campus—but as soon as she said it she knew it was true.

Willie cut the engine. His uncle’s house looked so big, and the ring felt so small. They both cried. Willie cried from heartbreak. Anne cried from excitement, from fear. New York was something she had read about in novels, something she had seen in the movies. She would be just like Audrey Hepburn, she would wear elegant little dresses and have romantic adventures with glamorous older men. Or she would be just like Katharine Hepburn, she would wear perfectly cut trousers and stride into a room with authority and grace.

As it turned out, she was just a secretary in a talent agency. People came and went, barely noticing the girls who brought them coffee. And then one day Allen Cooper came in and swept her off to dinner.

“Hungry?” Allen had asked. She’d nodded and hadn’t realized till afterward that he’d been talking about food. He was the sort of man who said “Pick you up at seven” without asking if she were free or telling her exactly where they were going. Anne was pretty sure men like that didn’t exist anymore.

And then there was Lyon. Had they ever gone on a real first date? He was just there, another agent in the office, the good-looking one with the British accent, the man who flirted with everyone. One afternoon she was sitting at her desk, typing a letter, and he came around and stood behind her. He was saying something—telling a story, repeating a joke, she couldn’t remember—and she felt as though all the cells of her body were rearranging themselves in his presence. It was like a science experiment from the third grade: spread the metal filings out across a piece of cardboard, hold the magnet underneath the cardboard, watch the metal rearrange itself in the shape of the magnet.

She couldn’t see him, but she could feel his breath on her neck.
He is going to seduce me
, she thought, and then a minute later,
I am
going to let him seduce me
. It happened in a hotel room, and afterward, shy and beaming, she wrapped herself in a rented sheet.

And then there was Kevin Gillian. Lyon was in England, he had left the agency and was writing a novel; it seemed he might never come back. Kevin took her to a party and flirted with her gently—he was older, courtly, almost paternal—and she never for a moment considered that it was anything other than a little harmless business socializing. At the end of the party he held her coat for her, and as she slid into it, she felt him lift her hair from underneath her collar and smooth it across her shoulders. When he kissed her, he held her throat with the tips of his fingers.

Beautiful women were his work. He ran a cosmetics empire—makeup, perfume, hair care, a dozen different product lines—and installed Anne as his princess. She traveled with him, she modeled for him, she entertained for him. Their sex was not passionate, but it was enthusiastic and varied. He liked to keep the lights on and watch her move. He would not rest until she had come twice.
It is what it is
, Anne thought. He made her very rich, and he cared for her as much as she cared for him: just enough to keep it going, just enough to keep both of them from looking elsewhere.

And then Lyon came back. Now that it was over, now that it was years later and she could barely remember the heat of their first years together, Anne tallied it up on one hand. Four men. She had only ever kissed four men, had slept with only two, had never been on one real date.

I am totally unequipped
, she thought now, looking at Curtis’s wide blackboard. She sat at her desk and let her head drop onto her folded arms, and her eyes filled with tears. The years when men sought her out, the years of being pursued and seduced, the years of letting the world come to her, they were all over now. She was single, and she was lonely, and she had no idea how to make things different.

Curtis came in, carrying a bag of croissants and fresh coffee.

“Annie!” he cried. “I have just done the most awful, wonderful thing. You are going to kill me, but you have to kiss me first.”

She lifted her head and smiled. “I’m afraid to ask.”

“I’ve fixed you up on a date! A blind date! With the most delicious man. He’s a banker, he used to be married to my cousin Camille, you know, horrible Camille with the fake teeth. He lives in Connecticut, and he does something terribly important for one of those terribly famous investment firms. Long story short: He’s in New York for a few days and he called to see if I wanted to have dinner, and I told him that unfortunately I was way too busy but could I send a stand-in.”

“Curtis, you didn’t.”

“Oh Annie, I did. Listen, this one is a catch. And he’s totally available. So call Miss Gretchen because you’ve got a big date tomorrow night.”

“Tomorrow?”

“He’s only in town for three days. Oh, this is so exciting. You must promise me that you won’t move to Connecticut until the summer is over. I need you at least through Labor Day.”

“Curtis, I haven’t even met him yet. And, I don’t know. A blind date. I’ve never been on a blind date.”

“Annie darling, there are countries, entire continents, where people get blind
married
. So I think you can handle one blind date. Think of it as practice.”

“Tell me more about him.”

“What do you need to know? Isn’t it enough that I approve of him? His name is Bill Carter, and he has a good job and a full head of hair and about four hundred women chasing after him. You’re not supposed to be giving me a hard time. You’re supposed to be down on your knees, saying, ‘Thank you, Curtis, I’m so grateful to you, Curtis.’ ”

“I’m so grateful to you, Curtis.”

“Promise me you’ll wear that little blue suit with the gold buttons.”

“I promise.” She smiled. “A date. I hope I can remember what to do.”

“It’s like riding a bicycle, except you get to wear lipstick. Oh, this has put me in such a good mood.”

“It’s sort of scary to watch. I think you’re even more excited about this than I am.”

“I’m delirious with glee! I can’t wait!”

“Oh Curtis. It’s just a blind date. It may not work out. Don’t get your hopes up.”

“Honey, this is going to be even more fun for me than it is for you. You get to go on a date, but I get to do something better.” He lifted a croissant and slowly twisted it apart, smiling like an old-time movie villain. “I get to tell Camille. I get to call her up tomorrow night and tell her that her ex-husband is dating Anne Welles, the former Gillian Girl!”

N
eely sat in front of the vanity, flossing her back teeth. She hated flossing. It was unbelievable to her that here in the most expensive hotel in New York City, a place where you could call someone to do practically anything and everything, she still had to floss her own teeth. You paid someone to wash your hair, you paid someone to tweeze your eyebrows, you paid someone to bring your meals and walk your dogs, but flossing was something you still had to do yourself.

She could hear Dave gargling in the bathroom. Good old Dave. They had been seeing each other for nearly a year, and it had gotten boring months ago, but he was too good for her career to let go of just yet. He took her to all the right parties, and her picture was
in the papers all the time now. She had recorded the theme song for the new James Bond movie that was scheduled for release in a couple of weeks, which guaranteed she’d be back on the radio all summer long.

And she would probably get an Emmy nomination for a guest role on a courtroom drama he owned a piece of. Originally Dave hadn’t thought her right for the part (the wife of a record-company executive murdered by a teenage fan), but she’d finally talked him into it. Not that talking had anything to do with it. It hadn’t taken Neely long to figure out when was the best time to ask Dave for favors: he might be a killer negotiator at the office, but in the bedroom she knew just what buttons to push.

Tonight she had a big favor to ask. She was wearing a black lace nightgown over a black satin bra that fastened in the front. She cupped her breasts, lifted them two inches, released them, lifted them, and dropped them again. She wished she hadn’t let Dave talk her out of a breast lift. In six weeks they’d be back in the Hamptons, which meant string bikinis and the whole world staring at her boobs. Why did she have to listen to him, anyway, it was her body. Six weeks: plenty of time for a lift and maybe some little implants, too.

Dave came up behind her and stroked her hair. He was wearing the pair of gray-striped silk pajamas she had ordered from London. He caught her eye in the mirror and smiled.

“You look gorgeous tonight. I couldn’t wait to get you home.”

She leaned her head against him and closed her eyes. “It was a fun party.” She rubbed her head back and forth.

“Mmm. That feels nice.”

“Honey, why don’t you give me a party this summer. My birthday’s coming up.”

“Sure, baby. There’s that new restaurant that opened over the winter, we can rent the whole place.”

“I meant a real party. At the house. You have that great big house with all that land out back, and you never give any parties.”

“Too much work.”

Neely could feel him starting to get hard. She leaned forward. “Too much money, you mean.”

“It’s not about the money. Don’t stop, that feels nice. You know it isn’t about money.”

“Then what is it about? What’s the point of having that kind of house if you never throw parties?”

“A big party like that takes over your whole life. My ex-wife used to give one every summer, and it nearly gave her a nervous breakdown. What’s the matter with going to a restaurant? What’s the difference?”

“It’s different, that’s all. Everyone knows it’s different.” Neely knew exactly the kind of party she wanted and what kind of people would be on the guest list. “You don’t have to do any work, you can hire these people who do everything for you.”

“It’s too late anyway, all the weekend nights are pretty much booked.”

Neely leaned back again. “There might be a Saturday night in August that’s still open.”

“Mmmm. Okay, I’ll think about it.”

“Promise?”

“Promise.”

She turned around and loosened the drawstring of his pajamas. “Are you thinking about it right now?”

“I’m thinking about it right now.”

“You keep on thinking about it, then. Don’t stop thinking about it.”

She took the tip of him in her mouth and swirled her tongue around him three times. She began to work the length of him, her tongue flicking from side to side, her fingers circling the base of him.

He was all the way hard now. She took him out of her mouth and gave him a squeeze.

“Don’t stop now,” he said.

“Oh baby,” she said, teasing him with her fingers. “Don’t I always give you everything you want?” She began again, sucking harder, waiting for the low moans that meant he was about to come. Her tongue was everywhere, her fingers, too; it had been months since she’d blown him this way, since she’d let him come in her mouth.

He was moments away from it. She stopped again and held him against her cheek.

“Not yet,” she said. “Not just yet.”

“You’re killing me.”

“How bad do you want it?”

“As bad as it gets.”

“And what would you do for it?”

“Anything you want. Anything.”

She began again, first slowly, then quicker, then slowly again, and when his moaning started she pressed two fingers hard into him, all the way in the back, and she did not stop, and he realized now that she would not stop, that she was all his, that everything was his. He watched himself come, her lipstick all smeared, watched her inhale, exhale, swallow, inhale again.