Valley of the Dolls (59 page)

“Suppose Lyon has to travel? After all, he can’t stay put in New York forever.”

“Then we’ll travel together, the three of us.”

“Well, I won’t go to California without him.”

“Neely, please . . . I can’t be without Lyon on Christmas. And it’s too risky for me to travel.”

“What about me?” Neely asked. “Does everything have to be for you? You’ve got everything. You’ve always had everything. You wind up with money, the man you love and now a baby. I’ve got nothing—just work. I’ve made it again, but that’s all I’ve got. And I’m working to pay you back.”

“Neely, I’ve never asked you for the money,” Anne protested.

“I know, but I told George and Lyon I wanted to pay you back. After the California date, you’ll be paid in full. Meanwhile, I’m making money for your husband’s office, and you’re getting the benefits of that too.” She looked around the apartment. “I live in a lousy hotel suite with that bull dyke Christine, who acts like my keeper. I’m alone, and all I’m asking is for Lyon to go to Los Angeles with me for ten lousy days. I can’t face Hollywood alone. It’ll be my first time back. Maybe you think it’s easy to step out there and know they’re all staring and whispering, ’Look how fat she is.’ And then having to grin and win them over. Sure my talent gets ’em—but I have that first awful minute to face, when they’re gasping. I need someone to give me a pep talk before each show. I
need
it, Anne. If I didn’t have a friendly face I’d take a Dexie—or a drink. A real drink, not beer. And that would be it. They told me at the funny farm that the minute I start with pills or booze, good-by Charlie!”

“If Lyon wants to go it’s all right,” Anne said.

“You put it that way and you know damn well he won’t,” Neely snapped.

“No, Neely, I mean it. It will be all right with me.”

“It has to be more than all right or he won’t go. You’ve got to make him go. Otherwise, I just won’t play the date. I can always get laryngitis.”

Lyon refused to leave Anne. And he deeply resented Neely’s blackmail tactics. “No fat little pig is going to run our lives,” he said angrily. “She may be important to the office, but not quite that important.”

“But you’re on the verge of getting several big stars,” Anne argued. George told me things are really popping. But they’d fall through if Neely left the office—and she could. She could break her contract by saying you refused her personal representation when she most needed it.”

“Then she’s free to leave. If George and I have to pin our entire future on this bag of blubber then we really haven’t much faith in ourselves. I don’t know about George, but I’m getting damn tired of hearing how we need Neely to get the others. Maybe
he
doesn’t believe he has anything to offer a client, but Henry Bellamy believed in me enough to offer me the loan. Henry Bellamy would never have let a Neely O’Hara dictate his life.”

“Helen Lawson did her share,” Anne reminded him.

“He was in love with Helen. That made the difference. We resurrected Neely. That should be enough for the trade. And Henry’s belief in me is enough for me to chance letting Neely go. I’ll not be dependent on anyone.”

The following day Lyon came home earlier than usual. His eyes were cold with anger. He took off his coat and stared at Anne peculiarly. She pulled her bulky frame out of the club chair and started to mix a drink. She sensed some crisis . . . something must have gone wrong at the office. He took the drink silently.

“Was George difficult?” she asked.

He sat down and took a long swallow. Then he looked at her intently. “Tell me, Anne, do you think I should go to California with Neely?”

She hesitated. It suddenly seemed to be a loaded question. She didn’t like the way he was looking at her. “I don’t expect the baby until the middle of January. Of course, I don’t want to be without you on Christmas, but I’m trying to be objective. . . .”

“Tell me what to do, Anne,” he said in that same strange tone.

“It’s for you to decide,” she answered. “I’ll understand, whatever the decision is.”

“No, you decide. You’ve decided everything else. Tell me, what will our baby weigh? I know it will be a girl, because you decided that. Is there anything you don’t control?”

“Lyon, what are you talking about?”

“You! And the Bellamy, Bellows and Burke Agency. God, I must be the laughingstock of this town. I was bought by Anne Welles. I suppose everyone knows but me. I just found out—Neely told me.”

“Neely? How could she know?” Anne was frightened. She had never seen this look on Lyon’s face.

“I know, it was supposed to be a secret. Henry explained. But it would have come out soon anyway. All those weekly checks I’ve been sending Henry have been endorsed by Henry and sent to you. They’d show up in the tax returns.”

“But how did Neely find out?”

“Henry told her. It seems she went to him and told him how things were, hoping he’d convince you to let me travel with her. And that’s when Henry gave it away. He said he was sure you’d want me to do whatever was best for the business, since it was your money at stake. Neely couldn’t wait to rush to the office to tell me. Of course, George put on the proper act, pretended he was surprised. But everyone has known all along, haven’t they?”

“Lyon, no one has known. Henry shouldn’t have told Neely. I was going to tell you when the time came. I only did it because I loved you, to keep you from going back to England.”

“And you accomplished it. You can buy what you want! Is that what you learned from Kevin Gillmore? Everything has a price—just find out the amount.”

“But my money is your money.” She fought her panic. “I only did it because I loved you. I wanted to marry you and have your baby—can’t you understand?”

“No. I only understand that George stood there with a smirk and said, ’Cheer up, Lyon, we’re in the same boat—our wives own the business.’ But I’m not George Bellows. And by God from now on the business will always come first. Your money is at stake, and I’ll get it back for you—every cent. But something more important than money is at stake now—my pride and self-respect. There’s only one way to get it back—by doubling your goddam investment.”

“Lyon!” She threw her arms around him, but he remained stiff and unyielding. “I did it out of love. Do you understand?”

“I understand only one thing—the Bellamy, Bellows and Burke Agency is going to be the biggest agency in town . . . in the world! You bought it for me, my girl, and you’re going to get your money’s worth. I’ll show you. And the first thing I do is book reservations to take our pig of a star to Los Angeles. Christmas be damned—full speed ahead!”

1963

Jennifer Burke was born New Year’s Day. She burst into the world two weeks ahead of schedule and gave Anne and the doctor quite a frantic New Year’s Eve. She took fifteen hours to make her entrance, but when she finally arrived, red and squalling, Anne saw no wrinkles or wizened newborn face—she saw only the miracle and beauty of the little life she had borne, and her strength surged back at the wonder of it all.

She had been lonely with Lyon gone. Although he called every day from California, the rift was there. She felt it in his casual terms of endearment. It stood between them like a steel gate. But when the baby came, the gate opened. As she came out of the anesthetic haze he phoned, and she said, almost apologetically, “It
is
a girl . . .” He laughed, heartily. “I’m delighted! I’m much too old to learn to play football with a son. I’ll have more fun teaching a teen-aged daughter how to dance.”

He called her two and three times a day while she was in the hospital. Neely’s triumph in Los Angeles had been record-breaking, and now she was ready to go on to San Francisco. Would Anne mind dreadfully? It meant three more weeks away.

“Of course not,” she said quickly. She did not want to chance reviving any discussion of the firm or Neely’s work. Not now, when everything was wonderful again. “Jennifer Burke will be an old lady by then, but I’ll try to keep your memory alive,” she teased.

“George said he’d take some Polaroid pictures of her,” Lyon said. “Send them to me as soon as they dry.”

“I’ve just sent the one they took at the hospital. She looks like a little old gnome. But really, she’s going to be a beauty, Lyon. She has dark hair—what there is of it.”

Lyon flew into town at the end of the month. Little Jennifer weighed nine pounds and had lost her wrinkles. She was all pink and white, and he was delighted with her. He smiled gently as he studied the tiny face. “I’m terribly afraid she resembles me,” he said with a frown. “Anne, you should have concentrated harder. I wanted a carbon copy of you.”

“I did concentrate, and it worked. I wanted her to look exactly like
you.”

He had rushed straight from the airport to the apartment to see her and the baby. Now he had to go to the office. “We’ll celebrate the heiress’s arrival tonight at dinner,” he promised.

That night Miss Cuzins, the baby’s nurse, helped her squeeze into a waist nipper. It was uncomfortable, but after so many months of being ungainly, she wanted Lyon to see her slim and chic again. Not too bad, she thought, studying her figure in the mirror. Actually her weight had returned to normal; it was just her waistline that was off, and the nipper did the trick. After all, it was only a month. But thank God she would finally be able to go to bed with Lyon that night. It had been so long—not since her seventh month. Poor Lyon. The doctor had warned her there might be some pain at first, but it didn’t matter. To hold Lyon in her arms again, to feel his body against her own—that was all that mattered.

His secretary called at six. Lyon was at a screening; would she meet him at seven o’clock at Danny’s Hideaway? She hung up, slightly disappointed. She had envisioned cocktails together at home, then a quiet dinner somewhere off the beaten track, where they wouldn’t run into everyone they knew. She liked Danny’s, but it meant everyone stopping by the table to talk about business. Normally she didn’t mind shop talk, but tonight was to be special.

She sat at a table near the bar and waited. It was a quarter to eight and she was on her second Scotch when she finally saw Lyon. He was with two of his assistants and Bill Mack, a television director.

He rushed to her and kissed her lightly. “Forgive me, please. We were looking at a tape at N.B.C., and the bloody thing split and had to be rerun. Oh, darling, you remember Jim Handly and Bud Hoff,” he said as he brought the two young men over to the table. “And of course you know Bill.”

They sat at a large table and talked about the tape they had seen, a format of a new situation comedy show. From the conversation, Anne deduced that Bill Mack owned it and that he wanted to sign with The Three B’s, as Bellamy, Bellows and Burke was beginning to be known. He wanted them to sell the package. Lyon was enthusiastic. He was sure he could interest C.B.S. or A.B.C., and perhaps redo it with Joey Kling in the lead. Joey had just signed with the office. He was the new comedian of the year.

“He’s going to be at the Palladium with Neely,” Lyon explained. “As a matter of fact, he should be here any second. I told him to pick me up.”

“Pick you up?” Anne turned in surprise.

“Oh, my angel,” he said with genuine concern. “This all happened three hours ago. Joey is going to Washington to break in his act.”

“But you don’t have to go, do you?”

“Don’t I ever! Neely thinks she’s doing a one-woman show there tomorrow night. I have to explain how important it is for Joey to share the bill with her.”

“I don’t envy you,” Bud Hoff said.

Lyon smiled. “Neely knows there will be other acts on the bill with her at the Palladium, but she hasn’t shared the bill with anyone in the States. So far it’s been a one-woman show. But when I explain that we’ve just signed Joey . . . Neely’s really a good sort, if you explain things right.”

He was leaving tonight! The realization kept spinning through her head. He was leaving tonight!

“When will you be back?” she asked.

“In two weeks. I’ll phone first thing in the morning. Perhaps you could fly down over the weekend. Could little Jen spare you?”

“Must you go tonight, Lyon?”

“I must. I hadn’t planned to leave until tomorrow. But I have to get the publicity set on Joey, and I’d best be on hand early tomorrow morning.”

He had only planned to stay in town one night!

Joey Kling suddenly poked his head in the door. Lyon waved. “I’ve got the car waiting,” Joey called out. “And we’re double-parked.”

Lyon sprang up. “Sign the tab to the office, Bud. Good night, my angel—I’ll phone you tomorrow. Oh Bud, you will see Anne home, won’t you?”

She didn’t go to Washington over the weekend. Miss Cuzins had said it would be fine, of course she could go. But Lyon never brought it up. And on Friday he merely said, “I’ll ring you tomorrow, same time.”

“Why don’t you just come out and ask what’s wrong?” Henry said.

Anne stared into her coffee cup as if expecting some miraculous answer to be revealed in its dregs. “Because basically nothing
is
wrong,” she answered. “There’s just this intangible difference.”

Henry Bellamy sighed. Anne looked pale and much too thin. She had sounded desperate when she demanded he take her to dinner. He was also afraid of the questions she would put to him.

“Henry, the baby is three months old. Lyon has spent exactly four days with her. One between California and Washington, and three between Washington and London. He’s been in London a month now. Neely’s a smash. I know she’s being held over, but there’s no reason for him to remain.”

“What does George say?”

She smiled. “The same old line. That Neely won’t stay there alone. That Lyon is like a god to her, the only one she’ll listen to. That she’s bringing big money into the office.”

Henry’s smile was sad. “This is the story of being a successful manager. The wife always suffers.”

“But they’ve gotten several big stars now. The office is doing great. How long do they have to play wet nurse to Neely? She seems all right now. I think she can stand on her own two feet.”