Til the Real Thing Comes Along (17 page)

They stopped in Santa Barbara for lunch at the Biltmore. The valet took the Mustang, and R.J. and David walked hand in hand
through the cool tile-floored, high-ceilinged lobby to the dining room.

“This is a special place for me,” he said after they were seated at their table. “My parents used to bring me here when I
was a kid.”

“You mean last year,” she teased. He smiled. R.J. looked around at the elegant dining room and thought about her own immigrant
father, who had probably never even seen a room like this. There were lots of older people having lunch. Ladies with hair
that looked tinted blue, and men wearing brightly colored golf pants. The waitress brought the menu.

“No chance there’ll be a bagel on here,” R.J. said, opening it. She was right.

Back in the car after lunch, as they moved up the coast, he asked her a lot of questions about her childhood, and when she
answered them she could tell by the comments
he made that he was really listening to her. Interested. After a while he put a tape in the tape deck, and they sang along
with the music: Jobim’s “Quiet Nights and Quiet Stars,” and Kenny Loggins singing “Celebrate Me Home.” And when David put
the Frank Sinatra tape on, they were somewhere around Big Sur and he turned the music louder.

“I’m surprised,” she teased him, “that at your age you even know who this is.”

“Are you kidding? Old Blue Eyes?” he said, and his own blue eyes danced.

He knew every word of every song, and as the introduction to “You Make Me Feel So Young” played, they were just approaching
Big Sur. He pulled the Mustang off the road, got out of the car, came around to the passenger side, took her hand, pulled
her to her feet into his arms, and with Sinatra playing at top volume, they danced. Slow-danced. Close together. With the
ocean smashing against the rocks below. Drivers of other cars passing on the road honked in amusement, but R.J. didn’t hear
the ocean or the horns. Just her own voice in her head, warning herself: Don’t melt. Don’t let this feel so good. It feels
this way because it’s a seduction. Know that and accept that and don’t fall for this boy. He’s a boy. This can’t work. And
you’ll want it to, because you’re wanting it already and… “Songs to be sung, bells to be rung, and a wonderful fling to be
flung,” Old Blue Eyes sang. A wonderful fling to be flung. That’s what it was. Why couldn’t she just let it be that?

The Ventana Inn was rustic and the cabin was luxurious and cozy. David had checked in with ease, and minutes later, he and
R.J. sat on the porch of a two-story cabin set into the side of a green hill, with the ocean far below. They sipped wine and
watched the sunset. And though David didn’t ask, R.J. began to tell him about her life. How her father and mother both came
over to America from two different places in Russia when they were very young.

They were poor struggling Jews who had escaped oppression to live in a strange new place. And she was their only child, who
came to them late in life. For many years her elderly grandmother lived with them and raised her while her parents worked.
The stories about what R.J. thought the world was like from her vantage point as a child growing up in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania,
were so strange and
unusual to him that several times he had to shake his head and laugh. A long time later, when she thought about it, she realized
she had told him those stories to prove to him immediately how totally wrong they were for each other.

Then he told her about working in the paper business and a little about his mother, who had been an actress and very beautiful
but of whom he had very little memory because she had died when he was very young. And then they held hands quietly. When
it was night, they walked down the long path from Ventana to the highway, and down Highway One about a quarter of a mile to
Nepenthe. It was a funky, casual burger place where the people who sat around the outdoor rock fireplace waiting for their
tables to be ready inside, looked as if they’d just stepped out of the sixties. R.J. and David waited by the fire, too, drinking
red wine and talking. David told her about his work and how he had begun in the paper products division. A few years before
he had started the company’s computer paper department, though the bulk of the company business, which had started with one
small lumber mill, was still from their various newspaper and magazine accounts and from their sale of pulp.

“I always thought that meant dirty novels,” R.J. told him and he laughed.

“We’re a perfect pair,” he said. “I work for a company that makes paper and you write on it.”

She told him about her days on Patsy’s show, and the things the men said in meetings, and what it had been like working with
Patsy, and how she’d been fired. By the time they’d walked back to the cottage at the Ventana Inn, and he held her and kissed
her a kiss that had so much sweetness and warmth behind it, she knew that the second bedroom he’d so politely paid for was
a nice gesture but a waste of money. Because she only wanted to be in his arms all night long. Even if it was dumb. Even if
it was a fling. Another kiss and yes was all she could say when he lifted her and carried her upstairs. Yes. And at two in
the morning, after endless hours of lovemaking, she said, “You know, a woman of my age is at the peak of her sexuality, but
men peak at eighteen. So maybe I was wrong about your being too young for me. I think the real problem is that you’re too
old for me.” He giggled and kissed her on the nose, and
then proved to her before they finally fell asleep that he was not at all too old for her.

She woke up in the morning with a start. David was wrapped around her and in a very deep sleep. Even when he slept he was
handsome. She slid out of his arms and stood, then looked at her watch on the night stand. Eleven-thirty. So late. They probably
hadn’t fallen asleep until God knows when. She tiptoed into the bathroom and… good God. She hadn’t taken her makeup off the
night before, and her face was a mess. Her head was pounding too. She washed her face and brushed her teeth, wrapped a towel
around her naked body, walked downstairs to the living room of the cabin, looked outside at the leafy green view, and worried.
Why had she let herself do this? Steal away for a weekend with this boy? Yesterday with him had clearly been more than she’d
hoped for, but once again there was nowhere to go. Big deal, Dinah would say. Life is short and so are you. Live it up.

She sat sleepily on the wicker and white-canvas chair with her feet curled under her. To this man she was an attractive oddity,
she thought. An older funny person in show business. Fun to slip away with for the weekend. That’s what this is. So she had
to stop doing what she was already doing. Thinking about every couple she’d ever heard about in which the woman was older
and how happily married they were. That was crazy. That was self-destructive. That was how she could insure herself getting
hurt. By wanting marriage and a family so much that she’d try to fit any face into the picture where the husband/father is
supposed to be. The way she had with Michael, or Barry, crazy after crazy, ad infinitum. No, kiddo, she told herself. This
boy is not for you. Get your act out of here and on the road back to L.A.

“It isn’t even noon yet,” she heard David say as he walked down the steps. “What are you doing up?” He was naked. The soft
golden hairs on his chest and arms and legs glowed in the sunlight that poured in the window. Unless there was some deep dark
secret he was keeping—a horrible temper, a shady past—he was without a doubt the sweetest, most attractive man she’d ever
encountered in her life. She felt an enormous rush of feeling for him. A longing not just to press herself against him, but
to hold him, learn about him, feel close to him, and…

“I want to go home,” R.J. said, and the words
better now
fluttered through her head Better now, before she cared too much. David didn’t look surprised but his jaw tensed.

“Looking to cut your losses?” he asked. He understood. She nodded, he shrugged, and they were checked out, in the car, and
on the road south in minutes. They spoke only to exchange strained polite conversation about restroom stops. At San Luis Obispo
it started to rain and when they stopped to put the top up, R.J. said, “I’ll drive.” When she got behind the wheel she felt
a little better, as if taking control of the wheel had given her control of the situation, but when he slid the Frank Sinatra
tape into the tape deck, and Frank sang the songs they had listened to on the way up the coast, and she remembered how it
felt to be dose to him… no. She was doing the right thing now. Making a mature decision.

The freeway into Los Angeles seemed uglier and more congested than she’d ever seen it. R.J. drove the Mustang up her street
and into the driveway, parked, and got out. David got out, too, and opened the trunk so he could take out his bag. He took
hers out as well, and carried it to the front door. The drive had taken them all day. It was dark. Finally they stood at her
front door. He looked into her eyes and she felt foolish and sad for feeling the way she was feeling and handling it all with
so little finesse. But what he had said was right. Cutting her losses was exactly what she was doing. There was no percentage
in hoping this would turn into something other than a hot love affair with a younger man. That might have been the right thing
for many other women, but not for her. Not now.

“I’m sorry,” he said, “but you must have been so hurt down the line that you can’t see past your pain. And you’ve really got
some negative self-fulfilling prophecy going about the two of us. So I want you to know that I had a great time with you yesterday
and last night, and I hope for your sake you work out your problems one of these days.”

R.J.’s face burned. She didn’t know what to say. He was right, but he was wrong, for her. If only. The door opened and a sleepy-eyed
Jeffie looked at the two of them.

“Hi, Mom. I could hear you guys talking out here, so I—”

“This is David Malcolm,” R.J. said. “And this is my son, Jeff.”

“Nice meeting you,” David said.

“You too,” Jeffie said, eyeing David closely.

“I’ve got to go,” David said. He walked to his car, threw his duffel bag into the trunk, got in, and backed up to pull out
of the driveway.

“Neat,” Jeffie said, looking at the Jaguar.

“You mean the guy or the car?” R.J. asked. The right thing, she kept saying to herself. I’m doing the right thing. Then why
did she feel so rotten about it? So much so that she wanted to run out to the driveway and say “Wait! I’m a jerk and I’m changing
my mind.”

“Neither,” Jeffie said. “I’m talkin’ about his license plate.”

R.J. looked at the personalized license plate on David Malcolm’s car. There were no numbers. Just seven letters. R-A-I-N-B-O-W.

DAVEYAND ROSIE JANE

1939-1962

1939-1950

L
ily Daniels pushed the food nervously around on her plate with her fork, and every now and then took a bite that she could
barely swallow. She knew she should eat, because later when she got to her room she’d be starving if she didn’t. She was trying
very hard to hear and remember every word everyone at the table was saying, so the minute she got home she could tell it all
to her mother. But it wasn’t easy because so much of it was a dazzling blur of clever conversation, at this big long table
that was supposed to be elegant. Lily’s mother would laugh out loud when Lily told her that the ketchup and mustard were sitting
on the table still in their factory bottles. And there were paper napkins instead of cloth. Because that was hardly the way
either of them had imagined it would be having dinner at San Simeon with William Randolph Hearst and Marion Davies.

Marion Davies was darling and witty and Mr. Hearst was obviously mad about her. Earlier today she had sat by the tennis court
for nearly an hour with Lily, asking her questions about her acting career, honestly interested in all of the stories about
what it was like to be a contract player at Hemisphere Studios with Mr. Hearst’s friend Julian Raymond as the studio boss.

“I’ve only had the teensiest parts so far,” Lily told Marion—as she insisted Lily call her instead of “Miss Davies.” And Lily
made a mental note to tell that to her mother when she got back to Los Angeles, to prove that
Marion was a very warm, nice person despite the fact that she was Mr. Hearst’s “misstresss,” which was the way her mother
had hissed it this morning while she watched Lily pack. Sitting on a chair in Lily’s room in that way she did so that her
back never touched the back of the chair. Knowing her twenty-one-year-old daughter wouldn’t pay any attention anyway if she
tried to stop her, but obviously hating the idea that Lily was actually going to spend a weekend in the home of that brazen
couple who lived in sin.

Marion Davies also wanted to know—and it didn’t feel as if she was just making small talk either—how Lily had become a studio
contract actress to begin with. And Lily, who had told the dumb story over and over to every one of her girlfriends, to everyone
in her family on both sides, and even to one reporter from a fan magazine, told it again. How she was working as a receptionist
in Dr. Beeler’s dental office when Julian Raymond came in with an abscessed tooth and saw her there and offered her a movie
contract. And the way Dr. Beeler, who had been Mr. Raymond’s dentist for years, warned her that-the devil was in show businesss.
Marion Davies had loved that part. Laughed a hearty laugh.