Dear Cary - Dyan Cannon [109]
I looked at him for an explanation.
“I think it’s high time we did a movie together,” he said. I didn’t know what to say. He went on. “This is the perfect script for us. Young American woman comes to London to conquer the arts scene and cruelly seduces grizzled old literary lion.”
I was completely thrown. It was as if this person who had always spoken English was now speaking Chinese. I could make out the words but I couldn’t connect to their meaning.
“I’ll make sure the studio gives you an extremely plummy rate for this. You can put it in the bank, do what you want with it, so you don’t feel like you have to be so dependent on me.”
I studied him for a moment and said, “I don’t know, Cary.” I wanted to know, wanted to believe that he was trying to change, to make things better for us.
“Cary, that would’ve been music to my ears a couple of years ago,” I said, finally finding my voice. “But it’s about you and me now. It’s not about a movie or money. It’s about you and me and Jennifer, living happily together.”
“Dyan . . .” Other than after one of his bad encounters with Elsie, it was the only time I ever saw him look so dismal. He took me by the hand and looked at me pleadingly.
“I don’t know if I have another divorce left in me,” he said.
My heart broke.
“Will you stay here tonight?” he asked.
I didn’t want to think anymore. I didn’t know what was right or wrong, smart or stupid. I just wanted to be with him.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Time Out
“No, Dyan, she’s a spiritual teacher,” Artis said. “She has wisdom. It doesn’t have anything to do with religion.”
I was having lunch with Vince and Artis, who had become two very close friends during the time Cary and I were hanging in limbo. Cary and I had agreed that for the time being, we needed to have separate residences, so I’d moved into a house on Foothill Boulevard a couple of weeks earlier, just five minutes away from Cary’s house. Vince and Artis seemed to know by intuition the exact moment when my spirit was sinking, and without me even calling them, they’d appear magically at my doorstep. They were telling me about a woman named Lily Cowell whom they’d gone to for spiritual advice for years and who, they said, had radically changed their lives. I was skeptical. The whole idea of getting spiritual advice seemed a little goofy to me, but I trusted Vince and Artis.
“You promise she’s not a wacky California woo-woo bird who professes all that touchy-feely stuff?” I asked.
“We promise, she’s none of that,” Vince said. “Anything we try to tell you about her isn’t going to do her justice.”
“This is life-changing, Dyan,” Artis said. Where had I heard that before?
“If you’re not completely satisfied, your misery will be refunded in full,” Vince added.
It sounded a little strange, but no other doors seemed to be opening. I needed to find some clarity, and I wasn’t about to go back to another shrink. If Vince and Artis thought a half hour with Lily would turn things around, what did I have to lose?
That evening, I put Jennifer to bed and sat by the fire, imagining the opening credits to The Old Man and Me. Starring Cary Grant and Dyan Cannon. I played the movie trailer in my mind, imagined the double-page magazine spreads with at-home interviews of Cary and me, the happy couple . . . I thought about having a big bank account and the mobility to do some of the things I wanted to without having to clear it with Cary.
The script, the money . . . they were certainly attractive gestures, but something in me held back. I feared that accepting the offer would mean I was entering into a bargain, and what was disconcertingly unclear was what I would be expected to put up as collateral. I feared that ultimately it would be my freedom. Not freedom from Cary, nor freedom from marriage, but freedom to