Dear Cary - Dyan Cannon [17]
“You could’ve fainted and declared that you couldn’t be moved under any circumstances—while I went to the hotel!” I said. We laughed. “ ‘Oh, Mr. Grant,’ ” I said, mimicking Darlene, “ ‘I am just a delicate flower, as fine as a bee’s wing, and I will never be able to manage anything so rugged as a stick shift!’ ”
Darlene looked at me and said, completely without irony, “Dyan, I just gave us a memory!”
I laughed. “Yes you did . . . So did he ask about me?”
“One question after another.”
“Mmm-hmmm. Like what?”
“Like what kind of girl you were.”
“And?”
“I told him the truth. That you preferred to sleep with Hells Angels, but that you were holding out for a rich older man with a silver Rolls-Royce.”
“You didn’t tell him I get my kicks robbing liquor stores?”
“No, I thought that should be a surprise.”
We waved at the Hotel Bella Vista as we drove past, knowing it was out of our budget, and went to the modest motel we’d stayed in last time we were in Palm Springs. It had open hallways that looked out over a kidney-shaped pool, and the room was musty with two single beds and fake-wood paneling halfway up the wall, but we didn’t mind. We were only there long enough to freshen up and change, and an hour later we were back at Cary’s.
“What can I offer you?” Cary asked jovially, smacking his hands down on the bar in the corner of the living room. Behind it, on shelves against the wall, were what seemed like every kind of spirit imaginable.
“What are you having?” I asked.
“I’m having a Manhattan.”
“I love Manhattans!” Darlene squealed. “That’s the one with pineapple juice, right?”
“Close,” Cary said. “Actually, it’s two shots of straight whiskey and a shot of red vermouth.”
Darlene recoiled like her clothes were on fire. “Oh,” she peeped.
“I’ve got just about anything you can think of,” Cary said. “And I’m a pretty good bartender.”
“Dyan, what was that blue drink we had at the Tiki Ti?”
“I don’t know, but it was the same color as that aftershave my dad uses.”
“Sorry, but I drank up all the Aqua Velva last Christmas,” Cary said. “You know, I’ll bet you girls would enjoy a whiskey sour.”
I noticed Cary eyeing the jigger as he measured the whiskey. First he filled it up to the top, then split it between the two cocktail glasses. It tasted like medicine, but I pretended to like it since he’d gone to so much trouble. I was happy when he suggested that we go out for dinner so I could put the drink down.
At the restaurant, we finally got Cary to talk about himself. I asked him the question actors always ask of actors: when it was he first caught the performing bug.
“I think my first taste of it was when I got drafted as the goalie for the school’s football team,” he said. “I was standing out in the freezing cold, resenting the fact that there was so much urgency surrounding the fate of that stupid ball. Then, in spite of myself, I blocked a goal and the crowd roared with approval. For me! I’d never heard anything so beautiful in my life.
“If becoming an athlete were the only way to hear that applause, I’d probably have gone professional. The fact is, I was too lazy for it. Didn’t like being cold and wet and scraping my knees against the turf. But when I was in middle school, our science professor had a part-time assistant who was an electrician. I was fascinated by anything electrical, and he took me under his wing. They’d just built the Bristol Hippodrome, and he’d installed the switchboard and lighting system. So I met him backstage one Saturday and found myself amidst the actors, all applying their greasepaint and changing costumes. And every couple minutes, there were these eruptions of applause and laughter. I decided on the spot, that was for me.” Cary gave me a collegial smile and turned to Darlene. “Dyan knows what I’m talking about, don’t you, Dyan?”
“I know exactly what you’re talking about.”
“It’s a funny thing, performing—Darlene, if you’re not going to finish that steak, I’d hate to see it go to waste.”
“Oh, I’m fine—” With the swiftness of a pickpocket, Cary gracefully