Dear Cary - Dyan Cannon [2]
So Charlie invited me to go to Rome with him after the film. “You can bring the mutt,” he said, scratching Bangs under her chin. “The culture will do her a world of good, and it won’t hurt you either. You will be inspired beyond your wildest dreams.”
It wasn’t exactly a hard sell, and Charlie was absolutely right. I fell into a complete swoon over Rome, from its tiny street-corner cafés to the constant growl of mopeds that careened through the narrow, winding streets. I found a small, comfortable room in a modest pensione and by week’s end decided I was never going back to Los Angeles. It was la Dolce Vita for me! Bring on the tortiglione and the Chianti! Charlie took me everywhere, introducing me to writers, poets, filmmakers, and fellow actors. And, of course, plenty of men. To be blond in Italy was to be Cinderella in glass slippers. Sort of, anyway. I think many of the men I met saw me as a head of blond hair—the rest of it didn’t matter.
This was not the case, however, with Eduardo, a handsome businessman from Brazil and the kind of tall, dark stranger that the Gypsy fortune-tellers are always warning about. He was alluring, yes, with beautiful sad eyes and that particular kind of masculinity that’s all the more prominent for being gift-wrapped in elegance and suavity. I was attracted to him, but the little voice—the one we all have but too often don’t listen to, especially in our twenties—told me to keep my distance.
Eduardo was keeping his, too. It was clear he was interested in me, but he didn’t swoop down on me like a hawk the way so many guys did. Nothing made me more uncomfortable than a guy trying to move in too fast.
“He’s very generous—always picking up the check,” Charlie said when I asked his opinion of Eduardo. “That’s about as far as my acquaintance with him goes.”
“He told me he’s divorced,” I said.
“Do you have any reason to doubt him?” Charlie asked.
“No.”
“If you enjoy his company, just get to know him a little better before you jump into anything. That’s all I can say.”
Eduardo being officially, formally, and fully divorced was mandatory if I was going to go any farther than having lunch with him. I was—still am—an old-fashioned girl. I won’t say I was hell-bent on living up to my parents’ “not until marriage” ethic, but sex to me meant crossing a very serious line. No guy was going to cross that border with me without a valid passport—and it had better not be marked with the stamps of too many destinations!
Getting involved with a married man was not in my playbook. I objected to the idea morally and emotionally. That’s how I was brought up and it stuck. For me there was going to be one man and one man only: my soul mate. If I didn’t find him, he would find me.
I was seventeen before my parents let me start dating, and even then I had to be home by ten. I did like kissing, and like a lot of girls who weren’t going to go all the way no matter what, well, let’s say I was good at it. Maybe too good. When you know that’s as far as you’re going, a kiss may seem like more than just a kiss.
Not surprisingly, more than one young swain took those lollipop kisses as an invitation to greater glory. Whenever that happened, I shut ’em down fast.
My nickname at school was Frosty.
I wasn’t technically a virgin. I’d technically become a “fallen woman” with the hottest guy in school. But like I said before, that episode hardly counted, except that it made for the kind of story that’s absolutely hilarious as long as it happened to somebody else. It’s worth relating because it tells a lot about what I was like back then.
My boyfriend “Larry” and I had a dinner date to celebrate his birthday. I woke up that morning with a ferocious cold but decided to power through the evening anyway. When we got back to my house, I surprised him with an elaborate birthday cake. (My mother made it but I took credit. As you will see, my criminal side has expressed itself mostly through culinary plagiarism. Indeed, like most crooks, I started young!)
Maybe the angels were