Dear Cary - Dyan Cannon [32]
Cary laughed heartily. He thought I was joking. “Just like Doris in A Touch of Mink!”
“Yes!” I wailed. “Just like Doris in A Touch of Mink!”
There was a pause. “Dyan, you’re not joking?”
“No I’m not joking!”
“Well, if this isn’t life imitating art . . .”
“Cary, I can’t go. They’ll take one look at me at the airport and put me in quarantine for a year.”
“Can’t you put some cream on it?”
“Cary—it’s all over my face!”
“Put on a hat, put on a scarf. I miss you, I want you here.”
“Cary, I cannot do this. I can’t. I won’t. No. I’m not going anywhere.”
CHAPTER TEN
Time Flies
I and my red blotches took the red-eye to London as scheduled. I wore a hat pulled down low over my face, which was so swollen I could barely crack a smile even if I’d wanted to. As I checked my luggage, I thought the flight attendants must have wondered if I were a spy.
The flight wasn’t crowded, probably because it left at midnight, and I had a row to myself. Across the aisle from me was a guy about my age, with dark tousled hair and circles under his eyes that suggested sleep deprivation. As a stewardess came toward us, he signaled her for a drink.
“We’ll be taking off in just a moment, sir, but I’ll take your order just as soon as we reach altitude,” she said. He forced a smile. He seemed to really want that drink.
Soon it was time to buckle up, and the young man moved to the window seat right in front of me. “Might as well have a last look at this wretched place,” he said. His accent was distinctly English. I nodded beneath my hat.
The plane started moving, then gained speed, and we were in the air. I looked out the window and watched the night-blanketed city fall away, its lights spilling out from underneath us as we climbed into the sky. “G’bye and good riddance!” the fellow in the seat muttered. I momentarily dozed off but awoke as he thundered his drink order to the stewardess. “. . . and not that Kentucky swill! When I say whiskey, I mean scotch whiskey. Double. No, make that a triple.” He turned around in his seat and got on his knees to look at me. “Can I offer you a drink?” he asked.
“No, thank you,” I said, recoiling from his respiratory fumes. He’d clearly had a few belts before boarding.
“I’m celebrating.”
I raised my head an inch but kept my cover. “That’s great.” He had big eyes and a slightly crooked nose. There was something sweet about him. “What are you celebrating?”
“My surrender. I give up. Been in Hollywood three bloody years, and all I have to show for it is a walk-on part in a B-movie about a haunted coal mine. Cheers!” He knocked back his drink in a single gulp. “Beats me how anybody makes it out here. Connections, that’s what it’s about! If you don’t have connections . . . well, my old man’s in the insurance business and he’s been after me since I was a kid to join in with him. I guess he wins.”
“I’m sorry,” I said in a low murmur, trying to avoid a full conversation.
“Me too.” He sprawled out across the open row of seats.
It was strange to me how Hollywood flung open its gates to some and reeled up its drawbridges when others beckoned. I felt sorry for the guy. For most, that was how it happened, and that included a lot of very talented and very determined people. There was a lot of kismet involved. For me, the whole thing was a fluke. Or destiny. I sure didn’t know which.
I got to Los Angeles by accident in the first place.
In a nutshell, I got there because of a completely loony set of circumstances.
I came to L.A. because I was saving myself for marriage.
Or at least I thought that was the reason. I never set my sights on L.A. as a destination or stardom as a goal; in fact, in Seattle, Los Angeles was considered Sodom and Gomorrah by the sea. Anyone in Seattle who went to L.A. was assumed to be getting either a nose job or an abortion, and either way your reputation was slimed. I think it was inevitable that I’d wind up there, and maybe my detour to Phoenix was a subconscious way of easing into the idea of it.