Dear Cary - Dyan Cannon [38]
“Oh . . . my . . . God!” he said.
I was startled for a split second before I realized he was mugging and I laughed. Then he pulled me close with an urgency that took me by surprise. He held me to his chest and whispered. “Oh, Dyan. I am so happy you’re here. I don’t think I’ve ever been this happy to see anyone in my life.” Very gingerly, he kissed my cracked lips and gathered me back into his arms. Then he led me onto the couch and pulled me onto his lap, holding me in a tight embrace, stroking my hair, kissing my neck. “I’ve missed you so much,” he murmured.
“I look like—”
“It doesn’t matter how you look,” he said softly. “It’s how I feel when we’re together.”
It never occurred to me that Cary would really miss me that much. I wrapped myself up in him and basked in the glow of those warm feelings.
For the next couple of days, Cary was tied up in script conferences, but he always stole away for lunch. On the first day, he took me for my first proper meal of fish and chips, English style. And I was hooked. I had to have them for at least one meal a day. Cary loved them too, so he indulged me. On the third day, my rash was almost gone, and we went to yet another little hole in the wall for take-out fish and chips. They were piping hot and in their traditional wrapping of day-old newspaper. Back at the house, we were just about to tuck into them when the phone rang.
Cary took the call and turned his back to me. His voice dropped to what for most people would be a businesslike murmur, but that wasn’t Cary’s normal business voice. “Ummmm . . . No, not really . . . Well, Sophia, I’m glad to hear it.”
Sophia? Sophia who? I knew it couldn’t be Sophia Brown. It had to be Sophia Loren, the Italian bombshell. Me, jealous? Just because she was regarded as the sexiest, most voluptuous slice of mortadella since Aphrodite? Signorina “Everything you see, I owe to spaghetti” Loren? Just because it was well known to even midwestern grandmas that Cary Grant had had a torrid affair with her while shooting Houseboat? Me?
Naturally, being completely free of jealousy (hmmm) and having utter faith in Cary’s loyalty to me (uhhhhhh-huh), I wasn’t going to just linger there in front of him and eavesdrop. No, I would do my eavesdropping in the hallway. That way we would both have privacy! I sat down Indian-style against the wall with my ear pressed against the door.
I couldn’t make out the words, but they were clipped and a little defensive: English decorum versus a torrent of Italian emotion, probably. Jeez Louise, I thought. A gal doesn’t have to be a territorial maniac for her ears to prick up when an old lover calls her guy. But how many gals have to contend with *&^%!!# Sophia Loren?
And then I heard him say, “That was a different time, Sophia.” This was getting interesting. Then Cary’s words became hushed again and I didn’t hear anything else until the door to the hallway opened. Cary squatted beside me on the floor.
“Why’d you leave?” he asked.
“I thought you needed privacy. Do you want to call her back?”
Cary waved the suggestion away. “No, Dyan, that conversation is over.”
I found myself exhaling.
“I think our fish and chips are ice-cold by now,” I said.
“Let’s start over with a new batch, hot out of the fryer,” Cary said.
We smiled into each other’s eyes. That was that. I felt aglow. Without having to say much of anything, we’d communicated volumes. And that’s how it should be, I thought.
The day before we left London for Bristol, Cary received a delivery from Norman Zeiler, the furrier in New York. It was a mink-lined coat he had made especially for his mother, Elsie, and it was spectacular. That didn’t stop him from fretting over it, though. “I wanted something to keep her warm,” he said, almost in a whisper and completely to himself. “Something very warm and very soft on the inside. Winter’s coming.”
“No woman could not love that coat,” I said.
“She’s very particular,” Cary said. He held the coat out for me to try on. “Tell me