Dear Cary - Dyan Cannon [83]
I didn’t know what to say.
Then Cary smiled and said, “Why don’t you come over here and let me rub your tummy?”
I was thrilled. He’d never asked to do that before. I went to him. He ran his hand over my expanding belly, then pulled me closer and pressed his ear to it for a few moments. Then he looked up at me.
“I never want to be far away from either one of you,” he said.
Maybe LSD actually did have the “dismantling effect” Dr. Hartman had described. If this was indeed the effect it had on Cary, there must be something to it. He was showing his softer side again. And it wasn’t just refreshing. It was fulfilling and necessary. The baby and I both needed it.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Culinary Capers
“Yes, Stanley . . . that’s great. You know how I feel about it. It’s not a masterpiece, but it’s a good romp. And it’ll be a relief to play the kindly old uncle instead of the geezer-in-progress chasing after a girl young enough to be his great-granddaughter. All right. Glad we’ve finally got the green light . . . on the thirteenth. Oh, at least five or six weeks . . . See you at the studio at two . . .”
He was talking about Walk, Don’t Run, in which he would star as a wealthy industrialist (and knight of the realm) who plays matchmaker between Samantha Eggar and Jim Hutton amidst the chaos of the 1964 Olympics in Tokyo.
“Oh, that’s wonderful,” I said, thrilled to be going to Tokyo and delighted that Cary would be working again—and hopefully let up on worrying about everything concerned with the baby and me. Addie said it seemed to her like I was having the baby and Cary was having the hormones.
“When do we leave?” I asked.
“Silly girl. You can’t travel. You’re pregnant.”
My mouth opened but nothing came out. Finally, I managed to say, “What are you talking about? I knew you were going to Tokyo, so I asked the doctor about it last week. He said it was fine for me to travel.”
“I just think it’s wiser for you to be here, close to your doctor. If something happened in Tokyo, we’d have to fight our way through the language barrier. We don’t know the medical system there, and it’s too risky. Better to play it safe.”
“Cary, I’m sure Dr. Moss can refer us to an American practitioner in Tokyo. And besides that, I don’t want to be away from you that long.”
“Everything you’re saying is true, and I don’t fancy being away from you that long either. But it’s a tight schedule, and my work is cut out for me. We wouldn’t have any time to be together anyway.”
“That never stopped us from being together on location before.”
“Well, all that’s changed.”
“Obviously.”
Whenever I wanted to cry, I went into the bathroom. It was the one room where I could lock the door without raising suspicion. Something was off, I told myself. Seriously off.
For the next several days, I felt like I was enveloped in a shroud of gloom. Why didn’t Cary want me with him in Tokyo? I must have been doing something wrong and I continually examined myself for faults, frequently arriving at very unsettling conclusions. Maybe I wasn’t intelligent enough for him. Or beautiful enough. Or supportive enough. Funny or witty or sexy or thoughtful or attentive enough. Then I got into the “too”s . . . Maybe I was too simple, too loud, too gullible, too clingy, too . . .
Maybe I was not enough of anything and too much of everything.
Maybe I wasn’t good enough to be Mrs. Cary Grant. Maybe to another woman, his moods were as plain as newsprint. Maybe another woman would not find his silences the least bit vexing or mysterious. Maybe with another woman, he wouldn’t lapse into those silences. Maybe another woman could read his mind. I couldn’t, and I berated myself for it. I had all of the burden of a guilty conscience. And the fact that I couldn’t put my finger on what I felt guilty about made me feel even worse.
Maybe I should really learn to cook.
I became quieter and quieter. I became afraid of bothering Cary by . . . by what? By being present, I guess. If my presence bothered him, I would become