Valley of the Dolls by Jacqueline Susann
“Sorry to disturb your sleep, Mr. Ornsby,” she snarled, “but it just so happens you’re sleeping on my time!”
He was instantly alert. “I followed him to the stage door at eight. He was waiting for her. She came along at eight-oh-one and they stood talking. It was almost half-hour time and I knew she had to go in so I went off and grabbed a bite. I knew I was safe for three hours—she had the show to do. Then I showed up again at eleven. He didn’t come around. If he’s gonna pick her up he gets there by eleven-fifteen at the latest. I waited till eleven-thirty, then I took my post at his hotel. I just left a few hours ago. He hadn’t come in. I checked all the clubs—he’s not around. So I figure maybe she had another date tonight and he shacked up with some other chick. She’s been ducking him for several nights, running home alone after each show.”
“Well, she didn’t do no show tonight,” Miriam snapped. “They eloped.”
There was silence at the other end of the line.
“Two hundred a week I been paying you, just to prevent this. What kind of a detective are you?”
“One of the best,” he said sharply. “But those two are fruitcakes. I’ve frozen my ass off standing outside his hotel night after night, while they were up in bed all warm and cosy, banging away. But hell, lady, I’m not the F.B.I. I got to eat, and I got to stop sometimes to take a leak. I figure the only time I’m really safe is when that broad is on the stage. Who figures she’s gonna skip a show?”
Miriam slammed the receiver down. But he was right. Jennifer had been too slick. She sighed. She had been so careful, and now it would all probably go up in smoke. So far the public and everybody had been fooled. They accepted Tony’s childish replies as part of his charm. Some even thought it a clever pose. Only Miriam knew the truth, and she had hidden it from everyone—even Tony. With a woman he functioned as a man, physically. His talent as a performer was a gift. He did everything right when he sang, automatically. But mentally and emotionally, Tony was ten years old.
Now what? As long as she was present at every interview, she could cover for him. But now there was Jennifer.
How much had Jennifer guessed? Actually, she had nothing against the girl. She was probably genuinely attracted to Tony. Why not? He was handsome and talented and quite a stallion. Maybe she hadn’t noticed anything. After all, they were never alone—except for the sex. She had seen to that, always being with them, seeing to it that at least one or two of the writers always trailed along. She had trained Tony that way. “A star always has an entourage,” she had told him repeatedly, and he had accepted traveling with groups as standard procedure. That way no one ever really got to do much talking with him.
Until Jennifer, it had been easy. Miriam knew he had to satisfy his physical needs and she encouraged it, always managing to keep it on a transitory basis. A dancer in the line at a club they played, happy to be with him, out for kicks and reflected glory and satisfied to let him go out of her life with a gift of perfume and his promises of undying affection. That’s the way it had been until he met Jennifer. She had done everything to break that up. Every time he went out of town she practically threw the most beautiful girls in the world in his arms. He took them, too—but he always came back to Jennifer. She had been hoping the California trip would finish it. Only two weeks to go—and now this!
Miriam sighed. Most people thought she tagged after Tony to revel in his reflected glory. Some glory! She’d have given anything for a life of her own. But she couldn’t leave Tony. So here she was, a forty-four-year-old virgin, masterminding Tony into a spectacular success. Why did it have to be like this? The sins of the father, she thought wryly. Well, they had visited Tony, all right—only he didn’t know it. She was bearing the brunt. And it hadn’t really been the sins of the father, but their lousy tramp of a mother! So many secrets she had hidden from Tony and from the world. She had spun a beautiful picture of a handsome father who had been killed in a train accident before Tony was born. And a lovely, frail mother, so weakened by the shock that after she had given birth to little Tony, she had quietly smiled and passed into the arms of the angels, leaving the fourteen-year-old Miriam to take care of him. The press believed it. Tony believed it. He had never learned that his real father, like Miriam’s real father, had been a mystery, even to their mother.
They had been sired by different fathers, strangers who passed through their mother’s arms from night to night. And the one who had produced Tony must have been a beaut! But then her mother ran into a lot of strange ducks. A singing waitress at Coney Island did not exactly draw the Social Register. Her mother had sworn Miriam’s father was a nice man from Pittsburgh. Perhaps. But Tony’s father—whoever the bastard was—must have been good-looking. Tony had come off with the best of both parents. He had his mother’s deep brown eyes with the incredible lashes. His nose was short and straight, his mouth sensuous. And he was tall. Miriam, on the other hand, had inherited someone else’s looks. She smiled wryly. That guy from Pittsburgh might have been a very nice man, but he sure was no Robert Taylor. In fact, if she ever ran into a short, stout man with small blue eyes and a bulbous nose in Pittsburgh, she’d holler “Daddy.”
She had selected the name Polar out of sentiment. The kindest and most permanent lover her mother had known was a man named Polarski. He had genuinely liked the pudgy little girl and had never failed to bring her a present or chuck her under the chin. She had never forgotten him. Years later, as a silent tribute, she shortened his name and took it for herself and Tony.
It hadn’t been hard to hide his true identity from Tony or the press. Their mother had been a drifter. Every city has women like Belle, the not-quite-young girl who plays a tired piano and sings in a throaty voice in a local cocktail bar. Belle had started out singing at Tony Pastor’s, but that was the only shining hour of her career. Then she floated to the cocktail bars and beerhalls around the different cities, passing from man to man.
Miriam was born in a charity ward in Philadelphia. Belle placed her in a foster home until she was eight. Then Belle fell into what seemed like a job of some permanence in Coney Island and sent for the girl. For a few years Miriam knew the luxury of a two-room flat and the affection of Mr. Polarski, but when Polarski went his way there was a succession of men. Belle was getting older. They were both stunned when Belle found she was pregnant again. Christ! She hadn’t had the curse in months—all she needed was a change-of-life kid.
She stayed on the job for six months; then the costume could no longer conceal her condition, and she was fired. They moved to one room. Miriam, now fourteen, quit school and got a job as a counter girl. They had no friends, no neighbors. Then late one night, with the ambulance clanging, Belle was rushed to the hospital with the trembling Miriam at her side. Belle died five minutes after the screaming boy entered the world.
Miriam had taken the baby home. It had been easy to convince the disinterested hospital supervisor that there was a grandmother waiting to take over. And all alone, the fourteen-year-old girl had raised Tony. It seemed impossible when she looked back—the dreadful early weeks trying to make the formula correctly, washing diapers, trying to make the two hundred dollars she and Belle had saved stretch out, counting out pennies for milk, living on cans of soup and big boxes of crackers.
Tony had been four weeks old when he had the first convulsion. Again there was the clanging ambulance, the hospital. Tests were made and all the big doctors studied Tony’s case. They kept him in the hospital a year. Miriam was frantic with worry, but at least she was able to get a full-time job and save some money. Then Tony was returned to her. He looked healthy. Then more convulsions and back to the hospital. It went on like that until he was five. Then the convulsions stopped. He went to kindergarten, struggled through the first grade. In the second grade they threw him out. They suggested a special school, but she kept him home. Her Tony wasn’t going to be with a lot of crazy kids. Patiently she taught him herself, as much as he could learn.
Yes, it had b
A few times she had even considered going to Jennifer and telling her the truth about Tony, so she would understand the idea of marriage with Tony was senseless. But it was too big a gamble. Suppose the girl had turned on both of them, told the story around town? It would destroy Tony’s career—and that would destroy Tony.
She couldn’t give up now; she had fought too long and too hard. God, she had even fought the United States Army. Tony had been elated when he received his draft notice—it was like playing soldier to him. His career was just starting, and he never knew about the secret trips she had taken to Washington, the endless red tape and the lack of sensitivity of the Army brass. She had been ready to give up until she met Major Beckman. He had a brother like Tony. He read Tony’s medical reports, all bound in the frayed manila envelope from the hospital in Coney Island. He had Tony examined by his chief neurologist. Finally, Miriam received a new collection of reports to add to the manila envelope and Tony was rejected by the Army, quietly and firmly. Major Beckman announced to the press that Tony had been rejected due to a punctured ear drum.
No, she couldn’t give up now. She had fought off the Army, the press, the whole damn world—one slinky blonde wasn’t going to ruin everything. She’d stick close to them. They were leaving for the Coast in a few weeks, and she’d be living with them. Who knows—it might work out somehow. She pulled the robe around her shapeless body and resolutely organized her thoughts. She had to notify the press, the columnists—who should she give the first break to? No, don’t play favorites—the wire services must have picked it up already from Elkton. When they returned, she’d call a press conference, arrange interviews with Jennifer and Tony. . .
Anne
December, 1946
That night Anne returned to New York. She found everything in wild disarray. A note written in Jennifer’s hurried scrawl was propped on the night table.
It was a tough fight, but I won. When you read this I will be Mrs. Tony Polar. Wish me luck. Love.
Jen
She was glad for Jennifer, but Jennifer’s victory seemed to emphasize the dreariness of her own situation.
Lyon had called her in Lawrenceville to tell her his great news. Bess Wilson loved the book—thought it had great promise—but felt it needed a complete rewrite before she could show it to any publisher. Lyon was very enthusiastic. Sure it meant another six months at the typewriter—but Bess Wilson liked it, and Bess was tough to please.
She had tried to hide her disappointment—six months of rewriting. And now Jennifer was gone. The hotel suite seemed so empty.
She could carry it alone. She had plenty of money, or would have, as soon as everything was in order. Unfortunately, severing all ties with Lawrenceville could not be accomplished just by handing Mr. Walker the keys. There were endless legal adjustments that required her presence. The will had to be probated formally. And the furniture—she couldn’t just dump it on the sidewalk. Mr. Walker said every piece was worth something. It had to be tagged and sent to New York or Boston for auction. It’d bring her a good deal of money. Her mother had left her fifty thousand dollars in bonds, cash and stock. Aunt Amy’s money also went to her—twenty-five thousand more. Mr. Walker thought he could get forty thousand for the house alone, since it was on an acre and a half of good ground. Yes, she would have plenty of money—well over a hundred thousand, not counting the furniture—but meanwhile there was still the necessity of returning to Lawrenceville for at least another week, perhaps longer. She shuddered. Just being in that house made her feel unreasonably depressed.
She took a quick shower, changed her clothes and took a cab to Lyon’s apartment. He was at the typewriter when she arrived. “Come into the dungeon,” he said, embracing her warmly. He began picking up some crumpled pages he had tossed on the floor. “Don’t mind the rubbish. I’ve been working every evening. It’s coming along swimmingly.”
She forced a smile. “I’m glad, Lyon. I know it will be a good book.” She picked up a sheaf of the new pages and glanced at them. “This is no time for me to be trapped in Lawrenceville—but I can take some of it back with me and type it up in a clean copy.”
“What would I do without you? My typing looks like hieroglyphics.” Suddenly he frowned. “It really isn’t fair to you—you’ve been so patient. And now another delay—this bloody rewrite.”
She smiled. “I told you I’d wait forever—if necessary. Don’t mind me and my mood, Lyon—it’s just Lawrenceville.”
Later, as she lay in his arms, Lawrenceville seemed thousands of miles away. As if it had never happened. And it wasn’t until later that she even remembered to tell Lyon the news about Jennifer.
“I’m glad for her,” he said. “But doesn’t that leave you in a bit of a fix? No roommate.”
“I have money, Lyon. Mother left me quite a bit.”
“Don’t tell anyone. Some fortune hunter will grab you off.”
“Lyon, why can’t we get married? I have enough for us to live on for. . . well, for a long time.”
“And you’d get up every morning and go to work—”
“Only to keep out of your hair. It’d be too cramped here with both of us hanging about, but once you made it . . . then I’d work for you. I’d type your manuscripts, handle your fan mail. . .”
“It doesn’t work that way, Anne. You know what Bess Wilson said. Even if it’s a good book, it might do nothing more than earn me a slight reputation. Then I’d have another year’s work, with no money coming in. And don’t think I wouldn’t like to write full time. These past few evenings have proved something to me—you get a certain rhythm when you keep at a thing hours on end.”
“Then I’m right.” She sat up.
“And wrong. I have some money, Anne. But by the time I was into my next book it would run out. I’d be coming to you for cigarette money. I’d be too humiliated to write. No, darling, it wouldn’t work.”
“But what am I supposed to do? Sit around and wait until you win the Pulitzer Prize?”
“No. Just wait and see how this book is received. If it’s received at all. I have no real assurance I’ll even get published.”
“You will. I know you will. And I’ll wait.” She looked thoughtful. “How long does it take to get a book published, I wonder?”
He laughed and took her in his arms.
Anne paced up and down the wooden planks of the Lawrenceville station. As usual, the local train was late. Poor Lyon. The five-hour train ride to Boston was deadly enough, but to sit on the unheated local for an hour with all those stops . . .
The last three days had certainly been deadly for her. She had even been grateful for Willie Henderson, who had driven her everywhere in his new Chevvie. There was such red tape connected with every detail, and sometimes it seemed that nothing had been accomplished. She would have to remain through part of next week so that the dealer from Boston could come to discuss the furnishings. Everything had to be discussed—every move she made was stymied by slow legal procedure. She was trapped in Lawrenceville.
But Lyon was coming up for the weekend. They’d have two wonderful days together, and for those two days even Lawrenceville would be palatable. For the first time her mother’s huge four-poster would hold two people who enjoyed their union. As she tidied it she wondered how many frustrating nights her father had known—how many rejections he had received from her emotionally virginal mother. “Well, tonight you’re in for some surprises,” she told the bed as she gave the comforter a final pat. It responded with a creak, as though in shocked protest.
But now, as she paced the station nervously, she wondered if this had been wise. Everyone in Lawrenceville would know Lyon was here, staying at her house. So what! Once she sold the house she’d never return. Damn the town! Who cared what they thought!
She heard the wheez
“I didn’t believe I’d ever get here,” he said, hugging her lightly. “The towns we passed. Good God, I’ll bet no one knows there’s a Rome in Massachusetts.”
“Or a Lawrenceville,” she said.
“Everyone knows about Lawrenceville—you’ve made it famous. How do we get to the ancestral mansion, by sleigh?”
She led him to a cab. She snuggled against him as he stared out at the countryside.
“Shouldn’t we tell him where to go?” he whispered.
“Mr. Hill knows where everyone in town lives. If you had arrived alone, he would automatically have taken you to the Inn.”
He smiled. “I like that. A bit different from New York cabbies. Say, this is beautiful country.”
“The snow helps,” she said without enthusiasm.
“When did it start? It was clear in New York.”
She shrugged. “Probably in August. It snows here all the time.”
He put his arm around her. “Won’t give in, will you? Once you hate something, you’re relentless.”
“I gave Lawrenceville twenty years. That’s long enough for any small town.”
Lyon leaned forward. “Do you like Lawrenceville, Mr. Hill?”
The driver cocked his head. “Aeah. Why not? Born here. It’s a right nice town. Miss Anne’s just going through some growing pains. She’ll change. Once she’s back long enough she’ll—”
“I told you I was leaving for good, Mr. Hill!”
“I reckon when the time really comes to sell the old house, you’ll change your mind. I remember when your mother was born, right in that same house. I bet your little ones will be born there, too. ’Course, now we got that big new hospital right in Weston, just eight miles down the main highway. Better’n a lot of your New York hospitals, too. Why, Boston had to send for our iron lung during the polio epidemic.”