Dear Cary: My Life With Cary Grant by Dyan Cannon Page B

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.
    â€œNo, thank you,” I said, recoiling from his respiratory fumes. He’d clearly had a few belts before boarding.
    â€œI’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?”
    â€œMy 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.”
    â€œI’m sorry,” I said in a low murmur, trying to avoid a full conversation.
    â€œMe 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.
    In Phoenix (after my job as first secretary to the Minister of Gropiness) I’d met a nice Jewish boy named Sonny. He was in his early thirties and worked in real estate in Los Angeles but visited Phoenix every other weekend to see his friends Gail and Marty. He took quite a shine to me, and we’d go out whenever he was in town. In a way, I hadn’t changed that much since high school. I was a passionate kisser, but when the boy started trying to score, I was as fierce as a goalie in a hockey rink.
    â€œIs it me?” Sonny finally asked in frustration.
    â€œNo, Sonny,” I said. “I’m an old-fashioned girl. I’m not going there until I’m married.”
    â€œIf that’s all it is, let’s get married!”
    And just like that, we went off to look for a justice of the peace, with Gail and Marty as witnesses. As to what was going through my mind . . . all I can figure is I must have had heatstroke. We found a justice, who asked some basic questions: our dates and places of birth, residencies, parents’ names, and so on. I turned to look at Sonny and said, “I can’t do this. I don’t even know you. This is crazy.”
    â€œOkay,” he said. “But I still want to marry you. Why don’t you move to L.A. and we’ll get to know each other and take it from there?”
    I did. And we took it