Matter of fact, love is one of the few subjects on which my father had such strong feelings that he actually expressed them in a four-letter word. We were out fishing on the lake a few days later and I mentioned how touched I had been at Ted and Sara’s wedding. And how they were my ideal of what a loving couple should be.
Dad looked at me with eyebrow raised and said, “Andrew, don’t you know love is …
I can’t pretend that I didn’t hear stronger language in the navy, but never from my father’s lips. He then patiently explained that when he was a boy the best marriages were not made in heaven, but over lunch at the club. Pity that sort of thing was going out of style.
For example, his classmate, Lyman Pierce, chairman of Boston Metropolitan, had “an absolutely smashing daughter,” to whom, in the good old days, he would have arranged a splendid betrothal for me.
I allowed that I was in no way averse to meeting smashing women and would be glad to call this lady up as long as it was on a friendly basis — and without obligation.
To which my father replied that I wouldn’t regret it. And returned to his fishing.
I had no great expectations when I dialed Faith Pierce at the Wildlife Preservation Fund, where she was a full-time volunteer. I assumed she would be a vapid, overprivileged, snobbish Brahmin. Well, she may have been a lot of those things, but she wasn’t vapid. And what absolutely amazed me when we met was that she was so
I mean, she was one of — the prettiest girls I’d ever seen. I thought she gave Marilyn Monroe a fair run for her money (except that she had more money).
What’s more, I liked her. She was that rare creature among the so-called bluebloods — a real enthusiast. Every activity to her was “a fun thing.” Whether it was tossing a football on the banks of the Charles, having a gourmet meal at Maitre Jacques, or sex before marriage. Moreover, all her previous life could be subsumed under that same description.
Her mummy and daddy hadn’t gotten along too well. But when they divorced and she was sent to boarding school at the age of six, it turned out to be “a fun thing.” Likewise the finishing school in Switzerland, where she picked up a terrific French accent — and one or two words to say with it.
Skiing, sailing, riding, and sex (previously mentioned, I guess) also came under that category.
And she’s a terrific gardener.
I would describe our courtship as whirlwind — and I have no doubt how she would term it. In any case, we seemed to know so many people in common that I feared the only thing that would keep us from marrying would be some kind of incest by association.
For the record, I’m not marrying Faith simply because our mutual fathers and mothers are fairly berserk about the whole idea.
Knowing his deeply held views, I would never admit it to my dad, but secretly — I’m still a romantic.
And I’m marrying Faith Pierce because she said something that no one has ever said to me in my entire life.
Just before I proposed, she whispered, “I think I love you, Andrew.”
One morning in late spring of ’62, Danny Rossi woke up alone. Not merely alone in bed, but feeling a pervasive emptiness in his entire life.
How could this be? he asked himself. Here I am in my new Fifth Avenue duplex overlooking Central Park. In a minute a butler is going to walk through that door with my breakfast on a silver tray. He’ll also be bringing this morning’s mail, which will contain invitations to at least a dozen parties all over the world. And I suddenly feel unhappy.
Unhappy? What a ridiculous thought. I’m the critics’ darling. I think if I sneezed during a concert they’d write it up as an exciting new interpretation of whatever I was playing. I can’t even walk from here to Hurok’s office without people calling out friendly greetings or asking for autographs.
Unhappy? There isn’t an orchestra in the world that wouldn’t die to have me as a soloist. And now the commissions for symphonic compositions are starting to come in. Everybody seems to want me for my talent, as well as my personality — not to mention the innumerable lovelies who want me for my body.
So why, with the platinum winter sun streaming brightly through the windows of my fantastic apartment, do I feel worse than I ever did when I was stuck in that lousy little practice room in my parents’ cellar?
This was not, in fact, the first time he had had such thoughts. But now they seemed to be coming more frequently.
What made matters worse, he had no official engagements for the day. No concerts, no rehearsals, not even an appointment with his hair stylist.
This, of course, had been on his own insistence. Because he wanted to devote the day to composing the orchestral suite commissioned by the St. Louis Symphony. And yet now the prospect of being alone with sheafs of empty music paper depressed him.
What could possibly be causing this melancholy?
After breakfast he put on jeans and a Beethoven sweatshirt (the gift of an adoring fan) and climbed to his studio on the upper floor. There on his piano, where he had left it late the previous night, was his unfinished composition. And on an easy chair nearby, a magazine he had leafed through to relax and let his sleeping pill take effect.
Perhaps just to avoid sitting down to work, he ambled over and picked it up again. It was the
Why is it, he asked himself, only the boring guys write in their “achievements”? And what the hell makes them think that their marriages or even the birth of a kid would be of any possible interest to anybody else?
Yet, despite his indifference, he sank once again into the chair and reread the list of new matrimonies and parenthoods that had been so somniferous the night before.
Then, alone in his magnificent penthouse studio, almost involuntarily he made a confession to himself. This isn’t boring, really. It’s an account of all the joys in life that I’ve been missing. I mean, applause is heady stuff. But how long does it last? Five, ten minutes at the most. When everything is over I still come home and no one’s here except the staff. Sure it’s fun when I bring a woman back. But after all the physical excitement we don’t talk. I mean, it sometimes makes me feel more lonely.
I want a wife, I think.
I know I want a wife. But someone genuine I can share my life with — and my thoughts. And most of all — if this is possible — a woman who might like me for myself and not that phony PR image my publicity machine has manufactured.
Come to think of it, who in my life has ever loved me for myself?
Only… Maria.
God, he had been stupid, letting his one real chance for a relationship slip through his fingers. And for the worst possible reason: because Maria did not act like every other woman and offer her body to the altar of his ego.
How long had it been since he’d last seen her? Two years? Three years? By now she’d graduated from Radcliffe, probably married some nice Catholic guy, and was raising kids. Yeah, someone that fantastic doesn’t sit around and wait for Danny Rossi to call back. No, she’s got too much sense.
Now he knew exactly why he was depressed. And also that there was nothing he could do about it.
Or was there?
Maria would be, say, twenty-three or twenty-four at most. Not every woman’s married by that age. Maybe she went to graduate school. Who the hell knows — maybe she even became a nun.
Funny, he had always kept her Cleveland phone number. A semiconscious reminder that he had never surrendered hope.
He took a deep breath and dialed. Her mother answered.
