The Bridesmaid's Daughter

the Greek,” and even though Carolyn had given him no encouragement, Jimmy had fallen in love with her. Each day he came into the store, watching her from a distance, following her back home to Pennsylvania Avenue once her shift was over. For a while, it seemed there was no way to get away from Jimmy. Even now, a year after she’d left Ohio, Jimmy had tracked her down, driving to New York and leaving gifts for her at the desk at the Barbizon. Jimmy was a gambler, and he had clearly gotten lucky, because the gifts included some very expensive jewelry. When Malcolm learned about Jimmy the Greek, he helped Carolyn rewrap the gifts, and together they delivered them back to Jimmy’s hotel. Whenever Malcolm told the story at parties, Carolyn laughed along—it was all a great joke. But what made her happiest was the message behind the story: she belonged to Malcolm now.

CHAPTER 8

Nina

I never met Grace as a child, although I’m told she did visit when I was a baby. What I do remember are the letters to my mother, which arrived every month or so, in thick creamy envelopes, stamped with the red-and-gold royal seal of Monaco. My mother would write back right away, long letters that she mailed from the post office when she went into town to buy groceries. Somewhere along the way, the letters were lost—along with so many of my mother’s possessions.

Then there were Grace’s movies. Whenever one was showing on TV, my mother and I made sure we watched it together. To Catch a Thief gave me my first glimpses of Monaco, the place where I knew Grace lived, and where my mother had been the bridesmaid, with its hot blue skies, red roofs, and roads looping up into the hillsides. I loved all the Hitchcock films, but especially Rear Window, the way Grace first swept into the frame, her beautiful features blurred but coming into focus as Jimmy Stewart opens his eyes, her clothes, each dress more beautiful than the next. My favorite of all Grace’s films was High Society, where she played Tracy Lord, the society girl about to be married. My mother always told me that the ring Grace wore in the film was her actual engagement ring, given to her by Prince Rainier, and that High Society was Grace’s last film. After shooting was over, Grace moved to Monaco and gave up acting forever.

Apart from the films and the letters, though, it was very hard for me to connect Grace with my mother. Growing up, my mother hardly ever spoke of the past, so it’s only in retrospect that I’ve been able to understand that she did show me glimpses of her former life with Grace; she just didn’t tell me she was doing it.

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AT LEAST TWO or three times a year, I would go with my mother into the city to the ballet, never realizing how important dance had been to her and to Grace when they were younger.

We always drove into the city. I think my mother felt like she couldn’t risk rousing suspicions by taking the train; she didn’t want people wondering why a young girl of my age wasn’t in school in the middle of a weekday. I can picture her behind the wheel, the window just open, smoke from her cigarette trailing out behind us, me wearing one of my party dresses handed down to me from my sisters. In the city, we saw matinees of Les Sylphides, Sleeping Beauty, Petrushka, Giselle, and Coppélia. We went to Swan Lake more than once. My mother loved these ballets, their spellbound heroines: Odette in Swan Lake, trapped and unable to escape, or Giselle, driven to death by a broken heart, who rises to save her lover from evil spirits before returning to her grave. Usually we’d have seats in the orchestra, close to the stage, about six rows back, and when I looked over at my mother, her face would be lit by the glow from the stage lights, tears running down her cheeks.

The Nutcracker was my favorite. Balanchine’s new production of the ballet had just moved to the new State Theater at Lincoln Center, and my mother made sure we had tickets each November, right after Thanksgiving. My favorite part came at the end of act 1, when Marie and the Little Prince turn their backs to the audience and walk together toward the forest of fir trees as the snow drifts magically from the sky.

After the performance was over, my mother would take me by the hand and we’d walk together along Broadway until we reached the Automat at Fifty-seventh Street. I loved the Automat, the way the food was kept in little gleaming glass boxes along the walls. We’d go straight to the cashier and change dollar bills for nickels; then I’d walk up and down the length of the restaurant, making my selections. If I couldn’t reach the box I wanted, my mother would lift me up at the waist, and I’d drop my coins in the slot, winding the knob until the sandwich or slice of pie appeared behind the glass door, like a prize waiting to be claimed. We ate slowly, making each mouthful last, never in any hurry to leave and return home.

My mother never told me that the Automat was the place where the photographer had discovered her back in her Barbizon days. She never told me she took dance classes as a young woman or that she had gone to see Balanchine’s dancers with Grace. Instead, she shared with me these things that she had always enjoyed, and was happy when I enjoyed them, too.

When I was nine, we made a special trip to see The Nutcracker with Suzanne Farrell dancing the Sugar Plum Fairy. Somehow, my mother had a connection to Suzanne: it may have been that they’d met at a dance event, or through Grace, who was a patron of the ballet