I knew that Grace had been one of my mother’s closest friends when she still lived in Manhattan. But by the time I was born, Grace had moved to Monaco, and although she had come to visit me when I was a baby, she hadn’t been back to see us since. Instead, she sent letters and packages for my mother and for my sister Jill, who was her godchild. In one of my earliest memories I’m watching Jill open a birthday gift in a box tied up with long satin ribbons sent by Aunt Grace from the palace in Monaco. I remember my sister searching through layers and layers of tissue paper in the gift box, then pulling out two black dresses trimmed with yellow, one tiny and another much bigger. My mother explained that Grace had hand-sewn these matching dresses for Jill and her doll to wear. I was so impressed, and a little envious of my sister’s special gift.
My mother told me that I had a godmother, too. Her name was Sally Richardson, and she was another close friend of Grace’s and a bridesmaid along with my mother. After I was born, Sally had given me a special bracelet that was gold with hearts and shooting stars made from diamonds and rubies, which my mother kept in her jewelry drawer. I could remember meeting Sally once, going to her apartment in Manhattan. While we were there, my mother was tense, distracted. Later, she told me that she thought Sally was upset because we didn’t send a thank-you note for the gift of the bracelet. The story always made me feel ashamed.
I wondered if Grace felt the same way about the gifts for Jill. Maybe that was why the princess hadn’t been to visit us.
CHAPTER 3
Carolyn
In order to picture Grace as my mother first saw her in November 1947, you have to put aside the images of the blond movie star or the perfect princess on her Monaco wedding day. Instead, you have to see her as a round-faced teenage girl with light brown wavy hair. She’s stepping out of the Barbizon’s revolving doors on Sixty-third Street in New York City, wearing a little black coat with a matching hat decorated with a sprig of blue flowers.
Carolyn watched as the girl sent the hotel’s revolving doors spinning behind her, her black high heels clicking as she went.
How pretty she is, Carolyn thought, and how well dressed.
The next time Carolyn saw the girl, she was leaving her room on the ninth floor, right next door to Carolyn’s. It turned out they were neighbors.
The girl introduced herself. She was Grace, from Philadelphia, and she was studying acting at the nearby American Academy of Dramatic Arts.
Now that introductions had been made, Carolyn and Grace kept running into each other, in the hotel hallways, in the elevators, while waiting for the shared bathrooms, at the diner in the lobby downstairs.
Carolyn learned that although Grace was almost a year younger, at eighteen, when it came to New York, she was an old hand. She had started her first semester at the Academy in September, so had been living at the Barbizon two months by the time Carolyn arrived. She had an uncle who lived in Manhattan, who was a playwright, who also directed plays, and even when Grace was still in Philadelphia, she often came to visit him to go to the latest shows. Grace was in love with Broadway and the theater. She knew the names of every show currently playing in New York and every actor appearing in them. She collected playbills, pasting her treasured torn ticket stubs in a scrapbook she’d kept since high school, the dates and play names noted in the margins.
Meanwhile, Carolyn followed fashion as closely as Grace followed the theater, making all her own clothes, scrutinizing Vogue patterns, adapting them to her own designs. Before coming to New York, she had made herself a black pencil skirt and a black-and-white gingham blouse, with a black patent leather belt and matching gingham gloves complete with a cuff. The gloves were hard to execute, and she could barely wiggle her fingers when she wore them, but the skirt and blouse fit beautifully.
Unlike Carolyn, Grace saw clothes as a means to an end, preferring sensible shoes, which she wore with tweed suits, skirts, and cardigans. Often she tied back her hair with a scarf—it was so fine and would never stay put. She was nearsighted and wore horn-rimmed glasses. At home in Philadelphia, Grace’s mother despaired at her daughter’s lack of interest in fashion or feminine activities such as sewing or knitting. Whenever Grace started making a dress or a scarf, she would become bored and put it in a drawer before it was finished.
Carolyn was soft-spoken, bordering on shy. Grace was more confident and outgoing, with a talent for impersonations that made her new friend laugh. Yet despite their differences, Grace and Carolyn were drawn together by a shared sense of purpose. They were both in New York to pursue careers and to escape the narrow expectations of their families.
Grace had wanted to be an actress since childhood, but her father, Jack Kelly, disapproved of the theater. Before Grace finished high school earlier in the year, her parents had insisted she apply for college, but she had failed to get a place. There were so many young men coming back from the war, and they were being given priority. After she was turned down by Bennington College, Grace saw her chance. She auditioned for the American Academy of Dramatic Arts and got
