“This was about the time I started wearing a bra—and noticing boys. I remember I hung a picture of Clark Gable from one of the movie magazines on the inside of my wardrobe door. I was a sassy little bitch. One day I was in the kitchen, sassing Mama about something. She started to slap me when she noticed that my little breasts were just beginning to sprout out. She said, ‘Yeah, and I’m going to put a bra on you!’ I guess she thought it was time she stopped slapping this young lady because she never slapped me again.
“Bappie wrote Mama from New York and said don’t buy her a bra in Brogden. I’ll get her a good one from here, which is what she did. I’ve worn good bras ever since. But I’ve never had large breasts. My sister Myra and I were normal but my other sisters were enormous. Mama, too. In the twenties, when flat chests were the thing, they used to tie diapers around each other and pull as tight as they could to flatten themselves out. I’m sure they must have torn every muscle in their breasts.”
The conversation had run its course, and it was time to go.
At the door, she said: “I hope you can make sense of this, honey. I know it’s muddly. And, oh, make a note of this when you get home: in the years we lived in Newport News, I never once asked a girlfriend back to the house, and no boys ever came there, not inside anyway. The boy I was sweet on, the boy in his senior year, he lived in a nifty-looking house. He had a little car and sometimes he’d pick me up at the house but I was out of the door like a shot before he’d even pulled to a stop. Shit, he must have thought I was keen! It was just that I didn’t want anyone to know that I lived in a goddamn boardinghouse! I didn’t want my friends to see any of those people who put the bread on our table. I was such a fucking snob—even if I was a girl from across the tracks.”
8
“I don’t want Ava to get hurt, Peter,” Spoli Mills said.
We were having dinner at my London home a month after I had embarked on Ava’s book. A year younger than Ava, although she looked older, Spoli was her closest woman friend I knew. A former German actress—Irmgard Spoliansky—the wife of Paul Mills, a movie producer and onetime publicity director at MGM’s Elstree Studios in London, she had known Ava since they met in India during the production of George Cukor’s Bhowani Junction, more than thirty years before.
Her comment puzzled me. “You think I might hurt her?”
“There’s always a line in things,” she said. “Sometimes people cross that line without even knowing it’s there.”
I assured her that Ava and I understood the terms of our deal. There would be no reason for me to cross any lines, I said.
“We both know movie stars are endlessly lied to,” she said.
“Don’t you think they know that?” I said.
“Not after a while,” she said.
I was fond of Spoli, I liked her cynical wisdom and dark humor. I had known her for twenty years, and I was used to her frankness, which would have been brutal were it not for our friendship. “I won’t let her down, Spoli,” I said.
“I just want you to know how I feel about it,” she said.
“We both have Ava’s interests at heart,” I told her.
“Let me ask you a question, Peter,” Paul Mills said. “Why do you want to tell Ava’s story?”
“If I don’t write it, others will go on trying,” I said. “Somebody will write it eventually.”
“The grave robbers, you mean?” he said.
“Look what they’ve done to Marilyn,” I said.
“Maybe nobody else will be as clever at sniffing out things as you are,” Paul said.
“All it takes is time,” I said.
“I know the book is Ava’s idea. I know she needs the money, but her stories can be bloody alarming sometimes. I think the book is a terrible idea,” Spoli said. “You can probably do it as well as anyone. But I want you to know that I’ve tried to talk her out if it.” It wasn’t news to me—Ava had told me, several times, as she continued to vacillate over whether to take her advice—but I was pleased at Spoli’s honesty. “Her heart is my heart, Peter. I’ll do whatever it takes to protect her happiness,” she said.
“If you don’t talk her out of it, will you help me get it right?” I said. I knew how useful she could be to me, how important it would be to have her on my side.
“Will I be a good loser, is that what you’re asking me?”
“I’m not going to fight you, Spoli. We’re on the same side. We both want what’s best for Ava,” I said.
“I hope so,” she said.
I’D SPENT THE MORNING working on various transcripts, going backward and forward in time, piecing together Ava’s reminiscences—of her childhood, of Hollywood, of her husbands and lovers—trying to make sense of her life. I was grateful for the interruption when the phone rang.
“Are you ready for some good news?” Ed Victor asked when I picked up.
“All you’ve got,” I said.
“Dick Snyder’s very interested in the book. He wants to meet Ava.” Richard E. Snyder was the chairman and CEO of Simon & Schuster, the New York publishers. I’d never met him but I knew of his reputation: his astuteness along with his imperial style and epic temper tantrums were legend.
“He’s coming in from New York next week and wants to sit down with her as soon as possible. Can we fix a date? How about lunch at the Savoy?”
I said that might not be such a good idea; it was where she had often stayed with Frank Sinatra when they were married. “I think they had some of their famous disagreements there,” I said.
“You mean fights,” he said.
“I was being polite,” I said, but I also knew she probably wouldn’t step outside the front door to have lunch with a man she’d never met, even if he were Richard E. Snyder, warrior-king and moneybags of Simon & Schuster.
“Can we meet at her apartment?” Ed said. “Dick would love that.”
I wasn’t too sure that she would agree to that either, but said I would ask her.
“Her apartment would be perfect,” Ed said in his let’s-get-rolling voice. “How is it coming? Is she behaving herself?”
“She’s definitely got a book in her, Ed. Although she tends to repeat stories she’s comfortable with. She’s like someone learning to swim but still doesn’t trust herself in the deep end,” I said.
“It’s important you win her absolute trust as soon as you can,” he said. I could tell by his tone that my swimming analogy had disturbed him. I decided not to tell him about the sessions she had canceled, or her doubts about whether she should go ahead with the book at all.
“It’s early days yet, Ed,” I reminded him. “I won’t have any pages to show Dick by next week.”
“That’s not important. He just wants to meet Ava. He wants to get some idea of what she’s offering, how much she’s prepared to talk about the Sinatra years.”
“He wants to interview her?”
“He wants to hear what she has to offer—from her own lips. Is that going to be a problem?” He must have sensed my disquiet.
“It could be delicate,” I said.