Desi does not budge.
Lucille watches him watch Nanette move off, galumphing across the sand in her heels. (Only men would have planned a formal gala on a beach.)
Desi asks: “Why, Lucille?”
I can’t dance, Lucille thinks, her hand to the fizz of her reddening cheek. I can’t dance and I can’t sing. I can talk. That’s why.
Desi’s saying: “Jesus.”
“Don’t bring religion into it, sweetheart,” she says. “Gets you close to some famous commandments.”
But she will always love her husband, and hate him, and right now she thinks, Give me back what you took from me. Give me all that you took from me.
* * *
—
TEN YEARS BEFORE, the press had named Lucille “Queen of B Movies.” They had seized Fay Wray’s crown of invisible plastic and set it on Lucille’s almost-famous hair. She can name the coronation date: January 23, 1939. It took Daily Variety two Page 7 sentences to end Wray’s brief epoch. Ball, the contract player on Phil Baker’s Gulf Headliner, also helmed nine low-budget program melodramas last year, including RKO’s Five Came Back. Let’s call her the new Queen of…Lucille had not wanted the throne—it was shoddy, its legs were shit—yet recently, the world’s unseen topplers had come to topple her. She had somehow believed they would never come to favor another woman. The new queen was Marie Windsor (I Love My Wife But!). So what comes after B royalty, after a B coup? Nothing, usually; or radio.
At the time, she’d still had a program called My Madcap Bride, CBS 880 on your AM dial. Lucille played a character named Montana Hearn. The show had bumped along all season, but they canceled that, too. And now, despite her cheek that still feels hot; despite Marie Windsor, Nanette Fabray, and the gloved kid who did not know Lucille’s real name; despite her pride, her sore feet, her old wounds and many trials; despite the hundred-to-one of her mission here and even her husband’s many infidelities—despite her fisted hands—Lucille’s spirit rises a little on some sweet, get-started smell in the Coney wind.
She is an optimist. This is a party about buildings going up and buildings coming down. So she turns to look at the Manhattan skyline, that dapper eyeful. It seems, blazoning up in the distance, so much more sumptuous than the New York she walked through, that hive of yells, trolleys, odors, soup kitchens, car horns, dog mess, sirens, taxis, people people people.
“Do you know why I was talking to her?” Desi’s saying. His hand travels, slowly, down his face. “To Nanette Fabray?”
“That nice, juicy pair of Tony nominations she has flopping out her dress?”
Desi sighs. Without resentment, he reminds his wife that Nanette Fabray—and, come on, sweetie, why would you forget this—Nanette Fabray is married to Dave Tebet.
“I want to believe this plan is the best plan, Lucille,” Desi says. Like everyone who has lost or nearly grabbed real success, Desi Arnaz considers himself wronged by the world.
(Dave Tebet is a big shot at NBC.)
“It is,” she’s saying, reaching for a smoke. “It is the best plan.”
“You make it cost so much to plan with you.”
She understands the caliber of her siege artillery. It is not in her nature to silence her own guns. But she does.
“Sorry,” she says through the smoke of her smoke.
“Fine,” Desi says. His anger just goes.
He is five-nine, seven years younger than Lucille, and what you notice is the bullish sensuality. She touches his face.
“It’s the best plan, all right,” she says. “ ’Cause it’s the only plan either of us could think up.”
When he smiles, she just loves him. Lucille does not have the stage yet to show viewers how it’s done. To show that a couple is a performance. That you can have a quick jump from fighting to partners. They will make their ideas of marriage into the universal idea of marriage. As long as Desi doesn’t stop to talk to a new woman.
“Here’s to long shots,” Desi’s saying, on the move once more. “I’m going to find some big and scary wigs and do the plan.”
“Wait,” she says. “Wait.”
She wants to remind him to find her buddy Gale Gordon, whom she has cast in the plan’s supporting role. (Gordon, an actor, is supposed to walk by at the right moment and nonchalantly mention what a million-dollar idea Desi has.)
But Desi’s off again. Holding back, Lucille raises a bare shoulder to her own cheek and feels the echo of the slap. Just for a moment, with nobody looking, she relaxes from the work of hiding panic and shame.
* * *
—
THE BIRDS ABOVE Ocean Beach see the drum-shaped premiere lights slide glamour beams along the clouds. The birds see—with a clapped paper bag sound of wings passing—a giant steel-and-glass pavilion, all a-sparkle. The birds see Ziegfeld girls, restaurateurs, a late-arriving Broadway impresario exiting his pleasure sedan. That wind picks up, goosebumping eight hundred arms. The birds see pinups, radio luminaries, heartthrob clarinetists. They see the covetous attractive charmers who take root in the soil around celebrities. (These are the career fawners—the money-takers.) They see Bing Crosby in the flesh. And Ted Mack. And Mary Martin holding Vic Damone’s thick arm. They see clothes as a standard and elegant repression. They see the boardwalk as a splinter that pokes the beach in the eye.
The steel-and-glass pavilion is five acres wide and will remain so for the next hour.
* * *
—
“FOR YOU, MISS BALL.” It’s the kid with the gloves. Back again and carrying two red bricks—holding one out for her. “Ready?”
Lucille’s gaze takes a bounce over the sand. She’s looking for Desi over by the white-linen tables that mark the limit of the party. It’s where the night’s top dogs have gathered.
“May I, um, let you in on a secret, Miss Ball?” the kid says.
There’s Desi—stopped at the shoreline to look at the Ferris wheel. The red brick feels surprisingly heavy. The Ferris wheel is a giant iron dandelion with its fluff blown away.
“Jesus, Dez,” she whispers. “Do something.”
“It’s, um, almost time, Miss Ball.”
Desi’s drawn back from the three powerful men who, drinks in hand, appear to be talking all at once. There’s gray, dapper Frank Stanton, president of CBS, and Columbia Records’ Edward Wallerstein. And Fred Christ Trump, the thin, balding real estate man. It’s Trump’s party, his beachfront, his night. All three impose their status on the landscape, their comfort. It is Stanton whom Desi will have to convince. The vibe the men give: decorated battleships, cheered at some victory anchorage, accepting ticker tape after a lifetime of service. And then there’s Dez.