Strangers in the Night, page 32
I gave Barbara free rein of the house and soon she had remodeled the joint, renamed all the rooms and buildings. She thought I didn’t notice, but one day the portrait of Ava on the mantel was replaced, the marble statue of her in the garden was gone, and the photographs of her or the two of us together that had been scattered throughout the house were boxed up and put away. I didn’t blame Barb. She was the woman of the house now and she didn’t want to be reminded of the woman I’d lost my mind for, the woman who would never leave me completely.
Barbara didn’t only take charge of the house. She had things to say about the company I kept, my old friends whom I’d always gotten into trouble with and eventually the Boys didn’t come around anymore, nor did the friends I’d spent years with painting the town. We settled into a routine when I was home—and mostly I wasn’t. Despite my attempt to retire, for the next ten years I was back on the road, being me. I’d thought I was done with show business, but show business wasn’t done with me. It was the only way I could see myself, the only way I knew who I was. Without it, I was lost. So I kept on singing and holding the world on a string, until I heard the news that would change me for good.
Chapter 50
Ava
My life grew quiet and nostalgic and though I still did an occasional film or took a part on a TV show, I spent most of my time at home or traveling through Europe, living the kind of life I’d always wanted. One winter, though, I caught a nasty cold and spent most of the following spring in bed, coughing without reprieve. When the pounds began to melt off at an alarming rate, I had Carmen call Bappie.
“Please come home, Ava,” my sister begged me. Her voice had the sort of crags that came with age, and I wondered for a moment how much time we had left together.
“This is home, Bappie. I hate LA, you know that. Always have.”
“You need a hospital and to be with people who love you.”
She called every day, urging me to come home—and I knew she was right. I was sick and needed the best care, and I needed my family. Finally after months of being sick, I left my corgi in Carmen’s care and flew to Los Angeles. I booked appointments at St. John’s hospital for a lung cancer screen, among others. As it turned out, I had pneumonia. I was told to give up smoking and drinking and to move to a warmer, dry climate.
I didn’t.
I returned home when I’d regained enough of my strength to make the trip. My symptoms came and went and as my labored breathing returned, I was restricted to my beloved flat. I watched old movies, the classics featuring my former friends and foes, and the whole lot. When I watched my old films, I could hardly believe the young woman I saw there on the screen. I was so beautiful, it nearly hurt to see it—I’d changed irrevocably in so many ways. I’d never be that spitfire of a woman again, so vibrant and so full of promise. I feared the final scene of my life was upon me.
One day I received a letter from Francis. I tore it open hastily. The note contained his usual mixture of poetry and humor and he’d slipped in a photograph of us. It was creased and faded, as if a thumb had caressed it for so many years. It was the picture of our wedding that he’d kept in his wallet for thirty-five years, but now he wanted me to have it—to remember us and everything we’d meant to each other over the years.
I mourned silently then, a tired surrendered cry.
It was hard to live with Francis, but it seemed harder to live without him. And this gesture felt like he’d finally, finally given up on us. For good.
“Are you alright, Miss Gardner?” my nurse said in her East London Cockney.
“Can you bring me the letter box in my wardrobe?”
The nurse returned and lay the box gently on the bed. I opened the lid and sorted through its contents of notes, postcards, and love letters. They were from Francis through the years, and I’d kept them all. I opened each one, reading every line carefully, as if I hadn’t already read them a hundred times. I laughed and cried and even cussed like the old days. For a few hours, they were a beautiful walk down memory lane. They made me feel alive again, and not a shell of the woman I’d become.
* * *
When the day came to say goodbye I could feel it instinctively, the same way I’d known how to act a part. I just knew. That day everything felt like too much: too much effort, too much pain. I was tired, and the world and the man I loved felt as distant from me as the North Star.
I rang for my housekeeper.
“Carmen, I have something I need you to do,” I said, rasping through my lungs as they acted up worse than usual.
“What is it, Miss Gardner?” she said. She was bent over my corgi, taking off the dog’s collar and giving my sweet pooch a good rubbing.
“Get a fire going,” I said, “and bring me the package on my nightstand. I want you to burn it.”
Carmen’s eyes went wide. “But you love that box of letters, miss.”
“It’s time,” I said firmly, and then dissolved into a coughing fit.
“No, Miss Gardner. It can’t be time yet.” The woman dabbed at her eyes.
I reached for her hand and as I cradled it in mine, I studied the contrast in her brown skin and my pale skin, nearly translucent now with a web of purple veins beneath it.
“Please, say you’ll do it.”
“Whatever you say, Miss Gardner.” She was crying now in earnest.
I’d been good to her, but she’d been good to me, too, and right now, she was one of the few people I had left in the world. My head began to pound, my breath caught in my throat, and I made a horrible wheezing sound. Carmen looked alarmed and patted my back, helped me sit up enough to sip some water.
After I’d wiped my mouth and managed to get comfortable again against the pillow, I asked her for one final request. “Can you look after my corgi when I’m gone?”
My dog looked up and barked.
“Of course, Miss Gardner,” Carmen said. “Now, why don’t I let you rest a while? When you wake up, we’ll try some broth and tea.”
I nodded. “Sounds fine.”
Carmen rose to her feet but before she got to the door, I called out, “Can you turn on the TV? I’m so tired, and I just want to watch a movie.”
“Which movie, miss?”
“From Here to Eternity.”
She smiled knowingly. It was a favorite of mine, she knew, and I’d watched it many times the last couple of years.
Today, I needed to see him, the Francis I knew who loved me more than anything. The young man who’d strived so hard to make something of himself, the one who would become more than a star but an icon. A legend. And the one man I would never get over, not in this lifetime or the next.
The TV flickered to life and the VHS tape whirred, and soon, the black-and-white picture filled the screen. He really was so gifted, more so than even he could contain. It had nearly destroyed him at times. But he’d made his way and he’d still enchanted people. Maybe he would forever.
When at last Francis’s character, Maggio, lay dying in his friend Prewitt’s arms, a faint smile curled my lips. He’d made the role transcendent. He really had, without my help or anyone else’s.
Now it was my turn to transcend a role, one that had been as raucous and meaningful as it had been disappointing and, at times, utterly heartbreaking. Wasn’t that the way of things? To play and to suffer and to find a way to hold your truth in your hands, and to live it the best way you could? Francis would say it was, and so would I. I wished I could hear him say so, one last time.
I blew a kiss at the screen and closed my eyes. “I love you, Francis.”
It was the last time I’d ever see his face.
Chapter 51
Frank
I received the news one afternoon as I lounged at the house in Palm Springs.
My daughter Tina was there, and we were enjoying a little time together when the telephone rang. I dropped the phone and slumped against the wall to the floor.
She was gone. The love of my life was gone.
“Dad?” Tina said, crouching beside me. “What is it?” She laid a hand on my forehead. “You’re flushed.”
“Why wasn’t I there with her?” My voice cracked with anguish. “I should have gone to see her one last time in London. Why didn’t I go? I never got to tell her I love her. I didn’t tell her she was the one.”
Understanding dawned on my youngest daughter’s face. Her eyes reflected the pity she felt. “It’s Ava, isn’t it? What’s happened to her?”
“She’s gone. She died in her sleep.” I choked on a strangled sob and staggered to my bedroom. “I need to be alone.”
Thankfully my daughter listened to me, for once, and as I closed the door, I collapsed. I lay there alone all night and the entirety of the next day, thinking of Ava, remembering. Her talent, her beauty. That earthy charm and humor that always took a person by surprise. The gleam in her eye when she’d wake up beside me.
Had she done everything she set out to do? Did she have regrets as she inhaled her last breaths? She was so much more than she ever believed about herself. I thought of our last conversations, wishing I’d not been a coward when she’d said she was sick. I wished I’d gone to her. She’d always believed in me, allowed me to be who I was, even if that meant a life apart. Still, she went on loving me, and I would go on loving her, until it was all over and the curtains closed.
I thought back over the great accomplishments of my own life and wondered if they held any real meaning in the end. What was I leaving behind when it was my turn? One day not too far in the future, it would be. Would I leave something lasting? That was a question no man could answer.
When Tina looked in on me, I could barely raise my voice above a whisper.
“Can I bring you anything?” she asked.
“No, kid. Thanks,” I said.
I had a wreath of flowers sent to Ava’s funeral with a note that read, “With my love, Francis.” But I couldn’t—and didn’t—go. I was a failure at goodbyes, especially with the ones I loved most. I was a failure at loving them enough in the way they needed, at showing them what they meant to me.
A day later, Tina knocked at the bedroom door. My dear daughter always stayed with me when it was hardest. I was rich in that way, richer than I deserved.
“Dad,” Tina said, interrupting my thoughts. “You have a phone call. It’s your agent. He wants to know if you’ll still do the concert. He said he can get Liza Minnelli to step in for you if you need him to.”
“No,” I croaked. “I’ll do it.”
Barbara pushed her way into the room and crossed her arms. She was furious with me again, but stood there in her passive-aggressive way, not saying the things she wanted to say. I guessed that she was glad her competition was finally gone. But the truth was, Ava would never be gone for me, not ever, and as much as I loved Barbara, she couldn’t compete.
“You don’t have to do the show, Dad,” Tina said. “They would understand.”
“I think you should do it,” Barbara interjected. “Think how it will look—”
“I’m doing the show,” I said. “Now everyone leave me the hell alone. I need to pack and catch a plane.”
I arrived—exhausted, destroyed, unsure of what I was doing there—at the Knickerbocker Arena in Albany, New York, to a crowd of eighteen thousand. I didn’t feel like myself and I certainly didn’t feel like going on, but it was what I’d always done. I showed up. I made the audience happy. They looked for my music to soothe them, to heal them, to help them through the hard times. Maybe the truth was that I needed the music, too. I couldn’t imagine a life without Ava in it, so I had to take that stage and wrap my pain in a song to somehow understand it, to make it more bearable.
As the night’s host gave his introduction, the crowd roared.
With a deep breath, I pasted on a smile like I was a good show dog and gripped my microphone. It was time to be a professional and put the rest aside.
The curtains parted.
As the orchestra began to play and the melodious notes filled the auditorium, I looked out at a sea of faces and began to sing. One song after another, the bittersweet notes were more poignant than they’d ever been. I poured my soul into the microphone and launched my heart into the crowd. When at last the show wound down and the band began “One for My Baby,” I gripped the bottle of Jack Daniel’s that I always used as a prop. Tonight, it would be my lifeline.
I sang the song like I had a thousand times before, but tonight, the audience felt like something more than mere admirers. They were witnesses to my pain, a source of comfort. Emotion rushed over me until I was nearly blinded by it. I swigged from the bottle once, twice, three times and more, doing the faux stumble of a drunken man across the stage from the routine I’d perfected with my Rat Pack years before.
If I just kept moving from one note to the next, the song would soon be over. And I would no longer see her at the edge of my vision or feel her skin beneath my hands. I would no longer hear the sweetness of her sighs in my ear. My angel. I wouldn’t feel the gaping hole she’d left in my chest, and I could go home.
But, as the spotlight beamed on me like a beacon from heaven, and the crowd was riveted by the spell I’d cast over them, my voice cracked. I stopped the song. I looked down at my bottle, over at my piano man, and again out at the crowd. I could see her there, in the front row with laughing eyes. She was smiling, blowing me a kiss, the diamonds at her ears sparkling in the light. She was bright and beautiful and wild as ever. She was telling me to go on, to finish the song.
I began again as I so often did, all those years. I sang the final notes, my voice reverberating with pain, and when it ended, I bowed my head.
For a beat, the crowd remained silent, stunned, and I was reminded of the power of the music. The power of our love. It had been a mess but it was also an enchantment for all those decades, and now it enchanted the audience.
Then the spell broke.
The crowd thundered with delirious applause and jumped to their feet, roaring, their voices rising to the rafters, and I imagined mine rising too, through the roof into the searing cold of a January night, the sky speckled with stars, and beyond to that infinite place. For a moment, I smiled, knowing she would feel my love again somehow, and that she’d feel it for always.
Author’s Note
When I was first approached about writing this novel, I must admit, I was uncertain. As a historical novelist, I’d never written a biographical novel about figures who have not only lived and died during my lifetime but whose lives were documented in very close detail. This meant an avalanche of source material and a vast array of photos, video clips, and films—a feast for a researcher—was at my disposal! It also meant relatives of these two incredibly gifted people were still living. Could I do Frank and Ava justice? I didn’t know, but one thing I did know was that my childhood was touched by Frank Sinatra. After mass on Sundays, we’d head to my grandparents’ house for a family meal and as we all filed in, my grandfather would pour himself a splash of something on the rocks and crank up a little Frank on the record player, waiting impatiently for my grandmother’s homemade manicotti to emerge from the oven. I can still see in my mind’s eye the image of my grandparents cutting a rug, all smiles, to the music when the feeling struck.
Frank’s wonderful voice followed me into adulthood, too. When I was feeling blue or nostalgic, I’d switch on a big band station or fire up my CDs of Ol’ Blue Eyes. Even today, I hear his melodious baritone floating down the aisles of any grocery store or creating just the right mood at dinner parties. Frank’s immense legacy lingers still, almost as if he were not yet gone. So few in history have ever achieved this sort of coveted status. I think he would be proud to see how much his music is still cherished, and what he, as a prominent figure, represents: style, dark glamour, and the kind of star power that feels otherworldly sometimes. Most of the rest, and his very real flaws, have faded from view. As for Ava Gardner, I knew far less about her, only that she was a Hollywood star and about the most beautiful and bewitching woman I’d ever seen, and that was just in photographs. I could only imagine how her intelligence, and her charm and beauty, translated to real life. I couldn’t wait to learn more.
It’s important to emphasize that though this novel was meticulously researched, it presents only a snapshot of Frank’s and Ava’s lives, of them as a couple and how their fates—and their hearts—became entwined. For every scene that appears in the story, I cut two—it was difficult to let go of Frank’s relationship with Presidents Kennedy and Reagan, his many friends and enemies, his son’s kidnapping, the way the FBI was breathing down his neck about his ties to the Mob, and so much more. It was similarly difficult to let go of the many anecdotes about Ava, too—from being chased in Brazil on foot by an enormous crowd of crazed fans; to her interactions with Fidel Castro; and her once-upon-a-time neighbor in Spain, Juan Perón, the former dictator of Argentina with whom she argued about their dogs. I found myself wanting to include them all, and to portray every recording, every movie set, every exchange with famous names we all recognize. There is so much more to learn about both Ava and Frank as people, and about their careers, and I encourage interested readers to dig in to the many wonderful resources available.
Other Notes
My favorite resources, other than the films and records themselves and the multitude of photographs, were Tina Sinatra’s gorgeous memoir, My Father’s Daughter (cowritten with Jeff Coplon), which brought a lump to my throat and a tear to my eye more than once; Lee Server’s Ava Gardner: “Love Is Nothing”; James Kaplan’s duology Frank: The Voice and Sinatra: The Chairman; and Sinatra: The Life by Anthony Summers and Robbyn Swan.
At times, the sources conflicted with each other in their details, including exactly what happened between Frank and Ava, from their fights to their quieter moments, and even whether Frank was involved with the Mafia. Therefore, I weaved an emotional tale through and around these details, doing my best to preserve what has been documented but at times making tough choices. Each resource provided its own view of the fascinating story of Frank and Ava, and what secrets their hearts might have held. Above all, I wanted to show how these two individuals were paradoxical, as we all are. They were gifted and intelligent, and volatile and passionate, sometimes even abhorrent in their behaviors but always complex. I wish I’d had the good fortune of knowing them in real life.
