Free Dear Cary: My Life With Cary Grant by Dyan Cannon Page B

Dyan?” the man asked. Whoops. Suddenly it sounded like Clifford Odets.
    â€œIt is.”
    â€œWe met last night at my dinner party.”
    â€œIs this really Clifford Odets?”
    â€œIt is,” he said, echoing my line.
    â€œOh, Clifford! I’m sorry! I thought it was Cary, pretending to be you. How did you get my number?”
    â€œFrom Cary, of course.”
    â€œFrom Cary?” I said. “Oh, of course. It’s nice of you to call.” I was perplexed and trying to puzzle this out. Maybe Clifford was planning a surprise party for Cary. Or, we’d talked about him visiting Sandy Meisner’s acting workshop. Maybe he was calling for a schedule. That had to be it.
    And then he asked:
    â€œI was wondering if you’d have dinner with me later this week. Are you free Thursday?”
    Whoa, Silver! Was he asking me on a date ? Like a boy-meets-girl date? I almost put the question to him point-blank, but then I laid my bet on it being a date -date. It was the slightly querulous tone of his voice that tipped me off. Didn’t he know I was dating Cary? No! Cary had not told him that I was dating Cary!! When Clifford figured this out, he might very well feel like an idiot. I already felt like an idiot. The jury in my head acquitted Mr. Odets on all counts of untoward behavior. The posse in my mind was rustling up a lynch mob for Mr. Grant.
    â€œThank you for asking, Mr. Odets,” I managed to say more or less gracefully. “It’s so nice of you to ask. But I am seeing someone.” (Like the man who introduced us?)
    â€œOh, I didn’t know that. Well, the invitation is open if anything changes.”
    â€œI appreciate that,” I said.
    If Clifford had asked him for my number, Cary had to have known the reason. It was obvious . Clifford was a gentleman. He would have asked if I were available. Why would Cary do a thing like that? Was that how these guys played it? They pursue you, earn your trust, and then pimp you out to one of their buddies? Not me, buster. No way. I wasn’t anybody’s flavor of the month. Not even Cary Grant’s.
    I called my mother and told her the whole story. I was hurt and angry. Mom sighed, perhaps with relief, and told me to hold my own. (Maybe a nice Jewish boy was just around the corner.) I called Addie and Darlene and told them too. The sisterhood had spoken and the vote was unanimous: ciao and arrivederci, Cary Grant.
    Several days passed, and I heard nothing from Cary. But Clifford called again, and I politely declined his invitation, resisting the urge to tell him what a jerk his friend Cary was.
    Then Cary called. And called and called. And called again. Addie denied my presence, over and again, but she was quickly tiring of the drill. I walked in once to hear her say into the phone, “Cary, she’s probably in bed with Clifford Odets.” I nearly fainted, but it turned out she’d already hung up. Hardy har har, Addie.
    At a certain point, though, the sisterhood spoke again. I was still as riled up as a bull with a red cape being twirled before it, but the girls opined that given Cary’s unflagging attempts to talk to me—presumably to put things right—I ought to at least hear him out. “He was angry and he had a bad moment,” Addie said. “Men can be dolts. Yes, Cary acted like a dolt. But as long as he recognizes it and is willing to correct course, you ought to at least talk to him.”
    I wasn’t having any of it. I was working pretty steadily and actually making a little money, so I started looking for my own place. My close friend Corky Hale had an apartment in a doorman building on Wilshire Boulevard and was looking to sublet it for a year. Corky had a clothing boutique on Sunset Boulevard, and I’d known her since my early days in L.A., when I did a little modeling for her, so I hurried over to take a look. It was a tastefully furnished one-bedroom in a great