Jacqueline Susann Once Is Not Enough
ALSO BY JACQUELINE SUSANN
Every Night, Josephine!
Valley of the Dolls
The Love Machine
Dolores
Yargo
Once Is Not Enough
Jacqueline Susann
Copyright © 1973 by Jacqueline Susann
Copyright © 1997 by Tiger LLC
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, or the facilitation thereof, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review. Any members of educational institutions wishing to photocopy part or all of the work for classroom use, or publishers who would like to obtain permission to include the work in an anthology, should send their inquiries to Grove/Atlantic, Inc., 841 Broadway, New York, NY 10003.
The first-quoted lyrics on page 263 are from “A Wonderful Guy” from South Pacific. Words by Oscar Hammerstein 2nd. Music by Richard Rodgers. Copyright © 1949 by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein 2nd, Williamson Music Inc., New York, NY, Publisher and owner of publication and allied rights for all countries of Western Hemisphere. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
The second-quoted lyrics on page 263 are from “The Gentleman Is a Dope” from Allegro. Words by Oscar Hammerstein 2nd. Music by Richard Rodgers. Copyright © 1947 by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein 2nd, Williamson Music Inc., New York, NY, Publisher and owner of publication and allied rights for all countries. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Published simultaneously in Canada
Printed in the United States of America
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Susann, Jacqueline.
Once is not enough / Jacqueline Susann.
p. cm.
ISBN-10: 0-8021-3545-5
ISBN-13: 978-0-8021-3545-2
1. Fathers and daughters—United States—Fiction. I. Title. PS3569.U75062 1997
813’.54—dc21 97-27297
Grove Press
an imprint of Grove/Atlantic, Inc.
841 Broadway
New York, NY 10003
Distributed by Publishers Group West
www.groveatlantic.com
09 10 11 12 13 15 14 13 12 11 10 9 8 7
To Robert Susann, my father,
who would understand*
*and to Irving,
who does understand
Jacqueline Susann Once Is Not Enough
Prologue
Him
HE BURST upon the theatrical scene in 1945. He was Mike Wayne—a born winner. He had been known as the best crap shooter in the Air Force, and the thirteen thousand dollars in cash, strapped around his waist, proved the legend to be fact.
When he was in his late teens he had already figured the stock market and show business to be the two biggest crap games in the world. He was twenty-seven when he got out of the Air Force and crazy about girls, so he picked show business. He parlayed his thirteen thousand into sixty with five hot days at Aqueduct.
By investing it in a Broadway show he became co-producer. The show was a hit and he married Vicki Hill, the most beautiful girl in the chorus.
Vicki wanted to be a star, and he gave her the chance. In 1948 he produced his first big lavish musical on his own and starred his wife. It was a hit, in spite of her. The critics praised his theatrical know-how in surrounding her with talented performers, a foolproof book, and a hit score. But they all agreed that Vicki was less than adequate.
When the show ended its run, he “retired” her. (“Baby, you gotta know how to walk away from the table when the dice are cold. I gave you your shot. Now you give me a son.”)
On New Year’s Day, 1950, she presented him with a baby girl. He promptly named her January, and when the nurse put the baby in his arms, he silently swore he would give her the world.
When she was two, he greeted her before he greeted his wife.
When she was four, he went to California and produced his first movie.
When she was five, he produced two hit pictures in one year, and was nominated for an Oscar.
When she was six he won the Oscar and his name was linked with several beautiful stars. (That was when his wife began to drink and took a lover of her own.)
When she was seven, he named his private plane after her and his wife killed herself trying to abort their unborn son.
And then there were just the two of them.
He tried to explain things the day he drove her to the boarding school in Connecticut. “Now that Mommy’s gone, this fancy joint will teach you to become a lovely lady.”
“Why can’t you teach me, Daddy?”
“Because I travel a lot. And besides, ladies are supposed to teach little girls.”
“Why did Mommy die, Daddy?”
“I don’t know, honey . . . Maybe because she wanted to be somebody.”
“Is that bad?”
“Only when you aren’t, and it eats away at your insides.”
“Are you somebody, Daddy?”
“Me? I’m a super-somebody.” He laughed.
“Then I’ll be a somebody,” she told him.
“Okay. But before you can be anybody, you have to be a lady.”
So she had accepted Miss Haddon’s school. And whenever he was in New York, they would spend the weekends together.
His fame grew, and like all good gamblers, he knew when to push his luck and when to quit. He had been known to change the odds at the track with one bet. Once he lost his plane on the roll of the dice, but he walked away with a grin because he knew there would be another time.
And if you asked him when his luck ran out, he could tell you the exact day.
Rome. June 20, 1967.
The day they told him about his daughter. . . .
Her
IF YOU ASKED her when her luck ran out, she wouldn’t have been able to tell you because she only thought of herself as his daughter. And being his daughter was just about the most marvelous thing in the world.
From the start she had accepted Miss Haddon’s school as merely something to “get through.” The girls were all friendly and fell into two categories. The older girls worshipped Elvis and the younger girls were “Linda followers.” Linda was Linda Riggs, a student. She was sixteen. She could sing and dance and her hyper-enthusiasm was noisy but infectious. (Years later when January came across some early school photographs, she was amazed at Linda’s resemblance to Ringo Starr.) But at the time, when Linda was the undisputed star at Miss Haddon’s, no one seemed to notice the skimpy shaggy hair, the broad nose, and the heavy silver braces on her teeth. It was an accepted fact that when Linda graduated she was going to become a top musical comedy star on Broadway.
In Linda’s senior year, she starred in the school’s watered-down version of Annie Get Your Gun. When rehearsals began, Linda singled out the eight-year-old January to be her “special little friend.” This meant January would be given the privilege of running errands for her and of cueing her on her lines and lyrics of the songs. January had never been a “Linda follower,” but she was pleased with the arrangement because most of Linda’s conversation centered on Mike Wayne. Linda was a great admirer of his work. Had January invited him to the school play? Was he coming? He had to come! After all, hadn’t Linda seen to it that January had gotten into the chorus?
He did come, and after the performance January watched the star of Annie Get Your Gun dissolve into a stammering blushing high school girl when Mike Wayne shook her hand.
“Wasn’t she great?” January asked as they walked off together.
“She stank. You stood out more in the chorus than she did in all of her numbers.”
“But she’s so talented.”
“She’s a fat ugly broad.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
But when Linda was graduated, Miss Haddon’s suddenly seemed empty. A beautiful girl named Angela starred in the school play the following season, but everyone agreed she was “no Linda.”
Two years later, Linda jumped back into the news when one of the girls ran screaming down the hall with a copy of Gloss magazine. On the masthead, in small print, was the name Linda Riggs: junior editor. Everyone at Miss Haddon’s was wildly impressed, but January was secretly disappointed. What had happened to Broadway?
When she told her father about it, he didn’t seem surprised. “It’s amazing that she even made it as a gofer on a fashion magazine.”
“But she was so talented,” January insisted.
“Talented for Miss Haddon’s. But this is nineteen sixty, and there are girls who look like Liz Taylor and Marilyn Monroe pounding the pavements, hoping for a break in anything. I don’t say beauty is everything . . . but it helps.”
“Will I be beautiful?”
He grinned as he fingered her heavy brown hair. “You’re gonna be more than beautiful. You’ve got your mother’s brown eyes. Velvet eyes. The first thing that attracted me to her.”
She didn’t tell him that she’d rather have his eyes. They were so unbelievably blue against his perpetual tan and his black hair. She had never been able to take his extraordinary good looks for granted. Neither could her classmates, who saw their fathers as beleaguered men who sometimes needed a shave, worried about losing their hair or jobs, and constantly argued with a mother or a kid brother.
But the weekends January spent with her father in New York, she only saw a handsome man who lived to please her.
It was because of these weekends that January discouraged all attempts at any “buddy-buddy” relationships with the girls at school. Having a “buddy-buddy” meant holiday dinners at their homes and occasional weekend “sleepovers”—on a reciprocal basis. And January had no intention of sharing any of her weekends with her father. Of course, there were times when he was in Europe or on the Coast, but the weekends they spent together more than compensated for the lonely ones. Those Saturday mornings when the limousine would arrive and whisk her to New York . . . to the large corner suite at the Plaza which he kept on a year-round basis. Invariably he’d be having breakfast when she arrived. A secretary might be taking notes; a production assistant going over weekly grosses; a publicity man checking advertising copy; phones would be going, sometimes three at once. But when she entered the room it was as if an alarm went off. All activity stopped and he’d sweep her into his arms. The smell of his aftershave lotion was like pine . . . and the feel of his arms around her gave her a sense of all-encompassing security.
She would have some lunch while he quickly disposed of the business at hand. It never failed to fascinate her. The wheeling-dealing, his staccato decisions on the long-distance phone. She’d nibble at her food and watch him, trying to etch into her mind the way he hunched the phone between his shoulder and his ear as he made notes . . . and that warm feeling that shot through her when he looked at her in the midst of it all and winked. A wink that said, “No matter what I’m doing, I still stop and think of you.”
And after lunch there were no more phones or interruptions. The rest of the day belonged to her. Sometimes he’d take her to Saks and buy her everything in sight. Other times they’d go ice-skating at Rockefeller Plaza (he’d sit inside and have a drink while the instructor took her around). If he was putting on a new show, they’d stop by and watch rehearsals. They saw every show on Broadway; sometimes they went to a matinee and an evening performance. And they’d always wind up at Sardi’s and sit at the front table under his caricature.
But she hated Sundays. No matter how much fun they had at their Sunday brunch, there was always the shadow of that big black limousine that was waiting to take her back to Miss Haddon’s. And she knew she had to go, just as she knew he had to return to his phones and his productions.
But his favorite “productions” were her birthdays. When she was five he had hired a small circus and invited her entire nursery school class. Her mother had been alive then, a vague lady with huge brown eyes who sat on the sidelines and watched everything without too much interest. When she was six there had been a sleigh ride to the Tavern On The Green in Central Park, with a Santa Claus and a bag of toys waiting. Another time there had been a magician, and a puppet show.
But on her eighth birthday there had been just the two of them. It was her first birthday since her mother’s death. It fell on a weekday and the car had picked her up at Miss Haddon’s and brought her to the Plaza. She had stood solemnly as he opened the bottle of champagne and poured her a quarter of a glass. “This is the best there is, babe.” He raised his glass. “Here’s to my lady . . . the only lady I’ll ever love.” That was how he introduced her to Dom Perignon and caviar.
And then he had taken her to the window and pointed toward the Goodyear Blimp that was passing by. But instead of “Goodyear,” the huge red letters blazed “Happy Birthday, January!” And from that time on, Dom Perignon and caviar became a ritual for all important occasions.
On her thirteenth birthday, he took her to Madison Square Garden. The marquee was dark when they arrived, so she assumed they were late. He took her hand and led her inside. Oddly enough there were no ushers to help them. No attendants . . . no people . . . no lights. He led her down a ramp, into the cavernous darkness of the empty Garden. It was eerie as they walked hand in hand . . . down . . . down . . . deep into the belly of the Garden. Then he stopped; and when he spoke his voice was quiet. “Make a wish, baby, a big one, because right now you are standing on the exact spot where some of the biggest champions stood. Joe Louis, Sugar Ray, Marciano.” He raised her hand in the fighter’s victory pose and, mimicking the nasal tones of a referee, chanted, “And now Ladees and Gennelmen . . . introducing the greatest champion of them all . . . Miss January Wayne . . . who has now entered her teens!” Then he said, “That means you’re in the heavyweight division now, babe.”
She threw her arms around him and he leaned down to kiss her cheek, but in the darkness their lips met and held . . . and then the scoreboards all exploded with lights, sparkling, HAPPY BIRTHDAY, JANUARY. A table was set with caviar and champagne; a waiter was standing at attention to serve them, and an orchestra played and sang “Happy Birthday.”
After the song, the musicians began a medley of her favorite show tunes. They sipped the champagne, and then Mike held out his arms and asked her to dance. At first she was nervous, but after the first few awkward steps she snuggled against him, and suddenly it felt as if she had been dancing with him all of her life. As they moved to the music, he whispered, “You’re on your way to becoming a lady. One day a boy will come along who’ll mean more than anything else in the world . . . and he’ll hold you in his arms like this and you’ll know what it means to be in love.” She hadn’t answered because she knew she was already in the arms of the only man she could ever love.
He was producing a picture in Rome when she was graduated from Miss Haddon’s. She didn’t mind his missing the graduation. She would have liked to skip it herself, but she had auditioned and been chosen to deliver the valedictory speech, and now there was no way out. But she was joining him in Rome for the summer.
And she had won the argument against college.
“Daddy, I’ve been away at school all my life.”
“But college is important, baby.”
“Why?”
“Well, to learn things, to meet the right kind of friends, to prepare you for—hell, I don’t know. I just know it’s the right thing. Why do other girls go to college?”
“Because they don’t have you for a father”.
“Well, what do you want to do?”
“Be an actress maybe.”
“Well, if you’re gonna be an actress, you have to study for that too!”
And so it had been arranged. Once he finished the picture in Rome, he was scheduled to do one in London. And he had managed to get her enrolled at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art for the fall term. She wasn’t dedicated to the idea of the Royal Academy. She wasn’t even sure she really wanted to be an actress. . . .
But she was going to Rome! There were just the graduation exercises to get through. Under her cap and gown was a blue linen dress. Her plane ticket and passport were in her bag. And her luggage was already in the trunk of the limousine waiting outside the school. All she had to do was deliver the speech, get that diploma, and run!
And then it was all over and she was making her way up the aisle; accepting congratulations from parents of classmates; pushing through a wall of tearful farewells; promising to write. Goodbye! Goodbye! Tearing off the gown. Tossing the cap to Miss Hicks of the drama department. Goodbye! Goodbye! Into the limousine and on the way to Kennedy Airport.
704 . . . first class half empty . . . too excited to concentrate on food or the movie. Hours and hours of magazines, daydreams and Cokes . . . then finally the descent . . . seven o’clock in the morning, Rome time. And there he was . . . standing with some important-looking officials . . . right on the airfield . . . with a private car. Out of the plane . . . into his arms . . . the arms of the most fabulous man in the world . . . and he belonged to her!
The long black car drove them to customs . . . her passport was stamped . . . they entered the busy terminal where two attractive young Italian boys in skinny dark suits stood waiting to attend to her luggage.
“They don’t speak English, but they’re great kids,” Mike said as he handed them some crinkly paper money. “They’ll get your baggage and take it to the hotel.” Then he led her outside to a long low-slung red Jaguar. The top was down and Mike smiled at her obvious delight. “I thought it would be more fun if we drove ourselves. Get in, Cleopatra. You are about to make your entrance into Rome.”