Things are starting to move pretty quickly. A summary is unavoidable. The girls' chapters don't overlap, and they are skipping some big time periods. The plot keeps moving while keeping you informed, though, since the girls are still in contact with each other. Neely has changed the most so far. She's turned into a pill-popping Helen Lawson. She's the youngest, but she appears the most senescent after two divorces and a nearly fatal overdose. Jennifer is doing nudie films in France, and Anne is modeling for a makeup company. Lyon finally split -- and I can't decide if the move was noble or selfish. He thought he was spreading himself too thin, and with Anne it needed to be all or nothing. He proposed, but it was her aversion to living in her childhood home that caused him to reconsider. She's been holding out hope that he'll come back to her, but it seems she may have a new man soon. Through all their problems, Henry has been the rock. He pointed out to Anne that she has changed, too. He tells her there was a time she'd have gone to the ends of the Earth for the man she loved. New York City has shown her how complicated life can be. Love can't always create happiness.
Lyon did offer me some wisdom:
"And don't think I wouldn't like to write full time. These past few evenings have proved something to me -- you get a certain rhythm when you keep at a thing for hours on end." (237)
That's the kind of thing I need to keep in mind when I'm feeling unmotivated about something. Whether it's reading a book, reading blogs, writing my own book, scrapbooking -- it really is nice to let yourself be engrossed like that in something you love. It's amazing how much better I feel when I've spent an entire afternoon or evening thinking and creating, rather than watching television. Of course, there's a rhythm to that, too, it's just not as fulfilling.
It's funny, and possibly annoying, that I keep thinking of the characters in terms of actors I've seen in movies and TV. I guess it helps me picture them in my head, but I don't think I've ever done this before. I'll have to watch the movie one day. Miriam reminds me of Velma from "Scooby-Doo." Neely is like Hayley Mills when she's vulnerable, but she turned into the Vicky character from "The Parent Trap" when she was in her evil-actress mode. We get an insight into why she is the way she is, though. She opens up to her director one day -- after her divorce but three years before her overdose.
"I'm twenty-five and I feel like I'm ninety. I've lost two husbands. All I know is to study lines, songs, dance routines, to starve, to sleep with pills, stay awake with pills. ... There's got to be more than that to living."
"Did you have more fun back in your early vaudeville days?"
"No, and I hate people who say it was all so wonderful when they were starving. It stunk. One-night stands, cold trains, dim-witted audiences ... but there was something that kept you going and made you feel good--hope. It was all so lousy that you knew it had to get better, and you dreamed of the big time or security and thought it would be so wonderful if you could just latch onto a piece of it. And that hope kept you going so it didn't seem bad. But when you sit here and think, Geez, here it is ... this is it ... and it stinks. Then what?" (300)
He reminds her of her twin boys, but it's obvious her children are not a priority. She missed their first birthday, even. She can't break the cycle of dolls to sleep, dolls to wake, dolls for energy. Her vision of an orgy has changed.
"Now, Neely, whaddya want--red, yellow or blue dolls? Anything you want, baby." She swallowed two red pills. Then she staggered into bed. She picked up the phone and buzzed. The butler answered. "Lissen, Charlie, cancel the early call. Call the studio tomorrow and tell 'em Miss O'Hara has ... has laryn ... laryngitis. And I won't take any calls. I'm gonna sleep ... and eat ... and sleep ... and eat ... for maybe a week. When I wake up tomorrow I want pancakes, with butter and loads of syrup. I'm gonna have an orgy!" (307)
I also have to include an excerpt from the night her second husband left her. Here, she's in a drunken stupor and is soon to discover him in the pool with a naked girl.
Maybe Ted was at his office. Maybe he wasn't mad, just working late. She reached for the phone. No, if he wasn't at his office she didn't want to know. And what the hell--what would it prove? He could be at his office doing it with a guy. Jesus, why did she love him this much? He wasn't even a real man. But then Mel was kinda weakish, too. Why did she get attracted to men like this? They seemed so strong in the beginning--helping her, telling her what to do--real strong. Then they petered out. (288)
- Balefully = menacingly, (obs.) miserably
- Largess = generosity
- Gamin = street urchin
- Pan = to criticize
- Unctuous = excessively ingratiating
- I also found a couple of errors -- an accidental capital letter after a comma and a missing apostrophe in a contraction. I wonder if typos are fixed in subsequent printings. Will I find that missing punctuation in the pink-cover version?
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