Read Online The Bette Davis Club by Jane Lotter - Free Book Online

Cary Grant taught me. “Thank you,” I say.
    “I was seven years old,” I continue, “and it was the first time I’d ever considered what I looked like. Mr. Grant was the first man who ever made me feel pretty. When he took me home and returned me to my father, something about my life had changed. For the next three years, until I went away to England, I never missed seeing a Cary Grant movie whenever they showed one on television. I’d fallen in love with Cary Grant, or at least the idea of him. Watching those old movies—dreaming over his style, his wit, his sophistication—just made it worse.”
    “Must have set the bar kind of high for guys you met later on.”
    “You have no idea.”
    “Do you work in the industry?” Tully says.
    “Films?” I shake my head. “When I was younger, I did some modeling. Now I own a shop in New York.”
    Tully momentarily switches his gaze from the road to me. “Manhattan?” he says. “We’re neighbors. I grew up in Los Angeles, but nowadays I live in Brooklyn. What kind of shop?”
    “Architectural salvage,” I say. With my free hand, I retrieve a card from my bag and offer it to him.
    Tully takes the card and glances down at it. He reads aloud: “Manhattan Architectural Salvage. We Pick Up the Pieces.” He laughs, but he doesn’t sound all that amused.
    “If ever you want a chunk of old Pennsylvania Station,” I say, thinking of Dottie and wishing she were here, “I can fix you up.”
    “You have some of that?” Tully says. He hands back the card.
    “Yes. But do you even know what it is?”
    “Sure.” A jackrabbit shoots across the road. Tully downshifts to avoid hitting it.
    “Penn Station is legendary,” Tully says. “They tore it down in the 1960s, even though lots of people felt it was important. Felt it should be saved. But it wasn’t.”
    After he says this, I find myself warming even more toward Tully. Few people these days remember Penn Station, which was located in midtown Manhattan and was one of the most beautiful Beaux Arts structures of the early 1900s.
    “I know something about architecture,” Tully says. “And I have to tell you, I don’t care for your line of work.”
    A chill shoots through my body, but it isn’t from eating ice-cream.
    “‘Architectural salvage’ is an oxymoron, okay?” Tully says. “It’s ghoulish, gives me the creeps. You salvage people don’t do anything at all to preserve history. You stand around, hands in your pockets, while they knock down some great old landmark. Then you rush in with price tags and a wheelbarrow.”
    My ice-cream is nearly gone. I crunch down hard on the cone.
    “You carve up these incredible old places and sell the body parts to whoever has the dough,” Tully says. “And they always end up in somebody’s stupid McMansion or in the boardroom of some big law firm. That’s not salvage. It’s sacrilege.” He glances at me as though I’ve just been revealed as a torturer of small furry animals.
    “It’s slightly more complicated than that,” I say.
    “Yeah?” Tully says. The car picks up speed. “How’d you get into that business?”
    “Long story,” I say, determined not to tell it. Who is this person with the five o’clock shadow, plonked down in my father’s car? Why should I explain my life to him?
    “So tell me,” I say, “while I’m looting America’s treasures, how do you occupy your time?”
    “I’m a writer.”
    A light goes on, and I picture both Malcolm Belvedere and Charlotte’s husband, Donald, who works with scriptwriters. “Screenplays?” I say. “You write for the movies?”
    “I’m writing a book,” Tully says. “That’s how I met Georgia. I came out here to do research, and we met at a party.”
    “What’s your book about?”
    “Miniatures. Dollhouses and things.”
    I laugh. “ Dollhouses ?”
    “Yeah,” Tully says defensively. “Something wrong with that?”
    “You have to admit,” I say, “it’s an unlikely subject for a