I was browsing a department store when I saw them. A beautiful pair of black-and-white checked pants with one-inch cuffs, zippered fly, and a thin black belt. Very Lauren Bacall. I bought the pants and modeled them in front of my mirror several hours later. I’ve never looked good in patterns or pants with flies, but these were so 40s cool and full of vintage glamour. I could BE Lauren Bacall in these pants. My husband would be Humphrey Bogart and I would croon to him, “Just pucker up and blow,” when we did the To Have and Have Not whistling foreplay bit. And we would be romantic and admired and go out dancing somewhere and everyone would say, “Wow, she looks just like Lauren Bacall!” I would be adored, envied, followed, sought after.
After all, I felt a weird connection to Bacall after my family inadvertently camped in the vicinity of the Ohio farm where she and Bogart were married in 1945. Forty-four years later in the spring of 1989, we set up our pop-up trailer in the mists of leafless trees near the fields of Malabar Farm. Malabar was pretty unassuming for the wedding place of such mega stars, but I’m sure Bogie and Bacall must have had the privacy they wanted. Sitting in our trailer–my hair smashed under a wool cap nursing my five-month-old, chilled to the bone as my husband cooked breakfast–I could just stare across withered corn stalks to a site of American movie royalty.
But it would take more than camping in the vicinity of Malabar and purchasing patterned trousers to get me to adoration and Lauren Bacall. I’m only 5′ 2″ after all; I have thin, fine hair that doesn’t do up into a bob at all; and my voice sounds like tired weasels nesting in flem. I’m also long past 19 years old (Bacall’s age in To Have and Have Not, and nobody’s going to nickname me “Slim” anytime soon. I was going to be on my own with those checkered pants. At least my closet, with the lovely cuffed and checkered pants draped on a hanger, might slightly resemble Bacall’s closet.
So denial finally dissolved, I faced the cold hard facts, and I gave away the checkered pants: cuffs, skinny belt, Hollywood, Malabar, checks, being sought after, and all. I would have to find another way to adoration.
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