Goddess of Love Incarnate. Leslie Zemeckis

slowly pulled out of New York’s harbor. Dusk was falling as lights of the city begin to turn on. It was magical, like standing on a many-layered wedding cake. With the cool breeze lifting her hair and the tang of salt water in her nose she felt a sudden passion for life, joy overtaking her. She silently vowed she was going to live among luxury like this. This was the world she wanted. Always.

      Up on the first-class desk she watched New York shrink as she said good-bye to everything; Pasadena, Jimmy, Third Street, it was all behind her. In the bar she ordered a very dry gin martini. A young woman on the brink of all life had to offer. “A passion for the joy of life overtook” her.⁷³

      Because of a mix-up involving a senator that needed her cabin, Lili was forced to share a cabin with a woman “surly” and “green” who didn’t take to the ocean as well as Lili.⁷⁴

      Lili was determined to stand out and it didn’t take long for the crew and guests to notice the lone gorgeous blonde who always had a ready smile to share. She was taller than most, prettier than most. Everyone was friendly, asking her if there was anything they could do for her. The first night she was given a message that the captain wanted her to dine at his table the following night. She had no idea this was a privilege not accorded to everyone. She casually accepted.

      Lili couldn’t reach for a cigarette without someone appearing at her elbow to light it. She collected photographs of herself; seated at a bar, on the deck; laughing and drinking champagne. It was everything she had seen in the movies—and more.

      FOR A GIRL UNTRAVELED YET RIPE FOR MAGIC, LILI REVELED IN HER newfound freedom. There was the sheer joy of not having to report to anyone. Alice had been a vigilant caregiver, walking her everywhere or having her sit with her at work. Lili hadn’t realized how much anger she had built up; she adored Alice, though she resented being suppressed.

      Lili rose when she wanted. She didn’t have to tell anyone where she was going or what she was doing. If she wanted to smoke instead of eat, that was fine. If she wanted a dry gin martini, she ordered it.

       Lili looking very Jean Harlow on board her first luxury liner

      She took long walks on all eight passenger decks, past the swimming pool, around the full-sized tennis court, pausing in front of the kennels for the dogs on the sundeck. Two large smoke stacks painted blue and white with red stripes jutted up into the clear blue sky. All around midnight-blue waters surrounded like a skirt of velvet. Lili turned her face toward the sun.

      The SS Manhattan was known to be so luxurious that competing liners renamed their first-class cabins “cabin class.” Lili was awed by the riches surrounding her. There was a smoking lounge with a fireplace. There was a library where she curled up with beautiful leather-bound books.

      She was ensconced in a Louis XVI decorated cabin—with her roommate. The wood was polished hardwood paneling, a tiny but beautiful room with a window.

      In the afternoon one could pop into the beauty parlor for a shampoo and set, or a manicure if a beautician was free.

      She ate in the main dining room also decorated in the Louis XVI style with large murals. She wafted into the room beautifully made up in one of her homemade gowns. Perhaps she had to battle her innate shyness, or maybe she was feeling bold, already pretending to be someone else. Did she imagine herself as Garbo playing Queen Christina and this was her yacht? She would continually measure her actions against Garbo’s, wondering what Garbo would think, what Garbo would do in the same circumstances.

      Lili sat at a table with an older couple. A steward poured her a glass of wine. Within minutes another steward brought over a cold bottle of Mumm champagne and a note. “With compliments, an admirer.”

      “Give my thanks to the gentleman.”⁷⁵ (She noted Garbo would be proud of how calm she was.)

      Five minutes later a tall man with slicked-back hair sauntered over and introduced himself.

      In his fancy British accent he introduced himself as Maxwell Croft. The striking dark-haired and dark-eyed Croft made sure she knew he was a furrier, having a shop on London’s Bond Street.⁷⁶ Lili had no idea of the exclusivity of the street until later. Bond Street in central London was loaded with art dealers, antique shops, and expensive boutiques. Croft was twenty-two, London born, and came from a Jewish family. At six two, he towered over the image of her fiancé Cordy. She was enchanted.⁷⁷

      Lili and her dinner companions dined on chicken gumbo, filet of sole, corned brisket of beef, and steamed savoy cabbage, food Lili most likely never had tasted before.

      After dinner Maxwell took her arm and the couple strolled the deck. The air smelled sharp and tangy mixed with the musk of his cologne. At one of the bars they slipped in for coffee. They moved around the grand salon two-decks high. An orchestra was set up at one end of the cavernous room. There was “Sing, Sing, Sing,” Louis Prima’s new song, and “Ridin’ High” by Cole Porter.

      Couples swirled arm and arm under a shallow dome in the center of the room. Ladies dressed in pretty pastel colors moved around them. But no two cut as dashing a pair as the tall blonde and her even taller escort. They proceeded to dance until the orchestra stopped, then another walk to her cabin, “star gazing.”⁷⁸

      They parted late in the night. By the time Maxwell walked her to the door of her cabin, as he bent to kiss her, she knew she was in love.

      They were inseparable after that. They drank coffees in the Veranda café decorated like Venice. It was a large room with more polished wood; waiters carried silver trays past windows clad in iron grill and painted columns. The café opened onto a game deck where passengers played shuffleboard.

      For the first time she was reaping the benefits of her extraordinary beauty. She turned heads. It was the first time she would feel the full force of what good looks—what her kind of attractiveness, regal, reserved, tall, and sunny—could do. Lies came “easily” to Lili, though she thought of herself as an “inventor.”⁷⁹ She deliberately did not tell Maxwell she was engaged.

      Celebration on the SS Manhattan

      Afternoons she would lay in a skirt pulled above her knees, a short-sleeved sweater and round sunglasses on a chaise flirting with men until Maxwell showed up. She sat in a white bathing suit by the pool and accepted attention from the lifeguards. There was no shortage of someones wanting to buy her a drink or a coffee.

      Lili and Maxwell stayed up late into the night with a young crowd sipping drinks and laughing. They would meet for cocktails at the bar, walk the decks smoking, and then dance the remainder of the night away. There was a nightcap as the sun rose out of the flat horizon. The group rarely slept.

      Lili’s heart and head was filled with “romance, like from a novel or movie.”⁸⁰ The talk on everyone’s lips—as it was on two continents—was whether King Edward would marry that dreadful Wallis Simpson. To many, the American Wallis Simpson was a dreadful gold digger, to others; admirably stylish. One can assume Lili was on the side of style.

      Maxwell invited Lili back to his cabin where they made love. Afterward they both saw blood staining the sheets. Possibly she’d just gotten her period, but Maxwell assumed he had just deflowered a virgin and immediately proposed.

      She was thunderstruck by his honor. She realized she couldn’t live with Cordy after sleeping with Maxwell, who was a “man” and not a boy. She had fallen in love with the dashing and handsome Englishman—whom, like the advertisements for his shop, was good at “making women feel good—and looking good.” He was attentive and elegant, everything