Great Big Beautiful Life(74)

The Story


Their version: Margaret Ives loved the camera.



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Her version: The camera loved Margaret Ives, and she didn’t mind one bit. Laura was the great beauty of the two of them, but whereas the younger Ives sister was shy and bookish, Margaret was expressive, talkative, curious.

Being raised in the Ives bubble had made Laura cautious and timid about the world, whereas Margaret was voracious for it. She wanted to try everything, go everywhere, meet everyone. Even as a very little girl, she’d strike up conversations with perfect strangers, smile and wave to anyone who looked their way, while Laura hid her face against their mother’s trouser-clad leg.

But then their parents split, and Bernie wasn’t there for Laura to hide behind anymore. That was when Margaret discovered her superpower.

Getting attention. She loved the way it made her feel when she could make someone smile or laugh, like the whole world was opening up to her. But even negative attention was better than none, because so long as people were watching her, they’d leave her sister alone.

When Laura wore drab neutrals, Margaret adorned herself in burning red.

When Laura got a dreadful haircut after an incident with chewing gum, Margaret bought a ludicrous hat and refused to take it off for weeks.

When Laura tripped in front of everyone at a gala in the blue ballroom—not to be confused with the green or gold ballrooms—Margaret knocked over an entire champagne tower, whooping with laughter as she slipped in the spill, then bowing to the resulting applause when she’d clambered back to her feet.

When Laura gained weight and the society pages took notice—discussing her body like a stage play in need of a review—Margaret started a small fire in the bathroom at her all-girls school and got kicked out.

Her stoic, intimidating grandfather hadn’t looked at her for two weeks of family dinners after that, which made her feel like she needed to not just escape the House of Ives but also potentially crawl out of her own skin. But still, it was worth it.

She drew the eye everywhere she went, sometimes by accident, but often by design. People were going to talk about her family anyway—why not be the one to make them laugh?

It had worked for her favorite cousin, Ruth, and now she was an actress on a beloved sitcom and married to the love of her life.

It more or less worked for Margaret too, until she turned sixteen.

In 1954, the night before Margaret’s birthday, Ruth and her husband, James, planned to take their small plane down the California coast. There was going to be a celebration at the House of Ives, and Ruth wouldn’t have dreamed of missing the chance to dote on Margaret, the little girl who’d once trailed her around the orange groves like an eager puppy. They’d always had a special friendship. Ruth made Margaret feel as though it was okay to be her, in all her fantastic brightness.

But on takeoff, the engine of James’s plane experienced trouble. They crashed.

James Oller was a decorated World War II veteran, and Ruth was a rising comedienne, irresistible in her television role as the gorgeous, accidentally hilarious ingenue next door.

It seemed the whole country had mourned them together. Aside from Ruth’s own father, who’d grieved her death the same way he’d celebrated her birth: in private.

Margaret had been devastated. It had changed her. It had changed her grandfather too. Before that, Gerald was a domineering presence in the House of Ives. The kind of man you might not like and yet still caught yourself jumping through hoops to please.

After Ruth’s death, he’d shrunk.

It was like turning on a light in your bedroom and realizing the terrifying shadows in the corner had just been a jacket hung on a peg all along.

Without her dear cousin’s affection or her grandfather’s harsh eye, Margaret felt as though a shackle connecting her to the House of Ives had been cut.

Laura’s reaction was different. The more Margaret pulled away from the family, the nearer her meek younger sister drew. She saw a wound in her grandfather that no one else did, or else no one was willing to admit they’d noticed.

It made sense: Laura was always more comfortable being face-to-face with pain, more at ease with the bluer shades of life. Whereas Margaret spent every second of every day trying to get back to the golden magic of her childhood, when life was one endless possibility.

Not long after Ruth’s death, Gerald suffered a stroke that left him mostly blind. For months after leaving the hospital, he spent his days shut away in his rooms in the east wing. Then Laura began to visit him, to read to him. And after a while, he left his rooms and started passing his days in the library.

She’d bring his cigars there, cut and light one for him, arrange his ashtray so that he could easily find it on the windowsill, and then she’d take the overstuffed armchair opposite him and read for hours, stopping only to light a new cigar whenever he asked.

He had nurses at first, but over time, Laura took over his care entirely. She earned his trust, collected his secrets, while her sister, Margaret, was out on the town, being photographed at every boutique, restaurant, and nightclub of the time.

Margaret never wanted to go back to her life of being wrapped in tissue paper, on a shelf in the House of Ives. She wanted a big life.

She dated movie stars and did some modeling. She traveled to France, Spain, Monaco. She danced with Rock Hudson and drank under the exotic birds of Ciro’s with Frank Sinatra and Marilyn Monroe. Once, she broke a heel on her way out of Mocambo, and paparazzi captured shots of her being carried to her car, head thrown back in laughter, by a doorman who’d later sold the broken heel for a pretty penny.