by Doug Sanford
Ada and Jack now came to California for their Christmas-to-New-Year’s stay, and we had our usual good time with them. They had become more like friends than Bart’s parents, and what made it nicer was that they were friends we actually liked.
Robin and Doug also came to visit, usually during Doug’s spring vacation. It was great to see them, but they didn’t spend that much time with us. They used the house more as a base from which to take Johnny to places like Disneyland, Six Flags, and the beaches, and we were fine with that. Evenings, whenever he could, Bart eagerly volunteered us to babysit so they could get out for some time alone. Bart loved taking care of Johnny. Whatever happened between us, it was pretty clear that Bart would make a great dad.
Our personal relationship was as strong as ever. We were both happiest when we were doing things together. And one of the first things he insisted on our doing together in LA was continuing the exercise program we’d had in Tucson. We joined a gym not far from the house, and despite the fact that we both had erratic schedules, he forced us into sticking to as regular a workout schedule as we could. He knew that any man looking to get into theater in Los Angeles had better have a damn good body, and even though I knew that what kept Bart and me together had never been based on physical attraction, I figured it couldn’t hurt me to stay in shape as well.
And then, of course, there was the area of our relationship which I referred to in my own mind as Bart’s women. His need for them hadn’t diminished. If anything, it was stronger. Our sex life was fine and nearly as active as when we first met, but for Bart that wasn’t enough.
Bart was not a gay man, and he still wanted and needed sex with women. I’d learned to accept this over the years, and I didn’t find it a threat any longer. At least I told myself I didn’t. But there was something else.
“I can’t explain the need, Marc, but it’s not just the sex. The whole wife, children, and family thing is something I really want.”
“That’s clear enough from the way you like taking care of Johnny. We’ve sure talked about it enough, but we’ve never come up with a solution about how everything ends up fitting together.”
“No one could replace us, Marc. That’s not even a remote possibility. But I want the other in addition to us, not instead of. I don’t know. I guess I’m asking too much.
“I miss Leslie a lot,” he continued. “We had great sex, got along well—except for our sleeping problem—and I really think I loved her. I wish I hadn’t been so afraid to open up to her. Maybe that would have stopped her from leaving.”
“Still no luck tracking her down?”
“Nothing. Miller’s a pretty common name. She’s not listed anywhere around LA, and I can’t remember her father’s name—if I ever knew it. I tried to find her through USC’s alumni association, but if they had anything, they wouldn’t tell me. Privacy concerns. I guess they thought I was stalking her. She might not even be in California, or worse, she could be married and that’s why I can’t find her.”
It’s worth mentioning that in 1992, the internet as we know it barely existed, and Google wasn’t even a word back then.
“I even tried getting in touch with her roommate who apparently never married that boyfriend she went back to see so much. She was still living in Mesa under her own name. But she hadn’t heard from Les either. I keep hitting blank walls.”
That was pretty much how things stood a year and a half after we moved to California. It was Monday, January 4—Bart’s right: I do have an obsession for dates—the day after our fifth third anniversary. The day before we had taken Jack and Ada to the airport.
I walked into the house that afternoon to find Bart grinning as he hung up the phone from a call that would, eventually and in its own strange way, have a profound effect on our lives although it certainly didn’t seem so at the time.
“Hey,” he said, after our usual hug and kiss. “Great news. You know the soap I auditioned for—the one I got a call-back on? Norm just told me I got it. I’m going to be Shaun Zachary, younger brother of Dr. Milton Zachary who’s the head heart surgeon and big wheel at Mt. Sinai Heights Hospital. They want me to begin in a week.”
Mt. Sinai Heights, as I learned when Bart was preparing for his first audition, was a relatively new television soap. This was its third season. It was meant as a youthful, more relevant, and hipper challenge to General Hospital. Set in southern California, its ratings were more than respectable even if it hadn’t overtaken its rival.
“My character, Shaun, is currently in med school and comes to live with Dr. Zachary and his wife. Norm says that if the part and I work out and get some attention, the producers are planning for me to end up as a resident at Mt. Sinai Heights. Not bad for a guy who never goes to the doctor, huh?”
“That’s great. What do you have to do to get attention? Let’s just hope it’s not surgery.”
“Apparently what I have to do is increase their 18-to-25 female demographic. Norm said they were pretty up-front about using me to bring a younger, sexier character into the storyline—their words, not mine.”
“How do you feel about that?”
“You know that problem I used to have about being used for my looks? I’m not sure I care anymore. If it gets me the job, that’s cool. I honestly think I’m good enough to keep it once I’ve got it.”
“That’s a new attitude, and I like it.”
“And I like the idea of having a steady job, doing what I want to do. I know a lot of people in the business think a soap is a sell-out, but live theater is exhausting as hell, and you know I’ve never been that much of a night owl.”
“Got to admit I really hate those times when you’re in a show. You leave for the theater before I even get home some days, and I’m asleep by the time you finally come to bed after finishing a show and coming down from the adrenalin high. Next morning you’re still asleep when I leave.”
“So, old man, this will work out for both of us even though it’ll have its own scheduling problems. I’ll be working on a pretty irregular basis, anywhere from two to five days a week, according to Norm, and on the days I’m working, I have to be at the studio at 7:00 A.M., and he said not to expect to be done until much before 6:00 P.M. At night I’ll have lines to memorize if I’m scheduled for the next day.”
“We’ll deal with it. It will be great having you home on a regular basis.”
Chapter 25
“And the Emmy for Outstanding Younger Actor goes to Bart Rastin.”
Yes, an Emmy. Well, a Daytime Emmy, but it still counts. It took another year and a half, but it was worth it. And it was, as we were to discover, just the beginning.
It turned out that the soap was great for all kinds of things—not just having him home on a regular basis. It gave him steady work that he could be proud of, and certainly helped his self-image. And I ended up living with a minor sex symbol—at least in the soap opera world.
It was hard work for him with not a lot of glamour about it, but in the months that followed his hiring, Bart—no surprise to me—fulfilled the producers’ expectations and then some. He became a hit with viewers—not just younger ones, and not just female ones. Apparently the whole 18-to-49 demographic increased and held after he joined the cast. He was getting fan mail totally out of proportion to his small role, and the soap opera fan magazines were beginning to notice him and request interviews. The show itself was getting mail specifically asking to see more of him.
And by more of him, they didn’t just mean frequently. The writers were ingenious about finding ways to show Bart shirtless, and often pantsless, in as many different situations as they could manage. Scenes at home with his brother always seemed to involve his changing clothes or getting into or out of the shower or shaving bare-chested. A lot of scenes were shot at his brother’s pool with Bart in trunks. I thought they were shameless about it, but they knew their business, and it certainly went over well with their audience. Bart’s workout program paid off big time.
Ear
ly in 1994 he received the Soap Opera Digest award for Outstanding Male Newcomer and then in May, the Outstanding Younger Actor Emmy.
The Emmy nomination itself wasn’t a big surprise. In those days, actors submitted themselves for consideration, and Norm, with me as backup, pretty much forced him to send in his name. Once he submitted the paperwork and the required two videos, Norm and I both figured him as a shoo-in for at least a nomination and probably for the win as well—especially because of the Digest award and the resulting publicity. We were right in both cases.
The Daytime Emmy awards ceremony was, for the first time, held simultaneously in New York and LA because of the growing number of shows originating from the west coast.
When the letter about his nomination arrived, we were both excited, and he asked, “So, old man, how do you think you’ll like seeing the Emmys—even the Daytime Emmys—up close and in person?”
“Bart, we’ve never bullshitted each other before, why start now?”
As always, he understood me immediately and looked a bit abashed. “Sorry. I didn’t want you to feel hurt if you wanted to go.”
“We should be past that kind of crap. Rule number two. We both know it wouldn’t be a good move for you or your career to show up with me.”
“I know. I should have trusted you to see that too.”
I pulled him in for a hug.
Norm breathed an audible sigh of relief when Bart told him. Knowing how close Bart and I were, Norm thought he was going to have a hard time convincing me to stay out of the picture. And he meant picture literally: he didn’t think it would be good for Bart’s image to have him shown in the broadcast sitting with another man.
I watched the show on television, of course, and when his category was coming up, I got Jack and Ada on the phone. The three of us cheered when he won, and we all got mentions in his surprisingly calmly delivered acceptance speech which he’d refused to let me see in advance because he thought it was bad luck.
The August following the award ceremony, the producers notified Bart that they were significantly enlarging his role in the show—as Norm had predicted. Beginning with the fall season, Shaun Zachary would have graduated med school and become a full-time resident at Mt. Sinai Heights, and that meant a lot more on-screen time for Bart.
As a result of his popularity with the viewers and his Soap Opera Digest and Emmy wins, Norm was able to renegotiate Bart’s contract so successfully that Bart replaced me as the major financial contributor to our household.
“Looks like I’m finally going to be able to pay you back, old man,” he said gleefully the day he returned from signing the contract.
“You think so, kid?” I said jokingly, truly happy for him.
“What a ride we’ve had these last seven years.”
“Well, hang on. We’ve still got a way to go,” I said and had no idea how prophetic those words would be and how very, very soon things would change.
“So where are you taking me to celebrate?” I asked.
Where he took me was a restaurant that was a favorite of ours. It was a sort of LA replacement for the Willow called Bamboo—funny that they were both named after trees. I say sort of replacement because it was a Cantonese/Mandarin restaurant that wasn’t open for breakfast or for late night desserts as the Willow had been, and it wasn’t quite as close to the house either. But it had great food, better than any place we’d tried in LA. We ate there a lot—probably once a week—or called and had it delivered since we still pretty much did no cooking.
It’s odd the big part that eating places played in our lives. The first time I met Bart in person was at the snack bar at school. Over the years, we spent a lot of time in Tucson at the Willow or El Torero, the Mexican restaurant where we took his parents. And the first time I met Leslie was that night of Bart’s contract celebration at Bamboo.
As we waited for our food, a group of women walking out passed us, and one of them grabbed Bart’s shoulder.
“Bart, I thought it was you, but I couldn’t quite tell from where we were sitting.”
We both stood up.
I’m not very good at describing women. They all kind of look alike to me, except for their hair color or if they have some really unusual feature like being extremely short or excessively heavy or thin. Bart has never understood why, in a restaurant, if we have a waitress, I never seem to remember which one she is, but if we have a waiter, I have no trouble at all remembering him.
She was beautiful—even I could see that—much more than I’d ever thought she’d be. Bart had never said much about her looks when he talked about her. They made a striking couple as he stood there next to her. She had dark hair, sort of wavy, and thank God it didn’t hang in her face. That drives me nuts. I always want to reach over and push it out of their eyes. She was about five feet ten which I think is tall for a woman, but she looked perfect with Bart. She was slim but not skinny, and was dressed stylishly but not flashy. She had good legs, I guess, but that’s not my thing either.
“Les!” He hugged her. “This is amazing. It’s been so long.”
“About six years, I guess.”
“What are you up to? How have you been?”
“Great.” She looked at me.
“Les, this is Marc Gruber, a friend of mine. Marc, this is Leslie Miller—is it still Miller?”
“It is,” she replied with a grin.
Smiles and handshakes.
“Bart, my friends are waiting. Why don’t you call me and we can catch up?”
His pen was out in a flash. He took her number and made the appropriate promise.
Goodbyes and she was gone.
Bart’s face was lit up. “Can you believe that? After all this time, she shows up here of all places? “
“And obviously still interested. Did you see the smile on her face? Of course you did. And you ought to see the smile on yours right now.”
“Jealous?”
“Considering how gorgeous she is, maybe.”
“She is, isn’t she? She was always good-looking, but she’s really got style now.”
“No, seriously kid, not jealous. Maybe relieved. If she’s not already taken, I think you may have found a steady once more. And you’re right. It’s not my thing, but even I could tell that she has a good pair. Don’t they call it a rack these days?”
He laughed and was almost giddy for a while. I have to admit I was happy for him. Maybe things would settle down for Bart and get him out of the what?—do straight people call it a meat market if they’re looking for women? He was careful, but I was always concerned about HIV and STDs with the women he met, especially since we’d moved to LA.
I can’t say I had no worries at all about Leslie. While all the other women he’d seen were pretty much just sexual outlets, Leslie was someone he had a history with and definite feelings for. That could be, if not a problem, then a complication.
Happy as he was, he hadn’t forgotten the purpose of our dinner. When I gave my usual toast of “Here’s looking at you, kid” which had become a standard for all occasions since we first watched Casablanca together, instead of his usual “Here’s to you, old man,” he said, rather quietly, “Here’s to you, Marc with a c.” I knew it was his way of telling me he was aware of my concern but that things were going to be fine.
He called her from the office as soon as we got home, and they talked for quite a while. I stayed in the living room, watching TV with the sound turned up a bit to give him privacy.
“What were the chances of that?” he said, as he walked in and sat down next to me on the couch. I shut off the television. “She said it was the first time she’d ever been to Bamboo. The women she was with were from the university, and one of them suggested it.”
“She graduated summa at USC—I always said she was smart—got her doctorate at Berkeley, and is now at UCLA as an assistant professor teaching English lit. Funny because that’s where I met her—our English lit section.”
“How come she nev
er got in touch with you?”
“She didn’t know how to find me—same as I didn’t know how to find her. She knew I’d graduated but didn’t know where I was. She thought I’d probably moved back to Illinois. She had no idea I had gone into theater, was living in LA, and had been on a soap for a year and a half now. Not surprising. If she were the type of girl who watched soaps, I’d probably never have been interested in her in the first place.” He laughed.
“You didn’t tell her about your new girlfriend?”
“Who?”
“Emmy,” I laughed.
“No. It didn’t come up.”
“Typical,” I said.
“She talked a lot about grad school, how hard she worked and how quickly she finished her degree and got her doctorate—a full year earlier than most people do. You’ll love this: her dissertation was on Jane Austen.”
He’d read Pride and Prejudice the second semester of his first year, and I’d forced him to read Sense and Sensibility and Emma that first summer. He complained, but admitted liking them both when he finished.
“She asked me about you. She remembered that I’d told her back then that my roommate’s name was Marc, and she wondered if it was you.”
“You’re busted, kid. Nobody lives with his college roommate for seven years.”
“First, she didn’t know we were living together, just having dinner together. And second, she already has pretty good evidence that I’m straight.”
“Straight with a twist,” I laughed.
“You’re no twist, old man. Well, sometimes you’re a little twisted.” He put his arm around me and pulled me over for a kiss.
“Anyhow, we’re getting together this Saturday. That okay? I checked the calendar first.”
“No problem with me, little bird.” For once, he had no idea what I meant and was too distracted to ask. I didn’t volunteer any explanation.
* * * *
Things hadn’t changed much between them. He was home by 2:00 A.M., woke me up, raved about the night, and then got what he usually wanted.
