I again focused my energies on my work. I didn’t want a relationship. It would only end as always—in betrayal, pain, and hurt. The only affair I had going was with Mac—my Macintosh computer. Georgia Black held the power, protecting me from potential heartbreak. The minute I came near the possibility of a meaningful relationship, Ms. Black jumped in and, like a vampire, sucked the life from it. She reduced everything to an emotional zero. She created and maintained distance. Distance equaled safety.
My heart became hardened, and I was driven to succeed. The loving Georgia was nowhere to be found. But it wasn’t all in vain. I learned my capabilities, I understood my strengths, and my determination was unrelenting. I finally believed in who I was.
Toni lived with Jay during our time of estrangement. We both fought the temptation to call each other. My mother, bless her heart, was sick over what had become of the relationship between Toni and me. She had broken up with Jay, and my mother invited her to my house on Christmas Eve without my knowledge. The four years of indescribable hurt vanished as we hugged and cried in each other’s arms. In time, however, the outpouring of love would be shadowed by the resentments we both harbored.
Toni knows I love her and I know she loves me, but the process of healing when the injury is as deep as ours takes time. There is no deeper hurt, except for the death of a child, than being betrayed by a child. I am trying to get past my hostility to better understand the reasons for Toni’s actions. We are both working at taking responsibility for our past behaviors and trying to put the pieces of our lives back together.
About six months after our reunion, Toni brought a nice young man named Barry over for dinner. We sat on the deck in my backyard, enjoying the warm summer evening. I thought it odd the resemblance Barry had to Joe, but at least his name didn’t end in a vowel. He was seven years older than Toni. I could see in my daughter’s eyes that same sparkle I’d had in mine when I looked at Frankie. Toni and Barry held hands and climbed the ladder to Dustin’s infrequently used tree house. It was there that they kissed for the first time.
“What do you think of him, Mom?” Toni asked when Barry went into the house.
“I like him.”
“Oh, good! Can I keep him?”
I smiled. How wonderful it would be to feel that way again. But only in youth is a heart allowed to be so vulnerable.
Toni and Barry were married in May of 1992. They picked a date that didn’t conflict with my heavy work schedule. Bridal fairs were fun, and I enjoyed advising the kids on tradition, decorum, and taste. Toni asked her real father, Tom, to give her away. Even though Richard had adopted her, she knew she meant nothing to him—another hard fact for her to come to terms with.
Toni had not seen Tom since she was seven years old. He had never even bothered to send a birthday card. A year before the wedding, however, while visiting Rochester, Toni had contacted him and they had bonded. Tom told her he had to think about it. I could sense her disappointment, so I called him myself.
I hadn’t seen or talked to Tom in years. After he got over the initial shock of hearing my voice, I asked if he was going to give Toni away at her wedding.
“I don’t know,” he said. “It’s awfully expensive. I don’t think I can afford it.”
“It’s six months away. You can’t pull four hundred dollars together by then?”
“I don’t know. If you could see the way I live, you’d die.”
“What do you mean?”
“I live in a tiny room in a shabby motel,” he said.
“How much does that cost a month?”
“Four hundred dollars.”
“That’s crazy,” I said. “You can get a nice apartment in Rochester for eight hundred. Why don’t you get a roommate and split it? For the same amount of money you can live like a human being!”
“Yeah . . . but I don’t have any furniture.”
“Jesus, Tom, how you can live like that?”
“Georgia, will you answer something for me?”
“What?”
“Why did you leave me? I’ve been wondering about that now for twenty-two years. I’d really like to know.”
“Well, I was pretty young then, but I guess . . . even as young as I was, I knew that I didn’t want to live in a motel room when I was forty years old.”
“I always thought you left me for that guy Frankie from New York, but when you didn’t marry him, I couldn’t figure it out. Now I know.”
“Listen, Tom,” I said, determined to get back to the purpose of my call, “if you start saving now, I’m sure you’ll have enough money for the plane ticket. I have a guesthouse you can stay in, so it won’t cost you anything for food or lodging. This is important to Toni. You’ve never sent her as much as a card for Christmas, her birthday, or graduation. You haven’t acknowledged any special event in her life. I think you owe her this.”
“Yeah, you’re right,” he said. “I’ll see what I can do.”
Time to deal with Richard. I took a deep breath and called him.
“Toni told me you offered to pay for her honeymoon,” I said. “I have a proposition for you.”
“Can’t wait to hear it,” he responded, sounding bored.
“The airfare to Mexico at that time of year is pretty expensive. With hotels and car rental it’ll probably cost you about $4,000. It would really help me out if you would contribute that money to some of the wedding expenses, and I’ll pay for the honeymoon. I have some free air miles and car-rental certificates. I can also get fifty percent off on the rooms. What do you think?”
“Well, I’ve thought about it since I made that offer. Toni owes me a thousand dollars. I’m just going to give her a card and write her a note saying she doesn’t have to pay me back.”
“That’s real generous of you, Richard.”
“Hey, she’s not my responsibility. And besides, I may be in Europe when she gets married.”
“You mean you’re not going to her wedding? How could you do that to her?”
“My mother will be there.”
“Big deal! You know, you really are a piece of shit, Richard—”
He hung up on me.
The wedding day finally arrived and Toni looked radiant. I’d never seen her so happy. I was bursting with pride. Dustin was an usher, looking so grown-up. Where had the time gone? Tom did come, and he even managed to give Toni $1,000 for a wedding gift. His hair was pretty much all gray now, but he was still a handsome man.
The ceremony took place in the formal gardens at the Greystone Mansion in Beverly Hills. The grounds were similar to an elegant European castle estate, set on a mountaintop overlooking the city. The temperature was perfect, but then, it usually was in Southern California. Harp music played softly while the guests were being seated.
I was busy checking on the photographer, trying to make sure everything was running smoothly, when I heard . . .
“Hi, baby.”
“Frankie! You came!”
“Of course. I wouldn’t miss little Toni Lee’s wedding for anything,” he said, a huge grin on his face.
“I’m so happy you’re here.”
“Where’s the little monster?” he asked.
“He’s with the wedding party. Wait till you see how big he’s gotten. He’ll be so happy to see you. So will Toni. She asked if you’d responded.”
“I wanted to surprise her. Is Dustin too big now to take him to the Lost World?”
“I love the way you work a child’s imagination, Frankie,” I said, thinking of how he’d opened my mind when I was young. “Only you could turn a backyard into a pretend Lost World. But to answer your question, I’m having my doubts that he’s still a virgin.”
“You’re kidding.”
“No, I’m not.”
“Well, I’ll be a son of a cockroach,” he exclaimed, and we both burst out laughing.
“You’ll never guess who’s here, Frankie.”
“Who, baby?”
“Tom.”
&nb
sp; “You’re shittin’ me. Really? You mean we’re gonna meet after all these years? Hey, you didn’t give him my room, did you? I’m really gonna be pissed off if you did, Georgie Girl.”
“Well, I did, but then some relatives came in, so I moved him to the couch.”
“I can’t believe you let him sleep in my room!”
We both got silly. We never lost the magic of laughter.
Frankie sat beside me as Toni walked down the aisle on Tom’s arm. She was beaming. Seeing her so happy after all the sadness she had suffered in her young life brought tears to my eyes. I couldn’t help remembering walking down the aisle with Tom twenty-four years earlier, wishing it were Frankie. As if reading my thoughts, Frankie squeezed my hand, and I realized for the first time that our moment in time had really been a lifetime.
Everyone was there. Even my sister managed the courage to get on an airplane. It was such a happy day.
“Well, honey, I never thought your dad and I would live long enough to see this day,” my mother said, teary-eyed.
“Going through life with you was enough to put anyone into an early grave,” my dad added with an endearing smile. “Business must be doing well—this is some affair you’re putting on here. Don’t you think you should give your old dad ten percent of all your action? I paid dearly for that driving education, if you’ll recall.”
“How could I forget? I don’t know how you ever put up with me, Dad.”
“You were worth every minute of it. Look at you now. I don’t know where your courage came from, but we’re so proud of what you’ve done with your life, honey.”
“Thank you, Daddy. I couldn’t have done it without all your love and support. I love you guys.”
The reception was held at the Marina City Club. Richard’s clout got us access to the room, as he had been a longtime member. That was the extent of his participation. After the reception, we went back to my house. I collapsed on the couch, exhausted from the months of preparation. The result was well worth it; the wedding was a beautiful, memorable event. Frankie poured a glass of wine and sat down next to me. Tom made himself a drink and sat on the couch across from us.
Frankie said out of nowhere, “Georgie Girl, are you sure Toni’s not mine? Y’know, she does have my eyebrows.”
I couldn’t believe he said that! It had been so civil so far.
“I never worried about that, Frankie,” Tom retorted. “I always thought she was my brother Babe’s child.”
“What! Why in the world would you ever think that, Tom?” I asked, more shocked by his remark than by Frankie’s. Frankie was kidding, but Tom was serious.
“My brother hated me. It would be like him to do something like that to me, but I know she’s mine now.”
“What makes you so sure?” Frankie asked, egging him on.
Jesus, Frankie, will you leave it alone?
“I think we should change the subject,” I said, but no one paid attention to me. They were politely venting twenty-four years of unspoken hostility.
“Yeah, Tom, ‘of all the gin joints in all the world, she had to walk into mine.’ ”
“You know what, Frankie?” Tom said. “I actually came to New York looking for you once.”
Frankie raised an eyebrow in mocking amusement. “Yeah? Well, it’s a good thing for you that you didn’t find me,” he answered, half serious.
“Wasn’t it a beautiful wedding?” I interrupted, feeling like a referee.
“Yes, it was a beautiful wedding. You did a nice job, Georgia,” Tom said. “By the way, how come your asshole ex-husband wasn’t there?”
“He’s in Europe. That was more important, evidently.”
“Not that asshole, the other one.”
“I’m really tired, you guys. I think I’ll go to bed,” I said, avoiding the subject.
“Where am I sleeping?” Frankie asked.
“Right where you’re sitting,” I answered, and I brought them both pillows and blankets. “Good night, guys. Don’t stay up all night talking now.”
I walked into the bathroom and washed off my makeup. Looking in the mirror, I studied my face and wondered where the time had gone. The fine lines around my eyes reflected an intelligence enhanced by time. That smile—the same smile of my youth, the one that opened the door to trouble when I was unaware of its power, the smile that had brought so much pain and joy. Only I really knew, behind my misleading smile, that I had never been happy or free.
I lay in bed that night thinking back on my life, back to Toni being born. A lot had happened in my short forty-two years. I wondered: If I had the chance to do it all over again, what I would do differently? Nothing. Well . . . almost nothing. Life is what it is. How we deal with it is what matters. We all have peaks and valleys. My lows were extremely low, but my highs were extremely high. I’ve been uncommonly blessed with all the highs in my life. Most people never come near those heights, so I guess my lows had to be lower than most in order to compensate.
There are still lessons to be learned—there will always be lessons. I don’t define my life by my losses; it’s the gain from those losses that I measure. I have never viewed my life as an undeserved punishment. I learned to survive. Being a survivor is nothing more than attitude and determination and, most important, believing in yourself. I’ve always known what I don’t want, but now I have the courage to say so.
Getting on with my life was something I had never really gotten around to doing, at least not on a personal level. I began moving forward ten months after Toni’s wedding.
Richard married and divorced for the third time. Then, instead of marrying them, he began to move women in and out of the house with increasing frequency. With each new fling, they decreased in age. The most recent was only nineteen. That kind of atmosphere was what I’d always feared for Dustin. I was sure his values would become warped, being unprotected from the exposure to distasteful women and the evils of wealth. I kidded with him one weekend while he and his friend were having breakfast in my kitchen.
“Gee, Dustin, pretty soon you’ll be vying for the same girlfriends your dad has.”
“Why not now?” his friend retorted.
I burst out laughing at his serious expression, realizing at the same time that my son was not a child anymore. No, Dustin was becoming a young man. His lanky body was surpassing me in height. He looked more like me than Toni did. His delicate features complemented his sandy-colored hair and sensitive brown eyes.
In a voice changing from that of a boy to that of a man, he said, “I hope I don’t turn out like my dad,” and he rolled his eyes.
At that moment, I felt my diligent efforts had been rewarded. I had managed to ingrain some values in my son. Despite all the obstacles, Dustin was developing into a decent human being. Miracles do happen. Like me, he was willful and independent, and had a mind of his own.
Joe had become a recluse. He became his own judge and jury and sentenced himself to a life of imprisonment. He drove his car into his brother Ronny’s driveway, and it sat in the same spot for seven years. He made himself physically sick. He developed some kind of a bone disease that limited his movement, and then he was diagnosed with emphysema. He gave up on life altogether and waited impatiently to die. At the age of fifty-seven, he could barely walk or breathe, and the demons in his head continued to haunt him. My prediction about what the end of his life would hold for him surely rang loudly in his ears on the oh-so-long days he spent alone with himself.
You’re going to be a sad, lonely man in the end, with no one left to love you—or care whether you live or die.
When death refused to take him naturally, he finally took the gun that had mysteriously disappeared from my house, put it to his head, and drove the demons away once and for all.
Not many fond memories or nice words were said in the wake of Joe’s passing. The world had not suffered a great loss. Toni and I sat across the table from each other, teary-eyed, silently reflecting on our past.
“Isn’t it
funny, Mom? We’re the ones he hurt the most, and we’re the only ones mourning his death.”
“I think it’s time we both went to therapy, Toni.”
“I think you’re right, Mom.”
Until Joe’s death on March 10, 1993, I was still a prisoner, because I still held the negatives. His death allowed me the freedom to develop those negatives in my mind. Georgia Black had been living my life. Somewhere along the way, Ms. Black completely took over, running my business and my personal life. She too had eventually stolen my spirit. The mask I was wearing became who I was.
The wheels of life have taken me on quite a journey. I am now taking control of the wheel, and I’m focused on driving in forward gear. In comparison to my past, running in Hollywood’s fast lane is like a slow waltz for me. I have grown and I’ve accomplished a lot. Yes, I am willful. Yes, I am independent. And yes, I have a mind of my own. I have truly begun to be free. But at what cost?
As I continue the inner work I need to accomplish in order to become whole again, I realize more and more that I need not give up my shadow to be a loving, feeling human being. I can choose to conquer with hate, but I prefer to conquer with love. It’s an ongoing process, but the light and the shadow of my psyche both have something to offer in creating the totality of who I am. In the love and intimacy of my inner light, there is joy. And in the strength, determination, and self-preservation my shadow side provides, there is safety. At moments I have understood that in that synthesis—that beautiful paradox of feeling protected by living with an open heart—there is true empowerment. This is the path I am on, and this is the ultimate freedom I seek.
Reflecting once again on my childhood, back to a time before life became cruel, I could see my face as it once had been. I remembered the look in my eyes. I had such a wild spirit, full of hunger for adventure and exploration. There was love and human dreams. They weren’t dreams of wealth or power. No, I was in search of spiritual dreams—of closeness, family, security, and peace. It’s the me that never quite was and still ought to be—loving and completely free.
The Company She Keeps Page 47
