Between the Bylines

by Doug Krikorian

  As she had reacted the one other time I gently reprimanded her—four and a half years earlier in Las Vegas—tears formed in Gillian’s eyes, and she nodded silently.

  “Honey, I don’t want you to become my maid. I want you to become my wife,” I said.

  She got up and came over to me, putting her arms gently around my shoulders and kissing me on the cheek.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “This is all so new to me. I’ve always been used to doing things for myself and not thinking of anyone else. I’ll change.”

  And she did.

  From that moment on, Gillian became my wife, even though we didn’t make it official until September 27. I honestly believe she wound up keeping the cleanest home in Long Beach. And the roses were always well watered, and they bloomed in the spring like never before.

  Chapter 27

  That year was an exciting one for Gillian and me. It seemed like every day was an adventure—and for sure, it was for Gillian. In looking back, I definitely got a vicarious thrill from seeing how the young lady from England savored all the new things she was experiencing in her new surroundings.

  I was like a travel agency guide as we spent so many weekends visiting my favorite getaway spots in Southern California: Santa Barbara, La Jolla, Lake Arrowhead, Palm Springs. I also took her to Sun Valley, Idaho, where we spent the July 4 holiday with my sister, Ginny Clements.

  “What a wonderful country America is,” Gillian said often. It would be a spiel she would recite until the end. I never heard her utter a harsh word about this country, and she forever praised its food and energy and the friendliness of its citizens. “I have found the people here all to be so nice and helpful,” she said. “They’re much more open than the English people.”

  Naturally, I took Gillian to the newly opened Getty Museum in Brentwood, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art on Wilshire Boulevard in West Los Angeles, the Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena and the Huntington Library in San Marino. She liked the latter with its 120 acres of botanical gardens and many acclaimed English paintings—Thomas Gainsborough’s Blue Boy hangs there—so much that we became members.

  There never was a dull moment that year, especially when she began driving on the Los Angeles freeways, which was quite harrowing the first time she did so when she barely missed colliding with a large truck and trailer on the 91 Freeway. But it didn’t take Gillian long to get used to the different traffic setup in this country. She was a skilled driver in England, able to maneuver her car into tiny parking spots, and she soon became one in California after a few riveting trial-and-error journeys.

  Vickie LaMotta and Doug share a moment. The wife of prizefighter Jake LaMotta, Vickie was portrayed by Cathy Moriarty in Martin Scorsese’s great 1980 fight picture, Raging Bull.

  I also took Gillian with me to different sporting events, and the first major one came on June 28 at the MGM Grand Garden when she sat in the stands with Lynne Brener, wife of the Los Angeles public relations mogul Steve Brener, and watched a world championship heavyweight fight between Mike Tyson and Evander Holyfield. This was the one in which Tyson bit off a portion of Holyfield’s ear and was disqualified in the fourth round. There was a tense aftermath; Gillian and Lynne Brener managed to make it out of the MGM Grand Garden safely intact and took refuge in the media trailer outside the arena.

  “Oh, Douglas, are all fights like this?” she would ask me later after that unforgettable evening of Tyson’s violent meltdown.

  “I don’t think there’s ever been one like this in the history of boxing,” I replied.

  Gillian and Doug on their wedding day at the Portofino Hotel & Yacht Club in Redondo Beach.

  Our wedding took place at the Portofino Hotel & Yacht Club in Redondo Beach, and it was a small family affair with only twenty-one people in attendance, including Gillian’s parents, sister, brother-in-law, niece and nephew and members of my family, including my parents, sister, nephew and niece, various cousins and a few of my friends. It was organized by the Portofino’s event planner, Victoria Durslag, and Gillian looked gorgeous in her flowing white gown as her father escorted her down the pathway amid the “Here Comes the Bride” processional. The Pacific Ocean glistened in the background as she and her father headed for the intimate outdoor gathering that was seated in front of a small ballroom where the wedding party later was held.

  I had awakened that morning with an awful sore throat, but it seemed to go away in the jubilation of our eternal vows. I remember as the priest went through the wedding vows ritual becoming spellbound by Gillian, who had such a beatific glow covering her countenance. I never had seen her look so gorgeous, yet in a typically poised, even understated manner.

  We spent that night at the Portofino, had breakfast at the hotel the following morning and then Gillian and her family members—there were a total of eight of us—piled into my 1987 Lincoln Town Car, and we headed down to San Diego to visit the city’s famous zoo.

  We had a large wedding reception a week later at Phil Trani’s restaurant, and more than two hundred people made an appearance, including Jerry West, the Hall of Fame Los Angeles Dodgers manager Tom Lasorda and a couple old heavyweight fighters, Joey Orbillo and Scrap Iron Johnson.

  Who could have thought at that blissful time that four years later a funeral reception also would be held at Phil Trani’s with a like number of people showing up to offer their condolences, including, once again, Jerry West.

  In October 1997, Gillian joined me in Miami for the final two games of the World Series between the Florida Marlins and Cleveland Indians, and we stayed at the Don Shula Hotel in nearby Miami Lakes. She rooted for the Indians because I told her they were the underdogs—kindhearted Gillian always rooted for the disadvantaged—and she enjoyed the proceedings from her seat in the right field bleachers even though she hadn’t yet mastered the rudiments of baseball.

  We stayed in Miami a couple days after the Series ended, and I took her to two gastronomical institutions: Joe’s Stone Crab in Miami Beach and the Versailles Restaurant in Little Cuba. She had never sampled stone crab or Cuban food before and savored both.

  “You can’t beat the food in America,” she kept saying. “It’s just so delicious everywhere we eat. And the portions are huge. I’m glad we work out every day, or I’d be putting on a lot of weight.”

  In early December of that year, we went to Europe, starting off in Rome, where we visited all the tourist spots, and then took the night train to Cannes, where we stayed a few days before going to Paris. We spent Christmas at her parents’ home in Hartlepool, flew over to Munich, then took the train to Vienna, then went to Berlin for New Year’s and then returned to Long Beach, where we soon found out that Gillian had become pregnant.

  Those certainly were memorable times for us. I reveled in showing her this new life, which also was a new life for me. There was much laughter and much fun and much love for each other, but the maddening transitoriness of life soon would erupt.

  Chapter 28

  Although Gillian’s miscarriage on April 1, 1998, was an agonizing letdown, we both were confident that a child was to be in our future. I never realized at the time what a dark omen that disheartening event was, but life did soon return to seeming normality.

  We had hired an immigration attorney to help cut through the bureaucratic morass in assisting Gillian in obtaining her green card, which she received in March. In May, I flew to Spain at the behest of producer Stan Brooks for a tiny role in his TNT film Dollar for the Dead. I felt strange being dressed in cowboy garb and actually being filmed in the outdoor set near a city called Alemaria, where Clint Eastwood gained his early cinematic fame.

  Alas, my movie career didn’t exactly take off like Eastwood’s, but I’m quite certain I hold the distinction of being the only American sportswriter to do a film in the same location where Eastwood did his spaghetti westerns.

  After finishing my role, which consisted of my holding a 30-30 Winchester rifle and marching in unison with a bunch of other
guys dressed as cowboys for, oh, ten seconds, I went to Madrid for a few days and spent a lot of time at the Museo Del Prado, its national museum with its massive collection of European art.

  I remember becoming physically drained from walking through the building’s myriad rooms jammed with the paintings of famed artists. I was astonished to see so many Goyas and Velazquezes and El Grecos, as well as Rembrandts and Poussins and Titians. I then flew to Lisbon, where halfway through a week’s stay at the capital of Portugal I met up with Gillian, who had come over to visit her family in Hartlepool and friends in London.

  We found Lisbon appealing. We were advised to stick to seafood, and that’s what we did, locating small, family restaurants on narrow streets that put out superb fish dishes. We also discovered one of the most unusual taverns in the world, one that has left a lasting impression on me. It’s called Pavilhao Chines, and as one Internet review described it so aptly, it’s the mother of all flea market bars. There are four rooms in it overflowing with replicas of perhaps every famous person who ever has graced the planet, as well as mugs, baubles, bronze cupids, beads, caricatures, flags, medals, little lead soldiers, electric trains and a lot of Queen Victoria memorabilia. The place doesn’t have every odd little object in the world, but not because its management didn’t attempt to locate every one.

  We also twice went to the Gulbenkian Museum, whose priceless rugs, clocks, sculptures and paintings left us calling it the most elegant and fascinating small museum we had ever visited. We stayed at the Tivoli Hotel, which was near Edward III Park, where we jogged. We visited some of the outlying areas like Sintra and Almada and found those places also delightful.

  I think in looking back, that visit to Lisbon was cathartic for both of us after the miscarriage disappointment. I think just vacationing together—even if it was for a brief time—helped both of us emerge from the doldrums.

  That year, Gillian started attending Long Beach State to get the necessary credits for her to qualify to take the state physical therapy exam. The president of the school, Dr. Robert Maxson, who had become a close friend, hooked Gillian up with counselors who pointed her in the proper direction.

  Gillian took a couple healthcare classes that fall and wound up with A’s in both of them, which was what she got in all subsequent classes except the final one, which she was unable to complete.

  I got an up-close glimpse of how Gillian was able to become so skilled in judo in such a short time. I’ve never seen anyone with her determination. Our guest bedroom was converted into her office, and she spent far more time in that room studying than she did in our bedroom sleeping.

  I remember that fall inviting her to join me in San Diego for the World Series between the New York Yankees and San Diego Padres. The previous year, she would have attended it, as she did the Cleveland-Florida Fall Classic in Miami, but this time she declined.

  Gillian continued such dedication until she had to drop out of her final class—physics—in the spring of 2000, when diagnosed with cancer. The physics teacher was so impressed with her stellar scholarship that he informed Bob Maxson that he was going to give her a passing grade even without her taking the final exam.

  “I’m sure Gillian was a great physical therapist, but I think she would have been a great college professor,” said Maxson. “I’ve spoken to her other professors, and they all told me she was absolutely outstanding, the top student in their classes. I think had Gillian lived she would have gone on to get her master’s and then doctorate degrees. She was just so intelligent and worked so hard.”

  We still went to Europe during the holiday seasons during those years, even went to the Middle East, but Gillian only left Long Beach when on school break. The rest of the time she zealously concentrated on her academics, which recalled what her sister, Katharine, once told me: “When Gillian makes up her mind to do something, she becomes totally obsessed with doing it successfully.”

  My image of Gillian during those times was her seated at her office desk late into the evenings, head buried in a textbook. “I just want to make sure I pass that state physical therapy exam,” she often would say to me when I’d question her about her exhausting study habits.

  Sadly, she never got the chance to take it.

  July 2000 (The Sexual Attempt)

  Gillian was well into her second month of chemotherapy and, implausibly, still hadn’t lost her hair, a development that soon would change. It was early evening, and we were driving to La Jolla for the July 4 holiday.

  This had become an annual pilgrimage for me, and I always stayed at the Empress Hotel, where my friend P.J. Macaluso operated one of the best restaurants in San Diego County called The Manhattan. The fireworks show near the beach in the La Jolla Village was always spectacularly entertaining, and I always had a fondness for the area’s shops, bars and cafés, as well as for gazing at the sea lions at Casa Beach.

  Gillian was in bright spirits as we began the trip. She had gone on a forty-five-minute jog in the afternoon and was talking about signing up to take the state physical therapy exam and about how she was confident that she was going to overcome her illness. We were on the San Diego Freeway in Orange County near San Juan Capistrano when, suddenly, Gillian said she felt nauseous.

  “I’m sure it’ll pass,” she said.

  But it didn’t. As we drove on, she felt worse, but she pleaded with me not to stop.

  “I’ve been looking so forward to going to La Jolla,” said Gillian, who had thoroughly enjoyed our previous visits there. “The doctor and nurses told me there would be times I’d get nauseous. I guess this is one of those times.”

  I glanced over at her and noticed she had both hands covering her face. She obviously was in great discomfort.

  “We’ll get off at the next exit,” I said.

  “No, no, no, no…please, no,” she said. “Let’s keep going. It’ll pass.”

  Soon, Gillian was groaning.

  “We’re going to stop at the next rest stop,” I said.

  And we did at the Aliso Creek one, five miles from Oceanside. I helped Gillian, who now was struggling mightily, to reach the women’s restroom. She remained inside for about five minutes, and when she came out her face was pale.

  “Oh, Douglas, I’m so sorry,” she said. “I hope I don’t ruin our trip.”

  “Please, stop talking like that,” I said. “How do you feel?”

  “A little weak and still a little nauseous,” she answered.

  “I threw up a lot.” “I think that’s pretty normal.”

  “Yes, normal. I’m not sure anything will be normal for me again.”

  “Oh yes, it will.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry. I just, well, I just feel quite ill right now. I’ll snap out of it.”

  Before we reached La Jolla that evening, we had to stop again.

  Her response this time afterward was different.

  “Oh, I now feel much better,” said Gillian, even though I knew she didn’t because she still was quite pale.

  But Gillian had somehow summoned the resolve to act as though those toxic chemo fluids that they’d been injecting into her no longer were bothering her.

  After we checked into the Empress, she insisted on going for a walk before dinner, and we strolled around the La Jolla Village for about an hour, even stopped at The Spot, where I had a drink.

  I acted as though I didn’t notice it, but I could tell Gillian was laboring. She might have been maintaining a brave front, but her mood, clearly, was subdued.

  “Let’s skip going to The Manhattan, and I’ll order something in,” I said when we returned to the hotel.

  “No way!” she said, almost angrily. “We’re not going to let my little hiccup keep us away from one of your favorite restaurants.”

  We wound up at The Manhattan, and I finished my osso buco in a hurry. Gillian consumed less than half her minestrone soup and took a few feeble stabs at her linguini and clams. Predictably, she wasn’t hungry and simply didn’t look well.

>   After payment of the bill, we repaired to our fourth-story room, where we watched TV for a while.

  Before Gillian got sick, we had a normal sex life that increased incrementally during that time of the month when she was ovulating. Indeed, even if I weren’t in a particularly sensuous mood, I would willingly still perform during that period because both of us dearly wanted to have a child. I used to kid about it on occasion, saying, “I feel like an old soldier going off to another battle.” Not exactly an apt metaphor since the battle I was referring to was quite pleasurable.

  Gillian and I had engaged in no sexual activity since she was diagnosed with cancer that Easter, nor had we even talked about it. Clearly, there were slightly greater priorities now in our relationship.

  But as we readied for sleep on that mild evening in La Jolla, Gillian had, to my surprise, shed her nightgown and snuggled up next to me, as she would do in the past in a prelude to sex.

  I turned to her and knew from her wan appearance that she didn’t feel well and that she had no desire for intimate relations. But typically, I knew she wanted to please whatever desires I might have, that she was willing to give of herself despite finally feeling the adverse effects of her treatment.

  My sexual desires had lain dormant now for more than two months, and although I’m sure they could have been reawakened, I felt this wasn’t exactly the appropriate time in light of Gillian’s condition.

  And so, while Gillian feigned randiness, I feigned tiredness, saying as sweetly as I could, “Honey, this is what you get for marrying an old man. I’m totally exhausted. Do you mind if we wait until tomorrow when I’m in a slightly livelier mood?”