by Bailey Thomas, Cynthia,Thomas, Peter,Short, Rochelle,Saunders, Keith
He had a serious chip on his shoulder and didn’t give a damn about what anybody else thought. His irritability created arguments and tension between the three of them. My mom and sister felt they were protecting me by entertaining a plan to foil the wedding and allowing our marriage certificate to conveniently disappear. Luckily, their better judgment prevented them from carrying out the absurd idea.
Hours after the ceremony should have started, I was given the nod that it was finally time. In that moment, it hit me that I was really getting married. I was so focused on planning the wedding that I had not taken the time to relish in the sacredness of the moment. The weeks leading up to the day had been dreadful, but in the ninth hour we were able to make everything materialize. A typical bride’s thoughts should be filled with visions of slipping her hand through her father’s arm and taking in all the smiling faces of her friends and family. Instead, mine were drunk with relief that it was the last day of filming and Season 3 would be behind me.
As I began my descent toward Peter, I began processing all the irony that had overwhelmed the day, particularly, the situation with my father. He had done absolutely nothing to make the day possible, but was escorting me down the aisle. Funny, he was all too happy to share our spotlight. Looking back, it really wasn’t that funny at all, knowing that my wedding day was the last time I saw or spoke to him.
There was no spark of emotion in my body until I saw Peter tearing up at the end the aisle. I knew in my heart we were both feeling that in spite of everything, we were living a moment that made all the obstacles worthwhile. We shared tears of happiness. Peter knew a woman was walking toward him who had sacrificed everything she had to be with him. Life is about choices, and mine was to stand next to him and become Mrs. Peter Thomas. I had not a single regret.
Peter’s Runway
Cynthia had gotten past the humiliation of what I’d done in my desperation to cover our final wedding expenses. The last-minute predicament was finding money to pay for the alcohol. She asked her dad to spot the tab, he refused and it crushed her. Whatever leftover hope there had been for their reconciliation was buried in her disappointment. It wasn’t about the money for Cynthia. It had more to do with a woman’s belief that she should be able to financially count on her father for something as important as her wedding. Especially, a father who had failed to provided support beyond a chicken shit, court-mandated order. When her father told her he wasn’t in a position to give any money – in Cynthia’s mind – it was a wrap.
The day of our wedding was a spiritual high for me. I kicked it off by meeting my boys and picking up my tuxedo from the suit-maker. The CEOs of UPTOWN Magazine and Vibe magazine were my best men. They were beating my balls the whole time and tripping over how I had managed to make it all come together in the final days. We had a bottle of Cîroc vodka, and I think we drank the whole damn thing in the course of our smack talking. We were so bombed; I don’t even remember the drive to the wedding site.
Walking into the ceremony, the first two people I saw were my mom and dad. I wondered if I had invited them to sit in the front row and witness the biggest fucking disaster of my life. Looking at them sobered me. I felt nothing short of terror and everything around me became a blur.
The guests arrived like spectators filling an arena to see if the bout of the heavyweights would happen. I didn’t know 95 percent of the people present. I felt like I was getting married in a room of practical strangers, most just there to see if the day would crash and burn. Would I get knocked out in a first round TKO or would Cynthia be a front-page, runaway bride?
The Cîroc had started messing with my head, and I was replaying all the engagement rings that Cynthia had given back. She told Russell Simmons “no” and he had $300 million in the bank! Not one of her former fiancés would have stressed over a $3,000 liquor bill. That was the kind of money any one of them would have put out for her wedding shoes alone.
I was nervous knowing that even standing there, waiting for her in my tuxedo, Cynthia could still back out. I had heard that part of our pre-ceremony entertainment was a live performance by multi-platinum recording artist Kem, with a dance number by a ballerina. I didn’t see shit. I was in a trance wondering if my elusive bride would meet me at the altar.
It felt like I stood there for hours, waiting for Cynthia to make her grand entrance. The room was moving in 3D slow motion. After about forty-five minutes, I saw her step out on a second-floor landing, but she quickly disappeared. I didn’t see her or the camera crews for at least another hour. My heart was pounding a million beats a minute. Had she run off? I envisioned her jetting out the back door, climbing into a limo and telling the driver, “Get me the fuck out of here!” My mind was playing major tricks on me and the vodka only magnified my paranoia.
Out of nowhere, something from a higher place settled my thoughts and a peace came over my whole body. Cynthia’s smile and reassuring words started to flash in my head like closed captioning on a screen. I could hear her voice whisper, “I love you, Peter.” It reinvigorated me. I was reminded of how she put everything in her life aside to be with me in Georgia. Before the soothing thoughts could leave my head, Cynthia entered the room in a huge, steel-colored, silk gown. It was beautiful and flowing. I prayed she wouldn’t fall in that big-ass dress and expensive Christian Louboutin shoes.
Other than the woman in that silver dress, nothing else mattered at that moment. Getting married under the Fernbank’s prehistoric dinosaurs was symbolic for me because I knew we could last as long as them if we fought to stay together. With all we had endured to make that day happen, there would be nothing we couldn’t conquer together.
Not one of her friends understood why she had left Manhattan for a ghetto-Jamaican who lived in country bumpkin Atlanta. She didn’t live for them. She lived for herself, and she was consistently bold enough to do what her heart told her. Cynthia was a star who had met her king and everybody realized it on our wedding day.
I cried, with a part of me aching, because only God knew that I had not intentionally placed her in harm’s way. I lost control of our finances and things had not turned out the way I imagined. I just wanted to marry the woman that I loved. I couldn’t pay for her dream wedding, but she still loved me enough to show up. It was a moment in time I will never forget. She had so many options, but she rode with me. It is for that reason I will go hard for Cynthia Bailey until the day I die!
CHAPTER VI
Blackout Period
Our Financial Loss
Peter’s At Capacity
Our wedding turned out to be one of the most trying, yet happiest times of my life. I had finally married the woman who made my eyes cross from the first time I saw her. Unfortunately, my high hit the bricks when I saw the wedding episode of our show. I was mad as hell, watching Cynthia’s mom and sister contemplate hiding our marriage license. It hit me hard. Not one of them had mentioned a word about it to me, not even Cynthia. When the shakedown aired, several months had already passed. Learning about the whole thing, along with the rest of the world, pissed me off even more.
Cynthia claimed she had no clue about what had gone on, because her mom and Malorie never brought it up. I wrestled with understanding how three women, who were so inseparable, had not ever discussed something so major. I was angry for a long time about it. It was embarrassing and painful for my parents to watch. Cynthia’s mother and sister should have called a family meeting after the wedding and put their dirty laundry on the table. Hiding what they had done made it seem even more deceptive. They eventually apologized, but the situation still bothered me. I had no choice but to put it out of my mind, to make room for all the other shit that was falling apart around me.
The day I didn’t have the strength to take out my keys and unlock the door, was the day I knew it was time to close Uptown. When I opened her, my vision was that she would be the hottest bar and dining scene in Atlanta. The interior was
a custom build-out, with split stone on the wall, marbled fireplace and a $20,000 chandelier suspended in the main foyer. People would walk through the doors and feel like they had stepped into New York or Miami nightlife. Being seven months behind on my rent was proof enough that I couldn’t go on. It was as if I had been holding onto a child that I could no longer afford to feed. I finally reached a point where I was prepared to give it to someone who had the means to nourish it.
My landlord was generous in a way that was unheard of in the business; I could always tell him the truth about what was going on with my finances. We agreed that I would stay on the lease until he found a replacement tenant. He allowed me to strip the space of most of my expensive upgrades. One of the biggest blessings was being able to keep my custom barstools and $7,500, Subzero wine coolers. It was his way of giving me an incentive to bow out graciously. We both had a feeling that a comeback was in my future, but neither of us knew when, where or how.
I tried to sell the chandelier on eBay, but it wasn’t pulling in the type of bids I wanted. There were about a 100,000 others competing against it. I kept it stored in a corner of our garage for the longest time. I would look at it every day and ask, “Why the hell won’t you sell?” The shit made me insanely depressed. Only one serious buyer came by to see it in person. He offered me only $3,000 for it. I told him to get the fuck out of dodge, and I closed my garage door in his face. I was broke, but I wasn’t giving shit away like a crackhead looking for a fix. I would have eaten it before I sold it for chump change. That damn chandelier drove me crazy until the day Cynthia found a home for it – in the entrance of The Bailey Agency.
It’s impossible for anyone to understand how tough it was for me to bounce back from the hit of our wedding and losing Uptown. In the beginning, Cynthia was a champ. She did a great job of stringing us along with the little bit of change she made for her first year on the show. I knew there would be financial advantages in doing another season, so I was always down to give the no-holds-barred version of our lives. Showing my ass every chance I got, put us in the lineup for Season 4, but it was a high price to pay at home.
Seeing myself angry and out of control was hard to stomach. Before our weekly show aired, we would always receive a preview disc a few days in advance. Sometimes my actions were so raw and humiliating, we wouldn’t even want to watch the scenes again or answer the phone on the day the episode premiered. Cynthia would watch with her mouth wide opened and repeatedly ask, “Oh my God, Peter! Why did you do that? Why’d you say that?” She would cry every time.
What I saw as being true to my core, Cynthia perceived as unnecessary conflict and said it always forced her to put out fires that were started by my words. In my mind, that’s what the shit was all about. Real drama. Real disputes. Real fallouts! My wife is just as strong as I am, but we don’t show it in the same way. I wasn’t as chill as some of the other husbands in the franchise, because I had a harder time shrugging things off. I have strong opinions and trying to hold them in eventually causes bigger problems. Even if I had managed to put the brakes on my attitude, the crews are skilled at picking up on little things; the cameras never lie, they expose.
I would constantly tell Cynthia that she had to toughen up. If we stopped believing in each or hoping that things could get better, we would never get to the other side. Her bougie-ass friends (the types with hedge fund manager husbands), badgered her incessantly about joining RHOA. They were determined to beat it in her head that she was above the show. They never missed an opportunity to let her know it wasn’t too late to get out. Many stopped talking to her and completely disassociated themselves. Shit was upside down and everything in our lives needed fixing in some way or another.
Our intimacy was at the top of that repair list. I was stone cold in love with Cynthia and didn’t want to be with anyone else. At night, her long legs would always find mine and she would lock them around me. I saw it as an indication that she still found comfort in me, but it was the only sign of her love for many months.
It was still up to me to find a way to turn our situation around. My pride wouldn’t allow me to take handouts from anybody. Cynthia would look at me every day with her beautiful, deep, brown eyes. The words never left her mouth but her sad eyes would ask, “Peter, what are you going to do today to bail us out?” I would answer her back with my eyes, “Don’t worry, baby. I’m going to get us out of this mess.” I knew I had to hit my Rolodex of movers and shakers to get my wheels in motion.
Vivian Scott Chew has been one of my closest friends for many years, and was even the best (wo)man in our wedding. Her husband, Ray Chew, is the musical conductor for American Idol. When we met, she was an executive for Sony Music. She’s always been one of those sistas who’s had my back from jump street. During the hard times after Cynthia and I got married, Vivian would always give me a heads up on opportunities in the industry or anything she thought could be a springboard for my comeback. She was a friend I could talk to about anything, anytime.
Leonard Burnett and Brett Wright (the co-owners of UPTOWN Magazine) had been my friends for over two decades. They were the pilot and co-pilot that helped me hold things down during those seriously shaky months. When I needed cash to make ends meet, I could pick up the phone and call either to spot me a few thousand. Leonard also allowed me to sell ad space for the magazine. He paid me a handsome commission for every sale, and gave me a $1,500 monthly retainer to serve as a consultant.
Another loyal supporter that kept me from going off the cliff was Heather Kenney. I could confide in her about any detail in my life and not hear back about it – which is rare in Atlanta. I met her when I was building Uptown, and I got a kick out of the fact that she was a lawyer who didn’t practice law. She was educated, smart as hell and supported everything I did. When Uptown started slipping, she borrowed $20,000 from her dad and gave it to me to put back in the business.
Heather was a woman of means who came from a great family. Her father was a successful physician with several practices. She always knew if she needed anything, she could call home and get it. Real talk, she needed nothing from nobody. Out the gate, she and I were ride-or-die friends. People would always get it twisted, assuming we were more, but it was never anything else. It wasn’t sexual or even a love interest, she was just a die-hard soldier who believed in my mission.
If I had five Heathers in my life, I’d be an unstoppable monster. She understood numbers well and how they interplayed in every aspect of running a business. She knew the more deals you stuck your damn nose in, the more bills you accumulated. So, between the two of us, we were always trying to scrape up change to make something pop off. Even when we would go out for happy hour, we went with the mindset of making a dollar out of fifteen cents. She would have twenty bucks, I would probably have even less, yet somehow the shit would always work out to be enough. Sometimes, people would recognize me and send rounds of drinks over to our table. Those were the sweet nights, because we would always leave with the money we walked in with.
The public perception was that I was Peter Thomas from The Real Housewives of Atlanta, so I had to be paid. Nothing was further from the truth, but I let people hold onto that image of me. It was a hell of a lot better than having my veins pumped with negative energy. I used their outlook as fuel to keep my motor running and get me and Cynthia back on top.
Cynthia’s At Capacity
The night of our wedding, a friend secured a luxurious hotel suite for us, but we had just enough energy to make it home and drag ourselves into bed. Our wedding had been absolutely beautiful, but rather than being a day of fun memories, it ended up being another hurdle for us to jump. The whole planning phase was such a crazy roller coaster ride; I stayed in bed for two days sleeping away the physical and emotional drain. I slept all the time, even several weeks after our ceremony. I only left the house to do what I had to do. If it had not been for Noelle, I probably would have stayed in bed for mont
hs. I didn’t want to be awake to face all the stuff that came along with pulling off our wedding. Sleeping became my escape.
When I awoke from my sleeping spell and didn’t have the distraction of coordinating outfits, wigs, makeup and shooting schedules, anger began to set in. My inspiration for getting through the season had been making it to our wedding day and seeing the white production vans disappear from outside our house. The absence of all the chaos gave light to a mountain of debt and family drama. Malorie and my mother only added to our mounting stresses with their whole marriage certificate debacle. They never shared they had been filmed on our wedding day, having that conversation about hiding our certificate.
Just days before the RHOA episode showing the details aired, Peter and I watched it unfold in the privacy of our home. I was speechless and he was furious. He refused to hear that I had no part in the matter. It upset me that Peter and his family were hurt by my mother and Mal’s gullibility. I was also sad for my mother and sister. They were good-natured and caring people who would never have done anything to hurt Peter or me. They got caught up in the moment and were unfortunately captured in a very vulnerable and unflattering perspective. The scene showed what they did, but it wasn’t an accurate depiction of who they were as human beings.
Our money situation was a whole different stressor. Realizing the condition of our finances was petrifying! After relocating to Atlanta, most of my time had been devoted to working on the show. Living in Georgia decreased my flexibility to go on casting calls. I no longer had the luxury of hopping on a plane and going to New York as I did before. Uptown was no more, and we were struggling to stay above water. Some days, it was a nearly impossible feat just to keep the basics covered.
