Carry-on Baggage: Our Nonstop Flight

by Bailey Thomas, Cynthia,Thomas, Peter,Short, Rochelle,Saunders, Keith

  No one had a clue of how bad things were, and those who knew took a lot of comfort in our misery. The responsibility of paying a $3,500 mortgage and other household obligations made it a difficult road. My only security was knowing our car was paid off and we would at least have reliable transportation. My faith told me if we could maintain a roof over our heads, everything else would work out.

  Some people are the kind of broke where they lose their house and move in with someone else. We were the kind that wasn’t homeless and on the streets, but God knows we struggled to keep our home. Things were tighter than I had ever experienced as an adult. We could buy groceries, just not what we were accustomed to stocking in our pantry. Noelle’s Froot Loops were replaced with Hoop Loops. She hated them! I didn’t want to rip the Tiffany spoon from her mouth and make her feel the consequences of our poor choices, but I did what was necessary to keep us going. I tried to soften the blow by creating fun ways to budget and improvise.

  We played a game of “Let’s Not Go to the Grocery Store Until the Refrigerator Is Empty.” The object of the game would be to eat everything from the freezer and refrigerator before going shopping again. It was my way of stretching our money, with as little impact as possible to Noelle. Even at the grocery store, I would go out of my way to make it fun for her. I’d say, “Okay, let’s see how much we can buy with $60.” I took a creative approach to all things regarding Noelle and our finances. Instead of going to Barnes & Noble and buying ten books – we would sit in the store, read two and buy one. That is, until the day Noelle let me off the hook, telling me I didn’t have to take her to the bookstore because she knew I couldn’t afford it. It didn’t feel good to realize that she had figured everything out on her own.

  I had no idea how to explain what had happened to her seemingly normal life. One of the first times Noelle saw me cry came from watching me on the show. It was excruciating for her because she had always seen me as a pillar of strength. I hated her seeing me upset, so I made her stop watching. There was also some negativity in scenes involving my mom and sister; Noelle’s restriction eliminated the issue of her having to deal with those things. It would have just confused her more.

  I am a simple girl, who didn’t come from much, but I learned to think on my feet. I moved from the Alabama country life to New York City, had a child and worked around the world while raising her. I made something out of nothing, but I had entered a stifling space – where I couldn’t recreate. I was angry at Peter, angry at myself and frustrated with all the stupid decisions we’d made with our money. I had always been able to take on a lot, but when you’re down and out, it’s hard to see the brighter side of things. It was the first time in my life I remember whining or feeling sorry for myself. I was starting over.

  That time was the ultimate test of my marriage. I had so many doubts about Peter. In many ways, I blamed him for everything. He was the one who had convinced me to move to Atlanta, be on the show and take risks I was never comfortable with. He was the kind of man who could wake up with a dollar in his pocket and walk around all day like he was Barack Obama. It was the very reason I loved and disliked him. I didn’t know how to be that way. When I was broke, I felt like it, acted like it, looked like it and probably smelled like it!

  Our relationship was on serious life support. In my mind, I had bought what I thought was a expensive Picasso, only to find it was a fake with a thousand other copies selling for $10 at the flea market. We barely talked, and when we did it would end in an argument. I didn’t want to hear shit about the “glass being half full…keeping hope alive…” and all the other stuff he was preaching! I was miserable and wanted him to be miserable too.

  I held him responsible for ripping my world apart, and I was determined to drive him away. I figured he would leave if I hurt him in every way I knew how. He had given up the least, so if one of us had to leave, it would be him. He finally packed his things and left, for a week. I thought he would be happier without me, but he wasn’t. He called and said he wanted to come home. I missed him too, so much so that it pissed me off even more! How the hell do you miss a man that you ran off? I had tried my best to make him feel my pain, but it never worked. Peter loved me through it all and refused to go down that road. Had he gone, I would have probably hated him for that too. He was damned if he did and damned if he didn’t.

  We endured some brutal times, but I found out that Peter Thomas is a man, by every measure. I don’t think any other man in my life had ever been more passionate about being with me. In our worst moments, Peter still wanted to hold my hand, cuddle with me and make love to me. I was so closed off that I didn’t see how sex could make things better. If the conversation didn’t end in how we could catch up on a bill, then I didn’t want to have it! The Cynthia Bailey sex factory was closed. I just shut everything down so we would both be good and miserable. Don’t get it twisted now, I married a man who puts in down in the bedroom, I was just too unhappy to take myself there. I was horrible! I don’t know Peter managed to get through it all.

  I had felt so alone and disheartened that I didn’t care about anything. I shut out my friends and didn’t want to hear anybody’s shitty advice. The only person I gave myself to was Noelle, but looking back, I shut down on her too. I couldn’t even be depressed like I wanted! My responsibilities as a mom still required me to carpool and help with homework, which made me angrier. I was like, “Damn, can’t a bitch just have a nervous breakdown?” God would not allow it, and made Noelle my motivation for getting back.

  Peter’s Oxygen Mask

  Even though I knew the music industry well and had a lot of contacts, for months I was going nowhere fast. Over the years the music business had turned, and most artists would never even see a tenth of the sales that an album like “Thriller” had achieved. I put feelers out to The Jamaican Tourist Board, Russell Simmons and anyone else who would listen to my ideas. I had a vision to create an international music conference that would bring reggae back to music’s forefront. Unfortunately, there was no real organized publishing in Jamaica and piracy was at an all-time high. One door after another was getting slammed in my face.

  I prayed to God every day to turn our lives round. I was fifty years old, broke and broken. On a trip out to Jamaica, I got real sick and called for a doctor to come to my room. I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was going to die there alone. As sick as I was, I got up, caught a plane and took my ass home. I hated the feeling of returning from a business meeting and walking back through that door empty handed. I felt like less of a man, and that I was letting Cynthia down.

  I rose every morning before daylight and hit the road looking under every boulder I could lift. Things had gotten so bad, I had to ask Cynthia for gas money to go out and look for opportunities. I was still the father of five, and my responsibilities didn’t disappear just because I didn’t have the money. I couldn’t ask my wife to take care of my children or make my child support payments. The worst feeling was not being able to provide if my kids needed something. I wanted to burst, but I knew it wouldn’t help anything.

  The Christmas following our wedding, I went to California to visit my middle daughter, Blaze. We went to The Grove shopping mall, and I had about $300 in my pocket to last the whole trip. The father in me couldn’t help but ask if she needed anything. I prayed it wouldn’t be too outrageous.

  When I asked, she just stared into my face like an old soul and said, “No, Daddy, I don’t need anything. I’m just glad you’re here. If you want, you can buy me a book.” It was the one thing I knew I could afford. I almost sprained my damn ankle running to the nearest bookstore. My two girls were very mature and understood my situation. It gave me a deeper sense of faith just hearing them say, “Everything will get better, Daddy.”

  The sky opened up the day Kandi Burruss passed along info to Cynthia about a guy named Al, who was looking for someone to take over a defunct space he owned. The occupying tenants were r
unning a Mexican restaurant and had not paid rent in years. Al wanted a new renter to come in and flip the spot into a thriving restaurant and bar. When Cynthia told me about the opportunity, I didn’t like the idea. I wasn’t interested in doing a bar concept. I later learned that Al was a New Yorker and an entrepreneur who owned several businesses. I figured I at least owed him the courtesy of a meeting.

  When I went to see the place, it had eight bottles of liquor behind the bar and six customers in the whole damn restaurant. The interior of the space was laid out in a way that didn’t allow it to breathe. It was like a jail, with all views to the outside obstructed. I immediately saw how it could be better. One of my God-given talents is taking ugly ducklings and turning them into functional, beautiful swans. I could walk into any space with four walls and know its exact potential. That shithole was no different.

  I talked to Cynthia about the possibility of me stepping in as the new owner. She thought it was a good idea but made it clear she no money to put into the project. I understood, so I got a friend in New York to invest $45,000. I didn’t want to tell him that the rehab would probably cost three times as much. I needed to keep his interest piqued and anxiety down, so I basically told him the place just needed a $60,000 face-lift. Al was hella down for me to get started and put up $40,000 of his own money.

  I wanted to do a tapas menu and focus more on alcohol than food. Pulling it off wouldn’t be easy, but if anyone had the will do it, I did. I scraped, borrowed, and hard-money loaned my way to raising another $200,000. Cynthia came up with a name, and ten months from the date of my first visit, we opened bar ONE. It was a feeling that words couldn’t do justice.

  After our first season of The Real Housewives wrapped, I had spent so many days feeling like the most worthless and hated man on television. I was unspeakably deflated and had willed myself to admitting that I needed to gracefully let go of Cynthia. People had labeled me a failure that misspent his wife’s money and lost his business. Starting a new undertaking made me feel alive again! It was the first time since saying our marital vows that I felt Cynthia wanted to stay with me to repair our finances and our marriage.

  Hitting rock bottom made the air smell even fresher on the way back up. Only a few people knew all the details on how low we had sunk, but from watching the show, anyone could see we had run out of money. As a result, people saw me and Cynthia as prototypes of how to go about getting your life back after a meltdown. We knew what mistakes not to repeat. If we could make peanut butter out of the peanuts she had earned from her first season, we could do wonders with the second season money.

  When that first real check came for her sophomore season, we didn’t use it to ball out. We invested in shit that could yield returns. We weren’t brand new, we were grownups! We put a budget in place to make the money last until the next check, which we knew would arrive nine months later. We didn’t squander one dime or leave any details to chance or luck. It was a relief realizing if nothing else, we had enough to pay our household bills. We already lived in a comfortable, beautiful home and it got even cozier knowing we could keep the lights on.

  The day bar ONE opened in October 2011, the public was breaking down the doors to get in. Though we opened mid-month, our profits were good and got better as time progressed. By that December, we had enough excess to pay off all our debt (including the money we borrowed from Cynthia’s mother for our wedding), and The Bailey Agency was born. Cynthia didn’t contribute money to bar ONE, but she told me there would always be a stash put aside if I needed it. With all we had survived, she hated seeing me ask people for money. She still had my back, because she knew I would break mine to support anything she ever aspired to do.

  My sense of gratitude toward people grew in a way that I had never experienced. I took pride in working in my business each night, going to every table and greeting the guests. I’d hold a conversation or take pictures with anyone who was interested. I went out of my way to let customers know how much I appreciated them being there. They loved the service, and in return would come back and always bring new friends. My best moments were when customers would tell me how Cynthia and I inspired them. Even men who watched the show could relate to our pain and suffering. It was an energy that propelled me to another level, because I had never seen myself as a role model for anyone.

  People, who get a chance to know me, love me. But love me or hate me, my mission has always been to use our celebrity to secure a solid future for us. If millions of people know our names, Cynthia and I should have a business plan that earns $10 from each one. We refuse to let our story end like a lot of people who walked away from the franchise without shit to show for their breech of privacy.

  Cynthia and I have really been blessed. I am a pretty normal dude whose wife just happens to be the hottest chick on the planet. Our blackout period made me more normal and humble. Even in our darkest moment, I always believed that Cynthia and I could turn our lives around, because of who we were and still are! To this day, I continue to relish in that feeling of being revitalized. If you get close enough, you might even be able to smell the comeback on my breath. How sweet it is!

  Cynthia’s Oxygen Mask

  Why the hell couldn’t I fall apart for just once in my life? I had never been a quitter or a pessimist. For most of my life, I’d held together a picture-perfect silhouette for the world. I was always the girl who could never be a disaster – Little Miss Perfect. In my desert, I still had to care for my child, clean my house and appear to be happy when I wasn’t.

  Peter taught me that not having money doesn’t mean you aren’t rich. Not being able to provide for us devastated him, but he was a man who refused to be measured by what was in his pocket. He forced people to judge him by his abilities. His outlook on Uptown was a perfect example of how he viewed things. He never saw Uptown as a failure; it was simply a business venture that didn’t succeed, so he moved on to the next thing. After watching him lose his business on television, nobody gave him love. For months, nothing he touched would take off. Every day brought a new and bigger obstacle, but he always stayed up.

  His feet never touched the bottom! While I hibernated, he came out fighting like Muhammad Ali. Being around me was a constant downer, so he’d stay gone for the better part of the day. I was like a negative hater who tested his faith every chance I got. I wanted the comfort of at least knowing our mortgage would be paid. I would nag him relentlessly about our prospect of returning to the show, “What if we’re not asked back? What if the check doesn’t come in time to save our house?” He always reassured me that we would be invited back, and if not, something better would come along.

  I didn’t want to talk to Malorie or my mother, because I’d already gotten them involved beyond what was appropriate. Telling them too much was the very reason they started feeling some type of way about Peter. I only wanted to talk with the other women on the show about what I was going through. They could empathize with my agony. NeNe was an ally and confidante. More than anyone, she understood the challenges I was facing. She knew the stresses of losing all sense of privacy and exposing your relationship to the universe. She shared that Peter and I were very much like she and Gregg, as they had winged it their first season too.

  She always made me feel like quitting or not getting through it wasn’t an option. She told me that Peter and I had gone too far to just turn it off. She was right! You can’t become un-famous! You can leave the show, but people will still know you. Had I quit, I would have regretted not returning for the rest of my life. I shared a lot with NeNe, but I never fully opened up about how bad our situation had become. I was still getting to know her and was terrified she might turn on me and broadcast our hardships world.

  Why did I have to be the strong one? I felt like everything was resting on me. Returning to The Real Housewives was ultimately my choice, because Peter couldn’t be on the show without me. Our future hinged on whatever decision I made. One day, I
awoke numb to all the peering eyes and judgments against Peter and me. I decided I was going to cross the finish line, regardless of what people thought. I stopped caring about everyone else’s opinions and took only our wants and needs into account. Peter was already on the page and jumped right in. I was the late bloomer, again. I had been so beaten down I wouldn’t allow him to talk to me about winning, because we seemed to be losing in every aspect of our lives.

  Soon after, I got the Bravo email inviting me back for a second season. There is always the possibility of the least-desirable or least-favored housewives being replaced with new, more interesting ones. I was actually happy to receive the invitation, but sad to take that train again with all its unpredictable stops. I still doubted if I was even emotionally strong enough to return. Peter played a big role in getting my mind in the right place, and before I knew it my lawyer was negotiating my new contract. It’s a process that can take a day, a week or even months. Our situation was so tight; I couldn’t afford to negotiate for more than a couple of days.

  To date, our wedding show has been the highest-rated RHOA finale. It gave me leverage to ask for the compensation I felt I deserved. I had paid a big price my first season, yet had earned very little money that year, and most of my earnings were spent before they even hit my bank account. During our hiatus, we struggled to stay above water but couldn’t get afloat. I did some hosting appearances and a Macy’s commercial, but we never managed to do better than barely survive. The second time around, we knew we needed a solid strategy to get the number we wanted.

  After all we had sacrificed, if I couldn’t get a fair deal, I was willing to walk away. I saw myself as a unique addition to the cast, particularly with my secret weapon, Peter Thomas. Who in the world can serve up a hot plate of Peter, but Peter? Needless to say, we stuck to our number and got it! After finalizing and signing off on my new contract, a big chunk of the money hit my account the very next day. We had not paid our mortgage in several months, and were just nine days away from having our home auctioned off on the courthouse steps. We were so far behind, we had to take a cashier’s check directly to the mortgage company’s attorney to stop the foreclosure proceedings.