They're Playing Our Song

by Carole Bayer Sager

  I can’t say the obsession with Burt magically lifted—I still imagined him waking up one day and realizing he had made a dreadful mistake and wanting to come back—but I found myself thinking about him less and less.

  My phone rang early the next day. The word was out. “Finally, you’re going out with a great man,” David Geffen told me. “Bob Daly is the real thing. Don’t blow this!” As you know, David’s opinion always carried a lot of weight with me, so I was happy he liked him. When I’d told him that Burt’s leaving had devastated me, he said, “What are you talking about? You had the best ten years with him. What do you want, sixty-three to seventy-three? Let someone else have the next ten.”

  ON ONE OF OUR first dates together, I told Bob that my friend Alana Stewart and I had written a comedic script that Joel Silver had optioned and was now reoptioning. Bob said that Joel was the last producer to go to with a comedy, since he’d never made one and was only known for his big “blow up the screen” action movies. Anyway, about ten days after we began dating, Bob had a meeting with then head of production Lorenzo Di Bonaventura.

  “Lorenzo,” he said, “by now you might have heard I’m going out with Carole Bayer Sager. She and Alana Stewart have written a screenplay that Joel Silver just reoptioned. Lorenzo, I want you to hear what I am about to say very clearly. I do not want that script to be given one minute’s more consideration than any other screenplay at Warner Bros. If you read it and want to drop it, then drop it.”

  Bob was adamant about not wanting anyone to think there was any nepotism at Warner Bros. I always felt that Lorenzo thought he was basically being told in some coded way to drop the screenplay.

  Alana was the first to find out that our script had been canned. She called me, very upset.

  “Every other studio head who was going out with you would have at least given it a tiny nudge forward,” she said. “But not Bob.” Later, that was to become one of the things I liked the most about him. If I ever wondered what was the right thing to do in almost any situation, I just asked Bob.

  I’d been searching my whole life for powerful mythical men—white knights—all in an effort to create a world I could feel secure in. And now I might have found one. The more I got to know him, the clearer it was that he wasn’t very interested in socializing with my world of entertainers and musicians, and that was the good news.

  “I know that world. I service those people every day. That’s my job. But I don’t want to have to cater to them on weekends. That’s my time off.”

  He ran a powerful company with thousands of employees, so he knew about power. But it wasn’t what ran him. He was much more human than that.

  BOB HAD YET TO meet Cristopher, so when he came over the following week for dinner, I introduced them. “Bob, this is my son Cris,” I said, walking him into his room, which was strewn, like any five-year-old’s would be, with little cars and trucks and Ninja Turtle toys.

  “Hi,” Cris said, barely looking up and then returning to his cars.

  “Cris, I want to thank you for giving me that great teddy bear last week,” Bob said. “And I brought you something I hope you like.” He gave him a Warner Bros. shopping bag. Cris opened it and pulled out a plastic Superman. “I love Superman,” Cris happily exclaimed, to Bob’s delight. “Look at his cape and look how his arms move so he can catch people in the sky,” he said, displaying the moveable arms to me.

  “It’s a brand-new one we made,” Bob said.

  “Look, Bob! Air Jordans,” Cristopher said, showing off his shoes as he jumped up and slam-dunked an imaginary basketball into an imaginary hoop.

  “Great shot!” Bob said. “And great shoes.”

  “I love shoes,” Cristopher announced, sniffing his blue blankee that was never beyond his reach. “Do you love shoes, Bob?”

  “Tell Bob what I call you,” I urged Cristopher.

  “Uh,” he looked to me as if to say he didn’t remember.

  “You know,” I said, “the story I told you about the woman who had so many shoes that—”

  “Oh yeah,” he remembered. “Imelda. She had to leave her country. But they let her come back . . .”

  “Yes, but—”

  “But they only let her come back with one pair of shoes because she had to give away her other shoes to the people who didn’t have any.”

  Bob looked at me quizzically. “That is the story you told him?”

  “Well,” I said, “you kind of had to be there.”

  At dinner I watched Cristopher sniff his blankee and talk to Bob. With Bob, he felt he could be himself. When it was his bedtime, Cris asked if I was coming up to tuck him in.

  I looked at Bob, who was still finishing his pasta. “Don’t worry,” he said. “I’ll never be jealous of Cristopher coming first. Go ahead.” I’ve known a lot of guys in my life, but I’ve never known one like Bob, I thought, as I walked upstairs to kiss Cris good night.

  Later, Bob and I lay on my bed and watched an old John Wayne movie. Bob loved westerns, especially John Wayne’s. Maybe because they were so simple and life could be so complicated. There were good guys and bad guys; white hats and black hats. Bob liked things simple. My mind never shut down until some sleeping pill punched it into neutral gear. I lay with my head cradled in his arms and it felt good. When he kissed me, that felt good, too. The phone rang, and I let the machine pick it up. I alternated between watching the screen and watching Bob. I found myself studying his face. I was beginning to take great pleasure in his features. I liked his nose and his mouth. I loved his smile.

  I’d never known anyone who loved John Wayne. When the wild herd of buffalo ran across the screen, I realized that Bob, like them, was the last of a dying breed, almost extinct. He was beginning to make an imprint on me and we were bonding quickly. I thought about sleeping with him, but I wanted us to really know each other before sex could cloud my thinking.

  “I’m like Ajax,” he told me, “but the New and Improved Ajax. In other words, I’ll always be ‘Bob.’ That won’t change, but what I can be is the New and Improved Bob.” I liked that analogy because people don’t change into someone else, but if they work really hard, they can become better versions of themselves.

  THE CAROUSEL BALL WAS coming up and Bob and I were going together. It would be our official coming out party because all of the top executives and major talent attended. I knew I would go to bed with him after the ball, when we would go back to his suite at the Bel Air Hotel. We enjoyed being in public for the first time together. We even danced a bit, though Bob forewarned me, “I’m not a dancer.”

  Back at Bob’s suite I was nervous. We had two bathrooms, so we both went off to prepare for bed. I had brought the most beautiful lace nightgown, completely appropriate if I was in my thirties and on my honeymoon. But all of my concerns about how I might have looked disappeared when I saw Bob in his Brooks Brothers white pajamas with blue piping. It wasn’t that he didn’t look good. I just had to get used to what it looked like after seeing Burt in his boxer shorts and old tee shirts for the last ten years. My surprise must have shown.

  “What’s the matter?”

  “Nothing’s the matter,” I said. “I’m not used to seeing a man in his pajamas. Not since my dad wore them.”

  Bob wasn’t the least bit offended or thrown off course. “Come here,” he said in his matter-of-fact manner. “You look so beautiful. Come over here and get into bed with me.”

  I hesitated. He smiled and teasingly added, “Come on, I’m getting cold!”

  “Aren’t you going to turn the lights out?” I asked.

  “Is that what you want? I was happy to have the lights on to look at how beautiful and sexy you are.”

  I didn’t feel that confident. “Off, please.”

  In the dark we made love.

  He was a very good lover. I could tell he really liked women (even if he’d only been with Nancy, and now me, over the last thirty-plus years). He was immediately turned on, and he made love to me. Satisfie
d, and relieved that we had gotten through having sex without a hitch, we both fell asleep happy to be together.

  A week later, Cristopher was spending the night at his friend’s house so we were at my house alone. Bob walked in when I was in the shower. “Look at that body,” he said. “Look at how sexy you are.”

  I felt bad for him. I just had a hard time believing that someone could really love the way I looked naked in the shower. The years with Burt were sort of like being in an abusive relationship without any physical signs of abuse.

  Just before Bob and I met, Joel Silver had wanted to fix him up with a Playboy bunny. I always felt he missed out. He didn’t think he missed anything. He didn’t want a Playboy bunny. He wanted me. That was a concept I was still having difficulty with. It was like the notice Groucho Marx sent to the Friars Club: “Please accept my resignation. I don’t want to belong to any club that will accept people like me as a member.”

  Thirty-Seven

  IT WAS HARD TO tell who was more excited waking up Christmas morning, Cristopher or me. We both rushed down the stairs. Cris couldn’t wait to open his presents. I couldn’t wait for the day to officially begin. I was like a spinning top. Burt was coming at eleven, and—terrible but true—I was looking forward to it in spite of my new feelings for Bob, who was coming at four.

  So many presents sat under the tree, too many to count. Cris had patiently watched them pile up in the weeks preceding Christmas, keeping count of how many were for him.

  “Hurry, Mommy. I want to start.”

  “You can open three presents, but then we have to wait and open the rest with Daddy.”

  At eleven thirty, there was Burt, half an hour late, which for him was early. It was the first time since I filed for divorce that he was back in our living room, and it felt like he had never left. Even Agatha, our housekeeper, was excited.

  “Oh, Mr. Bacharach. You want green drink? You want tea?”

  “Just a glass of water, please, Agatha,” he said, with such ease, just as he had hundreds of times before.

  Cris opened his presents while I wrote down each gift. Even though Burt and I had agreed not to exchange gifts, I had changed my mind the day before and bought him yet one more beautiful cashmere sweater. He opened the card, sitting on the steps into the living room.

  He read it to himself. It was about growing from the pain. It was about friendship and love and forgiveness. His eyes teared up. Why wouldn’t they? After all, I was a writer.

  Burt had kept his part of the bargain, bringing me only a token gift: a little plastic photo album. There was no card.

  “I thought you’d like it for pictures of the little guy,” he said.

  Burt and Cristopher went outside to play ball while I stayed in and played Christmas songs, as the music played havoc with my feelings.

  Someday soon we all will be together

  If the fates allow

  But for now we’ll have to muddle through somehow.

  I began to feel sad. The Push . . . the Pull . . . and the awareness that it would be impossible to step back into my old life and pretend that what had happened between us had never happened at all. Besides, now there was Bob, someone I did not want to give up.

  Fifteen minutes later, Burt and Cris came back in. “Well, I guess Cris should try to get a little nap in,” he said. (Translation: “I have to go.”) “I’m meeting Nikki for dinner, and I’d like to try and get a little workout in first.” I picked up a little gift-wrapped box and handed it to him.

  “This is for Nikki. She told me she got her ears pierced.”

  “Oh,” he said. “That’s, uh, really very sweet of you, Carole.” I walked him to the door. There was an awkward silence. I looked into his eyes.

  “Do you feel it, too?” I asked him, wishing I hadn’t heard that come out of my mouth. What was wrong with me? Though it didn’t stop me. My eyes welling up with tears, I went on, “The pull?”

  He looked at me. “Of course I feel it.”

  I knew it. I knew I wasn’t crazy. There was still something there, or maybe it was just that it was Christmas.

  He put Nikki’s present in his pocket. “I really appreciate this, Carole,” he said.

  By the time he left I felt like I’d been up for days; and Bob wasn’t coming over for another two hours.

  Mindy called. “Would this be a good time for me to stop by? I have a little present for Cris. And one for you.”

  “Yes, definitely. Come by,” I said, happy to have the opportunity for a reality check. When she arrived, I told her in detail about my time with Burt and feeling so inappropriately comfortable with him in the house.

  “It’s just Christmas, Carole,” Mindy said. “I’m sure it happens to all couples in the middle of a breakup.”

  “And now Bob’s coming for the second act of the Christmas show. No wonder they pay so much money to performers in Vegas. Two shows in one night is one too many.”

  Bob arrived and he kissed me hello. “Well, it’s good to see you,” he said, holding me close to him. Then he hugged Mindy, whom he’d met the week before.

  Bob’s face, too, showed the strain of too long a day. “Christmas is just not a good day for the newly wounded,” he said. “I’ve been going through it with Nancy today. She wanted me to fly to Hawaii and join them for the rest of their vacation. I told her it was just the holiday speaking.” What made him so clear and me so ambivalent?

  “I brought this for Cristopher,” Bob said, picking up a big present.

  “Just what he needs,” I said with a laugh. “Come on up and see his room. It looks like the warehouse for Toys ‘R’ Us.”

  It was hard to find Cristopher in the midst of all his new toys. He was drunk with presents.

  “I don’t think you have this,” Bob said. “It’s not on the market yet.” Cristopher unwrapped it and seemed vaguely disappointed.

  “It’s a Looney Tunes truck,” Bob explained, “with all our characters that turns into a brigade of transformers when you take them apart. It’s going to be a very big toy next year.”

  Since it hadn’t been marketed yet, Cris had no way of knowing if it was desirable. How could he want it if all his friends didn’t have it or want it yet? I felt embarrassed by Cristopher’s spoiled behavior. I was about to say something when, thankfully, he came through with a believable display of interest, as he began disassembling the truck. Leaving Cris to his toys, we made our way downstairs. Sitting in the kitchen, with Mindy on one side of me and Bob on the other, we laughed about the added pressure holidays bring and rejoiced that we’d all gotten through this one unscathed. That was the best Christmas present I could have asked for.

  IT WAS EARLY JANUARY and Bob wanted me to meet two of his closest friends, Stacey and Henry Winkler. On the way to dinner at Trader Vic’s, Bob told me that Stacey had already warned him about me.

  “Why?” I asked him.

  “Well, she told me to be careful with you because you traveled with a fast crowd. Sandy Gallin, David Geffen, Alana Stewart.”

  “I never think of myself as living a fast life,” I said. “I think when the fast part came, I was already home. If I went at all.”

  “Well, I just want you around me,” he said. “That makes me happy.”

  We got to the restaurant to find Stacey sitting alone. Henry was home sick.

  Oh! I failed to mention that Stacey was Nancy Daly’s closest friend. Together they ran United Friends of the Children, a foster care organization, although since the separation they were not quite as close.

  The surprise of the dinner was how much Stacey and I liked each other. I told the whole horrible story of Burt leaving, and she responded with so much compassion, I felt like we’d known each other for years. We shared a similar self-deprecating humor, and I could feel us bonding as the evening went on.

  When Nancy asked Stacey the next day what I was like, Stacey very unwisely made the mistake of telling her how much she liked me. That, as you can imagine, did not go over very
well. Nancy ended their long and close friendship soon after. She cut Stacey off and never regretted her decision. The only thing about all of this that one might construe as odd was that within the next two months Stacey Winkler would become my new best friend.

  THE FOLLOWING WEEKEND BOB suggested we go up to the Post Ranch Inn at Big Sur. The view from our terrace through the trees to the ocean made me feel instantly peaceful, though the thought did occur to me—because how couldn’t it?—that in an earthquake, those stilts that our glorious room was built on would crack and we’d be swept away in the angry ocean.

  We took a walk through the town of Carmel, holding hands and talking.

  “No one in my family ever got divorced,” Bob said. “I’m the first one in the family. I would have never left. You just don’t do that. I didn’t question if I was happy. We were a family.”

  “But were you happy?”

  “Not happy like I am with you, but I figured this is how it is when you get to thirty years.” I made a note to myself: Bob was a stayer.

  We spotted a restaurant with a line, so long we knew it must be good. He started walking to the back of it. I wondered why he was walking the wrong way—I’d expected him to do what I thought every top executive would do, take out some cash and find the person to hand it to—but he was happy to stand there, just being Bob.

  “So you don’t mind standing in lines?” I said, somewhat disappointed.

  “Why shouldn’t I stand in line? Everyone else is.” After a beat he asked, “Why, would you rather we walked right in?”

  “Well, I did get used to it with Burt, and I liked the way we were treated as a result of his celebrity. But I also like the way you’re happy to just stand here, because it says a lot about who you are.”

  “If it’s important to you,” he said, “I’ll call my assistant and have her get us right in.”

  “No, this is fine. Really.”

  And it was. It really was. We talked, the line moved briskly and soon we were comfortably seated inside.

  Bob reached into his pocket and took out a bunch of white folded cards with his name stamped on top. “These are my cards,” he explained. “All of my important phone numbers and information are on here: my kids, my doctors, my medications, my employees, my Warner Bros. plane crew, et cetera.” Plane crew! Okay, so you stand in line a little.