by Joan Rivers
So Halsey’s manager/father had been working a deal to get a payoff from the designer of Halsey’s Oscar gown. It figured. But why had the gown disappeared? Perhaps her limo driver might have an idea. Had she been dressed when he picked her up? I’d have to find out.
Dakota said with a sigh, “I’m sorry I bothered you so late at night, Max. I just remembered how sweet you always were to our Halsey. How cute she was back in middle school when she used to follow your Drew around. She always wanted to be just like your Drew. I better let you go.”
“Give my sympathies to Jimmy.”
“Oh, Jimmy isn’t here,” Dakota said. “Out talking to some men. That’s Jimmy. Always doing business. Even on a day like today.”
“And how is Steffi holding up?” I asked, thinking of Halsey’s little sister, now about the age that Halsey had been back when Drew and I first met her.
“Oh, she’s great. Just signed on to do her first big movie. Co-starring with Zac Efron. We’re thrilled for her, of course. But then, now…this.”
I shook my head. What could I say? I quickly rang off and told Drew what I had learned. The family seemed to be still underwater, but that wouldn’t stop them from making deals. How sad.
Dr. Bob held a hand up, and we fell silent. “Yes,” he was saying into the phone. “Yes, she’s sitting right here, and things have gotten into a terrible state…. Yes, I’m talking about the Max Taylor, so I can’t exactly mention the specific substance here over the phone, but we want to do this intervention just as soon as possible.” He listened, and we stayed quiet. “Okay!” He put a hand over his cell and whispered to Drew and me, “I’ve got the guy on the phone. He says this sort of spontaneous substance-abuse intervention is most unusual. Normally, he likes to meet with the ‘intervention team,’ that’s Drew and me, in person for a few sessions before we have it all out with the addict, in order to counsel us on what to expect, and, you know, buck up our strength and resolve.”
“I’m plenty strong and resolved,” said Drew.
“I told him that,” Dr. Bob said, still holding the cell phone’s mute button. “Normally, he likes to be at the intervention himself, to give encouragement and, you know, break up any fistfights or whatnot. But he agrees we must strike right now while the iron is hot, as it were. And we have you here now, Max, and we are resolved to intervene, so I persuaded him to lead this intervention by phone, as it were. At his usual fee plus fifty percent, of course.”
“Right now?” I was suddenly frightened. I had yet to come up with one good addiction, and soon—well, tonight in fact—I was to be locked down or whatever they do to really messed-up addicts. “Are you sure we shouldn’t wait until—”
“Mom, stay focused,” said my completely calm daughter, taking charge. “Dr. Bob, what does he say we should do first?”
Dr. Bob listened to the man on the phone, then said to me, using the exact tone of voice I use to talk Killer into walking into the vet’s office, “Okay. Maxine. Listen to us. Recovery from addiction is possible. There is hope. There is life beyond the pain.”
I nodded.
Dr. Bob listened to his phone some more, then repeated, “Do you realize that you are addicted to…uh…your substance?”
I said, “Sure.”
Dr. Bob said into the phone, “She realizes it.” He listened, then looked up at us, holding his hand over the mouthpiece. “You’re supposed to resist us,” he hissed. “It’s not realistic.”
“Oh, come on.” I picked up my sixth cup of tea and noticed it was too cold.
Dr. Bob shook his head and said, “Look, Max. This is the number-three celebrity interventionist on the West Coast. If he wants you in Wonders, he gets you in Wonders. Now resist us, please, or we’ll lose him.”
I couldn’t believe this.
“Resist us, Mother,” Drew ordered. “For God’s sake. Like that isn’t your modus operandi for everything I’ve ever asked of you in my entire twenty-five years?”
“Oh, good grief. I have to resist?” I asked Dr. Bob.
“Look,” he said, still covering the mouthpiece and talking fast, “the number one and two guys are out of town at some sort of health expo in Vegas, and celebrity interventionists don’t grow on trees. Nobody else may have the juice to get you into the rehab clinic of your dreams tonight.”
I raised my voice, “Damn it! I don’t have any problem at all!”
The couple in the booth next to ours looked over. I met the eyes of a well-padded woman dressed in a cream-colored St. John suit from several seasons back whom I immediately recognized as a do-gooder mother volunteer from Drew’s old prep school, a woman who had headed up all the fund-raisers. I particularly recall her phoning us each year asking us to donate to the school’s annual fund, and if I may say, we donated plenty. Her name was Mrs. Harmony and she seemed delighted to recognize me and smiled.
“Resist harder,” Drew begged.
I cleared my throat. “Oh, this is terrible. I can’t believe the shame!”
“That’s it,” whispered Dr. Bob in encouragement.
He spoke into the phone for another moment, and I added an impromptu “The shame! The terrible shame!” Then I upped the decibels and shouted, “I can’t bear the burden!”
Before I realized it, the hostess had hurried over to our booth. “Is there something wrong, Ms. Taylor?”
Our waiter arrived immediately, bringing a fresh pot of hot water. “I’m so sorry.”
Drew smiled up at them all, including Mrs. and Mr. Harmony, who were craning their necks from their booth to see what the fuss was about. “Not to worry,” Drew said. “We’re just holding a little substance-abuse intervention here. Please go on about your business. Shouldn’t take too much longer, I hope.”
The hostess melted away. The waiter left the pot of water. The Harmonys looked shocked.
“Let’s hurry this up,” I suggested.
Dr. Bob covered the phone again and said, “Here’s the hang-up. He said there are three things that we can use to pressure the addict into confronting her truth: facing jail time, the imminent possibility of losing a spouse, or a comatose career.”
We looked at each other. No jail cell was on the horizon since I had not committed any crime, unless participating in a fake intervention was against the law. I had no spouse to leave me. So that left the career.
“Sorry, Max,” said Dr. Bob, then he began to tell me just how my career was at this very minute tumbling over a cliff and going straight to hell, and if I didn’t give up abusing my “substance,” I could very well be next year’s pathetic has-been, not even fit to open a car wash on the good side of any town. Ouch.
“Don’t destroy your career, Mother,” Drew said, her voice quavering. “You are so talented. You have so many wonderful years ahead. You are so damned funny, Mother. And to throw all that you’ve built up—all your fans and all your brilliance—away, not to mention the money you are earning, over that horrible…substance! It’s just such a waste. You are a star, Mother. You are a talented and strong woman. And soon, you will be reduced by your horrible, disgusting substance to absolutely nothing! Oh, Mom,” Drew said, her voice a little too loud. “We have to help you.”
In the next booth over, Mrs. Harmony clutched at Mr. Harmony’s sleeve. In the dim distance, I thought I might have seen the momentary rustling of hands reaching for cell phones all across the room.
I hung my head and muttered, “You are right. I can see that now.”
“You must seek treatment, Max,” said Dr. Bob, clearly being well-prompted by the third-best intervention counselor on the West Coast.
I looked at him for approval to agree. He nodded his head at me.
“I know you’re right,” I said, but then added in a bursting wail, “but do I have to go away?”
Dr. Bob grinned as he listened to his coach. “Absolutely,” he told me firmly, following the phone interventionist’s directions. “And we have picked out the perfect place for you to recover.” He listened a bit
more, then mouthed the word: “Wonders.”
It worked.
Drew mouthed, “Perfect.”
Dr. Bob explained in a whisper, “He’s calling in your special reservation right this minute, and as your doctor, I’ll write up the diagnosis, and then Drew will sign you in.”
“You’ve saved me,” I said loudly. “You both love me so much; you saved me.”
Drew scooted over in the booth and gave me a big hug.
Dr. Bob gave us both the thumbs-up.
And the restaurant burst into a nice cheery round of applause as two dozen eavesdroppers joined our private moment of redemption and joy.
11
Best Drama
I need to get back to the hotel and pack,” I said to Drew and Dr. Bob, as I pushed on the Grill’s front door.
Outside on the pavement, three dozen crazed paparazzi began screaming our names.
“That’s not possible, Mother,” Drew was saying, following close on my Moschino heels. “You’ve got to go straight to re—”
Drew bumped into me, dazzled into silence by the sudden burst of late-night floodlights and the attack of flashbulbs. The clicking and name shouting were a shock after the quiet of the restaurant. We never get this sort of attention from the media. Not on a Monday night. Never.
“Drew! Max! Over here!” one of the regular guys from TMZ called to me from behind his videocam. “Max, who’s the lucky man?”
“A new lover?” asked another pap. A burst of strobe lights went off as I turned to see the always dapper Dr. Bob exiting the Grill.
“Or is he Drew’s new boyfriend?” called another one.
“No,” I said, laughing. “This gentleman is my old friend Dr. Robert Hopeman, the best surgeon in Beverly Hills. He’s an artist. Spell his name right—H-O-P-E-M-A-N.”
One by one, the strobes stopped reflecting wildly off the ruggedly bald head of Dr. Bob, and the reporters returned to us.
“We all admire you, Max,” continued the TMZ reporter. “Admitting you’ve got a problem is the first step. Would you care to talk about it?”
“Problem?” I stared into the bright lights. They knew! “No, no, boys. You have been misinformed. I don’t really have—”
“Max!” a woman’s voice cut through the garble of other reporters on the scene. Devon Jones? Why had Entertainment Tonight sent one of their star anchors to ambush me in this alley in Beverly Hills at 11 p.m. on a quiet Monday night? Devon, her blond hair recently coiffed, gave me a concerned look. “We know the truth, dear. Everybody knows. You don’t have to lie.”
Dr. Bob pulled up in the Jag just at that moment, and Drew opened the back door for me, and we both piled inside. As we pulled away from the entrance, we could hear Devon talking loudly to her camera, wrapping up her piece. “And the sad news doesn’t end. First Halsey Hamilton succumbs to her addictions. And now, dear comedy legend Maxine Taylor…”
As we pulled farther away, I exploded, “That bitch!”
“Mom, it’s okay.” Drew patted my hand. “You are a big star. Of course the world is going to take notice. She’s just doing her job, spinning her story.”
“But did you hear? She called me a ‘legend.’”
Dr. Bob and Drew both got quiet.
“I do not intend to budge from ‘star’ to ‘legend’ for at least another thirty years,” I yelled back at the fast-receding curb, where no one could hear me. “How old does that whore think I am?”
Drew grabbed my hand just before my emphatic gesture made it outside the car window. “But the good news is, they are all buying our little story.”
“About the substance abuse,” agreed Dr. Bob as he cut away and headed east down Wilshire. “And so now we’re going to Pasadena.”
“No!” I had sobered up a lot since we had hatched our scheme. What the hell had we been thinking? Those damned blood-orange martinis. “Let’s get a grip. No one panic. Just take me back to the hotel.”
Drew withdrew her hand as Dr. Bob looked at me. I stared him down. Slowly he turned his car around and began heading west. In the dark of the car interior Drew asked, “You are not letting me down, are you?”
“It’s a crazy thing to do.” I waited for her to agree. “Come on, Drew.”
She sat there in silence for a while. When she began to speak, I had to lean forward to catch her words. “When Burke and I were first dating, he brought me one yellow rose.” She looked up. “Just one.”
I nodded. I don’t think Drew had ever before told me any stories about her boyfriends or her romantic life. It was one of the subjects she kept closely locked away. Perhaps, because I make jokes for a living, she needs to hold on to her privacy. Perhaps she just never truly trusted me again after the divorce from her father and after he later died. But I held my breath, hoping for more.
“Well,” she continued, “I thought it was sweet. I mean obviously he could have bought me dozens of roses—he had the money—but he chose just that one perfect rose. We were falling in love, and I hadn’t felt anything like it before, Mom. Even with Cameron in high school, when I was sure I was in love. And even with Asher…”
Drew had been a popular girl in high school and later at the University of Pennsylvania. She dated plenty. I had liked her high school boyfriend, Cameron Dewey, even if I thought he was more likely to get snapped up by Ford Models and move to Europe to do exotic photo shoots than get serious about my daughter. And Asher, her main boyfriend senior year in college, had been nice, but a guy who spent every summer in Washington, D.C., trying to work his way into a political job just couldn’t give Drew the attention I thought she deserved. But that’s me, the mother, talking. I held my tongue now and listened.
Drew said, “He really loved me, Mother. He said the yellow rose was me because it was beautiful, but also because it was a little sad. A little lonely.”
My heart ached. Had my Drew known that sort of pain?
“And he said he wasn’t good enough for me. He said he knew I would never be able to love him the way he loved me. But that he always would. No matter what happened.” Drew blinked quickly, no tear falling. “So I told him we would make it work. And I would never let him down.”
“I see.”
“And I won’t, Mom. No matter that we couldn’t seem to stay together as a couple. Lots of things got in our way. Life isn’t simple.”
“Don’t I know.”
“So we’re at a terrible time. Who knows what may happen in the future? Burke and I may get back together, but maybe we won’t. No matter what happens, I’ll be there for him. I promised him. I know what it feels like when someone you count on disappears, Mother.” She stared at me as if in challenge.
I let it pass. Every child has slights she holds on to, doesn’t she? Every family has a certain burden of past misunderstandings.
Drew continued, “Burke was the one who held me when I felt lonely until I didn’t feel lonely anymore.”
I reached over and gave my lovely daughter a quick hug. I know it couldn’t take away the kind of loneliness she had been speaking about. Perhaps we all have that loneliness in us but are too hung up to admit it.
By then, we were heading up the dark canyon roads back to the Hotel Bel-Air. Dr. Bob steered the Jag up a half-hidden side road to the curb right in front of my suite, so quiet in its garden setting.
“So.” He turned back to face us from the front seat. “Should I wait here in the car for you to pack? I’ll just call Sheree and let her know what’s up.”
“Not tonight, Dr. Bob,” I said.
Drew pulled herself free from my hug.
I said, “Don’t worry, Drew. I’ll go to Wonders in the morning. I’ll check myself in, and I’ll turn that place upside down looking for all the deepest secrets that Halsey may have been keeping. Whom she was sleeping with, whom she was fighting with, whom she confided in at the clinic, and how she could have ruined her sobriety. If Burke is innocent of any wrongdoing where Halsey is concerned, I’ll get the facts, just like I pro
mised I would.” And if he wasn’t innocent, I’d find that out too. Yellow rose or no yellow rose, I’d protect my daughter from that joker, even if she couldn’t protect her own heart.
“Thanks, Mom.”
“But I have just been called a ‘legend’ on national television, and now this ‘legend’ needs her rest. Just give me a few good hours, then Malulu will pack my things in the morning and we’ll be off to rehab.”
“I’ll come back and get you,” offered Drew, whether from thoughtfulness or from the instincts of a warden who may have a twitchy prisoner, I couldn’t say.
I kissed her cheek. “Okay. Come at ten.”
Dr. Bob said, “Well, I’d better call back the interventionist right away. Get him to move the reservation for check-in to tomorrow.”
Drew took my hand again. “I really appreciate you going through with this, Mom. And don’t worry. Wonders is located in a fabulous old Pasadena mansion up on the Arroyo. The rooms are supposed to be to-die-for gorgeous. You’ll check in. You’ll have a facial. You’ll chat with the women you meet there. They’ll love you. You’re Max Taylor.”
“Okay, honey. Don’t oversell. The only reason I’m doing any of this is because I love you.” I opened the door of the Jaguar.
“Oh, dear,” said Dr. Bob into his cell phone.
We both looked at him.
Drew whispered, “Is that the interventionist?”
He nodded to us, then said into his phone, “I don’t think she’s backing down. No, she really isn’t…Denial…Yes, I hear you.” He shrugged his shoulders to us. “No, not after she made so much progress admitting her addiction, I see.” He put his hand over the mouthpiece of his cell phone and said to us, “We’ve got problems. They don’t want to see you backslide when you are so close to detox.”
This was nuts. “Tell them I need to pack my bag. Take a shower.”
