After my on-camera appearance, I went backstage and there she was, the famous Lisa. She was wearing pearls, a knee-length skirt, and a cardigan and looked so . . . grown-up. Was this my new best friend?
As Lisa interviewed me, she was trying too hard to make a connection—maybe as an interviewer, maybe because Jenny had told her we’d love each other. Understandably, she kept throwing in things she knew about me from Jenny to make it more personal. But then she said, “I heard from a little bird that you had a birthday celebration this weekend.” That was true, sort of. Dean and I had spent a weekend at Casa del Mar, a hotel that means a lot to us, for my birthday. One of the nights he surprised me by inviting about ten friends to celebrate with us in a cabana at the Viceroy. But the way Lisa said it made it sound like I’d had a full-fledged party, and I had one friend in particular whom I knew would be pissed if she thought she hadn’t been invited to a birthday party of mine. That friend would definitely watch this interview, and then I’d be in big trouble.
So when Lisa said that I’d had a birthday celebration, I said “No!” rather vehemently. She looked taken aback, so I quickly backpedaled, “I mean, I had a birthday thing, but it was only ten people, just a few of us.”
She said, “Oh, okay,” and I could tell she thought I was nuts. Our interview had lost its footing.
Afterwards, I apologized for my overreaction and tried to explain. She said, “I’m so sorry, I didn’t know!” That was how we left it, polite and fine, but not exactly the insta-friendship of Jenny’s fantasies. So much for me and the Westside moms. Jenny was family that I chose, but I wasn’t quite ready for her to expand the clan.
Jenny and my other high school friendships were shifting as we got older, but that was nothing compared to what was going on with my onscreen high school friends, who fell somewhere between the family you’re born with and the family you choose. On 90210 there was the infamous I Hate Brenda Club, but who knew that the 90210 gang, my former castmates, had actually formed an I Hate Tori Club?
I’ve told some of these stories before: Luke Perry dissed me at Jack’s birthday party. Ian said on the radio that he was upset by my first book. Shannen came out against its “lies.” Even Brian Green, my onscreen/offscreen boyfriend, had nothing nice to say about me. My hairstylist ran into him and said, “Have you seen Tori lately?”
He said, “Oh, I hate Tori.” But wait, why?
As recently as after I met Dean, Jason Priestley and I were still in email contact. Jason was the one Dean wanted to meet: he’s always glad to meet a fellow Canadian. Then when I went to Dancing with the Stars to cheer on Ian (this was before the radio incident), Jason wouldn’t stand up to give me a hug. I walked across the stage to him, said hi, and bent down to give him a hug, but he wouldn’t speak to me. Someone told me they’d seen him in New York having dinner with my ex-husband, Charlie, so I would assume I lost Jason in the divorce, except that he and I had still been in touch after I left Charlie, so loyalty to Charlie didn’t explain the cold shoulder. Tiffani Amber Thiessen had definitely sided with Charlie. And she and Jason are close friends. So maybe it was a hand-me-down, belated cold shoulder?
No matter how you slice it, my 90210 castmates, the closest thing to college friends I had, were dropping like flies. The most recent blow came when Dean and I went to get sushi at our local sushi restaurant. I walked in and saw Gabrielle Carteris, who played Andrea. I hadn’t seen her in three years, not since the 90210 DVD release party, when I was pregnant with Liam, but there she was, sitting at a table next to the sushi bar, facing me. Our eyes met and I mouthed, “Hi!” across the restaurant. She looked straight down at the table. Awkies. Was it not Gabrielle? Shoot! I couldn’t believe the resemblance. The girl across the table looked just like her daughter, but older, around fourteen. Then I realized that her daughter would be about fourteen by now. Wow, we were getting old.
If things weren’t awkward enough, they sat us at the sushi bar right next to the table where these people were sitting. I leaned over to Dean and said, “The girl at that table looks exactly like Gabrielle, but it can’t be her. She ignored me.” Dean glanced over my shoulder, then said, “No, that’s definitely Gabrielle Carteris.” It looked just like her, unless it was her identical twin.
I asked Dean, “Why would Gabrielle hate me?” I had no idea. Maybe it wasn’t her and I was just paranoid.
Dean said, “Well, it makes sense. They all hate you.”
Why did they all hate me? I was the most liked person on that set. I was the sweet one. If it was high school (which it pretended to be and in so many ways was), I’d have been voted most popular.
I said, “Jennie doesn’t hate me.” Thank God for Jennie Garth, my sole defender. It was so weird: when we were in high school we acted like grown-ups, but now that we were grown up, it felt like high school. I thought it would be a good idea for us all to go down to the Peach Pit and talk it out over some sodas—that is if Nat, proprietor of the Peach Pit, didn’t hate me too.
• • •
My gay friends were forming the closest relationships with my children—maybe because my girlfriends had kids of their own to focus on. One nice element of my childhood was that my parents had close friends who were so much like family that we called them aunts and uncles. My girlfriends and I always talked about doing that with our kids. Jenny and I refer to each other as “Aunt Jenny” and “Aunt Tori” to our kids, but it hasn’t taken hold. Of all our friends, Liam and Stella have bonded most with Scout and Bill—the Guncles—and Mehran, my gay husband. Calling Scout, Bill, and Mehran “uncle” came naturally. One day I said to Liam, “Mehi’s here,” and he said, “Uncle Mehi?”
The only thing that kills Mehran is how straight Liam is. One day we were all watching TV and an ad for Barbie came on. Stella gasped in awe. She stared at the screen, mouth open. I said, “That’s Barbie.”
Stella said, “Barbie! I like it! I like it!”
But Liam said, “No! I fight Barbie.”
Mehran said, “Why do you crush my dreams like this?”
The Guncles are a constant in our lives. The kids see them at least once a week, and anytime Dean and I have to both be away, it’s the Guncles who fill in as parents. Scout and Bill are mock-competitive over the kids’ attention, and I can already see that the kids will play them off each other when they get older. From the start, Liam always wanted Bill to hold him. I think Scout worried that Bill was more “maternal” and would always be the favorite. But then Stella came along and chose Scout. We think Stella bonded with Scout because they both love cheese. When Scout comes in, both kids run up to him and say, “Cheese! Cheese! We want cheese!” Scout says, “That’s all they know me for and I’m kind of okay with that.” Stella walks right past Bill every time. She chants “ ’couty, ’couty,” and follows Scout through the house. At school when she picks up the phone and pretends to talk into it, it’s always “Uncle Scouty. Hi, Uncle Scouty.”
Stella chose Scout, and she chose well. As Scout and Bill go through the process of trying to adopt, Stella made Scout feel wanted and needed just when he’s about to become a parent. It’s really sweet, especially because I think Stella helped Scout see that Bill isn’t the only one with a “maternal” instinct. It’s like Stella was telling him that he could do it. It was just what Scout needed. Stella is helping create harmony without knowing it.
My friends are my found family. We’re on the phone, texting, rearing our children together the way I always imagined. There are shifts as our lives change direction and as our children grow. We’re always going to meet new people and make new friends. Some people say that celebrities have trouble finding real friends. There are too many hangers-on and users to sort out the wheat from the chaff. I get that. But I think maybe what’s harder is finding a normal rhythm with people who recognize you before you even meet. It’s been hard for me, anyway. And it’s not just people acting odd; it goes two ways. It’s my fault too. At Liam’s school I met a couple of other moms that I li
ked. They came over to my house for Halloween. Later in the night we were supposed to meet up with another school mom for trick or treating, but in the chaos of Halloween it got to be too late. One of my new mom friends said, “Just send her a text. She won’t care.” But her husband, an actor, knew better. He chimed in, “Of course she cares. She told all her friends that Tori Spelling might show up.” It was exactly what I feared but could never quite express about new friends. Did they like me, or were they interested in “Tori Spelling”?
At a holiday party at Liam’s school, one of the moms invited us to a playdate. It was to be just the boys in his class and their moms. I said, “I’d love to come. I want Liam to have more play-dates.”
She said, “Don’t worry, my son just went to his first birthday party.” We were all in the same boat, looking to form friendships for our kids with families we liked hanging out with.
On the day of the playdate I had two appointments on the other side of the hill, but I was determined that Liam and I would make it. And I wanted to go without Dean—to prove to myself that I could do it alone.
I raced home from the doctor. It was only a two-hour play-date and I was forty-five minutes late. This threw me a little, but I wasn’t daunted. When we arrived the moms were in the kitchen chatting and the kids—about six of them—were playing in another room while the dad of the house watched over them.
The moms were in the middle of a conversation. As far as I could tell they were talking about starting small businesses. I wanted to chime in—I have businesses; I should have something to contribute!—but I didn’t know what to say. So I just sat there, trying to look friendly and open.
The hour or so passed quickly. I hadn’t made any impression, good or bad, but that was okay. It was all very low-key. Soon the moms started making moves to leave. It was time for our sons’ naps. Another one of the moms was leaving, so I said, “I’ll walk out with you.” She and I went to the playroom, where Liam was deeply absorbed in playing with the kids’ kitchen. I said, “Liam, time to go.”
Liam said, “No, thank you,” and continued to play. The other mom gathered her stuff, picked up some toys, and she and her child waited for me as I tried to cajole Liam into leaving.
I said, “Liam, it’s really time to go now.” No response. This was taking too long. My mom friend was waiting and the other moms were gradually trickling out the front door. I didn’t want to be the guest who overstayed.
Then the other mom said, “Oooh, I think he pooed.” She was right. Liam needed a diaper change, but in my hurry I’d left the diaper bag in the car.
I said, “It’s okay, we’re on our way home.”
She said, “Do you need a diaper? We can ask the mom. I’m sure she has a diaper to fit Liam.”
I said, “No, it’s fine.” I didn’t want to go out to the car or to bother the mom. We’d be home soon anyway.
She said, “You’re going to let him sit in shit?”
I said, “We live two blocks away. He’ll be fine.”
She pressed me. “Really?”
I said, “Yeah! Don’t judge me!” I said it lightly, like I was kidding. And I was, kind of.
She said, “No, I’m not.”
I said, “Come on, Liam.” I picked him up. But Liam was really enjoying this playdate and was absolutely not ready for it to end. He started screaming and crying. I carried his writhing form to the door.
The host mom said, “Thanks for coming, Liam.” My son was howling and arching his back as I tried to hold him. The mom kindly tried to reason with him, telling him he could come back for another playdate soon.
Liam pointed his finger in her face and said, “No, shut up, don’t talk to me.” I was horrified.
I said, “Liam, we don’t talk to people that way.” At that he slapped me in the face. My glasses flew off my face. My knit beret slid to the side. I was too shocked to do or say anything. Then he started choking me. Liam had never done this before.
The mom said, “Don’t hurt your mom, that’s not nice.”
Then, instead of reining Liam in the way I should have, I just started laughing, an awkward, nervous laugh. I turned to the mom and said, “I don’t know why I’m laughing. I’m sorry. Thank you, we had a great time.” With that, I tumbled out the door, screaming poopy child in arms, glasses in hand, hat askew. Well, I guess I had made an impression after all.
Our first playdate with school moms. My child acted up, told our host to shut up, and attacked me at the door. I was never going to be invited back. I finally had a little group of mom friends and they were all going to hate me. I could imagine the phone calls they were trading even as Liam and I arrived home. “Tori Spelling’s really nice, but she has no control over her child. We don’t want him hanging out with our kids.”
That night I composed a thank-you email apologizing for the scene. I saved it for a day, deleted it, rewrote it, then finally sent it. It said, “We had a great time, thanks. It was a perfect day except for Liam pummeling my face as we walked out. How embarrassing.” Then I waited, hoping for the breezy response that would assure me we hadn’t been blacklisted forever. It never came.
Jenny, Mehran, Amy, Sara, Jennifer, and I have known each other for so long and play such specific roles in each other’s lives that we are irreplaceable. Nobody else will ever know us in the same way. I count myself lucky to have my old friends, my hand-picked family. Our relationship has nothing to do with celebrity. They aren’t alerting their friends when I might attend a party. I don’t have to worry about whether they think I’m changing my son’s diaper quickly enough. I don’t have to prove myself as a mother. We are simply friends, there for fun and when we need each other. And I was about to need them more than ever.
In Sickness and in Health
One of the most important members of my found family is Patsy, who was first Liam’s baby nurse, then Stella’s. When Stella turned one in June, Patsy’s job was finished. A couple of weeks later she headed home to Waleska, Georgia. I hated to see her go, but I knew I’d see her soon enough. The plan was for her to come back at the beginning of October to have gastric bypass surgery. We’d helped her to arrange the surgery—I sent her to my internist, who found her a doctor—and the doctor was here in Los Angeles. But then Patsy got sick. Her doctor in Georgia said that she wasn’t getting enough oxygen because of her weight. Because she wasn’t getting enough oxygen, he didn’t think it was safe for her to fly to L.A. She needed to have the surgery right away, and she needed to have it in Atlanta.
After I got off the phone with Patsy, Dean came into the room. He immediately saw from my face that something was wrong. I told him that it felt weird to me that she was having surgery without me. We’d planned it together. I never imagined I wouldn’t be there to help her through it. Dean didn’t hesitate for a moment. He said, “I’ll just go get her. I’ll drive across the country and bring her back here.” Leave it to Dean, my hero, to rise to the moment. Patsy is like family, and I loved that Dean saw her that way too. As we thought it through, we realized that of course it made more sense for Patsy to stick with her new Atlanta doctor and for us to go to her. We started making plans for a trip across the country.
Then, at the end of September, a week or two before we were due to leave for Patsy’s bedside, I myself got sick. Dean, Liam, and Stella all had a stomach flu, but mine was different. I had severe stomach pain and an unrelenting headache. I wound up in the hospital. There I was, stuck in the hospital when I was supposed to be heading east to Patsy’s side. I felt horrible. I’d gone through the whole process with Patsy, every step of the way. I went to every doctor’s appointment with her. I tried to get her healthy through eating right and taking walks. I promised I’d be there with her. If she wasn’t having the surgery in L.A., I wanted to be there. If I couldn’t be there for the surgery, I wanted to be there right afterward.
Instead I lay in my hospital bed in so much pain that I felt like I’d been stabbed in the stomach. I couldn’t breathe. It wa
s gut-wrenching. Doctors did test after test but all were inconclusive. They couldn’t figure out what was wrong with me. It was like being on an episode of House (and not as a special guest star). The gastrointestinal specialists were looking up rare stomach diseases in textbooks. Finally my gastroenterologist said, “Do you think it could be stress? Stress can manifest itself as a real problem.”
I glanced toward the foot of the bed. There lay a tabloid magazine that Dean had brought me for some light pleasure reading. Inside it I knew there was an article saying that I weighed ninety-five pounds and was in the hospital because of Mary Jo’s newly released book, Divorce Sucks, and the stress that it was putting on Dean’s and my relationship. Was stress the root of my stomach issues? I shrugged. “Possibly.”
Mary Jo’s book certainly wasn’t the source of all my stress. All summer the tabloids had run stories on two rumor tracks: my allegedly troubled marriage and my alleged anorexia. Both stories were untrue and hurtful, but the relationship rumors were far more outrageous and offensive because we knew exactly who the source was and he had once been our friend.
When Dean and Mary Jo were still married, they moved to California without knowing many people. Jack started school, and they became friends with some of the other parents, including one couple in particular, Mike and his wife. When Dean and I met, fell in love, and came back to Los Angeles, he went on a previously scheduled trip to Palm Springs with his family and Mike and his family. Then Dean left Mary Jo, and we didn’t know what the fallout would be. But for the most part the other parents Dean was friends with accepted me. The school moms invited me to an all-girls lunch. They seemed happy for Dean. Even Mike and his wife, who had been with Mary Jo at the hardest moment and had good reason to spurn me, were friendly and welcoming. The four of us went out for double dates. We spent holidays together. They helped us look for our first house. When we found one, Mike helped us move in.
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