Dandelion; Memoir Of A Free Spirit

by Catherine James

  Chris was as beautiful as an angel. He had the palest blue eyes, and soft blond curls encircling his perfect, chiseled face. He was a kid from a well-to-do family in Connecticut. He complimented my purses, and we chatted about the splendor of the lake. What a coincidence: Chris docked his boat on Candlewood, not far from my landing. I casually suggested he might come over for dinner sometime, and he jumped at the invitation.

  Wow, a real date! I baked the lamb pie Mrs. Wheeler had taught me, with mashed potatoes instead of biscuits on top, and crisped a gooey, fresh peach cobbler for dessert. I played Mozart full volume, and had a rip-roaring blaze in the fireplace. The table was set with my finest thrift shop Irish linen and Blue Willow dishes. Everything was perfection, except that the guy never showed.

  He called the next day saying, “I thought we were going to have dinner.”

  He said he drove by, but when he saw all the people he decided not to stop. I asked, “What people? Except for Damian I was alone.”

  “Well, who did all those cars out front belong to?”

  Ha! I’d completely forgotten about all my cars! My multicar ruse actually scared somebody off. It worked!

  We made new plans to go to the air show over the weekend. Chris dazzled me with little gifts of antique jewelry and fine wines. In less than a month he had essentially moved in with Damian and me.

  I was impressed that at age twenty-five Chris headed his own business and ran a full crew, planting and restoring botanical landscapes. Being a native of Connecticut, he also knew all the beautiful spot, hidden lakes, and waterfalls to canoe and skinny-dip in. I thought he was the perfect, idyllic gentleman till we drove up to Cape Cod in his XKE Jaguar for the Fourth of July weekend. We were in the midst of a candlelit seafood dinner, when out of the blue he blurted out, “Whadaya think, I’m some kind of idiot?”

  I was stunned.

  “I see you looking at that guy!”

  His angelic face completely morphed into that of a venom-spitting serpent. I barely recognized him.

  In mortified disbelief I asked, “What guy, who are you talking about?”

  He tossed his money down for the check and pushed away from the table, snarling, “Don’t think I’m a fool.”

  He then proceeded to storm out of the restaurant. I abandoned my king crab legs and chased after him, trying to defend my innocence.

  Chris had waited until he was sure I loved him to unleash his frightening little demon, who was just bursting to break loose. His charming ambassador had taken a hike and jealous jeans was on the rampage.

  Throughout our turbulent relationship it was his practice to rummage through my purse and search my pockets, looking for phantom phone numbers and telltale matchbooks. Before getting home, to save the peace, I’d be sure to purge myself, tossing anything that could be construed as contact with another human being. While I was working in the New York, Chris would rifle through my drawers, pockets, and picture albums. I found my treasured photographs of Jackson Browne torn to shreds. Any other unidentified male photos, including those of my own brother, shared the same fate. He’d call the studio at my modeling bookings, insinuating I was having sex with the photographer, and would sometimes even show up in the city, parked outside, hoping to catch me in the imagined act. Why in the world was I holding on to another man who acted crazy and was clearly tortured? But when he was rational he could charm the devil. I was also hopelessly attracted to his handsome face and hoped he’d eventually mellow out. It seemed almost impossible that I’d moved all the way from England to an obscure plot in Connecticut and managed to find an exact emotional replica of Denny Laine. I started to wonder, was it something about me? I felt panicky and anxious, the same feeling I had had living with my mother. Whenever I suggested that Chris get his own place, he’d turn back to charmer mode, and I’d let it go. Maybe I was comfortable with the Jekyll-and-Hyde drama. Was I looking for grief or was grief looking for me? Whatever it was, I needed to make a change.

  While trying to extricate myself from my sticky entanglement I found solace in watching TV soap operas. During the mornings when I didn’t have to be in the city, and Chris was at work restoring the gardens of rural Connecticut, I’d tune into As the World Turns, and soon developed a crackpot crush on Dr. Dan Stewart of Oakdale General Memorial. Dr. Dan was kind, caring, and compassionate, everything Chris wasn’t. My pipe-dream fantasy man actually made my stormy relationship with Chris almost bearable. I was well aware that Dr. Dan was purely an actor on a television show, but I decided to send John Reilly a letter at CBS, along with my beguiling modeling card from Wilhelmina, suggesting we met for lunch. I imagined us meeting at the romantic Tavern on the Green, ensconced in dreamy, meaningful conversation. Dr. Dan would save the day. I actually wrote the letter, and for fear of Chris discovering my adulterous heart, I kept the letter hidden deep in the lining of my winter coat.

  Christmas morning of 1974 started off like a fairy tale. The snow was falling, and wind was blowing crystals off the ice on the frozen lake. Little Damian was up before dawn, making mouse tears in every present under the tree. He couldn’t wait to see if Santa had brought him the Steve Austin Six Million Dollar Man action figure and the matching bionic repair station he was hoping for. Chris surprised me with the cherry red platform sandals I’d been eyeing at Ann Taylor, and I bought him an assortment of art books and a vintage smoking jacket. This seemed to be the happy Christmas I always imagined. The fireplace was crackling with the smell of pine, Damian was happily ensconced with Santa’s offerings, and I was in the kitchen stuffing a plump turkey for the oven. Then, for no apparent reason, or maybe because he was disappointed with his presents, Chris went into one of his inexplicable rages and tossed all his Christmas gifts into the fire. While I tried to retrieve a book from the flames, Chris snatched my red shoes he had bought me and pitched them in the lake one at a time before speeding off in his XKE Jaguar. Little did he know that that was his last scene and final exit. I’d hoped he was gone for good, but he showed up the next morning like nothing had happened. When I handed him his packed bags, he went into another tirade and scowled, “I’m not going anywhere, this is my place.”

  He said that if I didn’t like it, I could move. I could see this wasn’t going to end gracefully and wasn’t sure he’d even let me go. I was fresh out of energy for conflict, and decided it might be easier to let him come back until I came up with a solution. In desperation I called my eccentric Aunt Claire in Los Angeles.

  “You know you always have a home here; I don’t know what you’re doing up in the sticks anyway!”

  I secretly began planning and plotting my getaway. Chris could have the place. I was going home to California. Unfortunately, I’d recently bred my Russian wolfhound, Molly, who’d just given birth to fifteen puppies, about ten more than I had expected. Borzois aren’t small dogs, and I couldn’t take them all with me to California. I cleared out my sewing room and used the fireplace screen to keep the pups from running riot and obliterating the house. At just five weeks old, they had already figured out how to get over the makeshift barrier. When Damian and I would get home from my go-sees in the city, the click of my key in the door would cause a stampede that sounded like a cattle drive. Three times a day I’d fill the deep turkey pan to the hilt with sweet milk, and the pups devoured the liquid in less than a minute; then all fifteen would poop and pee in distressing unison.

  My God, how were we going to get out of here with all these puppies? It seemed like they grew an inch a day, and no matter how high I raised the barricade, all fifteen little black noses romped at the front door, waiting to greet me.

  I put an ad in The New York Times and got a flurry of responses. People came from as far as Vermont to buy my homegrown brood.

  I sold the MGA and the Mini Cooper, but left the old Humber and Volkswagen so as not to raise suspicion. When a young girl showed up for the Pontiac with a baby in her arms, I got a certain delight in telling her that it was hers for free.

  I ca
lled a drive-away company that just happened to have a station wagon that needed to be driven to California. I rented a small U-Haul trailer, hitched it to the wagon, and parked it out of sight. When Chris drove off to work in the morning I packed the U-Haul to the rafters. By dusk, in the midst of yet another snowstorm, Damian and I were slipping and sliding our way back to the West, with the last four Russian wolfhounds plus Molly frolicking in the back seat.

  My handsome dad decked out in his racing gear.

  My dad posing on his motorcycle in his high heels.

  My dad as Robin in full female glory.

  My young dad in his Black Foxe military uniform.

  Oil portrait of my father.

  My young dad with Busby Berkeley in front of Ozeta Terrace.

  My father posing in front of his Cadillac and holding an ever-present bottle of brew.

  Me and my grandfather Al with the missing fingers. This picture was taken on the back lot of MGM Studios.

  My beautiful grandmother Mimi in the 1920s.

  My breathtaking Mimi with her two beautiful daughters, my mother and her older sister Joanne.

  My mother, Diana Dearest.

  My mother dressed as a geisha for Halloween. She made this costume and did her own hair and makeup.

  My mother at age twenty.

  Me at fifteen.

  Me in Central Park six months after I ran away from California. I was just fifteen trying to look twenty.

  (Photograph by David Hoff)

  Nico and me at the Factory 1965.

  Denny dressing up for the night.

  Me at age nineteen grooming my two-year-old cherub after his bath.

  Me and Damian boating on the lake with Jackson in Echo Park.

  (Photo by Jackson Browne)

  My son, Damian, at age three.

  My baby boy.

  My family: Damian showing off his new red tire pump and our cat Morgan by my side at our cottage in Connecticut.

  Our backyard in Connecticut after a first snow.

  Me and Damian in the photo booth at the train station.

  My Wilhelmina modeling card, front and back.

  (Photograph by Sal Carbo)

  One of my first test shots in a bathing suit.

  (Photograph copyright Richard Selby)

  Me at twenty-six in a ballerina modeling photo.

  (Photograph copyright Suzanne Nyerges)

  Me and my dog Molly by the lakefront in Connecticut.

  Another me.

  My beautiful Aunt Claire in a studio publicity shot.

  My sweet cousin Blake on the veranda of Ozeta Terrace.

  My boyfriend Paul Zacha at his wildly artistic desk at Center Studios in Hollywood.

  Me standing in for Diane Keaton with the director of photography, Dante Spinotti, during the filming of The Other Sister.

  Me photo doubling for Diane Keaton in the film Town and Country.

  Patti D'Arbanville and me on the set of New York Undercover.

  At my father’s house with his trophies and planes.

  Me digging through one of the Dumpsters at my deceased father's house in Palm Springs.

  (Photograph copyright Ovid Pope)

  After a Sunday lunch in Greenwich Village in 1995. Left to right: Roger Daltrey, me, Dave, Andrea, an unknown friend, and the lovely Heather, Roger's wife.

  My son, Damian, all grown up.

  Me and my teen grandson John.

  (Photograph copyright Lisa Law)

  Pamela at our famous yard sale.

  My best friends Patti and Pamela, and me now.

  12

  After four days and five thousand miles, my son and I arrived safe and sound at my Aunt Clair’s home on Ozeta Terrace. I hadn’t been back here since the last time I saw my dad, the night he took me on Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride fifteen years earlier. The lovely old iron gates were rusting, and the once lush, green lawn was unkempt and overgrown. The weathered old Cadillacs were still in the garage, but by now they had turned into collector’s items. The place had the eerie feeling of What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?

  Aunt Claire wasn’t home yet, but my fading old gran Helen greeted me at the door with open arms.

  I introduced her to her first great-grandson, and she seemed overjoyed. I put my five wolfhounds out on the terrace and unpacked some of my things while she made us tea and sandwiches. It felt good to be back there. I’d almost forgotten I had a family, even a little history, here.

  We were having a nice chat in the dining room and enjoying the peanut-butter-and-jelly fare when I asked my grandmother Helen, “Does my dad know I’m here yet?”

  She got the oddest look on her pale, sweet face.

  “What was your last name, dear?” she asked.

  This little woman had invited us into her home, allowed me to move my belongings in, and had just made us lunch. Sadly, I realized she didn’t have a clue who we were. I softly said, “James, grandmother, just like yours.”

  Her blue eyes sparkled like a bell had gone off, but her once-sharp mind had been ravaged by dementia.

  There was something wonderful and almost macabre about coming back to Ozeta Terrace. It was strange revisiting a past that hadn’t moved forward. Everything was exactly the same as the last time I had been here. Besides a later model television set in the living room, there was little evidence that we were in the mid-seventies. The heavy curtains were drawn shut and the chimes of the mantel clock tolled as if they were mourning a death.

  Claire soon arrived, laden with shopping bags, and her son, Blake, still close to her heels. Blake and I were the same age. At twenty-seven he had the makings of a handsome young man, but there was something odd about him. He was a gawky six-foot-two with awkward body language, as if he was afraid to make a wrong move. His complexion was ghostly pallid, sort of moist, like he never saw the sun. Blake wasn’t really overweight, but his physique had a rounded, sexless cast, and his clothes were shapeless and unkempt. I don’t think he even had a friend since graduating Black Foxe military school. Blake was all that Claire had left, and she selfishly kept him bound and tied close to her apron strings, via her purse. Even though the house had five spacious bedrooms and a separate apartment downstairs, for some wacky reason they shared the twin beds in my grandparents’ old quarters. I could see that Blake was a breath away from becoming a shut-in; he had never held a job or had a dream of his own. He twisted and turned trying to free himself from his mother’s cloying clutches, but when he tried to make a move on his own, Claire threatened to disinherit him and leave her declining estate to the Motion Picture & Television Home. When we were alone he confided that he’d never even been kissed. He was still pure and chaste, a virgin with little hope for a girl or a life of his own.

  Aunt Claire was showing some age but still possessed her beautiful, flawless face. Even for a midnight trip to Ralph’s supermarket she made herself up dramatically and dressed like she was on her way to the Oscar’s, always ready for her close-up. She still painted on luscious Lucy lips and powdered her poreless skin to perfection. Her long lashes were spiked with thick layers of Aziza, the old studio mascara that used to come in a blue box. She’d spit in the palette till it got gooey, then apply several coats with the stiff little brush.

  Claire couldn’t bear to throw anything away, and her faded pink dressing room looked like the Max Factor Museum. Her shelves and dresser tops were three deep in original Deco bottles and lotion jars. There were vanishing creams, powders, and half-empty sachets of White Shoulders and Chanel No. 5 perfumes. I’d never seen such an amazing collection. All the half-filled and used-up milky, colored bottles were like a life’s journal. The round mirror above the vanity had reflected fifty-three years: the young hopeful starlet, five stormy marriages, and now an eccentric, aging beauty queen.

  Claire toiled away in the kitchen, using the old institution-sized cooking pots, and at midnight dinner was served. She plopped a heaping platter piled high with spaghetti and giant-sized meatballs in front of me, th
en brought out four more overflowing trays. There was literally enough spaghetti for thirty people. I said, “Wow, this is a lot of food, Claire!”

  She yelled back, “Well, you better eat it!”

  Nobody ever spoke softly in this house. Even when I was a child everyone shouted as if they were hard of hearing; it was actually pretty comical. After dinner Claire and Blake took turns disappearing outside to the surrounding terrace, leaving me to sit with my grandmother Helen, whose blue eyes were permanently transfixed in the twilight zone. I peeped out to see what was so fascinating on the verandah and saw Claire sneaking a nip, then stashing her tumbler under the ledge. They were both secret alcoholics, hiding it from each other in their own house. I wondered, “Would I have turned out like them if I had stayed on here, if I never ran away?”