My favourite client was the blind ninety-one-year-old African American gentleman who was being sued in a paternity case. Shaking his head sadly, he told me, in all seriousness, ‘Honey, I’s wishin’ it was me, but da truth bein’, I ain’t had me no lovin’ since I be eighty-three or theyabouts.’ I made sympathetic noises but had a difficult time keeping a professional straight face.
Another job I took on to earn a little extra money was selling Sarah Coventry jewellery at home demonstration parties. I had my doubts about this from the very beginning as some of their sales gimmicks cracked me up and I wasn’t sure I’d cope with using the company’s sophomoric sales methods. One rule was that we had to wear the jewellery but only one earring because someone would eventually mention it. ‘Excuse me, but did you know you only have one earring on?’ Your rehearsed response was to be something like, ‘Oh, I’m so glad you noticed, and isn’t Sarah Coventry jewellery beautiful? Let me tell you about it, blah blah blah.’ I knew immediately that I could never have pulled that off without laughing. Another thing in our demonstration routine was the wearing of one long black glove over which to drape necklaces and bracelets, as I described the magnificence of each piece. I tried that at my first demonstration, organized by my dear friend Mary, for all our mutual friends and neighbours. Mary, wonderful host that she was and still is, made the fatal mistake of serving wine, which yours truly also enjoyed. Within minutes, we were all falling about, laughing so hard that the tears were rolling down our faces and I ended up just laying the jewellery on the table and telling everyone, ‘Have a look at it, girls, and just let me know if you want to order any of this stuff.’ I honestly cannot remember if I sold anything that night but we had one heck of a good time.
My adopted sister Jodi organized my next jewellery party for some of the Outfit wives. Now that was a real joke. Every one of those women was drop-dead gorgeous and dripping with jewellery of the real kind. I’m sure they came because no less a person than Dominic Cortina’s wife had invited them and, of course, she had done it to help me. Once again, there was food and cocktails and we were all having a grand old time until Jodi spoke.
‘Haven’t we forgotten something?’ she asked.
‘Oh, my Gahd, we’re supposed to be buying this stuff,’ I heard, from one rather tipsy woman.
So, for my second jewellery demonstration, I simply told them all the funny things I had been trained to do to sell this stuff. They found my descriptions highly entertaining and more than one told me it was just a little bit bizarre. Then I told them that, out of respect for their intelligence, I would simply lay my wares on the table, along with the order forms, and they could carry on partying. We had a fun time and I made some money that night but wondered what those women would do with the junk jewellery they had ordered. Later, I apologized to Jodi for putting her through such a fiasco.
‘Are you kidding?’ she said. ‘All the girls told me they couldn’t remember having such a good laugh, and they hope we can do it again some time.’
‘Over my dead body,’ said I.
I did one or two more jewellery parties after that but I couldn’t be serious about it. Besides, all that partying was wearing me out!
22: The Safety of Married Men
For now, I was perfectly happy dating married men. It sounds awful, I know, but I had to avoid making any more mistakes. I was beginning to realize that, in my need for love, I was vulnerable and had to be aware of my own susceptibility; I had to be ever vigilant, had to avoid my heart ruling my head. I had already made too many mistakes. I was still young and had plenty of time to enjoy life without risking my children’s or my own health and happiness. I knew I must never expose my children to such turmoil again.
I was seeing more and more of Spiro T. No man had ever treated me the way he did, with what I can only call gentle adoration. He called me his princess and that was exactly how he made me feel. He knew I had just come through a terrible phase of my life and was determined to make it up to me. At first it bothered me that he was married but he had convinced me that his marriage was in name only and that his wife and he lived almost completely separate lives. Of course, that was what I wanted to believe.
Spiro talked a lot about his mother, who was first-generation Greek, and often brought me Greek food that she had prepared. He also told me about his daughter, an only child whom he adored. ‘I want so much for you and Sally to meet,’ he told me, and added, ‘when the time is right.’
‘I’ll look forward to that day, no matter when it is,’ I assured him.
When Christmas came he overwhelmed the children and me with gifts. He made sure we had everything we wanted or needed. I cried when I saw everything he’d put under the tree on that Christmas Eve, threw my arms around him and cried some more. ‘I don’t know what to say, Spiro. It’s all too much. You really are our special angel,’ I blubbered. He assured me that it had given him great pleasure to help make our Christmas special. Then I gave him his present. I had knitted him a golf cardigan, and covers with numbers on for his clubs.
Now it was his turn to cry. ‘That’s the nicest thing anyone has ever done for me,’ he said, through his tears. ‘I don’t know what I’ve done to deserve finding you.’ I echoed his words, adding that I was only sorry he couldn’t be with us the next day to see the kids open their presents.
He wasn’t able to see us on Christmas Day because he was going to be with his family, as was their tradition. That was fine by me as we usually spent Christmas with my brother Peter and his family. Spiro had explained that his wife was Jewish and didn’t celebrate Christmas, so he had always kept his Greek family’s traditions alive by spending the day with his mother and brothers.
We saw each other almost every day or evening, and even when he said he couldn’t come for one reason or another, he often surprised me by showing up. When he wasn’t there, I received regular phone calls from him so he could tell me that he missed me. He was never possessive or overbearing, just attentive and caring. The children loved ‘Mr T.’, as they called him, and he was always bringing little treats for them too. Sometimes if he had to make an emergency service call, out in the suburbs on a weekend, he would call, tell us to get ready and take us with him. He’d drop us off at a motel with a pool so that the kids could play and swim until he came to pick us up. He was always trying to think of nice things to do for us, and different ways to surprise us. I had come to adore him just as much as he seemed to adore me, but there was never talk of anything permanent on either side. At that point, we were both comfortable with our situation, just the way it was; for me, it was safe.
Spiro was a wonderful lover and he taught me things I had never experienced in either of my two marriages. My first husband had little sexual experience, and neither did Palmer, who had had little interest in the activity, unless it came in the form of a brutal attack. It was Spiro who introduced me to oral sex. The first time it happened was a near disaster. Spiro and I had been out for dinner and had had a few glasses of wine. The children were away overnight and we were both feeling amorous. Spiro knew I was still somewhat bashful in the sex department but, aware that I was a little tipsy, he told me to relax and let him pleasure me, whatever that meant. I was apprehensive but gave in to his coaxing and lay back on the bed, letting him undress me. He then proceeded to do what I thought was the unthinkable. At that moment, I made the big mistake of looking at him, down there. In our moment of hot passion, he had forgotten to take off his horn-rimmed glasses, and from that angle, he looked exactly like Groucho Marx. I totally lost it and burst out laughing.
‘What’s so funny?’ he asked, as he repositioned and smoothed himself out.
‘I can’t tell
you yet,’ I managed to get out, before rolling over and covering myself to hide my embarrassment. ‘I’m sorry, I’m too ashamed of myself.’
Poor Spiro, he was alternately embarrassed and hurt over that incident and, sadly, that was the end of our lovemaking that night. I did eventually tell him what had happened, but he was not amused; I believe that was the only time I ever upset him. To this day, whenever I think of that episode, or see a picture of moustachioed Groucho Marx, I still laugh. What can I say? I’ve always had a weird sense of humour topped off with a vivid imagination.
There was one other funny, or perhaps I should say peculiar, thing about Spiro. He had six toes on each foot. I was so glad he’d told me ahead of time about this little abnormality because he loved to have his feet rubbed. Had I come across that sixth toe with no warning, I might have been visibly freaked out and hurt his feelings again!
During that period, I received a phone call from my mother, and what she told me completely floored me. Mum had never called me before and I thought at first that she was ringing to tell me that someone had died, but that was not the case. She told me that my father had left her for another woman. He was still president of the Watford Christian Spiritualist Church and he had run off with the church secretary. My poor mother was in a terrible state, but told me she was managing to hang on, with the support of my two younger brothers who were both still living at home.
‘I know there’s nothing you can do, Iris, but I thought you should know what’s happened,’ she said.
‘My God, is he completely insane? What the hell does he think he’s doing? What the hell does he think you’re going to do?’ I yelled.
‘I was afraid to tell you. I knew you’d be upset. I don’t know what’s going to happen I just can’t think,’ she told me, and I could tell she was crying.
‘Don’t cry, Mum, the bastard’s not worth it.’
‘Don’t call him that, Iris. It’s her fault, not his,’ she said. Of course she would defend him, I thought. She always has. And of course she was crying: he was the only one she’d ever cried for. But that was all in the past. The question was, what could we do about anything right now?
‘Do you think you’d like to come over and stay with me for a while, Mum? I think we should figure out how to get you here. It would do you good to be away from there for a while. Please, Mum, it would help me too if we can arrange it.’ She said she would think about it, and then, almost immediately, agreed to come.
After I’d hung up, I just sat there, dazed by what I had heard. I couldn’t believe what my dad had done, and at that moment, I hated him.
In a state of shock, I called my brother Peter at work and told him I needed to see him right away. Yes, my reaction was extreme, but it was as though I’d heard that my father had died. That was how devastated I was. No, I hadn’t had a happy childhood. No, I’d never felt loved or that I came from a particularly happy family, but, in spite of its many faults, my family had been my anchor, the only constant in my life. I needed to know I still had that family and that they’d always be there for me, always my refuge. Hearing that my family was suddenly no longer the cohesive unit I wanted and needed it to be had shaken me to my very core.
I’m sure my brother couldn’t imagine what the problem was as I hardly ever called him. He came straight from work, though, and the minute he walked through the door, I broke down in tears. He kept asking me what was wrong, what had happened, but I couldn’t get the words out of my mouth.
‘Let me make us a cup of tea first,’ was all I could say. It was performing the old English ritual that finally settled me enough to tell him about Mum’s phone call and the details of what had happened.
Peter was livid. ‘That bastard, that bastard,’ he kept saying.
‘Mum and I talked about her coming over here for a while,’ I told him. ‘I think she needs to get away.’
‘The sooner the better,’ he agreed.
The next day, I heard that Peter had called Dad at the boarding house where he was staying, and that they’d had a terrible row. Dad had become enraged when Peter referred to the lady-friend as a ‘broad’. Our father’s defence of her further angered my brother and me, especially knowing that he had never defended our mother or given her support; it all seemed so damned unfair and selfish. What did he expect Mum to do? How could she manage on her own? Had he thought of that?
It took me a while to realize the irony of my extreme reaction to Dad’s abandonment of my mother: I was dating a married man but, of course, to me that was different. It’s strange how children, no matter their age, never see their parents as just ordinary people. It would seem that we always expect them to be exclusively our unselfish parents with no weaknesses or needs of their own.
My mother, with our help, was able to arrange a cheap trip to America on a charter flight through the Transatlantic Brides and Parents Association (TBPA). In spite of the reason for the visit, I was excited that she was coming as she had never been to America before and normally would never have gone anywhere without my father.
When Spiro learned of Mum’s impending visit, he immediately started a little savings account so that we could spoil her and give her a good time. He knew I would never take money from him so he said the account was strictly for my mother. He was always surprising me with his thoughtfulness and I truly think he was just as excited as I was about her visit.
Mum stayed for about two months, splitting her time evenly between my brother and me. We took her everywhere and all of our friends spoiled her too. I’ll never forget her happiness when Peter surprised her by taking her to see Liberace, who was appearing in Chicago at the time; she needed a little joy in her life. One night after we had been out for dinner with Spiro, she realized she had lost her watch during the evening. The next day she had a beautiful new one, courtesy of Spiro; she was completely smitten with him, as was I.
When she and I were having a tearful discussion about Dad, Mum called his lady-friend a whore and blamed her for the whole thing. She wouldn’t believe it was Dad’s fault, even with his long history as a philandering womanizer. I pointed out to her that she was in effect calling me a whore, too, since she knew Spiro was married. Good old loyal Mum stopped for a minute you could almost hear the wheels turning in her brain. ‘Well, that’s different, Iris,’ she protested, ‘completely different.’ Well, perhaps it was somewhat different since Spiro was still living with his wife. However, the fact remained that I was the other woman. I wasn’t a whore, but I was his mistress. Mum adored Spiro and would never have heard a disparaging word against him.
While Mum was staying with me, my adopted sister Jodi invited us to her house for lunch one day. At the time, Jodi and Dominic lived in a beautiful house in River Forest, a suburb renowned for the many underworld figures who lived there. My dear mum was nervous about being in such a grand home as she was still living in a council house and had never been inside such a palatial residence. Jodi had prepared a delicious lunch for us and later her sister Jeanne joined us. As we were eating, Jodi’s husband, Dominic, walked in, looking as though he had just stepped from the pages of a gentleman’s magazine. He had on a beautiful silk suit and, as always, he was meticulously groomed, right down to his manicured fingernails. Dominic was what you would call a big man, a handsome Italian, who struck a commanding figure, but the Dominic I knew was a gentle giant, and always a true gentleman.
After Jodi had introduced him to my mother, he kissed her cheek and welcomed her to his home. He then proceeded to cook himself lunch. Mum was stunned. My father had never prepared his own lunch and here was this rich big-shot so-called gangster (funnily enough, I never did think of Dominic in that way)
cooking his own food. He told Jodi he was expecting someone for a game of cards and asked her to send him into the den when he arrived. A little later his visitor arrived and Jodi introduced him to us as Sam. After he had disappeared behind closed doors, Jodi quietly told me who he was and it was a name readily recognized. She didn’t have to say another word because he was one of the most infamous underworld figures of his day. His name was in the newspapers too often for it not to be recognized. I didn’t explain all this to Mum until later when we were at home.
‘Blimey,’ she said. ‘D’you mean to tell me I just had lunch with a gangster? You’d never know it to look at him, would you? He seemed like such a lovely bloke.’
‘He is, Mum,’ I assured her. ‘He is a lovely bloke.’
The Mob affiliation was never discussed, nor would it have been suspected, as the people I knew were all involved in legitimate businesses. A name might be mentioned, as in the case of Sam, but there was never any hint of impropriety. There was never a swear word used or permitted in the house, the children were raised strictly, were extremely well mannered, and the family attended the local Catholic church regularly.
Not too long after my mother and I had had lunch with her, Jodi called me, warning me not to be surprised to see Dominic’s name in the newspaper, in connection with a big headline story. She sounded upset but didn’t elaborate; she simply wanted me to be prepared and she asked me to make light of it if her mother seemed unduly concerned.
The newspaper headlines were about the indictment of a large number of Chicago Outfit figures, including Dominic, on charges of racketeering and illegal gambling. I don’t recall how long the case dragged on but Dominic served time in federal prison in Minnesota and Jodi moved there for a while to be near him. When he came out of jail, Dominic was ill with kidney disease, which Jodi said they’d been unable to get proper treatment for while he was in prison. When they eventually returned to the Chicago area, he made a good recovery and they were soon living in an even more sumptuous house in Oak Brook, another of Chicago’s rich suburbs.
The GI Bride Page 24
