Candy at Last (2 page)

“You don’t really want to be here, do you?

“That’s right, Doc.”

My husband didn’t want to be sustained knowing he couldn’t live the life he knew and loved. I watched him waste away. He got so thin that his wedding band would slide off his finger. His nurse and I convinced him to leave it on his bed table so he wouldn’t panic when it slipped off and he couldn’t find it.

There was at least a good year when Aaron couldn’t go out with me. Some of our most thoughtful friends got me out of the house for lunches and dinners. After a while I started getting uncomfortable because it was the same friends constantly taking me out. Normally I would have reciprocated by having them for dinner at the house, but Aaron was in bad shape, and I knew he wouldn’t want anyone to see him in this condition. I didn’t even feel comfortable inviting people over.

I decided I could remedy this by joining Hillcrest Country Club. They had Sunday night barbecues and al fresco dining with music on Friday nights. I would be able to invite other couples, and they wouldn’t be able to pick up the check. Only members are allowed to pay for food and drinks at country clubs. As a member, I would just sign a chit and then get a monthly bill in the mail. Problem solved.

A woman joining a country club on her own is a bold move. Hillcrest was a men’s club right up until the 1980s, when the by-laws were changed. Prior to that, women were allowed there only if their husbands were members, and if the husband died, the membership could only be passed to a son. Instead of calling this chauvinism, they called it “legacy.” Not surprisingly, there was not one woman on the review board. Just a tribunal of twelve men asking me why I was joining the club as a single woman and not with my husband.

Their memories were obviously short and the administration files not very comprehensive. Aaron had been a member over a decade ago. He only joined at the insistence of Marvin Davis, who was head of 20th Century Fox Studios at the time. The truth was, Aaron was usually working, and when he wasn’t, his favorite pastime was sitting around the table with the kids laughing and eating. We had our own tennis court at home, so we never went to the club. Well, one day the membership committee showed up at our old house on South Mapleton Drive to complain that Aaron wasn’t using his membership enough. Aaron may have been mild-mannered, but he never liked being told what to do. He very politely suggested they refund him his $50,000 membership fee and in turn, he wouldn’t be a member there anymore. When we closed the door on our visitors that night, he said, “They can take their membership and …”

Instead of reminding the board of this episode, I mustered my courage and told them the truth. “If you don’t already know, my husband is very ill and is
going to die. If I join with him, then you’re just going to make me do this all over again because the membership will belong to him or my son.”

The men all got very quiet after I spoke. I don’t think they knew quite what to say since I had been so truthful and to the point. They had nothing to argue with me about. Ultimately, I turned out to be the third woman to be given membership on her own.

At this point Aaron needed medical care twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. The thermostat in the master bedroom was turned up to seventy-six degrees, and still he lay there under two duvets, freezing. I had moved into Tori’s old room so Aaron would be more comfortable and the nurses could look after his needs. I would go sit with him in what used to be our room. It felt foreign. Nothing was the same anymore.

Sherreth was one of Aaron’s nurses who is still my friend to this day. She was so sweet, soulful, and compassionate. There were days when Aaron would be really angry with me when I got home after being out for just a few hours. Sometimes I went to therapy, which I needed desperately, and other times I would just go out for long drives to give myself space and clear my head. I understood that often with dementia, people get crabby. I knew the fighting was coming from his confused mind, but it was still tough especially because he had never spoken to me this way in all the years that we were married. Sherreth would always step in and say, “Mr. Spelling, you’ve been waiting for your wife to come home, and now she’s home and you pick a fight with her.”

Aaron’s clear moments became fewer and far between. Strangely, at the end, he was very clear. I should have known that was the day he was going to die. That morning, Sherreth encouraged me to go to the hairdresser. She promised, as always, that she would call and give me a heads up if she thought the time was coming. Well, when her call came through on my cell, I knew before I even answered, it was real. I literally ran out of the salon in West Hollywood with my hair soaking wet. I had driven myself and as I raced home, West Hollywood seemed light-years away from The Manor.

I made it home in time and climbed into bed with my husband. I held him in my arms and tried to comfort him. I kept saying, “I’m here. I’m right here.” Sherreth had explained there would be a death chant as the body shut down
and the last of the oxygen was expelled from Aaron’s lungs. It was unbelievably excruciating and it seemed to go on forever. Finally, Aaron took his last breath, and he was gone. I held onto him and wailed like a child. After what must have been a few hours, Sherreth took him out of my arms.

On the day of his burial, I went to view his body. I honestly can’t remember if Randy went with me. He may have but he didn’t go into the room with me to see Aaron, and that was okay. I couldn’t help but think they had done his hair wrong and I wished I had brought him one of his older shirts that would have fit his fragile frame better. I took a mental picture of him, one I’ll never forget, and then they pulled down the lid. It was easier for me once the coffin was closed. We had a small service of about thirty or forty people, just family and close friends. I chose a sarcophagus inside the hilltop mausoleum as Aaron’s final resting place. I wanted him to be above ground, and I wanted his grave to reflect his magnificent character, his incredible accomplishments, and his brilliance.

One of my clearest and most moving memories from that day was when Tori, Randy, and I lined up before the service for the tearing of the ribbon. It’s a very touching Jewish mourning tradition rooted in the biblical stories of David, Jacob, and Job, all of whom tore their clothes when they received tragic news. The ribbon is pinned to the clothes of the bereaved, usually right over the heart, then torn by the rabbi.

After the burial, we retreated to The Manor. I had organized some very simple catering. I remember thinking, what is it with funerals and food? The last thing I wanted to do was eat. The reception was endless and uncomfortable, yet I dreaded the thought of being alone that night. The house had already taken on a different countenance. I realized that day the importance of letting people take care of you in times like these. So when my dear friend Willy offered to spend the night with me and stay for a few nights, I took her up on it.

I definitely didn’t laugh about it then, but I do now. Because I am who I am, nobody came to the door with any homemade casseroles. There was only one platter of food delivered to the house. It was a deli platter sent courtesy of Hillcrest Country Club.

2

Beverly Hills Child Bride

It was 1964 and I was probably the only teenage girl who hadn’t been infected with the Beatlemania epidemic. When The Beatles came to Los Angeles, one of my girlfriends found out where they were staying and paid for a helicopter to airlift her into the backyard of the house. At nineteen, I was an old soul in a young body. I loved classic jazz and music from the 1940s. I was also wiser beyond my years having already been married and divorced.

I was only seventeen when I married my boyfriend, Howard, who was twenty-one at the time. Like most girls that age, I didn’t know who I was yet or what I wanted from life, but I bought into the fairy tale when Howard proposed. My family lived in Beverly Hills, which, in the post–World War II years, was being shaped as a glamorous shopping and lifestyle destination. The city’s famous hotels like the iconic pink Beverly Hills Hotel and the Beverly Wilshire Hotel, which had just been renovated to include a ballroom for big bands, brought tourists from all over the world. Funny enough, I think it
was
The Jack Benny Show,
which used Beverly Hills as a backdrop, that put the fabled city on the map of America’s imagination.

My parents were regular middle-class people living beyond their means. Of course my father, Merritt Marer, was the only one who knew this very privileged information. He was a traveling salesman for a furniture line. My mother, Augusta Gene Marer, who later changed her name legally to Gene, was a beautiful woman consumed with all things elegant. She was a fit model for dress companies and an absolute perfectionist. We had a houseman named Taylor who drove my brother, Tony, and me to school. His wife, Lena, was our housekeeper.

Being driven to kindergarten by a chauffeur is not all that it is cracked up to be. In fact, it was awful. Children don’t want to be singled out at school, and I was no exception, so I had Taylor drop me off two blocks away from the school so I could walk just like all the other five-year-olds. Probably not unlike other families of this generation, my brother and I didn’t speak unless spoken to, and decisions were made for us without any discussion. This included what I wore to school. While everyone else was wearing blue Oxfords with white-striped laces, I was in fancy black patent leather Mary Janes. My clothes were always a fancier style than what everyone else was wearing, and I was bullied. Even the other mothers phoned my mother to ask why I wore such expensive clothes to school. What they didn’t know was that we didn’t shop at Saks or Magnins. We shopped at moderately priced stores like Lerners. My clothes were not actually expensive, they just looked expensive.

Ultimately it didn’t matter, I suppose. At the end of the day, I just didn’t fit in with the other kids. All the teasing devastated me, and I was held back from moving on to the first grade. In the teacher’s assessment, I was not emotionally mature enough for the next grade. Needless to say, flunking kindergarten did not do wonders for my self-esteem, and, sadly, from that time on I think my mother held the belief that I was not very smart.

About this time my father suffered some financial missteps when he expanded his retail furniture business too quickly. We lost everything
including our home and were forced to move into an apartment in Hollywood. Ironically, what was ruinous to my parents financially was a blessing to my childhood development. We could no longer afford to keep Taylor, so now I walked two miles to the bus stop and then used public transportation to get to school every day. I really enjoyed being out in the world and getting a taste of real life. My new school was also significantly less competitive, and I was able to skip a grade and make up for having been held back.

Despite our circumstances, my mother continued my “proper” upbringing. I learned how to cook and set a French table service, which my mother still set every night for our family dinner. I also learned the art of needlepoint, was taught to entertain, and even went to private school where among other social graces I learned to curtsy.

Like all daughters, I wanted to be perfect for my mother. I was thrilled when I pleased her by meeting her demands. Unfortunately, there was another side to this. When I failed to live up to her high expectations, I could see that she felt that
she
had failed. This was extremely difficult for me and undermined my self-confidence in the most damaging way. I was already shy, and this made me even more so. I also had trouble making eye contact with people, and I absolutely dreaded making conversation with strangers.

We eventually recovered enough financially that we could return to Beverly Hills. I was a student at Beverly Hills High School when I met Howard. Our courtship was typical of high-school romances; we parked our car and necked, stopped at Dolores’s Coffee Shop on La Cienega for burgers and Cherry Lime Rickeys. We were crazy about each other, and fortunately for my mother, Howard wasn’t just my type—he was also hers. His family was wealthy, they owned a very successful transport business, and Howard himself owned a ski shop in Beverly Hills. Despite being disappointed in the size of the diamond in my engagement ring, my mother gave us her blessing, and we embarked on planning our wedding.

My parents were not in any position to pay for the lavish wedding my mother envisioned, and I really didn’t want them to spend money they didn’t have, so
we took the advice of Howard’s mother and eloped to Las Vegas. Because I was still a minor, my parents came to Las Vegas with us. We had a very sweet ceremony at the Flamingo Hotel. It was a very happy day for everyone.

Howard and I took a two-and-a-half-weeklong Mariposa cruise to Hawaii for our honeymoon. At the time they were one of the premium cruise operators, so when we got back, everyone wanted to hear all the wonderful details of our luxurious trip. The detail that was at the forefront of my mind, but the one I did not want to discuss (eventually I had to tell my mother), was the fact that somehow I had returned from my honeymoon still a virgin.

So in addition to being set up in a 2,000-square-foot apartment on Oakhurst Drive, I was also taken to the gynecologist for my very first pelvic examination. The discomfort of the exam was one thing, and then there was the humiliation of the doctor’s conversation with me and my mother. It was so strange that suddenly my body, not to mention my sex life, was everybody’s business. At the end of the day, I was given a clean bill of health. The doctor’s conclusion was simply that I was very young and stressed out about my “first time.”

Eventually Howard and I would consummate our relationship, but our intimacy issues, which continued, were the least of our problems. Now that we were man and wife and spending our days together, I saw firsthand that Howard had absolutely no work ethic. I spent more time at the ski shop than he did. Howard preferred spending his days at a casino in Gardena playing poker. We were well provided for by his parents, but we were still expected to speak only when spoken to, even though we were a young married couple.