Candy at Last (24 page)

It was quite possible that he had read enough about me online or in the press that he thought he knew me. I also thought I could have been more assertive and asked him, “Why aren’t you asking me any questions about myself?” I wondered if a lot of women my age go through the same thing. I went out with him a few more times thinking he might warm up, but he didn’t. Simply put, I was bored with “Not-Curious George.”

“Stan” was another date. He was a little younger than I was, but only by a year. He was very good-looking, divorced, and like me, had two grown children. Stan clearly was not ready to start dating. From what he told me, not only was his wife abusive during the divorce, but she had also been abusive during the marriage. I did a lot of listening with Stan. He was what they call a “fixer-upper,” and I was the transition woman for him. My dates with Stan were not real dates. I was definitely more therapist than dinner companion. I like to think that after dating me, the next woman Stan dated had it easier.

I also dated “Jack.” Like Larry, Jack became a boyfriend. Having a boyfriend is a difficult thing for me. I’d found that out with Larry, but I had learned and matured since dating Larry, so I wanted to give it a chance with Jack. In the beginning of the relationship, I liked Jack enough that after a couple of months, we spent a long weekend in Mendocino. We were away for only three days, but I still caught cabin fever. There was just too much togetherness. In fairness to Jack, when I was married, Aaron wasn’t home much during the day, and when he was, we were always in different parts of the house until dinner.

Even though Jack and I had a suite, it had an open floor plan, so you could see the bathtub from the master bedroom. I realized then I wouldn’t even be able to relax in the bath and have some privacy. I suddenly became homesick for my bathroom at home. I thought of Aaron (of course!) and how discreet he always was when it came to bathrooms and privacy. He would always go in the bathroom, lock the door, and run the water. That was a habit he never broke. I suppose if I had asked him why he did it, he might have been in analysis for
the next thirty years. Until I went away with Jack, I had never been in a bathroom with someone. Even when we lived in a house with just one bathroom, Aaron and I gave each other privacy.

I liked Jack so when he suggested we go away again together, I agreed. This time, I made all the reservations, put the room on my credit card, and made sure the suite had a second bathroom just for me. Unfortunately, the relationship started to deteriorate after that second weekend away together. Unlike George, Jack was too curious. The questions never stopped coming. I felt like I was being quizzed. Then I noticed that Jack asked me the same questions over and over again to the point at which I started to wonder whether he had Alzheimer’s. The more comfortable Jack became with me, the more opinionated he became. He had something to say about my children, my grandchildren, and my friends. He started getting “in my face,” as they say, whenever we talked about my life.

The final straw with Jack came when he slept at The Manor for the first (and only) time. It was weird to say the very least. I still had Aaron’s photograph on the table of my bedroom. I wasn’t hiding or changing anything. The only thing I was sort of hiding was Jack. Some of my housekeepers had been with me for twenty years and of course knew Aaron. I had tucked the condom box in the very back of my closet, but I was still feeling very paranoid and worried that when they were dusting or vacuuming, they would find the box with one condom missing. I was so relieved when I got the idea to reseal the box with my glue gun.

The next morning I did such a good job with the glue gun that the box of condoms looked factory sealed. I left my gift wrapping room and went straight to my bathroom. I figured Jack was probably showering in the other bathroom. Imagine my surprise when I found Jack being served breakfast from a tray in my bed. He looked like the King of England as my butler tended to him. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. Not even Aaron did that. I liked Jack but it was hard to get that picture out of my mind.

My dating life was very active for a couple of years. At one point my girlfriends teased me that I was a femme fatale because I was dating so many men at once. It’s true that I was, but I wasn’t intimate with more than one man at a time … well, except for one time. It was at the tail end of my relationship with
Jack that I met “Richard,” and I entered what I refer to as my Samantha Jones period. It didn’t last long. Dating two men and sleeping with both of them didn’t come naturally to me. Richard was a really lovely guy with one exception: his brain had never recovered from the 1960s era of sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll. His brain was fried. I liked Richard and he was mad for me, but he seemed like he was still on drugs. We stayed friends after I broke it off.

My driver, William, witnessed most of my breakups because I was usually in the car when I called them. The truth is, it was much easier to break up over the phone. I know it was gutless, but I just couldn’t do it in person. Maybe it was because I did it on the phone that they didn’t take me seriously. No matter what I said or how I said it, they just didn’t believe me. It didn’t matter who it was, they always called me back within ten minutes to ask if my “breakup call” was just something I felt in the moment. Even if the initial breakup went well, in the end they all went downhill from there. One afternoon, William was just as frustrated as I was. He glanced at me in the rearview mirror.

“Mrs. Spelling, what is it that these men don’t understand? It seems to me you were perfectly clear.”

Someone I’ve known for years called recently to ask me out. He’s a prominent well-to-do guy in Hollywood circles. I also know his ex-wife. We were never friends, just acquaintances who ran into each other at parties. She was always teasing her husband about his toupee and the sound it made as the Velcro pulled apart. She had always joked with the rest of us ladies that she knew when he was coming to bed because she heard the sound of the Velcro tearing. As we chatted on the phone, I knew I couldn’t go out with him. The problem was not the toupee—I knew I couldn’t handle the sound of the Velcro.

I started dating because it was what my girlfriends were encouraging me to do. I did have some fun, but the reality is, I’m still on the fence. I’ve become fiercely independent, and right now male companionship is not what drives me. I’m sure my attitude would change if I stumbled onto the right man. It would be nice to travel with someone or have dinner and a movie—no strings attached. For now, I’m happy being on my own and spending time with my dog, Madison. The truth is, I can go days and weeks without talking to the men in my life, but when I’m not with Madison, I miss her.

25

Temptations and Frustrations

Erma Bombeck really captured my attitude about food when she wrote, “I just clipped two articles from a current magazine. One is a diet guaranteed to drop five pounds off my body in a weekend. The other is a recipe for a six-minute pecan pie.”

When I was growing up, girls and women were supposed to be curvy. Marilyn Monroe, Elizabeth Taylor, Ann-Margret, and Sandra Dee were all curvy. The movie magazines were filled with these voluptuous goddesses, but if I saw the slightest little bit of what we called curves on my body, I thought they were fat bulges. I was definitely closer to Audrey Hepburn and Twiggy than I was to the screen sirens. Except for being well endowed in the bust, I was a wisp of a girl. I was built just like my mother and thought she was beautiful, but I couldn’t see my body the way it was. I refused to wear knit dresses because as ridiculous as it was, they made me feel fat.

These days we know this issue is called body dysmorphic syndrome, and volumes have been written about it. Truthfully I think most women in Los Angeles and New York City probably suffer from it. In all seriousness I believe many women are overly concerned with body image. In my case I perceived an imaginary defect in my body. This started in my teen years when, like most other teenage girls, I was very preoccupied with my appearance.

We didn’t have these terms when I was a teenager or even when I was a young woman in my twenties and thirties. We simply didn’t delve into the psychological reasons behind our behavior in those days. I never analyzed or gave it much thought. I just felt fat even though as a kid I was scrawny. Like most other children, I didn’t like fruits or vegetables. I was a picky eater, but I had never met a carbohydrate I didn’t like. Back then we also didn’t refer to carbohydrates as carbohydrates. French fries were french fries and bread was bread.

I think my emotional eating can be traced back to when I was thirteen and had a tonsillectomy. My throat was so sore, I refused to eat much of anything for about three weeks. I remember I was very dramatic about the whole thing. I lay there in my bed surrounded by movie magazines turning away anything and everything my mother offered to me. Even once my tonsils were out, I swore I would never eat again! I was a regular Sarah Bernhardt.

About three weeks after the operation when my throat was healed, the pendulum swung the other way, and I ate everything in sight. I was binging on carbohydrates. Obviously I was using the food as a coping mechanism. First I deprived myself to feel more in control, and then I was out of control and eating everything.

Lucky for me, I had a fast metabolism, and regardless of what I ate, it didn’t affect my weight. I weighed in at ninety-seven pounds when I married Aaron. I normally weighed a hundred but I was living in New York and modeling and I also didn’t have my mother’s delicious cooking or pantry full of goodies. Even though I was modeling, I still didn’t feel good about my body.

I always thought “eating for two” when you were pregnant was an old wive’s tale until I got pregnant with Tori. I had terrible cravings for salt, and
every day I returned to my high-school haunt, Delores’s Drive-In on Wilshire and La Cienega. I would park the car and then go in and a order a JJ Burger, which was two hamburger patties with three pieces of bun, shredded lettuce, tomato, and pickles. It was slathered with what they called “Z Sauce,” which was like a tartar sauce. I ordered mine with ketchup and mayonnaise and asked for an order of Susi-Q’s on the side. The Susi-Q’s were the original curly fries you see at burger places today. I washed my whole pregnancy meal down with a Coca-Cola. The most incredible thing was that I didn’t gain my first pound until I was in my second trimester.

Once Tori was born, I got even thinner than I had been before I was pregnant, and after Randy was born, I was back in my pre-pregnancy clothes just a couple of months later. Aaron always thought I looked terrific, but I still couldn’t see how I really looked.

When I got into my forties, I began to gain weight just like most women tend to do. That was the first time I had to start watching what I ate. The weight gain wasn’t that big of an issue because I wasn’t eating emotionally the way I had when I had my tonsils removed at thirteen. It was when Aaron was diagnosed with prostate cancer that it was clear I was turning to food for comfort. I chose to ignore it and bury my head in the sand, but unhealthy patterns in my eating were developing. I had this terrible habit of eating late, just about an hour before I went to bed. It’s awful for your digestion. Unfortunately, I learned it from my mother and passed it along to my son. When I was younger, it didn’t matter because it was just my routine, and it didn’t bother me because I didn’t gain any weight.

Well, once Aaron was diagnosed with cancer, eating before I went to bed became almost an obsession. I was stuffing my feelings with food. Aaron wasn’t feeling well and wasn’t up to getting out or having people over. Unless it was an event or a dinner I needed to attend for the sake of business or appearances, I didn’t go. While Aaron was resting or sleeping, I found myself either shopping for collectibles online or eating. I was stressed, frantic, worried, and terribly bored.

I suppose I could have read a lot of books or taken up a new hobby, but honestly, when you’re stuck in all those feelings, it’s hard to break a negative pattern. I was always someone who loved projects and hobbies. Somehow, eating had become my hobby. Food filled the black hole that was swallowing me up alive as I struggled to come to terms with the fact that Aaron was sick.

Once I started going to therapy and discussed it with my psychologist, I realized I had body image issues and that I was eating to comfort myself. Until that day, I had never really discussed my issues with food or my body with anyone. It honestly was a revelation. I always figured that was just the way I was. I was a double Virgo, so I was critical of myself.

I didn’t start therapy to discuss my issues with food. I just happened to be giving her an overview, explaining that I found myself eating to excess at all hours of the day and night. She explained that people eat to soothe themselves when they’re stressed, bored, lonely, or unhappy. Because comfort foods are usually high in calories, you gain weight quickly. I was eating bread with butter, entire bags of Pepperidge Farm Goldfish or Cheez-It crackers, and sandwiches piled high with salami. I had new things all the time. Then Randy introduced me to chicken wings, and I found out you could get those delivered with pizza, so that became my thing for a while.

My therapist and I talked about eating as a way to fill in the emotional hole that I had in my soul. The hole wasn’t just about Aaron’s illness. It was much older than that. It went way back to my childhood and the ways in which I was programmed to be perfect.

It was hard to hear, but it was all true. Eating replaced so many things that I wasn’t facing up to. It was a way of avoiding what I really needed to own up to and tackle. I suppose it was another way of compartmentalizing. I gained quite a bit of weight. It was so frustrating because eating was the only thing that made me feel happy and satisfied. At least it was in that moment.

Afterwards, I always felt terrible about myself. I wish I could have shared my feelings with my girlfriends, but I didn’t want to sound like I was complaining. I also just wasn’t at all comfortable sharing those sorts of personal issues, even with people I was close to. Thinking back on it, it makes me sad.