Getting It Through My Thick Skull (26 page)
Stu’s daughter Hutton was seven, and his son C.J. was eleven. Both were exceptionally beautiful children, and they seemed to take to me immediately. They were good kids, and I truly liked them and enjoyed the time we spent together every other weekend. Martine, who lived with her mother, had her own car, so we didn’t see too much of her. She had boyfriends and lots of teenage dramas. My heart was wide open. I treated all three of them exactly as I would my own kids, even though I wasn’t raising them.
I met Stu’s brother and his wife, and his mother Thelma, all of whom immediately welcomed and loved me. The secure feeling of being part of a big family returned, and it made me more content and grounded than I’d been in years. I’d had a gaping hole in my life for so long due to the loss of my huge, extended family in Long Island, and now I was being taken in by a new family who eagerly embraced me. They were happy because Stu was happy, but more than that, they cared about me personally and showed it. I liked it. I liked everything about Stu—and so did my children.
Joey, of course, was still a part of my life. I supposed he always would be, and that was my biggest fear as I adjusted to an entirely new kind of relationship with Stu. What impressed me was how well Stu dealt with it all. He wasn’t threatened or intimidated by Joe. He let it all roll off his back. It dawned on me that all my life I had been defining the ideal of a “man” based on physical strength and a certain macho quality—the big guy who could roll into a party with a keg on his shoulder. I was so wrong. Stu’s unconditional love and acceptance demonstrated in every gesture what a real man was. Stu showed by example a different kind of man to my son Paul. He was hardworking, honest, straightforward, and dependable. Before long, both of my kids came to love him as much as I did. Joe, of course, was well aware of the unfolding situation. One day, a couple of months into our relationship, Stu called me in a minor panic. “I just got a phone call from Joey. He’s on his way over here to talk to me. . . . Do I need to worry?”
“Naaahhhh, you’ll be fine, you’ll see,” I said. Stu, of course, only knew Joe from television and the many, many stories he’d heard. He had reason to be apprehensive, of course, but I knew that Joe would turn on the charm. To ease the tension, Paul accompanied his father on his visit.
Stu called me as soon as they left, half-relieved, half-bemused. “He was great,” Stu said. “I thought he was going to break both my arms, but he shook my hand and told me what a wonderful woman you have always been and still are. His advice was never to leave you alone on May 19, and he reminded me your favorite color was pink. He had nothing but wonderful things to say about you.”
I wasn’t surprised. Joe really could be the most affable, charming guy. Plus, he had been involved with Evanka for quite some time. There was no reason for jealousy or threats. Even though just a few short months ago he’d been begging me to return, he had certainly adjusted quickly to the new situation— in about an hour, I would say. He was his old breezy nice-guy/great-neighbor self.
My gorgeous waterfront place, my privacy, my freedom to do what I liked—I still enjoyed them all, but I wanted to be with Stu. He had his business in Chatsworth, and his children lived nearby. If one of us had to relocate, I was much freer to move. I lay awake for hours at night, thinking. I had worked hard to grow into the best possible version of “me” while coming to terms with living alone, possibly for the rest of my life. I’d also set some ambitious goals at school. Given all I’d been through, I was the very last person in the world to advocate that a man was the answer to any woman’s life.
Still, love had miraculously found me—something I never believed could happen—and it would be foolish, at the age of forty-eight, to let this opportunity slip away or waste precious time on a long-distance relationship, waiting to see what
might
happen. Something great had already happened! Within three months of our trip to Vegas, I finished my classes, withdrew from school, and gave up my place. Paul packed up all my things, and I moved into Stu’s apartment in Los Angeles. Technically, I was still married to Joe. In reality, our marriage had been over for a long time, but the time had definitely come to officially make the break.
Joe had been happy enough being married to me and keeping secrets, being separated from me and openly seeing other women while keeping me in the picture, or juggling any kind of arrangement, actually. Legalities weren’t a big deal to him, obviously. I wasn’t like that. I couldn’t possibly live with one man while I was married to another. I filed for divorce in Ventura County and picked up the papers at the courthouse. I drove them to Joe’s office myself, where I handed them to Paul. The legal rules state that a third person must serve divorce papers to the recipient, so Paul took them from me and handed them to his father.
It was a bittersweet moment, but certainly one that was inevitable. We did our best to make light of the situation, but the finality of the moment was sad. The end of any long marriage is always sad—even one like mine. The children were grown, so they weren’t an issue. We amicably hashed out a very reasonable support agreement. The decree became final a few months later. The New York papers picked up the story—a few “What took her so long?” kind of articles appeared. Our twenty-five-year marriage had run out of steam and sputtered to this anticlimactic ending in the back office of an auto body shop in California. It was officially over. Except, of course, with Joey it’s never really over.
Given all of the medical trauma in my life, it was amazing that I’d never broken a bone. Then I got a little too ambitious playing jump rope with Hutton one weekend and broke my foot. The cast was unwieldy and a real pain. I had to hobble around with great difficulty for a few weeks. Ten days or so after the accident, Stu and I were taking the two little ones out to TGI Friday’s for dinner. Because of my injury, Stu dropped the kids and me at the entrance to the restaurant and drove off to park the car.
It was a busy Friday night, and the waiting area was crowded with couples and families waiting for a table. I approached the hostess and put our name in for a party of four. Literally, in the ninety seconds that my back was turned, the two kids started fighting. It started with a shove, and soon turned into a huge brawl. I turned around to see C.J. and Hutton punching each other as hard as they could in the middle of the crowded room. I could not believe my eyes.
I walked back to them as fast as I could and grabbed one kid in each hand. I pulled them apart, whipped them around, and hobbled outside, holding them in a death grip. Sure enough, along came Stu, walking toward the restaurant whistling, ready for a nice meal. He stopped in confusion when he saw me standing there with a very unpleasant look on my face.
“Please go back and get the car. We’re going home,” I told him.
“What’s the matter? What happened in there?” he asked.
“Let them tell you . . . but we are leaving. Can you please go get the car?”
God bless Stu, he didn’t argue. He turned right back around and retrieved the car. Meanwhile, I stood at the entrance to the restaurant with C.J. and Hutton, who had most definitely quieted down. In fact, they were petrified. They were in big trouble, and they knew it. Stu pulled up, we all got into the car, and Stu pulled out of the lot.
“Okay, what happened in there?” he asked. I told him about the scene in the restaurant. “We are going straight home. I will not go out with them if that’s the way they behave in a restaurant. That behavior is absolutely not tolerable.” I was furious with both of them.
Stu agreed completely. We drove home with the two kids crying in the backseat the whole way. They were out of luck. We returned to the apartment where they each got a sandwich and were sent straight to bed. Hutton and C.J. were certainly cowed; they apologized over and over. So much for a nice family night out. As Stu and I sat at the kitchen table wondering what we were going to eat, I had to laugh. “You know what I’ve just realized, Stu? I really love those kids. I know I do because I want to kill them right now!”
It was a stunning realization. I didn’t just enjoy their company or tolerate them as part of the package. I loved these kids—unconditionally, the way I loved my own kids. To their credit, they respected what I said. Even that night, there was never any attitude along the lines of, “You’re not my mother!” or “I don’t have to listen to you!” Stu and I put up a united front. Not once did they go to him and try to get around anything I said.
I was always very straightforward. “I’m not your mother. You have a mother who loves you, and I’m not trying to replace her. You know I love your dad, and I want to spend time with you, but there are rules here. I’m not picking on you. Ask Paul and Jessica about the rules if you don’t believe me!” The kids sensed the love I had for their father and appreciated it. I had thought I was done raising children, but life was full of surprises.
N
ine months after I met him, Stu and I were very happily living together in his apartment, and my bond with his children continued to grow. Jessica was doing very well at college in Santa Barbara. I remained concerned about Paul, who lived and worked with his father, but he was all grown-up, so there was nothing much I could do. Stu and I grew closer and closer. My biggest fear—all the baggage I brought with me because of Joey—began to seem unfounded as life unwound peacefully.
It was so peaceful, in fact, that it was difficult for me to adjust to such a calm relationship. Stu didn’t tell me that he loved me ten times a day. He didn’t make over-the-top declarations about how beautiful I was all the time, or remind me constantly that he could not live without me. He didn’t come home with extravagant gifts for no reason. I had only known one kind of relationship—the roller-coaster. It was hard for me to fathom that love could be this comfortable and relaxed. After nearly a year of cohabitation, it was time to take the next step: a trip together to Long Island, where we’d both grown up. Stu was aware that my parents were very religious Catholics as he had heard quite a bit about them from the kids and me. My parents knew all about Stu, of course, and understood that our relationship was very serious. My mother, still smarting over the fact that I was divorced, couldn’t help making some remarks along the lines of, “Well, you could get an annulment, and Stu could convert to Catholicism . . .” but I cut them right off.
“Mom—I don’t care. Why should anyone we want to marry have to convert to our religion? What’s wrong with being Jewish or Buddhist or anything else for that matter? Stu is an amazing person, a great father, and so different from Joe! No one’s annulling anything or converting to or from anything!” I stood up to her on this one, but, laughable as it sounds, I couldn’t work up the courage to tell them we lived together. Divorcing had been bad enough. I couldn’t bear to hear what they’d say about this living arrangement.
Stu could not believe that at the age of nearly fifty I wouldn’t tell my own parents that we were living in sin. They always called my cell phone, so I was spared having to explain the move to them. It was much easier just to maintain the fiction that I still had my own place in Newport Beach. Stu found the situation ridiculous. “You’ve got to tell them we live together, here in my place!”
“No way, Stu. Not because I’m scared . . . but because I don’t want to hear it.”
We started the official “Meet Stu” tour on Long Island, where Stu met my sisters in addition to Joe’s sister Anne and her husband. Joe had given everybody such a run for their money, and it was obvious how happy we were together, so everybody welcomed Stu warmly. We took a little driving tour, with me pointing out my old school, church, and the infamous house. I had avoided this neighborhood like the plague for six long years—seeing it would have been just too sad. I had been so happy here; I could not have imagined another life. But I’d never had anything to compare it to. I was now with a new man, a new family, living an entirely different life thousands of miles away. I was content. Seeing all the old landmarks, which looked exactly the same, brought only a slight feeling of melancholy. This life didn’t fit me anymore.