To Die For (10 page)

As a matter of fact, people used to say I was a little like Heather Locklear, too. The one that used to be on “Dynasty”? She’s Tommy’s wife. And of course I took that as a compliment. Her eyes are brown and mine are blue, but I see what they mean. She’s also blond of course, and petite like myself. And like Heather and Tommy, Larry and I were two individuals from very different walks of life—her, this major television personality, hanging around with people like Linda Evans and John Forsythe, and Tommy Lee, with a ring in his nose, and making these videos that are so crazy they won’t even show them on MTV. But underneath, you can tell he’s just a big teddy bear, who loves Heather to death. If you’ve ever read any interviews with him, you know how much he keeps her on a pedestal.

Larry was the same way about me. I mean, from the day we met he just worshiped me, and showed it. He was an old-fashioned guy in lots of ways: sending flowers, opening car doors for you. That kind of thing. He used to say, no matter how long we were together, he wanted to make every night of our life like it was our senior prom. He was a true romantic.

The first time I introduced Larry to my parents, I know my father, for one, was a little shocked. Not just the hair—which was pretty hard for my dad to understand, being an old Air Force man—but Larry’s whole carefree attitude. He was the kind of guy that would say, “Hey, you want to jump in the car and drive to Florida?” And he meant it.

Myself having been a very different sort of individual all my life, that aspect of Larry was actually very refreshing. I guess you could say I’d been so focused on my career and so forth, I hadn’t always taken time to stop and smell the roses. One thing Larry really knew how to do back then was have fun. It was like we were a couple of kids. In fact, I felt like more of a kid when we started dating—and I was in my twenties then—than I had when I actually was a teenager. Young at heart, I guess you could call him. He was one of those individuals who reached for the brass ring in life.

I could’ve chosen to marry someone more successful in the career arena. Which frankly was what my parents advised me to do. Myself having a college degree and so forth, and Larry coming from what you might call a more ethnic background. “You don’t know what you’re getting into, Suzanne,” my dad said to me, when Larry and I first started getting serious. “His family could be mixed up with the Mafia or who knows what.” That’s my dad for you. No matter how old I am, I’m still his little girl. Nobody was ever going to be good enough for me, as far as he was concerned.

It was ironic, what happened in the end. I mean the way Larry turned into this superresponsible, straight, business-orientated person that believed in all my parents’ goals of home and family, working hard and getting ahead. He even took up golf. That wasn’t the Larry I knew. Although, of course, I was so proud of him, to see him get so motivated.

We used to go dancing a lot. Friday nights, when he wasn’t working, we’d head over to this club we liked, Dandelion’s, where they had a good DJ and a nice crowd. Certain places you go—Little Paradise Beach, for example—the music may be great, but there’s an element that goes there—how do I put this? They may be perfectly nice people, but they don’t have a lot of education, don’t have goals. All they can think of is drinking and partying. While Larry and I, and the couples we socialized with, had our eyes on the future. We wanted a little something more out of life than to get drunk every weekend and come into work Monday morning with nothing more to say than how much beer they drank Saturday night. You know the type.

But at Dandelion’s you knew you’d rub shoulders with a different kind of clientele. These were people who skied and played tennis and went into Boston to have their hair cut. When Phil Collins was on tour, a bunch of us hired a limo to drive us down to Worcester for the concert. We may have been young, but we cared about the better things. One couple ran a clothing store. Another girl we used to see a lot used to be an executive assistant at
Vogue
magazine in New York City. She rode up on the elevator one time with Paulina. The model? Who is married (speaking of unlikely romances) to Ric Ocasek. And have you seen what he looks like? We’re not talking Rob Lowe. You think about the two of them maybe having kids someday, and you have to worry what they’d look like. But yet, they’re so much in love.

Larry and I also came from two very different worlds. There he was, from this kind of old-fashioned, traditional Italian family. You’ve met his mother, right? She’s a sweetheart, but you know what I mean. Every time some cousin of hers gets a cold, she publishes one of those letters to St. Jude in the newspaper. She served me this bowl of soup one time, some special recipe from the old country I guess. And when I got to the bottom, what do you think I found lying in my bowl? A chicken’s foot. Claws and all.

Whereas my family is what you’d call up with the times. My mom is a career woman. She takes care of herself, keeps in shape. The two of them fly to Las Vegas every winter. Take in a show on Broadway at least twice a year.
Les Mis.
Liza Minnelli.

We had our two sets of parents over for dinner at our condo together one time. A very elegant meal. Martha Stewart. Expensive wines, appetizers—and I don’t mean chips and dip. You could see the Marettos were out of their element. In fact, I have to say, the entire evening was uncomfortable. Our families had so little in common. But for Larry and myself, our love formed the bridge. He wasn’t just my husband. He was my best friend. He was a more laid-back sort of individual than myself. He was the kind of person that if you gave him a choice between going to a concert or staying home and watching the Celtics on TV, he’d just as soon choose the game. But once you got him out, you knew how much potential he really had. That’s why we were a perfect couple. I had the motivation that acted as a catalyst for him. He used to say being married to me made him want to accomplish more for himself than he did before. He started listening to things like the Pachelbel Canon. Buying socks that weren’t white. Taking these accounting courses and restaurant management seminars. He had a tape player installed in his Firebird so he could listen to motivational tapes. This was a guy that used to live from one party to the next, and now his whole orientation became getting ahead in the business, buying a home, life insurance, taking up golf even. Life’s funny. I married a rock drummer and ended up with a younger version of my dad.

S
UZANNE CALLED ME UP
one morning. Things had quieted down by this time. She was working hard down at the station, Larry was managing the restaurant on weekends and taking an accounting course at night on top of that. They were busy with the puppy of course, always the puppy. And they’d bought this cute living room set, sectionals. White, naturally. Try talking a pair of newlyweds out of a white sofa, that haven’t started a family yet. They just can’t picture what lies ahead.

“I got this great idea last night while I was lying in bed,” she said. “I’m going to give a dinner party. For the two sets of parents. You and dad, and Larry’s folks.”

Now, my daughter was never exactly Betty Crocker. I’ll never forget her making quiche this one time, back when she was in high school. She just stuck a hunk of cheese on top of the pre-baked pie crust and poured a little cream and egg mixture on top. Said she figured it would melt and blend in, once she put it in the oven.

But the other thing about Suzanne is, once she sets her mind to doing something, she does it. And not halfway either. So you knew it wasn’t going to be any take-out pizza dinner she’d be serving us, or even spaghetti or hamburgers. You knew you were in for a gourmet experience.

“I don’t know, Susie,” I told her. “Joe and Angela seem like nice people, but they don’t have that much in common with your father and I.” I mean, Joe Maretto wasn’t exactly the kind of person you could sit down with and say, “Did you read that article in yesterday’s
Wall Street Journal
?” I doubt the man has held a golf club in his whole life, unless maybe he keeps one behind the bar at that restaurant of his, to use on unruly drunks. The other thing I didn’t want to mention to Suzanne was, these people are Italians. They know their food—as you have only to look at Larry’s mother to realize. I didn’t want to see Suzanne getting in over her head. Didn’t want to leave her open to criticism, you know, when this really wasn’t her forte.

“Don’t worry, Mom,” she said. “I already bought a recipe book. It’s by this woman named Martha Stewart who’s a real expert at entertaining. There’s plenty of pictures.”

So it was all set. The four of us were going to Larry and Suzanne’s Columbus Day. This was two, maybe two and a half weeks’ notice, but you know Suzanne. Always the perfectionist. I doubt a day went by she wasn’t on the phone to check on some detail or other. Could she borrow my crystal wineglasses? How about Grandmother Miller’s lace tablecloth? What did I think of pear-filled crepes and barquettes with leek chiffonade for appetizers? I won’t even get started in on telling you all we went through over the main dish: should it be Italian, knowing the Marettos, plus the fact of it being Columbus Day? Or did she want to steer clear of Italian food? In the end she went with a pesto-goat cheese-sun-dried tomato lasagna recipe of Martha Stewart’s, with raspberry orange soup for the first course. She was going to have these little individual radicchio leaves with smoked quail and currant sauce and coriander on the side.

What kind of wine? She went out and bought a book about that. I can’t even remember what she ended up going with, red or white. But whatever it was, you knew it was the right choice.

Day of the dinner, Suzanne was a nervous wreck. This is just the six of us mind you—all family. But that didn’t matter to our Susie. She might as well have been cooking for President Bush. Everything had to be just so. And it was.

Larry was so proud of her. Anyone could see that. “Can you believe my wife?” he said, when he was taking our coats. “All I can say is, Julia Child better look out or she could be looking for a new job.”

“How about that idea?” said Earl. “You ever think of introducing a cooking-type show on that cable station of yours?”

Suzanne was looking a little tired. She didn’t say anything. She still had tarts or something in the oven she had to keep checking on.

So we all sat ourselves down on this new sectional sofa of theirs. His mother couldn’t get over the color. “All I can say is, the first thing I buy you, when your first child is born, is a set of plastic slipcovers,” said Angela.

“This is the new style, Ma,” says Larry. “You don’t put slipcovers on a sectional.”

“Yeah, well furniture styles may change,” she told him. “But I’ll tell you one thing that doesn’t, and that’s what babies do in their diapers. And it doesn’t always stay in their diapers either.”

Larry serves us cocktails. They have swizzle sticks, napkins with their names printed on the corner even. I tell you, these kids had thought of everything. “So, Pop,” he says. “How’s it going down at the restaurant?”

“Pretty much the same as when you were there yesterday,” his father says. Then we all just sit there.

“Have you lost weight, Angela?” I say. Not that she was looking exactly svelte, but you wanted to keep the conversation going.

“Who knows?” says his mother. “I don’t step on the scale, the scale doesn’t step on me.”

“Speaking of weight,” says Earl, “have you seen that Delta Burke, on ‘Designing Women’? First she gets married, and next thing you know the woman’s bursting out of all her clothes. Every week you tune in the show, she’s a little fatter. Good-looking woman, too.”

“Think that would ever happen to you, honey?” says Larry, and he gives Suzanne a pat on the rear. One thing I happen to know Suzanne never liked is that sort of thing. Certain gestures you can save for the bedroom, you know?

Suzanne doesn’t say a word. She’s dishing out the soup I think.

“Well I just want to say for the record, that if Suzanne ever did pack on a few extra pounds like that Delta Burke, I’d love her just as much. There’d just be more to love, is all.”

“In my business you have to be very careful about your diet,” says Suzanne. “The television camera puts an extra ten pounds on everyone. So you can’t let your guard down for a minute.”

“Well I for one plan to let my guard down tonight anyways,” says Larry. Who looked like he’d been packing on a few extra pounds himself since the wedding, if you want to know the truth. “Can you believe the spread my girl put on for you guys?”

We sat down to eat. I tell you, this was quite a meal. Though I’m not sure whether the Marettos fully appreciated it.

“Skinny little buggers, these quail,” says Joe. “I guess they were out of chicken, huh.”

W
E WERE AT THE
mall this one time. Just hanging out, you know. Looking at the records and stuff. We’re walking past this store called Victoria’s Secret that sells fancy lingerie, and Suzanne says, “Hey, let’s go in here.”

It was just for fun, you know. I wasn’t in any rush to get home, hear my mom yell at me for not spending more time watching TV with her or something. Suzanne said Larry was off riding ATVs with his friends. So why not?

I never was in a place like this before. First of all, the way it smelled, which was all flowery from these baskets of potpourri they put all over the place, and perfumes and soaps. Everyplace you look there’s lace pillows and satin and flowers. Real feminine. There’s negligees and silk robes and these slippers with feathers all over the front. If you want to look at yourself, it’s not a regular mirror, they’ve got this mirror with gold all around the edges.

I’ll give you an example. Say you wanted a bra. You wouldn’t just look for your size and go pay for it. They’ve got twenty million styles, all different colors, with lace and pearls stitched on in different places, all hanging on these special gold hangers, and if you can’t find something you like hanging up, they have special drawers with sachets and more bras in there. They even have that old-fashioned kind, like Madonna sometimes wears, that’s strapless but it fastens in the front and it goes all the way to your waist. I wouldn’t wear something like that, but it looks really good on her.