I looked as if I were about eighteen months pregnant. My friend ordered two shots of brandy and told me not to sip them but to belt them down as fast as I could. And what do you know, a few moments later my muscles relaxed, I could breathe freely, and my stomach returned to its normal size. I’d never had any relationship with alcohol at that point in my life, for the simple reason that I just plain didn’t like the taste of it. But if it could calm these stomach spasms, and even my nerves, and make all this not hurt quite so much? Sure, hell, why not start keeping some brandy, or whatever, around the house just in case? It worked too, at first to get rid of the stomach spasms and, before long, to prevent them in the first place. Not only that, but it was also socially acceptable, legal, and readily accessible, and it helped me sleep. Even the taste wasn’t so bad once I got used to it. What had I been thinking, rejecting alcohol for all these years when it had so much to offer?
The divorce proceeding itself was as predictable as the sun coming up. Harry showed up in court with a team of attorneys and a stack of falsified documents. I showed up with one lawyer and the truth. Harry thought he should receive alimony. The judge and I thought he shouldn’t. He thought I should continue living in our Beverly Hills house and pay him $5,000 a month rent. The judge and I thought the house should be sold and I should pay Harry $0 a month rent. The house went on the market the same day the divorce was finalized, and frankly, at that point, I didn’t really care where I went from there or what, if anything, I took with me. I just wanted out .
Fortunately, my children did care, and Corbin found a wonderful house for me on Coldwater Canyon in the Hollywood Hills. It was beautiful, secluded, and peaceful but still an easy drive to work, and I loved it there. I spent countless hours decompressing in that house and thinking (maybe even obsessing) about how I got there. The truth, I came to realize, was that while Harry was happy to take every possible advantage of my success, he also resented me for it, and I promised myself I would never again put myself in the position of feeling apologetic for any achievement I damn well knew I’d earned. Nor would I ever again ignore for the sake of convenience what my heart was telling me—in this case, that I’d stayed far too long in a marriage to a man I no longer loved and had honestly come to dislike.
I would and will always give him credit for two things: being one of the most brilliant agents I’d ever seen before his greed and amorality ruined his career, and being the one and only man who could have given me these three magnificent children I wouldn’t trade for any other children on this earth.
And while I thought, and regrouped, and relaxed, and faced facts, I drank. I tricked myself into thinking it helped, that it gave me added clarity—in vino veritas and all that. I became an enthusiastic social drinker, telling myself the lie that it didn’t affect my behavior in the least except to possibly make me more fun at parties, and I drank alone, which did make me privately wonder from time to time if I might be developing a problem. In general, though, having clearly learned nothing at all on this subject from Katherine Chancellor, by the time she’d become clean and sober, I’d become a full-blown alcoholic, and I stayed that way for a good—or frankly not so good—three or four years.
Any illusion I might have had that I was a productive, high-functioning, discreet alcoholic (if there is any such thing) was shattered one day when my son Collin knocked at the door.
“Pack a bag, Mom,” he said as he came striding into the house. “I’m taking you to St. John’s hospital.”
“Why would you do that?” I asked him.
He stood facing me, and to this day I remember and admire how neither his voice nor his eyes wavered for an instant. “Bill Bell called. He has a big
The divorce proceeding itself was as predictable as the sun coming up. Harry showed up in court with a team of attorneys and a stack of falsified documents. I showed up with one lawyer and the truth. Harry thought he should receive alimony. The judge and I thought he shouldn’t. He thought I should continue living in our Beverly Hills house and pay him $5,000 a month rent. The judge and I thought the house should be sold and I should pay Harry $0 a month rent. The house went on the market the same day the divorce was finalized, and frankly, at that point, I didn’t really care where I went from there or what, if anything, I took with me. I just wanted out .
Fortunately, my children did care, and Corbin found a wonderful house for me on Coldwater Canyon in the Hollywood Hills. It was beautiful, secluded, and peaceful but still an easy drive to work, and I loved it there. I spent countless hours decompressing in that house and thinking (maybe even obsessing) about how I got there. The truth, I came to realize, was that while Harry was happy to take every possible advantage of my success, he also resented me for it, and I promised myself I would never again put myself in the position of feeling apologetic for any achievement I damn well knew I’d earned. Nor would I ever again ignore for the sake of convenience what my heart was telling me—in this case, that I’d stayed far too long in a marriage to a man I no longer loved and had honestly come to dislike.
I would and will always give him credit for two things: being one of the most brilliant agents I’d ever seen before his greed and amorality ruined his career, and being the one and only man who could have given me these three magnificent children I wouldn’t trade for any other children on this earth.
And while I thought, and regrouped, and relaxed, and faced facts, I drank. I tricked myself into thinking it helped, that it gave me added clarity—in vino veritas and all that. I became an enthusiastic social drinker, telling myself the lie that it didn’t affect my behavior in the least except to possibly make me more fun at parties, and I drank alone, which did make me privately wonder from time to time if I might be developing a problem. In general, though, having clearly learned nothing at all on this subject from Katherine Chancellor, by the time she’d become clean and sober, I’d become a full-blown alcoholic, and I stayed that way for a good—or frankly not so good—three or four years.
Any illusion I might have had that I was a productive, high-functioning, discreet alcoholic (if there is any such thing) was shattered one day when my son Collin knocked at the door.
“Pack a bag, Mom,” he said as he came striding into the house. “I’m taking you to St. John’s hospital.”
“Why would you do that?” I asked him.
He stood facing me, and to this day I remember and admire how neither his voice nor his eyes wavered for an instant. “Bill Bell called. He has a big
Similar Books
