Both of Us (10 page)

On the flight I’m imagining everything Paris has to offer and how I’ll romance my lady. When Patrick and I arrive at the hotel, I’m surprised by Farrah’s appearance. She looks haggard, and making matters worse, our son is cranky. So much for the return of the conquering hero. Tensions soon mount and will come to a head over a piece of chewing gum. Farrah is in the bathroom taking a shower. I’m groggy from jet lag, sitting on the bed with Patrick watching the World Cup on TV to relax. Patrick is chewing gum. Redmond, who was a toddler in 1986, wants some too, and like a fool I give him a piece. When Farrah comes out of the bathroom, she’s incensed. It was beyond irresponsible of me. I obviously wasn’t thinking. She rightfully becomes apoplectic. “He could have choked,” she shouts. Patrick and I decide to give Farrah some space, so we go for a walk, hoping she’ll have calmed down by the time we return. Though we manage to get through the last couple weeks on location without further incident, this event colors the rest of the trip for all of us.

All we can think about when
Nazi Hunter
wraps is returning to the familiar comforts of home. Our plans are deterred at the last minute. Tatum and John insist that on the way back to California, we stop over in New York for a visit at his parents’ Long Island estate. I’d met his mother only briefly, at the hospital when Tatum was in labor, and I’d never met his father. But I don’t want to hurt Tatum’s feelings by declining and Farrah hasn’t seen the baby yet, so with Patrick and little Redmond in tow, the four of us take a car from JFK to Oyster Bay. When we arrive, Tatum and John aren’t there and his parents greet us with perplexed expressions. Soon I’m waiting for Alan Funt to pop out from a bush and say, “Surprise! You’re on
Candid Camera
!” To this day, I remain convinced that John’s parents were not expecting guests that afternoon.

Despite the awkward start, thanks to Farrah’s unerring social grace, we spend a pleasant few days there, and then politely make our exit. And it’s not only desperately missing home that’s got me eager to leave. Several witnesses have come forward putting Griffin behind the wheel at the time of the accident, and my son needs his father. Two decades later, in her first book, Tatum will accuse Farrah and me of deliberately insulting John and his family with our abrupt departure. But that afternoon, as we’re exchanging good-byes with the McEnroes, we think everything is hunky-dory.

Three months later an old boxing friend of mine calls and asks if Farrah and I would like to ride with them to the
wedding. “What wedding?” I ask. “Tatum’s,” he replies. Now I know how John’s parents must have felt when they saw us standing on their doorstep. Tatum had mentioned the possibility of marrying John. She and Farrah had even discussed wedding dresses. Sometimes they would sit on the stairs that led to the beach and talk and laugh. I could hear the conversations from my bedroom. Tatum would range between the girl asking advice from her big sister to a peer discussing men, marriage, and babies.

“John’s parents want a big church wedding, but I’d rather do it on a surfboard on the beach,” Tatum says.

“It’s usually the other way around; it’s the girl who wants the traditional celebration and the guy who wants to get it over with as fast as possible,” Farrah replies.

“Maybe that’s because he’s a New Yorker and I’m a California beach girl,” she answers.

“I’ve only known you a few years, but you’ve always been your own person, sometimes for better, sometimes for worse.”

“It’s been hard for me, Farrah.”

“I know, Tatum, I know.”

Over the past year, Farrah and Tatum have had talks like these, and never once did my daughter say anything about an actual wedding date. I tell myself it isn’t true, that there has to be some mistake, that my daughter would never get married without her dad walking her down the aisle, without her grandparents sitting in the front row, proud of their
only granddaughter and unable to imagine a more beautiful bride. I tell myself that, yes, Tatum and I have had our struggles, but she’d never be that callous, she’d never hurt her family that way. And I can think of nothing to precipitate such hateful behavior. There haven’t been any blowups, no huge arguments, unless there was something smoldering beneath the surface, festering in that willful head of hers. I try to think of something I might have said or done, berating myself, then alternating to denial, convinced this is not so. I call my daughter and the machine picks up. I leave several messages. No response.

And then, The Telegram. It’s dated August 1, 1986, 9:30 a.m. Pacific Daylight Time. And it reads:

I hold the yellow slip of paper in my hand, and the images begin flooding my memory: tossing a fifteen-month-old butterball into the air and catching her, delighting in her giggles; a ten-year-old Tatum meeting Sir John Gielgud in London, and curtsying when I whisper in her ear that he’s a knight; that same girl watching me chat with Marlene Dietrich on an airplane and asking, “Daddy, who’s that old lady?” I can hear Tatum and me rehearsing for
Paper Moon
, and her asking me to stop because she didn’t want to get stale. She was nine years old. I see the two of us perched together on that yellow cardboard cutout of a half-moon, posing for the photograph that would illustrate the movie poster. Everyone assumes the photographer instructed her to pout for the photo. He didn’t. She couldn’t stand that itchy red taffeta dress Peter Bogdanovich, the director, made her wear that day. She was a precocious child. Hours on the set, takes and retakes, she rarely complained. I can still see little Addie Pray standing on that dusty country road, watching Mose drive away, and as the camera pulls back, she becomes smaller and smaller. In
Paper Moon
he comes back for Addie. Did I abandon the real girl on that dirt road? Or has she abandoned me?

When I found the telegram as I was reading some old papers refreshing my memory for this book, it made me relive the depths of disappointment all over again. A door inside me locked the morning that telegram came, and I am still blindly searching for the key to open it. I never knew
which Tatum I was going to encounter, the warm, affectionate girl or the chilly worrisome young woman. Looking back now, Tatum and John also hurt themselves. The focus of the press coverage wasn’t how beautiful the ceremony was or how glamorous the couple, but where were Ryan and Farrah? It shifted the conversation to family scandal, which was a shame. What still bothers me most was Tatum not inviting her grandparents. It’s one thing for my daughter to want to punish Farrah and me, but it’s another to do that to her grandparents. My mom and dad adored Tatum, were a loving, supportive presence in her life, and for them to be treated that way severed a bond between my daughter and me that has never been repaired.

Over the years, I often expressed my anger and frustration with Tatum to Farrah. She was never cold or unsympathetic. Early on she would listen to my woes about my children and offer reassurance, but eventually she would grow aloof. She had to in the interest of her own survival as well as our relationship. One day she sat me down and said, “Ryan, I can’t be your whole world. It’s not healthy. It’s also not possible. We’re both too dependent on each other, but I have a few close friends I can confide in. We shop, we gossip, we do lunch. You don’t have anyone like that. The only grown-up men in your life are Freddie Fields and your father, and you can go to them for practical advice and they’re helpful, but you don’t talk to them about feelings, hopes, dreams. I love it that you trust me enough to tell me everything, but
I’m not a sage and at times I feel overwhelmed, inadequate, and I resent the fact that you ask too much and I’m only able to give too little.” She was right and just as I didn’t know what to say to Freddie or my dad when I was hurting, I didn’t know what to say to Farrah then. I didn’t want it to be different. I didn’t want to need anyone but her. The two ends of our rainbow were no longer secured.

Before we’re able to process the difficult events of the summer, autumn is upon us and duty calls. I’ve been cast in the Norman Mailer film
Tough Guys Don’t Dance
, and I’ll be on location in New England for a couple of months, after which I’ll go to Maryland for Griffin’s trial. Farrah will visit me briefly on set but she’s busy preparing for
Poor Little Rich Girl
, the made-for-TV bio about Woolworth heiress Barbara Hutton, who had vast wealth and seven husbands but never found love. It’s an elaborate production. They’re shooting in London, Morocco, Los Angeles, and finishing in New York.

One of the luxuries of having a toddler is that you’re able to travel as a family without having to worry about your child missing school. As soon as the holidays are over, Farrah, Redmond, and I, and Red’s nanny, are on our way to London, ready for our next adventure. Before we even get out of the country, there’s a Dickensian twist to our departure. We’re in the air. We’ve just left Los Angeles International Airport. Suddenly, I feel the plane turning around. The pilot gets on the intercom and announces that we’re
rerouting the flight back to the airport for an emergency landing. There’s an audible gasp in the cabin. Farrah’s got Redmond in her lap. She tightens her grip on him. She is a soldier and a mother. While she may be terrified inside, nothing shows. Redmond picks up on her calmness and doesn’t fuss. I reach over to check her seatbelt, and then give my own a good, strong tug. Farrah tightens her grip on Redmond. The woman sitting next to us pulls out a rosary, starts to pray. Some passengers are crying. Redmond’s unaffected. He seems to think this is a fun new game. The pilot’s voice booms over the intercom again. “Folks, we’ll be using the emergency exit system today. Leave your carry-ons on board, and the flight attendants will direct you to the evacuation slides.”

By now people are on the edge of hysteria. The plane makes its final descent and the wheels screech to a halt. The flight attendants pull open the emergency hatches, inflate the slides, and begin hustling everyone to the exit doors. I ease myself onto the slide, tuck Redmond firmly between my legs, and Farrah sits behind me, her arms and legs wrapped around me, and together our little family descends to the tarmac. “Again, again!” shouts Redmond. He thinks we’re in Disneyland. We’ve been instructed to run as fast as we can to the ditch at the end of the runway. I hoist Redmond onto my shoulders, and the three of us scurry. We’ll read about the reason for the emergency in the newspaper. Apparently the IRA notified police there was a bomb on
board. This was during the Troubles in Belfast. A terrible business, but at least the Irish occasionally warn you first.

The next day we’re back on board and up we go again. The bomb threat has upset Farrah. It’s the first time I’ve seen her concerned about flying. So I take out the travel-size chess set that I’d brought along and teach her how to play, hoping it will keep her mind occupied. Not only does it distract her, but by the time we’re making our approach into London’s Heathrow Airport, she’s checkmated me. I try to be a good loser. She loved that. Farrah was cunning, but when you’re that pretty, people rarely give you any credit for your intelligence. Farrah had a keen mind. When she’d be handed a contract to sign, she’d review every line, and her questions would impress some of the best attorneys in the entertainment business. There was so much more to her than gleaming teeth and a bountiful head of hair. Farrah Fawcett wasn’t beauty with brains, she was brains with beauty.

In London we’re staying at Claridge’s, a classy hotel near Hyde Park. The first night we’re running through the TV channels when, to our surprise, we come across
Love Story
. With Redmond asleep beside us, Farrah and I watch it together for the first time, neither of us knowing how surely it predicts our future. Then again, the evening started out prophetically. A few hours earlier we’d called for room service and when our order arrived, as I was looking for my wallet, the guy dressed as a waiter suddenly has a camera aimed at us. He wouldn’t stop. So I wrestled him out of our
room. The incident was unsettling because someone must have helped this guy from the inside. I alerted the hotel manager, who was mortified and assured me that nothing like this would happen again. Wishful thinking. The next time we’re so nakedly invaded will be twenty years later under horrific circumstances, when everything else Farrah and I will have endured will bear no comparison.

It doesn’t take long for our family to return to our routine on location, though we do have an unexpected challenge the first few weeks. The nanny, a wonderful woman whom Redmond adores, injured her leg during our terrorism scare, and has to be excused for a while. So while Farrah’s filming, I watch Redmond and bring him with me to the set as often as possible. Farrah owns her craft now, and I’m moved by that newly confident girl who still wants my judgment and opinion.

This production will prove even more physically taxing than the one in Paris. Farrah is portraying Barbara Hutton from youth through old age, and must endure long hours in the makeup chair each morning as a team of artists transforms her into a believable illusion of a woman at different stages of her life. Layers of latex, glue, and heavy pancake makeup are applied and reapplied until they achieve the desired effect. They must create molds of her head and face, which makes her look mummified. It makes me feel claustrophobic to watch. And then, after all that, her day starts, and she’s got to act for eight to ten hours.