Breaking the Surface (23 page)

I’d like to set the record straight about something. For years, people have spread rumors linking me to various Hollywood moguls.

In 1989 my agent set up a meeting for me with a casting director for a part in a police drama. I finished my reading and she asked me whom I was studying with, and I told her. She told me that I had some promise and that I should really talk to Barry about my career. I asked, “Barry who?” She looked at me skeptically and said, “Barry Diller.” I told her that I’d met “Barry Dillard”—which is what I thought his name was—only twice and probably wouldn’t even recognize him. She said, “You mean you’re not…” and then she caught herself and said she was sorry.

That wasn’t the first time I’d heard that rumor, and I’ve long suspected that Tom was the source. He probably thought it would be good for me to have my name linked to one of Hollywood’s biggest producers, and I guess he didn’t care how it was linked. It bothered me to think that I wasn’t getting work because people thought I had some kind of connection to him. It bothered me even more to think that people assumed he bought my house in Malibu for me. I paid for that house myself, with a lot of hard work. I started thinking that I should just call Barry Diller up and say, “As long as you’re not keeping me, the least you can do is get me work!”

For the record, I’ve never been kept by anyone, although it sounds like a nice life. But people believe what they want to believe.

I kept going to the occasional audition but pretty much put my performing career on the back burner and concentrated instead on training and breeding my dogs. And for the record, I keep
them,
and it
is
a nice life.

A
FTER
T
OM AND
I moved to Malibu in 1985, we had a pretty easy time sorting out who did what. I cleaned the house, Tom took care of the grounds, and he did most of the grocery shopping, but we often did it together. Tom was supposed to take care of the cars, but he wasn’t terribly responsible.

I had a Corvette that had been leased to me for a year at no cost, in exchange for my doing advertisements for a local car dealership. After the lease was up, Tom returned the car with the oil run down to a dangerous level and the engine ruined. My name was on the lease, and no one else was supposed to use the car. I was away in Florida, and I didn’t know there was a problem until years later, after Tom and I had split up. One of my contacts at the dealership told me that they couldn’t do anything with the car and then explained the condition it was in when Tom brought it back.

When it came to preparing meals, I did all the cooking. I liked to cook, so I didn’t mind. Sometimes Tom and I would eat together in the kitchen and sometimes I just delivered his meals to the office. If I ever called downstairs and said, “Tom, dinner’s ready,” he’d get angry. I would have to walk down to the office and ask, “Would you like your dinner down here, or would you like to have dinner upstairs?” I fell into such a servile role so easily, I can hardly believe it now.

If Tom was on the phone, I’d write him a note that dinner was ready and set it down in front of him. I once made the mistake of trying to hand him a note when he was on the phone, and he got pretty irate. He put the phone on hold and yelled, “What the hell do you expect me to do, you idiot? Just put the fucking note down on my desk.”

Looking back, it seems pathetic and sick that I was so deferential to Tom. But I never wanted him to get upset with me, because he really knew how to hurt me. He could have me feeling stupid in a matter of seconds, and I’d retreat with my tail between my legs. So I tried to keep the peace and not rock the boat.

Tom and I didn’t entertain much. In the beginning, sometimes my diving friends would come over and we’d all play Scrabble or Uno. Tom liked playing board games, but you had to play by “Tom’s rules,” which meant that Tom always had to win.

Tom also liked to correct me in front of other people. During conversations with people, if I used a word improperly, Tom would interrupt and say that clearly I hadn’t meant what I said. Then he’d translate what he believed I’d meant to say. When I told him that I felt bad when he corrected me in front of other people, he said, “Give me an example. When did I do that?” If I didn’t remember the exact circumstance, he would say, “Until you can get your facts straight, I don’t know what you’re talking about, so don’t bring it up to me.” At the time, I didn’t think of any of this as abuse, because Tom wasn’t hitting me, but it still made me feel awful.

Once we moved up to Malibu, Tom started handling our social life entirely. He told me, “You don’t know your schedule. I know your schedule, so you talk to me before you make any plans.” Sometimes I suggested that we have people over for Easter or Thanksgiving or just for a dinner party. Tom would take it from there and make the arrangements and do all the inviting. He needed to control my every move, and I allowed him to do it.

I began to realize that I didn’t enjoy being home with Tom. In general, his attitude toward me was that I never did anything. He was always saying, “Somebody’s got to work in this house.” My diving was nothing. My appearances were nothing.
He
was doing the real work, because he was on the phone, talking to people and making deals.

All I really wanted from Tom was for him to love me and to show me affection, but he was never the kind of man you would describe as loving or affectionate. In the beginning, we would cuddle at night, and sometimes if he was watching
60 Minutes
on TV—he never missed
60 Minutes
—I’d have my head on his lap and he’d stroke my hair, which I loved. Unfortunately, that stopped happening after the first few months of the relationship.

When it came to our physical life, after the first few months, I was the one who always had to take the initiative. When we did have sex, Tom could be anywhere from extremely tender to indifferent to brutal, which I didn’t like.

By the time we moved in together, I always felt like I was begging for his attention, including begging for sex. When we did have sex, it felt like he was doing me a favor. That was a horrible feeling. Over the years it got worse, and after a while I just assumed that he didn’t love me anymore.

Part of the problem was that I spent several months at a time in Florida training, but even when Tom came to visit, he would avoid making love. For example, if I made an advance, he’d suddenly get busy on the phone or tell me he had to take care of business. Often he would leave me at a hotel and go out until the early hours of the morning. A lot of times he’d say, “I didn’t want that house—
you
did. Now we’ve got to figure out how to pay for it. I’ve got to go take care of business, because somebody has to.” So he’d put me to bed at eleven or twelve o’clock and give me a kiss and say, “Good night, my little dummy,” and leave. I didn’t see him until four in the morning. And I
was
a dummy, because I believed him when he said that he was going out to do business. It never occurred to me he was out hustling or picking up men just for fun.

Once, when we were in Indianapolis, I asked Tom what he did during those late-night/early-morning hours. He said that I had no right to question what he was doing because he was taking care of my business. He turned the situation around by bringing up my socalled unfaithfulness to him: “You’re the one who can’t be trusted. How dare you! I’m taking care of everything, and all you have to do is show up!” Where, I wonder now, was my self-respect?

Megan tried to tell me that Tom wasn’t exactly out signing contracts at three in the morning, but I didn’t want to believe her. If I had, that would have meant he was lying to me. If he was lying to me, then I’d have to think about what other lies he was telling me. I would have to think about ending the relationship, and I couldn’t imagine life without Tom. He had convinced me that I couldn’t survive on my own.

I try now to remember a time with Tom that was truly happy. There were a couple of times that stand out: driving home from Los Angeles after the ’84 Olympics, having just won two gold medals. He was proud of me, and I was proud of myself. Then there was a time walking down the beach in Laguna and going to get a frozen yogurt. But the Tom of my happy memories is a different person from the Tom he was the rest of the time.

I can’t remember if he ever said he loved me. He wrote me notes sometimes and said in the notes that he loved me. The note would usually be about how when I was home he couldn’t wait for me to leave and now that I was gone he missed me.

One of the most confusing letters I got from Tom was one he sent to me from Puerto Rico, where he’d gone for a vacation while I was in Florida training. First he talked about how romantic the setting was, but how there was something missing. I thought he was going to say that if I was with him, the romantic setting would be complete. But instead, he went on to say that he didn’t think my being there would help, and that life never lives up to the fantasy. Then he switched gears again, talking about all his regrets for not treating me better and how he’d always love me even if we broke up.

As if I wasn’t confused enough, Tom would follow a letter like the one from Puerto Rico with a totally positive and supportive note that usually said something like, “Hi Honey! I miss you! Please do well at the competition. Don’t forget to believe in yourself! And most importantly, I love you and only you!”

If Tom’s goal was to keep me off balance, he did a good job. Just when I was thinking he didn’t love me, he’d toss me a bone and I’d think I was wrong, that he really did love me. Then he’d come for a visit to Florida, and it would be pretty awful, but after he left I’d get a loving letter, and I was sure I was losing my mind.

Tom was good at manipulating me, and I was a willing victim. I wanted to believe he loved me, and I convinced myself he did because he worked so hard to keep me busy. And he did some genuinely positive things, like getting me to quit smoking and drinking.

Tom’s constant criticisms had me look at a lot of things in my life to see how I could improve myself. By this time I’d already stopped using cocaine, because it hurt my diving, but smoking and drinking didn’t seem to have any noticeable effect, so I didn’t seriously consider quitting those until Tom raised the issue.

Before I met Tom, it was typical for me to have a six-pack of beer a day. I’d been drinking since junior high, and a few times over the years my coaches told me I should cut back, but compared to my father’s drinking, a six-pack didn’t seem like that much.

Tom had me write out the reasons why I drank. I came up with two reasons: to escape and to cope with my depression. We talked about it for a while, and before the end of the discussion, Tom had me convinced that I was an alcoholic and that I had to quit.

Not drinking turned out to be pretty easy in the short term, but in the long term it was tough. Invariably, at parties I’d be offered a drink before dinner and then wine with dinner. For a few years, I stayed away from alcohol entirely. These days, I’ll have a drink occasionally.

My smoking came up because of something that happened before Tom and I had our self-improvement talk. I was a closet smoker. I never smoked at diving events or in public places where there were a lot of people. I was at Mission Viejo one day judging an event, and between rounds, I went out to the parking lot to have a cigarette. I hadn’t lit up yet when I ran into one of the kids on the team. He was smoking a cigarette, and I asked, “What the hell are you doing?” He said, “When I grow up I want to be just like you, and
you
smoke.” I was stunned, but I couldn’t deny it.

I wrote down the reasons I smoked: My parents had smoked. It gave me something to do. It filled my time. It was also a rebellious act, something I wasn’t supposed to do. I had the reputation of being a goody-two-shoes athlete, and I didn’t want to be.

Tom and I reviewed the list together and decided I would quit smoking. I was allowed to have three more cigarettes, and that would be it. I smoked one cigarette the next morning, one that evening, and then the next morning I smoked half a cigarette. That second evening I smoked the other half and it was disgusting. Smoking a relighted cigarette is awful—and a wonderful way to quit. I didn’t even finish it.