What Really Happened (29 page)

“Okay,” I said. “Listen to me. You have to trust me. Have I ever told you something that wasn’t true?”

“No.”

“Okay, listen carefully. You are not yourself right now. You have been traumatized and you have gone temporarily insane. I cannot let you go into the world. I cannot leave you in the hands of Elizabeth and her abuse until you have returned to your normal self. If then you want to end our relationship, I will be fine with that, but right now, I am not allowing this to end. You cannot cut off your connection with me. Do you understand what I am saying?”

“I’m not sure I agree with you.”

“You don’t have to agree with me but you cannot stop talking to me right now. Your daughter needs you.”

Quinn’s favorite vibrating, musical seat, which enabled me to cook or take a shower.

That got him. He wasn’t going anywhere.

To this day he has no memory of that phone call. I, on the other hand, revisited that call in my head many times over, wondering why I didn’t just let him go. The only rational explanation I can come up with is that I didn’t want to cut him out of my life at that point because I didn’t want to cut him out of Quinn’s life.

He called again the next day, sounding much better, but still not anywhere near himself. He informed me that Elizabeth wanted me to sign a confidentiality agreement that I would never, ever tell anyone the truth about our relationship, except Quinn. I could tell my daughter who her father is.

I balked immediately. “No, I will not sign that.”

“I need you to. She is going crazy. She screams at me all the time.”

“So let me get this straight,” I said. “In order for Elizabeth to save face, she wants my daughter to grow up living a lie? That is never going to happen.”

“She’s going crazy. She is afraid you are going to tell the world the truth.”

“I have no desire to talk to anyone but I am not signing a confidentiality agreement. I went against what I believe is right once. That will never happen again.”

“I am stuck between both of you. And she is screaming at me constantly.”

It was that simple: he wanted me to give Elizabeth her way so she would stop screaming at him. She could scream all she wanted; it wouldn’t change my mind.

He sighed. “You’re both impossible. She is never going to change.”

“So be it. I am not signing anything.”

It still amazes me the extent to which people do not understand that most of the mental and emotional pain that we experience is caused by not getting our way. We want something other than what happened or is happening. Once, Johnny and I were having a conversation, and he said, “But it’s more complicated than that.” I said, “No, your mind makes it complicated. It’s actually quite simple. The world isn’t going the way you want it to, and that is what’s causing the pain.”

Also, at this point, Andrew wasn’t getting what he wanted—
more money
— and he was driving Fred crazy. Fred really wanted Johnny to talk to Andrew and get him off his back.

Johnny finally agreed to meet with Andrew. In that meeting, Johnny asked Andrew, “What are those checks you got from Bunny?” And Andrew lied to him, saying he didn’t know what Johnny was talking about.

Now it seems to me if Johnny had actually told Andrew to solicit money from Bunny, all Andrew would have had to say was, “What do you mean what are those checks? That’s the money you told me to get for Rielle.”

Apparently Andrew also told Johnny during this meeting, after Johnny told him there was not going to be a foundation funded by Bunny, that Cheri found a sex tape and described the tape in a vulgar, inaccurate way. Andrew was blackmailing Johnny.

Johnny had finally had enough of Andrew. From all accounts, it appeared that Andrew had stolen money from Bunny and had taken complete advantage of Fred. I was telling Johnny that Andrew was bad news and to stay away from him, the very same thing that Elizabeth had been screaming for years, and now Andrew was blackmailing Johnny with a sex tape. He also claimed to have voicemails and emails he was going to share with the world.

From Johnny’s point of view, Andrew couldn’t hurt him because he had already told Elizabeth that he was Quinn’s father. He had faced his biggest fear and was still alive. He was done with Andrew. Praise the Lord.

Johnny called me after this meeting to tell me what Andrew had said about having a tape. I didn’t believe Andrew and thought he was bluffing. I told Johnny that I had destroyed the tape in December 2006 and didn’t believe Andrew was telling the truth about that, especially given the way he described the tape.

Elizabeth, being so brilliant at manipulating the media (and right out of the James Carville school of how to win—get your story out first), was on the cover of
People
. She didn’t speak to them on the record but directed her brother and best friend Hargrave to speak. The piece was all about how she was coping with her anguish and determination to keep her family together, and how she had made the agonizing decision to forgive John for the sake of her family. I read that and couldn’t help but wonder what she meant when she said forgiveness, because it certainly wasn’t anything that I recognized as being forgiving. Was it somewhere in between her vile rants, using her kids as pawns, and attempting to hold Johnny hostage in his own home, all while she attempted to get me to sign off on allowing my daughter to grow up under a lie? I wouldn’t call any of that forgiveness. As usual, my irritation was triggered from the spin being so far away from the reality. My irritation was not caused by Elizabeth spinning reality but by my own thoughts about her spinning reality. Shockingly enough, the world was happening the way I think it shouldn’t be. As usual, I let it go quickly.

The Santa Barbara Zoo, 2008.

At the very end of August, a surprising and glorious thing happened. It was late morning, Quinn was snoozing away during her first nap of the day, and I was watching TV next to her when John McCain named Sarah Palin as his vice presidential running mate. Right then and there, I smiled wide because I knew in that moment my sweet girl and I had just become yesterday’s news. Sure enough, the mainstream media, the tabloids, and the bloggers all packed up and moved on to the great state of Alaska to focus on (stalk, uncover information on, trash) their new media darling, Sarah Palin.

Quinn’s first Thanksgiving, Santa Barbara, CA, 2008.

September was peaceful and uneventful. Bliss in Santa Barbara. Johnny and I spoke on the phone every day. He was still not well, not himself, and very detached, but he had started seeing a therapist. Nothing had changed in his marriage. From Elizabeth’s perspective, Johnny had ruined her life. Privately, she blamed him much more than she blamed me. I also heard she blamed the old mistresses and still harassed them from time to time but directed most of her abuse and punishment at Johnny. And the poor guy, they don’t have any locks on the bedroom doors, so no matter where he was in that house, or in the barn, she would find him at all hours of the night to scream bloody murder at him for hours on end. Sometimes she would even hit him.

She also began to write her book
Resilience
. It’s sort of a sad joke that she would be writing a book about how resilient she was and how she overcame her tragedies, including infidelity, at this point in her life. In her defense, given the success of
Saving Graces,
she was already set to write another book. Still, she could have also told the truth.

Fred called me at the end of September. He was on his way to the Mayo Clinic. We talked about moving my stuff out of the house in North Carolina. Mimi was doing it all, and was going to send him all the invoices and so forth. We also talked about the used BMW that I was driving around, which now belonged to him. I let him know that the registration was expiring soon and would need to be renewed but I didn’t have the title. When I asked Fred what he wanted to do about that, he said, “I’ll send you the title. You keep the car. I have enough cars. I have cars in Aspen, Texas, and one in North Carolina. I don’t need another car. You can have it.” I was completely floored by his generosity. I couldn’t thank him enough.

Fred also expressed to me his frustrations about Johnny. Like me, Fred really wanted him to step up to the plate and to stop placating Elizabeth. I did not know then that it was the last time I would ever speak to Fred.

Fred passed away on October 30
^th
, 2008. He had wanted Johnny to speak at his funeral, but Lisa Blue understandably vetoed it. Johnny went and didn’t speak. For obvious reasons she didn’t want me anywhere near the service. Fred’s highly publicized gifts to me colored all the great deeds of his lifetime. To this day, that saddens me whenever I think of it.

I spoke to lawyer Abbe Lowell on the phone a few times after Fred passed away because he was helping Lisa at that time. Rob Gordon had signed off on me speaking to Abbe directly. By this time I was timid about talking to anyone new, but Rob said, “You will see when you talk to him, he’s a great guy.” Rob was right about that. Rob also signed off as my lawyer and continued on as my friend. Abbe told me that the feds were now investigating, so I was now going to need a criminal lawyer
and
a family lawyer.

My lease was up at the beginning of December, so Quinn and I moved back to New Jersey. I was so excited to be back in New Jersey because I missed Mimi and the boys so much. The press reports were hilarious, making up all kinds of nonsensical speculation about why we would be landing back in New Jersey. The truth? I missed my best friend and I felt too isolated in Santa Barbara. As a single mom, my adult interaction was all too rare. Living with loved ones was very enticing to me, to say nothing of having emotional support.

I also had no idea what my finances were going to be like. I had enough money from Fred to last for a while, but then what? I didn’t know.

TWENTY-TWO

Jersey Girls

“Patience, n. A minor form of despair, disguised as a virtue.”

—
A
MBROSE
B
IERCE

I
N THE BEGINNING of December 2008 Johnny went to Haiti with the director and producer Paul Haggis and called me as soon as he arrived. Quinn and I had just arrived in New Jersey. Johnny was sounding almost like his old self. He said, “I have to tell you something very important.”