You Have No Idea: A Famous Daughter, Her No-Nonsense Mother, and How They Survived Pageants, Hollywood, Love, Loss (18 page)

Bruce and I posing for a Syracuse photography project on campus

CHAPTER

13

I
was busy cooking a special dinner for Chris, who was home for the first time since starting his freshman year at Georgetown University a few months earlier. Ramon walked into the kitchen and stood next to me, not saying much, but I could tell he had something important to tell me.

Uh oh.
The alarm went off in my head.

“Yes?” I asked as calmly as possible, but I was not feeling calm at all. My stomach tensed up.

“I would like to marry your daughter and I’m coming to get your blessing.”

I looked at him and said flatly: “Well, does Vanessa know about this? Does she want to marry you?”

That’s all I said. Ramon looked shocked.

I guess that wasn’t exactly the reaction he was hoping for. I truly
doubt he was expecting hugs and kisses from me, but I think he was hoping for something a little better than my response. I don’t think Ramon ever knew what to make of Milton and me. Ramon told me later that he asked Milton for Vanessa’s hand while Milton was underneath the car, fixing something. Milton’s response? “You better go talk to Helen.”

He never even got out from underneath the car! As you can guess, we weren’t happy about it.

Ramon was a very smart, nice guy, who had offered incredible support when Vanessa needed it. I don’t think she could have gotten through the Miss America scandal without him. He really came in and saved the day. And Vanessa’s always been a romantic. I could see how she could fall in love with him. He was her knight in shining armor.

But does that mean she should marry him?

I learned a long time ago to keep my mouth closed. Vanessa would do what she wanted to do. There was nothing I could say to change that.

But she was only twenty-three years old! (And, as I found out later, pregnant!)

Just a few weeks later—before I could even get used to the idea—I was sitting in a limo with Vanessa and her bridesmaids, Deborah, Toni, and Diane. We were parked out front of the Church of St. Francis Xavier in lower Manhattan, waiting to head in for the wedding. I looked fabulous in a beautiful cranberry-colored Stephen Yearick gown. I was thinking,
I better say something now before it’s too late.

I cleared my throat.

“You still have time. You don’t have to get married.”

Before I had spoken, everybody had been laughing and chatting. Now there was complete silence. I think I really shocked everyone. Vanessa’s and her friends’ eyes seemed to pop out. They looked traumatized. They probably had thought I was going to say how
happy I was for Vanessa. I just wanted her to know that if she had second thoughts, her father and I were fine with it. We’d be there for her.

Minutes ticked by. It was completely quiet.

Suddenly, Milton was outside the limo, waiting for me.

“Oh, there’s Mr. Williams. Mr. Williams is here,” the bridesmaids announced as cheerfully as possible.

That was my cue to leave. They just wanted me out of that car as soon as possible. I’m sure the minute the door slammed, they had a conversation about me.

“Can you believe my mother?”

But I had to say it. And I’m glad I did. Vanessa was so young. She had her whole life ahead of her. I suppose you could say, who am I to speak? I married Milton when I was only twenty—three years younger than Vanessa was. But that’s why I’m the perfect person to speak—I’m talking from experience.

I don’t regret marrying Milton one bit. But I had left a family situation that was a disaster, gone to college, graduated, and then got married by age twenty. I never lived on my own or made decisions on my own without taking someone else into consideration. I always felt that being on your own for a while is a very important part of growing up.

If I were to advise a young woman, I’d say, “Be independent for a while. Have your own apartment. Have a career. Get to know who you are first before you get married and start a family and commit to a life of always sharing.”

I felt Vanessa was missing out on so much of this. She went from home to Syracuse (where she was with Bruce) to Miss America to Ramon.

Now as a widow, I’m living my life in reverse. For the first time, I’m independent. I’m living by myself. I’m making my own decisions.

Trust me, I wish I could have done it the other way around. But life has its own script, and you have no control.

CHAPTER

14

Why get married? Just live together!

—HELEN WILLIAMS

W
e were eating at a small, trendy restaurant in SoHo in lower Manhattan when Ramon handed me a poem he’d written about me, our relationship, our love. When I finished the poem, I saw a beautiful antique (from 1899), round-cut diamond ring. Ramon had slipped it under the piece of paper while I was reading. He took my hand and stared into my eyes.

“Will you marry me?”

“Yes!” I cried.

The restaurant burst into applause. It was such a romantic moment.

I had been really surprised. I knew we were going to get married. At the time, we’d been together for one year and had talked about it. We picked out the ring together in Briarcliff Manor at the jewelry store next to my favorite bakery, which made my birthday
cake each year (a chocolate cake with fresh strawberries and whipped cream).

After he proposed I moved out to Los Angeles to start my career and live with him.

But we didn’t set a wedding date. We said we’d wait until my career took off.

Then on a weekend vacation up the coast to Monterey, California, I became pregnant at twenty-three. When we realized what had happened, we decided,
Okay, we’re going to do this now. There’s never going to be a perfect time.

Later, I called to tell my mom that we were going to get married as soon as possible because a bundle of joy was on the way.

A pause. And then…

“Why get married? Just live together!”

WHAT? Here we go again!

“And you’re pregnant. You’re really prepared to do this?”

I was like this rebellious traditionalist. Here was my mom suggesting I just shack up with Ramon for a while. And I said, “We’re going to do this and get married and have this child.”

I couldn’t understand why Mom wasn’t happy for me. I was marrying a man who had saved me. A black man—just like she wanted. Why was there always a problem? What was wrong this time?

Even when I told my friends I was engaged the year before, they all wanted to know my mom’s reaction. “I can’t wait to hear what Helen’s going to say about this.” “What did Helen say?” My mom’s opinion always mattered to people, probably because she never held back.

But despite Mom’s reservations, marrying Ramon seemed like the right thing to do. We were in love. Yes, I was young, but I’d lived through so much more than most twentysomethings. In some ways I felt very mature. The thirteen-year age difference didn’t seem like a big deal.

My original dream had been to establish a career, get married at
twenty-eight, and have children at thirty. I wanted to have a strong career and then a family. I was learning that you can’t always make plans.

We were married in front of two hundred friends and relatives at the Church of St. Francis Xavier on Sixteenth Street in Manhattan on January 3, 1987. I wore an ivory-colored silk gown with a six-foot train by Stephen Yearick, who had designed many of my Miss America gowns. You couldn’t tell that I was three months pregnant, except for my voluptuous boobs, bursting out of my square neckline.

It was a beautiful wedding. I was marrying my knight in shining armor who had rescued me, the damsel in distress. We had already been through so much together that our marriage could survive just about everything. I was going to prove Mom wrong. I would make this marriage work.

As the white Volvo stretch limo pulled up to the snowy stone stairs, my mom turned to me to say I still had time to change my mind. My bridesmaids, Deborah, Diane, and Toni, still remember that to this day—classic Helen!

But at the reception Mom came up to me, the concern that had consumed her face had vanished.

“Congratulations. I’m happy for you, Ness,” Mom said. Then she smiled and hugged me.

WHAT?

Something changed in Mom that day. Up until she stepped out of the limousine in front of the church, she was opposed to my marriage because I was too young—like she had been. She seemed angry. She told me that I didn’t have to go through with the wedding. It was Mom’s way of saying she didn’t approve.

Then after the ceremony, she was a different person. She was happy for me. She let all her concerns, her disappointments, and her anger just evaporate. She understood that I was making my life with Ramon and she could either fight it or be a part of it. It was a
turning point for me. Mom finally stopped judging my decisions and accepted me as an adult.

And then I flashed on to something my father had said to me a few years earlier, when I had just moved into my way-too-expensive apartment in Manhattan. It was nearly Christmas, and I had bought my first Christmas tree and decorated it. My parents were visiting. I don’t remember the conversation we were having—perhaps my mother and I had been arguing or there was tension in the air. But my father turned to me and very solemnly said, “You have to forgive us for being your parents.”

At the time, I had thought to myself,
What made him say that? Was it my hostility?
It had been a stressful, hard time. I was trying to make it on my own after Miss America. I had moved out and I was tired of my parents’—mostly my mom’s—judgments. When you’re a teenager—and even into your twenties—it’s easy to resent everything about your parents. You’re trying to break away but part of you still feels very dependent on them and very much influenced by their opinions.

Suddenly I understood—I had to get rid of the anger and resentment I’d bottled up against my mother just because she was being a mother.

We lived in the two-bedroom apartment that Ramon had rented for $700 a month in the Ladera Heights section of Los Angeles, the same one I’d moved into during the summer of 1985. It was a spacious place with a wonderful view of the city. Ramon has great taste and was and is a neat freak.

On Monday morning, June 29, 1987, I woke up with a dull pain in my back.

“I think I’m in labor,” I told Ramon.

We were very calm. I didn’t want to go to the hospital, so we stayed at home as long as possible. Ramon timed my contractions while I got a bag together and took a warm shower. I wasn’t scared at all, but the pain was uncomfortable. My mother-in-law, Winnie, stayed with me most of the day.

HELEN ON PREMARITAL SLEEPING ARRANGEMENTS

After their honeymoon, Ramon and Vanessa came to the house to visit. Ramon looked at me and smiled. “Now I can sleep in the same bed with my wife.” Whenever Vanessa and Ramon stayed with us before they married—even though we knew they lived together in Los Angeles—we wouldn’t let them sleep in the same room. It was our house. Our rule. No arguing. ’Nuff said!

“Let’s go!” I finally said.

In the early evening, we drove to Cedars-Sinai.

When we got to the hospital, Dr. Judith Reichman, the most impeccably dressed doctor on the planet, asked if I wanted an epidural.

“Yes!” I was coping but wanted to enjoy the experience instead of cursing Ramon for getting me in this situation and then sneaking peeks of the Lakers’ playoff games. So much for natural childbirth!

I gave birth to Melanie Lynne at 2:52 in the morning of June 30, 1987.

From the moment we brought her home, Melanie slept in bed with us—usually on top of one of us. She needed to feel skin on her all the time or she’d cry and wouldn’t stop. From 5:30 to 7:30 every night, she was colicky. We tried everything. We’d turn the dryer on and put her on top, praying that the vibration would lull her to
sleep. We’d get in the car and just drive and drive, hoping the motion would calm her. She had pacifiers everywhere, in every room, on both sides of our bed. She had this piercing cry that we just couldn’t figure out how to stop.

And that’s when my relationship with my parents took another turn: Instead of ignoring their advice, I was seeking it. I was breastfeeding, up most of the night and exhausted a lot, but also loving being a new mom. When I struggled to make it through the day, I thought,
Wow, my mom did this, too. She was this career woman who never had any help—just a babysitter while she was at school. She’d work all day and come home and take care of me all night. How did she do it?

I’d get on the phone nearly every day and ask my mom or dad for some type of baby advice: How do I get her to stop crying? How do I get her to sleep? Should I give her solid food yet?

Ramon and I didn’t have a nanny or even an occasional babysitter, so I’d take Melanie everywhere with me—to auditions and recording sessions. During auditions other actresses would watch her in her stroller while I went in to read for a role. I was being sent on lots and lots of auditions, but I wasn’t booking any work.

When I had lived in New York, my first professional theater role was an off-Broadway musical called
One Man Band
at the South Street Theater, a ninety-nine-seat house on Theatre Row. I played a muse in the background along with Judy Gibson and Kay Cole. It became such a hot ticket that summer of 1985 that Andy Warhol, Magic Johnson, and other celebs stopped by to see it (Andy came backstage to meet me afterward and barely said a peep). Debra Barsha, the show’s musical director, had moved to Los Angeles around the same time as I had. One day she called me.

“I’m doing this gig with George Clinton. Do you know who he is? Do you want to sing backup with me?” she asked.

What? Of course I knew George Clinton—George Clinton & Parliament Funkadelic!

“Yes!”

George Clinton was doing a solo project. I went to his studio in Hollywood and the man with the craziest hair greeted me. What a blast! I had danced to “Flashlight” at high school parties and here I was reading his handwriting on lined paper with his lyrics to new songs. Then George sang the parts he wanted me to sing and I sang them back to him. I was being produced by an R & B legend while he snacked on cold eggs. I ended up singing background on two songs on his 1986 album
R&B Skeletons in the Closet
—“Do Fries Go with That Shake?” and “Hey Good Lookin’.”