A Lotus Grows in the Mud (13 page)

I am so nervous that when I open my mouth to speak, I am shocked by my own voice. What comes out is eight octaves higher than my own. I can’t wait to finish. I know I’m completely wrong for this part.

“Thank you so much, Goldie,” they tell me when I’m done, nodding and smiling.

“No thank you, guys,” I say, embarrassed. “This was really a lot of fun.” They watch me as I repack my bag of tricks, excuse myself with a
bow and run down the stairs. Boy, well, I really screwed that up, I think to myself.

Back in my apartment, I call Art Simon immediately.

“Hi, Art, it’s Goldie.”

“Hi, Goldie. Listen, you didn’t get the part…”

“Oh, I know, and I really thank you so much for believing in me, Art. But, you know what? If you don’t want to represent me anymore, that’s fine too, because I sort of have an agent downtown, and I think that maybe I should really go back with him.”

“No, Goldie, you don’t understand,” Art replies. “You didn’t get
that
part.”

“What do you mean?”

“They wrote in a new part for you.”

“Wait a minute, you mean I didn’t get
that
part, but they wrote another part for me with
that
character?”

“No. They liked you so much they created a whole new character just for you.”

“They did?” I slump back into a chair, all the wind knocked out of me.

“Goldie? Did you hear what I said? You’ve got the job. You’re going to be an actress on television. This is just the beginning.”

A
rt Simon believed in me. He discovered me in a chorus line and had the fearlessness to stand up and put his instincts on the line. He became my trusted agent, and then manager, for many years to come. If I hadn’t chosen this show to do, I would never have met him, and who knows what my life would look like today. I still question that thing called destiny. The choices we make in life and the roads we choose to travel take us to places we may only dream about.

The choices we make can change the course of our lives. It is not the course of our lives that changes us. The road doesn’t come to you; you go to the road. I chose to leave Vegas and try for a career in television. I chose to go to that audition, and I chose to follow the path that Art
Simon set for me. The choices I made set in motion a series of events that were now completely out of my control.

Sometimes the choices we make are good, and sometimes they are bad. Sometimes the fear of making a bad choice prevents us from making any choice at all. It is a question of doors opening and shutting in front of us along the way. Should we go through this door, or that one? Should we wait? Or move forward to the next door? Luck certainly plays a part in fate, but what gets us to that lucky place in the first place is a direct consequence of our own decisions.

In my case, I met someone pivotal in my life—Art Simon—who was to become my manager, confidant, laughing partner and guru. He helped me make the right choices along the way. He believed in me and guided me with dignity. He protected me as one would protect a precious jewel. That is rare in Hollywood. I cherish him to this day.

Sometimes we make choices that turn out to be bad, but, if we do, we shouldn’t dwell on it. Instead, we should really stop and think about what happened. Only then can we uncover the hidden lesson, the golden nugget of truth that previously we may not have seen. Mistakes are good, because in illuminating the wrong path they remind us not to go that way again.

Change is the key. Whatever our choices, good or bad, we must learn from them, we must change, and we must move on.

E
ntering the elevator of the Hilton Hotel on Sixth Avenue in New York, I hear the doors slide shut behind me and stare at my reflection in the smoked-glass interior.

I barely recognize myself. My hair has been coiffed, my clothes are new, and I have just walked out of the luxurious thirtieth-floor, three-room suite that CBS has provided for me.

I am two blocks from 888 Eighth Avenue, where, just over a year ago, I was sharing a three-room apartment with five other dancers. Now I am a guest at this brand-new hotel I could never previously afford, near the Stage Deli, where I used to sit with Max eating blintzes.

The doors slide open when the elevator reaches the lobby, and I am faced with a wall of people I have never met.

“Goldie Hawn! Miss Hawn! Over here!” Cameras flash, and strangers press in on me, thrusting pens and pieces of paper into my hand. “Can I please have your autograph?” they ask.

“I can’t wait to see your new show, Miss Hawn,” someone tells me, squeezing my arm a little too tightly.

“Thanks,” I reply shyly, trying to find enough elbow room to write my name. All the while, I’m thinking, Who are these people? How do they know me? The CBS publicity people did warn me that there had been a lot of hype about this new show in New York, and that the press would jump all over us, but this is crazy. I haven’t shot a single scene of
Good Morning World,
and nothing has been aired yet.

Pushing my way out through the crowd and into the vast lobby, I try
to look for the public relations woman who has organized this parade of new fall shows for the CBS affiliates meeting at which I am an honored guest. I want to ask her if this is normal. But she is nowhere to be seen among the milling throng of journalists and invited viewers. Nor are any of my costars—Joby Baker, Ronnie Schell, Julie Parrish—whom I haven’t even met yet.

“Miss Hawn? Miss Hawn? This way, please.”

Another photographer. Another flash. I am left blinking into the glare.

“How does it feel to be one of CBS’s rising stars?” a pushy young reporter asks me.

“Well, gee, I don’t know,” I reply, trying to smile.

“Your promotional material says the writers created a character especially for you,” a woman tells me. “Has anything like this ever happened to you before?”

“Oh God no! I only just started really. I left New York a year ago with just fifty dollars in my pocket.”

“Fifty dollars? That’s great, thanks.” She disappears.

The elevator doors
ping
open behind me. Spotting an escape route, I slip through the doors impulsively, getting out while I still can. Hurrying to my suite, I open the door and slip in, pressing my back against the door once it is closed. The momentary peace is shattered by the sound of the telephone, which sits on a polished mahogany table laden with bowls of fruit and vases of flowers.

“Miss Hawn?”

“Yes.”

“Could you please come down to the lobby immediately? We need you for a photo call.”

Replacing the receiver, I take a deep breath and head once again for the door.

T
he yellow taxi turns into my dead-end street and I finally exhale.

Cleveland Avenue, Takoma Park. My childhood home. The Holy Grail of my mind. I feel the car bump over the potholes that still haven’t been fixed, and I sigh with relief.

This’ll be great, I tell myself. Mom’s matzo ball soup. Dad’s crazy jokes. They’ll love to hear all the stories. I can hardly wait to sleep in my old bed, between Mom’s crisp white sheets.

Paying the driver, I grab my bag and hurry toward my parents’ redbrick duplex, savoring every step closer to home. In one bound, I am up on the front porch where dear Nixi always used to wait for me and through the door that is never locked.

“Mom? Daddy? I’m home,” I call, rushing into the hallway and dropping my bag at the foot of the stairs. I can’t wait to see them, to run into their arms and just be held. “It’s Goldie. Are you home?”

Silence greets me. I wander into the living room and no one is there. Glancing at my watch, I realize with dismay that they must still be at work. Walking into the kitchen, I take stock and look around. Was this room always so small? Have they done something different? Did Mom really bathe me in this sink as a child?

I open the door to the basement and peer down at the tiny space where Jean Lynn and I played house, where David Fisher helped my father with some of his inventions. Daddy’s workbench is still there, littered with watch parts, strange objects and tools.

In the living room, the stuffed pheasant is no longer on the mantelpiece. Searching for it, I find it in a cupboard in the back room, its feathers moth-eaten. Stepping lightly on the unfamiliar wall-to-wall carpeting I just sent my mother the money for, I revisit all the rooms of my childhood, as if I am seeing them for the first time. There is the piano I learned to sing on. There is the mohair armchair Daddy sits in to drink his scotch and sniff his sauces.

Climbing the stairs, past the balusters I used to peer between at the Christmas tree, I see that my parents now have separate bedrooms. With me gone, there is no longer any need for pretense. I walk into my little green bedroom and sit on the bed. Outside are the oak trees that no longer seem as tall. I wonder if the descendants of the squirrels I fed as a child still live inside their trunks.

I want to feel happy. I want to feel comforted. I want to feel safe. But, for some reason, I don’t. Outside, I hear the sound of a car’s wheels on
gravel. Jumping up and looking out, I see my parents walking wearily from the car toward the house. Throwing open the window, I lean out and say hello.

“Hi, Mom! Hi, Daddy! I’m back!” I wave excitedly.

My father’s face lights up. “Hi, Go!” he says, beaming. He gives me his little glide-step and dances around my mother as she bats him away with her hands.

Running downstairs, I meet them in the hallway and allow them to enfold me in their arms. “I’m home,” I tell them. “Oh, Mom, Dad, it feels so good to be here.”

“Okay, Kink,” Daddy says, uncomfortable as ever with physical contact. “Let’s get a cup of coffee and sit down. I want to hear everything.”

Dad looks just the same, but Mom seems a little fuller-figured, a little quieter. She makes the coffee, and I sit at the dining-room table, answering a thousand questions from Dad about how I feel and what my trip to New York was like.

“I flew over the Grand Canyon on the way back, Daddy,” I tell him. “You really must come out and see it someday.”

“Aw, no,” he says, dismissing this great wonder of the world with a wave of his hand. “Once you’ve seen one ditch, you’ve seen them all.”

“Oh, Rut, shut up,” Mom growls. “So, Goldie, how was the Hilton Hotel?”

“Well, kinda busy. I was really there for the affiliates meeting.”

“The affiliates meeting?” Dad interrupts. “That’s where everyone goes to promote their shows, isn’t it?” His eyes are on fire; this is nectar to him, someone to talk show business with. This is his world.

“Oh, for Christ’s sake, Rut,” Mom interrupts, “let her finish.” Bustling around the kitchen making cheese blintzes with sour cream—I can hear them crackling in the butter on the stove—she brings me in a plateful when they’re done and says, “Here, honey, eat.” Sitting next to me, her head in her hands, she watches until I finish every bite. This is her world.

While Dad grills me on and on about every detail, my mother puts her two cents in. “You see, Goldie, you studied, you went to dancing school,
you got the audition, and then you had the goods to back it up. See, I told you, Rut. I knew this was how it would happen. This is the way you do it.”

Dad jumps in. “Laura, I was the one who got it right. I told you. First, she’ll act, then she’ll sing, then she’ll dance.” Turning to me, he adds, “You got a lucky break, kid.”

“Oh, for God’s sake, Rut,” Mom spits, lighting a cigarette.

“Well, I was right about it! I knew how it would go. Laura, you don’t know how this business works.”

“What do you mean I don’t know how this business works? It’s not about the business; it’s about talent. You either have it or you don’t have it. Goldie has talent; she has it!”

They are so busy bickering over who is most responsible for my success, so excited about my lucky break, that I can’t possibly tell them how I am really feeling—which is out of sorts with all that is happening so fast. I feel ashamed of my feelings; I wonder if there’s something wrong with me, because everyone else seems so happy. Apart from my parents, that is. They aren’t happy together. I can see that now.

Watching them, I realize that all these two people ever did was bicker. I realize how far apart they’ve grown. I have probably been the only thing keeping them together. Patti is grown and married with a child and another on the way, and I am all they have left.

I want to tell my parents the truth. I want to say, Hey, guys, stop! I’m not feeling that great inside. I know you’re excited and everything, but I feel really scared and unprepared. Everyone’s asking me for my autograph, and I know that sounds cool to you, but I don’t even know who I am yet.

Instead, I sit sadly between them as they move on to the subject of what’s best for me. All I can think of is how awful it must have been for them to be left alone in this house with each other.

Patti walks in and says hello, her son holding her hand. I am happy to see her. I always feel so guilty that all the attention is on me. She works so hard, such long hours, as a social worker and being a mom at the same time. I want to tell her, and my mom and dad, Hey, this isn’t a fait accompli. I might fail yet, you know. Anyway, if this doesn’t work out, I’ll
just go back to being a dancer. And, you know what? Right now, that would be fine with me.

Aunt Sarah and Uncle Charlie turn up, along with some of my other relatives. Word soon gets out that I’m home, and half the neighborhood is suddenly milling around the house, walking in unannounced, congratulating me, asking me one question after another about my life.

“Hey, Goldie, you’re on television now!” Uncle Charlie grins. “Oh boy, you’re going to be a big star. You better give me some of those fancy-schmancy pictures of you so I can show them to my clients. Boy, I guess you’re a big schmear. Gee, how am I supposed to treat you now?”

“Just the same, Uncle Charlie,” I say with pleading eyes, desperate to hold on to my fantasy of still being the baby. “I’m still Goldie. I’m just the same.”

Nothing has changed, I want to say. Only your perception of me. I thought going home would be nectar to my soul, but it isn’t. Instead, I am caught between two worlds. I can’t go back, and I don’t want to move forward. The fear is choking me.

I
fall asleep on the plane, and don’t know I’ve arrived back in L.A. until the stewardess wakes me up. Walking the long concourse at the airport, carrying my small suitcase in my hand, I feel as if I am in a metaphorical birth canal, about to be reborn into a new life.

My boyfriend picks me up at the airport. Sitting in the car on the freeway headed home, I feel so strange. I am not in my own skin. Staring out the window at the same Sunset Strip that filled me with joy not so long ago, I can’t understand why I feel like curling up in a ball and hiding from the world.

I push the palm fronds away from the front door of my new, three-bedroom apartment in the Hollywood Hills. I put my key in the lock, and my boyfriend follows me in.

“Why don’t I pour us some wine?” I say. Putting on an act, I pretend that I am completely happy with the turn of events in my life. Walking in my little kitchenette, I get some glasses.

He puts
Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band
on the record player and settles down on the couch in front of the low coffee table. Out of the corner of my eye, I watch him rolling a joint. I’m not much of a pot smoker; I’ve tried it a few times and never much liked it. Gee, I’m not sure I’m in the mood for a party tonight, I tell myself with a sigh. But—once again—I hold my tongue.

Reaching for the stereo, he turns the music up loud, and I think, Okay, well, looks like the party’s on. I slide onto the couch next to him and hand him his wine.

He asks about my trip, and I lie some more. “My parents were over the moon”—I smile—“which was really great. Oh, and it was amazing to be at the Hilton Hotel with all those celebrities and fans.” It is not worth telling my version of the truth at this point. After all, why ruin the moment?

I sip my wine, and he hands me a joint. What the heck. Maybe it’ll help me relax. I don’t want to say no because I’m afraid he might leave if I do, and I really don’t feel like being alone tonight.

I don’t inhale much at first because I don’t like the way it feels as it travels to my lungs. Even though I smoke cigarettes, pot scratches my throat and makes me cough. He laughs and I smile. “I don’t do this very often,” I say, handing it back. “I’m not much good at this.” I drink a little more of my wine to soothe my throat, and I guess I loosen up a little because, before long, I am taking another puff.

The music seems to get louder and louder. John Lennon seems to be right there in the room with us, singing “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” about the girl with kaleidoscope eyes. The sound surrounds me. It is all I can hear. I feel my legs turn to liquid and my heart pounding in my chest. My friend puts his arm around me to pull me close and I feel the room spin.