After Perfect (10 page)

“Dad,” I said, “I'm being threatened by creditors, by lawyers of the moving company, because we haven't paid them. I don't know what to do.” I didn't yell at him and was careful about expressing any rage because just hearing the words over the phone—“This call is from a federal prison”—scared me. All I could think about was how vulnerable he must feel. I had this heightened sense of empathy, where I became more worried about my father's feelings than my own.

“Ignore them,” he said. “Don't you worry, I will take care of everything as soon as I'm home, which will hopefully be soon. We're filing an appeal, Bambina. It's looking good.” He sounded so calm and sure on the phone. Yet I still didn't understand all that was going on. I didn't know what an appeal meant, and how could I just ignore people trying to sue me?

“And help out Mom as much as you can, Bambina. I know this is not a happy time, but it could be worse. I could go to Fallujah for a year and come home in a box. So we should thank our lucky stars.” He was referring to the war in Iraq. I suddenly felt guilty for bringing up the credit card debt.

“Okay, but Dad—”
Beeeep!
I threw the phone to the floor and grunted with frustration. He'd run out of minutes. I had to tell someone what was going on. I couldn't handle it on my own, and my mother couldn't either. I called Josh.

J
osh and I were officially a couple. He had taken me on a date to the movies a few weeks before my father left, and by the end of the night, an unexpected outbreak of hives had me pumped with an IV full of Benadryl in the emergency room at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center.

“Stress,” the doctor suggested when I told him I wasn't allergic to anything but penicillin. I hadn't taken any penicillin. He asked Josh, standing next to me, what his connection to me was, and he said, “Boyfriend. I'm her boyfriend.”

When Josh carried me out to the car, I looked at him googly eyed, drunk off Benadryl, and told him that I loved him. He knew I was having a hard time about my father by then. I had told him the truth on Halloween night. He was dressed up as Napoleon Dynamite, and I was dressed up as groupie Penny Lane from the movie
Almost Famous
. He wore a blond curly wig with a “Vote for Pedro” T-shirt, and I wore an old brown suede jacket of Mara's, plus round sunglasses and a feather boa. At the end of the night, he drove me home and kissed me in the car as we listened to the Beatles' “I Saw Her Standing There.” I tried not to ruin the moment, but I had to tell him.

“I want to tell you about my dad, but I'm afraid to,” I said.

“Christina, I grew up in Los Angeles; it's hard to scare me.”

“He's going to prison. He was indicted for securities fraud and was forced to enter a plea agreement with the government.” My heartbeat felt suspended in time until he responded.

“I'm so sorry,” Josh said without any judgment. I felt relieved, but I also felt the sudden need to defend my father.

“The government's just making an example out of him. He's filed an appeal, so hopefully he won't be gone for long.”

“So he's not guilty?” Josh asked, slightly skeptical.

“No. I mean, I don't think so. The government forced him to enter a plea deal; otherwise, if he lost, he'd go to prison for a very long time. I had a really happy childhood, like a fairy tale.”

“Well . . .” Josh paused. “If it makes you feel any better, I did too, and now I think my dad is fucking Becky.” I didn't tell Josh that I already knew; I was glad to know the truth was out between us and didn't feel the need to tell him. After all, it was hard for me to talk about the truth of what went on around me. The commonality of each other's newfound pain and our once-perfect childhoods would glue us together with an intensity far too great for either of us to understand at such a young age. We fell madly in love.

Josh took on the role of “man of the house,” helping my mother get situated, sometimes surprising us with sushi or pizza for dinner in the gaps when we weren't sure how we'd put food on the table. Josh had met my father a few times before he left for prison. They bonded over their favorite directors, such as Martin Scorsese and Terrence Malick. My father would send us letters from prison talking about Scorsese's latest film, like
The Aviator
, which was the last movie he saw before he surrendered. We had gone to see it on Christmas to distract us from the bleak and friendless holiday, with only a few presents that my mother bought from Santee Alley downtown, where street vendors sell knockoff designer purses and shoes.

Overwrought with anticipation, I ripped open the first letter I received from my father in prison. It was addressed: Movie Star! And Future Porsche Driver. His handwriting was written in flawless cursive. He told me once his father would make him practice words, letters, and sentences over and over again on lined paper until his writing became, itself, a work of art.

The very first thing he told me to do was send him a copy of
The Aviator
screenplay. He would write our story, he would tell the whole world about the injustices our family was facing. And I was happy to help. He let me know that he was safe. That his stay in prison was like a big Boy Scout camp with fighter jets flying over your head. “It's funny—they expect me to climb in an F-16 and take off, not polish it,” he wrote. He reminded me to help out Mom as much as I could and that we should be grateful. Then closed with, “Hurry up and become a movie star and buy me an airplane. I would like a Gulfstream V, white with blue and gold stripes and tan leather interior. XXXOOO Dad.”

When I told Josh about the phone calls from the lawyers and creditors, he didn't understand it either. Josh had grown up in the heart of Beverly Hills, a West Coast version of my own upbringing: raised around celebrity instead of politics; never having to worry about money, with a trust fund waiting for him. He thought that maybe the partner of his father's business manager could help us.

R
alph Adler agreed to meet my mother and me the following weekend. We drove to his palatial home, and my mother rang the intercom on the iron gate. “Hello?” a chipper voice answered.

“Hi, it's Gayle Prousalis and my daughter Christina.” My mother's voice was soft, the way she sounds when she's nervous, giving me the feeling that if she spoke too loud, something might break.

A loud buzzer sounded, and the gates opened. We drove down the long driveway and parked next to a Maserati.

A maid wearing a gray dress and white apron opened the front door. We entered the foyer. The walls were covered with framed photographs of politicians, famous bands, musicians, and other celebrities with Ralph. I was staring at all the celebrity faces on the wall when Ralph bounced toward us. He was hyper and a bit disheveled.

“Ralph Adler, nice to meet you.” He smiled as he shook my mother's hand. He had a clunky braces on his upper and lower teeth and tan rubber bands that stretched in between them, making him look like a skinny walrus. He gazed at my mother a little too long for my liking, and when he led us into the kitchen and family room, he stared at the sequins on the back of her jean pockets. My mother had started dressing more “LA” lately, which I found unsettling. I preferred her in a St. John knit, or jeans and a navy blazer.

We took a seat on the couch and pulled out the letters from the creditors, credit card bills, and IRS documents. Only recently did my mother find out that my father owed more than $500,000 in back taxes.

“Why don't you start with telling me what happened.” Ralph sat on the ottoman. My mother told him our sob story. That my father left, and we didn't have any idea what a financial mess he had made until he was gone. Ralph placed his hand on my mother's knee—to express his compassion.

Then I showed him all of the bank statements and letters. Ralph looked at me with serious concern and asked, “Are you close with your father? Do you have a good relationship with him?” he asked. Why was he asking me this?

“Yeah, I am.”

“Because the only way to clear the debt is to sue him. Are you willing to sue your father? Otherwise you can write letters to the creditors telling them it's not your debt, and see if they'll lower it, but there's no guarantee.”

I sat on Ralph's sofa with my sweaty hands between my legs, feeling like I wanted to cry; not wanting to look at Mom, paralyzed with fear. I had never heard of credit card fraud before, and Ralph, gauging my reaction, careful with each word he spoke, never actually said the word
fraud
.

So I couldn't believe he was asking this. There was
no way
I was going to sue my father for the sake of money. I told myself there had to be another way. I had no tangible proof of my own that my father deserved to be in prison. And I didn't want to believe anyone else's. It was an impossible situation where, no matter how I looked at it, as a family, we couldn't win. There was no light at the end of this tunnel.

“I don't want to sue him,” I stated calmly, as if I weren't responding to the most painful question anyone had ever asked me.

“What about your sisters? Are they in any debt?” Ralph asked.

“No,” I said. Well, that wasn't true. Mara had a bill from one collection agency in the amount of a few thousand dollars, mostly from unpaid doctors' bills for treating her depression. She had told me over the phone a few days earlier. I told Ralph again that I would do anything except sue my father. So instead, he helped me draft a letter to each credit bureau and helped my mother draft a letter to LMU explaining our circumstances without incriminating my father any further.

To whom it may concern,

I am writing this letter in an effort to explain that my credit score and previous debts have not been a result of my own irresponsibility. My father was sentenced to five years in a minimum-security prison. In an effort to protect my parents from further debts, my father placed several credit cards in my name, leaving me, at the age of eighteen, in over $80,000.00 worth of debt. As you can imagine the unbearable pressure at such a young age, I would like to request the understanding that these debts were not my own, and I continue to work hard at making sure payments are sent in on time. Thank you.

Sincerely,

Christina Grace Prousalis

Loyola Marymount University

Office of the Controller

To whom it may concern,

Fourteen months ago, my husband, Christina's father, was indicted by the federal government for securities fraud. He subsequently went to trial in June 2004 in New York, lost, and is currently serving fifty-seven months at Nellis Federal Penitentiary. At my husband's sentencing, the federal government required restitution of $12 million, which will stand until paid. Furthermore, the SEC has sued him civilly for an additional $12 million, which I believe he has defaulted on. We are under dire financial circumstances, which have prevented Christina from returning to LMU at present, I am writing this letter on her behalf. All of our financial assets were exhausted as a result of the trial. My husband has been disbarred and will be unable to resume his legal career when he is released from prison.

We have lost our home in Virginia, and I have recently moved my other daughter into a rental in Los Angeles, so that I can be close to a support network of family and friends. I am currently working for minimum wage part-time while trying to reenter the workforce after twenty years of raising my children. I am trying to keep both Christina and her sister, Mara, in college. Their younger sister, Chloe, hopes to attend college as well. I hope that she will be able to do this. All three girls have pitched in, taking part-time work when they can find it, but we are rapidly running out of the small funds we have left, and I may have to move us in with friends.

Thank you for giving every consideration to Christina and her request for assistance. Please don't hesitate to contact me if you have any further questions.

Sincerely,

Gayle Prousalis

After we went over the letters, Ralph demonstrated how to use an accounting software called QuickBooks in order to help us budget and keep track of incoming and outgoing monies—especially with the last wire transfer coming in from Gary. But I felt so intimidated by it. I'd never learned about managing money in high school, simple things like balancing a checkbook, nor had I learned about it my freshman year of college despite being offered numerous credit cards in the mail and around campus. And I wondered why it was so rude to talk about money. For fear of looking closely and seeing the reality of our financial situation, it was easier to live in the ambiguity of money rather than the specific details of it.

While Ralph showed us where to input all the numbers, I nodded earnestly at his computer screen, feigning enthusiasm and pretending to understand it—even though I knew my mother and I would never use it.

Before we left, Ralph said we could call him at any time with questions or concerns about anything at all. “Keep me posted on any responses you get from the credit bureaus or LMU, okay?” I began fantasizing about Ralph becoming a surrogate father figure. It felt comforting and familiar having a man take charge, showing us how much he cared, infusing my need for my father to come home, to protect me, to take care of me.

Rent was $7,000 a month. That's what it costs to keep up with the Joneses in Pacific Palisades, yet we were sinking fast, living in the delusional conceit that we could maintain a lifestyle of privilege and comfort. I was able to pay off about $12,000 of one of the American Express cards, $2,000 of LMU debt, and a couple thousand on my car payments because of Gary's wire transfer. The rest I would default on, and my credit score would continue to crash. There was still a lien against my BMW, so I couldn't sell it. The bank held the title. The Range Rover eventually gave out and died. My mother defaulted on the payments to her Jaguar, and the bank said it was on its way to claim the car in just a matter of days. And that was it. We would be on our own until my father came home. (That's what I told myself, anyway.) The four of us were hanging on by a thread.