Born with Teeth: A Memoir (7 page)

My mother came over to celebrate my twenty-first birthday and to subject herself to Burton’s somewhat dubious affections. Immediately upon meeting her, he dubbed my mother “Monkeyface,” which she absolutely loathed but was powerless to change. I thought it was rather dear, but it infuriated Mother,
who said to me again and again, “Mine is
hardly
the face of a monkey—the man’s insane.”

But he didn’t strike me as insane on the night of my birthday when he gave me a small box containing two tiny gold butterfly earrings studded with diamond chips, draped a mink coat over my shoulders, sat me on his knee, and sang, a cappella, “How to Handle a Woman.” He struck me in that moment as the most extraordinary man in the world.

My mother found his gifts in questionable taste, however, and the following week, when the film wrapped, she insisted that I return the mink coat. I promised her I would, but of course I did no such thing.

Stripped of any hint of Irish lyricism, New York hit me hard when I returned, the city an apiary of impossible energy. In my absence, my lawyer had found and purchased an apartment for me. “It’s time,” Leonard explained, “to provide you with an asset that will never depreciate. A little New York real estate.” Leonard had chosen for me a studio apartment in a modern high rise on Central Park West at Sixty-Eighth Street and, though it wasn’t my taste at all, it was my first apartment, and I was proud of it. David came over and, as I prepared beef stroganoff in the thimble-sized kitchen, he opened a bottle of red wine and toasted my return. After dinner, lying in each other’s arms on the one piece of furniture I’d managed to not only buy but to have delivered, an emerald-green pullout sofa, David suggested a weekend away.

“I just got back!” I laughed. “Do you really loathe New York that much?”

“We haven’t had any real time alone together for months,” David argued. “Let’s just jump in the car and drive to Jersey, Maryland, wherever—find a little B and B, take a weekend. What do you say?”

I said yes, and four days later we found ourselves renting a small, worn, whitewashed cottage overlooking Lake Garrison in Monroeville, New Jersey. We went grocery shopping; we held hands; we laughed; we walked to the water’s edge and looked at the glorious moon; we slept late, tangled in each other’s arms. In the morning, I made coffee and toast, and we sat across the kitchen table, and I watched as he licked the cream off his upper lip with a pink tongue, then raked his mustache clean with even white teeth. His mouth tasted of peppermint, and when he was aroused his cheeks turned a rosy pink, which embarrassed him and delighted me. He was blushing now and, jumping up, said, “Come on, lazy—race you to the water!”

Before we knew it, we were up to our chins in a lake full of Boy Scouts. “How romantic.” I laughed, urging David deeper into the water. The Scouts seemed oblivious to us, despite the fact that I was cradled in David’s arms like a baby, we were kissing unabashedly, and under the water our hands were everywhere at once, stroking and teasing, becoming hopelessly aroused. Suddenly, David shifted me in his arms so that I was forced to steady myself by hooking my legs around his waist. We faced each other under the melting September sun and, as my arms dropped helplessly to my sides, he kissed me with that mouth of intoxicating peppermint and, pulling me closer and lifting me high, we disappeared into each other.

The young investment banker lured me to his lair on Fire Island. His name was Marty Segal, and he was nothing like David.

Smooth talking, aggressive, entitled, with perfectly starched monogrammed shirts and a Mercedes convertible, he was shark-smart and brutally honest. I knew that I neither thrilled nor delighted him. To the contrary, I seemed to push his buttons at every conceivable turn. Driving back to the city from a messy theater party in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, at which I’d intentionally ignored him for hours, he suddenly said, “You getting back at someone for something? Because if you are, and that someone isn’t me, you’re acting like a real bitch.”

Yes,
I wanted to shout,
I’m getting back at someone! Someone who is nothing like you! Someone who is deep and dark and difficult, whose love torments me. Someone who is brooding, misanthropic, someone who needs to be taught a lesson. No, he is not at all like you, Marty,
I hissed to myself,
with your thinning pate and your snake eyes and your perfect tan. I’m getting back at David, and I’m using you to do it.

“Then come to Fire Island,” Marty continued, remarkably inept at reading minds, “and stop with the excuses.”

The gauntlet thrown, I stared straight ahead as we raced down the freeway, and said, “Fine. Let’s go.”

He shared a house with several other young Wall Street turks, all of whom I found repulsive. They talked about nothing but money and stared at me with open lasciviousness and a kind of animal hostility, as if to suggest that conversation was an unnecessary and unwanted skill at their table. After dinner, when Marty and I were alone, I said, “You know, Marty, I like you, but I have no intention of sleeping with you—I hardly know you. It would be coarse and pointless. But we can have a perfectly nice weekend, if you’ll just show me to my room.” He blinked at me, momentarily disarmed.

Leading me down a short hallway and into a spartan room containing a single bed, a naked window, and unadorned walls, Marty said, “You’re a real nut job, you know that?”

I switched on my brightest smile. “And what does that say about you? I’ll see you in the morning, Marty. Good night.”

The sun woke me, shining hard and bright through the open window. My limbs felt strangely heavy and, longing to slip back into sleep, I pulled the sheet over my head and turned over. Then, as if from a great distance, I heard someone clearing his throat and, forcing my eyes open, realized that Marty was standing there, leaning against the doorjamb, hands stuffed in Polo Ralph Lauren pockets. He looked at me for a long
moment, during which many scenarios presented themselves to my imagination, none of them desirable.

Finally, he spoke. “You went to bed on Friday night and it is now Sunday morning, which means you’ve been asleep for thirty-two hours. What are you, pregnant?” It was as if he’d pulled the pin from a grenade and casually tossed it to me.

I waited, didn’t want to act precipitately. Patience, I counseled myself, as one week moved inexorably into the next. And the next. On my way home from the studio one afternoon, I found myself standing in front of the Church of Saint Paul the Apostle on Amsterdam Avenue, near Sixtieth Street. My personal faith had long since limped into oblivion, and yet I felt compelled to go inside. Finding a deserted pew close to the altar, I knelt. Why do we pray when we are terrified? Why do we reserve this ancient and primitive ritual for moments of great distress? It is always the same supplication: O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me.

And then how quickly it all happens. My good friend Nancy provides me with the name of a reputable gynecologist, I schedule an appointment, I take a taxi to New York University Hospital, I meet Dr. Robert Morris, and he examines me, takes blood and a urine sample. Afterward, I wait for him in his office.

Such a long wait. I’m aware of the dust motes dancing in the afternoon sunshine, which is slatted into the room through venetian blinds. Peering between them, I observe a group of nurses sitting on the stone benches in the courtyard below, white-stockinged legs crossed, sandwiches being unwrapped, and then a sudden burst of laughter as two doctors stride past them, putting their hands up in mock surrender. I am filled with envy. Bob Morris enters his office, carrying a clipboard.
His eyes are kindly, his manner efficient, and he just misses attractive. What a killer this guy would have been had he been handsome, I muse, because it is clear that he likes women.

He faces me and says, “Well, you are most certainly pregnant. About ten weeks, by my calculations.”

I’m sure he has said these words many times, perhaps that is why he delivers them so smoothly. But the words do not come at me smoothly; this is not linear information. These are words that strike the solar plexus first, then find the heart, and, passing through that organ with knifelike urgency, finally lodge themselves in the throat. I am speechless.

Dr. Morris assumes he understands my silence and, reaching for the phone, says to me in a voice full of authority and resolution, “We can take care of this next week, no reason to wait any longer than necessary. Mornings are best. I’ll schedule the procedure for next Wednesday.” He reaches to push a certain button, the button that will alert the secretary, whereupon she will come into the room and, appointment ledger in hand, ink in a time to undergo a procedure that will be convenient for both Dr. Morris and myself.

Only I stop him first. “Dr. Morris,” I say, standing in the middle of the room, “I’m not going to have an abortion. I can’t explain it and I don’t want to argue about it, but I know I’m not going to have an abortion. I won’t change my mind. I need a doctor who will see me through to the end, whatever that means. And if you can’t do that, I would appreciate a referral.”

He studies me carefully, and I can almost hear his mind turning: young actress, the beginning of her career, out of her mind, must be a religious fanatic. But he says, “Then I’m your man. You and I will become good friends over the next seven months. Eat well, get plenty of rest, work hard, and the baby will be here before you know it.”

I walked home, very slowly, and for an hour tormented myself with unanswerable questions, such as: Why did this happen to me? How did this happen to me? I’d been so careful, so very careful, to prevent just such a mishap, and still the unthinkable had happened. I combed through my memory, examining and reexamining my days, meticulously recollecting my nights, extracting every moment of intimacy from the past and bringing it under the harsh light of the present. I came to an abrupt stop at the corner of Fifty-Ninth Street and Fifth Avenue. Steadied myself against a streetlamp. The lake, it was the afternoon in the lake. On fire, helpless. That subtle shift in the position of my diaphragm, the sensation of cool water between my legs. I felt it—did I feel it? But I didn’t stop, I didn’t stop.

That evening, I climbed the two floors to David’s apartment and confronted him in the middle of the living room as he was preparing to leave for the theater.

“I’m pregnant,” I said, and giving him no time to mount a defense, I continued, “It happened in Monroeville, when we were in the lake. There is absolutely no other possibility.”

He looked at me, then, with eyes reminiscent of his mother’s, already seeking distance, and still he approached me and tried to take me in his arms. I swatted him away and demanded, “What are you thinking, David? How do you
feel
about this?”

He took a deep breath and, trying his hardest to compose himself, said, “I can imagine how confused you must feel, and how frightened. Of all the things that could happen to you, this…” He didn’t finish, because he wasn’t quite able to articulate what I must be feeling, but he understood what
he
was feeling, and after a generous and thoughtful pause, he put his best offer on the table. “Kate, you know there are other ways to… take care of this. It doesn’t have to be so black and white, so life changing. There are options.”

I stared at him, waiting. He was silent. “You mean abortion?” I asked. “You want me to have an abortion, David?” So odd, what he did then, when everything I felt about him hung in the balance. He did exactly what he had done a year before, when his mother had condemned him for choosing me. He did nothing. I lifted my hand and slapped him, hard, across the face. Then I left.

My mother, I knew, would understand. She would be disappointed, very disappointed, but she would hear the terror in my voice, and she would respond with patience, and with love. At first, I thought there was a disconnect on the phone, the silence was so attenuated.

“Mom? Are you there? Did you hear what I said, Mom?”

“Oh, Kitten,” she replied. “Yes, I heard you. You’ve made a mistake, and now you have to face the music. The only solution is to give the baby up for adoption, dear. There’s no other way.”

My heart folded in on itself. “But, Mom, I thought maybe, if you were willing to help me, I could continue working and saving money, and I’d give you the money and provide a nanny, and maybe the baby could stay at Derby Grange with you, just in the beginning, just for a while, until I can figure it out.”

Very quickly, the answer came. So quickly it took my breath away. “Oh no, honey, I couldn’t do that. Your father would be furious, he’d never allow it… and, frankly, I’m just not up to it. I mean, we’re still adjusting to Tessie, and… no, no, that’s not a good idea. You need to call on your best and strongest self and give this baby up for adoption. You can do it, Kitten. You have the courage to do it, and it would be best for both you and the baby.”

Choking back tears, I pleaded, “Mother, I don’t know how to do that. How do I do that?”

“Well, honey,” said my mother, the mother of eight, “you go to Catholic Charities and you find a very good social worker, someone who will see you through this. You’re not the first
actress who’s had an illegitimate baby, you know, and you won’t be the last.” Then she put the phone down. My mother never said good-bye at the end of a phone call, she just—hung up.

Huge waves of terror overtook me. There wasn’t a glimmer of hope in this impermeable darkness, no possibility of reprieve. I couldn’t fathom how I would get through the next week, let alone the next seven months, so I did the only thing I knew would give me instant relief. I reached for my touchstone.

Having found biology insurmountably difficult, Beth had relinquished her pursuit of medicine and was now living on Thompson Street in the Village and waiting tables at Kenny’s Castaways. When she heard the barely restrained panic in my voice, she called in sick, jumped on the subway, and knocked on my door an hour later. I opened the door and fell into her arms.

She said the only honest thing she could say: “Oh my God, Katie, you poor thing.”

Words so basic, so completely of the Midwest, so utterly without guile, that I had to laugh. “How many women are saying those very words to their best friends all over the world right now? In Iowa alone, it’s got to be in the hundreds.”

“No, no,” Beth countered, “it’s hundreds in Paris—thousands in Iowa!”

For hours, we examined every conceivable scenario. Marriage was out of the question; I was too young, and I knew our marriage would never surmount the odds. Neither David nor I was prepared to agree to a commitment we both knew had no chance of lasting. I could attempt to raise the baby by myself. I could continue working, hire a full-time nanny, and spend every spare moment caring for the child. But what would this gain the child, and what would I become? Both of us would be subjected to a life of denial and frustration, the baby without the unconditional devotion of the mother, and the mother deprived of her freedom and perhaps her career. My work
defined me, and I knew it. My mother had made it very clear that there would be no support from my family.

“I’m scared, B,” I said. “There doesn’t seem to be any way out.”

“No,” Beth corrected me, “there are, in fact, several ways out, but all of them are painful. You have to know your own tolerance for pain, what you can endure, what you know you can live with, and what you can’t live without.”

It was early morning when we crawled into my emerald pullout bed. We lay there, side by side, eyes wide open, holding hands, and finally Beth spoke. “You know, sweetheart, whatever you decide to do, I’ll be there for you. I don’t really think there’s a right way to do this, but there is a best way for you to do it. Like every other tough choice you’ve had to make, be total. And be honest with yourself.” I knew that she was turning over in her mind her own regrets, and I also knew that her idea of goodness transcended what most people considered morally unimpeachable.

“I can’t have an abortion,” I said, at last. “You know that. So the only absolute is the baby.”

“And what is best for the baby,” my best friend murmured, closing her eyes. “That’s the real test, isn’t it?”

The morning brought with it an icy clarity. What I could live with, what I couldn’t live without. Beth had left for work at the crack of dawn, dropping a soft kiss good-bye on my cheek. I dressed slowly, had a cup of coffee, and headed to the studio on West Fifty-Third Street. Hailed a taxi and sat in the back ruminating over the number of fates that had been decided in the backseats of taxis.