Breach of Promise (2 page)

When Paula went into labor, I was auditioning for “young father” on a Lucky Charms commercial. It was not a cause of great celebration in my heart. I was twenty-nine and not ready to be listed as “young father” on the casting sheets in town. My agent had not told me she approved the change. I found out when I walked into the audition with my headshots and the C girl said, “You need to update these.” I looked too young in them.

So when the call from the hospital came on the cell phone, I did not hang around. I was about to become “young father” in real life. How could Lucky Charms compete with that?

Paula was in labor for eight hours. It was not smooth sailing. There were times when this beautiful woman took on the face of Lucifer’s less attractive sister, glaring at me with knives, because I was responsible for
getting her into this.

When I told her I had given up a Lucky Charms spot to be here with her she said, “Get me
drugs.
They gave her an intravenous injection of Demerol, which at least softened her back into the beautiful wife I knew. And she was beautiful, even without makeup, even with sweaty strands of ebony hair stuck to her forehead like wet string.
We knew we were going to have a girl, and we had decided to name her Madeleine Erica Gillen. The Erica, of course, was for Paula’s mother. I didn’t fight her on that, because one does not do battle with the Montgomerys and survive.
The Madeleine, though, was my idea, something I just hit on one day, reading through a baby name book. For me it had a classic quality to it, but also suggested just a little bit the madness that I felt for Paula. As in madly in love. As in the woman of my dreams.
The Demerol did not last, and finally an anesthesiologist gave Paula an epidural with a needle the length of California.
That’s what I remember most, up until the time Madeleine’s head slid out, followed by the rest of her, into the hands of Dr. Malverse Martin.
I began to believe in God at that moment.

The next few years passed like a montage in a family movie, complete with musical score. The bad scenes—the tensions, the arguments, the pressures, the finances, the auditions, the juggling of two careers and one baby—these ended up on the cutting room floor of my mind. I kept the good shots on the front of the reel:

The baths. Maddie’s skin so soft and my thumbs nearly the length of her tiny head.
My skill as a diaper changer. How I could wad a used Pampers up into a ball of almost impossible density.
Holding Maddie all night in a recliner, because she was so stuffy with a cold she could not breathe when lying flat.
Bringing her to Paula for midnight feedings.
The early, fuzzy sprouts of Maddie’s hair.
Her first word,
Dada,
which really upset Paula. Her third word,
Kaka,
which to her meant
cookie,
and cracked me up completely.
The big day we bought Maddie her own potty, and she decided it would be a bed for her bear. Much discussion ensued.
When she was three, we announced we were taking her to Disneyland. Even at that age, a child in Los Angeles knows what Disneyland is. It seeps into their heads while they sleep. When we told her, her blue eyes got huge and she said, “My heart is beautiful!”
I still can’t think of a better way to express happiness than that.

And then the time we were watching
It’s a Wonderful Life
on TV one Christmas. Maddie was four. Donna Reed and Jimmy Stewart started singing “Buffalo Gals” as they were walking home from the high school dance. I glanced at Maddie and she seemed mesmerized.

Aaaaannnd dance by the light of the moon.
Jimmy and Donna, singing.
Maddie looked at me then. “Can we do that?” she asked. Paula

was on the phone in the kitchen. I alone had to field this one and knew from experience that Maddie’s questions sometimes threw a bolo around my head.

“Do what, honey?”
“Dance by the guy in the moon?”
“By the light of the moon.”
“Whatever, Daddy.”
“You bet we can.”
“Now?”
It was one of those things you don’t stop and analyze. I think

God implants a certain instinct in fathers (who are somewhat slow on the uptake) that tells them to heed their children without extensive cross-examination.

“Sure,” I said. I lifted her off the couch—she in her soft cotton PJs with rabbits and me in my cutoffs and Dodger T-shirt— and went to the kitchen to tell Paula we were going up on the roof of the building. Paula, phone at her ear, put her finger in the air, telling me to be quiet.

I carried Maddie up to the roof.
The moon was almost full. It seemed huge. It cast a glow over the hills, where million-dollar homes gawked somewhat incredulously at the apartment buildings below. The kind of homes I dreamed of living in, with Paula and Maddie and a big, fat $20 million contract to star in the next Ridley Scott movie.
But tonight I did not care that I was on an apartment building roof. Maddie had her warm arms around my neck, and I held her and swayed, swayed, swayed. Time went completely away as we danced by the light of the moon.

I can pinpoint the start of the bad things.
The three of us were dining at Maddie’s favorite restaurant, Flookey’s. This was an establishment on Ventura Boulevard serving a selection of hot dogs and chips. It had an outdoor patio. Maddie liked to eat outside so she could say hi to all the people.
At five she was already networking. She’d make it in this town for sure.
Paula’s cell rang and she picked up. I half watched Paula and half did a hand game with Maddie.
After thirty seconds Paula looked as if her mother had died. She was silent, her face draining of color in the fashion of an old ghost movie. Just before I asked what was wrong, her face transformed into an incandescent smile. Then the tears came.
She said something and put the phone down.
“That was Phyl,” she said. Phyl was Paula’s agent.
“Good news?”
“Look at me, honey,” she said. How could I not? She was in the grip of something. She put her hand on my arm and with her other hand grabbed Maddie’s fingers.
“Antonio Troncatti wants me for his next film,” she said.
The name, the news, hit me like a rolled-up
Variety
across the face. Antonio Troncatti was the director of the moment, the new anointed one. A thirty-five-year-old Italian whose first movie had been nominated for Best Foreign Film. His next project had been for TriStar, a portrait of Napoleon starring Sean Penn. It was a huge international hit. That caught everyone by surprise because it did not contain the action elements usually required for big foreign box office.
The rumor now was he was in preproduction on a major thriller to be shot mostly in Europe. And every actor in Hollywood wanted to work with him.
“Wow,” I said in a half whisper.
“Wow!” Maddie screeched. She had no idea who Antonio Troncatti was, of course. She just wanted to be part of the fun.
“I can’t believe this,” Paula said, her voice and face otherworldly.
“How did he happen—”
“To pick me? Phyl says he wanted an unknown for the role, but a certain look. I guess I have it.”
“What about—” I nodded my head toward Maddie.
“What do you mean?” Paula said. I could tell I’d just deflated her a little.
“I mean, are you going to be in Europe, shooting?”
“I don’t know, Mark,” she said sharply. “I don’t know anything yet. Can’t you just be happy for me right now?”
I recovered quickly. “Yeah. Sure. Of course. You’re going to be a big star. You hear that, Maddie? Mommy’s going to be a big star!”
“My heart is beautiful!” Maddie said.

But my heart was not beautiful. To be perfectly frank, I was envious. Acting couples are that way. It’s a competitive business, and when your spouse gets the big break you have been hoping for yourself, it’s one of those good news/bad news things.

I have to admit that, when we got married, I thought I was the real actor in the family. Paula was on a soap. Not a bad thing. The money is good, the work steady. But it’s like the minor leagues of media. I never wanted to be on a soap, just in films or a solid TV series.

My unspoken plans were for me to get into feature films, starring roles, and Paula to follow along afterward. Maybe make her big splash in one of my own movies.

Call it male pride. Ego soufflé. That’s the way it was. Paula could sense it, too, on the drive home. She gets quiet when she’s upset, and a little line forms in the flesh between her eyebrows. I call it the John Gruden line, after the Tampa Bay football coach whose sneer is now legendary among followers of the game.
Maddie, happy in her car seat in the back of the Accord, looking at a picture book, ignored us.
“When’s it supposed to start?” I asked.
“I don’t know any of that yet.” Paula looked straight ahead. “Phyl will fill me in.”
“Phyl you in? I get it.”
Paula did not see the humor. Neither did I. I had done standup comedy for a while, on open mike nights, and I knew when a joke was lame. That was lame.
“Troncatti,” I said.
“What’s Troncatti?” Maddie asked from the rear.
“An Italian pasta,” I said. “You make it with Alfredo sauce.”
“Daddy’s joking, honey.” Paula turned around, protecting her child from the bad jokes of the driver. “Antonio Troncatti is a famous moviemaker. Mommy’s going to be in his movie.”
“With sauce?” my daughter said.
“Good call!” I slapped the steering wheel. “Alfredo sauce and pretentious dialogue.”
Paula spun around to look at me. “What are you doing?”
“What?”
“Why are you putting him down like that?”
“I’m just joking.”
“It’s not funny.”
Maddie said, “Not funny, Daddy.”
“Look at your book,” I told Maddie. “Mommy and Daddy are talking.”
“Talk, talk, talk,” Maddie said.
We drove in silence along Ventura. It was crowded tonight, and I hit every red light. Each one was like a little slap in the face.
Finally, I said, “Look, I’m sorry. All right? I want you to succeed. I really do. This is great news. I just feel, I don’t know—”
“Jealous?”
“Honest? A little.”
Paula put her hand on my arm. Her hand was hot. “Mark, you’re a great actor. I really think that. I think you should be getting your break soon. I want it to happen for you. I know it will.”
Back at the apartment I waited until Maddie was asleep before stirring up some hot chocolate for Paula and me. I took it to her with a big swirl of whipped cream on the top. She was watching a movie in the living room—
All About Eve
, one of her all-time favorites. She smiled as she took it and gave me the first sip.
“You know, I like being a man,” I said.
“And why is that?”
“Because when I retain water, it’s in a canteen.”
“Oh please.”
“And a phone conversation takes thirty seconds, max.”
“Very funny.”
“But the thing I like most about it?”
She looked at me.
“I get to be married to you.”
Two weeks later I had a knock-down-drag-out with Paula. She had officially signed on to do the film with Troncatti. There was still a part of me that hoped something would go wrong. Film cancelled. Change of mind on the casting. Selfish, I know, but I couldn’t help feeling it.
When the contract was signed, the reality was like a refrigerator dropping on my foot. Paula was going to be doing interviews, preproduction promotion, media stuff. She had a hundred other things to do trying to get ready to go. One night in the apartment, she asked me to help her go over her list, see if she’d forgotten anything.
“Yeah,” I said. “Maddie.”
She gave me her signature roll of the eyeballs, which only ticked me off.
“I mean it,” I said. “You’re going to be in Europe for what? Four months?”
“Give or take,” she said.
“And when are you going to see your daughter?”
“Mark,” she said, pulling off her glasses—they were blackframed and she never wore them in public, but when she pulled them off she seemed like my fifth-grade teacher about to chastise me—“four months is not a big deal.”
“To you maybe, but what about Maddie?”
“Bring her over.”
“Right. And meanwhile I quit auditioning.”
“What’s wrong with that?”
The way she said it entered my pores like an arctic wind. She might as well have said,
Your career isn’t exactly taking off, like mine, and you haven’t had a paying gig in eight months, so how can it be wrong to have you fly over where I’ll be making myself into a legend?

“That’s just like you all of a sudden,” I said. “You’re the center of the universe now.”
“Maybe I am. Maybe it’s my time.”
“You sound like George Segal in
Look Who’s Talking.
“Huh?”
“When he cheats on Kirstie Alley and tells her, ‘I’m going through a selfish phase.’”
“That is so mean.”
“Comparing you to George Segal?” I can be nasty when I want to be.
“You don’t want me to succeed, do you?”
At that precise moment I was not sure if I did. I could feel her star ascending like it was launched by some heavenly Cape Canaveral, while I sat here back on earth, a boulder in Death Valley.
I did want her to succeed. Part of me was so proud of her. She was going to become a major star, I had always believed that. And she was
my wife.
I never felt so good as when I walked into a party with Paula on my arm. Everyone would stop what they were doing and just stare—at her—and then they’d look over at me, thinking
Who is that lucky guy?
But I also didn’t want her to go away. And I yelled at her about it.
Paula yelled back. She had a good, strong voice. Great for theater work.
My voice is stronger, however, and I used it. Paula got so mad she started to cry and took off one of her shoes and threw it at me as hard as she could. She missed and I laughed. (To this day I am sorry about that. It was a cruel and ugly thing to do, and I did it because I wanted to
win.
That was all that mattered.)
And then Maddie came into the kitchen where World War III was commencing.
“Guys!” Maddie said emphatically, “this is not what you do!”
We looked at Maddie. I looked at Paula. Paula looked at me. Then Paula started to laugh. And I started to laugh. Maddie put her hands on her hips and said, “This is not funny.”