Finding Myself in Fashion (17 page)

I made another call to 911 for more urgent attention, while H. grabbed his laptop and barked orders to get the dog and leave the house immediately. Incredulous over what was happening, I chased Beau out of the house and followed suit. The smoke was getting thicker. I looked through the basement windows and saw raging orange flames! Through the glass door, I could see that the main floor of my beloved little farmhouse was totally engulfed in smoke. The tiny, perfect haven I'd worked so hard for, which was so emblematic of my independence and my sense of myself, was going up in smoke! I felt totally helpless. I just kept talking to God, praying harder than I ever had for my little house to be saved. And then I heard the sirens coming up the long road towards the driveway—music to my ears!

There were three trucks of volunteer firemen. By now, it was almost two in the morning. They had all been woken up from their sleep and hopped immediately to the call of duty. A few of the men were local farmers I had met before. They seemed happy to see me, though they must have wondered about this mysterious new man with the exotic southern drawl. H. sat on the hammock and looked on as the firemen rolled out their hoses, opened the door to the basement, and went down to see what was going on. I suppose we were just so relieved that help had arrived that we started getting a little giddy, with H. joking about how I had tried to kill him. He actually managed to make me laugh in the midst of this potential disaster!

Finally, after a good couple of hours, the fire was extinguished. We were told to stay awake for another couple of hours to make sure there wasn't any further flare-up. Apparently, because the initial fire H. built was so large, a flying spark had fallen through the crack in the floorboards and ignited one of the 150-year-old beams in the basement. Luckily, the basement was totally empty (a flood down there some years back had forced me to get rid of everything), and that was what saved the building. If there had been something like an old couch down there, it would have caught fire in seconds, and the whole house would have been toast. I thought it was nothing less than an act of God that my precious farmhouse had not burned down, and also that H. and I had survived the fire. After all, we could have fallen asleep and not woken up in time. I installed smoke alarms the next morning. And the romantic in me naively interpreted the whole misadventure as a symbol of the burning passion H. and I shared, and as proof that if we could survive that, we would survive anything. Stupid, or what?

The romance continued for several months after that, with more phone calls that lasted long into the night. I flew down to Nashville to meet his lovely family and his two dogs; stayed in his rather squalid apartment; cooked pots of my chicken curry for him, leaving them in his freezer so he would have food for weeks. He even introduced me to his minister. (By this point I had invested in a copy of the New Testament, which I kept by my bedside and tried to digest each night because I knew the Scriptures were a cornerstone of H.'s life.) I'll never
forget the prayer circle at his minister's house, which I joined on my final day there. Everybody prayed that I would be protected on all my exotic travels. Let me tell you, it was quite the send-off, considering that my next trip was to see Karl Lagerfeld in Monaco!

My life had definitely taken on a bizarrely comedic complexion. I was thrilled by H.'s late-night calls and melted just about every time I heard that deep-voiced drawl greeting me with that irresistible “Hey, baby!” H. and I had a couple of rendezvous in New York, and he flew to Toronto again, with me more than happy to cash in my frequent flyer points to get him here. I worried about him because he told me he rarely ate properly, except for the frozen curried chicken I had left him with and the tacos he regularly made for himself. I even sent him care packages of food from a local Nashville delicatessen on several occasions. Then there were the beautiful shirts and sweaters I bought him in Paris—delighting in how much he appreciated my generosity. I was seriously hooked on this guy, and when he came to see me just before Christmas, I hosted a big party at my house so my mum and all my friends could meet him. Not surprisingly, he charmed every last one of them. And though my girls seemed a bit cynical about the whole thing, they were glad to see me so happy at last. I would listen in the car to the compilation CDs he made for me, with the volume full blast. It was as though he had brought music back into my life. The pièce de résistance was when he wrote me a song for Christmas. Called “Jeanne, Come Home,” it was inspired by all the time I spent in airplanes, running around the world, when he knew full well that for me, there really was no place like home.

While his forte for the past couple of decades had been producing the music of other artists, H. was a wonderful performer in his own right, and I strongly encouraged him to get out there and start playing, something he hadn't done in years. Shortly after Christmas, he told me the great news: He was going to play a small club in New York in January, just for one night. He was eager to see if he could start playing regularly again. I was thrilled that he was going to take this plunge, and enthusiastically made arrangements to be there for him. At first, he seemed excited that I would be present. But a couple of weeks before
his gig, he mysteriously changed his tune and started suggesting that perhaps I should just let him test the waters on his own this first time out. It was suspicious behaviour to be sure, but I gave him the benefit of the doubt. I thought he was just feeling so much pressure that he was a little nervous about having me there. It broke my heart to have to stay in Toronto on the weekend I knew he was performing in New York, but I acquiesced. Shortly after his performance, he sheepishly admitted that his ex-girlfriend had shown up at the club, just to be supportive. I was bitterly stung but tried to be mature, stoically soldiering on when I should have been heeding the alarms.

I had become friendly with H.'s two beautiful twenty-something daughters. The youngest lived in New York, and it was her fondest wish to tag along with me to a couple of shows at Fashion Week that February. H. apologized that he wouldn't be able to meet me in New York that week—he had some important business to attend to in Nashville—but he said he was thrilled I would be showing his daughter around. We planned a fabulous day, and I took the dear young woman with me for an interview I was conducting with Norma Kamali, as well as taking her backstage to meet Betsey Johnston at her Bryant Park show. I took pride in introducing her to everyone as “my new boyfriend's daughter,” and we had a blast. Several times that day, we tried calling H. on his cell, eager to share all the fun we were having. But we could never reach him, and he didn't return any of our messages. We both thought it was peculiar that he seemed to be missing in action.

At the end of the day, H.'s daughter went home, and I couldn't wait to talk to H. and tell him what a great day we had spent together. But he never called that night, and all my messages went unanswered. Now I was getting worried. The next morning, there was still no call. I was homeward bound, waiting for my plane in the lounge at LaGuardia, when my phone rang. It was H., apologizing profusely, saying he had been severely bummed out and completely tied up with something very heavy that was going down. He promised to explain everything to me when he came to Toronto that weekend. I was still worried and puzzled, but I had faith that it would all eventually make sense. I imagined that one of his business deals had gone south, or that he was in some kind
of serious financial trouble, or maybe, God forbid, that something was wrong with his health. It was unnerving, and I couldn't wait to get the story.

H. showed up in Toronto a couple of days later (thanks again to my air miles, of course), and he seemed a little antsy. I begged him to tell me what “heavy” thing had gone down, but he said he didn't want to talk about it right away, assuring me that he would tell me everything once we got to the farm. I couldn't begin to imagine what all the mystery was about.

We finally got to Chanteclair, but H. was still delaying the big “reveal,” saying he wanted to relax and watch a movie. Finally fed up, I insisted on hearing what his big “news” was. He took a deep breath.

“Well, you know when you were in New York this past week?” he began. “I was there too. But I couldn't see you, or even talk to you, because I was with my ex.”

My heart plummeted.

“I was staying with her, but it isn't what you think!” He scrambled to find the words to mollify me. “I swear I never slept with her. I just had to go there and get some things straight with her, make sure she knew it was really over between us,” he said.

My jaw dropped as I listened to this crock. Obviously, he wasn't ready to let go of the old girlfriend. How dare he!

“How dare you!” I screamed, as the painful memory of Denny's betrayal came rushing back. “There's one thing I can't stand, and that's a liar!” I roared.

“Well, I never lied to you! I never told you where I was exactly,” he said feebly, trying to save his sorry ass.

I was sickened at the thought of having been so deceived.

“Why couldn't you just have told me you still had issues with her?” I asked.

“Because then I knew I wouldn't have her anymore, and I wouldn't have you. I didn't think you'd accept that.”

“You should have tried me!” I shot back. I was livid.

But as incensed as I was, I didn't have the heart to throw him out

of the farmhouse. It was a freezing February night, and we were in the
middle of nowhere, after all. So I just sucked up my anger and wrote him off forever. What a jerk he was! And what a vulnerable fool I'd been! I was deeply ashamed of myself, and realized how empty and lonely I must have been to have allowed myself to be drawn into this dark, hurtful situation. Still, in retrospect, I suppose I can't be angry with myself for having an open heart, and for giving someone the benefit of the doubt. It's just unfortunate that sometimes we do get taken advantage of—especially when we're needy. I made up my mind to get over H.
tout de suite
and concentrate on refining my survival skills as a soloist for a while.

By early December, ten months after my H. fiasco, I was relishing my life—footloose and fancy free. Surprisingly, a whole new spate of suitors had miraculously surfaced. I was dating and feeling confident once again when I got an email from H. His beloved son had died suddenly. I knew H. must have been beside himself with grief, and my heart went out to him. I decided to reach out and gave him a call. He was happy to hear from me and wept openly over his loss. He said he would love my input on the eulogy he had written for the funeral the next day. I told him to send it, and I would go over it for him. I could only imagine the depth of H.'s agony, since I knew how profoundly his special needs son had affected his life. In my heart, I forgave H. for treating me so badly, but I still wanted no part of him in my life.

After his son's funeral, H. contacted me a few times, asking if he could come to Toronto for a post-Christmas visit. My answer was a resounding no. That chapter was over, baby. I had definitely moved on.

A MOTHER'S COURAGE

MY MOTHER is one of the great loves of my live, and I thank God every day that I still have her to share in my joys and success, to inspire me, and to comfort me with her unconditional love. Unfortunately, though, since my sister, Marilyn, has lived in Los Angeles since the early 1980s, I'm the only child my mother has close by (even though she's about a forty-five-minute drive away, which makes it seem not nearly close enough most days). I speak to my mother every single day, no matter where in the world I am, and I try to see her for dinner or an outing at least once a week. Sometimes, she spends the weekend with me at the farm. Once in a while, she comes out to see me host a fashion show or speak at an event. It's those times I particularly cherish, so grateful that she was able to see her “little Jeanne” grow up to live the dream.

Naturally, like all of us with aging parents, I am concerned about her physical well-being. Both my sister and I were especially worried when, in April 2007, my eighty-six-year-old mother started complaining about getting fatigued after just walking a block or so. She was also experiencing pain in her left arm. My dad had been the one with heart problems. My mother's malady was Parkinson's, which
had been diagnosed a couple of years earlier. We all assumed that her Parkinson's was to blame for her sudden fatigue. We never thought that my mother's heart might be in trouble too.

Still, at the suggestion of my mother's doctor, I took her to see a cardiologist. Within minutes, this specialist told us he suspected she had a major blockage in her heart, and he urged us to get her to the hospital immediately for observation. And so it began. Within days, we learned that my mother had two major artery blockages that were so severe, she wasn't even a candidate for angioplasty. A double bypass was her only hope. Trouble is, there aren't too many surgeons willing to do open-heart surgery on eighty-six-year-olds with Parkinson's.

We were all in shock. How could our vibrant, Energizer Bunny of a mum be in this much peril? And after all she had been through, would she even be willing to entertain the option of surgery, assuming we could find someone who would take the chance and operate on her? My sister and I were terrified. My mother was in disbelief and seemed unwilling to make such a grave decision. “I'll do whatever you want,” she told us from her hospital bed. “I can't decide for myself.” My sister and I were sick with indecision. But we knew it was up to us.

On April 17, Bekky's twentieth birthday, Marilyn, Bekky, and I spent a couple of agonizing hours in my mother's room at North York General Hospital, trying to decide whether she should “go for it” and have the risky double bypass. Marilyn was against it at first. She believed it would be too much for my mother. Even though my mother was walking on eggshells, her heart capable of giving out at any minute, Marilyn was understandably worried about subjecting her to such an invasive and potentially dangerous operation. My sister had a valid point.