Life with My Sister Madonna (28 page)

I go out to run some errands and come home an hour later. The red light is flashing on my answering machine. I don't have caller ID, so I don't know ahead of time who has left the message. I push the button and Madonna's voice screams at me.

She is pissed off that I sent her a contract and calls me a fucking piece of shit, and tells me she made me what I am. She ends by telling me that she's not signing the contract and that I am not working for her anymore. Click.

I freak out, furious that just by asking for what any designer would has automatically unleashed this monster. I stare, livid and hurt, at my answering machine, the rage building in me.

I sit down at my desk, open my computer, and write a response in which I push every button I know Madonna has.

I know her vulnerabilities, and I hit on all of them. I am furious and I am not thinking, and I don't step back, I just do it as a gut reaction.

Soon after I send the fax, I hear through Darlene that Madonna is furious with me and thinks I am a complete and utter drug addict. This is her explanation as to why I wrote her such a vitriolic letter. I must be an addict. I must have been high when I wrote the letter. She can't imagine that I was angry when I wrote the letter or that she hurt me deeply.

I realize that these days she only hears what she wants to hear. Nothing gets through to her. But I have finally said some things to her that have been burning within me for years; the concept that I don't matter. Not treating me as a person, the lamps, the paintings, the fees, the fact that Danny didn't exist for her. Worst of all, I now understand, after all this time, that to my sister I am just as disposable as any other flunky who might get out of line.

She doesn't respond to the letter. A month passes and I start hearing from people around town that she is telling everyone that we are now estranged. I don't call her, but I begin to regret having written that letter.

As I ponder the professional repercussions, and my status in Hollywood, I know that I am fucked and have to somehow rectify the situation. Darlene compounds this when she tells me that I can carry on fighting with Madonna, but that having her as an enemy won't do me any good. Darlene suggests that I swallow my pride, apologize, admit to my hubris, and make the admission sound sincere.

In a replay of the angel-food-cake scenario, I am about to admit to everything of which I am innocent. I write a letter to Madonna in which I apologize profusely, although I don't mean a word of it.

I basically say, “You are right; I need to get control of myself. Drugs are a problem. I am going to take care of it. I am extremely sorry I wrote the fax and I hurt you. I have not been feeling like myself lately, please forgive me.”

She believes me and is taken in by my apology. I now realize that she doesn't know me at all. Getting to know someone on a deep level just isn't her style. From her perspective, she is the only person in the universe, so why should she take the time to get to know anybody?
They
need to get to know her. Nonetheless, I do believe that she still loves me and that her love has depth.

She replies immediately. She draws a heart at the end of the letter. She says that she is relieved and happy to have received my fax and that our not speaking feels “strange, foreign, and extremely uncomfortable.” Without exactly apologizing for the message she left, she lets me know that it's hard for her to trust people and often feels pulled in too many directions.

True to form, she tells me that she knows that my rage wasn't directed at her at all, but that I was angry at the burden of being her brother—then adds that although she sympathizes with me, she isn't going to apologize for that, since being her brother has also brought me great opportunity, which is undeniably true.

Half of the letter, however, is Madonna outlining her insecurities to me and explaining that they were partly the reason for her outburst against me. Reading it, I feel she is being sincere.

And if I am still feeling hurt and defensive about her, she fully disarms me by ending her letter with: “I will tell you once more how supremely talented I think you are and how much your happiness means to me. And of course how much I love you.”

 

I
LOVE HER,
too, but that love is tested to the limit after I fax and ask her for a decision regarding designing Cockerham, and she faxes me straight back just a few lines without any explanation—“I've decided to use someone else.”

I am hurt and annoyed, but most of my annoyance is directed at myself. I hate myself for having sent that fax. Then again, a small voice also tells me that perhaps I did it deliberately, perhaps on some level I feel too attached to my sister and really need to detach from her. At the same time, I can't blame her for cutting me out after the nasty things I said to her. And she did forgive me. Nevertheless, I'm still angry with her, but far more angry with myself.

October 14, 1996, Madonna's assistant Caresse calls and tells me that Madonna is about to give birth to Lola. I jump into my pre-owned black 560SEL Mercedes, which I've finally managed to buy, and drive to Good Samaritan Hospital. Outside the hospital, hundreds of press scream out my name.

Security checks my credentials from the list of five—Caresse, Melanie, Liz, Carlos, and me—who have clearance to visit her. I go up to her suite of rooms, 808, on the eighth floor—living room, bedroom, chintzy florals everywhere, and browns and pinks—hideous, and not Madonna's or my taste, not that it matters. I am happy she is about to have the child she's always wanted so much. I put aside my hurt and anger at the way in which our relationship has deteriorated so badly.

She is lying in bed in a white flannel nightgown. Her hair is washed and pulled back. She isn't wearing any makeup. She looks pale and wan.

“I love the decor,” I tell her.

She throws me a weak smile.

She is in a break from labor.

She tells me that they may do a C-section.

“Is that what you want?” I ask.

“Well, they think it's best. They just want to make sure the baby is all right, so I think I'll agree.”

I tell her to do whatever she thinks is best.

She doesn't seem afraid at all and says she is looking forward to giving birth. “I can't wait to get this thing out of me.”

Then her mood changes. “I wish Mom were here.”

“I wish she were as well,” I say. “She would be so happy to see you give birth, and to know her grandchild.”

Outside the suite, Carlos is pacing the hallways. Liz is there, too, and so are Caresse and Melanie. Around noon, they take Madonna away for the procedure. Melanie suggests I go home and wait for news there.

Just after four, Melanie calls and tells me that at 4:01 p.m. on October 14, 1996, Madonna gave birth to six-pound-nine-ounce Lourdes—“Lola”—by C-section and that mother and daughter are resting comfortably. I am simultaneously relieved and overjoyed.

The following day, I go to visit Madonna at home. I bring her gardenias, and a tricycle to give to Lola when she's old enough.

Arriving at the house, I feel strangely ambivalent. I am excited to be seeing my new niece, but I also feel weird about visiting Cockerham—the only one of Madonna's homes I have not designed—for the very first time. I loved creating and designing the look of my sister's homes in the past, but now I feel cast out in the cold.

The house is a Spanish, single-level Wallis Neff house. A brief glance at the interior and it's obvious that all Madonna has done is bring over the furniture we purchased for Castillo. It hurts me to see furnishings I'd purchased for her now redone and reorganized by someone else. For the first time ever, Madonna's home is foreign territory to me. But I am gratified to see that my painting of Eve is hanging in the living room and hope it indicates that, on some level, she still intends me to be part of her new life.

I go down the hall to Madonna's bedroom to see her and to meet Lola.

Madonna looks tired and places Lola in my arms.

“Lola, this is your uncle Christopher.”

“Hi, Lola, you're very pretty,” I say, terrified that I'm going to drop her.

I hand Lola back to Madonna and ask how she's doing.

“I'm exhausted; I feel like I've given birth to a watermelon.”

Then she shows me the incision on her belly. I can't believe how small it is. No more that five or six inches. I am amazed at the thought of a baby fitting through such a tiny opening.

I can see my sister is really sleepy, so I leave quietly.

On the way home, I remember thinking how thrilled I am for her, how sweet Lola looks, but how her birth means that our relationship will change even more.

There is now a growing distance between Madonna and me. I don't feel as close to her as I did before. For the first time ever, I have no connection to her home and no longer have my own room there, either. She has always been more my family than anyone else, but I can sense that connection weakening immensely. I'm happy that she's starting her own family, just as she wanted; still, I mourn the loss of the old “us.” And I miss Danny and think about him constantly. I feel bereft and sad.

 

T
HANKSGIVING
1996. MY parents fly out to see Lola for the first time. The entire family gathers at Madonna's house, including my older brothers. Melanie and I are in the kitchen, cooking. Madonna pops in every now and again to check that everything is all right. Although Melanie and I are doing the cooking, Madonna is still somewhat frantic.

I set the table. Madonna flies past me. I sense something odd about her tonight. I go into the kitchen and bring back a stick of butter on a butter dish. Madonna takes one look at it and blows up.

“What the fuck are you doing putting butter on the table, Christopher?” she yells.

I am completely thrown by the tone of her voice—the identical tone she used with me on my answering machine many months back.

“But, Madonna,” I say patiently, “we are having bread. So we need butter on the table.”

“But we have enough butter in the food. We don't need it on the table as well.” She snatches the dish from the table.

I grab it back from her. “I want butter on my bread and so will everyone else.”

“Well, I don't.” She picks up the butter and stomps out of the room with it.

When she isn't looking, I put it back on the table. It dawns on me that she hasn't really forgiven me for my fax at all. Just as my apology was fake, so was her forgiveness. I thought I was handling her, but realize that, in actuality, she was—more than skillfully—handling me. In fact, we were handling each other. She is still mad at me, still angry, and our relationship has altered almost beyond recognition.

Nevertheless, after the butter incident, from that point on, Thanksgiving Day passes uneventfully. I visit Lola in her crib, which is in Madonna's bedroom—the most feminine bedroom I've ever known her to live in, pink and cream with silk curtains, pretty and soft. After dinner, Melanie and I spend a few moments in the kitchen, bitching about Madonna. Then we all go home.

Despite the tensions between us at Thanksgiving, Madonna still invites me over for Christmas Day, which also passes uneventfully.

Madonna spends the rest of 1996 promoting
Evita
wherever and whenever possible. I believe that the movie deserves to do well, and that she should be honored for her performance, but audiences are not flocking to see it. She invites me to be her date on March 24, 1997, at the Oscars at the Shrine Auditorium. She has already won the Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Motion Picture, Musical or Comedy, for
Evita
, and I'm disappointed that she's not up for the Best Actress Academy Award.