Outtakes from a Marriage (19 page)

I was looking right at him. He was looking right back.

“Call her,” he said.

“What’s the name of the film?” I asked.

Joe thought for a moment. “I don’t know,” he said.

I gave a short little laugh.

“Spike Jonze is directing it!” he announced.

Joe’s laptop was next to the bed and I lifted it up, my eyes still fixed on his.

“Go ahead,” he said. “Look it up.”

I Googled Susanna. There were ten million Susanna Mercer links. Then I Googled Susanna Mercer and Spike Jonze and found a link to
Variety.
I clicked on the link.

Susanna Mercer is set to costar with Owen Wilson in
You Rang?,
a new Spike Jonze film, DreamWorks producer Jeremy Winston announced today….

“I’m gonna have Susanna call you,” Joe said. “She’s going to feel horrible when she finds this out. I’m actually going to be a little embarrassed to tell her that my wife secretly listens to my voice-mail messages….”

“It was an accident,” I said. “We have the same code.” And I told him the story of how I managed to get his voice mail instead of my own that night at Pastis.

“It was an
accident,
” I said.

[
fifteen
]

S
o you believe him?” Alison asked. We were in the Beverly Hills Vera Wang showroom. It was the following Friday, just two days before the Golden Globes. The dress I had chosen the week before had been flown to L.A. that morning, Joe and I had flown in that afternoon, and now I stood on a raised, carpeted pedestal while a seamstress carefully pinned my hem. Alison sat on a stool with her legs crossed and her ankle jiggling madly.

“Yes,” I said. “I really do, Alison.” I indicated with my eyes that I couldn’t say more in front of the seamstress but Alison was determined.

“And how did he explain the…dirty talk?”

“The same as everything else. She was just working on the accent. Couldn’t think of anything to say. Trying to be funny!”

“I see,” said Alison, in a tone that implied she saw something I didn’t.

“Turn, please,” the seamstress said. I turned away from Alison and faced the three-way mirror, and there I was. My long, wavy blond hair was parted in the middle, looking, I thought, very seventies-chic. My skin glowed with yesterday’s spray-on tan. My forehead was as smooth as a baby’s, and when I smiled, no smile lines! The gown was simple but elegant, a satiny, steel-blue column that matched the color of my eyes and made me look tall and willowy. Behind me, through the floor-to-ceiling windows, clouds drifted by and palms swayed in the afternoon sun, and I thought,
I love California.

We had thought of moving to L.A. when Ruby was younger. We looked at houses in Venice one winter, when Joe was shooting a film there. There were still some ramshackle bungalows right near the beach then, and Joe and I dreamed of buying one and fixing it up. A house was a very romantic notion in those days, when we were still renting and paying off debts. Now, when we go to L.A. and look at real-estate prices, Joe often says, “Why the hell didn’t we scoop up one of those shitholes in Venice when we had the chance? Those places start at five million now.” But what’s the use of thinking like that? How could we have known then what we know today? It’s like asking why we didn’t look at ourselves then and see how precious everything about our marriage was. We should have poured ourselves into each other instead of miserly begrudging our time and energy, fighting over whose turn it was to get up with the baby and who got less sleep than the other. Everything appreciates over time. A long-term marriage is a rare and valuable thing, but fourteen years ago we weren’t looking to nourish something that would someday be rare and valuable. We were just trying to claw Joe’s way to the top. Now, standing proudly erect for the silent Filipino seamstress who crawled around my feet, I viewed myself as the steadfast guardian of our marriage. A weathered but still somehow beautiful figurehead proudly thrusting my protective bosom before the rising bow of a bountiful ship. My duty was to protect our marriage, not to dash it onto the rocks! I saw that now. That morning before we left for the airport, when I had guiltily tried Joe’s voice mail one more time (just to be sure), I was met with a recording that informed me that his code had been changed.
Good!
I had thought.
I’m finished with all that witchery.

“I’m sure she’s going to the show on Sunday. Are you going to ask her about it?” asked Alison.

“Who?”

“You know,” she said, and when I glanced at her, she mouthed the word, “Susanna.”

“I doubt it.”

“Julia! You have to!”

“It’s too embarrassing! I’d have to admit to listening to…you know what, and she’d think I’m some hopelessly insecure shrew….”

“No, she’d think you have her number, which you do.”

“I’m just going to mind my own business. Joe and I are getting along great! It’s like we’re on a second honeymoon.”

I hadn’t told Alison or Beth about my Gawker postings. I couldn’t. I could trust my two best friends with my life, but not with such a great bit of celebrity gossip as that. It would be too tempting at a party, after a few drinks, when the conversation switched over to celebrities, or the Internet, or to who’s gay—there were many, many possible segues to the shameful “My friend is married to Joe Ferraro and she once, in a fit of anger, posted on the Internet that he’s gay” story. Nothing had happened with the fake postings, anyway. Joe never followed up with his lawyers and there were no more blind items.

“So are you coming with us tomorrow night, or what?” I asked, changing the subject.

“Oh yeah, what is it again?”

“The
Entertainment Weekly
party.” Alison knew that. And I knew she wouldn’t miss it for the world, but she needed to pretend it was all too boring for her. Alison’s career had sort of passed her by. Actually, in Alison’s mind, it had not passed her by but had jumped ship and attached itself to Debra Messing when she barely beat out Alison for the part of Grace on
Will and Grace
. “Three call-backs,” Alison still sometimes lamented when she’d had a few too many drinks. “And that bitch isn’t even funny!”

“Okay, I guess I’ll come.” She sighed. “Maybe I’ll buy something to wear. Can Joe get me on the list?”

“Yeah, I’ll call his agent.”

“Because I don’t need him to. I’m sure I was already on the list, and when my assistant asked me about it, I said no, like I do to almost everything, but since you two are going, it might be fun.”

“I’ll make sure you’re on the list,” I said.

When the fitting was over, I made arrangements to have the gown sent to our suite at the Four Seasons. Alison gave me a kiss and dropped a small pill bottle into my purse.

“What’s that?” I asked.

“Xanax. For the red carpet Sunday, in case I forget tomorrow. Just take half if you want. Me? I’d take two. Most people double their red-carpet dosage for the major awards shows.”

“Well, thanks,” I said.

Outside, I handed my parking stub to the young valet and he sprinted off, returning promptly with the black BMW Z4 rental convertible that Joe had surprised me with that afternoon. Joe had a meeting with his agent, but while I was unpacking, he left the keys to the car with a note that said, “In case you want to go to the beach. I’ve heard this is quicker than the bus! Love, J.”

The first time Joe and I ever came to Los Angeles—for his first paying film job—we took a Metro bus from the Roosevelt Hotel in Hollywood to Santa Monica. It had looked like such an easy trip on the bus map. One bus would take us to Beverly Hills (Beverly Hills!) and we would switch to another that would take us to Santa Monica. To the beach!

My earliest impressions of Los Angeles had been largely formed by a handful of
I Love Lucy
reruns that I adored as a kid. The episodes where Ricky goes to Hollywood to sign a motion-picture deal and Ethel and Lucy go sightseeing in Beverly Hills. I felt, on that first L.A. trip, that Joe and I were a little like Ricky and Lucy,
sans
the Mertzes, but
avec
the wide-eyed, look-who’s-hit-the-big-time attitude. It was pilot season and Joe’s agent had arranged some meetings and auditions for him during the week we were in town, and when we flew into LAX, we felt as if we were being deposited on the very threshold of a bright, golden destiny.

We arrived on a Sunday and Joe wasn’t scheduled to start shooting until that Tuesday. On Monday morning we woke up early, owing to the time change (this was before Ruby), and we decided to walk around the neighborhood. We strolled along the “Walk of Fame,” and we studied the names on the stars with delight. Across the street was Grauman’s Chinese Theatre and we meandered across Sunset Boulevard, hand in hand, and just as we stepped onto the curb on the opposite side, a police officer on a moped pulled up next to us. The officer asked if we had a good reason for choosing not to cross at the light. We offered the lack of approaching automobiles as a good enough reason and were surprised to see the officer whip a citation pad from his breast pocket. He explained that there was a forty-dollar fine for jaywalking in the city of Los Angeles, and we honestly thought he was joking. Joe tried to explain that we had just arrived from New York City, where people are allowed to cross the street at will, but the cop would have none of it.

Anyway, that afternoon I wanted to go to the beach. Joe didn’t particularly want to go, but he was willing, because I wanted so desperately to walk along a California beach. Somehow a rental car had not been part of Joe’s deal (a teamster drove him and another actor to and from the set each day) and we couldn’t really afford to rent a car, so we decided to take the bus. (I’ve told this story at a few Los Angeles cocktail parties and this is where people laugh uproariously.) Why bore you with the details of that epic journey? Short version: Long. Hot. Dehydrated and jet-lagged. Menacing Mexican gang behind us. Obvious TB victim catching sputum in hand, one row ahead. Otherwise empty bus that stops every few minutes even though there is nobody to discharge. Eyeing drivers in other cars, also stuck in traffic, we learn that even homeless people, even the blind, the limbless, the lepers, apparently even the children, DRIVE CARS in Los Angeles. Hours pass and finally it is time to switch buses in Beverly Hills! Hours later we arrive at the Santa Monica Pier and I have just enough time to sprint down to the surf and get my toes wet before we have to rush to make the last “express” bus back to Hollywood.

We had more or less wasted Joe’s one free day in L.A., but he never blamed me or complained. That’s one of Joe’s pluses. He’s really not a complainer. The first time my father went to a rehab for his drinking, my senior year in high school, he went to a good place—a real rehab with counselors and group sessions. When Neil and I went up for a family therapy weekend, one of our exercises was to list five positive things about each family member. It’s hard to hold on to ill will and resentment toward somebody who has five good things about them, our counselor told us. And it turns out, we learned in that session, everybody has at least five things. One of Joe’s is not being a complainer. Other things? He’s generous. He has never begrudged me a thing—rather, he has told me that he wishes I would splurge on myself more. If I had driven straight over to Fred Segal that afternoon of the Golden Globe weekend and run up a ten-thousand-dollar bill, he would have been pleased for me. He’s smart and intuitive. He can look at a situation and deconstruct it in a minute—for example, the time Sammy had the meltdown at his school interview—and know what to do next, while I’m more the type to panic and make things worse.
He’s funny and loving and patient and…loyal,
I told myself that sunny Friday afternoon.
He’s loyal.

The valet pulled up with the black roadster and I tucked a twenty-dollar bill into his palm. I climbed inside and decided to put the top down. Why drive a convertible in Southern California with the top up? The valet saw me fumbling around with the roof latches and he leaned into the car.

“Like this,” he said, reaching across me to unlatch one side, then the other. His arms were tanned and he smelled like shampoo and sweat and something else, some kind of musky aftershave, and this, combined with his youthful exuberance, made me smile.

“You have to put your foot on the brake…. That’s it,” he said, and he pushed a button on the center console. The roof retracted obediently and the young man stood back up and gave me a big grin.

“Thanks,” I said, smiling back. I can’t describe how long and blond I felt as I pulled away from the curb.

The car was equipped with a Global Positioning System that greeted me with a loud “Welcome!” and, to my surprise, announced that my destination was the Four Seasons hotel. Somebody at the rental agency must have programmed in the address of the hotel for us.

I started down Rodeo Drive. As always, I marveled at how immaculate the streets of Beverly Hills are. Joe says it’s from the lack of snow and road salt and sand, but where is the detritus of man? The beer cans and chicken wings and pigeon shit and last night’s vomit and spat-out gum that bejewel the sidewalks and streets of New York, London, Rome? Driving through Beverly Hills always makes me feel complicit in some kind of brilliant, but evil, urban-planning scheme. The garbage and dirt has to be
somewhere.
Now, though, driving a shiny black roadster down the pristine boulevard, I felt as if I was one of the chosen. The deserving. The breeze blew my hair extensions around my face and I flipped my head back like a teenager.

“In fifty feet, turn left,” instructed my GPS guide.

Okay!

“At the next intersection, stay to the right.”

Will do!

I followed the instructions of my electronic guide through several intersections and within minutes I was pulling up in front of the Four Seasons hotel.

“You have arrived!” announced the GPS.

You bet your ass I have!

I handed the car over to yet another valet and was welcomed into the lobby of the hotel by the doorman.

“Welcome back, Mrs. Ferraro. There’s a FedEx package waiting for you.”

“Thank you,” I said, and I walked over to the desk to receive the package in all my blond loveliness.

“Mr. Ferraro left a message for you. He won’t be back until six-thirty,” said the concierge, handing me the package. We had decided to skip the various pre–Golden Globe parties that evening, to instead have a romantic dinner served to us in our suite. Now I had some extra time before Joe returned to the hotel. I would call the kids and then maybe take a nap.

As I headed for the elevators, I passed a door with a large Frédéric Fekkai sign above a photograph of a beautifully coiffed model. Two women were walking out of the door with bags full of hair products, and when they looked up, I saw that one was Teri Hatcher.

A hair salon. Perfect. I would get my hair extensions blown out while I was waiting for Joe. That way I wouldn’t have to have it done before the
Entertainment Weekly
party tomorrow.

I smiled at Teri Hatcher, who smiled blankly back, and I pushed open the door of the salon. Inside, I waited behind two women who were checking in at the reception desk. When it was my turn, the perky young receptionist glanced down at a long list and asked, “Your name please?”