Outtakes from a Marriage (22 page)

“I miss you, too, sweetness. See you tomorrow.”

There was a pause, then some mumbling in Spanish and then Catalina said, “Hello, Julia!”

We spoke about Sammy and Ruby for a few moments and then Catalina said, “You sound tired, Julia.”

“I am a little tired.”

“Eat,” she said.

“Okay.”

“No, really. Eat, Julia.
Barriga llena
…

“Corazón contento,”
I finished with her. “I know. Thanks, Catalina.”

“We’ll be watching you and Joe!”

Annette and Lana had gone. Back in New York, I’d bought a padded bra to wear with my strapless gown, but now, wandering aimlessly around our room in a pair of Spanx (it’s a sort of…girdle) and heels, I couldn’t find it anywhere. It wasn’t in my bag or in any of our drawers or in with the dirty laundry. I could go braless, of course, but the dress had been fitted with me wearing that padded, strapless bra. Without it, it was possible that my deflated breasts wouldn’t even keep my dress up. And those Spanx! I couldn’t breathe. I pulled them off.

Laney stuck her head into the bedroom.

“Oh, sorry, hon. I thought you’d be dressed. The car’s here!”

“Okay,” I said, “I’ll be ready in a minute.”

She left.

Then I forgot what I was looking for, so when Joe walked in a minute later, I was just staring at the ceiling.

“Why aren’t you dressed? We’re supposed to be on our way there now,” he said, and then I remembered and explained to him about the bra. He went into the closet and threw a few things around. Then he reemerged with the bra in his hand and I smiled gratefully up at him from where I lay across the foot of the bed.

“Julia, what’re you doing?”

“I’m hungry,” I said. “And I’m tired.”

“Well, grab some candy out of the minibar. We’re late. Here, put these on,” Joe said.

He helped me put on the bra and then he started examining the Spanx.

“What the…”

“Give me those,” I said. I peeled them on.

“Okay, for some reason, the sight of you in these…granny pants…now I’ve got a fuckin’ hard-on. Shit,” Joe said. Then he said, “Didja ever do it on the way to the Golden Globes?”

“Joe…”

“C’mon,” he said, and started kissing me, and before I knew it, we were all sprawled out across the bed.

“Wait,” I said. “I think we should stop.” But I was getting a little turned on, too. What would it hurt? Once more for old times’ sake?

“Hmm?” Joe whispered, kissing my neck. Then I thought about Jenna.

“You know what?” I said.

“What, baby?”

“I think I’m gonna stay here.”

“When?” he murmured in my ear.

“Tonight. The awards. I don’t feel like going.”

Joe sat up. “WHAT?”

“Actually, I might see if I can get on the red-eye. I miss the kids. And I want to see my dad.”

Joe stared at me. “You’re joking, right?”

“No, I really don’t want to go.”

“Why?”

“Why do you think?” I said.

“Listen, Julia…”

I stood up and reached for the gown, which was draped across the bed. I wanted to be sure that it went back in the same condition it came in. I didn’t want to have to pay for it. Then I wondered if the Vera Wang people would make me buy it since I had reneged on our agreement that I’d wear it on national TV.

“Julia…listen. Listen to me,” Joe said.

I started to gather up the fabric.

“Look, I was going to tell you. I…just wanted to figure out how we could discuss this. We need to talk…about things. I haven’t been as honest as I could have been and I hate myself for it….”

I folded the silk panels into one another.

Joe whispered, “Please, Julia. Look at me.”

After a moment I peered through my heavy lashes into those puppy-dog eyes. Ugh, he was tearing up. Crying is like yawning, easily faked by some but also hopelessly contagious, so I grabbed a tissue from the bedside table and dabbed like crazy. Any moisture on those lashes would be a disaster—I imagined a tar-black tsunami crashing down my cheeks and over the gown, false-eyelash flotsam everywhere. So in order not to cry, I thought of one of my favorite memories: a video we have of baby Ruby running down a hill in Ireland. It begins with her at the top, the tall grasses tickling her chubby thighs. She performs her adorable new wave for the camera, her fat hand flopping back and forth on the end of her wrist, and then she starts to gambol down the hill toward us.

“Careful, Ruby. Careful,” is my off-camera warning, but on she comes, running now, and as she gains momentum with the steep decline of the hill and her little legs start to pump faster and faster, we realize that she’s wide-eyed and panicked. She can’t stop. The video becomes shaky and blurry here because Joe, who is working the camera, is panicking, too. “Whoa, slow down, Ruby, Jesus Christ…SLOW DOWN!” he says, but she has no choice but to ride those runaway legs all the way to the bottom of the hill, where she finally tumbles over, pausing for a moment to assess the damage, then bursting into tears.

She was fine, just scared. Now whenever we watch the video, Ruby laughs until she cries every time. We all do.

“You’re the one I love. You’re the first woman I ever really loved and you’ll be the last, Julia. I swear. She was an extra. She was always hanging around the set. Always paying all this attention to me. One night we got drunk…it was after the wrap party…”

I didn’t go to the wrap party at the end of last season. Those parties are like a company picnic—only fun for the employees, really. And Ruby had something going on that night, somebody’s bat mitzvah, and I had wanted to stay home to help her get ready. Joe went alone. I forced myself to think again about Ruby running down that hill. It really is impossible not to laugh when you see that video, because in its brief course lie all the elements of a great drama. The expectant joy on her face as she begins her spirited descent, then the dawning realization that she doesn’t yet have the skills necessary to control the situation. The moments of unbridled panic—little white shoes a bionic blur—Joe bellowing, me screaming, and then…it’s over. The child is in one piece.

“Change is difficult but not impossible,” Dr. James said to me once. It’s probably what he would say to me now, if he were here.

“Don’t be a crybaby,” is what my father would have said.

“Where’s Mom?” I imagined Ruby asking Catalina when they saw Joe on TV later, and I thought of Catalina crossing herself, imagining the worst.

“Okay, Joe,” I said. “I’ll go. Let’s just go to the show. But let’s not talk about the rest of it tonight.”

“The rest of what?”

“The details.”

“Details? What—Are you thinking of leaving? We have to talk about this, I want to explain….”

“Explain, then.”

“Julia. We need time. To talk. Stay tomorrow, let’s talk in the morning….”

“How much time does it take to tell the truth?” I asked. “It’s quick. I’m the one who planted those gay rumors about you on the Internet! See? See how quick that is?”

Joe laughed nervously. “Right,” he said. Then he said, “You just made that up, right?”

“Let’s just go to the show so the kids don’t think something happened. Then I’m taking the first flight to New York in the morning. I’m gonna pick up the kids and drive to Bedford. Today’s my dad’s birthday. I want to go see him.”

There was a loud knock on the door. “It’s getting really late, kids. You do
not
want to be walking down the red carpet behind Brad and Angelina!”

“Okay! Okay!” Joe shouted. Then he said, “Julia, let’s not fuck everything up over this….”

“I’m not talking to you about it now,” I said quietly. “Should I put the dress on or not?”

“Yes,” Joe said. Then he said, “Please tell me you were joking about the Internet thing….”

“No. C’mon, let’s go, it’s late.”

“Okay…so no, you won’t tell me you were joking, or no you weren’t joking?”

“Believe whatever you want,” I said. “Let’s go.”

And so we went to the Golden Globes, Joe and me. We really were late, and the line of limos and Town Cars leading to the Beverly Hilton seemed to stretch for miles. We were in the backseat of the Town Car this time. We knew not to drive it to an event like this ourselves. We had a driver and a publicist sitting next to him, madly barking at some assistant on her BlackBerry. We had two kids, two cars, a Manhattan apartment, and a beach house in Amagansett. We had stocks and mutual funds, hard cash, liquid assets, and various trusts. We rode in silence. When we arrived at the Beverly Hilton, Joe was on the right side. He knew to get out first, and the crowd showed its appreciation with a triumphant roar. If you saw us on one of the preshows, you might have thought,
There’s Joe Ferraro. That must be his wife. Look how she holds his arm so lovingly, how she gazes up at him….

Because I did hold on to Joe’s arm that night on the red carpet. I actually clung to it during the long series of interviews, the California sun scorching into me, melting me beneath my borrowed finery. Cameras were flashing and people were nudging us from all directions. I feared that if I let go, I would lose him forever to the crowd and I would be forced to make my way back, upstream, through the pressing throngs to where our empty car awaited. I clutched his tuxedoed arm—the same strong arm that had held me so tight when we made love, that I had seized like a vise during childbirth, that had cradled our babies so tenderly, their plump bodies fitting perfectly into its crook. We followed Laney through the thick, antsy flock of celebrities, stepping over the long trains of flighty young starlets and bumping up against the gentle giants—great legends of television and film who smiled patiently and waited their turn to be interviewed. We stopped and smiled and posed for photographers and later, after Joe won, we had to go to the outdoor press area, where Joe posed again and again with his gleaming Golden Globe award held triumphantly above his head. Somebody asked us to kiss. For the cameras. And of course we did. Joe pulled me into his arms and we kissed giddily, and the cameras shot us just like that.

Joe and me kissing, the trophy pressed into my back.

The photo ended up in
People.
It looked like we were madly in love again, like we were starting anew.

“What’s it like being married to Mitch Hollister?” a reporter called out to us.

I never know what to say in situations like that, so I mumbled, blushing and stammering like an idiot, “He’s just…Joe to me…I guess.”

“Yup, he’s a Joe, all right,” my dad would have said if he was there.

The next award recipient, a shaken and hysterical best actress, was led onto the platform and Joe’s moment was over. We stepped out of the bright gaze of the hundreds of cameras and into the blackness of the night. I was still holding Joe’s arm and he pulled me close, and we walked tentatively together like that, like two uncertain children, taking one little step and then the next.

“Watch it,” Joe said, helping me lift the train of my dress. “Watch your step.”

“Okay,” I said, holding his arm tight. “Okay.”

And we walked on like that a little longer. We were being careful. It was so dark. Phantom auras of flashing lights still swam before us, so we went along slowly, helping each other find the way, one step…and then the next…until our eyes grew accustomed to the dark.

Acknowledgments

M
any thanks to Sally Kim, my gifted editor; to all the great people at Shaye Areheart Books; and to the smart Davids: Black and Larabelle at the David Black Literary Agency. Also to my friends Dani Shapiro and Heather King for their generous advice, wisdom, and support. Thank you to my beloved sister, Meg Seminara, and my sainted mother, Judy Howe, who read the book and said only nice things about it. Warmest thanks to another smart David, who suggested I write something, and finally, my deepest love and gratitude to Denis, Jack, and Devin for bearing with me while I did.

About the Author

A
nn Leary was born in Syracuse, New York, in 1962. Her father’s jobs and his natural wanderlust moved the family to various parts of Pennsylvania, Maryland, Michigan, and Wisconsin before they settled in Marblehead, Massachusetts, during her fourteenth year. Ann attended Bennington College from 1980 to 1982. In 1982 she transferred to Emerson College in Boston and there she met Denis Leary, a stand-up comic who was teaching a comedy writing class. She took his class and received one of the few
A
s in her academic career. At the end of the semester-long course, she agreed to go on a date with him. It ended up being a very late night, that date, and she invited him to stay in her studio apartment in Boston instead of trying to get back to his place in Cambridge, and he did stay that night—and every night after that for the next twenty-five years, and still they are together. They were married in 1989. In 1990 their son, Jack, was born prematurely during what was supposed to be a weekend-long stay in London and they remained in England for the next six months, as uninvited guests of Britain’s national health care system. Ann’s memoir about the experience,
An Innocent, a Broad
(William Morrow), was published in 2004. Jack is now eighteen and his sister, Devin, is sixteen. The Learys live on a small farm in Connecticut with their four dogs and four horses. When not writing books, Ann is a hockey mom who is involved in fund-raising for several local charities. She also trains and has competed in eventing, an equestrian sport, and has recently taken up tennis.

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A
NN
L
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An Innocent, a Broad