There Was a Little Girl: The Real Story of My Mother and Me (29 page)

One chapter of the book was dedicated to the idea of peer pressure and the subject of my virginity. I had agreed to divulge this truth because of a responsibility I felt to my female fans; I wanted to be a good role model. I admitted to being a virgin and expressed my plan to save myself for marriage.

I felt no shame in admitting that I was still a virgin at age nineteen. I had previously spoken out about the evils of drugs and smoking. Talking about the value of waiting until marriage to lose one’s virginity didn’t seem like a big deal. I also did not think it was going to cause such controversy. But I cringe now at the thought of my being so open, because there really was nothing off-limits with regard to my personal life. Looking back, I think it was actually sad that there was so much access to my life for press (and consequently the public). I mean, one of my orthodontist appointments was filmed! I guess it was all in attempts to paint me as a regular kid.

I did want to help however I could, though, and when you read the outpouring of admiration and respect from kids who wrote to me, it was easy to want to uphold my image in their eyes. I basically wanted to tell my young women fans that they need not fall prey to peer pressures regarding anything including their sexuality. My mom said it was important to include this in the book so my fans wouldn’t feel alone. If Brooke Shields was a virgin, maybe it was OK for them to be as well.

Mom always impressed on me to lead by example. It became a torch I would happily carry. Mom had not lived her life that way, and I believe she used her sexuality slightly desperately and as an attempt to feel loved and accepted. The hypocrisy of it all would not become evident till decades later.

Here was my mother, an alcoholic who had lost a baby that she had conceived out of wedlock and had become an unmarried pregnant person a second time. Yet Mom was telling me to uphold the virtues of virginity and abstinence from all vices. I have recently wondered if it was all an attempt on my mom’s part to counteract the overly sexual image with which I had been associated in my younger years. Was Mom now trying to dictate how the public viewed me? I believed my mom wanted me to be universally adored and untouchable. It is hard enough just dealing with being a teenager, let alone bearing the burden of the fate of young women everywhere.

In addition, because Mom and I had been so enmeshed, I wasn’t able to have any romantic feelings without making her somehow a part of them. I told her everything and was constantly seeking her approval. There was little room for anybody else.

Looking as far back as my first “official” kiss, back in seventh grade at New Lincoln, my memories of it are not only that it was disturbing, but also that the first person I told was my mother. It was with a boy named Chris Serbagi at a friend’s party. He asked me to go to a back room, and when I got there, he had set up the couch with pillows and had drawn the shades. He told me to lie down and he proceeded to slobber all over my face. (Maybe I should have made Keith Carradine my first official kiss after all!) I was so grossed out and sad that this was the first kiss, which I had so eagerly anticipated. Not only was it not romantic or spontaneous as I had hoped it would be; it was tonguey and gross, too. We got busted and sent home by the mom of the house.

The next day, my mom was driving me to school in our black Jeep, as she often did, and her response after I recounted the horror was only to ask if I planned on doing it again. I told my mom “No!” and that was the end of it. It would have been nice if Mom had explained to me what a first could be like and how I could still have one with
the right person. Instead, I then shut myself off to all boy kisses in general.

Basically my “relationships” had always been orchestrated by my mother in one way or another. She directed my romantic life sometimes subtly and sometimes not. She didn’t focus on romance (never mind love), but instead wanted to associate me with names that connoted fame, money, and power. These were the relationships she supported, also because they were less attainable.

She loved that I had briefly dated John Travolta, Jimmy McNichol, Leif Garrett, Scott Baio, and John Kennedy. They were all on
Teen Beat
magazines and stars in their own right. She trusted I’d keep my vow of chastity and like the attention paid to me in these couplings. She genuinely loved Michael Jackson and said I was good for him as a supportive and honest friend.

My fame, my mother’s choice to support certain romantic relationships more than others, and my increasingly complicated feelings about my virginity led to an enduring insecurity about my sexuality. The book’s release the summer between my freshman and sophomore year didn’t help. My virginity was the only thing anyone could talk about. In my opinion many things were wrong with the book, but the tour was fun. Mom and I went with Gavin and made the most out of every city we visited.

I had recently gone on
The Tonight Show
to promote
On Your Own
and Johnny had asked me with whom I would want to be stranded on a desert island. (Such an original question!) I said I had a crush on George Michael. Mom had decorated a denim shirt of mine with “WHAM” in glitter paint and Bedazzles. She glued pins and little pictures of George and surprised me with it to wear to his concert. I almost wore it on Carson.

As luck would have it, while in Chicago on the book tour, we discovered we were staying at the same boutique hotel as George. Mom
was enamored of the fact that he was famous, and she loved his voice. Mom had contacted George’s publicist to say that I was staying in the same place and hoped to meet him if possible. He said he would love to take me to dinner but because of our being bothered by the press we should probably just arrange dinner at the hotel. I nearly fell on my face.

George decided to get food delivered to the private dining room on the rooftop. I arrived at the meal in colored jeans and a blouse. The table was beautifully set and all the foods I liked had been ordered. George said he had read some place that I liked to be healthy so he picked accordingly. There were flowers and candles and we talked nonstop. He complimented me on my blouse. When dinner was over, George walked me to my hotel room and said he wanted to see me again. He left without even trying to kiss me. I was so touched by
what a real gentleman he was. (I wanted to yell, “Wait, please don’t ‘go go’!”)

Back in my hotel bedroom Gavin and my mom had put
CAUTION: POLICE LINE. DO NOT CROSS
tape all over my bed. There were signs that said
THIS MEANS YOU, GEORGE!
I guess this was payback for my sign-hanging stunt down the hallway for Mom after her date with Woody Allen.

George and I managed to go on a few more dates in New York City that involved shopping or meals. He held my hand and even bought me a mauve cashmere sweater from Charivari on the Upper West Side. I thought he was a remarkable, respectful, and patient gentleman who was obviously aware of my hesitance regarding sex. Mom was thrilled. She said he had good taste and was sweetly old-fashioned. Nobody had ever been willing to move so slowly. It must be love.

On the night before I was to go back to Princeton for my sophomore year, George invited me to a party for Grace Jones. When we arrived at the club, Boy George ran up to us and started screaming about how he had heard the rumor but was happy to see us actually together. Before the evening got too late, my boyfriend George “carelessly” whispered into my ear, “Why don’t we get out of here?”

We got into the limo and headed back to my home in New Jersey. As we were nearing the house, George put up the partition and turned to me. I thought,
Oh my God—I’m going to get to have my first time with George Michael in the back of the limo!
Forget Catholicism and the book. Forget my mother. God would understand! I gazed at George with puckered lips. He looked deep into my eyes and said, “I think we need to take a break. I need to concentrate on my career.” WHAM!

I was devastated. Mom tried to comfort me and promised that I was going to be OK. She obviously didn’t see him as a threat at any step of the way. Mom encouraged friendships with people like George Michael, Michael Jackson, and John Travolta, because I believe she
was impressed by their genuinely sweet natures as well as their level of fame. These were the types of more gentle male friends who loved my mom and did not pose a threat to her.

I went back to my new place just off campus and cried myself to sleep for weeks. But my sophomore year went by and I finally got over George. I began dating, doing theatre, studying even harder, and was adjusting extremely well. I knew Mom was drinking, but I did not have to see it, and as long as I spoke to her before going to bed, I knew she was safe and fine.

During my junior year I met and fell madly in love with my first real love. I met Dean Cain, who was a football player at Princeton. He was a year behind me and we were instantly crazy about each other. I saw all his football games and he saw all my dance and theatre performances. We were a golden couple and everybody loved us together. I loved his family. His dad was a director and his mom was also somewhat of a blond bombshell who loved to laugh and hang out with the kids. She was an ex-model and always wore the current beach-babe fashion.

We got along wonderfully and she made me feel extremely accepted and like one of her children. He had a slightly older brother and an adorable little sister and they all lived in Malibu. Dean’s parents were very California liberal and I was always a bit shocked whenever they had Dean and me stay in the same bedroom when I came to visit them, sometimes even giving us the best room in the house. This was such a contrast to how my mother always insisted Dean stay in a guest room. His family took me in as one of theirs and I fit in.

Dean’s mom was always also a bit larger than life and a bit dramatic. She was never inappropriate but just loved to have a good time. Even though his dad was working hard and was very present, Dean was like the little man of the house from the time he was a baby. Maybe Dean just simply knew how to handle beautiful, flamboyant
women who needed attention. But he was always very patient with my mom. Mom loved Dean at the start but began negating our relationship the longer it went on. She started to act disdainful and she would often blurt out or whisper under her breath, “Oh, it’s just physical with you two!” I tried to overlook her comments because I really was in love and of course it was
not
physical. I was too bound to my virginity and to her!

Being with Dean was the best thing that could have happened to me. It made such sense for us in so many ways. We shared the same sense of humor. He understood Hollywood from a personal perspective but was not yet an actor. He was not intimidated by my success or my fame, and he was a great dancer and fit in anywhere I took him. Everybody loved Dean and he was incredibly and painfully patient with me regarding sex. But it felt as if Mom was always lording over us, and I was self-conscious because the world assumed we were sleeping together. In truth, though, I was even more scared and shy with him because I was so in love. I had this fear that if I slept with him, I would want to run away.

Even when Mom wasn’t around, I felt as if she was watching. We were in love and so incredibly attracted to one another in every way, that it would make sense that we were having sex. We were always holding hands and trying to find ways to be alone and kiss. But, poor guy, I made him wait and wait, and my mom kept track. She knew we were not sleeping together because she could pretty much guarantee that (like my first French kiss) I would tell her if we were. Still, I think Mom was actually threatened for the first time. But even though I really felt scared about sex and paranoid I was being watched by Mom and the world, Dean remained loving and patient.

We were almost the couple who got married after being college sweethearts. We did everything together and were well-known on campus. He was the first man (and the only one for a very long time) who really knew me and loved me. He even knew me better than my
mother did because we had deep personal talks and he asked questions. He was witness to my struggles with my mom and he respected how much I loved her. I was honestly, truly, and purely in love. It made me the happiest person I had been in forever. And he loved me even more. He would have married me right out of college. He said he knew that I was it. He didn’t need to keep looking. But he was a year behind me, and when I graduated, I was scared about our next year apart.