A Moveable Marriage

When we got married I had a full house, and not the poker kind. With two daughters from my first marriage and three dogs, two guinea pigs, a cockatiel and a tank full of goldfish that had grown to the size of koi (because I felt sorry for them penned up with nowhere to go and kept buying bigger fish bowls) and a horse (though boarded elsewhere), I brought quite a dowry. I also brought a lovely wood-framed, brick Georgian home with three wood-burning fireplaces and a pool house.

As soon as the perennially balmy Los Angeles temperature dipped below 70 degrees, I would stuff the fireplace in the mahogany-walled den with crumpled newspaper and logs of pine for easy burning and pinion for aroma and hardwood for duration. Sometimes the mild temperature combining with the heat from the blazing hearth proved too much to bear, and I had to open the front door and the French windows that were large as French doors and the door between the den and the powder room that was adjacent to it, but the pop and crackle of the wood did not stop until we were ready for bed. My daughters would climb onto my lap as I settled into the red and green plaid overstuffed armchair, and a dog or two would be on the matching ottoman, and I could pretend it was Christmas anytime of the year. We watched television while dinner was prepared in the kitchen, sometimes by me, sometimes by our Jamaican housekeeper, Lucille. I loved to roast turkeys on holidays and had specialties like pork chops in brandy and apple cider topped with apple slices sauteed in butter and cinnamon and maple syrup, but the task of preparing la cuisine quotidienne often slipped from my hands to hers—which was surprising given my early and promising start.

Both of my parents worked outside the home and it was my job, once I was about nine years old, to get dinner ready (or as close to it as I could) after I had finished my homework, for their return at six o’clock each evening. It was not an imposition but an honor to be entrusted with that responsibility, and it was an early lesson in the satisfaction that nurturing can yield. I made pasta and chicken and vegetables and eggs and soups and stews and was happy in the kitchen for years. Then, when I married the first time, and my husband wanted me to throw weekly dinner parties for clients of his burgeoning business, professional cooking classes were in order. I (well, the Cuisinart) chopped and diced, and then I braised and baked and occasionally stewed on multiple levels, until not just the dish, but our relationship went on the back burner for many reasons, and we separated and divorced.

I remained in our home, but the girls shared residences with both me and my former husband. The weeks that they were not with me were cloudy and dark and lonely as I rambled about the cavernous house and slipped into depression and destructive thoughts and behavior. I felt cut off from them and life and happiness, and nothing I did could ameliorate the paralyzing ache that came each time they were to leave: not the man I was involved with, not travel, not other family or even good girlfriends.

Then I met Keith of the flashing chocolate eyes and deepest of dimples and unbridled confidence. Some would say unbridled arrogance, actually, but they would be mistaken, as arrogance presupposes an unfounded assurance of oneself and his was very well-founded. He seized my attention the very day we met to rehearse a scene for an independent cable television show.

The writer/producer dictated to us as we scribbled her impromptu script, in hopes that the words would develop into a show that when aired would get us the attention of someone in “real” show business.

“Hi, Terry.” (His line)

“Hi, Kevin.” (My line)

“It’s been a long time.”

“Yes, it has.”

“You look good.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Just what I said . . . you look good. You always were too sensitive.”

Keith tossed his pen down and stood up and said that no one speaks like that, and that it was the phoniest dialogue he had ever heard, and if nothing better could be done he was not only not going to do the show with me, but also quit the whole arrangement. I stared at him in shock as not one person before this (and I had done a number of shows with the company) had ever dared challenge the dialogue or anything else. And that was the minute I decided I would marry him.

For a over a year we saw each other and talked and drank champagne at Jimmy’s in Beverly Hills when it was still there, because it had one of the most romantic piano bars outside of New York City. He moved into my guest house in Westwood when his lease was up and we battled with his idea of waiting until we got married to be together physically and my idea that we were grownups and should not have to wait. There were border skirmishes, but in the end I saw his reasoning, and so when we said our vows a year or so later it was the most special of occasions for us both. And that is how our moveable marriage began.

After our December wedding we went skiing in Utah which has the phrase, “The Greatest Snow on Earth” on their license plates for good reason. I had learned to ski at Park City and during my first marriage my husband and I built a vacation home there. My recollection is that it took a year for the plans to be done and another three to finish construction of the three level, 10,000 square foot log home with an open fireplace and indoor pool. The divorce came shortly after and, in an effort to retain my connection with my beloved town, I bought a timeshare in Prospector Square. That is where Keith and I stayed for the four days of our honeymoon. It was only four days because I had a part on the dramatic series, Sisters, that I hoped would become a recurring role and relieve me from being a background actor to a day player and more.

Basking in the glow of our love was the only basking to be done on the trip since there was a record cold snap and visibility at the top of the mountain was near zero when we skied. In the early seventies when I briefly lived in Aspen I had modeled and gotten frostbite on my toes during an early morning shoot in the snow. At the risk of sounding like a whiner I had to insist to my new husband that I needed better protection for my feet as the silk liners, thermal socks and boots were not keeping me warm and in fact I could not feel my feet after the second or third time on a lift.

“Honey, I need to do something. I can’t feel my feet. I’ve gone from cold to pain to numb.”

“It’s not that cold.”

“Maybe the air temperature is not that low, but my feet are in bad shape.” I envisioned being airlifted to a clinic by a member of the Ski Patrol, and warm blankets on my lower extremities, and a glass of hot red spiced wine.

“We only have a few days to ski, and I’m going to ski.”

“That’s fine. I just need to stop.”

“I don’t want to ski without you; this is our honeymoon.”

On it went. Eventually we worked it all out and that evening we went to a marvelous restaurant that was decorated with pine boughs and wreaths for Christmas, everything red and green and sweet-smelling and we ate duck with black cherries and drank a peppery Zinfandel and finished it all off with Bavarian Chocolate cake and Schnapps and then went back to the timeshare and realized that cold feet is really just a passing thing.

We returned home and I did not get a recurring role on television but enjoyed the recurring role of wife and mother and homemaker. I had already lived in our house for over a dozen years when I met Keith, and in our first year of marriage we were comfortable there. And the girls got to know and understand Keith as I was also doing. It seemed like the house would always be there for us, a silent member of the family.

Then at 4:00 a.m. one morning our world was rocked literally and figuratively, as it seemed a giant hand had picked up the building and fiercely shook it and kept on shaking it. My daughters were with their father so it was just Keith and I who jumped from bed and attempted to get to the ground floor but the staircase which had always seemed so sturdy and reliable had become a fun-house moving ride with Keith holding me and my feet not even touching the stairs. Once at the front door we flung it open and saw the sky illuminated with what appeared to be scud missiles but it was the power plant on Wilshire Boulevard that was reacting to the earth moving from the killer known as the Northridge earthquake.