Though my heart told me I’d met a game-changer, there was no telling if I’d ever see Mark again. He was a touring musician and I had a packed schedule as an actress. How would we even make things work if fate was on our side? On the one hand, I’d never let a little challenge, like a few thousand miles or a hectic career, stop me from pursuing true love at all costs. But I’m also realistic, and I know that instant chemistry doesn’t always trump a logistical long shot. I tucked Mark’s number in my purse for safekeeping and went on with my weekend. This included getting super drunk and running into Ashton Kutcher, who threw me for a loop when he told me my ex Weenie had moved in with another girl. The news made my head spin, as did the martinis I then began to chug at warp speed. Before I knew it, Jerry O’Connell and I were passing the time with our tongues in the corner of the VIP tent.
The next morning was rough. Kerry and I made our way to Churchill Downs, the Kentucky Derby’s racetrack, where one disaster followed another. First we decided to wear vintage dresses to the event. I had on a white, lacy frock with a matching fluffy hat that was shaped like a deflated soufflé. I looked like I was about to reenact the horse-racing scene in My Fair Lady, but with less panache. Kerry had on a vintage green floral-print Doris Day getup with a beret. Again, not our best looks. We were also stumbling around with massive hangovers and nursing a mix of Alka-Seltzer and Bloody Marys, hairing the dog with an antacid. But what really bowled me over was that I saw Jerry gushing all over another woman in the center of the room, surrounded by all the Derby guests. Manwhore suspicions confirmed.
After a horse called War Emblem took home the trophy, and I won Mom three hundred and fifty dollars on a twenty-dollar bet she called in at the last minute (again, that woman with her killer instincts), Jubilee’s people whisked all the celebrities off to a party at another local hot spot. With the other woman MIA, Jerry turned his attention back to me. Too bad I was on to his wandering eye, since I had just witnessed what happened when he spied fresh meat. He asked me if we could see each other when we got back to L.A. in a few days, and I said that I didn’t think that was going to happen.
“What—why?”
“Because I think I met the man I am going to marry.” I was not to be outdone.
“The band guy from last night that you were doing shots with?” he asked.
“Yup.”
I wasn’t sure if I’d see Mark again, but I gave Jerry a shit-eating grin anyway.
Back in L.A., I unpacked my stuff and put the tour manager’s card on my bedside table. I called Eric’s phone the day after I got home (I needed time to recover), made small talk about their gigs, and then asked if Mark was around. He was napping in his bunk, but Eric passed his cell to him anyway. Mark and I spent two hours on the phone that day, and after we reluctantly hung up, he called me right back and said he wanted me to have his cell number since I had called Eric’s. Mark told me to reach him at any hour, day or night, since he slept with the phone by his head in case of an emergency. He had a two-year-old nephew, and he was always on alert in case his sister needed him. This alone told me Mark was a good guy. I later learned that he and his family speak all the time, track each other’s flights when they travel, and call numerous times on road trips to check in on each other’s safety. How sweet is that? He was also a rock star surrounded by groupies, and he’d just given me the go-ahead to track him down at any moment.
Mark and I spent the next two weeks on the phone, talking about everything from music (we both listened to ’90s rock) to problems we’d had with our exes (lots of cheaters in our pasts) to our astrological signs (I’m an Aries and he’s Virgo, which was good news since I’d had no luck with Capricorns and Pisces). We also laughed a lot, which was important to me. Mark and I had so much in common that we knew we needed to see each other again to find out if our chemistry was just as intense in person and if there was a future for us. I was nervous because I knew I gave good phone but wasn’t sure if I’d be awkward when we were face-to-face again.
We decided to meet up in New York in the middle of the month, when Mark had five days off and I’d be back from traveling to Monaco and the Cannes Film Festival with my family and best friend from elementary school, Nicole. Mark and I planned to meet each other’s families in New York, California, and Alabama. It would be the longest “date” I’d ever had.
Though I should have been soaking up the French Riviera, I spent most of my time there obsessing over Mark and driving my mom, stepdad, and Nicole crazy. At one point, Mom tried to get me to flirt and dance with some member of the royal family that we met at the dance club Jimmy’z Monte-Carlo. When she reminded me, “If you married this guy, you’d be a princess,” I had other ideas. “I don’t wanna be a princess,” I insisted. “I want to be a rock star’s wife.”
As Caroline Rhea might say, I had serious verbal diarrhea about Mark. While we were apart, I also went to the hotel gyms so I’d look good naked, talked to Mark on very pricey international calls, and stared at a picture of him in orange leather pants on the back of his album cover. I hadn’t been this smitten since I was fifteen and obsessed over Anthony Kiedis the same way.
* * *
When I flew into Long Island from France, I rushed back to Dad’s house to freshen up, and then turned around to pick Mark up at the airport four hours later. I wasn’t wasting any time to see him again. Our rapport was a little awkward at first as we drove the hour back to the house, but I knew we were in the clear during dinner at a local Sayville diner. Under the table, Mark smoothly put his hand on my thigh. Afterward, at a dark Irish pub called Portly Villager, which is my dad’s favorite watering hole, Mark tried to kiss me but I backed away. I didn’t want my first kiss with him to be in that scrappy bar, especially since Dad was there with his buddies and they might start ribbing us. So we waited until we got back to my dad’s house, where we couldn’t wait any longer and made out in my sister Liz’s childhood twin bed. Not any less strange, I guess.
A few days later, I took Mark to New York City for two days, and though he’d been there before, I wanted to show him the city the way I always knew it. We made sure to stop by my favorite pizza place for a slice and hit a Mister Softee truck for ice-cream cones. He also met a bunch of my East Coast friends, including my ex-boyfriend Mike, who I’d become close to again after ending things with James. Everyone got along great, which made me very happy.
The next stop on our trip was Enterprise, Alabama, where Mark grew up. He introduced me to his two sisters, brother-in-law, nephew, and his dad, Walt, who stood quietly off to the side in an intimidating way. It was also nice to see his mom again and get to know her a little. I even started calling her Miss Jenny, since she was a dance teacher and that’s what all the sweet and respectful girls in town did. She and Mark’s sisters had lots of questions for me about my family and life in L.A. They were very easy to talk to, which made me feel really comfortable. However, I also sensed they were hesitant about their son dating an actress, since they thought all women in Hollywood were casual about commitment, marriage, and divorce. I did everything I could to assure them that if Mark was game, I was in this relationship for the long haul. Looking back, the experience reminds me of a hometown visit on The Bachelor, but without the cringe-worthy surprises like how Dad has a scary gun collection or Mom still cleans her son’s bedroom.
I went with Mark and his band to a show in Tampa the next day; this was the first stop of a multi-city tour for them, and I was joining them for the next few. During the Florida concert, Mark made me stand where he could see me, right by the sound booth in the center of the crowd, and he dedicated the song “1000 Times” to me. He knew it was my favorite on his album. The lyrics are crushingly romantic—I’ve felt so strong for you ever since/The day you caught my eyes and I/Can’t help but wonder if my life/Is turning upside down this time. I knew he didn’t write them for me when we met, but I felt like he was singing them to me and that was more than enough. It was unbelievably hot to have the man I was q
uickly falling so hard for show me this much attention in front of thousands of people. I later found out that Mark actually wrote the song about the type of woman he’d hoped to spend his life with, which turned out to be my type after all.
After the show, I waited for Mark by his car. He came up behind me, dripping wet and spent, and wrapped his strong arms around my waist. He picked me up off the ground, and as I turned around to kiss him, I stopped to open myself up to him. I wasn’t scared anymore.
“I think I’m falling in love with you,” I said.
“I think I am, too,” he said.
Sweaty PDA ensued.
The next day we flew from Tampa to San Francisco with the rest of the band, where they played two nights in the Bay Area, and then went to L.A., where Course of Nature opened for Nickelback at the Palladium. We went back to my house afterward. In L.A., Mark took a good look at my life and liked what he saw. He met the rest of my family, including my mom, Trisha, and little sisters Ali and Sam, and impressed them with his handsome looks and incredible talent. They were also taken by his rock star persona. Five-year-old Sammy gave Mark the nickname “Nine Hole Wilkerson” when she pointed to his piercings and exclaimed, “What are all those things in your face?!”
When it was time for Mark to leave the West Coast, we had a long, heartbreaking kiss good-bye. In just nine days, we’d met each other’s families, shared our life stories, and visited each other’s hometowns. We were inseparable. I called him at least three times a day, but I still felt gloomy without Mark by my side. Kerry knew how badly I was pining for him, so she called a week later to see if she should book me a flight leaving LAX in two hours to Houston, where Mark was making a tour stop. Of course she should! I was having lunch with my friend Kimi, but I jumped at the impromptu trip, stuck my pal with the check (she didn’t care), and stayed on the road with Mark and Course of Nature until Sabrina needed me back on set to begin its seventh season.
I was on tour with Mark and the band for a month, during which time he just kept getting better and better. He had the piercings and shaved head of a badass, but I quickly learned that when the rest of his band was partying, he was the guy who stayed behind to vacuum the tour bus and write lyrics in the lounge. Though Mark fronted the band, he didn’t care about being the center of attention; he just wanted to be the best artist he could be and make really good music. He wasn’t the type to smash expensive equipment onstage to get a rise out of the audience. And if something wild did happen during a performance, he made it immediately clear how he felt about the situation. I found the transparency of his emotions refreshing. I liked watching his face startle if the bassist hit a wrong note or the equipment started to fail, and if he made a single mistake himself, he’d get visibly upset about it. But he could always come down from whatever he was feeling at a show to snuggle with me at night, sometimes in the back lounge of the tour bus. He was breaking his own rule of “no nookie on the bus,” but we were too in love to care.
By the time I was back in L.A., it was understood that Mark and I were in a serious long-distance relationship. We each always kept a packed bag near the door, so he or I could go to Alabama, on the road, or to L.A. at a moment’s notice. We didn’t date in a traditional way, with weekly dinners and “Did I see him too often this weekend?” hand-wringing, but that may not have even worked as well for us. We preferred to passionately dive into the relationship and give it everything we had. Mark and I had similar values, interests, and a lot of love to give. Everyone around me could see that I was head over heels for this guy, even though some of my friends weren’t sure what to make of how quiet he could be. Mark’s like his dad that way. But I’d always hoped as a little girl that my knight in shining armor would give all of his attention to me and nobody else—coming from a big family, can you blame me?—and that’s exactly what I got.
* * *
About two months into our relationship, Mark asked what my plans were for Christmas, even though it was still summer. I blew him off. I said it was too far away to discuss, that I never spend Christmas with boyfriends, and that we should each be home with our families.
“But this might be our last Christmas together without being married,” he said. I couldn’t tell if he was gauging my reaction to getting hitched or telling me what he thought I wanted to hear so I would agree to spend the holidays with him.
“All the more reason to spend it apart one last time, then,” I said, hoping to change the subject.
Mark was visibly disturbed. I secretly thought it was adorable how adamant he was that we spend the holidays together, and especially how he basically just told me that he was already thinking marriage, but I wasn’t ready to verbally commit to spending my life with him just yet. I had a strict rule about dating for at least a year before getting engaged, since I’d always wanted a short engagement and that meant I had to know someone for at least a year before it happened. I had noticed that the few people I knew who had long engagements took forever to pull the trigger or ended up not going through with it eventually. I didn’t want that to happen to me.
Mark and I compromised. We’d spend Christmas with our own families, and then, together, have a snowy New Year’s Eve in Lake Tahoe. We also agreed to spend Thanksgiving in Alabama. But on Turkey Day, I went to my first University of Alabama football game and had such a good time that I invited Mark’s parents to join us on New Year’s Eve with me and my family. I meant nothing more by this, but Miss Jenny knew her son had something up his sleeve. She kept telling Walt, whose work schedule conflicted with the trip, about what a terrific time they’d have.
“It’s going to be a very special occasion,” she insisted.
I thought that was a weird comment. Why would a boozy New Year’s Eve in the snow mean so much to a grown woman who doesn’t drink or ski?
Back on set, I told the story to my friends at Sabrina one day at lunch, and our director that week, Anson Williams, who famously played Potsie on Happy Days, had a theory.
“He’s gonna show up on Christmas Day and propose!” he said.
I wasn’t sure what to think about this.
Mark and I spent Christmas with our families, and his parents took me up on Tahoe. Mark was set to arrive on the twenty-sixth, and that afternoon, I went with a bunch of the Sabrina crew to watch the ponies run at one of our favorite hangouts, the Santa Anita racetrack. While we sipped Bloody Marys among our favorite thoroughbreds, I couldn’t shake the feeling that something big might happen that night. My friend Eryn even drew a diamond on my left ring finger with a pen and singsonged, “You’re getting engaged today!” I hoped everyone’s instincts weren’t taking me down the wrong path. What if I expected Mark to propose and … he didn’t?
I was also concerned that if Mark did propose, I might jump at the chance to be a wife for the wrong reasons. This had nothing to do with Mark being the right or wrong guy. As a child of divorce, I worried that I might say yes just so I wouldn’t end up alone. And also, years earlier, my costar Lisa Dean Ryan on Silencing Mary told me a story about how she’d accepted a proposal without thinking, because she got so swept up in the moment with a big, shiny rock staring back at her. She broke it off and then promptly bought herself a simple engagement ring, so she’d never let diamonds distract her again. This stuck with me. To guard myself from the same fate, I’d followed her lead and in 1998 bought myself a diamond ring from Tiffany. I called it my “Nobody Loves Me Like Me” ring. I was between James and Weenie at the time, so no boy could dispute it.
I tried to put all my fears and hesitations out of my head. I got ready to pick Mark up at the airport. I loved Mark with all my heart, and I had no real reason to be anxious, but I was about to make an epic memory, no matter how it turned out. I put on a dress, washed off Eryn’s inked ring, and wore zero jewelry just in case. At the airport, I thought I’d pass out from the nervous anticipation of waiting for Mark to descend the escalator. When he was finally in front of me, he gave me a big hug and kiss, and we held h
ands walking to baggage claim.
That’s it? I thought, as if I expected him to drop to one knee at the LAX escalator, in front of hundreds of strangers. I’ve always figured that the best way to keep from being disappointed by a situation is to try to control the outcome, but this one was out of my hands.
As we waited for Mark’s bags, still in an embrace, I thought I felt a small box in his coat pocket. But when I checked his face for a reaction, he was a blank slate. We were headed back to my house when Mark told me he had to quickly stop at my mom’s to talk to her, which piqued my interest. I excused myself to the bathroom so they could have a quick chat about whatever was on his mind.
When we got back to my place, we were anxious to open gifts by the tree. Mark gave me a scarf, and I gave him a tow hitch for his truck. He gave me a waffle maker, and I gave him tickets to the Super Bowl. He was so excited about the tickets that he began sending messages to his buddies on his SkyTel messaging pager (it was like the caveman version of texting). At that point, I wasn’t sure what to think about the engagement. I’d given him the perfect moment to pop the question, and he didn’t take it. I began to clean up the wrapping, and softly said, “Thanks for my gifts,” when the lightbulb went on over his shaved head.
“Oh, wait! I have one more gift for you!” he said.
I smirked, sat back down, and Mark told me to close my eyes.
My ring finger began to twitch in anticipation of what I hoped would come next. When he said I could open my eyes, he presented me with a large princess-cut diamond, flanked by two smaller diamonds in a heart-patterned filigree platinum setting. I screamed and covered my face with my hands.
“Shut up!” I said. That was not the reaction either of us anticipated.
“Will you marry me?” he said, and laughed.
I was blown away, but one little thing was off. Mark and I were sitting on my red chaise. That’s not how it was supposed to happen?
Melissa Explains It All: Tales from My Abnormally Normal Life Page 16