A Complicated Marriage

by Janice Van Horne

  I was always on the prowl to hitch up with a particular director or nucleus of performers, as so many other playwrights did. I kept thinking, Maybe this time I will find the perfect mesh of actors and director who not only will hear what I hear in the plays but will astonish me with their own artistic insights. To that end, I came as close as I would get with Pamela Gordon, who directed a quirky play, Three at Squam Lake, about the slippery shifts of power between two men and a woman. It was workshopped twice at the Actors Studio and then staged at the Wilton Theater with Bill Pullman. That perfect mesh was there. At its nadir, there was Provenance, so lavishly produced on the large main stage at EST. The set, the skeletal frame of a nineteenth-century Cape Cod beach house, conveyed both beauty and foreboding and illuminated the play perfectly. Sadly, the lead actors, querulous and egocentric, abetted by a limp director, jettisoned the delicate play about love and the fear of change. But oh, that set.

  And in between the two I think of Keepers, the play that might have been but never was. For me, it was the most achieved of my “musical” plays. The harmonies, the duets, the quartets, the arias, were music to me. It had a highly polished staged reading with Salome Jens and Kevin McCarthy at the Actors Studio. It came close. There followed another reading of Keepers at the Skirball Theater, where dream casting came through, almost. Nancy Marchand, set to play the lead as the tyrannical curator of her past and everyone else’s, had to drop out two days before the reading, when her friend with whom she was staying in L.A. died. Always a bridesmaid, Keepers, as admired as it was, would be optioned twice but never produced.

  Closest to my heart among the productions was By Sections, a play for an unlimited number of actresses in eighteen “sections.” It was inspired by a vision I’d had of a group of women, all ages and colors, seated as if on the rim of a half-moon across the stage. The playlets—some monologues, some for two, some for more, some comic, some sad, some strident, some soft—flowed with all the voices of all my women. The director, Dan Hamilton, through lighting and projection, carved out the sections while making the whole cohesive, as he brought the actors to a transcendent place. When it was done in New York, the director chose not to use the ensemble on stage and though the pieces worked on their own, the impact was lost.

  By Sections was a later play, and by then I had accepted that once a play was out in the world, it was a win some–lose some game and each play would have to take its chances. The lesson was hammered home one rainy night when some friends and I went deep into the Valley to see a production of Fine Line. By that time, the play had had many incarnations, few of which I had seen. That night I saw a different setting and different opening lines. I had to double-check the program. The young actresses sprinkled the play with you know and like, dropped lines, and added others. A Valley girl romp. We snuck away, went to a bar next door, and laughed until we cried into our double martinis.

  When I had first moved to L.A., I had established a connection with Russ’s internist. I went to see him for annual checkups and minor things over the years. In 1986 I had a virulent and persistent bronchial infection, and the doctor suggested I go to the Barlow pulmonary clinic in Pasadena to be evaluated. I was at the clinic all day. First, my history: family health, childhood scarlet fever and severe whooping cough, walking pneumonia, and, of course, smoking history. Then the testing: blood work, X-rays, breathing into tubes and inside space capsules, sitting, standing, running. The result, “mild emphysema.”

  As I drove home, I saw myself suffocating as my father had. What had the bastard bequeathed me! Mainly I cursed myself for years of smoking. I had started in college, stopped during my pregnancies, picked it up again for eight years, quit again for ten years after the hysterectomy, then started again after moving to L.A. I had never had any trouble quitting, but then, almost whimsically, circumstances would shift and lighting up would seem like a fun thing to do.

  As I sat stalled in rush hour traffic, I thought of a house on Beacon Hill in Boston in 1952, I a bridesmaid at my ex-roommate Sandy’s wedding, twiddling a glass of sherry, wearing a spectacular red velvet gown, and yearning for a cigarette, which was verboten in that house. Sandy’s father, Dr. Little, a handsome, authoritative man in tails, stood at the center of the wedding party as we waited for the ceremony to begin. He told us of the research he had recently spearheaded that proved without question the devastating effects of smoking. “Cigarettes kill,” he summed up. “The government knows; it is only a matter of time before the public will know.” I imagined his frustration as the decades passed and the government sat on its hands and the public puffed itself to death. How awful to think that I had heard him, had never forgotten hearing him, but hadn’t listened. That day at Barlow, I listened. I never smoked another cigarette. When I got home, Russ held me for a long time. I was scared.

  But I had my usual antidote: work. Sick of my own bitching and moaning over the years about inadequate directors—and perhaps feeling a need to take control after my health scare—I decided to take a shot at directing one of my short pieces, Security System, at the Actors Studio. Casting it with Richard Behmer, Pamela Gordon, and Barry Stattles, I figured it would be easy for four old Studio pros like us to plumb the depths of the material. We presented the piece and it fell flat. The audience clobbered me, the actors, and the play. Mostly me. That failure gave me new respect for directors. We had all plumbed beautifully, mined glorious nuggets of nuance, but my inattention to the overall shape of the piece and my inability to clearly communicate the play’s intention, to either the actors or the audience, had reduced it to shambles. Lesson learned.

  I finally accepted that though I had created the characters and endowed them with my personal voices, to expect others to hear them and what lay beneath them shouldn’t be necessary. If the frame of the play was solid, it should serve as a vessel for any amount of interpretation and experimentation. Too often I had underestimated the mystery that is at the heart of theater. How else to explain how a scene can work one night and fail the next? Oh, I still fretted about not having things my way, but unless there was a shipwreck I might avert, more and more, I put my feet up and trusted the mystery.

  However, all was not the world of make-believe. Real life stumbled along and sometimes took a fall. By 1988 we had moved once again, this time triggered by the financial lure of cashing in on the real-estate boom. Selling our cozy Broadlawn nest, we moved farther up the hill to Mulholland Drive, to a jerry-built house that was ugly inside and out. But it had a major selling point for us: a back yard with large pool and Jacuzzi, palm trees, masses of bougainvillea, lush vine-covered walls. A tropical paradise. Perhaps we could overlook the small nonfunctional rooms, the low ceilings, the darkness. The place was cold, unwelcoming. Indeed, as we arrived, the overhead entry light exploded.

  We did our best. I took a room on the second floor as my workspace; Russ opted for a cramped basement room as a studio. For the rest, it even defied Russ, an inspired nester. But the coup de grace soon struck. We were surrounded by gated properties—even we had a flimsy excuse for one—that were patrolled by guard dogs. Night and day the six Dobermans barked at anything that moved, and when the world fell quiet, they howled at the moon. We tried all the help lines, we taped, we photographed, we tried city mediation. To no avail. Sleeplessness, stress—Russ was ready to resort to poison. The problem eventually escalated into an ultimate neighbor nightmare. A vengeful dog owner lit a fire near our bedroom window, awakening us to smoke, fear, and fury. We had eked out almost two years there; it was time to flee.

  But first I had a personal decision to sort out: I had thought for some time that Clem and I should remarry. Not a pressing thought, it was just there. Maybe it was the next step in my need to tidy up my life that had started with the sale of the Norwich house and then the co-op. Maybe it was sharing the experience of Al Velake’s death and then seeing Clem’s first sign of vulnerability after he had a hernia operation in 1988. Clem, who was so proud of his constitution, who had never e
ven had a doctor, had been shaken by that. Maybe it was simply that I needed to feel closer to him. Being single had clearly proven to be just what Clem had termed it, one of Jenny’s “gestures.” Though both of our lives had moved on, our connection had not changed.

  I discussed these thoughts with Russ, and, just as he had always understood and accepted the rather irregular family he had become a part of, he understood and accepted this. On my next visit to 275, I suggested the idea to Clem. Given that he had never considered us “divorced”—indeed, had never stopped introducing me as “my wife, Jenny”—he agreed, stipulating only that there be no fuss or bother. And so in June of 1989, accompanied by Sarah and her longtime boyfriend, Nabil, we were remarried at city hall. Afterward, we headed to the River Club for a lobster dinner. Next to all things deli and Chinese, Clem loved lobster. Like our divorce, as simple as could be.

  That fall, as we put the Mulholland house on the market, I found myself hesitating for the first time about where I belonged. Maybe it was time to return to New York. Was that what my urge to remarry was about, a paving of the way? But what about Russ, what about my theater life? As if to lighten up and remind myself of all that was fun and quirky about L.A., I compiled an “only in L.A.” list. Where else would I have had my aura cleansed (twice), have been counseled by a psychic nutritionist in the art of dangling a crystal over an avocado in the supermarket to test its toxicity to my energy flow, have traveled afar to attend clandestine channeling sessions, have consulted a mantric healer, have been advised by a psychic astrologist, have had my chakras cleared, have been Rolfed, have been treated regularly by acupuncturists and herbalists, and have been massaged every way to Sunday and back? I should mention that my more esoteric excursions were made in the company of a friend who was researching a book on the subject. The only thing I sidestepped was colonics, although I fasted occasionally and drank wheatgrass to the edge of nausea. And where else could Russ and I have so effortlessly maintained a macrobiotic regime for five years? How could I leave such an abundant confluence of health and lunacy? On a more serious note, how could I leave my loving partner, and did I have faith that my career and well-being would survive the transplant to New York?

  Once again, Russ and I had started looking at houses. We saw only one place we liked, a small cottage on a grassy corner of Pacific Street in Santa Monica. Four blocks above the beach, it was as far as one could get from gates and mansions and Dobermans and, wouldn’t you know, it had a white picket fence. Still, I hesitated.

  But there was a time pressure. It was imperative that I come to a decision about whether to move back to New York and live at 275 with Clem. To delay further would have been to mislead Russ. Russ and I were in transition, and I needed to make myself clear to him about the options I was weighing. That night I talked to him, and it turned out I had worried needlessly about his reaction. Unlike me, as a communicator, Russ never equivocated. Whether about feelings or what he thought of my new shoes, he told it like it was. That was the Eagle Scout in him. Thanks to him, we talked easily about the pros and cons, and my dilemma melted away. Our openness had a revitalizing effect on our relationship. Then, rather quickly, the Mulholland house sold, to someone who had the sensible plan of tearing it down and building a real house. And the little white cottage? Russ and I drove to Santa Monica one night and knocked on the door. The owner told us yes, it was still for sale. We bought it the next day.

  The mist in the morning, the coolness, the thrall of the ocean—Santa Monica was a breath of fresh air. With each move Russ and I had been creeping toward the sea; now we were as close as we could get without swimming to Catalina. It was good to be back in a nest of a house. I took over the second floor, a pint-size converted attic, and pushed my table under the eaves.

  I shouldn’t have been surprised at my waffling about where I was meant to be next. There was a quality about our life in L.A. that had kept me off balance: our “Hotel California” house in Hollywood, teetering on the brink of a divorce; Russ’s job cycles, which jumped from twelve- to sixteen-hour days to his being home 24/7; my swinging back and forth to New York like a metronome; Russ’s drinking, which see-sawed between sober and out of control; flipping from house to house three times. Hell, what was an earthquake or two? I tried to put down roots, perhaps a silly notion in a city that was built on sand and prided itself on not having roots, in living for the now, and the next best thing.

  And what about Santa Monica, that self-advertised paradise by the sea? To a suburb-phobic like me, it was a challenge. Even the zip code confirmed that I was no longer in L.A. And with the suburb came the commute, the brain-numbing hours in the Volvo as I sucked in the fumes of every other car inching its way from somewhere to somewhere else and imagined my lungs shriveling with emphysema. But the alternative was unthinkable, and I refused to adjust my routine of workshops, rehearsals, singing class . . . Often, I would drive in early and go to a hotel lobby, where, like a hooker, I would loiter for an hour or so, nursing a vodka tonic, and there I would write. My choice spot was the new downtown Sheraton, with its atrium, discreet piano player, lush chairs, and macadamia nuts. Early on I had discovered the joy of writing in public, buoyed by the energy of strangers in pursuit of their lives. Now it was a welcome counterpoint to the solitude under my eaves and a reminder that I was still in the land of the living.

  In 1991, while in that alcove and deep into my play Chiaroscuro, about an aging woman artist, I got a call from Betsy Wilkinson. She and her husband, Bob, an astrologer friend of Russ’s, lived in Austin. Though I had met her only once, I had liked her on sight. Now, on the phone, she told me she was a grief counselor and was organizing a national march in Washington, D.C., that would focus on the needs of families who had experienced the death of infants through miscarriage or at birth. Their goal was to draw attention to the emotional damage caused by these traumas and urge lawmakers to provide funding for the education of medical professionals and the counseling of patients. She herself had suffered through multiple miscarriages and had heard from Bob, who had done my chart, about the death of our baby and the lack of empathetic care.

  My knee-jerk reaction was to feel that my privacy had been invaded and shut the conversation down. Instead, touched by her warmth and concern, I found myself saying, “Yes. Yes, I will be there.” She filled me in on the details and told me about the quilts they were making, comprised of squares from those who had experienced loss. The quilts would be spread across the Capitol steps.

  There is a time for everything. Before I had even hung up the receiver, my lost child was on my left shoulder. I picked up my pen and on a fresh page of my legal pad these lines wrote themselves:Empty armed,

  Anger disowned

  Disnamed you. Unheld,

  Unburied, ungrieved.

  Thrown away . . .

  Then.

  My child

  Let me back

  Forgive me

  I name you Emily

  I hold you

  In love.

  Welcome my spirit

  In joy

  Now

  Always.

  She had a name. Oh, what would Clem think? A name with no ballast, too gentile, he would say. But I wasn’t listening. Emily and I were in the car on our way to the fabric store, where she helped me pick the colors for our squares for the quilt. There would be two: a red one for the “Then,” a white one for the “Now.” And flannel, because she was my baby and I would wrap her and rock her in flannel. We cut the squares according to the specifications Betsy had given me, and we penciled in the lines of the two stanzas. That night we embroidered the words, white thread on red, red thread on white. Then we sewed the two together and the next day mailed them to Austin, where they would be stitched together by grieving women into the quilts that would be arrayed, with purpose and in protest, on the steps of Congress.

  A few months later on a Saturday in early spring, I flew to Washington. I went to the hotel, where a welcoming reception was under way.
I signed in, pinned on my name tag, which had Emily’s name on it, too, and for a moment had second thoughts about what I was doing there. It was all too public. My loss was mine. My feelings were still so new; to share them would shatter them. I spotted a table of T-shirts with the word REMEMBER on them. Well, I could at least buy a T-shirt. But what color? Then I remembered I wasn’t alone, Emily would know. And she did: blue. The simple truth became so clear to me. She had always been with me. I was the one who had been missing. I put on the T-shirt over my blouse. Soon after, Betsy and I found each other. She was all I had imagined. My angel.

  The next day our group, having mushroomed to several hundred, was bused across the Potomac to Arlington, where we visited the grave of John Kennedy and Patrick, the son who had died shortly after his birth, in 1963. John and Jackie’s first child, a daughter, had been stillborn in 1956. We then walked to a site near the river, where we planted a tree in memory of lost infants. People said a few words, but mostly we stood in silence circling that tree, our hands joined, deep in remembrance and prayer. We watered it with our tears. Before we left I took a leaf that had fallen and pressed it in my journal.

  The buses left us at the top of the Mall. What had started as a gray, drizzly day now changed dramatically. The sun shimmered on the cherry trees and the Reflecting Pool. As we neared the Capitol, each now carrying a balloon honoring our children, we could see our quilts spread out on the broad steps, beckoning us. And there, even at some distance, I saw our squares. How could I not? Amid all the pastels, there was my bright red plea for forgiveness.