The house I was born in had a huge handmade oak fireplace mantel that my dad had made before I was born. It was extravagant to us, and the center of our home. My parents sold that house when I was six years old, and the mantel along with it. When I was a teenager working at MTV, making my own money, I came home for the holidays and bemoaned the tiny, flat white mantel in my parents’ home.
“You wanna go to the lumber yard and make another one?” I asked my dad, and together we worked on a beautiful new mantel. The pride of re-creating that family treasure made me feel better about myself than any professional accomplishment.
A pattern ensued. Whenever I wanted to feel good about myself, I burrowed into home improvement projects. Here’s one of my favorites. In the original farmhouse at Mischief Farm, the kitchen had shitty old linoleum flooring while the whole rest of the house had original wood floors. I’d promised Jeff I wouldn’t spend a lot of money fixing that place up, so I went to Home Depot and picked out six sheets of plywood. Most home improvement stores will cut the sheets for you as narrow as twelve inches. I sanded all my plywood planks and then sanded down all the edges to re-create old farmhouse flooring. I laid them out in a herringbone pattern and then did a chalk paint whitewash on them. After a few coats of matte protective polyurethane, they were sturdy, chic, and cheap as hell.
If you’re a newbie to home renovation, a few tools are must-haves. Get yourself a cordless drill. It’s the tool I use most often. The drill comes with bits for everything from drilling holes to mixing paint. I’m also a huge fan of the compound miter saw. It makes projects like flooring so much quicker and much more precise. My dad gave me one for my twenty-first birthday, and it’s been a game changer.
If you’re looking for tools for small projects, I just recently discovered and really enjoy the Dremel rotary tool kit. You can cut, drill, sand, and sculpt to your heart’s desire.
Every year new toys come out, but those are my standbys. I feel my prettiest with sawdust in my hair and at least one bloody knuckle.
* * *
One gorgeous May day some really cute, shy girls were working at the poultry and egg booth, Quattro’s. If you have a party up here, it’s a faux pas not to serve Quattro’s pheasant sausage. So, we always make it a point to stop there. In a basket of straw were huge, fist-size eggs that looked like a small dinosaur had laid them.
“What are those?” I asked.
“Wild turkey eggs,” one of the girls told me. “We only have them in the month of May, and only for about two or three weeks. So if you want to try them, try them now.”
At home, Jeff heated up the skillet with a little butter, and I cracked the eggs. The shells were speckled brown and much harder than the shells of chicken eggs, and the membrane that lines the shell was so tough I had to tear into it with my fingernail. Jeff fried them up, and I sliced some of the bread we’d bought. The bright yolks were smoky and rich. If chicken eggs are a McDonald’s hamburger, then wild turkey eggs are a perfectly cooked filet mignon.
We went back the next weekend and bought a dozen of them, and then we ran into Pam and Roger Hoffman, of Hoffman’s Barn fame, the source of my everything. Pam took me by the arm. “Oh, Hilarie, I want you to meet my son, John.”
We knew John Traver, but barely. He was Ira’s shy, smiling wingman at Samuel’s. “Hey man, nice to see you,” Jeff offered.
“John is running for town council,” his mother said, beaming as John shook hands with another couple and passed out stickers and fliers.
“Well hell,” Jeff said, “make us up some T-shirts, and we’ll be your personal billboards.”
* * *
For the Fourth of July, Jeff’s old buddy Jeremy Sisto, his beautiful wife, Addie, and their two kids came out to stay at the cabin we couldn’t shut up about. Jeff has known Jeremy forever; they were dudes in LA together. They grew up together. And Addie is amazing; she rides horses, and it took her about half a minute before she was encouraging our country adventure. “Yes! Live there full time,” she said. “We would if we could.”
Their son was just a baby, a couple of years younger than Gus, and their daughter was just a couple of years older, so those kids made a fearsome trio. Wild-haired and seldom-shoed, they were funny and spirited, and I liked their parents more for how they were raising their kids. It was very tight quarters, with bodies in beds and on couches and in sleeping bags and kids and dogs running wild. We built a fire every night and stayed up late, gossiping and hatching plans to work together or just quit everything and turn into a commune.
Jeremy invited us to a Fourth of July party at his friend Andy Ostroy’s house in Rhinebeck. Andy’s beautiful house cut into the side of a hill. A swimming pool skimmed the top of the hillside, and as we made our way through the gate, he and his girlfriend Phoebe greeted us with warmth and ease. Still, my default when I’m in a situation where I don’t know anyone is to talk to the kids at the party, and seeing as how Gus was two years old and insane, it seemed pretty legitimate to be keeping an eye on him.
Another two-year-old was there; she was very shy, but Gus was determined that they were going to be friends and proceeded to pursue her rather aggressively. I sat on the floor, trying to keep Gus from emptying the bowl of chips, and struck up a conversation with a seven-year-old boy in cool, hipster glasses. I had no idea who he belonged to until I was introduced to his mom, Julie, who was also the mother of the little girl Gus was pursuing.
“I’m sorry my family is infiltrating yours,” I said somewhat sheepishly.
Then she introduced me to her husband, Paul.
Hi Paul Rudd, I thought. Please don’t remember me. I interviewed you once at MTV during my really awkward years, and I’d like to think I’m an entirely different person now. I felt like a creep. Did they think I was talking to their kids just to get to them? But it turned out I was overthinking it. They were perfectly kind and equally as welcoming as Andy and Phoebe had been.
The kids spent the day splashing in the pool and begging various moms for “just one more soda.” As dusk was settling in, Andy called out, “Time to go to the river for fireworks. See you guys at Clermont.” The Clermont State Historic Site along the Hudson River has a huge sloped property that offers perfect views of the fireworks across the river.
Julie had remembered the blanket, the bug spray, the hand wipes, and the snacks. I had brought none of these things. She was so kind and shared everything with us, and before I knew it, I had an enormous lady crush on her. “I think I’m in mom-love with her,” I told Jeffrey as we drove home that night.
I saw Jules again later that summer at our friend Griffin Dunne’s house, and I felt that embarrassing joy like when a senior invites you, a sophomore, to sit at their lunch table. She is such a smart woman, and she understood everything I was going through—what it was like being the mostly-stay-at-home person and having a partner with a high-profile career whom women threw themselves at—all the trappings of fame. We have both been elbowed out of the way by fans who think they have a shot with our partner, or by other actors and producers who don’t waste time on “the plus ones.” I’d always been so hot-headed about those situations. Julie had been a vice president at a major film studio, had a big creative career, and made all the same choices I was making, but she’d made them eight years before. Julie had navigated it all beautifully and was seemingly unstressed. I thought, Whatever she’s doing, I want to do. Jules showed up in my life exactly when I needed her.
That group of buddies was the linchpin—Andy to debate politics and gossip about juicy current events, Phoebe to gush about theater and our love of documentaries, Paul to inject absurdity and mischief into any situation, and Jules to infuse everything with her absolute chillness. I have friends I love dearly in California. But between traffic and schedules and especially with a baby, getting together was always so inconvenient and we rarely saw each other. In Rhinebeck we started having regular Saturday dinners and lazy afternoons at each others’ houses.
I began to notice that every time I went back to LA, I’d funnel more things back to the cabin.
Part Two
Grow
5
When you look for the bad, expecting it, you will get it. When you know you will find the good—you will get that.
—Eleanor H. Porter, Pollyanna
When Gus turned three, we had to make a decision about preschool, which meant we had to finally decide whether LA or Rhinebeck was going to be home base. Getting into school in Los Angeles isn’t just insanely competitive; it’s mortal combat. We started hearing stories from friends about the interview process, about a French immersion school where children were reading by the time they were two years old. This was so foreign to Jeff and me. I grew up going to preschool at the split-level house of Mrs. Ann Allison (of Witches Brew fame) in Sterling Park not far from ours. She lived upstairs, and downstairs we learned our ABCs and all about Jesus. Of course, everyone wants their kids to have more than what they had, but the idea of this little not-even-three-year-old being interviewed, or the school looking at us and wondering, Are you famous enough? Do you have enough pull? Do you have enough money? I couldn’t do it. We put our heads in the sand.
Instead of being in LA looking at schools, or letting them look at us, we were at the cabin. The trees were budding, the forsythia bushes were boasting their beautiful yellow blooms, and the sun was out. Gus was catching turtles with his dad down by the reservoir, learning about leaves and bugs and rocks. That little boy loved rocks. It wasn’t Proust, but I’d like to think the curiosity he was tapping in to was something more valuable.
One day, Jeff had a Skype meeting with a producer about a potential job. If it worked out, it would mean a little less travel for him. I wanted it to work! For the meeting, I had to get Gus out of the house because he was a loud toddler who loved to crash his Thomas trains and yell “Percy is coming!” over and over. If you aren’t familiar with Thomas the Train, Percy is Thomas’s buddy the little green engine. But that particular phrase sounds really bad when shouted by a toddler in the background of a business meeting.
I bundled him up and we headed off to the Lions Club park just down the hill from the high school and beside the brook where, I’ve been told, all the teenagers dangle their feet and swap their first kisses.
As we were playing, a Gus-size boy with a huge head of bright yellow curls came running over. Sam and Gus took to each other immediately, and I was left talking to Sam’s dad, Paul, who within two minutes asked the million-dollar question: “Where are you going to put Gus in school?”
“I have no idea,” I admitted.
“Well, over in Red Hook, there’s a really cute preschool named Little Feet. It’s in the old chocolate factory, and the teacher, Ms. Patty, is supposed to be amazing.”
Right then I knew—we didn’t have to be in LA. We could make a life here, at the cabin. Frantic, I started grilling this poor man. How big is the class size, what’s the tuition, and how do I find Ms. Patty!?
An hour later Gus and I burst through the cabin door, breathless. As casual as the cat who swallowed the canary, I asked Jeff, “How was your call, babe?”
“It was great. How was the playground?”
A mile a minute, I relayed all that I had learned. I told him all about Sam and Paul and Ms. Patty, and he sat there with a dopey smile on his face. When I’d finished, or at least stopped for air, he said, “Cool. I have the number for that place. My knee surgeon, Andrew, suggested it too.” Kismet.
We still had to persuade Ms. Patty to make room for Gus. Her classroom was magical and filled with the scent of patchouli, which she told me calms the kids. I don’t know if we convinced her, but Gus, well, he wasn’t going to leave that sweet little school until he had a promise that he could go back. And just like that, we became full-time cabiners.
We already had the wardrobes. When you start an acting gig, you usually do your read-through and then you go to your wardrobe fitting, and that helps you take on the shape of your characters. Over the previous two years Jeff and I had shoved all our LA gear—his bracelets and rings and Chrome Hearts collection and my trinkets and hippie skirts—into boxes, and we basically only wore things that we could buy at the hardware store or at the department store in town. Only this wasn’t for a role, and we weren’t acting. Changing out our LA wardrobe for our Rhinebeck clothes felt natural and right.
Ira sent us to the Rhinebeck Department Store, owned by Barbara and Dick. Dick is a fox. A cashmere-sweater-collared-shirt-pressed-chinos handsome man, and I know that in his youth he was deadly. Barbara is his much younger wife who is a source of boundless good cheer and energy. I’d put money on her being the captain of the cheerleading squad. They saw the similar age difference between Jeff and me and felt that we were kindred spirits.
Barbara creates incredible window displays, and inside the store are old, wide-plank wood floors and a gorgeous, scraggly moose head hanging over all of the goods they carry—the kinds of things that your grandpa wears but hipsters in Brooklyn have appropriated.
We bought Pendleton blankets and wool coats and sweaters and things that will last a hundred years. Jeffrey was adamant that he and Gus have the matching red-and-black plaid one-piece jammies Barb put up in her window, complete with the button-up butt—they were both always running around with their butts hanging out of those things.
I soon learned that my skill set fit the environment at the cabin. I could knit my son a sweater. I could build myself a garden. I could do the hard-scaping and landscaping, the painting and putting together. The women in my family were very capable and made pies from scratch and plucked their own chickens. I’d heard stories of my dad’s mom grabbing snakes by the tail and cracking them like whips so they couldn’t bite her kids. Or my great-grandmother Alice, who was the first woman in town to bob her hair and who worked a job that was usually reserved for male employees until she had earned enough money to buy a whole farm for her tall, younger husband. As a kid, I would hang out in the kitchen with the ladies. One aunt in particular could wash the dishes with her sleeves buttoned at the wrist and not get a drop of water on herself. It was the most precise thing I’d ever seen. That was elegance! And I finally felt like I fit in with these strong women.
* * *
One evening while at dinner with the Rudds at Gaby’s, a little Mexican place in town, my phone dinged with a new email.
“Ha! I just got an offer for a Christmas movie called Naughty or Nice!” I rolled my eyes. Jeff laughed.
“Hold the phone!” Julie said, shutting down the noise of the kids. “Tell me more!”
“Umm, the character is named Krissy Kringle,” I read, laughing.
“Oh my God, you have to do it,” Julie insisted.
There was zero chance I was going to do some cheese-ball Christmas movie. That was like career suicide.
“I don’t think you understand. We love those movies,” Jules cried.
“We love those movies,” Paul chimed in.
“We’re Jewish, and we live for Christmas movies,” Julie insisted.
“Read us the synopsis,” Paul demanded.
The description had every cliché, but it also sounded kind of fun. My friends were babbling on about how wonderful this was. When I told them I couldn’t do it, I thought they were going to climb over the table, snatch my phone, and accept the offer for me.
Jules said, “You have to do it!”
Paul said, “I dare you to do it.”
After that dinner, I kept thinking, What else am I doing?
My acting work had always been my dream. Getting a job like the one I had on One Tree Hill was what I had wanted for my entire life. It was a fairy tale—I was a small-town girl who at age twenty had worked at MTV and now had a great role on a new series. But have you ever read a fairy tale? I mean, an original Brothers Grimm fairy tale, like Cinderella, where the stepsister cuts off her own toe to fit her foot into the glass slipper? They are dark. And in my particular fairy tale ther
e had been a villain who pitted female actors against one another, pushed us to do gratuitous sex scenes that always left me feeling ill and ashamed, told young female actors to stick their chests out, put his hands on all of us, and pushed himself on me, forcing unwanted kisses.
I wasn’t completely naïve—when I was at TRL Ben Affleck had groped me on camera; I was nineteen, and I’d taken it on the chin and kept going. One of MTV’s top brass called me and said, “You handled that so well.” I didn’t realize that I was being groomed—trained to be a good girl and a good sport, someone who would put up with much worse behavior.
Those experiences left me exhausted and jaded. Jeffrey helped me find my love of acting again. When I met him, he told me, “If you’re going to work, I want it to be fun for you. No more taking jobs that put you in a bad place.” He took all the hard shit off the table. I know not everyone is this fortunate, and I’m thankful every day.
Working on White Collar resurrected my love for acting. That team of creatives and professionals showed me how a production is supposed to work, based on mutual respect and deep kindness. I had minimal responsibilities there, which was perfect. But I definitely did not want to sign up for six years on another show ever again. As an actor, you go into auditions begging please hire me. They interview and audition you, but there’s never a point where you get to sit down with the producers and ask, Okay, what’s your track record? Are you a creep? Are you going to bring your baggage to work? You don’t get to see all the cards before you have to play the game. And once Gus came along, I didn’t want to take a chance like that—I could be stuck in a miserable job until he was in fifth grade. I loved to act, but I had to figure out a way to do it that worked for me.
The previous year had been a bum out, professionally. I had new goals now. I was determined to find a female-driven vehicle I could thrive in. My manager, Meg, was thrilled I was going to make a go of it and actually audition.
The Rural Diaries Page 6