Or could it?
THIRTEEN
Yes, I Am
“Having a child is surely the most beautifully irrational act that two people in love can commit.”
—Bill Cosby
The only person I told about the pregnancy was Mimi. From the parking lot of the OB/GYN office in West Orange, New Jersey, I called Mimi and told her, “I am holding a picture of my baby in my hand.” It was completely surreal to me.
Johnny’s New Hampshire family vacation came to end; he flew to Vegas on July 10th. Andrew told me he had delivered the phone to him, so when I did not hear from him that night, I tried to call him a few times. His room phone was off the hook—not unusual given that he often did this to avoid Elizabeth. The phone I bought him was switched off, which was unusual.
He didn’t call in the morning either, so by the time the evening of July 11th rolled around, I was really upset. I obviously needed to talk to him. I had been holding the news too long—since July 3rd, in fact.
Johnny was going to rest overnight in Detroit. After a few calls went straight to voicemail, I called Andrew and asked him to please locate Johnny because I needed to talk to him.
I believe that Andrew heard some urgency in my voice, because he said, “Well, someone has either died or you’re pregnant.”
I was caught off-guard by hearing the word pregnant come out of Andrew’s mouth. All I could say back was, “Nobody died. Please get him on the phone for me.” It was around 10 p.m. and Andrew and I talked at length while he tried to locate Johnny. I was very unhappy that Andrew knew I was pregnant before I could tell Johnny.
Andrew tried to console me, telling me not to worry and that he wasn’t going to say a word to anyone. He said that he was very happy for me, and that I would not be overstating matters if I described his state as over-the-moon with joy. He was a father of three, so I didn’t think anything about his happiness. He obviously liked kids and thought they were great. (I had no way of knowing at the time that he probably felt like he had just struck gold with his ability to use me.)
When Johnny finally called me that night, the first thing he said to me was, “Why does Andrew Young want me to call him?” There was in irritated disdain in his voice, as though he thought Andrew was being a gnat. I always defended Andrew because of the bond we shared. We both loved Johnny, and I knew how badly Andrew felt now that Elizabeth had pushed him out of Johnny’s life.
“That’s me. He was trying to locate you for me.”
“Oh.” Johnny immediately softened. I could tell that he was tired.
“Why didn’t you call me last night?” I asked in a very curious and concerned manner, given it was so out of character. “Or this morning?”
“I don’t know.”
He sounded really tired and because he had just been with Elizabeth for a long stretch of time, he also sounded as though he was back to his old disconnected self.
“I had a doctor appointment, remember?”
“I do.”
“I am pregnant.”
He paused and then said, “I’m not surprised.” He paused again, softening even more. “I want to be clear that whatever you decide, this is your decision, and I will support you in whatever decision you make.” His tone was kind, gracious, and not remotely upset. “This is your body, your life, and it’s a big change. I don’t think you really understand how big, but there is no way I could tell you what to do with your own body.”
I was surprised that his tone was so gentle. I had really thought he was going to be upset. But I think somehow he had already sensed that this was going to be the outcome.
So on July 11th, 2007, both Johnny Edwards, the father of my child, and Andrew Young, the man who would later claim to be the father of my child, became aware that I was pregnant. To me this is an important fact (which my phone records and medical records support) because the criminal prosecution alleges that Bunny Mellon’s money was solicited in or around the month of May to support hiding me and my pregnancy.
Johnny also never wavered from what he said to me initially. He never asked me to get an abortion. He always stuck to what he originally said: it was my choice and he would support whatever choice I made. Since the moment I knew that I was with child, I never had a single doubt about what I was going to do: bring this child into the world.
When I found out that I was pregnant, the focus and priorities of my life completely changed. I spent most of the next month reading and educating myself about pregnancy. I discovered (to my shock and surprise) that most women were at their most fertile not during ovulation, but a few days before. IMPORTANT INFORMATION that I did not know! (Commence blond jokes now.)
I remember lunching at Soho House twice with Mimi and Jonathan Darman, and being a little concerned that Darman would notice that I wasn’t drinking and would guess the reason. Darman didn’t seem to notice or at least never publicly claimed to after the fact. I remember talking about going to Martha’s Vineyard with him for Labor Day but I realized at the time that it wouldn’t happen because I would probably be showing by then.
Actually, I didn’t travel at all until the very end of July and wasn’t remotely interested in doing so. The intense need to see Johnny that I had felt before I was pregnant had now diminished.
Lisa Blue flew me to LA at the end of July. I believe it was the same day that Johnny and Elizabeth renewed their vows and People got their exclusive article (and photos) of the big event. I had completely let go of my negative feelings about that, which was no mean feat because it went against everything I believe in. But I had to. From everything I could see, their relationship was not going to change, and it was never going to be a real relationship. She wasn’t going to stop abusing him, and he wasn’t going to stop hiding. I knew Johnny loved her and she wanted this, and now that she was dying, he really wanted to give her anything she wanted. And what she wanted was for the whole world to think she had overcome their little “glitch” in their marriage, and that they were now a happy couple once again. My feeling was, if what people thought about her was really important to her, so be it.
But the reality of the situation was that Johnny was no longer just my boyfriend; he was now the father of my child. So regardless of what would happen between us, I would be involved with him for the rest of my life.
I also realized the dynamic, good and bad, that would exist between her father and me would be in my daughter’s head. So when I discovered I was pregnant, I decided that I would continue doing everything in my power not to complain or be nasty to him in any way, but to love him unconditionally as he grew in awareness and became the man that I knew he was underneath that mask of fear.
So I let any and all anger go. My utmost priority was my child. Also, even though my relationship with Johnny was highly passionate, I decided that I did not want to have any emotional highs and lows. I wanted my child immersed and growing in love, peace, and calmness. I began to monitor all my reactions with a vigilance I had never used before.
I began talking to my unborn baby. I really believed I was carrying a boy. The baby felt so strong to me, so willful. (I sure got that part right.)
While I was in LA visiting Lisa, I saw Johnny for two nights and he had never been sweeter to me. I remember thinking, “Wow, he should renew his vows more often!”
I went to the doctor on August 6th. All was well with my baby, and I got another ultrasound picture. The moment I saw it, I thought, “That’s a girl.” The forehead and profile looked exactly like a profile picture of me as a little girl that hung in our hallway in Florida. But I dismissed the thought because my baby felt so strong-willed that I still didn’t believe that she could actually be a girl.
I flew back to LA again. Flying across the country is expensive, and I remember Johnny was concerned that I was going to run out of money because I hadn’t worked since December and wa
s clearly spending money to come and see him. I told him not to worry about it. I had plenty of airline miles. Lisa had paid for my last trip, and Andrew had been taking care of my travel since June.
He said okay and moved on to the next thing.
I would discover that the problem with this was a communication problem. Most people would assume that taking care of travel meant picking up the bill, that taking care of something automatically meant financially. Johnny doesn’t think that way. To Johnny, taking care of something or someone is helping them fix or solve a problem. If Johnny says, “I am going to take care of it,” it does not mean he is going to pay for you or support you, so you never have to work again. It would mean he would help you solve or fix whatever challenge you had before you. Johnny later told me that when I told him that Andrew had taken care of my travel, it didn’t register with him that Andrew was actually giving me money.
When I read the indictment in 2011, I was shocked to see that Andrew had already received one hundred thousand dollars from Bunny Mellon by the second week of August 2007. One hundred thousand dollars! That is a lot of money for plane tickets! If Johnny really knew that Andrew was receiving that kind of money, why would he be concerned that I was going to run out of money? What I believe is this: Had Johnny known about the money that he had supposedly solicited for me, he would have said something to me about it. He would have wanted to make sure that I, his girlfriend and mother of his child, was getting the money—all of it.
I mean, really? Andrew the employee, who was already making a substantial salary from Johnny, gets eighty-four thousand dollars, and the unemployed girlfriend and mother of his child gets sixteen thousand dollars? Are you kidding me?
I flew to Las Vegas on August 21st for the night. We had room service, and I was so nauseated I couldn’t eat. I read in the indictment, almost four years later, that Andrew received another check the next day in the amount of one hundred thousand dollars, bringing the grand total to two hundred thousand dollars! I also remember Andrew offered to give me an additional one thousand dollars that month, which I thought was very nice of him. I was very grateful for his gift of six thousand dollars that month instead of five thousand dollars.
Believing Andrew was a very stupid, stupid thing to do. I shouldn’t be too hard on myself, though, because I’m in very good company. Johnny, Bunny, Fred, the media, the US government, and most of America have also taken a little boat ride on this same ship of stupidity. The only one person (that I know of) who actually saw this correctly was Elizabeth.
So let’s see: the grand totals we have are staffer, $178,000; girlfriend and mother of his child, twenty-two thousand dollars!
In late August I flew to Orlando, Florida, for one night and then to the Westin Diplomat in Hollywood. In Orlando, Johnny stayed at some weird place that had front and back sections with fifteen or more buildings in each section. It took me a comically long time to find him, and when we found each other, our mutual reaction upon sight was explosive. I still remember being surprised about that.
As usual, we had a great night. At one point he said to me very playfully and lovingly, “You are going to keep this baby, aren’t you?”
“Yes, I am.”
“Well,” he said, “I am just going to accept it then.”
I smiled. “Yes, you are.”
I left long after he did and flew to Miami. This was the first and only time that Andrew reserved a room in his own name for me, in the same hotel that Johnny was going to stay in, which enabled me to have my own room. I put on my bathing suit and went out to the beach café for lunch.
There was a full moon that night, August 28th. Johnny and I sat out on his balcony looking at the moon over the ocean for a long time. He had just been with President Carter, his wife, Rosalynn, and Elizabeth.
Johnny came to New York the first week of September, and, of course, we stayed at the Regency.
I began feeling that I needed to move out of New Jersey. I needed to find a remote place to live and have my baby in peace. But I also wanted to be somewhat close to Johnny. I wanted my baby to grow up near his or her father. I began searching the Internet for places to rent in North Carolina and began talking to Andrew about what it was like to live there. Andrew had sold his house and was moving into a huge rental house while he and his wife built their dream home. He said repeatedly how huge and nice their rental house was and that I should just come down and stay with them. I replied, “I may take you up on that.”
When I mentioned to Johnny that I was thinking of moving to North Carolina, he had one response, which he never deviated from: “That is a bad idea.”
Darman called to tell me that Sam Stein from The Huffington Post contacted him, claiming he was looking into my webisodes and asked for my contact information. Darman said he refused and immediately called me to tell me. Darman was naturally skeptical about Stein’s claims given that it was September 2007 and the webisodes were long gone. I thanked Darman for not giving out my information and requested that he please continue to refuse to give it to anyone.
I had a doctor’s appointment on September 17th, the one where I finally got to find out whether my baby was a girl or a boy. Even though the last ultrasound looked like a girl to me, I really thought the baby was a boy, given how strong-willed the baby seemed. I was blown away when the doctor told me, “It’s a girl.”
I would never have guessed what my reaction would be.
I went to my car and cried. The reality of it, the shock of it being different than I originally thought and now knowing was just overwhelming. When you’re pregnant, emotions really come out of nowhere and wash over you like a tidal wave. It’s an odd experience. I can’t even begin to express how grateful I am that I was blessed with a little girl—or how surprised I was at Johnny’s reaction when I told him later that night in Washington.
I had taken the train down. I did not know it then, but it was to be the last night we would spend together in its entirety for a long time.
He was in a great mood. If I remember correctly, he had just come from Teddy and Vicky Kennedy’s house. He was in a great mood anytime he was with them. Johnny would light up whenever he talked about Teddy.
“Guess what the baby is.”
“A boy.”
“Nope, a girl.”
“That is so cool!” He kissed me as he rubbed my belly. He was clearly very excited.
We had such a great night. I remember him kissing me goodbye in the morning and the passion involved. To think about it now, even after all these years, still makes me smile.
There was a big debate at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire on September 26th. Johnny told me that he and Elizabeth had had yet another huge fight before the debate and many people on the campaign were concerned their screaming would be heard because they were in a small hotel.
Also before the debate, Andrew sent me a link to a house, near the one he was renting in the Governors Club in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. He thought I might like it, and I did. It certainly looked nice, but I wasn’t really focused it because the debate was about to happen.
I watched the debate on TV from Jersey, and then, unbeknownst to me, at 11:34 p.m. on September 26th, 2007, Stein posted his blog, and my entire life was about to change. Again.
FOURTEEN
Knock, Knock
“Today is your day! Your mountain is waiting. So . . . get on your way!”
—Dr. Seuss
The next morning, September 27th, I was on my way into New York City to have lunch with Glory. Mimi was driving when Andrew called to tell me that the Sam Stein piece about the missing webisodes was up. He read it to me over the phone.
I was wearing a dress that was the last piece of clothing I owned that successfully hid my pregnancy. I had been thinking about sharing the news of my pregnancy with Glory, but now, with the new issues that aro
se on the drive in, I didn’t mention it, nor could she tell.
At lunch, we talked a lot about the Stein piece.
Later that afternoon, after I was back in Jersey, Johnny called. I don’t know whether he was in between events or on his run time, but not surprisingly, Elizabeth had flipped out about The Huffington Post piece and was screaming at everyone. Apparently what she was most freaked out about was that people would be able to see me in the webisode.
“What are you talking about?” I asked.
“Aren’t you in the piece? Isn’t there a version with you in them?”
“In the first version, seventeen billion cuts ago, but not the final cut that was online before Elizabeth had them removed.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
“Will you look at them and make sure?”
“Yes, I will look at them again, and tell you.”
“Okay, I gotta go. I’ll call you back.”
At around 4:30 p.m., I was sitting on the couch in front of the fireplace, about to view the webisodes on my computer again. It was after school, and Mimi’s boys were in and out. The outer door at Mimi’s house was wide open. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a guy in khaki pants and a light blue shirt walk past the window, heading for the front door. Mimi saw him from the other window in the family room and told me she immediately thought it was Sam Stein. He had recently emailed her a few times attempting to get information and copies of the webisodes. It never occurred to her that it had gone beyond The Huffington Post.
She went to the door and the man with an English accent asked for me. Mimi told him I wasn’t there, although I was sitting about six feet from the front door. He gave her his card. She saw the National Enquirer logo on his card, and she promptly told him to get the fuck off her property and slammed the door in his face.
What Really Happened Page 12