The Naked Truth: The Real Story Behind the Real Housewife of New Jersey--In Her Own Words

by Staub, Danielle

  I pulled over to the side of the road and sat there in shock. Nervously I asked, “Nicky, what the hell am I going to do now?” She immediately suggested that I go to the house of my friend Lisa, who had just gotten a driver’s license. Nicky said we should ask Lisa to go for a ride in the truck, but we shouldn’t let her see the side of the truck that was damaged. She told me that Lisa could be blamed for the accident.

  I pulled up to Lisa’s house, turned off the engine, and then realized, Wait a minute. Nicky is not going to be able to ask Lisa to go out with me for a ride. I will have to do the asking. I can’t do that. She’ll see right through me. I did end up asking Lisa to go for a ride, but unexpectedly she walked over to get inside from the damaged side of the truck. Surprised, Lisa asked, “What did you do?” I looked her straight in the eye and told her that I had screwed up my dad’s truck on the bridge. Lisa saw how afraid I was and immediately offered to loan me the money to get the truck repaired. It was $120 to get the truck fixed—that was a lot of money at the time.

  A part of me enjoyed the attention I derived from wrecking my dad’s truck. While I got it fixed, when my dad came home, I still admitted what I had done. Surprisingly, my father didn’t do anything except give me the money to return to Lisa.

  Nicky did not always offer the best advice, but she did always provide me with good company, and I believe Nicky was an important key to my maintaining my sanity when I was being sexually abused. Besides my puppy, Suzie, I had only her to talk to about it, and sometimes I could feel Nicky touching my hair the way I wished my mother would. At other times she’d tell me that what my abusers did was wrong, and she was sorry she wasn’t strong enough to keep them away from me. Nicky always wanted to fight for me. She just wasn’t physically big enough to fend anybody off. She felt somewhat guilty that she couldn’t prevent what was happening. She could only be there and support me through it. She was present when I needed her, and that was all that really mattered.

  Gradually, in high school, I became much more confident as I came into my own and I needed less and less of Nicky. These days she appears infrequently, but it’s reassuring to know that she’s still available if I have to call upon her; Nicky still comes around when I really need her.

  I am aware that Nicky doesn’t exist outside of my own mind. I gave her life because she helped me with mine, and I know that without her I couldn’t have survived many of the tragic things that happened to me as a child. At times I’d actually convince myself that the abuse was happening to Nicky and not to me. Sometimes, when you are falling through the cracks in life, there’s no safety net. But I always had Nicky.

  3

  BRIGHT LIGHTS IN A DARK WORLD

  My aunt Barbara was one of the strongest blessings in my childhood. From early on, she said proudly to my mom, “Watch out for that one. There’s something very special about that little girl.”

  Aunt Barbara and her husband, Uncle Bob, were a breath of fresh air, literally. As opposed to my immediate family, they always smelled good. I couldn’t wait to see my aunt, hug her, and breathe her in—she always wore the latest and most expensive perfume and couture designs. Uncle Bob would smoke a pipe filled with cherry tobacco that smelled delicious. I always felt safe and content when they were around. My aunt and uncle owned several beautiful homes in Manhattan, Toronto, and California. I don’t remember what they did for a living—it wasn’t important to me. My aunt Barbara was my mom’s sister. The youngest of nine children, she was very different from the rest of her family, so much more worldly and well traveled than all the others. She and her husband obviously knew about the finer things in life. I don’t know why I was so drawn to them. Maybe it was because of the money and their ability to buy the better things, stuff I wasn’t accustomed to, or perhaps it was just because they actually treated me like a little girl …a little princess, in fact. The way they treated me was a bright light in contrast to the darkness of my life at home with my parents.

  Unfortunately, Aunt Barb (as I liked to call her) wasn’t a daily presence in my life; she visited only on holidays and when we had special family events. She and Uncle Bob became my Christmas. They would show up at our home in the latest and most expensive new Cadillac. Where I came from, it was always a big deal to have a luxury car, and when she would arrive, it felt like a red-carpet event. Barbara was tan and pretty and her hair was always perfectly highlighted. Her skin was amazing, beautiful, bronzed, and glowing. Best of all, when I looked into her kind eyes, I could tell she was genuinely happy to see me. She would always make a big deal about my doing cartwheels and splits, and when I played my flute, she was transfixed until I finished the last note of the song.

  When Aunt Barbara was around, I felt that no one would dare misbehave or abuse me in any way. I was sure that she and my uncle Bob would easily pick up on something like that. Therefore, every fiber of my being felt at ease when I was in her company.

  When I was fifteen years old, Aunt Barbara became ill with cancer. I was devastated, but I thought that even though she was sick, she wouldn’t die. She is going to be in my life forever, I thought.

  My mother went to visit Barbara in California for three weeks while she was ill. With my mom away, my father went off somewhere, so nobody was home watching me. I had a boyfriend at the time, but he was away at college. My appendix ruptured when I was by myself. I was so sick that I could barely move. I tried to get to the phone, which was mounted on the wall in the kitchen, to call for help, but was so weak that I could barely stand up. I yanked the phone off the wall in desperation, then passed out on the kitchen floor.

  My boyfriend drove home from college that day, and twelve hours later he found me, still lying on the floor unconscious. He rushed me to the hospital, where the doctors did an emergency appendectomy (I have a scar that goes from my pubic bone all the way up to my belly button from the surgery). My mother finally arrived from California and rushed to the hospital to check on me. I was still weak and had lost twenty pounds when she arrived, but I could hear a lot of yelling out in the hallway— my mother was extremely upset because my father hadn’t been there for me. When my mother came into my hospital room to comfort me, all I wanted to know was how Aunt Barbara was doing. I could not have cared less about myself.

  Not long after, I saw Aunt Barbara when she made a visit to the East Coast. Sadly, it was one of her last—she was obviously losing her battle with cancer. She was weak, and I knew she didn’t have long to live. As we talked, she started saying she was sorry; she was sorry because she had to die and leave me. I asked her not to go. Begged her. I was heartbroken. When she passed away, I was very aware that no one else in the world believed in me the way she had, and I suddenly felt incredibly alone and truly lost without her. It was also clear to me that I wouldn’t feel safe around my family ever again.

  At Aunt Barbara’s funeral, I lay across the top of her casket, sobbing and not wanting to leave her. I didn’t want them to close the top of the coffin because I didn’t want to ever stop seeing her face. People kept coming up to me and telling me we had to leave the funeral home; Uncle Bob was the only one who could comfort me and get me to let go. For some reason, I never again saw Uncle Bob after that day, but whenever I smell cherry tobacco, I can’t help but think of him. Those are some of the best memories.

  I was upset for a long time after Aunt Barbara’s death. I questioned God. I didn’t understand why this woman who had been so incredibly kind to me was taken away so soon. First Ronnie, then Barbara—why did the people who loved me die?

  I don’t have many good memories after my aunt Barbara’s death, except for those of my horse, Love (this was a different era, and horses were cheap to buy in the country in those days). She was beautiful, lean and tall, with a black mane, tail, and forelock, and a chestnut brown body. To me, horses represented freedom and I always felt more in control when I was in their presence.

  I knew how to ride horses well. I rode western mostly, but I was also trained in equestrian-
style riding, which I thought felt too formal. Love was an incredible show horse. She jumped well and did the obstacle course perfectly. She could turn on a dime and pirouette like a ballerina. She was incredibly fast. Love would put her head back, take off, and just go and go! I think she needed to let loose and run just as I did. I would lie on her neck and the horse would practically fly. She would run so hard that she’d have foam coming out of her mouth. I didn’t have to kick or use spurs or a riding crop: all I would have to do was hold on. We had a unique bond and trusted each other fully. And nobody could get on that horse but me.

  My father owned a stallion, named Diablo, that he kept in upstate New York along with Love. This was another horse nobody could ride but me. My father would attempt to ride Diablo, but the horse would behave wildly as soon as he climbed on his back. Diablo would try to turn and bite my father’s ankle in an attempt to get him off. I would always chuckle to myself watching Diablo try to shake off my father. Then I would mount Diablo and he would be completely relaxed and at ease. Diablo ran fast, too.

  I began to show my horse, Love, a lot more as I took up competitive western horseback riding. I’d compete every weekend and became very good friends with Susan, whom I met at the horse shows. I eventually spent a lot of time at her family’s gorgeous ranch in upstate New York. They had huge stables that were cleaner than most people’s homes! One day Susan told me that her brother Luke had a crush on me. In fact, Luke was the first boy who took interest in me. He was a great horseback rider and I had an instant connection with him. It was an innocent flirtation. We didn’t do anything beyond hold hands and have nice conversations. I couldn’t wait for the weekends so I could ride horses and see Luke.

  The few things that I enjoyed in my childhood eventually somehow fell apart, and one night my father didn’t close the corral gate correctly and Love escaped. She reached the highway and was hit by a truck and killed. I was inconsolable. Love was not only my pride and joy, but also my friend. Heartbroken after the loss of my horse, I lost contact with Luke and Susan. What a shock to lose her in this way—the one thing left in my young life that I truly loved.

  When I was eight years old, my father decided that he wanted to foster another child. My parents didn’t want a baby, as it would have been a lot of responsibility. They wanted a boy or girl who was a bit older. We had fostered many children during the years after my arrival, and in the end, my parents never opted to adopt any of them, with one exception—Pam.

  Pam was a year older than me when she came to our home. I remember that she was a sad child who had seemingly survived quite a bit before becoming a part of our family. When one sad person looks into the sad eyes of another, you can almost imagine what they have been through in their life. I find that this particular level of sadness often can be a common thread between two lost people.

  Soon after Pam arrived, the sexual abuse slowed down quite a bit and eventually came to a halt before my ninth birthday. I believe that my abusers felt Pam would tell on them. We shared my bedroom and now what had been my personal space was occupied by more than just myself. This prevented me from remaining easy prey.

  Now, just because the abuse physically stopped, it didn’t mean that what had taken place hadn’t scarred me. Wonderful innocence had been completely stolen from me, as had the beautiful discovery of what intimacy could be. I’ve had to redefine intimacy over the past forty-seven years without truly being able to discover it for the first time through love.

  By the age of eight, I had already been severely sexually abused. I had gone through far too much for any eight-year-old to endure. I was too young to know wrong or right in the moral sense, but I did know that it didn’t feel good. In those days, nobody spoke about sexual abuse openly the way they do now. I was made to believe that if I told anybody, I was disposable—that I would no longer be of use. I thought that I would be considered damaged and my parents would give me up for adoption again. So I just kept my mouth shut about the abuse and held it inside, which became my own personal battle.

  It turns out that my mother didn’t know until I told her when I was in my late twenties. Mind you, I wasn’t telling my mother about the abuse in an accusing fashion. I was telling her about it because I finally got to the point where I could tell her and felt compelled to share. I had gone through rehab, counseling, and therapy. The sexual abuse from my childhood was one of the issues that I needed to confront and try to put to rest. Telling my mom about it was an important first step in that process.

  Immediately after I told my mother, she sat in a state of shock. For a few moments, she stared blankly and her skin became very pale. It seemed as though she wasn’t even exhaling. It wasn’t as if she didn’t believe me—she was in a state of total confusion. How could I have not known about this? How could you have gone all of these years without telling me? she must have thought. When she tried to stand, she actually fell to her knees on the kitchen floor. She was wiped out emotionally— exhausted from processing all of this in her head.

  4

  BILLY THE KID

  When I was thirteen years old, I began to notice boys. One that stood out from the rest was Peter, who was a few years older than me. I admired him from afar, gazing at him through a fence at our local playground. He was really cute—built well, with dark hair, big brown eyes, a great smile with perfect teeth, and dimples. All the girls in my school had a crush on Peter, and he always seemed to have a girlfriend. One after another wore his class ring, which was unique because it was pink amethyst (his birthstone).

  His array of female fans included popular cheerleaders who were rich, pretty, and came from perfect families—they were all the things I wasn’t. However, Peter and I eventually connected when he came to work for my father one summer doing odd jobs. We saw each other every day and became extremely close, and by summer’s end we were in love. My crush from afar became my boyfriend. The class ring that was once worn by so many girls I envied was now on my finger. It felt like a fairy tale. Peter was the first guy I had true feelings for. He was the first guy I experienced love with. He was my first willing sexual experience. He was my first everything.

  We got engaged when I was fifteen years old. After six months together, right before his senior prom, Peter gave me a diamond ring and asked me to marry him. I said yes, of course, and after our amazing summer together, Peter went off to a college that was four hours away. We wrote to each other often and I talked to him on the phone every night. I baked him chocolate chip cookies every Tuesday and mailed them to him on Wednesday. We were so much in love that it was sickening.

  Then, all of a sudden, I wasn’t in love anymore.

  Soon after Peter went away to college, I felt as if something was missing. I wanted to get out of the relationship with him, but didn’t know how. After all, he was my fiancé. I didn’t know how to end a relationship, so I did the only thing that I was taught up to that point. . . . I cheated on him by hooking up with my girlfriend’s brother. My father had cheated on my mother throughout my entire childhood, and cheating was my only reality. Children do learn what they live.

  When my father found out that I had cheated on Peter, he yelled at me. I was completely shocked that he had a problem with it. “You didn’t teach me how to love,” I yelled at him. “You didn’t teach me what a normal relationship was supposed to feel like. You cheated on Mom while I babysat the children of your mistress! Now you have a problem with me cheating on Peter?”

  I eventually told Peter that I wasn’t interested in being with him anymore. He was devastated. Peter was still as in love with me as I had been with him in the sixth and seventh grade, when I’d gazed at him from afar and dreamed of what it would be like to call him mine. I broke up with Peter in the kitchen of my house and literally stepped over him as I walked out the front door. I will never forget the look on his face. I deeply hurt him. He was a good guy and didn’t deserve it. However, I didn’t see it that way back then. The more Peter cried about our breakup, the angrier I
got. As tears rolled down Peter’s cheeks, his anguish fed the rage I felt toward my abusers and what they’d done to me as a child. I was emotionally abusing Peter for what they did to me. By breaking Peter’s heart, it somehow made me feel vindicated for the pain of my childhood. Little did I know I’d go on to do this to other men throughout my life.

  After my breakup with Peter, I discovered that a lot of guys really wanted to be with me. This realization fed the feminine beast inside me even more. I was sixteen years old and finally coming into my own. I guess I was a late bloomer; prior to that time I was tall and lanky and had no breasts. “Hey, Olive Oyl, where’s your Popeye?” the boys and girls would mock me. But suddenly there was no more Olive Oyl, and the boys definitely started to take notice.

  My long legs suddenly took shape. My breasts, albeit small, were developing and my skinny waistline began to give proportion to my body. I began to walk differently—sexier, and with a lot more confidence. I had beautiful, long, brown curly hair that complemented my bone structure.

  Because I was extremely poor and not very outgoing, I’d had trouble fitting in. Now things began to change for me for the better. I started to make some money from cleaning houses and babysitting, which allowed me to buy some new clothes and wear outfits that were in style. I bought a pair of tight designer jeans that fit me well, and people started to look at me differently. I used a hair conditioner that was top of the line that made my hair full and silky, and I got noticed. I learned a lot about accentuating my outer beauty as I matured, and how to take advantage of it. Without a doubt, going into my early teens was a difficult transitional time for me. However, I successfully came out the other side with many male suitors in tow, one of whom was extremely important: Billy.