I met Billy at a bar in upstate New York when I was seventeen years old. A lot of bands played at this big, two-story club— the local place for loud rock music and a rowdy crowd fueled on beers and shots. When I think of that place, I’m immediately reminded of the movie Road House starring Patrick Swayze.
I had a job, and the first thing I wanted to do was move out of my house. My friend Tammy was not happy at home either. We had met in high school and decided to become roommates. We would go out often to dance. It was a way for both of us to relieve the stresses in our lives. She was a pretty brunette with a really nice physique, but a bit depressed. She was a fun girl with guy problems, something that plagued Tammy and me and most other girls in their teens.
Tammy was eighteen, which was the legal drinking age at the time. I usually got into bars because I was almost the legal age, though having a fake ID and fluttering my long lashes at the bouncer helped my cause as well. There wasn’t as much of a hassle back then as there is today about underage drinking. It was a fun time to be a young girl emerging out of her teens.
The bartender, Craig, had been serving me a lot of kamikaze shots on the night Billy and I met. I was only seventeen but could pound shots back. Not long after I arrived at the club, I spotted Billy from across the bar. We made eye contact and there was an immediate connection. We mouthed a hello to each other and he came over and bought me a drink. He was attractive—half-Italian and half-Irish, with GQ looks and a body like a brick shithouse. But even though our eyes met like two magnets, I didn’t approach him. I never approached guys—I still don’t to this day. I have never found it necessary to approach men . . . though maybe that’s been my problem: throughout my life the wrong ones have always approached me.
Billy asked me if I would like to dance. When we hit the dance floor, Craig’s eyes were on us like lasers burning holes into our backs. He had a massive crush on me and was protective. Craig would always make sure to walk me safely to my car from the club at the end of the night, and he would even follow me and my friends home. However, despite Craig’s attention, Billy and I danced all night. It was pretty much love at first sight.
From that night on, Billy and I were inseparable. We were young and in love, the type of love that was as pure as the driven snow. I wanted to be with him all the time, and Billy was so proud of me that he introduced me to everybody he had ever known. He also loved to take photographs of me. He took beautiful shots of me in Central Park surrounded by colorful foliage in bright Indian-summer sunshine.
Billy and I dated during an era of free love. There was no AIDS scare, and unprotected sex just meant that you could get pregnant. However, I still practiced safe sex. I was an adopted child and my mother was young when she got pregnant, so to me, safe sex was a choice I made for myself. Besides, guys always carried condoms back in those days, even in the midst of the free love movement. I don’t know if that’s still the case today. I don’t mean to disappoint anyone, but I am not out there banging everything that walks. Even back then I wasn’t having sex with multiple partners. I enjoyed being in a relationship. And Billy and I were in a committed relationship.
When I met him, Billy was a police officer who was also studying law in New York City. When Billy would go to the city to attend classes, Craig would consistently come around and try to keep me company. He would show up at my house and profess his love. Even though I’d never even so much as kissed Craig, he was determined to spend the rest of his life with me. One night he said to me, “If I asked you to marry me, what would you say?”
I replied, “I would have to say no.” I was always up front about how I felt about him.
Craig was genuine about his feelings, too. He had plenty of opportunities to take advantage of me when I was drunk, but he never did. While he wasn’t GQ material the way Billy was, he definitely had a swagger about him and a nice build. A lot of pretty girls were chasing after him. I suppose I misled Craig, but I did it innocently. I was too young to realize what was really going on. Looking back now, I know it wasn’t a good idea to string Craig along. However, I wasn’t doing it intentionally. I just selfishly needed the kind of attention he gave me. Craig made me feel safe when Billy wasn’t around. He also made Billy jealous, and I needed that as well.
Billy was fully aware that Craig was actively pursuing me, and one night things almost got out of hand. Unexpectedly, Billy came back from New York City early to surprise me and arrived at my house the same time as Craig. Billy walked up to Craig as he approached my front door and grabbed his arm from behind. From the window I saw they were having a verbal altercation that looked to be moments away from getting physical.
I heard Billy say, “I appreciate you watching out for her when I’m not around, but this is getting out of hand. Take my advice and walk away with dignity.”
Well, Craig didn’t want to walk away. He was willing to fight for me. However, Billy decided that he had already won and refused to take the bait. Eager to defuse the situation, I went outside and immediately asked Craig to leave. He was obviously hurt, and that was the last time I ever saw him.
Over the next couple of months, Billy and I drove back and forth to Florida, trying to decide whether we wanted to move down there permanently or not. Billy wanted to quit the police because he was sick of arresting people for laws that he didn’t believe in. For example, he felt smoking pot should be legal, and he didn’t like arresting people, confiscating their drugs, then watching the goods being distributed among his fellow officers. He felt the whole thing was hypocritical and didn’t believe in his line of work anymore. He dreamed of being a musician and wanted to pursue it, and Florida seemed at the time like the place to do that.
Billy was quite a good musician. He played acoustic guitar and sang James Taylor—Jimmy Buffet-style. The lyrics in the songs were about love, struggle, family, and heartache. I believed Billy could have been the next James Taylor.
Once Billy quit his job, we didn’t really keep a regular schedule. We’d stay up till all hours talking to each other, sharing stories and private details about our lives. Billy’s experience in law enforcement and his training in how to investigate people led him to believe that something was going on beneath the surface with me, and it was clear to him that I was hiding something important about my life. Well, that something was my sordid past of sexual abuse during my childhood. One night while we were visiting upstate New York, Billy got me to open up and I told him everything about that dark part of my life.
My dad was the only father that I have ever known. With that said, I harbored anger toward him my entire life for failing to protect me. It came to a boiling point when I finally opened up for the first time to Billy. Having that come out of me all at once made me realize that Nicky had been handling a lot all by herself and she didn’t have to any longer. I could tell by Billy’s expression that Nicky was in good company. I know now what I didn’t know then—when my father adopted me, he signed on to protect, love, and cherish me. And above all, his obligation was to never allow anyone to lay one single finger on me. I often wondered why my father adopted me in the first place if he knew that he would not be capable of loving me as if I were his own child. He failed miserably. Nicky noticed it and now Billy did, too.
I don’t know what made me tell him everything, but it felt right. Afterward, he looked me straight in the eyes and said, Let s go.
I didn’t have to ask where we were going. I just knew.
We immediately got into Billy’s little Toyota and drove to the nearby town where my father had been living since my parents’ divorce. It was cold and icy when we pulled up to my father’s girlfriend’s house. Billy was usually an easygoing, happy guy, never without a smile or handshake for whomever he met. However, as soon as Billy got out of the car, he had a crazy look in his eyes that let me know that this visit was not going to go well.
The small house had a garage and a carport that you could pull under. Billy approached the house and banged on the screen door
at the side entrance by the carport. My dad answered the door in good spirits.
Without hesitation, Billy grabbed my father by the back of his sweater and pulled him out of the doorway. He threw my dad down on the grass next to the carport.
Although my father deserved something for failing to prevent the abuse, I found it difficult to watch since I am not a violent person. This all felt wrong to me so I turned away. I believe two wrongs never make a right. While the beating continued, I stayed in the fetal position in the car, facing the other direction. Billy was in really good shape—Marine Corps-caliber shape. My dad had heart problems and had recently had a fifth bypass. Truthfully, I became concerned.
I beeped the horn and yelled out the car window, “Billy, stop! That’s enough! Let’s go!” My father was lying on the ground crying. For a brief moment, I actually felt bad for him, but mainly I was afraid Billy would go to prison and then be removed from my life like everyone else I loved.
At last Billy got into the car, looked me in the eyes, and said, “You deserve to be loved and feel safe, and I’m sorry if watching that hurt you. But no one has ever protected you as your father should have. This is a new start for you. I’m here for you now and I will keep you safe.”
I’ve never had someone in my life willing to protect and defend me the way Billy did. I guess that protective streak only comes when you truly love someone. My father never pressed charges against Billy. Perhaps it was because of a certain level of guilt he felt about my childhood. Or maybe it was the era. Nobody sued in those days. I’ll never really know for sure. Either way, we didn’t hear from him after the incident.
The next day, Billy and I went back to Florida for good. Nobody could stop us.
Billy and I drove down to Florida in thirty hours straight. Billy did the majority of the driving, and we talked almost the entire time. We felt as if we were returning to Florida for real.
When Billy and I got to Florida, the roommates he usually crashed with down there were less than thrilled to now have a woman living in their house full-time. It was supposed to be a bachelor pad. Soon after, Billy and I moved out.
We were homeless and slept in the Toyota packed to the brim with all of our personal belongings. We parked the car at the beach at night and fell asleep to the sounds of the ocean. At sunrise we’d wake up and use the public-beach showers. It seemed like a bit of an adventure at first, but we soon realized that we couldn’t live on love alone forever. We were hungry and tired. Real life was starting to take its toll. So we hit the pavement, trying to find work, and within a short time I landed a few waitressing jobs. Within six weeks we moved into a small apartment right on the ocean in Pompano Beach, a popular community north of Fort Lauderdale.
I was working three waitressing jobs while Billy bartended, and we both decided to model to bring in extra cash. Billy was modeling when he lived in New York City, and I had been approached by scouts back then as well. I was referred to a modeling agency in Florida and went in for a meeting. The agency loved me but didn’t love my hair, which was really long—down to my bottom—stringy, and curly. These days, it’s fashionable to have naturally curly hair, but not back then. The fashion powers that be also said that my eyebrows had to be shaped and I needed to learn how to wear makeup. They sent me to a talented makeover specialist named Tommy DeRosa, who immediately became my first gay love. He was funny and good-looking, and we laughed and talked freely about everything as if we had known each other our whole lives. I knew a lot of gay guys back then in Miami, but I didn’t love any of the others as much as Tommy. Spending time with him was a blast; it also made me realize I’d always feel safe being around gay men, since I felt that I could let my guard down in a way I wasn’t used to doing around straight men.
Tommy made me over and my curls ended up looking perfect— my look was updated to what people wanted in the eighties. The agency loved it and immediately started sending me on go-sees for swimsuit-catalog modeling and leg modeling.
Billy and I were young, hustling, and doing quite well. In the early eighties, cash was easy to make in Florida. Plus, most of the jobs that were offered enabled you to party while you worked. You got the best of both worlds. In those days, Florida was one big party. It was like having spring break all year long. They say that New York City is the city that never sleeps. Well, Florida doesn’t sleep, either, especially in the Miami and Fort Lauderdale areas, where doing drugs and partying is the local pastime.
Billy and I eventually moved into a small but nice “rent to buy” home in Fort Lauderdale. We were working a lot and making good money, and we were homeowners in no time.
Over the next few years in Florida, it was work hard, play hard . . . We even played hard at work. I was using a lot of speed. I worked at four bars, clocking in ninety to a hundred hours a week, and I was speeding through it. Everybody in the restaurant business in the early eighties was doing speed. Nobody could even sell it to anybody else because everyone had his or her own stock. You could order the stuff through the mail from magazines.
One of the bars I worked at was a five-star place called September’s, a big hangout for Florida fat cats. The section I worked in saw the most action and was always packed. My sales were consistently at the top. It was mind-boggling how many drinks I could sell in one night. I even sold more drinks than the blond waitress who was banging the manager. I was just good at what I did. The uniforms at September’s were kind of like Playboy Bunny outfits—they were miniversions of tuxedos, all in black and white. The outfit was a primarily a black leotard that was cut high over the hip, and we wore black tights underneath. The top of the leotard was scooped low around the chest, then went up over the shoulders and was cut even lower in the back as well. The scoops were trimmed in white dress-shirt ruffle. The leotard was topped off by a thick red cummerbund and a red bow tie. We also wore a tuxedo cuff on each arm, and black high heels—the higher the better. The outfit appealed to the customers, as you can imagine.
September’s had one of the most exclusive VIP rooms in all of Fort Lauderdale. I was selling some bottles that cost as much as $8,000 and getting tipped to open them, serve them, taste them, and sometimes share them with the customers. Florida had a lot of excess money at that time. Not only was I making money, I was also making connections with some of the wealthiest and most powerful people in Florida.
The more loyal clientele you built up, the better money you made. I had a great, extremely loyal clientele. It started to bother Billy that I was making so much money. But he enjoyed the benefits the money brought with it. Billy couldn’t make the kind of money I was making, so he saw my financial success as an opportunity to take some time off and focus on his music career. He played guitar beautifully and wrote gorgeous songs, and since Billy was talented and I loved him, I supported his dream of being a musician. I took out a loan and bought him thousands of dollars in music equipment, including a Les Paul guitar. I thought that, once he got on his feet in his career, he would be able to support my career goals. We had our dreams together and had it all mapped out, just as any young couple would.
My work schedule was grueling, but I believed I was working hard for both of us. Unfortunately, as time went on, Billy started focusing less on his music and more on partying.
Despite the long hours and the fast pace, or maybe because of it, I was living my life at work, involved with everyone, and then when I came home, it was just Billy and me and I’d be restless. It was difficult switching gears. I started going out with my friends to after-hours places that only people in the bar business went to. Billy would either come or not, depending on his mood, and then he stopped joining me and the others altogether. This was a new experience for me, going out without my fiance by my side. People tended to see us as a married couple already. Then I started accepting people’s invitations to dance, and I would intentionally dance closely with guys in the hopes that Billy would hear about it and get jealous. Of course our relationship began to deteriorate. Billy and I be
gan to fight, whereas prior to this we’d never even had an argument or disagreement. Our relationship became more about making excuses not to see each other than trying to be together.
One night, I finished the second of my two waitressing jobs for the day, serving cocktails at Pier 66. I was waiting for Billy to pick me up by the entrance to the club when I encountered a bartender, Mark. It was getting late, and Mark was a bit surprised that I was still there. “Billy still isn’t here? I could have sworn that I saw him pull up in your car about an hour ago.”
“Really?” I replied. “Are you sure?”
I walked outside to the parking lot, and in the distance I saw my car and Billy leaning up against it. He wasn’t alone. He was with another girl and they were making out, hot and heavy. He even had his hand up her shirt. As I walked closer, I realized that he was not only cheating on me with another girl, but that the girl was my close friend Debra.
I was wild with rage. Mark, sensing what was about to happen, ran up behind me, grabbed me by my waist, and held me back. He realized in a split second that something bad was going to happen. But even though Mark was a lot bigger than I was, he was no match for the strength that came over me. I don’t know if it came from my anger or what, but I became a wiry little shit, kicking Mark hard and finally breaking free.
Well, I punched Debra so hard in the face that I knocked several of her teeth right out. That was the first time I ever punched anybody in my life. The only explanation I can come up with for that amount of strength is that as soon as I saw Debra with Billy, Nicky was present. I wasn’t there anymore. Deciding to fight was all Nicky. Could I have handled it differently that night? Sure. It would probably have been better to walk away with dignity and grace, but I was so angry at this double display of disloyalty. In my book, Debra had done the worst thing you could ever do to another woman. Billy was my man. He was my property. I had kept Nicky tucked away for a while because I had Billy, but when Debra took Billy, I let Nicky come out and deal with her full force.
The Naked Truth: The Real Story Behind the Real Housewife of New Jersey--In Her Own Words Page 4