Leggy Blonde: A Memoir

by Aviva Drescher

  Her next gambit was to wake up a sleeping Reid and start screaming at him. He had done some organizing and cleaning while she was away for the weekend. She flipped out over his touching her stuff. Reid refused to engage, and locked himself in another room. In a fury, Jane called the police. When they arrived, the lead officer asked, “We got a call about a domestic disturbance. What’s going on?”

  Reid said, “I cleaned the apartment.”

  She said, “He pushed me!”

  That was it. Any allegation of abuse had to be investigated. Jane accused him of shoving her around while Veronica was sleeping in the next room. Reid called me the next morning and said, “You won’t believe what happened.” I was in shock.

  There was another incident a few days later. Jane became aggressive with Reid. What Jane forgot: the nanny cam in the living room of their apartment was on and recording. It taped both incidents, from her waking him up, pulling his covers off of him, screaming at him, his leaving the room and closing the door, right to the police arriving. It was all on camera.

  Reid brought the tape to the police station and showed them the video. They were not happy to see it. Officers don’t like to be lied to, especially about domestic violence. It was a serious crime. False accusations make it harder for real victims. While Reid took Veronica to get ice cream, the police went to Jane’s office to arrest her.

  Reid came to my place and told me what was going on. I was horrified. “Are you sure about this?” I asked. “You want to arrest the mother of your child?”

  He looked me dead in the eye, and said, “Yes.”

  While Jane cooled her heels in lockup, the district attorney sat down with Reid and explained what would happen next. “If you press charges, your wife could face prison time,” he said.

  Reid nodded. “I’ll bring our daughter to visit her there,” he said.

  Whoa. This was the moment I realized nice, normal Reid turned into a stone-cold assassin when crossed. He didn’t seek out trouble. He let wrong come to him. And when it did, he’d wait for his opening, and then he attacked. His enemy had no idea what hit him (or her). I had to admit: it was a turn-on.

  Jane spent the night in jail. If it were me, I would have broken after ten minutes behind bars and started crying and begging for forgiveness. But she came out cool and collected, like she was leaving a ladies’ tea. This was one tough cookie.

  On Valentine’s Day 2005, the warring parties had an emergency court hearing about the false accusation charge. Reid’s lawyer, Sue Moss, wheeled a video player on a dolly into the courtroom and said, “I have the evidence right here that proves what really happened that day.”

  The judge said, “Stop right there. I suggest you all go outside and settle this right now.”

  He didn’t mean the false accusation. He meant the entire divorce. They’d been fighting over money, property, and custody for a year. This false accusation was proof that they were spiraling downhill, and it could only get worse. The judge ordered them to end it right now and move on with their lives.

  From the beginning, Jane wanted fifty-fifty custody, a fifty-fifty split of the apartment, a fifty-fifty split of their property. She had a job, and they’d always had an equal marriage when it came to chores and responsibilities. Jane was big on that—even wanting Reid to clean exactly half of the dishes. (Call me crazy, but I always thought that being uncalculating and giving more was a secret to a great marriage or divorce.) After he and I started dating, though, she upped her demands, insisting on more money and full custody.

  As the judge advised, Reid and Jane and their lawyers went into the hallway and brokered a new deal. She agreed to Reid’s generous child support payment and fifty-fifty custody of Veronica. She would spend one week with her mom, and then one week with her dad. They returned to the courtroom. The judge approved the settlement. “Now, about this apartment,” he said. “Living together is not a good idea. Until the apartment is sold, Veronica will stay in the apartment and you will each move out for half the week.” Reid was all too happy to agree to that. They would still share the place, but not have to be there together.

  Thanks to the nanny cam, Reid had the leverage he needed. If not for that tape, the divorce would have dragged on for years to come, no doubt getting uglier and uglier along the way.

  They signed the papers. Reid was elated. He called that Valentine’s Day one of the greatest days of his life. Jane moved out for her off part of the week and I went to Reid’s apartment for the first time. Jane knew I’d be there. Just to make sure I didn’t touch her stuff (she was very sensitive about that), she labeled her food in the fridge. I was warned by their baby-sitter not to eat these little mini boxes of cereal (the kind you get at a hotel) in the pantry. “Oh, no!” she said. “You can’t have that! It’s Jane’s!”

  She had a set of china from Versace. For whatever reason, Jane decided that if I came to the apartment, I would steal her china. I am not a thief and the china wasn’t to my taste at all. (Have you seen Versace china?) Apparently, she’d railed at Reid for an hour, “Aviva better not steal my china!” Reid relayed the message to me. I was dumbfounded and cracked up. Did she think I’d tuck a dessert plate into my purse and slink away into the night? It was just such a bizarre thing to fixate on.

  Then again, who was I to talk about fixating on bizarre things?

  I figured in her view, I’d already stolen something far more precious to her than a sugar bowl. The woman was in pain, and lashed out in any way she could. She didn’t let up even after their divorce was final.

  When their apartment finally sold, Reid took a three-bedroom in the same building as mine on Sixty-first Street and York. His apartment was directly above mine. It would have been too abrupt to move in together right away. Veronica and Harrison needed a transition period before we could be a full-time family. We might as well have been, though. We were constantly going up and down the stairs between 7B and 8B. When Reid had custody of Veronica, we ate together at his place. When she was with her mother, Reid basically lived at my apartment. That summer, we rented a house in the Hamptons. The kids had birthday parties out there, and we really felt like a family. We were madly in love. The kids grew accustomed to being a four-person unit. Compared to the summer before in Miami with my parents, this was bliss.

  The only chink in our happiness continued to be Jane. She was so angry and resentful. When I picked up Veronica for our custody days, Jane narrowed those malevolent eyes at me, like she wanted to turn me to stone. Reid nicknamed her Medusa. You’d think Jane would have been relieved that he chose a mother and not some inexperienced twenty-five-year-old floozie. Oh, well. She was hurt and angry, and all the smiles and kindness in the world were not going to change that.

  Friends have told me that when a stepmother tried to be like a second mother, the birth mom could get territorial and competitive. Jane pushed back over anything I did for Veronica. She didn’t like the clothes I bought for her. The dresses and tops were too fancy and European. She preferred her daughter to dress in casual T-shirts from Old Navy. I bathed Veronica, helped potty train her, and cooked for her and shopped with her. I treated her no differently than Harrison, and did everything possible to make her feel comfortable and happy. I loved her like my own. Jane tried to undermine my relationship with Veronica. I felt like I could do no right. It was a lose-lose situation. Being a stepmom with an unsupportive bio mom seemed impossible.

  And then I got pregnant. The minute Reid and I were both divorced, we started trying to have a baby. I figured it would take awhile to get pregnant in my mid-thirties. But it happened on our first shot. Reid wanted to get married ASAP.

  My first wedding was supposed to be huge. The second was medium sized. My third wedding would be small. Really small. Even “just family” felt too crowded by then. Our extended families were growing smaller all the time, by death and by choice. Mom had died. Reid was barely on speaking terms with his father and stepmother.

  I’d only met his father and
stepmom a few times over dinner. They seemed to appreciate my efforts to care for and love Veronica. They adored Harrison and were very loving toward him. They clearly got that Reid and I were deeply in love. However, they were way too cozy with Jane for Reid’s taste during a very difficult time. Reid and Jane were always at war over one thing or another. His father and stepmother’s continued relationship with her felt like a huge betrayal.

  We sat down with them to talk about it. Reid said, “Blood is thicker than water. Jane is causing us nothing but grief. She lied and tried to have me arrested. She is constantly trying to hurt my new family. Why on earth are you spending so much time with her?”

  “We want to see our granddaughter,” said Mr. Drescher.

  “But we have fifty-fifty custody and live four blocks away from you,” said Reid. “You can see Veronica whenever you want.”

  But their visits with Jane continued. Through and by their actions, they were being very unsupportive of Reid and his new family unit. I felt they were being disrespectful to me. It. Made. No. Sense. The most complicated part of it all was that Reid’s father was Chief Financial Officer of Reid’s firm, Spencer Clarke.

  By the time of our wedding, relations with them were too strained. They weren’t acting like family, so Reid didn’t want to include them in the plans. My father hated weddings. He thought they were a waste of money and stupid and wouldn’t come. We made a few tentative lists of people to invite, and ultimately decided that it was all too complicated and tricky. In the end, we made it super simple. Reid and me, and Harrison and Veronica. Our family. The reason we were getting married.

  The ceremony was at the Brotherhood Synagogue overlooking Gramercy Park. My half sister’s husband, a rabbi, ran the place. He officiated the service. I wore a raw silk button-down ivory dress with three-quarter-length sleeves and a collar, a belt, and a full skirt. It was appropriate, I thought, for the second wedding of a newly pregnant, middle-aged bride. The kids were dressed up and looked adorable. As they walked down the aisle, they threw rose petals. I felt blessed to have our three children there, including Hudson, who was in my belly. After the service, we went to Gramercy Park to take pictures, and then to the Regency Hotel for lunch.

  It was a beautiful low-key day for just us. I could have gone on the way we were and had Hudson (formerly known as Brandon—nutcase me, I changed his name when he was four months old) out of wedlock. After what we’d both been through in our divorces, it seemed insane to rush right into another marriage. But Reid really wanted that piece of paper. He felt like it was the right thing to do for the children to have legally married parents.

  Our newlywed year, I took my job as a stepmother very seriously. I tried to walk that edge of treating Veronica like my own child without stepping on Jane’s toes. I went all out to make peace with her for Veronica’s sake. For long stretches, we were civil. There were times when we chatted on the phone like girlfriends. I made it clear that Veronica was her daughter. I had no intention of doing anything she didn’t approve of. At the end of the day, no matter how hard I tried, I just could not get it right.

  We had 50 percent custody of Veronica. During that time, I picked up Veronica at school. I took her to her activities. I played and read with her, took her to art class, arranged play dates and birthday parties, and really enjoyed shopping for her. I loved putting her hair in bows to match the smock dresses. Whatever she needed, I took care of it. But the more I loved Veronica, and the more she loved me, the more strained Jane and I became. Our friendly phone calls turned surly and rude.

  As I approached my due date with Hudson, Reid’s father and stepmother were still in an unholy alliance with his ex. Reid asked Jane flat out to give his family some space. An impartial mediator got involved, and he agreed that Jane’s clinging to Reid’s family was not healthy. She apologized for causing tension and promised to back off. But a week later, she dropped by their place again. Reid’s father and stepmother never understood how betrayed we felt.

  She seemed to have ulterior motives. The next thing you know, we were back to court. This cycle repeated itself for four years. After the third lawsuit with an affidavit that included comments about her relationship with his father and stepmom, Reid had had enough. He fired his father. The stone-cold assassin came out. Do not fuck with Reid. He looked like a nerdy nice guy, but when you pushed him too far, he was lethal.

  Several years have passed since then. These strained relationships are improving. For the children’s sake, we are forging forward, trying to mend what has been broken, and hope to have harmony in the family that extends beyond our unit of six.

  • • •

  In 2008, eight months after Hudson was born, I decided to celebrate the end of nursing by taking a bath. It may not sound like much of a celebration, but it was like a weekend in the Bahamas for me. With two older kids and a new baby, I’d been too busy to carve out half an hour for myself. The tub in our apartment had Jacuzzi jets and I’d fantasized about taking a bath in it for months. I filled it up, turned on the whirl, and soaked in the bubbles for a delicious hour.

  One week later, I came down with a sudden high temperature. This quickly turned into full-blown sickness with night sweats, fever, coughing. It was so bad, I asked my doctor, Dr. Kruger, to meet me at his office on a Saturday. I looked gray. He said, “It’s a virus,” and put me on antibiotics.

  Two days later I felt even worse. The night sweats were so bad I had to change the sheets a few times each night. I was so sick that my mother-in-law had to spoon-feed me. I went back to Dr. Kruger’s office. I must have looked like shit, because he sent me for a chest X-ray. After the radiologist called him, he brought me right back into his office.

  “Have you been traveling overseas?” he asked. “Staying in any hotels?”

  I’d been trapped in my apartment with the baby. “Uh, no,” I said.

  He put up my X-rays on the light box. “You’ve got severe pneumonia in both lungs.”

  Hospitalization Number . . . What? Fifteen?

  I didn’t spend very long in the hospital. Dr. Kruger drew blood, put me on powerful antibiotics, and kept me under observation.

  I was released after a day. Two days later, I went to Dr. Kruger’s office again. He had the results of my blood test.

  “Aviva,” he said, “I have some bad news and good news.”

  “Tell me,” I said.

  “The bad news is that you have Legionnaires’ disease. The good news is that the antibiotics I gave you for the pneumonia are exactly the right course to treat Legionnaires’.”

  Legionnaires’ disease? The thing you catch on cruise ships? I did some Googling. It was first discovered in 1976 at an American Legion convention at the Bellevue-Stratford hotel in Philadelphia. Apparently, this potentially fatal disease (if not caught early, mortality rates are as high as 50 percent) is caused by bacteria that lives in water tanks and is spread via air-conditioning, humidifiers, fountains, ice machines, any such system that can turn infected water into a mist. How the hell did I catch it in my own home? Were my kids susceptible? I freaked out, of course, and hired a scientific investigator.

  It was the damn Jacuzzi. Bacteria was in the pipes and when the bubbles turned the hot water into steam, I inhaled it. You see why I’m a hypochondriac? Because if anyone is going to get a hotel disease in her own bathroom, it’s me. Dr. Kruger was an absolutely brilliant diagnostician to think of testing me for Legionnaires’. He had no reason to do so; it’s that rare. Well, I survived it. But I never took a bath in that tub again. Hot tubs used to be a great pleasure, but now I look at them and think instantly of my mother-in-law feeding me with a spoon. (Forgot to add Jacuzzis to my list of phobias. . . .)

  • • •

  Meanwhile, my happy settlement with Harry turned decidedly unfriendly. As soon as Reid and I got married, Harry didn’t have to pay alimony. But he was still obliged to pay child support for Harrison. In 2009, the checks more or less stopped coming. Reid took on all of Harrison’s
expenses, in addition to his own monthly child support he paid to Jane. It was the start of the recession, and everyone felt the squeeze. Reid wanted me to press Harry to come up with what he owed. I begged Harry to make good on his child support. The check was always “in the mail.”

  I waited six months, and then I took Harry to court. Harry claimed poverty. My lawyer Sue Moss’s due diligence proved that Harry still charged a large monthly amount for himself. He was going out every night, flying around, living part time in Los Angeles. If he had ample funds to party till dawn, then he could dole out a bit of child support. I wasn’t looking for anything beyond what he was legally obligated to pay. At one point, Reid questioned whether we should pursue the lawsuit. But I was adamant. It was the principle of it all. Harrison deserved what was rightfully his.

  While not paying his child support, Harry dated LuAnn de Lesseps for a hot minute. It was LuAnn’s single year, after her divorce from the Count but before she met her now-fiancé Jacques. I knew LuAnn. We had a mutual friend. I remember telling our friend that it wouldn’t look good for LuAnn to date Harry on her TV show. His scenes with her didn’t air, fortunately for LuAnn. He did appear in a scene on Real Housewives season four, spanking his old friend Sonja Morgan’s butt at the costume party when she forgot to wear panties under her costume. He wasn’t exactly hiding his head in shame.

  For over four years, Harry missed most of his monthly payments. I was in and out of court throughout that time, pleading with the judge for help. Finally, he put the gavel down and gave Harry thirty days to come up with a large sum or go to jail. Harry had been crying poor for four years. But as soon as the judge said “jail,” a check arrived the next day for the full amount. It was only a fraction of what he owed, but I would take what I could get.