“Maybe,” I said, grinning.
The ring was priced at twenty-five hundred dollars, still a significant sum but not anywhere near the hit we had anticipated. As we left the jewelry store, we were met by a group of paparazzi, who had been tipped off we were inside picking out a ring. Amid the whir of snapping cameras and questions about our engagement, we hopped into Rob’s Porsche and sped off to safety.
Suddenly and implausibly, Rob and I looked downright stable. Tom and Rebecca had split; so had Emilio and Demi; in fact, Emilio had fathered two children with Carey Salley, with whom he had an on-again, off-again relationship. At a New Year’s party thrown by Alana Stewart in the house she got in her divorce from Rod, I spotted Ryan O’Neal and Farrah Fawcett and thought, Well, they’re a couple. They’ve made it. If they can do it, I think Rob and I can be okay.
Thinking back to that moment of naive optimism reminds me, at least in tone, of the scene in Postcards from the Edge when Meryl Streep comes home and Shirley MacLaine is waiting up for her, drinking, in pajamas with a turban on her head. They have an argument, and Shirley says, “You know, it could have been much worse. You could’ve had Joan Crawford or Lana Turner for a mother.” And Meryl says, “What, those are the choices?”
Ryan and Farrah were our control couple? My North Star?
What was I thinking?
Per Rob, the next step was moving in with him. He wanted me to move from my mother’s guesthouse into his mother’s guesthouse.
However, his was more than fourteen feet away from the main house, and he had redone it in American Gigolo style, bachelor pad chic, featuring black lacquer cabinets, leather furniture, glass bricks, Bang & Olufsen electronics, and a splash of neon light. By contrast, my place was done with funky, comfortable furniture tending toward the style that would become known as shabby chic, with beautiful art nouveau accents. I also had three cats, Sylvester, Cairo, and her son, Dr. Murray Schwartz, as well as my dog, Sidney Beagleman. Rob had a cat, too, an Abyssinian named Bob Love.
I didn’t see how the hell my stuff was going to blend with Rob’s. Nor did I see how we were going to share his closet, which already overflowed with designer clothes and wardrobe from his various movies. Also, he didn’t have a doggie door for Sidney. But every time I raised a new obstacle or problem, Rob told me not to worry, that we’d figure it out, and we did.
We worked out more than just living arrangements. In one of our conversations, we divulged to each other what had been going on while we were apart. I told Rob that I’d been seeing someone very seriously, but had ended it for him. He told me about the craziness of his relationship with Stephanie. After everything was finally purged, I said, “So let me ask you a question about you and Stephanie.”
“Yes?” he said.
“What is it like fucking yourself? You guys are clones. What’s it like?”
He just smiled his adorable Rob grin.
“You noticed?”
“Who didn’t,” I said. “I mean, she’s clearly not just any other seashell, is she?”
After agreeing on a summer wedding date, Rob left for St. Augustine, Florida, where he began making Illegally Yours, and I turned my attention to actual wedding plans. I pored through bridal magazines, looked for dresses, and met with wedding planners, florists, and caterers to get ideas. Rob and I talked numerous times a day. He was more into the guest list, a monster task that began to resemble an awards show seating chart with all its nuanced complications. One day he said if we were going to have Francis Ford Coppola, we needed to invite Oliver Stone, too. I pointed out that we didn’t know Oliver. Rob said, “Yeah, but we really should.”
There were many similarly nutty conversations. Like could we invite Demi and still have Emilio? Could we invite my friend Leilani’s sister, who had had a less serious thing with Emilio but a thing nonetheless? Judd or his ex, Loree? On and on ad nauseam. At one point, I felt like we had to invite everyone or no one, because it seemed as if everyone in Hollywood, at least those we knew, had slept with one another. Us included. It convinced me that one day way in the future, the industry will be run by one little banjo-playing mogul with an exceptionally high forehead, little beady eyes, and webbed fingers. The quintessential product of celebrity inbreeding.
In the meantime, Rob was having a great time in St. Augustine, hanging out with Colleen Camp and the crew. But he didn’t completely get director Peter Bogdanovich. During rehearsals, Rob called me, perplexed. Peter had told him not to have orgasms during sex while he was shooting the movie. I said, “What?”
“Yeah. He said you lose a lot of energy that way, and it’s a problem. So you can’t let yourself come.”
“You’re not listening to him, are you?” I asked.
“No,” he said.
“But wait. I’m not there. So what does it matter?” (Ha-ha.)
I visited a short time later and we had a nice time. Peter graciously opened his set to me anytime and I did all the touristy things in St. Augustine. Then I flew back home and hung out with friends. I was really determined to be good. Both Rob and I had multiple flings in the past, but I was going to make sure my behavior was as changed and chaste as he said his was. No John Cusack moments for me, no temporary fixes. I was Suzy Homemaker, planning my wedding, and as far as I recall, Rob was rolling along nicely, too.
Till then, I had been partying heavily. But I turned over a new leaf after accompanying my friend Lauren to a twelve-step meeting. A manicurist, Lauren was my primary coke connection. She also smoked bales of weed, and one day, feeling like her life was unmanageable, she decided to get sober. At her meeting, I introduced myself as a normy, but I left thinking my life would be infinitely better if I gave up drugs. Not alcohol, I didn’t consider that a drug; a beer or a cocktail was fine. But I felt like I was doing a lot of coke. I’d recently missed an audition because I’d woken up after a too-brief sleep looking like shit. That was enough of a reason for me.
As I did with so many things, I got way too involved too fast. I went to meetings, became a life raft for people who were sinking in their own lives, put my name on phone lists, went out for lots of coffee, and had people to my house. It was a nice network of people. They were all a little dark and fun. My life did become a little bit more peaceful, too. I could focus on other people’s drama instead of my own.
It was temporary, though. After finishing Illegally Yours, Rob flew straight to New York and began production on his next picture, Masquerade. I visited at the beginning, and I got a good vibe from director Bob Swain and Rob’s costar, Meg Tilly. Rob had rented a lovely home in the Hamptons, and we had a great time there. During the day, we hung out at the beach and took funny videos of each other with the camera his parents had given him for Christmas, and at night, we hit the hot restaurants and clubs in the city.
Charlie Sheen was also in town shooting Wall Street. One night Charlie, Rob, and I were at a club with Oliver Stone, tucked away in a corner booth where the shadows fell a little heavier to afford more privacy, and the music wasn’t quite as loud so we could actually have a conversation. Oliver was ranting about the terrible quality of television, going on and on about how the networks put on nothing but crap and in the process turned the culture into crap, and blah-blah-blah.
At one point, I saw out of the corner of my eye a group of girls staring at us from across the club. They had that look in their eyes. The celebrity-chasing photographers are called paparazzi. I call the people who stare across the room the recognazzi. These ones were in their early twenties and attractive. I watched them work up their nerve and walk up to our table. I thought they were going to ask for Rob’s autograph. Rob sort of sat up straighter, getting ready to sign, shameless creature that he was, while Oliver went on with his diatribe and Charlie listened. But the girls looked past both of them and directly at me.
“You’re Melissa Gilbert, right?” one of them asked.
“Yes,” I said.
“Oh my God,” one squealed.
“We�
��ve been watching Little House on the Prairie our whole lives,” another one said. “We even watch the reruns.”
“Growing up, I wanted to be just like you,” the third chimed in. “I dressed as you for Halloween.”
They excitedly recalled their favorite episodes and told me more memories they had of loving the show. Everyone at the table got quiet. Oliver looked at me curiously; I don’t think he had any clue who I was. The girls, in turn, didn’t seem to be bowled over by Rob or Charlie, and had no time for Oliver. Nor did they care. After they left, I flashed Oliver a grin and said, “And that is the power of television.”
I returned home feeling pretty damn good about life. I heaved a sigh of relief at the decision I’d made to marry Rob. It seemed he had clearly changed. With our wedding plans moving along, I celebrated my twenty-second birthday with Katie Wagner and our producer-friend Brad Wyman. Since all of us were Tauruses, we called it the bullshit party.
I broke my vow to not do drugs that night and went on a two-day bender in Las Vegas with a group of friends that included Leif Garrett. Flying home, after not sleeping for forty-eight hours, I thought I saw the writing on the wall, and it scared the shit out of me. After that binge, I vowed to never do cocaine again.
Rob asked me to come back to the Hamptons to be with him, and I couldn’t get there fast enough. I put the grizzled feeling of excess behind me and fell into an easy, loving, relaxed rhythm of visiting Rob on the set. We bopped around the Hamptons and hung out at night. We couldn’t have had a better time.
After a couple of weeks, I bid him good-bye and went home to continue wedding preparations. I looked for a dress, met with the wedding planner, and relaxed with my girlfriends. I wasn’t sure why, but I felt run-down, tired, cranky, and just plain blah. I was at our home in Malibu when I noticed my breasts were particularly tender. Then it hit me. Oh shit, my period was late!
I grabbed my Filofax and started counting days. It turned out I was about a week late. I bought a home pregnancy test, then tossed and turned through the night, waiting for the morning, when the instructions said to take the test. At the first glimmer of sunlight, I leapt out of bed, ran to the bathroom, and took the test.
It was positive.
I was pregnant.
My heart raced and my hands shook uncontrollably. I laughed and cried at the same time. My brain didn’t know what to think, so it thought everything:
A baby.
My baby.
Mine. And Rob’s.
Our child.
Oh God, the wedding! We would have to move the wedding date up! No way was I walking down the aisle with a bulging stomach and a train of whispers.
What was Rob going to say? I tried to imagine his reaction. How happy would he be when I told him the news? Surely he would be happy. Right?
My mind wouldn’t stop. I was going to be a mother. I was going to have a family of my own. I made an appointment with my ob-gyn, who confirmed that I was pregnant, gave me a big hug, and sent me on my way with a handful of pamphlets and prenatal vitamins. My life was about to change in ways I couldn’t begin to imagine. It was going to be exactly the way I had dreamed. I was beyond happy. I wanted to tell Rob the news in person, so I left the next day for the Hamptons. I arrived and slipped contentedly into his arms, thinking, This is the man I love, the man I am going to marry, the man I am about to tell a secret that will make our lives perfect. He held me and told me how happy he was that I had come back to be with him, how badly he had missed me, and how much he loved me.
That was my cue. With my cheek pressed against his face, I whispered, “There’s more. I’m pregnant.”
Silence.
I pulled back from him just enough to see his face. “Rob?”
He walked away from me and sat down on a patio chair across the room. I sat in the chair opposite him and said something along the lines of, “I know. It’s a lot, and not something we planned. But we have time to prepare. How difficult can it be? People have been having babies forever.”
I prattled on until I saw the look on his face change from shocked to positively panic-stricken.
More silence ensued. It was like I had stepped into a bottomless pit. I felt the terror of falling and no one to catch me.
Finally Rob cleared his throat, and with his voice trembling and tears in his eyes he said very softly, “I can’t be a father.”
“What?”
“I can’t be a father,” he said in a firmer voice.
Before I could respond, he said, “I can’t be a husband.” He had tears running down his face. “Melissa, I can’t be a boyfriend right now either.”
“What does that mean?” I asked. “I don’t understand.” I stared at him. “You have to tell me exactly what you mean!”
Rob started to cry.
“I am so sorry,” he said. “I’m so sorry. I just can’t do it. I can’t do any of it. It’s over.”
“Over?”
“I’m so sorry,” he said.
I walked over to him, put my arms around him, and we cried together. Both of us knew this time it really was over. Done. Finished.
I wanted to go home, but it was too late for me to get back to JFK and catch a plane and frankly, I just didn’t have the strength. I stayed the night with him. I don’t think I slept a minute. I watched Rob sleep while my mind replayed and analyzed what seemed like every moment of our relationship. Frustrated, I then stared into the darkness, as if I might find a window through which I could see what would happen next.
Rob was so lucky; anytime things got rough, God bless him, he would go to sleep. While I was as worked up as a supercomputer ablaze with blinking lights, he was fast asleep, curled up facing me, breathing rhythmically, and looking beautiful, contented, peaceful, and blissfully unaware of what lay ahead.
The next day was a blur. Before getting on the plane, I called home and rallied my girlfriends and my mother. They began the process of moving me back into my mom’s guesthouse. I was a walking zombie. Everyone helped me unpack. Periodically my mother or one of my girlfriends would shove food in front of me and order me to eat, since I am the type of person who loses her appetite when going through any emotional upheaval. None of them knew I was pregnant.
Later that night, after everyone left and I found myself alone, I began one of the great cries of my lifetime. It was a full-on wailing, the kind of tear-filled purge that comes from deep inside. It was the kind that leaves you dehydrated, exhausted, and cleansed.
When it was over, I began to deal with the most difficult decision I had ever faced. What the hell was I going to do?
The way I saw it, I had three choices: (1) keep the baby and become a single mother at age twenty-three; (2) give the baby up for adoption; or (3) get an abortion.
Within days, the matter was complicated further by the press. Somehow the tabloids had sniffed out our breakup; their reporters circled like vultures. Headlines cropped up everywhere I turned. One said, “Jilted!” Another screamed, “Left at the Altar!” Lovely. Whatever decision I made about this pregnancy, it could maybe be kept private if I chose option three. Otherwise it would be splashed all over the place. My decision was also colored by the effect my image had on young girls.
For days, I felt like the world was on my shoulders. I had never been as torn or as scared in my life. I couldn’t eat or sleep. My fuse was short. I snapped at my mother and at my friends, all of whom thought my moods were related solely to the breakup with Rob. I still hadn’t told anyone what was really going on, and wasn’t about to until I had reached a conclusion.
Finally, I began to see things a bit more clearly. I eliminated one option—having the baby and putting it up for adoption. I had never wanted to be anything but a mother myself. I had been drawn to babies from the time I was a little girl obsessed with my baby dolls, and I’d felt like a surrogate mom to Sara when she was a baby. I always knew my ultimate role in life would be that of mother.
Furthermore, I wasn’t about to repeat my birth m
other’s decision. I would never give up my own child. Never. It wasn’t a question. It would never happen. How would I keep my pregnancy a secret anyway? The only way I could keep something like that private would be to move to Outer Mongolia. Even then…
No, adoption was not and never would be an option. I understood why it was for other people. Just not for me.
This left me with two choices: being a young single mother or having an abortion. I researched both subjects. I processed the information. Rob, the only other person who knew, checked in on me. I gave him credit. He assured me that he would honor whatever decision I made and help in whatever way I needed.
I also prayed to God, to my father, and to all the angels who might possibly hear my pleas to help me find my way.
I would love to say that I did finally reach a conclusion, but I didn’t need to. I woke up one morning and began spotting. Scared, I finally told my mother what was going on and she took me to my doctor. He did an ultrasound and told me that I was having a miscarriage. I went home in a daze and let nature take its course. I called Rob and told him what had happened. He seemed relieved. We made an attempt at a conversation but it was too sad.
My mom was amazing. She held me while I cried, brought me soup in bed, and stayed with me until I fell asleep.
A couple of days later I went back to the doctor with a fever. Things were not going well and I had to have an emergency D & C. It was done in my doctor’s office with a local anesthetic, and it was painful. Coupled with my broken heart, the whole experience was agony and gave me some very real and scary insight into what an abortion must be like. It was horrendous, but it was over.
There was nothing left for me to do afterward but go home and face reality. I had lost the baby and my relationship with Rob.
Now I was completely, totally alone, and it hurt like hell.
A BRAND-NEW START OF IT
eighteen
THE HEART OF THE MATTER
Prairie Tale: A Memoir Page 19