Let's Just Say It Wasn't Pretty

by Diane Keaton

  WORDS FROM MORRIS FRIEDELL

  (VIA DAVID SHENK’S THE FORGETTING)

  “I fantasized about being an ‘astrogator.’ We collide with an asteroid; there is not enough fuel to get back to earth. We turn the ship straight away from the sun, we voyage out beyond the orbit of Pluto. We know we will perish in the interstellar void, yet we hope to radio back to earth images of beauty never seen as well as valuable information.… On August 19, 1998, my neurologist told me [Alzheimer’s] is what the PET scan indicated. And here I am on that spaceship.… I find myself more visually sensitive. Everything seems richer: lines, planes, contrast. It is a wonderful compensation.… We [who have Alzheimer’s disease] can appreciate clouds, leaves, flowers as we never did before.… As the poet Theodore Roethke put it, ‘In a dark time the eye begins to see.’ ”

  SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK

  I was with my friend Diane English at the Landmark theater on Pico. We were eating popcorn and watching Silver Linings Playbook. The setup went like this: Bradley Cooper is locked up in a mental institution. He’s bipolar. That means he has no control over his impulses. He wants his wife back. One day his mother gets him out. They drive home. He runs into a friend. The friend invites him over for dinner. Bradley Cooper meets Jennifer Lawrence. They lock eyes.

  That’s when the movie stopped cold. That’s when my heart went into my throat. Bradley Cooper says, “You look nice.” Jennifer Lawrence says, “Thank you.” Bradley Cooper pauses, then says, “I’m not flirting with you.” Jennifer Lawrence says, “Oh, I didn’t think you were.” Bradley Cooper says, “I just see that you made an effort and I’m gonna be better with my wife, I’m working on that. I wanna acknowledge her beauty. I never used to do that. I do that now. ’Cause we’re gonna be better than ever.” It was like the line Montgomery Clift said to Elizabeth Taylor in A Place in the Sun: “I love you. I’ve loved you since the first moment I saw you. I guess maybe I’ve even loved you before I saw you.”

  That was the subtext. That was the moment. It was like Renée Zellwegger when she said “shut up” to Tom Cruise in Jerry Maguire: “Just shut up. You had me at ‘hello.’ ” It was better than every great kiss I’d ever seen or been given. It was flawed beauty. Fucked-up beauty. It was bigger and better than life. It was art. It was sex, and it was love. Bradley and Jennifer didn’t know it, but that was the moment we became a threesome. Even now, months later, I can close my eyes and look into Bradley’s eyes knowing he’s seeing me and Jennifer. I look into Jennifer’s eyes and know she’s seeing his and mine. I know what he’s hiding. I know what she’s afraid of.… I own their comings and goings. I’m the third wheel of a beautiful moment on film. And it’s all in my head.

  A PHOTOGRAPH OF DUKE

  His curly blond hair is suddenly brown. His angelic baby face is adolescent. He still hugs me. I’m still his Cheeks. But the most remarkable thing is … no matter how much Duke hates my nagging about his homework (“More detail, Duke”), no matter how much he screams when I tell him we’re watching the documentary Poor Kids on PBS instead of Jersey Shore, from which he’s memorized quotes like “Get your weiner cleaner” and “Work blows shit for Skittles,” no matter how much I harp on eating more avocado, and greens, and his oatmeal with almonds, which he hides at the bottom of the trash can every day, no matter how much I tell him honesty is the best policy, no matter how much I hammer him on his tennis technique, or being a good friend, or listening to a conversation instead of dominating it, or reminding him to stop following his impulses without regard for other people, or to sit up straight at the dinner table, or stop interrupting when other people are talking, and what’s with the monologues or, rather, the endless rants … no matter what …

  He loves me. He still kisses me and wants to touch my chubby cheeks, which are anything but chubby. He loves me unconditionally. What have I done for Duke? Nothing except be the poster girl for “Harried Mother.”

  SO WHAT IS BEAUTY?

  I can answer that. It’s in my eyes, the picture window I look through. It’s eating Quinn’s parmesan & rosemary popcorn after walking Emmie. Sometimes it’s hiding in plain sight, like the note I found on my bed: “Mom, I am sorry I’m retarted, and can’t be good for a week. From Duke.” Sometimes it’s a glass of Layer Cake cabernet with ice. It’s the Statue of Liberty’s right hand holding the torch, and the call from Jimmy, the man who’s washed our car for the last fifteen years, telling me he bowled 300. It was Mom and Dad kissing in the shower three weeks before he died. This fall it was Morgan Freeman singing “That’s Life” on the set of Life Itself. It was listening to Tom, the camera operator, tell me about the red barn he bought in upstate New York. It was the hairdresser Donna Marie’s surprise wedding proposal from John, her partner of twelve years. It was Mikey, the makeup artist, whose wife took the big leap and jumped out of a plane at age fifty-eight. The thrill was so intoxicating, she forgot to open her parachute until it was almost too late. Crippled for the rest of her life, she said it was “worth it.”

  What is beauty? It was the recent healing-humor, funny-is-money phone call from Woody. “So, Half-Wit. The Golden Globes wanted to know where I could find someone stupid enough to come and pick up my Cecil B. DeMille Award, and all of a sudden it occurred to me, I don’t know why, but your face in a beekeeper’s hat came to mind.” The next day he followed up with this: “I call you at ten to eight your time in the morning, and you’re not in. I don’t understand it. Where do you go at ten to eight in the morning? You’re like a vampire. What is it with you? Look, after this appearance, maybe you’d start to get some roles as maids, or maybe maiden aunts, or a night watchman, or, who knows, one of those washerwomen people, the kind that come in and clean the office after hours. Worm, call me back.”

  It’s my brother Randy’s long fingers as he toasts me on my sixty-eighth birthday with a cup of his favorite drink, instant coffee and Coke. It’s my friend Larry, whose love I keep in my hip pocket. It’s the other note I found on my bed: “Mom, Sorry! I want to be a better tennis player. So I left. Don’t worry. I just want to play. I’m sorry you don’t love me anymore. Love Duke.” It’s a knock on the door I don’t answer. It’s the two candy hearts I pick up off the floor that say, “Be mine.” These are the sum of beauty’s parts.

  Diana Vreeland said she’d spent a lifetime looking for something she’d never seen. That’s not a bad pursuit. Like Diana Vreeland, I regret what I haven’t seen, but I’m thankful for what I have, and I promise myself this: I will try harder to look for what I don’t see when it’s staring me right in the eye.

  Duke didn’t say anything about the three hats on top of my head as he opened his presents Christmas morning. As we walked on Venice Boulevard, he didn’t mention the henna tattoo I got with DUKE painted on my left hand and DEXTER on the right. At his birthday party in the Woodland Hills Sky High Sports trampoline center, he didn’t mention my Rosie the Riveter ensemble with red bandanna, hoop earrings, and big, belted khakis rolled above my black Converse tennis shoes. He’s ignored my recent habit of sporting swimwear apparel on the street: e.g., two long-sleeved Quiksilver crew-necked rash guards over Sea-a-Sucker board shorts with dark glasses and a hat. Every day I drive Duke to the bus stop with my Calvin Klein plaid men’s pajama bottoms peeking out from under my black North Face Triple C full-length down coat. Every day my hair is in rollers. Duke has nothing to say about that, either.

  These are my “save the best for the last,” Rebel Without a Cause days. These are my “go for broke, grab anything you want to wear, because why not” days. Recently we went to dinner at Toscano to celebrate Dexter’s passage from learner’s permit to driver’s license. I wore a pair of men’s extra-large ski pants. Duke ignored them. He didn’t care when I kicked off my six-inch Yves Saint Laurent platforms. When we toasted Dexter with Orangina in wineglasses, I bet Duke five dollars I could pick up my Visa card with my bare toes under the table. When I did, Duke went on an “It’s so unfair, Cheeks” rant. “Cheeks, my cute little pie
,” he said, “my precious, my only squeaky in the whole wide world, you cheated. You did. You stuck your hands under the table and put the Visa card between your toes. That’s cheating, Cheeks.” I told him he was crazy. His response? Totally predictable: “This is a Mom Cheek fighting-to-cheat day. Admit it, Cheek Cheater. You cheated.”

  I knew I was breaking one of the cardinal rules the day I walked barefoot down the hallway of UCLA Lab School. But what the heck, I’d always wanted to feel the white speckled linoleum floor beneath my feet. I wondered if I could still grip a spoon off the floor with my toes and put it in my mouth, like I did when I was a ten-year-old wannabe contortionist. It would be tough, but I was convinced I could do it until I saw Judith Kantor, the librarian, heading in my direction. I immediately put on my concerned-parent face as I rushed over asking her about Duke’s recent reading choices. What did she think of Rick Riordan, I asked, hoping she wouldn’t glance down and see my Sally Hansen plaid toenails. Judith immediately launched into the pluses and minuses of Riordan’s popularity. She paused for a second, then recommended Jack Ganto’s Dead End in Norvelt. I kept up with a lot of “Oh, I see, yes, right. Right, of course! Right. That’s such a great idea. Absolutely.” Judith excused herself, saying she would email me a list of other recommendations. As if that wasn’t enough, Norma Silva, the principal, suddenly waved hello. I waved back and made an immediate right turn into the janitor’s closet, where I counted to sixty before going back out. I hurried to the Redwood Forest playground, where my toes rejoiced as they crunched through the redwood mulch. I sat on one of the kids’ swings and pushed my arms back and forth as my feet flew through the air. It was perfect. That’s when I spotted Duke playing dodgeball with his friends Zeke, Cassius, Evan, Atticus, and Ben. “Hey, Duke,” I called, waving. Duke looked over, saw me, made a face, and ran away. When I went up to him he acted like he didn’t know me. When we walked to the car he lagged three yards behind. In the car, he refused to sit shotgun. Finally I said, “What’s up? What’s wrong?”

  “Mom, how could you?”

  “Could I what?”

  “Come to school barefoot?”

  Okay, I thought, here we go. It’s over. The day I prayed would never come had finally arrived. I’d embarrassed Duke in front of his friends. But the weird part, the part I couldn’t understand, was, why my feet? Why not my overbearing personality, my Bozo the Clown clothing choices, or my decrepit age? But no, I’d had the audacity to run through UCLA Lab School’s Redwood Forest barefoot.

  Did this mean the days of “Cheeks, my cute little pie, my precious, you are my only squeaky in the whole wide world” were gone for good? What would I do without “Your cheeks are so soft I want to touch them for a morning snack. I want to bite them and crunch them, too. Say yes, and I’ll activate your cheek”? I hoped it didn’t mean he’d stop serenading me with “Cheeks” to Justin Bieber’s “Baby.” Did I really have to face the fact that Cheeks’s feet were suddenly cringe-worthy?

  As a little girl I squished sea anemones with my toes in tide pools. I loved the hot black pavement against my bare feet as we walked to Earl’s Hamburger stand. It was endlessly fun to dig through the sand as hundreds of crabs wiggled around my toes. When I climbed the cliffs of Divers Cove, I never fell. I almost convinced myself I had flying feet, like Mercury, the swift-footed Roman god. Every other aspect of my body, including my brain, was hesitant, but not my feet. Never my feet.

  Duke used to like to go barefoot, too. But now that he’s almost thirteen, his feet have begun to find themselves inside shoes more often than not. I guess the point is … Duke is growing up, and he doesn’t want to draw attention to his feet or, most of all, his mother’s feet. I understand. I have to face it. Duke is changing. Hey, when I reached those teen years I changed, too. The difference is, I began to frame my feet so they would become part of what I considered great design. That meant I fell in love with shoes.

  Even then I knew there was a problem. The problem with shoes is they’re worn on feet, and feet are not positioned close enough to the head. That means to be properly viewed, the body must be seen from head to toe. I remember wearing the most spectacular pair of creamy two-toned brown-and-beige Tony Lama cowboy boots in Annie Hall never to be seen on film. Even to have been partially visible would have required a medium close-up of Annie Hall sitting with her boots on a table near her face, or even better, a close-up of Annie Hall cleaning her Tony Lamas in her kitchen sink.

  The beloved Tony Lamas are still in my closet next to a pair of Doc Martens, near six pairs of platform shoes circa 1980. These shoes, as well as my brown patent leather lace-up oxfords, my saddle shoes from Interiors, and the high-heeled Converse black-and-white high-tops given to me by my friend Johnny Gale, the hair colorist, are stacked on one side of the closet. I still wear the Florsheim Imperial men’s shoes, size 8D, that went with my long Ralph Lauren camel-hair coat. Across from the men’s shoes are the boots, which take up most of my closet. In the nineties I bought a gorgeous pair of riding boots I couldn’t pull over my high arches. I’m still waiting for the day they collapse. I’ve kept my old Fryes, and even a pair of butch Caterpillar hiking boots. I love my chunky black patent leather boots with yellow and black polka dots from the disco era, too.

  People can trash high heels all they want: they’re impossible to walk in, they serve no purpose. This is completely unfair, and frankly not true. Never forget that Marilyn Monroe played baseball wearing heels. Ginger Rogers danced backward in them with Fred Astaire. And Pamela Anderson was booted off Dancing with the Stars wearing—that’s right—a pair of high heels. Look, maybe “high-heeled beauty is pain,” maybe it’s expensive, but every woman needs one pair of genius high heels. I have a pair of seven-inch Christian Louboutin Red Medicines. That’s what I call them, because that’s what they are; they’re red medicine. They’re like a great glass of Layer Cake cabernet with ice. When I wear them I’m a contender. I’m a six-foot-two stilt walker, not some five-foot-seven excuse for a woman.

  Once in a while a gal owes herself this kind of fix. In 1997 I saw a pair of orange herringbone Prada pumps in Vogue. I had to have them. As everyone knows, a pair of Prada anything is not cheap. So take my advice, slow down, way down, before you swipe your credit card. One more piece of advice: Don’t be impulsive. Here’s another: When in doubt, stick with black. Black will never disappoint. And always remember to accessorize. Don’t be timid. Paint those toenails and sticker them up. Embrace your arches. Don’t shy away from toe rings and ankle bracelets, either. Learn to take compliments. I haven’t, but you should. Compliments linger. Someone once compared my legs to Lucille Ball’s great gams. Like I cared. She was old. Now it’s my turn to be old. If someone said the same thing to me today I’d be overjoyed. One more tip: Save your shoes. Save them all. Mark my words, you’ll revisit wearing them sooner than you think. Plus, they’re stimulants. Like music, they can take you back to certain moments, certain people, certain memories. I remember Dad’s arches lifting into the air as he dove off the cliff at Dana Point. I remember seeing Pina Bausch’s barefoot dancers pound a stage covered in dirt. Once I subscribed to CHARforce’s Sexy High Arches website to see its Celebrities Assorted Slideshow honoring Meryl Streep’s and Kate Hudson’s and other actresses’ outstanding high-arched feet. I wish I’d made the cut.

  These days I’m not making the cut with Duke either. He’d never once said a word about my shoes, or my feet for that matter—not one thing—until that fateful day in the Redwood Forest. Was his humiliation provoked by Zeke or Atticus and the rest of his gang of six? It’s hard to say. Was it because I broke a school rule, was that it? And, most important, at least for me: Was Duke ever going to forgive me? Was this mortification going to fester in his memory bank forever?

  A week later I asked Duke if he wanted to go for a Sunday evening jog around Drake Stadium, on the UCLA campus. He was up for it. I wore my North Face parka. As always, it dragged across the track, and, as always, I carried a mug of Layer Cake
cabernet with ice. I never jog without a chaser of red wine on the rocks. This time I didn’t wear my Nikes. I deliberately went barefoot. Sure enough, Duke insisted I put my shoes on. When I asked why, he refused to elaborate. And there you have it. The onset of puberty. The end of childhood. I guess it’s time to say goodbye to my bare feet, at least in front of Duke.

  My podiatrist, Dr. Hakim, has also informed me that my barefoot days are over. If I choose otherwise, he assures me, I should be prepared for more broken toes and ankles, and bruises and sprains. He threatened me with stories of nails lying in wait and, worse—far worse—staph infections that could lead to my demise. Of course, he had no idea I’d been a wild child on the cliffs of Laguna Beach, a pioneer rolling down the sand-duned banks of Death Valley. He couldn’t possibly know how much fun it was to howl in laughter at Woody, a.k.a. the White Thing, as I watched him step out of the shower onto a dozen clean white towels. The day he wore shoes as we held hands on an idyllic sandy beach in Puerto Rico did me in. Who wants feet that only know the feel of a satin sheet, or a soft slipper, or a sock? Poor Wood, he’ll never know what he’s missing. I’m proud my feet are not always shrouded in camouflage, or cloaked in protective gear, like every other square inch of my body.

  In the end, I love shoes, but I love my feet more. My feet—the feet Bertram Ross, Martha Graham’s heroic lead dancer, once told me were “fine examples of the perfect arch”; the feet that walked my sobbing body down a narrow hallway in Reds to my husband, John Reed, dying on a hospital bed; the feet that recently stood on our neighborhood bluff as the space shuttle Endeavor passed overhead on its final flight; the feet that tingled in fear as I stood holding hands with nine-year-old Duke as we looked over the edge of the observation deck at the Empire State Building.