It was a lovely dinner at the Four Seasons. There were about ten of us seated at a long table in the restaurant. Dinner was a huge buffet with everything from a prime rib carving station to a sushi spread. My mother and I were civil to each other, but I hadn’t forgotten Nanny’s birthday. I brought a big purse with a small cake in it. When the right moment came, I pulled it out, lit candles, and led the singing. Nanny blew out the candles with a big smile on her face. I was satisfied. It was worth whatever family strife I’d caused to give one minute of pleasure to the woman who gave her life to my parents and raised their kids.
It was only a week or so later when Charlie took it upon himself to ask my parents for my hand in marriage. My mom and I hadn’t spoken since the Cake Incident. Charlie called my parents’ assistant one evening and made an appointment to see them the next day. Soon after he hung up the phone, the assistant called back. My parents would see him. Right now. Charlie wasn’t prepared. As he told me that night at Shutters, he went to the freezer, grabbed two airplane mini-bottles of vodka, and downed them for courage. I don’t blame him. He was going straight into the lion’s den, and he knew it.
When Charlie arrived at the Manor, my parents were waiting for him in the office, which sounds weird, but it is the most comfortable room in the house (and that is the weird part). My father offered Charlie a drink, which he declined. Then my mother said, “We know why you’ve come.” Charlie relaxed a little—maybe this wouldn’t be so bad—but then my father said, “I can’t believe Tori spoke that way to her mother.” It suddenly dawned on Charlie: They thought he was there to patch up the fight over Nanny’s cake. Charlie stopped them. He said, “I’m actually here because I respect and love your daughter. I will always take care of her, and I would like to ask for your blessing to marry her.” There was a long pause. My mother and father sat there silently, if politely.
Finally my father said, “How ’bout that drink?” My mother added, “I’m sure Charlie could use a drink.” The butler was called, and he brought three drinks. But there was no toasting or well-wishing. In fact, there was no response at all to Charlie’s question. Instead, my father said something about football. I know nothing about football, so as to what he might have said about the 2003 football season on the occasion of being asked for his blessing in his daughter’s marriage, your guess is as good as mine.
Charlie, bless his heart, stuck to his guns. He said, “I just asked for your blessing in marrying your daughter.” They said something like, “Yeah, of course, yes.” Again, Charlie pressed on. “I just asked for your daughter’s hand in marriage. Don’t you have any questions for me?” Once again, there was a long, reactionless pause. Then my mother said, “Tori spoke to me that way. How could she do that? I’m so hurt.” My father said, “Her mom’s really upset.” My mother said, “Tori needs help. She needs major help. That’s a very angry girl.” The engagement was never mentioned again.
Although this was clearly…odd, it wasn’t so unusual for my family. My whole life we didn’t talk about anything emotional. I’d say, “I’m dating a guy,” and they’d say, “Oh, great.” No questions asked. When I’d have lunch with my dad, he’d never say, Are you happy? What’s going on? How’s life? He’d talk about my career and ask about the dogs. He sure cared deeply about those dogs.
We got engaged on a Saturday night. On Sunday, I called my parents. It was a tough call to make. I had so many mixed feelings: I still thought my anger about Nanny’s cake was justified, but I knew my behavior was bad. Anyway, I ended up apologizing. I half hoped that the response might be, I’m sorry too. I’m sorry I didn’t listen. No such luck. She said, “It’s okay.” And that was that. When I told her Charlie and I were engaged, she invited us over for dinner that night.
Dinner at the Manor was pleasant, even cordial. My mom asked a few questions about what we had in mind for the wedding. My dad didn’t participate in the conversation. I doubt he had anything against Charlie. The best I can figure is that personal level of my life didn’t exist for him, and he wanted to keep it that way. Nobody said, We’re so happy for you guys. Nobody asked to see my ring. There were no hugs. There was no “Oh my God!” excitement. That was reserved for when my father had a show picked up. It was just a nice dinner together. So we sat there at the long table for twenty in the big dining room of that vast mansion where the hollowness of their response had plenty of room to echo.
The next day we flew east to Charlie’s family. What a difference a day and a family made. It was radical. Charlie’s family went crazy. There were hugs and good wishes all around. They welcomed me to the family, told me they loved me, asked questions about the engagement night and the wedding, and there was an abundance of love and warmth all around. Yes, I thought. This is the way it’s supposed to be. This is what I was missing.
That night at his parents’ house, Charlie went to bed in his separate room (yep, engaged still doesn’t mean married). But I stayed up late looking for wedding venues on his mother’s computer. The minute we were engaged, I became obsessed with the big party I was going to throw, the party of a lifetime. I didn’t stop to think, This is so nice. I’m engaged. I’m happy. I’m in love. It was all wedding all the time.
CHAPTER NINE
Strings Attached (or Why I Didn’t Notice That I Shouldn’t Be Getting Married)
Charlie and I never fought. But less than two months before our wedding we went out to celebrate my birthday with a bunch of our friends. After dinner we were barhopping a little (if you can call it that when you’re over thirty). At some point Charlie decided the night was over and he wanted to go home. I wasn’t done, and I definitely didn’t want to be told when to go home on my own birthday. Charlie grew increasingly pouty and agitated, and consequently, the party dwindled. It must have been around midnight when we ended up at Trader Vic’s with my friends Mehran, Suzanne, Scout, and Bill. By then Charlie wasn’t talking to me. I was annoyed and dismissive. He was a buzzkill.
When we got home, we talked about what had happened. I started saying things like, “Maybe we’re too different. Maybe we’re not meant to be together.” And he was saying, “Why, because you want to stay out and drink more with your friends?” I’m sure he couldn’t see why staying out a few hours later was a big deal to me. And it shouldn’t have been. Except it was.
The next morning I woke up and heard him in the kitchen making coffee. I realized we hadn’t resolved our argument—as far as I was concerned, we’d left it at: Maybe this isn’t right. I walked into the kitchen not knowing what I would face. Charlie said cheerily, “Morning, honey. What do you want to do today? Maybe take the dogs on a hike?” And there it went, under the rug with all the other red flags. (Not to mix metaphors.)
Planning a wedding is notoriously a time when a bride and groom negotiate some of the issues—finances, family, friends, taste, religion, china patterns—that they’ll have to navigate for the rest of their lives together. But planning our wedding wasn’t about me and Charlie. It was about me and my mother.
As soon as Charlie and I announced our engagement, we started planning a party. A magazine was going to chip in for the cost. Meanwhile, my mother was recovering from back surgery at a Beverly Hills hotel called Le Meridien with a special floor for guests who want to recover Four Seasons–style. Before the surgery I’d e-mailed my mother asking for the names of the friends she wanted to invite to our engagement party. When I went to visit, I asked her if she’d been able to put together a list. She gestured toward copies of the Neiman Marcus and Horchow catalogs on her bed and said, “Please, Tori. I haven’t even had a chance to read my magazines yet. How would I have a chance to put together a list for the engagement party?” Tears welled in my eyes. I didn’t know what I’d done wrong. I think now that she didn’t like that we were pulling the party together ourselves. She wanted to be more involved. I was her daughter. She wanted me to need her.
Then, a few weeks later, something fell through with the magazine. They backed out of spons
oring the engagement party. I was fretting about it, trying to figure out what we could afford, and of course all my friends were saying, “What’s the big deal? Why don’t you just ask your parents to help out?” It wasn’t that simple, but I managed to ask my mother, who was home from her recovery retreat by now, if she wanted to be a part of the party, to help me plan it. She said, “Barbara Davis says she’s never even heard of an engagement party.” Barbara Davis is the high-society wife of the late Marvin Davis, the billionaire former owner of Twentieth Century Fox and the Denver Broncos, among other famous properties. The Carrington family on Dynasty was based on the Davises. And that was my mother’s whole response: “Well, I talked to Barbara Davis, and she says she’s never even heard of an engagement party.” As if I were being self-indulgent and excessive for even having the idea.
I mean, I know an engagement party is not a mandatory milestone without which life can’t be lived. But it wasn’t something I invented. I’d been to plenty of engagement parties. All my friends had had them. It seemed likely that my mother had attended a fair share too. And Barbara Davis, for that matter. (In fact, not long after we were married, one of Barbara Davis’s daughters would have one of the biggest engagement parties the world had ever seen. Barbara must have thought she invented the idea.) But I didn’t want to argue with her. The next time we saw each other, I brought along an etiquette book. I said, “Look, Mom. Engagement parties exist. People have engagement parties.” Ultimately, she decided to help me plan it and to pay for it.
As we planned the party, there were some differences of opinion, but we managed to compromise. She agreed to my florist. I agreed to her photographer. She wanted formal invitations that looked like wedding invitations. I agreed. Mostly, I let her do her thing, and the result was a wonderful party that Charlie and I wouldn’t have been able to afford ourselves. But as we turned our attentions to the wedding itself, there were some danger signs. When it’s someone else’s purse, there are often strings attached. I call it the Champagne Beamer Syndrome. Growing up, my mother and I would go shopping together. I’d find a dress that I liked and call her attention to it. She’d walk away and select what she wanted to buy for me. Her wallet, her taste.
My mother liked to be involved, but her involvement came at a cost. I wanted a fairy-tale wedding. I’d always dreamed of a four-tiered wedding cake, the big white dress, my father walking me down the aisle, and the romantic first dance with my Prince Charming. And yes, I pretty much expected that my parents would pay for it. It was going to be expensive, but in context of what my parents had (and how much they spent on, say, my mother’s jewelry), it wasn’t exactly going to cramp their style. It was only when we started planning the wedding that it became clear just how big a price I was going to pay. In small, painful increments.
Charlie and I had our hearts set on getting married that summer at a vineyard. Okay, I had my heart set on getting married that summer at a vineyard, but it was the first thing we decided about the wedding. We wanted it outdoors. We were at my parents having dinner when we told my mother. We mentioned looking for venues in Santa Barbara, which is a couple hours from L.A., or in Napa Valley. My mother was against it. The reason she gave was that she didn’t think my father should drive so far. True, my dad had been through throat cancer. But he’d been in remission for a couple of years. He wasn’t his old self, but there was nothing physically wrong with him. He was still going to work, though on a modified schedule. I loved my father and cared just as much about his well-being as she did, but I didn’t see why he couldn’t step out of a chauffeured car and walk to a hotel room.
But maybe she was right. I wanted to accommodate him. (When I asked him how he felt about traveling, all he’d say was, “Oh, they don’t want me to leave town.”) We said that maybe we could find a vineyard in Malibu. My parents had a beach house in Malibu that they still went to all the time. They regularly drove to events in Pasadena, which is about the same distance away. But again my mother said it was too far. She said, “It needs to be within ten minutes of this house.” I said, “Like at a hotel?” She said yes, but that was exactly what I didn’t want. I knew I wanted an outdoor wedding. There was nothing gentle in the conversation, no I’m sorry if you had your heart set, honey, but you have to consider… She simply said, “It’s not happening that way. You will not be getting married out of town.”
I was too timid to stand up to my mother, but Charlie and I didn’t let go of our idea. We finally found a vineyard in Malibu. It was the absolute closest vineyard I could find. I mean, you try Googling “Los Angeles vineyard.” The heart of the city isn’t exactly fertile wine country. Charlie and I went to look at it with Jenny and her husband, Norm. As we walked the grounds, I could picture the whole wedding: the cocktail area, an area where we could put lights in the trees and set up a dance floor, the exact place under a huge weeping willow tree where we’d get married.
I begged my mother to let us get married there. I reminded her that she and my dad could sleep at the beach house. There was some hope of convincing her—she said she wanted to see the place.
My mother had recently been spending a lot of time with my “Uncle Mark.” Mark was an old friend of my father’s who’d introduced my parents. He was always around while I was growing up, the fun, crazy uncle who would take us out for ice cream and start an ice-cream fight. We loved him, and he brought out a good side of my mother. He’d say, “Oh, Candy, warm up,” and she’d laugh and soften. He somehow managed to make my family less uptight. Then he got convicted of racketeering and my parents cut their ties.
Then my mother ran into Mark at a charity event when my father was recovering from throat cancer. He asked how my dad was doing, and Mom broke down. She came home and said she had invited him over to a movie that weekend. It seemed silly to her that they hadn’t talked for years. She thought he deserved a second chance.
Within five years it seemed like he’d taken over the family. What do I mean when I say that? He cultivated separate relationships with all four of us, winning our trust, and planting seeds against each other. He’d show up at my apartment and invite me out for lunch. At lunch he’d say, “Your dad’s really hard on your mom. He’s always putting her down,” or “Your dad’s losing it a little.” Meanwhile, he cultivated my father’s dependence on him, so if something went wrong in the house, instead of calling his assistant, Dad would call Mark. He’d say, “Mark gets things done around here.” He made himself the glue of the family until both of my parents believed they needed him. Eventually the assistants had to go through Mark. Some of the house staff quit. My mom’s two assistants who had been there for twenty years: gone apparently because they couldn’t deal with Mark. Before he quit, one of the guards told me that Mark had asked security to keep logs of my father’s behavior.
Uncle Mark put himself to me and Randy as the go-to guy. He’d say, “I can get your mother to agree to anything. Whatever you need, tell me.” I know, the whole man-worming-his-way-into-an-unsuspecting-wealthy-family sounds like some TV movie cliché—which means if anyone should have recognized what he was doing, I should have. Oh well. Instead, when it came to selling my mother on the vineyard wedding, when Mark said, “We’ll come with you and check out the place,” I thought, This is a little weird, but maybe he can convince my mom.
At the vineyard Mom was skeptical. She was worried about the bug factor, and the sloping lawn, and the difficulty of wearing heels in the grass. But Mark told me she was going to agree. The place was pretty popular for weddings, so we booked the only weekend date that was still available: July 4. We sent out “save the date” cards. It was really happening!
On April 22 we went out to dinner to celebrate my father’s birthday. Things were going along fine until, out of the blue, my mother dropped bomb number one. She said that she wanted to have the wedding at the Manor. To me family is closeness—at least that’s what I craved from my family. It had been impossible for us to be close in a house that big. It was literally
hard to find each other. The Manor, with its oversize, formal rooms, extensive live-in staff, unused party rooms, and odd indulgences like the doll museum displaying the Madame Alexander dolls, just seemed to further separate an already alienated family. She wanted to have my wedding in the ostentatious, impersonal, I-hated-everything-it-represented Manor? My stomach sank. And what was her great reason for changing the wedding location so late? Her friends didn’t really want to drive all the way out to Malibu on a holiday weekend. The traffic could be so terrible…and that brought her to bomb number two. She wanted to move the wedding to July 3. Now my stomach turned. It was an amusement park ride in there, but I was anything but amused. And what was her great reason for changing the wedding date so late? Her friends had other parties and events on July 4. And besides, the wedding planner had told her that they would have to pay overtime for the valet parking at the Manor on the holiday so it would save money if we had it on July 3.
Let me remind you, this was April 22, and the wedding was set for July 4. Charlie and I looked at each other. Most of my guests lived in L.A., but Charlie’s family was coming from Massachusetts and a number of his guests had already booked their flights to get early-bird rates and had made reservations at Malibu hotels. It wasn’t so simple to change the date by a night. My mother said, “Don’t worry. I’ll pay the difference for anyone who changes their ticket.” She said her travel agent would make the arrangements and pass the bill for the flight change on to my parents. It didn’t make sense to me—surely the flight changes would cost as much or more than the parking valet’s holiday rate. Still, Charlie and I said we would talk about it.
Stori Telling Page 11