“Why are you being like this?” I said. “You don’t know any of these people! Why are you being so cheery? Dad never even says hi to anyone.”
“Well, gosh, honey, I don’t know. I think I just like to be friendly,” she explained, her smile now as compliant as the supermarket doors that swung open whenever anyone came near.
“Mom, who are you going to vote for?” I suddenly challenged her.
“Oh, well, I don’t know, honey. I guess whoever your dad votes for. Why?”
I walked away from her so she couldn’t rub off on me, infectious like poison ivy.
After college, I moved to New York City, where I found myself saying, “Any woman who smiles a lot isn’t paying fucking attention!” Determined not to be objectified, I refused to wear skirts or dresses. Makeup was absolutely out—except for auditions.
On a visit home, I feared the gap between Mom and me had become too wide to bridge. Nevertheless, I helped her in the kitchen, stirring a big pot of chili one evening. I knew it was time to let the bitch out of the bag. I watched her whole body deflate when I “came out” to her as . . . a feminist.
“Oh, honey. Does this mean you’re a lesbian?”
“What? No, Mom!”
“Well, you don’t seem to take pride in your appearance as you used to,” she said mournfully. “And I can’t help but notice you’re not shaving your legs.”
“Mom, that has nothing to do with—”
“Oh, don’t mind me, honey. I’ll love you no matter what, but I’m just worried. Things might be harder for you, sweetheart. I don’t think many men are going for these women’s-libber type of gals. Your dad certainly doesn’t like ’em!”
Six months later Mom visited me in New York. I had just finished reading the seminal book Our Bodies, Ourselves. We went out to lunch, and she handed me a book.
“Here, Chris, The Total Woman by Marabel Morgan! I think it can help you, honey.”
We were in a smoky restaurant on the Upper West Side near my studio apartment, which was filled with cockroaches and my other bibles, The Feminine Mystique, The Diary of Anaïs Nin, and Sisterhood Is Powerful. Mom patted her hair, saw the mortified look on my face, and snatched the book back to read from a quote on the book jacket.
“A Total Woman caters to her man’s special quirks. . . . It teaches wives to greet their husbands at the front door wearing sexy outfits”—she paused, blushing—“like Saran wrap to cover her naked body. It’s only when a woman surrenders her life to her husband, worships him, and is willing to serve him, that she becomes really beautiful to him.”
“Mom, are you fucking kidding me?”
“Honey, please don’t swear. I just think if you smiled a little more, it might help you find more jobs. It might even help you to find a boyfriend! You know, I’ve been having a rough time with Dad lately, and well, this book has given me a lot of—”
“Mom, do you not understand who I am, or at least who I’m trying to—”
“Sweetie, just read it.” She leaned in and whispered, “I think you’ll see that you can really get your way with men if you just treat them like kings. Don’t tell your dad I told you this, but the other day I tried greeting him at the door butt naked except for a cowboy hat and high heels with a martini in hand, and my every wish was his command!”
“Oh, boy.” I threw up a little in my mouth. I watched her as she talked, with a face that didn’t seem to be her own anymore.
Shortly after our conversation, she told me that she’d signed up to become one of Marabel Morgan’s “ambassadors,” speaking at conventions, trying to sell her theories and, I guessed, also Saran wrap.
Months later, I was home for another visit. We were having a glass of wine. “So how’s The Total Woman thing been working out for you, Mom? Are things better with Dad?”
“Oh, honey, you were right, that book turned out to be a lot of hooey. It just stopped working. After all that, I still didn’t get what I wanted from him.”
“Which is . . .”
“Oh, I don’t know . . . It’s hard to explain,” she said through a weak laugh. Then out of the blue, after another cocktail, she ripped off her smile, and right in front of me, the floodgates burst open for the very first time.
“Oh, Christine, I’ve had it. I can’t stand this anymore. Your dad’s such a chauvinist!”
“Yeah, I know, Mom. So what else is new? He’s always been a chauvinist.”
“No, you don’t understand. I think he might be having an affair.”
The color instantly faded from the room. “Wait—what, Mom, really? Are you serious?”
“Well, I don’t know for sure, but it just seems like he doesn’t care about me anymore.”
“Mom, isn’t this between you and Dad?”
“I can’t talk to him about anything. He doesn’t listen to me. He just ridicules me!” She gasped through inconsolable sobs.
I wanted to scream at my dad, at every man. But I didn’t. Instead I yelled at her.
“So fucking divorce him! Leave him! If you’re that miserable, just go, Mom!” Despite the fact that I knew she would never leave him, I pressed further. “Nothing’s going to change by complaining to me about it, Mom. Tell him about this shit, not me! Quit being such a fucking victim!”
She looked at me, stunned at the sudden loss of her one presumed ally. Then, without a word, she went back to washing the dishes.
A few days later Mom came into my room and closed the door. She sat with me on my bed.
“Chris, please, carry the banner for me.”
“Carry the banner?” I snickered. “Mom, what do you mean? Why are you whispering?”
“Shhhh. Please just march and protest and make as much noise as possible. What you’re doing is so important. Things have to change. Promise me.” Her gray eyes welled up.
“Okay, sure, Mom. I promise.”
“No, I mean it, honey. It’s too late for me. I can’t do it, but you can. The sky is the limit for you, Chris—please do it for me.” She seemed smaller now, deliberately shrunken, as if not wanting to take up too much space.
I wanted to grab her and say, It’s not too late for you! You don’t have to accept this! You are gifted and glorious and powerful! Why the fuck can’t you see that?
But I didn’t say any of that. All those thoughts got caught in my throat. Instead, I just sat there, impenetrable and unforgiving as ever.
I hardly recognized my mom’s face in the photo that appeared in the Detroit Free Press sometime later. She was standing beside her still-life oil painting that won the top prize at the Detroit Art Fair. Here her smile looked different to me—effortless and earned, full of pride. Even though it was always difficult for her to sell her paintings instead of just giving them away, Mom became a gifted professional artist.
And then she decided to get a pilot’s license.
“Oh, just so, you know, in case while Dad’s flying our plane, he has a heart attack or something, I’ll know how to get the darn thing back down.” The first time she soloed, Dad and I were there. We watched as she climbed into the cockpit of the small plane alone, with her flawless hair and glistening red lipstick. Her face filled with joy as she waved and taxied down the runway. She took off, started to ascend, and then flew in circles above us. When she disappeared behind the clouds, I forgot to breathe.
It was early morning. My six-year-old son and I sat together at our breakfast table. I was helping him write a card for Mom, who had breast cancer now and was in the hospital.
“Here, write it with this. This is her favorite color,” he said, handing me a cornflower-blue crayon.
“Okay, sweetie, and what do you want it to say?”
“Dear Grandma, I love the smile of you. From Wilson.”
I corrected him.
“No, honey, you mean you love her smile, right?”
“Uh-uh. Write what I said!” He put his small, warm hand on top of mine, as if to guide it.
After Mom died, we discovered a
journal tucked under a perfumed sachet in the back of a drawer. In it was a note. It read:
My life has been so unbelievably full. Sure, I’ve had a few heartbreaks but I always had faith that everything would get back on course. I think a forgiving attitude toward others, especially toward yourself, and a strong determination to keep smiling will let the sunshine in.
I wish I hadn’t spent all that time blaming her, wanting her to be different. I wish I could have told her how much her journey helped embolden mine. If only she’d gotten angry with me, stood her ground and said something like “Get off my fucking back, Christine! I’m doing the best that I can. Stop judging me so much!” But she didn’t. She never would have. She especially wouldn’t have said “fucking.” (In our family, she might have gone to jail for that.)
Now, many years later, I understand that my son was able to see something that I couldn’t. Her endless supply of smiles served her well, maybe at times as a life jacket, the only thing that kept her afloat. And maybe other times when she sensed, even for a moment, that the sky was the limit.
Dear Mom, I love the smile of you. Sorry, it just took me a while.
3
Make-Believer
The year was 1959. I was nine years old, sitting in a movie theater. While I waited for the monster movie Gorgo to begin, this sprig of a boy I hardly knew from my fourth-grade class passed me a note. Clutching my pink plastic coin purse, I opened it slowly. I read, “Santa Claus is made-up, dead and buried.”
“You’re a liar!” I said, wanting to snap him in two. Instead I burst into tears and, popcorn flying, bounded up the aisle.
Later that afternoon, my best friend Frannie sat with me in my room. “I don’t care what anyone says, I believe in him,” I confessed.
“Yeah, me too.” She got up and opened her schoolbag. “But do you want to see this new lipstick I got?”
“No, Frannie, listen!” I continued. “I also know the fairies that fly around my pillow at night are real. I can actually feel their wings on my face!”
“Okay, but why do their letters to you look just like your mom’s handwriting?”
“So what? It’s their words! And that tiny old man who puts those grains of sand into my eyes? I see his footprints in the flour that my mom leaves on the floor right next to my bed. All of these creatures exist!”
“Yeah! For sure! So anyway . . . um . . . don’t you think that new guy in class, Bruce, is to die for?”
“frannnnie!”
My faith in all of these magical beings stretched years past their normal expiration dates. The world of my imagination proved much more fascinating to me as a child than the world of suburban Birmingham, Michigan. But most people, as they mature, know it’s idiotic, even dangerous, to be so wide-eyed. As an actor, though, being impressionable helped in my work, and so my capacity for willful naïveté only deepened.
In the summer of 1970, at a UCLA theater workshop, I was a serious student trying my hardest to pass for an unambitious hippie. But secretly eager to be a part of the acting world, I made one of my dreams almost come true.
“Hey, you want a ride? Where are you headed?” the man in the red convertible said. He was about thirty-five years old, attractive for an old man, with dark hair and yellowed, fatherly teeth. I was twenty.
After waiting an eternity at the bus stop, I’d decided to hitchhike. Hitchhiking seemed safe in 1970, and I’d just hitched around Europe with some girlfriends, so I was a pro.
“Um, I’m going to the ocean, straight down Santa Monica Boulevard.” The heat radiating from his sports car warmed my bare legs.
“Well, hop in, I’m heading that way!”
“Oh, okay, thanks!” Like Blanche DuBois, I had complete faith in the kindness of strangers. So I jumped in, and we sped off.
“Hey, I’m Mack. What’s your name?”
“Hi, Mack . . . Christine.”
“Let me guess, you’re an actress.”
“How did you know? I mean, yeah, I want to be one someday.”
“Oh, there’s millions of you kids out here. I’m actually a producer,” he said with a wide smile.
“Wow, that’s so cool. What movies have you produced?”
“Oh, smaller-type movies. I doubt you’ve seen them.”
“Oh, you mean like a John Cassavetes type?” I had taken one film class in college, History of Film 101, and heard the name.
“Yeah, Cassavetes, that’s right.”
“Wow, I’d love to be in movies like that someday.”
“Hey, Christine, you want to go to a movie premiere with me right now?”
“Oh, wow, really, for real?”
“Yup.”
“Okay, well, sure, I mean I have a couple of hours before I have to meet my friends. So yes, thank you!”
“Great, far out! My buddy who’s in it said it’s like . . . really good!”
“Okay, far out!” I swooned. All I knew of life was boring Michigan, and suddenly I was in a convertible on my way to a Hollywood movie premiere.
He parked the car, and we walked a couple of blocks to the “theater.” I saw a tiny, dark marquee, no red carpet, no press, and no stars.
“Hey, Mack, where is everybody? Where are all the actors and the paparazzi?” I’d secretly hoped that one of my heroes, the Mouseketeer Annette Funicello or Mary Tyler Moore—the only strong female role models I’d grown up with—might be there. “Are you sure this is a premiere?” I stopped in front of the run-down building and felt countless bubbles bursting.
“Yes! We’re just a little late, that’s all. Come on, we can sneak in.”
“Okay, but you know I really wanted to . . .”
“Come on! We’re missing it!” He grabbed my arm. We opened the door and hurried into a small, musty-smelling theater, with only a handful of people inside. Mack rushed us into two worn chairs in the back row. I looked up, and there on the screen was a six-foot-tall, sixteen-foot-long dick being sucked on by the bloodred mouth of a naked woman.
My hands reflexively pulled at my short skirt. I crossed my legs twice like a pretzel. I began rethinking every choice I’d ever made in my life as I plotted how to get out of there. Then the on-screen couple started having sex . . . I thought. Never having had sex before, I couldn’t be sure. The man started whacking the naked woman on the butt so hard she began to groan and scream as if she was being mauled by a bear. Nope, that’s it, I’m absolutely positively never having sex.
Mack kept glancing at me. He leaned over and with an unctuous grin whispered, “So what do you think? Do you like it? Is this exciting you?” He started to breathe heavily. “Hmmmm, this is making me really hard, how about you, huh? You gettin’ a little wet?” He reached over in the dark, and his calloused fingers touched my thigh.
“Ugh, Jesus, no!”
I tore up the aisle as fast as I could, smashing the slimy theater doors open with such force that I almost fell out onto the street. I sprinted back to Santa Monica Boulevard and saw a bus approaching. It stopped. I jumped on. I’d never been so grateful to be on a public bus, full of nonpredatory people. Once I was safely riding toward the barely visible Pacific Ocean, I swore to myself I would never, ever, be so naive again.
When I graduated from college in 1972, I was known primarily as an accomplished and respected . . . mime. So after I’d moved to New York, and grew bored with waitressing, I believed my girlfriend Erika when she convinced me that we could make a fortune doing pantomime in Central Park. I knew it! I knew all those years of mime training would pay off! And you never know, I might finally even get an agent from this. So Erika played the clarinet while I, in whiteface, did mime. We were a terrific duo. But it was snowing and freezing, so there weren’t many people that eager to see our performance. We mimed for four hours and made maybe $3.45. And we had to split it.
The next day I commiserated with my free-spirited hippie friend Patty about my mime fiasco. She then shared with me her fabulous part-time work idea.
“I k
now how you can make some money, Chris! A professional dating service. You accompany a man somewhere and get paid for it! It’s totally cool. I did it last night. You get to go out to a fancy restaurant and eat a great dinner with a foreign diplomat or someone like—”
“Patty, you sure they aren’t expecting more than that?”
“Chris, they’re just paying for your time. Whatever happens is up to you! These guys are rich, on their own, and lonely. They just want someone to dine with. Plus you get twenty dollars.”
Twenty bucks was a lot of money in 1973. “Okay, I’m in, Patty!” All dolled up in my best black dress (my only black dress), I took the subway to meet my “date” at his Park Avenue hotel. I’d never seen a hotel like this in my life. Polished marble adorned every surface.
I lifted the shiny white-and-gold rotary phone on the side table in the lobby.
“Hi, this is Christine Lahti. I’m your date for the evening. I’m here.”
“Hello, Christine. Come up!”
“No, actually I’d prefer it if you came down.”
I knew enough not to go alone to a strange man’s hotel room. Besides, I wasn’t about to miss out on dinner at a five-star restaurant. I’d already played out the fantasy. We would speak French together over an expensive bottle of wine, in an amber-lit room with a panoramic view of Manhattan. Having been an avid fan of the Miss America pageants growing up, it’s possible, in this fantasy, I was even wearing a crown.
“I understand completely, Christine, but I’m expecting an important long-distance business call. I’m sure he’ll call within the next twenty minutes. Why don’t you come up, we’ll have a quick glass of champagne, and then we can go right out.”
“Okay,” I agreed, still wary.
My ears popped as I took the elevator up to an impossibly high floor. I walked slowly down the long, elegant hallway with its thick white carpet, and knocked on the door.
True Stories from an Unreliable Eyewitness Page 3