Heart of Glass

by Wendy Lawless

  “I can’t believe she’d pick Bing Crosby over Frank Sinatra!” Robs shook her head in disbelief.

  “I know, it’s just wrong. I mean, Frank is so much sexier.” I nodded, twirling a drumstick in my hand.

  A few days later, David called again. He was in a phone booth outside the car-rental place a few blocks away. “I’m back.”

  Behind his voice, I could hear the car horns and bus engines, loud voices, and tinny Christmas music coming from bodega speakers—the perpetual roar of the city where I’d grown up. It all sounded so familiar to me—his voice and the loud but lulling sounds of New York: home.

  “Come over.”

  I hung up the phone, and at the precise moment I placed the receiver down in the cradle, I knew, in a thunderclap, that we would get married, have kids, and grow old together.

  But I didn’t tell him yet.

  I couldn’t say why at first. It wasn’t that I was afraid or doubtful after his having left me once before, or that my experiences or my mother’s history made me worry. It actually felt the opposite: for once, I wasn’t worried, and I wanted to hold on to that feeling. For the first time in my life I felt as if I had the map, could see the future—what I wanted and where I was going—which was comforting and exciting and empowering.

  In January I went on for the other actress in Heidi and made my Broadway debut, a dream come true. Then in February I replaced the same actress, who was leaving to do a film. I moved downstairs from the understudies’ dressing room and into a new one with one of the cast members, Julie White—a brash Texan with a throaty laugh and dirty mouth. And the Plymouth Theatre became another theater home—just as the Guthrie had been for my dad. The smells of wood and paint, burned coffee, and cigarettes were the same as in every other theater, but doing eight shows a week made them mine. Julie and I would laugh and shout across Forty-fifth Street at the dressing rooms of the boys doing A Few Good Men. Sometimes David would meet me for drinks at McHale’s with the cast—the same bar I’d first been to with Michael, but now somehow different, somehow mine. It was like a New York fairy tale come to life.

  One freezing-cold night in March, David and I were out after the show and found ourselves above the dark skating rink at Rockefeller Center. I mentioned I’d learned to ice-skate there and probably hadn’t ice-skated since.

  “Well, then there’s only one thing to do,” he said, and grabbed my hand. We ran down the stairs and, jumping the rope, onto the ice. Our shoes slipped easily across the surface and we danced together on the deserted rink. I can’t remember the song we sang, but I do remember its abrupt end as we crashed down onto the hard surface in our long coats, laughing. We lay there with our heads together, flat on our backs, looking up at the buildings and the night sky.

  “I am not seeing this,” a voice said from the dark.

  We looked up to see a security guard staring down over the railing high above us.

  “Man, I am really not seeing this.” He laughed and turned his back on us.

  “What should we do now?” I asked David.

  “Let’s move in together.”

  I looked at him, my lost-and-found love lying next to me on the ice, and we kissed.

  So on April 1, I packed up a taxi with Bloomingdale’s bags, a couple of milk crates of shoes, and my trusty Ciao! suitcase and moved into his tiny apartment in Butler Hall. We decorated with plants and trinkets we found on the street and still lifes of fruit. In our closet-sized kitchen, David made spectacular dinners, like boeuf en daube, inspired by parties in Fitzgerald and Woolf. I introduced him to opera, which I’d continued to listen to and love since that long-ago, never-to-happen date with Ben. The Met offered a marathon performance of the entire Ring Cycle that spring, and we spent Saturdays until my call time lying in bed eating Chinese takeout from the Cottage and watching the Valkyries and Rhinemaidens on our rabbit-eared TV. He introduced me to Led Zeppelin, whose first boxed set came out that year. I’d missed Zeppelin living in London and preferring glam, but they had been the sound track to David’s all-American high school years and, along with Wagner, Mozart, and, of course, Django, became part of ours at Butler Hall. I’d never been in a relationship or with the right person long enough to reach this phase of sharing and discovery, but I soaked it all in, along with the newfound routines of home.

  After the show closed, I was once again an unemployed actress, and David was finishing a collection of stories for his thesis. Even though we were scraping money together for chickens to roast and cheap wine, we still had shared a sense of surprise—making every day exciting and different. New York was still its old brutal self, but now we were in it together.

  A blissful year later, on my thirtieth birthday, David asked me to meet him at the Rainbow Room bar after a day of auditions. I took the express elevator up and found him in a booth looking out over Manhattan, the Empire State Building, and all the way down to the World Trade Center, the water, and Staten Island beyond. I had barely sat down when I caught the look on his face. His eyes were filled with tears. Oh my God, I thought, he’s going to propose.

  Choked up with emotion, he barely croaked out “Will ya?” before I grabbed him and kissed him, staining his jacket with my mascara tears.

  He pulled a ring from his pocket—emerald and diamonds. I suddenly realized the waiter was there with a bottle of Dom Pérignon. He, too, was crying, as was the bartender.

  “She said yes!” the waiter shouted, and applause broke out all over the bar.

  postscript

  They say it’s good luck when it rains on your wedding day—and it did on mine.

  We were married in front of all our friends and family in September in a small French Catholic church on Morningside Drive a few blocks from Butler Hall. The monsignor who interviewed us for Pre-Cana was a card-carrying member of Actors’ Equity, and the priest who married us drove a Harley. Robin and David’s sister, Ellen, were bridesmaids, his brother Stephen was his best man, and Didi’s daughter, Ali, was our flower girl. My stepsister Mary, umbrella grasped firmly in her hands, stood guard at the church door in case of a surprise appearance by my mother. My dad walked me down the aisle and read a Shakespeare sonnet.

  After the ceremony the entire wedding party walked a lovely three blocks over to my friends and old NTC classmates John and Jen’s apartment on Riverside Drive for the reception. Django Reinhardt and Frank Sinatra played as speeches were made and laughter rolled through the beautiful rooms overlooking the park and the Hudson. A lifetime of searching seemed to begin and end here as the families that I had lost, found, and made merged with David’s, and for a few hours everyone we loved was all together. I may not have known exactly what I was looking for when I’d first come to New York or for most of the time since, but I knew then, in that apartment on 112th Street, that I’d found it.

  We spent that night at the hotel in the World Trade Center and our honeymoon in Ireland.

  And we lived happily ever after.

  acknowledgments

  Is it easy to write yet another book about yourself? No, it is not!

  I couldn’t have done it without a dedicated crew of ­people—friends and family—who took time out of their busy lives to answer my questions, offer help, advice, and invaluable support.

  A huge shout-out to my National Theater Conservatory classmates Anna Miller, Art Manke, Jeffrey Baumgartner, Jennifer Dorr White, John Eisner, and Leslie Hendrix, for sharing their remembrances of our years together as well as their photographs and scrapbooks from that time.

  My dear friend Jenny Ott, who saved every letter I wrote her and kindly allowed me to borrow them back when I began this book. Amy Wachtel, for her scrupulous rock ’n’ roll journal keeping.

  My sister, Robin Lawless, and my stepmother, Sarah Lawless, for the unique and important insights they provided.

  Thanks to my marvelous agent, Robert Guinsler, whose care of and belief
in me and my work goes beyond the pale. I am fortunate to have him in my corner.

  The fantastic team at my second home, Gallery Books, especially my savvy publishers Louise Burke and Jennifer Bergstrom. I am grateful for my editor Kate Dresser’s wonderful girl Friday smarts and her persistence in coaxing the deeper truth out of me, particularly when I didn’t want to go there.

  Finally, to my amazing children, Harry and Grace, who’ve been so understanding while I neglected them to write this book. I love you more.

  Also by Wendy Lawless

  In her stunning memoir, Wendy Lawless tells the often heartbreaking tale of her unconventional upbringing with an unstable alcoholic and suicidal mother—a real-life Holly Golightly turned Mommie Dearest—and the uncommon sense of resilience that allowed her to rise above it all.

  Chanel Bonfire

  * * *

  ORDER YOUR COPY TODAY!

  Gallery Reading Group Guide

  Heart of Glass

  By Wendy Lawless

  This reading group guide for Heart of Glass includes an introduction, discussion questions, and ideas for enhancing your book club. The suggested questions are intended to help your reading group find new and interesting angles and topics for your discussion. We hope that these ideas will enrich your conversation and increase your enjoyment of the book.

  Introduction

  In this edgy and romantic follow-up to her New York Times bestselling debut memoir, Chanel Bonfire, Wendy Lawless chronicles her misguided twenties—a darkly funny story of a girl without a roadmap for life who flees her disastrous past to find herself in the gritty heart of 1980s New York City.

  Topics & Questions for Discussion

  1. Why do you think Wendy chose to begin her story with the scene of the cops busting into her apartment in the middle of the night? In what ways was this scene a metaphor for Wendy’s twenties, or perhaps for 1980s New York City?

  2. One of the biggest themes of the book is love—or rather, the difficulty of finding it. “What was love? Compatibility? Good sex? The ability to stay up all night talking? Or to be able to be together and not say a word?” Wendy wonders. Take a look at Wendy’s boyfriends and love interests throughout the book. How is each relationship distinct from the others? To any of them share similarities? What kind of love does Wendy find (if any) with each man?

  3. How is Wendy’s abortion a turning point for her? Why do you think that soon afterward she drops out of NYU?

  4. When Wendy and Robin spend Christmas with their father’s family in Minnesota, the experience is bittersweet for them. Do you understand their reaction? Why or why not? Have you ever had a similar experience?

  5. In chapter eight, Wendy begins her schooling at the National Theatre Conservatory in Colorado. How is life in Colorado different for Wendy from what it was like in the first seven chapters? In what way is being at NTC a turning point for her?

  6. Wendy muses, “Maybe home wasn’t somewhere where you found or were born into but something you made.” Discuss the many different places Wendy calls home throughout the novel. What do they each have in common? How are they different?

  7. In the last scene of the book when Wendy marries David, she says, “I may not have known exactly what I was looking for when I’d first come to New York or for most of the time since, but I knew then . . . that I’d found it.” In what ways has Wendy come full circle since the beginning of the book? What is it do you think she was looking for and has now found?

  8. Much of Wendy’s love for the theater comes from watching her father, a successful theater actor. Why do you think this draws Wendy to the theater? What is she seeking in acting that she feels she can’t find anywhere else?

  9. What is your opinion of Wendy as a narrator and how she tells her story? Why do you think she was able to stay grounded in the midst of such a chaotic young adulthood?

  10. Why did you choose Heart of Glass for your book club discussion? What are your overall thoughts about the book? How does it compare to other memoirs your group has read?

  Enhance Your Book Club

  1. Read Wendy Lawless’s first memoir, Chanel Bonfire. How do you think Wendy the narrator has changed from Chanel Bonfire to Heart of Glass? Can you find any similarities between the two?

  2. If you enjoyed Chanel Bonfire, consider adding another memoir set in the epochal days of New York City to your discussion line-up, such as Girl in a Band by Kim Gordon, Just Kids by Patti Smith, or I Dreamed I Was a Very Clean Tramp by Richard Hell.

  3. Put together a Heart of Glass soundtrack and play it as background music during your book club gathering. Songs mentioned in the memoir include “Mad About the Boy” by Noël Coward, “Don’t Stand So Close to Me” by the Police, “Pull Up to the Bumper” by Grace Jones, and “Madness” by Madness.

  4. When she’s describing living on a budget in Manhattan, Wendy mentions some of the places she would eat at, including Veselka and The Dojo (now simply called Dojo), which are both still in business today. “Instead of Meat Loaf Monday and Taco Tuesday, it was Tahini Thursday and Pickle Soup Sunday.” Try sampling or preparing some of the foods that Wendy survived on, such as tahini, rice bowls, borscht, challah bread, and chicken noodle soup.

  about the author

  WENDY LAWLESS is an actress and writer who has appeared on television, in regional theater, Off-Broadway in the David Ives Obie-winning play All in the Timing, and on Broadway in The Heidi Chronicles. Her work has appeared in Redbook, powells.com, and the local Los Angeles press. She lives in Glendale, California, with her screenwriter husband and their two children. Visit her at www.wendylawless.com.

  FOR MORE ON THIS AUTHOR: Authors.SimonandSchuster.com/Wendy-Lawless

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  SimonandSchuster.com

  ALSO BY WENDY LAWLESS

  Chanel Bonfire

  We hope you enjoyed reading this Gallery Books eBook.

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  Copyright © 2016 by Wendy Lawless

  Names and identifying details of some of the people portrayed in this book have been changed.

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information address Gallery Books Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020.

  First Gallery Books hardcover edition March 2016

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  Jacket design by Janet Perr

  Jacket photograph by Ann Marsden

  Author photograph by Dana Patrick

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Lawless, Wendy.

  Heart of glass : a memoir / Wendy Lawless.

  pages cm

  1. Lawless, Wendy. 2. Motion picture actors and actresses—United States—Biography. 3. Actresses—United States—Biography. I. Title.

  PN2287.L28555A3 2016

  791.4302'8092—dc23

  [B]

  2015016465

  ISBN
978-1-4767-4980-8

  ISBN 978-1-4767-4984-6 (ebook)