Getting It Through My Thick Skull (21 page)

But damned if Joey didn’t still have a hold on me. Living in California, I had no network. I had no truly close friends in whom to confide. I continued to miss my family—my sisters, parents, Joey’s huge extended family who I considered mine— who had all been such a big part of my life for decades. In California, it was just the four of us. Paul was an adult, and Jessica was busy at college. Besides, I would hardly confide in them about their father’s and my relationship. I was still somewhat adrift. Even after all this time, it was strange to go from a town where I knew everyone and they knew me to the utter disconnectedness of life in California. It was very isolating and lonely, and I desperately wanted a confidante.

After nearly three years, by the spring of 2002, the novelty of “singlehood,” a pristine apartment, and academic progress had worn off. I found myself feeling restless, a sort of “Is this all there is?” feeling. I was in a place where I was doing everything right for myself, for the right reasons, yet it wasn’t as fulfilling as I’d hoped. Of course, sensing my ambivalence, Joe really turned up the heat. “I still love you. Come back. We could start all over again.” My ego was gratified that he missed me. He pulled at all my heartstrings. “We’ve been married such a long time. We should try it again. We can make it work this time . . .” He was saying all the right things. We had never legally separated, and our relationship had been in limbo for quite some time.

It had still never even crossed my mind to start dating. I couldn’t bear to imagine the first-date chat:
So, what do you do? Oh, that’s nice. Want to hear what happened to me?
Even thinking about it made me weary. How would any man react when hearing that my husband and the father of my children was Joey Buttafuoco? I didn’t even want to go there. I just took care of me. The conversations about us reconciling continued. The emotional pull was still strong, though the logical part of my mind kept saying,
Nothing’s going to change
.

Not to mention that Joey had a serious girlfriend! “Listen, Joe, if we were ever to get back together, I’d have to be assured that Evanka is completely out of the picture and that you are finished with that woman,” I told him.

“Oh, I am finished. It’s done. She’s gone . . . I want you back!” he assured me.

I went to stay for a couple of weekends at the house in Chatsworth, and Paul simply rolled his eyes at my appearance at the breakfast table. “What are you doing, Mom?” he asked. I was mystified by this attitude. “Why would you not want us to get back together?” I asked my son, but he refused to elaborate. “Oh, I don’t know, never mind . . .” His loyalties were clearly divided. He didn’t want to alienate his father, and he didn’t want to hurt me, but he didn’t want me back there. That much was clear.

I talked over the situation with an old friend of mine. Toni was on good terms with Joe, too, and she still liked him fine. I said to her, “You know, I’ve been thinking about going back to Joe.”

“I think you should,” Toni said. “You two are made for each other. He’s a good provider. He still loves you . . . I think you should reconcile.”

But in my heart of hearts, why would I believe he would change? I’d hoped and prayed a million times that he’d change and he hadn’t—what made this any different? One night, I sat at home by myself and reviewed the whole history of Joe and me in my head—the great times, the horrible times, everything, as objectively as I could. And then I literally prayed: “Lord, if this marriage is meant to be, please show me the way. If this is what you want me to do, I’ll do it. But I need a sign. Help me out here, please.”

My girlfriend Blair from New York came to visit me for a weekend. We had a great time riding bikes along the beach and taking long walks on the pier, just hanging out. She had a steady boyfriend she’d been seeing for a couple of years. We talked about him for a while, and then the conversation turned to the topic of me dating.

“I’m forty-seven years old. Who’s ever going to look at me? Sure, it would be nice to go on a date sometime, but no man has ever even looked in my direction,” I told her.

Blair did a double take. “Are you kidding me? All kinds of men look at you, all the time! You just never look back!”

“Really?” I was surprised.

“Hey, I’ve been with you all weekend. I can see just fine. Guys are always checking you out, but you’re oblivious! You put off that untouchable, unavailable vibe.”

“What do you mean? Of course, I look at people . . .” But as I thought about it, I realized she might possibly have a valid point. I had felt like a hunted animal for so many years that it had become an unconscious habit to always keep my distance, put up an invisible shield around myself, and refuse to make eye contact with strangers. It was a simple, offhand remark, but it stayed with me long after Blair returned home. I took our conversation as the sign I had prayed for.

Maybe she’s right. Maybe I don’t ever look back.
I decided to set a new goal. For the next few months, I was going to look people in the eye. I wasn’t going to worry about being Mary Jo Buttafuoco. I was going to open myself up to the world again. If a nice man looked at me, I was going to look back.

Meanwhile, Joey was constantly on the phone with me, wheedling, calling, charming, asking me to give things another go, to come back and give our marriage one more try. Naturally, I was hesitating, knowing that nothing was going to change, but a certain weariness had set in. Maybe this was my destiny. Despite what Blair had said, I was pretty sure there was no one else out there in the world for me. Maybe Joey was my lot in life. Maybe there was a reason we had never divorced. I was still resisting his logic, albeit weakening.

Jessica was absolutely thrilled. “It would be wonderful if you got back together again!” She couldn’t have been happier with the prospect. It’s every child’s dream, after all—to get Mommy and Daddy back together. Paul, on the other hand, looked at me once again like I was crazy. “Don’t do it,” he said flatly. “Trust me, Mom, you don’t want to come back. It’s insane here. I can hardly stand it sometimes. You’re doing so well— don’t come back. Just stay away.”

His attitude was really disturbing to me. I tried this time to pull more out of him, but Paul refused to get specific. “Evanka’s still in the picture; I don’t care what he’s saying about that. And that’s just for starters.” Joe, of course, swore she was long gone.

I made a last-ditch effort in July 2002. My brother-in-law, a single man, was living at Joey’s house and helping out at the auto body shop. I considered Bruce an older brother and wanted to spend some time with him. I decided to stay the weekend at the house in Chatsworth, and we all went out and had a nice, happy dinner. A Mexican restaurant, lots of margaritas . . . it was pleasant and fun. We all got along very well, but something in me resisted.
I can’t come back to this house. I can’t, I can’t . . .

“Whew,” I said to my brother-in-law as we stumbled down for coffee late the next morning. “I need to get to the gym today and sweat out some of that tequila.”

“I really should join you,” Bruce mused. We agreed we would go, but we couldn’t seem to get out the door. A couple of hours passed while we procrastinated. Joe, of course, was nowhere to be found. I even mentioned it to Bruce. “He’s supposed to want me back so badly, so where is he? Why am I sitting around with you?” But, honestly, I didn’t really care. He could have been at the shop, but more likely he was with Evanka, and his absence wasn’t breaking my heart. That realization led me to admit that I was not committed to coming back.

Bruce and I finally got into our gym clothes and into the car. On the way, our regular route was closed; the whole street was blocked off. We looked over to see what was going on and noticed a classic car show. Gorgeous hot rods and bands and classic cars were all over the place. It was a huge street fair.

As a woman who was immersed in the auto body business for many years, I couldn’t resist this. The depressed, pity-party Mary Jo would have just gone home, but I said to Bruce, “Come on, let’s stop by and see what’s going on.” We wandered in, and the first person I saw was George Barris, king of custom-made cars, the man who created the Monkee Mobile, the Munster Mobile, and so many others. As we headed over to George’s booth, Bruce and I both recognized a guy working the booth who used to work as a pinstriper at Complete Auto Body back on Long Island. His name was Tommy.

We were all quite surprised to see each other and had a nice little reunion, talking about old times. Bruce and I stood in the booth for quite a while, catching up as groups of people came and went, meeting and getting autographs from George. I noticed a good-looking man about my age who had been standing nearby for a while, glancing over at me every now and then. Blair’s words rang in my mind. I decided to look back. I looked him straight in the eye and smiled at him—and he smiled back and came over.

The man introduced himself as a friend of Tommy’s, and soon enough I found myself actually flirting. Tony was just my type: Italian, with a muscle shirt on, a motorcycle owner, big, strong, and macho. I was really having fun, a fantastic time actually, when I glanced up and saw Joe approaching. Boy, did I not want him to be there—not on the first occasion I had flirted with another man since high school!

Joey arrived and brought me back to earth with a thud. Now that Mr. Life of the Party was here, he took over all the attention and dominated the conversation. I faded into the background as usual. I stood there and thought,
I’m not going back. I’m not a second-class citizen. If I go back, all this forward motion will have been for nothing. I’m not going to live in his shadow ever again. I don’t care if I’m alone for the rest of my life, so be it. Even if I am lonely sometimes, I’d rather be by myself.

Bruce, Joey, and I all left the show together, and I realized there was really nothing at that house for me. The rest of the weekend passed uneventfully, but I was not feeling much at all. No love, no desire, certainly not wanting to ever come back to that house. I drove back to my apartment in Newport and thought about things. Okay, there was nothing left at Joey’s house for me. What else was out there? For a few nights, I studied my old friend Tommy’s business card. Finally, I decided to put myself out there. I called Tommy to ask him about his friend. Maybe he’d be married with five kids. I had no idea, but I was going to find out.

“What’s the deal with your friend Tony?” I asked him casually, after some pleasantries about how nice it had been to catch up and so on.

“Oh, he’s a great guy. He works with George Barris. I’ve known him a long time. He has a little boy, but he’s not married.” My heart did a tiny little leap upward. Tommy told me that George was appearing at a big custom car show in Las Vegas in a couple of weeks with a huge display. Tony would be there working, of course. The wheels in my head started turning.
I should show up and run into this guy Tony,
I thought.

“That sounds like a lot of fun,” I said.

“Oh, we’re all going to be there. It’s going to be great!” Tommy went on and on.

“You know, I was thinking of going to Vegas myself in a couple of weeks,” I said casually. “Could you do me a favor, Tommy? Could you call Tony and just find out if he’ll definitely be there? He was really nice. Maybe I’ll stop by and say hi.” I could not believe what I was doing. I hadn’t done anything like this in thirty years! But I was happy, it was fun, and I was excited for the first time in a long time.

A couple of days passed, and the phone rang with an unknown number. And just as I am wary of answering doorbells, unidentified numbers prompt me to screen the call. When I listened to the voice mail, it was Tony! The message said, “Hi, Mary Jo. Tommy gave me your number. It was great to meet you at the show . . .” My heart was pounding like a sixteen-year-old girl.
He called me! He called me!
My mouth was dry, and I paced around excitedly . . . It was unbelievable to me that I could feel and act this way again.
He called! Should I call him back? What do I say? What should I talk about? Does he know who I am?

I didn’t know the “rules” of dating, so I didn’t wait three days to call Tony back. I called him back that night and acted very casual, though I was falling apart inside. I’m telling you, I was a teenager. We stayed on the phone for half an hour and had a very pleasant conversation about cars, old friends, and his son. We stayed completely off the subject of Joe. It was going so well that I was really emboldened. “Hey, I’ll be meeting a friend in Vegas that weekend,” I totally lied. “I’d love to stop by and hang out at the car show.”

“That would be nice,” he said. I was putting myself out there in a big way, but it seemed to be working all right.

The week before the show, Joey called me. The power had shifted, and I was now putting him off. “I really love you. I want you to come back . . .” Not so fast! The timing was suddenly very inconvenient. I said, “You know, Joe, I want to stay here in Newport through January to get the school credits I need. It’s not a good time for me to leave right now. I’m making great progress. Tell you what, let’s see how everything goes, and we’ll think about me coming home for Christmas.”

This discussion bought me about six months. I decided to give the single life until the end of the year to see what unfolded and make a decision then. Maybe I really was destined to live out my days with Joe. But, meanwhile, I was very distracted. And he could sense it. “Remember when we saw Barris at that car show?” he suddenly asked.

“Oh, sure,” I said cautiously.

“Yeah, I got a call from Tommy. Heard you really hit it off with Tony,” he said. Oh boy, apparently word traveled fast. It felt like we were back in high school.

I left that one alone. “It was good to see those guys again,” or something like that was all I could say.

“So . . . you know that big car show in Vegas coming up? It got postponed. George couldn’t get the right permits for Vegas in time, ya know,” Joe said.

“Really?” I asked. What bad luck for me.