Prairie Tale (20 page)

For opening night in late October, I called in the troops for moral support. Along with a coterie of agents, my mother and Sara flew into town. So did Rob, who I wanted there not only for the confidence he would give me by being in the audience but also to show him what I could do. I thought we nailed the performance, and the reviews showed the critics agreed, including the
New York Times,
which called Gordana’s and my performances “beautifully matched” and said “the play introduces New Yorkers to a talented dramatist.” Not bad for a TV personality.

My mother and Sara returned to L.A. a few days later, as did Rob. Right after he left, I received a call from my publicist, who said a young actor who was starring in
Scooncat,
another off-Broadway production, had seen me in
A Shayna Maidel
and wanted to know if I would be his date at his opening night. I asked who this actor was, wondering if he was some creepy person. She said he was the stepson of Eve Ensler, who’d written
Scooncat,
and he’d been in a couple movies.

“He was just in
Interview
magazine,” she said.

“What’s his name?” I asked.

“Dylan McDermott,” she said.

“Hmm.”

“He’s kind of sexy,” she continued. “He’s really good in the play he’s doing. I think you guys might actually get along.”

I wasn’t able to see his show because I had a performance that same night, but I met up with Dylan at the after-party, thus beginning a short-lived but very enjoyable fling that was over by the holidays. My mom and Sara spent Christmas break in Russia on a school-sponsored trip, but I flew home anyway and spent Christmas Day with my godparents, Charlie and Mitzi, who took me to a party at Ann-Margret’s house. The next day I was hanging out at their house again when Rob called looking for something to do. I was flying back to New York that night, but Charlie and Mitzi screamed at him from the background to come over. A short time later, he showed up. Before either of us knew what was going on, they convinced Rob to fly back with me.

“Don’t make her go back by herself,” Mitzi said. “Take her back there.”

“Stay a day or two,” Charlie added.

“Just grab and go,” Mitzi said enthusiastically. “Grab and go.”

With nothing else planned, Rob escorted me back to New York, packing only an appetite for adventure and a toothbrush we bought at the airport. He stayed with me for the next couple days. The fun we had together made it clear to me that I had the opportunity to rekindle our relationship if I wanted to. Our special chemistry was still intact and both of us were vulnerable over the holidays, which had always been a good time for us no matter what had happened before.

As much as it pained me, I came to the conclusion that we couldn’t be together in the same room unless we were really going to be
together,
and that was impossible because neither one of us was ready to make that commitment, especially Rob. I made it clear to him that, despite the genuine love and affection and attraction we had for each other, I didn’t think it would ever work out between us.

Rob left feeling very sad. I felt it right in my gut, and in my heart. We were parting forever as lovers. The day he left we stood holding each other outside of my apartment building. I’ll never forget clinging to him as it began to snow, saying good-bye. I knew we would always have our memories, and more important, I hoped we would always be friends.

It was a sweet end to our sweet love story.

A
few days after New Year’s, I was hanging out with my friends Howard Goldman and Glenn Zagoren. Howard worked in the modeling world and Glenn was a tycoon who tooled around Manhattan in a chauffeur-driven Rolls-Royce. Howard, or Howchie as I called him, always dated the most beautiful, leggy creatures, the kind of sexy, out-of-the-pages-of-
Vogue
specimens who made me feel like a garden gnome when I stood next to them. He said he wanted to introduce me to a guy he knew, but he was reluctant to set up the meeting because “almost all the couples I’ve set up on blind dates have ended up married.”

“Howard, please,” I said, laughing. “Like I’m going to marry someone. I’m still in the throes of the world’s longest breakup with Rob. Maybe another nice little fling would be good, but the last thing I’m going to do is marry someone.”

“I’m just stating the facts,” he said. “You can do whatever you want with the information.”

“Go ahead and introduce me,” I said. “But I guarantee you that I’m not going to be interested. Maybe for a little of the old in-out, in-out, but I’m not getting married.”

“Okay,” he said. “But I see you two together.”

“Well, who is he?” I asked.

Howchie described this guy who was a playwright from Texas. The following Monday night, a group of us met for dinner at Live Bait. I had a bunch of friends with me that night, including Judd and Katie. Howard arrived with Glenn. Finally, the artist formerly known as Chester Harry Brinkman III sauntered past the bar and up to our table. I didn’t see him until Howard said, “He’s here.”

I turned around and saw this long-haired, very handsome man, a better-looking version of Dennis Quaid, who, I later found out, was his first cousin. He introduced himself as Bo, Bo Brinkman. He wore a long cashmere coat, a pair of worn jeans, and cowboy boots. A cigarette dangled from his lips. I could already smell the intoxicating scent of booze and nicotine. He was gorgeous, and he had danger written all over him.

Discovering someone new who looked like that was nearly always a fun if not fascinating endeavor, and my initial conversation with Bo turned into one that I knew I’d remember. It wasn’t combative, but we traded questions and answers with a serve-and-volley sort of zing. He tested me because I was a TV actress doing theater, which struck him as wrong.

There was something else. Years earlier, when he was living with Dennis Quaid and Dennis was living with the actress Leah Thompson, Bo had coached Leah for her screen test for
Sylvester
. She had come home afterward and said, “I can’t believe I lost the part to that fucking Melissa Gilbert.” So now he was meeting that fucking Melissa Gilbert.

As the evening wore on, everyone drank and ate and had a great time drinking, drinking, and drinking. Bo thought he could outdrink everyone. But I showed him that Texans had nothing on the Irish. We walked up to the bar at one point and a guy sitting on the stool muttered something to Bo I couldn’t hear. A moment later, though, I heard a thump. I turned around and the guy was splayed on the ground. Bo stood over him, having just punched the guy in the face.

“What the fu—” I said.

“He was saying rude things about you,” he said. “I put him in his place.”

I think the guy had said something along the lines of “Are you going to take her home and fuck her?” It was the kind of stupid stuff that is too often said at bars late at night by people who’ve been drinking. Now the poor schmuck probably had a broken nose and I, an even more pathetic creature, thought I had found my Prince Charming. Bo had defended my honor by punching a man. Rob didn’t know how to change a lightbulb, let alone punch someone in my defense.

Besides being shocking and exciting, the altercation proved a powerful and sudden end to the evening. All of our friends got up from the table and scrambled out of the restaurant, some running to Glenn’s Rolls-Royce, others shouting quick good-byes and disappearing up the street, where they climbed into taxis. I said good night to Bo, who then went back to the apartment in the West Village he shared with his girlfriend, a model named Larissa.

It wasn’t what I would term an auspicious way to begin a romance. But it was the beginning.

L
ike Danny, Bo was part of a world that was completely foreign to me. He had his own theater company and they put on plays in a basement space below a bar called the Trocadero on Charles and Bleecker. He wanted to be a lot of things over the years, but the first thing I knew he wanted to be was Sam Shepard. He smoked
and
chewed tobacco because he’d heard Shepard did the same thing.

The plays Bo wrote were dark, twisted, and very sexual, like Bo himself. He was a guy who on first meeting knew what you looked like naked. Everything about him was right there. He worked with a feverish intensity and drew from past experiences he’d had working on a tanker and at an oil refinery. When I met him he was earning money by restoring landmark buildings in New York; that he could build things with his hands reminded me of my father.

He was a big, complicated storm of personality, like one of the hurricanes he talked about having survived, and I was completely swept up by it. Almost immediately my life was consumed with Bo. Every waking moment was about him. Where was he? Where were we going to go? What were we going to do?

Six weeks after we met, Bo proposed and I said yes. All of a sudden I was putting together a wedding with Glenn and not telling anybody else other than Cordelia. I found an antique-style wedding dress at a boutique in the East Village and I bought a pair of shoes and made a silk flower wreath, both of which I tea-stained to match the dress. On February 21, the night of the deed, or rather the event, I had a show, and a few of my close friends, as well as Bo’s sister and a couple of his friends from high school who flew in from Texas, were told to gather at Le Madeleine for dinner. Right before Cordelia and I ventured over from the theater, everyone was let in on the secret: they were going to be guests that night at our wedding.

Per arrangements Glenn had made, all of us were loaded into cars and taken to someplace on Long Island, where we marched into city hall, signed papers, and exchanged I do’s in front of a justice of the peace. Just as the justice said, “Mr. Brinkman, you may kiss the bride,” a group of firemen burst into the room wearing their fire-fighting garb, including protective masks, yelling something about a gas leak. We hadn’t heard an alarm, but they instructed us to evacuate the premises immediately.

As they whisked us outside, I broke into a cold sweat. I thought for sure it was a sign from God telling me that this marriage was a mistake and doomed from the get-go. We were ushered into waiting fire trucks, at which point we were informed the whole thing was a prank concocted by Glenn, who worked with those guys as a volunteer fireman. With sirens blaring, the trucks took us to the firehouse, where the firefighters and their families hosted a family-style reception with champagne, pigs in a blanket, and chips and sour cream and onion dip. Then we went into the city for a fancy dinner in a private room at a restaurant where more friends joined us.

I went to the ladies’ room, and as I came down the stairs afterward in my full wedding garb, with flowers still in my hair, I ran into Howard Stern’s radio show cohost, Robin Quivers, who was going up the stairs. I had originally met Howard and Robin through Danny, and I had called into their show a few months earlier, around the time my play opened, as a surprise when Rob was a guest. Robin hugged me and said, “What’s with the getup?”

“I just got married,” I said.

Robin did a double take. I could see her mind hard at work. She kept up on all the latest celebrity gossip and I knew there hadn’t been any mention of my relationship with Bo, let alone an engagement.

“Does Howard know?” she asked.

I put my hand to my forehead and said, “Oh, fuck—no, he doesn’t.”

Well, I knew the King of All Media would know soon enough. Robin congratulated me and went to the ladies’ room. I returned to the table and told Bo that we should anticipate a call from Howard Stern in the morning. When we finally got back to my apartment that night, I called my mother and told her that I’d gotten married to Bo. Her response? “That’s nice.” There were no other embellishments or explanations. I think Bo and I finally fell asleep around four in the morning.

Two hours later, the phone rang. I let Bo answer and only heard his end of the conversation, which went something like this: “Who? Just a minute while I check. Is your name Melissa? Some guy named Howard wants to talk to you. Hold on.” Then I said hello and Howard asked if I’d gotten married last night. “I did?” I said. “Oh my God, I was so drunk. Wait a minute, Howard.” I turned to Bo and asked, “Did we get married last night?” He said, “I don’t know.”

At that point, I ended the little charade in a fit of laughter and gave Howard all the details. Within no time, the Associated Press picked up the story and soon it was everywhere. Not until way later did I learn that Rob was with Judd in New York at the time and very hurt by the news. So was Judd. I wouldn’t see or hear from Judd for nearly a year.

I didn’t need too much hindsight to know that I failed to handle the situation as well as I should have. Despite the conversation I’d had with Rob precipitating his departure after Christmas, I apparently still needed to make it clear to myself and to him that it was over, really over, between us. Which, by the way, it wasn’t. So what did I do? I married a stranger, someone I didn’t know at all.

God bless my mother. If I’d been my child, I would’ve killed me.

F
rom day two, our marriage was a challenge fueled by alcohol, insecurity, and the unfamiliarity of two people who barely knew each other trying to merge their lives and work. I would love to say that I wish I’d spent more time getting to know Bo before we married. But then I probably wouldn’t have married him. And if I hadn’t married him, I wouldn’t have had an amazing kid.

But first things first. Bo moved out of his ex-girlfriend’s apartment and into mine. As soon as I got a couple days off from the play, I took Bo to L.A. and introduced him to my family and friends, which I was eager to do. My mother hosted a reception at her house. Rob showed up and brought Chynna Phillips, then enjoying stardom with the singing group Wilson Phillips. As soon as I saw him my guts twisted into knots. I thought,
What the hell are we doing? I am married to a guy I barely know and there you are with that beautiful woman and we should be together.
When my dog, Sidney, saw Rob and began jumping up and down and whimpering, I walked away and avoided Rob the rest of the night. Thankfully he and Chynna left early.

That wasn’t the only uncomfortable moment during the trip. Before we even arrived, I made it clear to my mom and Uncle Ray that Bo would be involved in all the decisions in my life, including my finances. That explained why she greeted me on my first day back by insisting I put my signature on a quit claim document, giving her complete ownership of her house. I guessed at some point my money had been used to help buy it. At the same time, and unbeknownst to me, Uncle Ray sat Bo down and made it clear that he was skeptical of Bo’s rapid appearance in my life, and he wasn’t going to let him ride my well-respected coattails to a career of his own.

“You better know that from the beginning,” he said in a very stern Louis B. Mayer–like manner. “So you have absolutely no bearing and no meaning in her life as far as I’m concerned.”

I was livid when I heard about that sit-down. It started me down the path of separating from my longtime manager and also untangling myself from my mother. I was almost twenty-four years old, and it was time for me to take more control of my life anyway. Back in New York, I dove into work, play, and my new marriage with renewed gusto and independence. Bo had written a movie based on his play
Ice House,
a twisted piece about a Texas oil field worker who wants to break into the music business in L.A. He had raised enough money to start production.

I agreed to star in it with him as his ex-girlfriend. It required me to juggle both the play and the movie. After I would finish at the theater, we would shoot all night. A chunk of it was done at the Chelsea Hotel; other parts were shot guerrilla-style around New York and on the streets of L.A. Only at twenty-four could I have maintained that kind of crazy schedule. I found myself writing checks to keep the production afloat, more than a hundred thousand dollars by the time all was finished.

But I didn’t care, not then anyway. Bo was passionate about the work, and I felt I was doing something new, raw, and exhilarating. Two things about it were really rotten, though. It was a nonunion project, and I didn’t realize I was violating Screen Actors Guild rules by working in it—something I would get fined for a year later and rue many years down the line. And it was one of the worst movies ever made.

But that latter fact wasn’t immediately apparent to us. We were, as they say, so into it we were out of touch. Our lives were full, crazy, occasionally stupid, and sometimes amazing, which motivated us to add another project, a baby. From the moment we got married, we knew we wanted to start a family. If others thought we were rushing things, too bad. I had wanted a child of my own since I was three years old. I also thought it would cement Bo’s and my relationship.

In late spring, I left
A Shayna Maidel,
returned briefly to L.A. to shoot the TV movie
Killer Instinct,
and then focused on getting pregnant. Each month, I thought I would end up pregnant, and then I would not see a line in the pregnancy test and ball up with disappointment. I worried about the effect surgery may have had on my ovaries. I had no patience then; that’s something I’m only learning now. Finally, while I was doing a play at Bo’s theater company, I started to have a funny feeling that something might be stirring inside me, but I didn’t rush out and do a test as I had the previous months. Maybe I was distracted by the play.