It was a glorious, sunny day on the coast of Spain, so I took my phone and paced the patio outside my office, calling Mama out for how she was treating Jan.
“This is who you are as a mother? Do you understand what I would do to have one hour with my son? But you’re going to shun your own daughter because she found a good woman to love? I do not accept that! This is your baby! You call her on the phone right now, and you beg her forgiveness! You tell her that you are her mama and there is nothing—not one thing—about who she is that you do not love. You do not accept her, like you’re doing her a favor. You love her. Unconditionally. Because you are her mama.”
In tears, Mama agreed that I was right, and we hung up the phone so she could call Jan. I was ready to take on anything, so I called Grandma Nelly. Standing in second position, feet apart, ballet legs strong, I kept my eyes fixed on the Rock of Gibraltar and said some things I’d been wanting to say to her since I was a little girl.
“You are a terrible mother. You belittled and criticized and humiliated my mama all her life, and she is one of the most magnificent women you could ever know. She was your perfect little baby—gorgeous girl, amazing dancer, amazing woman—but you made her feel unworthy of love and incapable of showing affection. You tried to make her a judgmental witch just like you. Well, she’s not! She’s a beautiful, loving soul who would do anything for her daughters. She’s a better mother than you even tried to be!”
I clicked off the call and stood there feeling my anger running through me like an electric current. I allowed myself to feel the sear of everything I’d put up with and smiled through and danced over. No more. Things were about to change. I pocketed my cell and turned to go back into the house.
My office was engulfed in flames.
“Oh, God! Oh, God!”
I’d been standing in the hot sun, raging at Grandma, so I hadn’t felt the heat on my back. The swiftly spreading fire went up the drywall behind my desk and licked at the heavy drapes. A layer of thick smoke billowed in a tornado around the ceiling fan. I started to run toward the house. Realized that was crazy. Then ran to a patio wall.
“Fuego!” I screamed in Spanish, “Fuego! Fuego! Ayúdame!”
The gardener, God bless him, came running with a hose. He had things basically under control by the time the fire department came. They told me the American adapter on my computer had started an electrical fire that quickly crawled up the wall. It was a little too symbolic: the curtain monogrammed with our family crest was now a sooty, blackened rag.
The first swing of a one-two punch came with the release of my husband’s single “The Greatest Romance Ever Sold.” The lyrics about why Adam never left Eve were clearly about me and might have given me another pang of hope, if not for that bitter little twist in the refrain—the greatest romance that’s ever been sold—though I wasn’t sure who sold it to whom. The accompanying music video featured my husband getting down and dirty—and I mean very down and very dirty—with a girl I later discovered was a stripper from Le Crazy Horse. This was pushing the envelope, even for him.
Mama had blood in her eye after she saw that video. “Who would humiliate his wife in public that way? No good man! No son of mine!”
I was angry when I saw it, but more than that I was worried about him. It wasn’t like him to be so cynical.
In November 1999, released his twenty-third album, Rave Un2 the Joy Fantastic. He’d been bartering tracks with several artists, including Ani DiFranco and No Doubt—you play on mine, I’ll play on yours—which was such a cool development in the whole artist-empowerment-revolution thing. The song Ani played on (and this has nothing to do with her or her mad guitar skills) was called “ Love You but Don’t Trust U Anymore.” The lyrics are the bitter lament of a betrayed lover, and when people heard the lyrics, they leapt to the obvious conclusion that I’d been cheating on him. Because I was living it up over here in Spain, where the fun never stops, except when you’re engulfed in flames. The truth is, the lyrics echo everything I said to him during that long, horrible night in Marbella.
I remember meeting you here in the good ol’ days
I would never pick the flower of my favorite protégé
One. Two. Punch.