Here's the Story LP: Surviving Marcia Brady and Finding My True Voice (17 page)

After about two hours, Joe managed to make it to shore, followed by Lucy, who was taken to the hospital with severe lacerations from the coral. Michael needed another sixty minutes before he managed to get himself to safety. He said it was only after he resigned himself to whatever God had in store for him that he felt a sense of inner calm and renewed strength in his arms, enough to catch a wave that took him out of the riptide and up the coastline. Then he caught another one that brought him toward the shore.

We watched from the sand, cheering him on, shouting encouragement, and crying tears of hope. Finally, mashed and bruised, and also utterly drained after nearly four hours in the ocean, he emerged from his ordeal. I was in the water, waiting for him when he got to a place where it was only knee-deep. We hugged for a long time. It was my turn to share some of my strength.

At that moment there was no question in my mind that both of us were survivors.

Tears in Heaven

A
fter a romantic dinner before leaving Hawaii, Michael and I were standing on the balcony outside a restaurant, talking as the waves broke nearby in a rhythm that was like music, when suddenly he reached out, drew me close, and kissed me. To this day, twenty-six years later, I can still feel the emotion in that embrace. In the moonlight, I felt like we were the only two people in the world.

Back in Los Angeles, with our wedding date looming less than six weeks away, the clarity and calmness we enjoyed in Hawaii evaporated and we fell back into our bickering ways. This time, it grated at Michael, who finally said, “Look, I don’t think we’re ready. Let’s postpone the wedding.”

To me, that meant, “You’re crazy. Let’s cancel this thing.” I kind of freaked out until his ability to stay focused (“Maureen, listen to me: I still want to get married, but we can’t get married with this kind of disconnect”) got through to me. Gradually, I saw it made sense. Once I calmed down, both of us felt a sense of relief. The pressure was off to perform, so to speak, and we could get to work.

We needed to find out why two people who loved each other ended up battling so frequently. Like many churches, the Vineyard required counseling sessions for members planning to marry. The idea was to identify each other’s strengths and weaknesses and raise awareness of potential trouble spots. Michael and I filled out questionnaires designed to highlight our compatibility. Nervous, I wanted to back out before I finished. I thought the church would try to talk Michael out of marrying me.

My fears were extreme but not unwarranted. We flunked the test. According to the results of our questionnaires, we weren’t compatible in any areas. Zero.

“Zero?” Michael said, taking my hand.

“What do we do?” I asked.

“You can’t take these answers too literally,” the counselor said. “Marriage, like daily life, isn’t a black-or-white, yes-or-no thing.”

“So we can still get married?” I asked.

“If you want,” he said. “It’s your choice. As I said, these are just indicators.”

We continued weekly sessions with Cedric Johnson, a therapist recommended by the church’s counselor. Cedric was an empathetic man with a large build, glasses, and a slow delivery. We liked him right away. He had Michael and me talk about our differences. I was a Democrat, and Michael was a Republican. I was Catholic, and he was a Presbyterian. I was emotional, impulsive, easily frustrated, hot-tempered; he was thoughtful, careful, reserved, analytic, and blessed with more patience than Job, which I tested daily.

“See, nothing in common,” I said.

“Is that what you think?” Cedric replied.

“Well, we love each other very much.”

“That’s a start.” He looked at Michael. “Does he pick up his towel in the bathroom?”

“Yes,” I said.

“That’s good, too.”

We worked with Cedric for a few months. Then I quit. I was done. Michael thought we were just getting started, though. We were talking and listening to each other without any manipulation, he said. He was right. In hindsight, we were making progress. But I was still done with the therapy.

Michael wasn’t. He went to a couple of sessions by himself. At one, Cedric said, “Your relationship is like a stick and pot. That’s all you have. Why do you stay?” Michael didn’t have an answer. “You don’t have to have one,” Cedric said. “I just want to make sure you think about it.”

Then Michael and I signed on to work together in the musical
Shenandoah
at a theater in Raleigh, North Carolina. We put our problems on hold; the show seemed like an adventure, and it was. We shared a room in the same hotel. After performances, we went out to dinner with the cast. On weekends, we did our laundry at a Laundromat called Suds. At the end of the run, the promoter had everyone to his home for an old-fashioned Southern-style dinner.

When we left Raleigh, Michael and I felt full in ways that had nothing to do with all the fried chicken, okra, and black-eyed peas we’d eaten. The trick was to sustain that sense of well-being, trust, and compatibility.

T
o supplement his income between acting jobs, Michael signed on with a company that sold early versions of desktop computers to businesses. He started off as a typist and quickly worked his way up, then changed firms for a better position and more money. He didn’t particularly want to do that kind of work. But he wanted to calm my fears and quiet my criticism by proving he could support us.

He implored me to understand that he was more concerned about living his life in a way that felt right than he was about living it to make money, and to him, acting felt right. He was confident that the bigger things would eventually work out. I wish that I had been able to trust him. How could I, though, when I didn’t trust myself? As a result, my put-downs continued.

I can’t say why Michael hung in, but he did. Not only that, he pushed me to reconnect with my family, particularly my mother. His instincts were good. From her quiet and fragile perch on the sidelines, my mother had taken great pride in my accomplishments as an actress. Likewise, she had worried through all the years I struggled and needed help.

She was more thrilled than anyone to see me in a better place. But she still didn’t trust it. Besides her doubts about me, I think my quick romance with Michael recalled her rapid engagement and marriage to my father and the years of turbulence that followed. That Michael was a Christian also reminded her of my father—and not in the best way. Of course Michael’s faith manifested itself very differently from what we had witnessed with my father. She’d see that over time.

I know there’s one reason that Michael and I managed to stay together through all the heavy-duty ups and downs: our faith. The two of us had faith that our love, despite all of our problems, was real, strong, durable, and worth sticking around for. Our faith made us believe our love was real. We had faith in God. And we had faith that there were people to whom we could turn during the worst of times. Those people were our friends at the Vineyard, and they played a vital role in keeping us together as a couple and individually. They provided peace and comfort during the worst times, and they raised us up even higher when life was good.

Without the Vineyard, we probably wouldn’t have survived. It was a giving, nourishing community. Being there made me feel better about myself. It gave me a place to go and find company, comfort, and understanding when I felt alone—and in the middle of 1984, I felt alone way too often.

Work was scarce and auditions weren’t any more plentiful. Like many actors, I felt unwanted. I didn’t understand why my career had slowed. It was made even harder when strangers wanting an autograph asked what I was working on and I had nothing to say. They got their autograph or photo, told me they had as a kid either wanted to be me or date me, and then I walked away wondering why I wasn’t working if I was loved by so many people.

Then Michael’s truck was stolen. It was another unpleasant thing we had to deal with. But he managed to turn a lemon into lemonade by arranging to buy his father’s old car and drive it back to Los Angeles, which meant traveling to Minneapolis, and he invited me to go with him. We needed an adventure, he said—something that would get us out of town and out of our routine.

It sounded good to me.

Michael’s parents lived in a large, Cape Cod–style house outside of the city. The rooms were decorated with antique chests and chairs, old beds, and quilts. The house had a comfortable, family feel. His father was an electrical engineer, and his mother was a stay-at-home mom. They impressed me as nice, solid, conservative people—good Midwestern stock, as they say.

I felt like they were wary of me, this young woman who’d grown up on TV. I didn’t think they were impressed. In reality, I was deathly afraid Michael’s parents would find out about my past, both my drug problems and my family issues, and that would be the end, they’d put the kibosh on our relationship.

Michael and I spent some lovely, romantic days on the water. There was a large creek behind his house, and we got into his canoe and paddled for hours. We explored numerous small lakes where we seemed to be the only two people on the planet. I appreciated the solitude and beauty, as well as Michael’s skill and competence. It thrilled me to see how adept he was in the outdoors. He’d grown up spending summers camping and canoeing these lakes. Sometimes he went days without seeing another person. That sounded nice to me.

I found the time we spent outdoors calming, as I did the time I spent with Michael. I felt as if I’d exhaled for the first time.

A
fter a week, we began the drive back to Los Angeles. We didn’t plan a route or a schedule. The point was to take our time, get lost in the drive, see the sights, eat in small diners, stop to look at salvage shops and antiques stores, explore the countryside, and then check into hotels along the highway.

The longest road trip I’d ever taken was a two-hour drive with my family to San Diego when I was a kid. Otherwise everything in my life had always been planned. This was the first time I’d ever gotten in a car and said okay, let’s see what happens today. It was freeing and fun. Michael said he enjoyed being with me away from Los Angeles. He said he was able to see a different side of me.

He also got a kick out of watching people react when we walked into diners and rest stops. Inevitably someone came up and asked, “What are you doing here?” I could’ve said “having the time of my life.” Or I could’ve said I was falling in love with Michael all over again. Both were true.

Little things were such fun. At one hotel, I tried the “Magic Fingers” massage bed for the first time. I giggled
and
jiggled till my quarters ran out.

Each day—no, at various junctures throughout the day—I relished how reliable and resourceful Michael was in every kind of situation. He had such confidence and so much ability. One day, as we drove through the desert, I got to thinking about the two of us. Maybe it was the picturesque scenery outside the window. Maybe it was everything. But I realized how foolish and narrow-minded I’d been to judge him solely by the money he earned as an actor.

He was a great guy,
the guy.
I was lucky to have him.

One day after we returned to Los Angeles, we were walking into Westwood when I stopped, put my hands on his chest, and looked up into his eyes. I’d had a revelation about us, or rather about him, I said. I no longer cared how much money he earned. If he wanted to work as an actor, I would be behind his effort 100 percent. If he wanted to do something else, I would support that enthusiastically, too.

The bottom line was that I loved him, and believed in him, whatever he did.

“I’m going to trust you,” I said.

I really meant that I was going to trust myself. I had so little faith in me; I needed to convince both of us. Indeed, Michael asked if I was telling the truth or saying something I thought he wanted to hear. I stressed that it was the truth. He took me at my word and said he hoped that my behavior would prove it.

Calmness prevailed, and we began to plan again for a wedding. Michael’s career also took off. He was cast in a production of
Richard II
at the Mark Taper Forum. Then he landed a handful of commercials. Nestlé flew him back and forth to New York umpteen times before signing him to a multiyear spokesperson deal and shooting an elaborate TV spot on location in the Smoky Mountains. Although they spent millions on the commercial, it never aired.

There was so much activity that our wedding seemed to sneak up on us without warning. I couldn’t figure out where the time went. And as was my way when things seemed out of control, I panicked slightly. I felt the need to make everything perfect; that was impossible; it was a control issue. I was struggling when Michael’s family came into town. There was so much to do. On top of the wedding, Michael needed to pack up his apartment.

We were on pins and needles at the idea of our families meeting. They were extremely different. There was no telling what my brother Denny might blurt out. On the day before our rehearsal dinner, Michael felt like he needed to tell his parents about my past drug problems, what he called the elephant in the room. Until then, he had avoided most of their questions.

I was devastated when he told me that his parents knew. I shut myself in the bedroom and felt like I’d never come out.

Then my mother blew up at me because she’d heard the club where we were holding the reception was anti-Semitic, a problem since most of my guest list was Jewish. At first, I said I didn’t care since I wasn’t ever coming out of my room, but the truth was, I did care, and upon further investigation, I found out it wasn’t true.

Despite everything, I left my bedroom, everyone had a good time at the rehearsal dinner, and by four o’clock on March 16, 1985, the small red-brick Presbyterian Church in Brentwood was filled with my family, Michael’s family, my
Brady
family, and about two hundred other close friends and relatives. Ready or not, we were getting married.

I
had never seen my mother look more beautiful. She wore a new dress that showed off the weight she’d lost for the occasion, her hair was done, and she added a tiny sparkle with heirloom jewelry. My bridesmaids—Carin, Pam, and Michael’s sister, Carol—were also gorgeous in off-white gowns, as was Michael’s niece, Jennifer, our flower girl. As for me, I went for an understated Princess Diana look in a simple, off-the-shoulder white dress and carried a mix of white stephanotis and gardenias. When Michael and I kissed, everyone in the church cheered.

At the reception, my father made a long, emotional toast and a friend of Michael’s performed a comic song he’d written about Michael’s life that had everyone laughing and singing along. Our first dance to Stevie Wonder’s “You Are the Sunshine of My Life” was supposed to showcase the dance lessons Michael and I had taken for the occasion, but we forgot everything we learned as soon as the music started.