Leggy Blonde: A Memoir (24 page)

Several years have passed since then. These strained relationships are improving. For the children’s sake, we are forging forward, trying to mend what has been broken, and hope to have harmony in the family that extends beyond our unit of six.

•  •  •

In 2008, eight months after Hudson was born, I decided to celebrate the end of nursing by taking a bath. It may not sound like much of a celebration, but it was like a weekend in the Bahamas for me. With two older kids and a new baby, I’d been too busy to carve out half an hour for myself. The tub in our apartment had Jacuzzi jets and I’d fantasized about taking a bath in it for months. I filled it up, turned on the whirl, and soaked in the bubbles for a delicious hour.

One week later, I came down with a sudden high temperature. This quickly turned into full-blown sickness with night sweats, fever, coughing. It was so bad, I asked my doctor, Dr. Kruger, to meet me at his office on a Saturday. I looked gray. He said, “It’s a virus,” and put me on antibiotics.

Two days later I felt even worse. The night sweats were so bad I had to change the sheets a few times each night. I was so sick that my mother-in-law had to spoon-feed me. I went back to Dr. Kruger’s office. I must have looked like shit, because he sent me for a chest
X-ray. After the radiologist called him, he brought me right back into his office.

“Have you been traveling overseas?” he asked. “Staying in any hotels?”

I’d been trapped in my apartment with the baby. “Uh, no,” I said.

He put up my X-rays on the light box. “You’ve got severe pneumonia in both lungs.”

Hospitalization Number . . . What? Fifteen?

I didn’t spend very long in the hospital. Dr. Kruger drew blood, put me on powerful antibiotics, and kept me under observation.

I was released after a day. Two days later, I went to Dr. Kruger’s office
again
. He had the results of my blood test.

“Aviva,” he said, “I have some bad news and good news.”

“Tell me,” I said.

“The bad news is that you have Legionnaires’ disease. The good news is that the antibiotics I gave you for the pneumonia are exactly the right course to treat Legionnaires’.”

Legionnaires’ disease?
The thing you catch on cruise ships? I did some Googling. It was first discovered in 1976 at an American Legion convention at the Bellevue-Stratford hotel in Philadelphia. Apparently, this potentially fatal disease (if not caught early, mortality rates are as high as 50 percent) is caused by bacteria that lives in water tanks and is spread via air-conditioning, humidifiers, fountains, ice machines, any such system that can turn infected water into a mist. How the hell did I catch it in my own home? Were my kids susceptible? I freaked out, of course, and hired a scientific investigator.

It was the damn Jacuzzi. Bacteria was in the pipes and when the bubbles turned the hot water into steam, I inhaled it. You see why I’m a hypochondriac? Because if anyone is going to get a hotel disease in her own bathroom, it’s me. Dr. Kruger was an absolutely brilliant diagnostician to think of testing me for Legionnaires’. He had no reason to do so; it’s that rare. Well, I survived it. But I never took a bath in that tub again. Hot tubs used to be a great pleasure, but now I look at them and think instantly of my mother-in-law feeding me with a spoon. (Forgot to add Jacuzzis to my list of phobias. . . .)

•  •  •

Meanwhile, my happy settlement with Harry turned decidedly unfriendly. As soon as Reid and I got married, Harry didn’t have to pay alimony. But he was still obliged to pay child support for Harrison. In 2009, the checks more or less stopped coming. Reid took on all of Harrison’s expenses, in addition to his own monthly child support he paid to Jane. It was the start of the recession, and everyone felt the squeeze. Reid wanted me to press Harry to come up with what he owed. I begged Harry to make good on his child support. The check was always “in the mail.”

I waited six months, and then I took Harry to court. Harry claimed poverty. My lawyer Sue Moss’s due diligence proved that Harry still charged a large monthly amount for himself. He was going out every night, flying around, living part time in Los Angeles. If he had ample funds to party till dawn, then he could dole out a bit of child support. I wasn’t looking for anything beyond what he was legally obligated to pay. At one point, Reid questioned whether we should pursue the lawsuit. But I was adamant. It was the principle of it all. Harrison deserved what was rightfully his.

While not paying his child support, Harry dated LuAnn de Lesseps for a hot minute. It was LuAnn’s single year, after her divorce from the Count but before she met her now-fiancé Jacques. I knew LuAnn. We had a mutual friend. I remember telling our friend that it wouldn’t look good for LuAnn to date Harry on her TV show. His scenes with her didn’t air, fortunately for LuAnn. He did appear in a scene on
Real Housewives
season four, spanking his old friend Sonja Morgan’s butt at the costume party when she forgot to wear panties under her costume. He wasn’t exactly hiding his head in shame.

For over four years, Harry missed most of his monthly payments. I was in and out of court throughout that time, pleading with the judge for help. Finally, he put the gavel down and gave Harry thirty days to come up with a large sum or go to jail. Harry had been crying poor for four years. But as soon as the judge said “jail,” a check arrived the next day for the full amount. It was only a fraction of what he owed, but I would take what I could get.

That was the last monthly payment I received. His family was sick to death of me after three years of divorce court and four years of family court. I bet they were also sick of Harry. They offered me a lump sum of child support for Harrison that was supposed to last until his emancipation at age twenty-one. Basically, they were going to pay me to go away. The amount was much lower than what I was already legally owed. They wanted to cut the settlement amount by less than half. The Dubins were extraordinarily wealthy people. They could easily afford to honor Harry’s child support obligations. I never understood why everyone expected Reid to pick up the tab.

Harrison was their only grandson, the only one who would take their name. He was a bright, handsome, funny, polite, big-hearted
child. I honestly had no idea why they acted this way. I am sure it was not personal against Harrison. Sometimes anger clouds people’s actions. It seems as though Harrison’s best interests got lost temporarily by his grandparents.

The situation was so dysfunctional that taking the lump sum, even at a huge loss, might be the wisest decision. I had a family to think about. Reid and I were exhausted from this battle. We decided that life was too short to spend another day in court. It was enough money to ensure part of my son’s future. But still, t wasn’t so easy to walk away.

The one thing the Dubins
were
paying all along was Harrison’s tuition. In May 2012, right before my first season of
The Real Housewives of New York City
was to air, Harrison’s school called. The finance person said, “Your ex-husband signed the school contract last year, but he hasn’t paid a penny. You have to pay last year’s tuition and next year’s tuition in full if you want to keep Harrison in school.” Harry, of course, hadn’t told me that the tuition wasn’t paid.

We owed the school around eighty thousand dollars. I didn’t want to ask Reid for more money. He had already been footing the bill for years. I thought about sending Harrison to public school. But our other kids were in private; it felt wrong. Reid kept telling me that he would take care of it. I waited to see if the Dubins would cough up the tuition, as they always did for all their grandchildren. Letters between lawyers flew like grenades. Somehow or other, my battles with Harry got picked up by the
New York Post
, which ran two separate articles about them over the summer.

And then my season on
Real Housewives
started airing. Sonja Morgan knew I’d been married to Harry, and she went on and on
about what a great guy he was, how much fun, what a great lover, and so on. Everyone was wild about Harry, as long as they didn’t depend on him for child support! I sat there, and listened to it all, agreeing and smiling.

“Oh, yes. Harry is just awesome,” I said and smiled, biting my cheek, during filming.

I never complained about the pressure he put on me and my family, or the lawsuits, or the unpaid bills. I never bad-mouthed Harry on camera. I simply would not wave my dirty laundry about my son’s father on national TV. Before I shot my first scene, I drew that line. No matter what anyone said about Harry, I would smile and nod. That was the deal I made with myself, and I kept it. Off camera, I told the girls the truth and stuff leaked to the press.

I wavered about taking the lump sum, or fighting to uphold the settlement we already had. The critical moment came in the winter of 2013. Harrison Googled himself and found those
New York Post
articles. He had no idea that any of this had been going on
for years
. Reid, Harry, and I had shielded him from the legal issues completely. When he found out, he got very upset. I’d become a public person. I realized I had to change my tactics. To fight for my son after being on a national television show, I had to keep our private business out of the press.

I took the lump sum. As soon as I decided to take it, I felt lighter and happier. Harry will always be a part of our lives, but given his behavior, it’s hard to be a full member of the Harry-is-a-Great-Guy fan club. Harry has a kind nature, but his weaknesses hurt others. They’ve hurt us. I have chosen to overlook it for the greater good.

•  •  •

On another front, Jane dropped another legal bomb on us, too! It all started over a disagreement about whether or not Veronica should take fish oil supplements. I was obsessed with vitamins, and gave fish oil to all my children. (What?
Vitamins for children? Insane!
) Among other things, Jane was against it. When she objected, I stopped giving Veronica the pills. But Jane had to make a federal case about it, and used it as a starting point for another lawsuit.

Only a week after Jane gave birth to her second baby with her second husband, her lawyers delivered a hundred-page lawsuit to us. She was suing Reid for full custody of Veronica and, of course,
more money
. This odious document was punctuated by vicious lies. She produced every single email we’d ever exchanged—hundreds of earth-shattering gems like, “Veronica has a play date today with Samantha. Okay?”—as examples of my being an “overinvolved stepmother.” My active stepparenting of Veronica, she claimed, made it impossible for her to coparent with Reid.

There were fifty pages about how “overinvolved” I was in Veronica’s life, listing all the things I did for the girl, like take her to doctor’s appointments, help her with homework, make her food, buy her nice clothes, throw her birthday parties, and other horrible abuses of power.

Reid and I read the pages. They cited emails and examples dating from when Veronica was a baby. “She’s been plotting this lawsuit
for years,
” I said. “Why file it now?”

“She wants to move to Long Island with her husband and babies,” Reid explained. She had already moved to Queens, causing Veronica a longer commute to school. The longer distance would mean a huge disruption in Veronica’s routine—and Jane’s. If she had full custody, she wouldn’t have to schlepp her daughter to school and our place and back. In the original agreement, both parties agreed to stay in Manhattan.

Reid was livid. I’d never seen him as angry as he was when we had to go to court,
again,
over this ridiculous fiction. She should have peddled it in Hollywood. She would have had a better reception than in Manhattan family court.

By luck of the draw, the judge was the same man who handled my child support case with Harry. When he saw Reid walk into the courtroom, he said, “You, again?” Quickly, he pieced the whole saga together. He already knew Reid supported Harrison during Harry’s delinquent years. He knew that we had other children as well, and that Reid was a stand-up guy.

The judge listened to the arguments. He read Jane’s papers, and our defense. Then he called Reid and Jane back to court for his decision. He said, “I have people walking in and out of this room every day. I have never seen anyone bend over backward to try to keep things as amicable as the Dreschers. Jane, you should consider yourself
lucky
that Veronica’s stepmother is involved and cares and keeps the lines of communication open between you. You know what? You folks co-parent better than 95 percent of the people who come through my courtroom. This case seems like a lot of nonsense and I don’t appreciate the lying. This case is not for court. Dismissed.”

The judge openly called her a liar in court.

Her case was thrown out.

Reid was pissed off over this entire fiasco and ready to go into assassin mode. He would not speak to Jane directly, and hadn’t for the two years since this last lawsuit. The court assigned them a mediator.
To this day,
they have monthly meetings with the mediator to discuss Veronica. Brilliant or absurd? A little of both. On the bright side, they have not been in court since, but it is a bit odd to continue seeing your ex-spouse monthly in a therapist’s office. If you wanted to fight in an expensive counselor’s office with a man, you might as well be
married to him! Of course, it was healthy to check in about coparenting your child. They both love Veronica and want the best for her. But her insisting on monthly sessions? To me, that seems like holding on to the past. I think it would be healthier for Jane to let go of Reid. However, I could understand how it would be hard to get over him. I can understand her still hanging on. I am not sure how her husband feels about it though.

Although we won, I felt defeated. I’d lost years in court. None of those battles should have been waged. Now that it was over, the weight of what we’d been through hit me full force. I’d fought for my son, and been blasted. As a stepmother, I tried to be as close and involved as a real mom, and we got sued for it. At the peak of frustration, I thought I should back off from Veronica so Jane wouldn’t snap. But I’d known Veronica since she was a baby. I loved this bright, sweet, beautiful child. How
could
I back off emotionally? Well, I couldn’t.