Spelling It Like It Is (21 page)

We got onto the freeway. By now I was vomiting, and Dean got Dr. J on the phone again. Vomiting, I knew from my research, was the main symptom of bowel obstruction. It meant nothing could get through. My body was shutting down.

Dean said, “She’s throwing up now.”

Dr. J said,
“Goddamn it.”
I’d never heard him have that reaction. He was always positive.

I screamed from the backseat, “Is it a bowel obstruction?”

He said, “It sounds like it could be. I want you to get to the closest hospital.”

Dean pulled off the freeway and spun around. We were headed back to Los Robles.

Meanwhile, in the backseat, things were not going well. Dr. J is usually so upbeat. He breezes right past my histrionics, doing his best to keep me grounded. Now, hearing the quiet anguish in those two words, “Goddamn it,” I spiraled out. Everything started spinning. For all the irrational fears that plagued me my whole life, I had never felt this level of despair. This wasn’t Internet hysteria. My diagnosis was correct. This was it. I was dying.

First I called Mehran, who was at drinks for his birthday. I said, “I’m so sorry. I’m not going to make it.”

He said, “Oh my God, you just had surgery. Of course I didn’t expect you here.”

“No,” I said, “I mean I’m not going to make it. I’m dying. And I just want to tell you that I love you. Can you please call Patti and tell her to do Reiki? Tell her to pray for me. But I think it’s too late. I think my body’s septic. I love you.” I hung up.

Then I said to Dean, “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry this happened. I can’t believe I’m not going to see Liam and Stella and Hattie and Finn grow up. Please tell them how much I love them. And I love you.” I could feel myself slipping away.

Dean was quiet in the front seat. Then I could swear I heard him sniffling. He was crying up there in the front seat. Dean never worries or panics. He thinks he’s invincible. That’s why he keeps riding motorcycles. Even Dean thought I was dying.

Dean sniffled and said, “Don’t. Don’t you say that. This family is nothing without you. You need to tell yourself right now that you are not dying. You are going to be fine. Believe. You have to believe.” His voice was cracking and shaking. I could tell he was crying as he was talking.

He said, “Stay with me. Believe it for me. Believe it for the kids.”

I could feel myself slipping away. But words can be very powerful, and what Dean said somehow sank in. Why was I accepting this? I wasn’t going to die. I was going to pull through. Dean kept talking: “You have to believe you can get through this. See yourself recovering. See yourself with your kids. We’re a family. Keep picturing that. Stay with me.”

All of a sudden, I snapped myself out of it. I shifted from my hyperventilating, swooning state to telling myself,
He’s right. He’s right. Oh my God, he’s right
. Patti has always told me that when I’m freaking out on an airplane I should picture myself at a happy moment in the future. Now I started picturing myself with the kids. I imagined Liam’s wedding, Finn graduating from preschool, Hattie getting her driver’s license, Stella being promoted to editor in chief of
Vogue
. I willed myself to be there for them. I started to breathe again.

When we arrived at the hospital, my normally mellow husband flew out of the car and grabbed the nearest hospital employee. From the backseat I could hear him saying, “I need a gurney. Please. My wife.”

He ran up with a nurse, who was pushing a wheelchair. Dean said, “Babe. Babe, they don’t have a gurney available. We need to get you into the wheelchair.”

I gestured for him to come closer and whispered, “I can’t! I shit myself. I’m too embarrassed. Tell her.” I was wearing a long lavender Ella Moss sundress, once breezy and effortless, now befouled. It was not a pretty sight.

Dean dutifully turned to the nurse and told her why I wouldn’t get out of the car.

“Oh, don’t worry,” she said kindly. “I’ve seen everything.”

The two of them transferred me to a wheelchair. The pain was still excruciating, and I was wailing. The nurse took our panic seriously. She pushed me toward the hospital at a full-on run, expertly maneuvering the wheelchair. She could give Dean a run for his money on the bike track. I closed my eyes, now equally terrified of dying from sepsis and being killed in a speeding wheelchair.

“I’m taking her to the waiting room,” the nurse panted.

“She can’t go to the waiting room,” Dean said. “She’s an actress. She can’t be seen like this.”

“Okay,” the nurse said. “I’m not supposed to do this, but I’ll take her straight to triage.”

As she said this, she rounded a tight corner at full speed, hit a curb, and I flew out of the wheelchair into the bushes.

Just then, a nasty nurse appeared (not the one who had pushed me back on the bed). She said, “She has to go through the waiting room.”

Our nurse was committed to my cause. She said, “You don’t understand. She’s a VIP.”

I was lying facedown in the bushes, shaking. My dress was shit-stained. My body contorted in pain. All I could think was,
I sure don’t feel like a VIP right now
.

I DIDN’T HAVE sepsis. It was the laxatives that did me in. My system was so fucked up and tender that the laxatives inflamed it. But I was okay. Later, when I asked Dean if he’d been scared, he said, “No, not at all. I knew you’d be fine.” But I knew the truth. I’d heard him crying and trying to hide it. But he’ll never admit it.

Baby Steps

T
he first month of the kids’ school had passed, during which I wasn’t really cutting the mustard as a room mom for Stella’s preschool class. Throughout my ordeal I had continued to receive e-mails from my co–room moms. One perk of being in the hospital was that it was a great excuse for missing meetings. Now I felt obligated to step up my game.

One of the moms recognized that I was into crafting. She started e-mailing me ideas for what we could do for the fall festival. She wanted to get clear plastic cups, draw pumpkins on them in Sharpie, and fill them with grapes. They were kind of cute—definitely better than a generic, store-bought snack. And she was really excited. She proudly told me that she’d already bought all the plastic cups at Costco. And, PS, she’d signed us both up to set up the booth.

Cut to the day before the fall festival, when this mom got called away on business. Two weeks post-op, and I set up our booth with her husband and Dean. We handed out the plastic cups filled with grapes and Goldfish, and I made the same monster fingers that I’d made for the kids’ preschool: little pizzas with green plastic monster fingers sticking in the middle. I also made monster fingers out of string cheese with green bell pepper nails sitting on a green bed of shredded-coconut grass. Of course, all the kids who visited our booth went straight for the grapes and Goldfish. I tried giving them the hard sell on the monster fingers—“It’s just string cheese! You can brush the coconut off if you don’t like it!”—but the consensus seemed to be that my kid-friendly, theme-appropriate, homemade treats were . . . gross. It’s Halloween, people! It’s supposed to be gross.

THE NEXT PARTY the room moms were responsible for throwing was Christmas. The theme was different countries uniting to celebrate the holiday. The kids were going to put on a performance—all of them wearing ponchos and singing “Feliz Navidad.” I immediately wanted to find out which countries were included in the celebration and to bring in one food from each country. In order to move ahead with this idea, I had to go through an approval process for room parents. Again: There was an approval process for room parents. Beat.

I sent my plan to the room-parent-coordinating poohbah for approval. The response was quick and cutting. She wrote back, “Because in the past the parties have become competitive with some parents showboating, we now tell all room parents that for holiday parties it’s minimal decoration and simple food.” Competitive? Who, me? I couldn’t help wondering if she’d been in touch with someone at Liam and Stella’s former preschool, where I’d made a habit of overdoing it with my holiday treats (I swear the school loved it!).

Anyway, when I read that e-mail, I officially gave up. I wanted out. I’d tried to give what I had to give. Now I would leave them be with their crackers and grapes from Whole Foods. I would throw down my chic chevron flag and walk away.

IN THOSE FIRST months after surgery, I barely left the house. I was still recovering. But one night Mehran and I went to pick up dinner for the kids at Brent’s Deli, which is arguably the best deli in L.A. I’d never been to the Westlake Village location before.

As we were waiting for the food, Mehran and I peeked into the back. There was a bar! They were having happy hour. I ordered wine, and they brought out pickles and little plates of food, like half of a pastrami melt or a French dip. It was a perfect combo. The thought of Dean and I socializing, going to a party, or planning a date night with another couple had no appeal for me. After being in the hospital for so long, only seeing them once or twice a week, all I wanted was to be with my kids. But this . . . this could work.

The next time Mehran and I met to go over Little Maven designs, he said, “And when we’re done we can go to happy hour at Brent’s.”

I said, “You had me at happy hour.”

Happy hour at a deli. It’s the best concept ever. Mehran put it best: “It’s so unchic it’s chic.”

HAPPY HOUR WAS a good warm-up for my return to adult life. Soon I was ready for my first night out. Dean had been on
Rachael vs. Guy
on the Food Network with Carnie Wilson. Now her band, Wilson Phillips, was performing at the Canyon Club, a supper club with big acts. We were excited to go, and for me it promised to be a perfect reentry to the world beyond hospitals and nurseries.

The morning of the concert I had a checkup with my doctor. I went with my friend Jess. On the way home we passed an enormous yard sale. Of course I had to stop.

It was a huge sale. There was junk everywhere, but I hoped that hidden among it I might find some diamonds in the rough. At first glance I thought I was going to make a killing. Then I looked at the prices. We sell vintage coffee and candy tins at my store, InvenTORI. I usually buy them for about three dollars and at retail you mark up a hundred percent. But the tins I found at this sale cost twenty-five dollars each. It was crazy. As I looked, a train wreck of a guy started barking at an old lady.

“Hey, mama,” he said. “You like glasses? See if these are your prescription! She just died last week.” That was his opening line. His selling point was recent death. I perked up. I love a nutty character. Soon, as I’d hoped, he came over to where I was studying the tins.

“Which one you like?” he said.

He was young and definitely stoned. He wore slouchy jeans with underwear sticking out at the waistband and a stained baseball shirt.

“I like this one,” I said, pointing at a tin with a floral pattern. “But this is a lot for it.”

“At that price it’s a
gift
to you,” he said.

I showed him that the lid was warped so that the tin didn’t close properly.

“Knew it,” he said. “You’re a collector.”

“Why does not being able to close the lid mean I’m a collector?” I asked.

“eBay?” he said.

I decided to move on. “Do you have any milk glass?”

He said, “You know milk glass. You’re a collector.”

I noticed a cutesy Danish paddle. It said, “May your friends be many, your troubles few, and your sausages long.”

I picked it up. “I like this,” I said.

“Oh, you like your sausages long?” he said.

“Yeah,” I said. I was loving this. Who was this guy?

He said, “Well, I’m sure I’m longer than your man. I’m fourteen inches. Have to wrap it around my leg and tape it in place every morning.” This man was my dream. Not for his sausage, but as a producer. Where were the reality cameras when I needed them? His tins were overpriced, but his game? Priceless.

A woman, presumably his wife, came out of the house and handed him a tuna sandwich. He started eating it as he followed me around the front yard. Bits of tuna fell down the front of his shirt and rested on the ledge formed by his belly.

Jess happened to be carrying a nice vintage Chanel quilted bag with a chain strap. The man offered to buy her bag. She asked how much he would give her for it. He studied it closely, then said, “Fifteen.” I was appalled. A new Chanel bag like that would be five thousand dollars. Jess’s was vintage, so of course it would be less, but at $1,500 I thought he was lowballing her. Then Jess said, “Fifteen what?”

He said, “Fifteen dollars.”

Fifteen dollars! He had to be joking. I said, “It’s Chanel!”

I thought this guy was hilarious, and I could have bantered with him all day, but it was too hard to buy anything from him. He drove a ridiculously hard bargain, and he kept accusing me of wanting to sell his stuff on eBay. After the fifth time, I wanted to tell him, “Dude, I’m not some eBay hack. Google me.”

I ended up buying a few tins, and the Danish paddle, of course. Even more exciting than my purchases was the fact that I’d actually taken another dip into the real world. Part of why I didn’t want friends to visit me in the hospital was that I’m used to telling funny little stories about my day. Stuck in the hospital, I had nothing to tell. I felt useless. I could go to the concert tonight armed with tales of Tuna Fish Shirt. Bill and Scout love estate sales. I couldn’t wait to download our adventure that night over wine at Wilson Phillips.

What was I thinking? It had been so long since I’d gone to a concert that I’d forgotten what it’s like. It was way too loud. I couldn’t tell my story and act it out properly. I’d get my mojo back. I just had to hold on for one more day.

I Am Tori Spelling

A
fter Finn was born, I continued to work with Patti, the Reiki healer. Lately she’d been talking to me about being my father’s daughter. She said, “Everything is changing for you. You’ve been in transition. You’re Tori Spelling. You have to claim that now. You’ve been shying away from it.”