There Was a Little Girl: The Real Story of My Mother and Me (33 page)

The movie was very mediocre but the experience was incredible. I lived in a tent on stilts in the jungle and never needed to wear a watch. The experience was somewhat reminiscent of filming
The Blue Lagoon
because we were so isolated and were dictated primarily by the environment. But this time I was without my mother. We raised two leopard cubs and filmed them all the time. We were on a reserve park in the Eastern Transvaal and only left once in three months. I had
very little downtime but I spent all of it writing letters and walking these letters to our makeshift offices, which had various information-transmitting devices.

A friend of mine from Los Angeles (Lyndie G, Kenny G’s wife) had been gently pushing me to meet her friend Andre Agassi. I was in no place to be in a relationship and had kept putting it off. While living in South Africa, I began thinking a lot about my life and what I wanted it to look like. I knew I needed to separate professionally from my mother so as to gain a sense of autonomy and career perspective. I also I wanted to find a relationship with somebody not threatened by my celebrity and secure in his own profession. I still did not feel totally ready for a boyfriend or husband but I wanted to enjoy my solitude in this camp and settle my mind and my heart. I was always open to friendships and was enjoying those friends I had recently acquired on the film.

Lyndie wrote to me and gave me Andre’s fax number, and said I should fax him, the only reliable and fast way to be in touch from the
set. With thousands of miles between us, we began to communicate via long rambling faxes about life and God and the strange burden of fame and overpowering parents. Andre’s father was, in my opinion, far worse than my mom ever was. He was the one who pushed his children to be professional tennis players and would throw away Andre’s trophies if they were anything less than first place. My mom kept my Hula-Hoop trophy for twenty years. His dad had managed his career until Andre broke free and hired a manager. Andre and I both understood what it felt like to be famous and to have strong parents who controlled much of our lives.

We were similar in so many ways. Even though he was from Vegas and I was from Manhattan, we both still felt like little kids who had dealt with adult pressures and been given a great deal of responsibility at a young age. We both had begun very young and had been defined by others before developing our own sense of self-awareness. We had grown up in extraordinary circumstances and were desperate to find our place in the world. We were mirrors of one another, and we knew, somewhere deep inside, that we needed each other.

Every day on
Running Wild
I would wake very early before my call time and I would write my letter. Sometimes I had to finish it on the bumpy Jeep ride out to a far-off location and then give it to the cook to take to the office at base camp. I’d wait for Andre’s faxes to come in and save them to read by myself at my favorite spot near the river. The people in the office would radio the set if a fax came in and everybody eagerly anticipated how happy I seemed when I got one. Let’s just say I was pretty darn happy those three months.

It was like we were living in a different time. This was our carrier-pigeon romance. We poured ourselves into our faxes; they were like diaries in which we were able to explore who we were and who we wanted to be. We got to daydream and hope and cry and believe we could be deeply happy. My mom was nowhere near any of it and this freed my mind and my heart.

Both Andre and I were at a turning point in our lives when we met. He had just had wrist surgery and was not sure he would ever play tennis again, and I was desperately seeking to reclaim my floundering career. And we were falling in love by fax.

•   •   •

When the film wrapped and I went back to the United States, we began to talk on the phone and arranged to meet the next time I was in LA.

Back in New Jersey, Mom seemed to have settled into a drinking pattern consisting of binge drinking followed by a few days seemingly on the wagon before digging in again. Other times she’d maintain a low but constant hum of drunkenness throughout every day. What was different was that I was not living inside it and enveloped by it. I was preoccupied by it always, but the periodic distances—whether created by my being away on location or just by living in Manhattan and away from the dark Tudor house in Haworth—helped me stay afloat. Mom seemed to be happy about this kid Andre who was very famous and who, according to her, “obviously had a father worse than even me. Maybe you’ll feel lucky, Brooke.”

Mom and I flew out to LA to film some final city scenes for the movie, and stayed at a little bungalow we had bought a few years after Princeton. Andre came over to take me to dinner. He met Mom while wearing faded light jeans with serious holes in them, Nikes, and a T-shirt. His hair was vintage Andre hair, mostly blond with some brown bits and longer than even mine was at the time. I had no idea that he was wearing taped-on extensions but I would discover it much later, when he would tell me in an emotional and embarrassed admission. He looked like a rock star, complete with Oakley sunglasses and a cool sports car.

As he was walking away to get the door, Mom pointed to a specific hole in his jeans over his top left butt cheek. The hole had frayed and
it was obvious he was either not wearing any underwear or wearing a thong. (I would later learn that it was a thong). Mom secretly pointed to it and seemed to motion to me to touch it. Without even considering that this might have been rude and possibly premature, I put my index finger right on the skin peeking out through the material. He jumped and I said I just couldn’t help it. Who the hell knows what he thought of that intro? What type of a mother tells her daughter to do that? And what type of a daughter obeys without considering the possible consequences? But later on he would comment on the fact that after spending some more time with me, he realized he was with a “real woman.” If he thought I was a “real woman,” I can only imagine the level of immaturity he had been used to in dating. The truth was that I was far from being a self-actualized woman. But compared to the way he felt and to those other famous people he had met, I guess it could seem like I had my life together.

His perception should have sent up a red flag, but alas, I was on a path I would not want to or be able to get off of for five years.

After the scene I had to shoot was completed, Andre flew me out to Las Vegas in his very own plane, where he’d grown up and still lived. I spent a very chaste first weekend with him in his gated community house on a golf course. All the houses looked alike and there was a Stepford-wives sensibility to the community. It was quiet and clean and surreal. This whole existence represented the antithesis of every aesthetic I had ever known and loved in New York City. It felt alien and wonderfully homogenized.

We drank champagne and talked endlessly about the similarities between our upbringings and about the crush of fame. We had both reached stardom at very young ages and had demonstrative parents. We were both highly publicized figures and were struggling with the demands of being in the public eye as well as dealing with the pressure of trying to grow up under the scrutiny of the press. We understood one another. We complained about how deeply dissatisfied we
both were with our careers. His was from a lack of love for it and mine from a seemingly unrequited love from it. The air in Vegas at the beginning of fall was still and the temperature perfect. The sky was like a pastel watercolor and Andre exuded respect.

I expected nothing from him, and in this environment I felt safe. And for some reason, I was not considering my mom’s feelings in any of it. He was a very gentle soul and seemingly calm and devoid of unnecessary drama. I actually felt more settled than I had in years. I thought we were becoming special to each other in a very unique way. It was not clouded by passion or fear but fueled by respect and fresh perspective. It felt like a safe respite from a life that had been beating me down. I felt like I’d finally found a relationship in which I felt totally understood. Even though we were actually just kids, we both possessed a level of self-awareness. We were somehow grounded and individually intent on self-improvement. Andre and I wanted to thrive, not just survive.

I also had a foot surgery planned and was not sure I would ever be able to dance the same again. After years of being in excruciating pain, I decided to get both bunions on my feet removed. The surgery was the next week and I knew that I’d be out of commission for a least three months. I hoped we would keep in touch but had no expectations. I did not anticipate more than the probable reversion back to the fax machine, but I was in for the shock of my life.

Andre knew when my surgery was and asked if I minded his coming to New York to visit. I had nothing to lose and said yes. It was the first time I had ever had major surgery and was actually a bit nervous. It was elective but so necessary to alleviate the chronic pain.

Mom was supposed to take me but got drunk the night before and I couldn’t count on her. She got angry when she realized that Andre was going to visit. I can’t remember if he brought me to surgery, but I do remember transferring my need to be taken care of onto Andre almost immediately when I realized Mom was drunk. It was a perfect
position for both of us. I needed to be cared for and he needed to caretake. He did it sublimely.

After the operation, he and his trainer and close friend Gil Reyes loaded me up in the back of an SUV for the drive back to New Jersey. Once home they carried me and got me settled into my hospital bed that had been set up in the first-floor sunroom. It would be easier and quieter there than in New York City. I was groggy and exhausted and in no pain . . . yet. I could tell that Mom was deeply unsettled that Andre was around and that his main focus was caring for me. I knew she was thrown but I honestly was too exhausted and drugged up to address any of it. Nobody had ever shown me such interest and seeming commitment, and I am sure she felt threatened. I could tell she liked him because she didn’t whisper behind his back to me but I could tell this was all getting a bit too close for her comfort. She seemed awkward and uncomfortable. Mom tried to regain control and kept insisting that Andre sleep in the guest room, but he kept refusing, saying that he would rather stay near me. He put the sofa cushions on the floor by my bed and he refused to leave. Mom was getting visibly angry and did not like anybody not doing as she said.

“Oh, you’re that kind,” she scoffed, and went into the kitchen.

I went in and out of sleep all through the night. If I shifted and a foot fell of its elevated position, Andre would jump up to right it. This vigilant attention left me in a daze. Nobody had ever taken care of me like this. Honestly it felt too good to be true but I did not fight it. I guess it was his version of strapping me to his chest and it felt good. The irony was that Mom chalked it up to control issues on Andre’s part, and the competition for my loyalty began. I knew Mom would ultimately have been capable of tending to me, but I also knew she would be drinking throughout. I also had Lisa a few streets away. I was extremely vulnerable and scared and the pain was mounting.

At one point, Lisa came to visit and I found myself trying to make light of the fact that she and my mother were in the kitchen getting
drunk on Zima while I lay incapacitated and defenseless. Andre was appalled. I was broken and he was going to fix me. More writing on the wall that I should have seen, but the solid support felt intoxicating and I signed up with every ounce of my soul.

For the first time in my life, somebody stood up for what was best for me without any regard for, or disrespect of, my mother. Other boyfriends in the past either tried to ally me against my mother or were so threatened by her that they shrunk a bit around her. Those who thought they were going to be the ones to stand up to my mother and defend me were in over their heads, while the other, more intimidated ones lost my respect. There never seemed to be a loving happy medium. I couldn’t strike it myself and needed somebody to help balance me.

With Andre I instantly felt a vicarious thrill. To me it seemed that he was never rude but simply forthright and steadfast. I could learn from him in how he dealt with things. He seemed straightforward and loving yet honest. There was no fight. He had come to support me and that was what he was going to do. It was a pretty funny sight—Tennis Boy from Vegas sleeping on the floor on three square floral chintz pillows lined up vertically next to a hospital bed holding a girl whose both feet were broken and held together by pins, while her mother and best friend were getting hammered on shitty malt liquor in the nearby kitchen. Oh, the glamour. Andre and I actually had such a laugh that I never wanted him to leave my side. I was going to be safe. I was no longer alone.

In a few days Andre had to return home. But he had made his mark on my heart and I planned to visit him as soon as I could.

•   •   •

I healed rather quickly, as did Andre from a wrist surgery, and he began a first comeback in tennis. I started spending as much time with him as I could, which usually meant I would follow him around the country to watch him play tennis. I did my rehabilitation alongside him in his
training sessions and we both soul-searched and trained our bodies and our minds. It was an evolution and a security I had never experienced.