Breach of Promise (13 page)

During the recess Alex took me down the stairs to the cafeteria on the second floor of the courthouse. We bought coffee and she took me to a corner table where we could talk without a reporter listening in.

“Is there anything else you need to tell me?” Alex said. “Think hard.”
“Honestly, I don’t think so,” I said. “I’m really sorry about the bottle thing. I just wanted it to go away.”
“Instead, it sticks. If I’d known about it, I could have brought it up first and lessened the impact. But they did, and the judge looks at it as something we were trying to keep from him. Honesty, even if it hurts, is the best policy when you talk to your lawyer.”
I was suddenly aware of someone standing next to the table. It was a young woman with short, styled hair and glasses with black frames.
“Excuse me,” she said. “I’m Jan Solomon,
LA Times.
Mind if I—”
“I’m sorry,” Alex said. “I’m in conference with my client.”
“If I could just get a statement.”
“No statements at this time.”
The reporter looked at me. “Don’t you want to tell your side?”
“He is telling his side in court,” Alex said.
“About the bottle-throwing incident?”
“We really have nothing to say.”
“Because it looked pretty bad in there.”
My chest tightened. Alex got a look in her eyes like a tiger. That heartened me. What I needed was someone to fight for me, in and out of court.
“No statements, Ms. Solomon. Now if you’ll excuse us?”
Alex’s expression worked wonders. The reporter, without another word, walked away.
“Thanks,” I said.
“You will not talk to reporters without my say, understood?”
“Understood.”
“Back to business. The judge seemed impressed with the abuse allegation. Throwing the bottle made the difference.”
“Can I get on the stand and explain?”
“It won’t do any good. We agree you threw the bottle, even though not at her. What we’re going to ask for is an emergency screening.”
“What’s that?”
“When one party is withholding custody the judge can order an evaluation to take place immediately. Within twenty-four hours. The evaluator will interview you, Paula, and most likely Maddie.”
“Then what?”
“He or she makes a recommendation to the judge, who will more than likely follow it. It can be anything from full custody to no contact at all, pending a complete evaluation.”
“And how long can
that
take?”
“A month, sometimes more.”
“More? You mean I might not see Maddie for over a month?”
“It’s possible.”
“I want to know how possible.” I could feel my face flush as I tried to process the thought of not seeing or hugging my daughter for that amount of time. How could they do this? I was beginning to understand what was behind some of the things Joe Pfeffer told me. Dads going a little nuts.
“It all depends on you and the evaluator,” Alex said, “and I want you to be very aware of that fact. You are to be truthful and calm. Hostility is something they are going to look for in you. Do not show it. We’ll talk more later when—” Alex’s look swept past me. “Who is this?”
I turned around and saw Ron Reid, all smiles in his Hawaiian shirt, jeans, and sandals, striding towards us.
“The clerk upstairs said I might find you here,” Ron said. He put his hand out to Alex. “I’m Ron Reid, Mark’s father.”
“I’m Alex Bedrosian, his lawyer.”
There was no doubt at all who was the more important person in my life.
“I just wanted to show up and be a support,” Ron said.
“Thank you,” Alex said. “That was very nice.”
She was sincere. But I also heard an edge in her voice that was meant to be a subtle signal.
“Anything to help,” Ron said.
“Mr. Reid, I need to talk to Mark about a few more things.”
“Mind if I?” He grabbed a chair from a neighboring table and slid it to ours.
“Ron,” I said quickly, “this needs to be private.”
“Oh,” he said in mid squat. “Sorry. Sure. Hey. I’ll see you later then, huh?”
“Right.”
Looking embarrassed, Ron Reid left us.
All part of the Wheel,
I wanted to say.
Alex brought us back to the moment at hand, laying out what would happen when court resumed, preparing me.
I assured her I got it, that I was ready. And for a small moment in time, sitting at that table, I thought maybe things would start to turn my way a little bit. Get this screening over with, get to see Maddie again, maybe in a couple of days.
But I wasn’t ready. How do you get ready for a landslide that buries you?

The first boulder knocked me down the next morning. Ron was snoring away on the sofa when I went downstairs to get my
LA Times.
The front page had a headline about a speech by the president the night before. His picture was there with the American flag in the background.
I flipped the front page over to see what was below the fold. Something about an earthquake in Guatemala killing a few thousand people. A possible medical breakthrough for balding men.
Same old, same old.
But then, just before I started back up the stairs, I saw it.
On the bottom of the front page the
Times
runs some highlights of what’s inside. Paula’s name jumped out at me like a neon sign. A gossip bit about the child custody fight. And a father going berserk.
My hands started sweating as I pulled out the Metro section. Page two. And there it was, for all the world to see.

Paula Montgomery, who is hotter than hot after nabbing a role in the latest Antonio Troncatti film (and Troncatti himself, we might add!), was in court yesterday, trying to convince a judge to let her keep custody of her daughter, Madeleine, pending divorce proceedings. She is repped by none other than Bryce Jennings, which is not good news for the father, sometime actor Mark Gillen. Add this to the plotline: Gillen’s own father, Ronald Reid, is an excon who has suddenly turned up on the scene. We don’t know if this complicates matters or not, but it may explain one thing, the bottle Gillen threw at Montgomery in Beverly Hills. During what was supposed to be a civil meal to discuss Madeleine, Gillen threw a bottle of sparkling water at Montgomery. The bottle shattered on the sidewalk, injuring no one, but putting Montgomery in fear for her well-being—and that of her child. Gillen and his attorney, Alex Bedrosian, refused comment. But Reid had his own opinion: “Mark’s going through a tough time right now. I’m just trying to help him through it, keep him from erupting.” Maybe Gillen’s next role will be that of volcano.

Stunned is too weak a word for what I felt. And like it or not I couldn’t keep down a very real eruption bubbling up in me.
My face was burning by the time I slammed back into the apartment.
“Wake up!”
Ron was groggy under the blanket on the sofa. I yanked off the blanket. Ron was in boxer shorts. “Huh?”
“You talked to a reporter?”
“Oh.” He rubbed his eyes. “Yeah.”
“And told them I’m going to erupt?”
“Huh?”
I shoved the paper at him. “Look at that!”
He took the paper and sat up. I gave him time to read it, thinking I could get my breathing back down to normal range.
Finally he said, “It’s not that bad.”
With an angry swipe I ripped the paper out of his hands. “Not that bad? The judge is going to think I’m a walking time bomb or something.”
“Well, aren’t you?”
I gawked at him.
“I mean,” Ron said, scratching himself, “you’ve been uptight ever since I’ve known you. I was just hoping . . .”
“Hoping what?”
“I could help a little, you know?”
“By flapping your yapper?”
“No, by being a father for once in my life.”
He looked down at the floor. And my anger started to subside a little. What was I looking at, anyway? A man whose life had pretty much gone down the toilet and maybe was looking for some self-respect. Problem was, it was at my expense. The way the cards were dealt, I just happened to be his son. That was nobody’s fault.
One thing you don’t want to do is take away a man’s last shred of dignity. I saw that happen to a friend of mine, a forty-year-old character actor, who got ripped one day by a producer, a twentyfive-year-old New Yorker. The kid told my friend he was not a hasbeen but a never-was and a never-would-be. And I stood there and watched it. Nothing I could do consoled my friend, who later tried to kill himself with sleeping pills. He recovered, but left town for parts unknown. I don’t know what happened to him.
So I stopped short of telling Ron Reid he was a boil on the backside of my existence.
“Look, I appreciate the attempt,” I said. “But it didn’t help. I don’t want you talking to reporters, or showing up to court hearings, okay? Or living here. You’ve got a job now, maybe you can go out and get a place today.”
There was a look of hurt on his face for a second. Then he said, “I’ll try.”
I sighed. “Let me give you some money to tide you over.”
“You don’t have to.”
“You’ll pay me back. If you need somebody to cosign for a place, I’ll do that, too. But Ron . . .”
He looked at me.
“No more trying to help on the custody thing. Okay?”

The bad part was I did not get a call from Nancy. Usually, following good news or bad, I get a quick call from my agent. That’s the good part of Nancy Radford. Unlike a lot of Hollywood agents, she keeps in touch with clients even if they’re not “hot.” There were times I had been in the ice tray and she still called me.
She always read the
Times
—both LA and New York—in the morning, and then the trades. She would have spotted the item about Paula and me. She should have called to buck me up a little. Maybe she was sick. Maybe she had some emergency. Or maybe she was really upset with me.
An actor’s mind plays all sorts of tricks when his agent doesn’t call. Mine did.
So I was not exactly in the best frame of mind when I arrived for my meeting with the court-appointed evaluator.
Her name was Sheila Bonner and she looked about thirteen. Her office was in a bank building in Encino. She was one of four names on a door on the third floor. Marriage and Family Counseling was the designation.
She did not smile once during our meeting.
“We’re here for an emergency screening,” she said. I thought of that Monty Python skit,
I’m here for an argument,
but kept my mouth shut as she closed the door to her small, inner office.
There were a couple of diplomas on her wall which, I trusted, meant she knew what she was doing.
“I’ll ask you some questions, Mr. Gillen,” Sheila Bonner said. “But I’d like to encourage you to open up as much as possible. Give me any information you deem relevant.”
“Sure.”
“Now, the court has asked me to discuss the relative merits of the two, distinct living situations. There is a slight burden upon you to justify a return of the child pending final disposition. Is that clear to you?”
“I guess.”
“You guess?”
“What I mean is, I’m not sure why that should be, but I’ll answer any questions you have as best I can.”
She went for it without a flinch. “What assurances can you give me about your relationship with your daughter?”
I told myself to relax, feeling my jaw tense as I did. “Well, my relationship with my daughter, when I had it, was great.”
“In what way?”
“Every way.”
“Isn’t that a bit of an overstatement?”
“I don’t think . . .” I stopped. Quick analysis. Alex had told me to be honest and objective. Yeah, of course I was overstating it. Making myself look good.
“You don’t think what, Mr. Gillen?”
“I don’t think there was any big negative with Maddie. There was the normal stuff a kid does that irritates the parent.”
“Can you give me an example?”
I thought a moment. “A month or so ago she decided the funniest thing in the world was to make a fart sound on her arm.”
Sheila Bonner said nothing.
“You know,” I explained. “Putting her lips right here—” indicating the elbow crook—“and
blat.
“This was an irritant to you?”
“After about the hundredth time.”
“You didn’t view this as the child’s exercise of expression?”
“Yeah, of course I did.”
“But you didn’t say that.”
I felt my right hand clenching. “You asked me about something that irritated me.”
“Yes, and that’s what we’re exploring.”
Who are you? Lewis and Clark?
“I mean, if it keeps going on and on, you tell her to knock it off. And when she doesn’t, you get a little ticked.”
“Were those your words? ‘Knock it off’?”
“I don’t remember my words exactly. No, I don’t think I said that to her. I was saying that to you.” And whatever I was saying was coming out wrong. Not the way I wanted it to sound.
“Do you get irritated easily?” Sheila Bonner said.
Like now?
“I don’t think of myself that way.”
“What about the bottle-throwing incident?”
“I didn’t get a chance to explain in court.”
“Go ahead.”
“Yeah, I lost my temper there. I just wanted to get through to Paula. She’s my wife. She left me for another man. She wouldn’t listen.”
“So you threw the bottle at her?”
“No. That wasn’t it. I threw it at the ground. I just wanted to be heard. Like now.”
“Do you think I’m not listening to you, Mr. Gillen?”
What was she doing? Trying to bait me? Then it occurred to me that’s exactly what she was trying to do.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m just a little upset at this whole thing. You would be too if someone wanted to . . . do you have kids?”
Wrong question. I could tell by the look on her face she didn’t, and resented my asking.
“Let’s keep the focus where it needs to be, Mr. Gillen.”
“Sorry.”
“Are you sorry? Or are you saying that just to please me?”
Oh man!
“All I’m trying to say is that I love my daughter, I would never hurt her, and I want to be with her.”
“Do you want to be with her because it’s a way of getting her away from your wife?”
“No, that’s not it at all.”
She pushed her glasses up on her nose.
“Tell me about your father,” she said.
“My father has not been part of my life.”
“Why is that?”
“He was never around. He went to prison.”
“What for?”
“I’m not sure. Something drug related.”
“But he’s back now?”
“A surprise to me.”
“Is he living with you?”
“Was. He’s out getting a place even as we speak.”
“His status is a bit unfortunate for this case.”
“He seems to be okay now,” I said. Funny, but I was jumping to his defense without qualm. “I mean, he did his time. He’s looking for work.”
Sheila Bonner scribbled a note to herself. I wanted desperately to see what it was.
“Please,” I said. “Please let me see my daughter. With everything in me I’m telling you I am not going to do anything wrong. I just want to hold her again. I miss her . . .” My voice choked. I felt embarrassed.
“Let’s take a short break,” she said.