Spelling It Like It Is (10 page)

We soon found ourselves driving to the Valley, to the very area we’d left. We’d spend a Saturday at the Topanga mall, shopping, eating in the food court, and scrambling around the indoor playground. I couldn’t help thinking,
I used to live ten minutes from this mall
.

What possessed me? What made me think it was okay to move from a six-thousand-square-foot house to a two-thousand-square-foot house . . . with a baby on the way? I know I was swayed by the acreage. The chickens would have a huge coop. Hank the pig would love it. But why didn’t I spend more time thinking about where my children would sleep? When it came down to it, we hadn’t bought a house where we could live. It was a what-if house. An if-we-had-another-million-dollars house. I’d spent all my time fantasizing about tending to my chickens in a painted coop with a chandelier hanging inside. I hadn’t taken the time to think about whether we’d be happy there in the interim—before we could make all the changes I envisioned. To be honest, all I really asked the Realtor was whether the house was haunted. I didn’t want to live in a place where someone had died.

I thought back to the single time we’d met the former owners of the house. The Realtor had told us they were downsizing. They’d raised two kids here, picking blackberries in the backyard, and now for financial reasons needed something smaller. We were already in escrow, but we’d come to see the house one more time. The owners were already starting to move their stuff.

“Where are you moving?” I asked the woman.

“We’re moving to a house off Mulholland. It’s an extensive property, and we’re having trouble with the contractor who’s building it.”

This whole notion of downsizing was a lie. They weren’t downsizing. They were upgrading. The house was a money pit.

I wanted a farmhouse—but one that was completely updated with gleaming hardwood floors and modern appliances. I wanted a flower bed and a garden. I was having such a nice summer at our rental house in Malibu that I wanted that to be my life. But even that house was over three thousand square feet! My friends, including Jenny, claim I didn’t show them the house until I’d already bought it.

Sometimes I think I got lost in the madness of the reality show. The producer in me thought,
What a great story line! All of us crowded in a small house, roughing it until we have the money to expand. We could do this, and we could film it too!
Producers want conflict. But this was my real life. Why had I brought this on myself? I didn’t want to live a life of self-inflicted contrived conflict!

Or did this go beyond the reality madness? Why couldn’t I settle down in a home? What was I searching for?

At the same time as I asked myself these questions, I thought about the space, and baby number four, and what lay ahead. No matter how fickle I was about my real estate decisions, this time we really had to move. We had to move.

This time it wasn’t an exciting prospect. It was an overwhelming problem. We’d bought the house in Malibu before we sold our house in Encino. We’d ended up selling Encino at a loss. A big loss. We couldn’t afford to buy another house.

Song and Dance

I
was panicked about wanting to move, having the new baby, and being able to afford all of it. Whenever I panic about money, I spring into action. We found out I was pregnant the first week of January. I quickly landed two jobs that were both supposed to start right away, at the same time in different cities, but after some rescheduling it was all set: The first week of February I would film a Christmas TV movie for ABC Family. It was called
The Mistle-Tones
, and it was shooting in Utah. The minute I returned, I’d start filming a new reality competition series,
Craft Wars
, for TLC. When it rains it pours. I didn’t mention to either job that I was pregnant. It was still too early—we had heard the heartbeat and my doctor said that everything looked good, but what if something went wrong? I was worried about taking on so much work with two kids, a newborn, and a secret pregnancy. But if I wanted to find us a way out of Malibu in time for baby number four, I’d have to work my ass off throughout the pregnancy.

When I was first offered the role of Marci in
The Mistle-Tones
, my reaction was:
A Christmas movie of the week—cool!
In the nineties, movies of the week had been my bread and butter (
Mother, May I Sleep with Danger?
anyone?). As I skimmed the script I grew confused. Wait a minute, the lead character was Holly! Who was Marci? I flipped back through the script. Oh. Marci was the second lead. I was bummed. I used to be the star of the screen for two hours. Now I was playing second fiddle. This was where my life had gone. And my character was very one-note—a bitchy, territorial leader of a singing group. I had a call with the writers. Could Marci be campy and snarky but also get in her own way? So she wasn’t just a straight-on bitch? The writers were on board with making her a bit more dimensional, so I felt better about it.

In the beginning, the producers asked if I could sing. Through my agent, I told them that I’d done a little singing in movies, but not much. They said not to worry—I had maybe one line in a Christmas song, like “walking in a winter wonderland” or something like that. That was my only solo.

Next thing I knew, I was told to meet with a voice coach in L.A., Eric Vetro. This voice coach was
the
guy. Voice coach to the stars. Yikes. As soon as Eric Vetro heard me sing one note, he’d surely send me packing. But as I sat waiting outside his music room, I heard his prior appointment working with him in the other room. It was some actress singing horribly off-key. I heard him say, “Okay, that’s great.” That made me feel better. I heard him say good-bye, and then the actress walked out of the room. It was Katie Holmes.

I’d met Katie Holmes years ago, in her
Dawson’s Creek
days, when I was still on
90210
. A friend of mine at the time did a movie with her,
Teaching Mrs. Tingle
. One night he said, “Can I bring Katie from my movie out to drinks?” We went to Trader Vic’s, which was my go-to hang at the time. We ordered the Scorpion Bowl, their signature drink, which was served in a big white Hawaiian bowl with a bunch of straws for sharing. It was kind of gross when you thought about it. We were all swapping spit. But at least the alcohol killed the germs.
Dawson’s Creek
Katie was exactly what you’d expect. She was wearing jeans and a tank top. Her hair was down. She was shy but engaging, and altogether pretty adorable. It was a long time ago, but I remembered the night pretty well. She must have remembered too.

“Hi, how are you?” she said.

I said, “Oh, hi!” I didn’t know whether we should hug or shake hands. But the signal from her was immediately clear: Don’t even come close. I instantly got nervous. We clearly weren’t going to catch up on the last ten years. And we certainly weren’t going to talk about her husband, Tom Cruise. (I had a
Top Gun
poster of him in my room growing up, just like she did.) When all else fails, I always pull out the mommy card. It breaks the tension. “Your daughter is adorable. I have kids around the same age.”

“Oh, do you?” she said.

Then I was annoyed. Come on. Okay, I know you’re busy. But you’re in the public eye. Don’t tell me you don’t follow the tabloids. Don’t tell me you don’t know anything about other celebrities and their kids.

“Yes, my son is almost five. My daughter’s almost four, and I just had a baby.”

She said, “Oh? Congratulations.” Then we stood there. She was just plastic. In a perfectly polite way.

“Well, good to see you,” I said. She went out to her car, and her driver whisked her away.

I was sweating. My pits were drenched. I never sweat. It was that awkward. I thought,
I know you’re not a robot because
you can’t sing for shit
. (Oh my God, I’m a mean person.) As my anxiety faded, I just felt sorry for her. I hadn’t expected her to reminisce, but this was a totally different person from the girl I’d met at Trader Vic’s. I felt sad for her. Those paparazzi photos, the ones where she looks like she’s miserable but putting on a happy face? That’s what she looked like in person. Not long after that encounter, the news would break that she and Tom had split up.

Now it was my turn to meet with Eric Vetro. When I walked in and we met, he said, “Actually, we met once before. I came to your mom’s Christmas party. I was Sean Hayes’s plus-one.” Me, Katie, Eric, Sean, Candy. Such a small world.

His studio walls were covered with records. There were pictures of every celebrity. If they could sing, or be made to sing, then so could I . . . right? The producers had sent a tape with the music I was supposed to sing. Eric played it for me. It was a whole song, start to finish. I was singing solo. And this wasn’t good old “Jingle Bells.” It was Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas Is You” and the person singing it on the demo was way out of my league.

The voice coach said, “They’re going for a
Glee
sound with the song.” As if that was at all useful to me. It just made it all the more scary.

“I can’t sing like that,” I told the voice coach. “I can sing cute! But I can’t belt out notes. And I just had a baby! I don’t have the air.” I was going to work this newborn thing for as long as I could. The truth was, whatever it was that one might do to work one’s diaphragm, I hadn’t done it in years. Unless it was covered in the Malibu dance class I did that one time.

“Let’s just try,” he said. “Don’t worry. The worst that happens is that they bring a professional singer in.”

I apologized a million times, and he could see how worried I was.

“Let me get you some Throat Coat tea,” he said. “It helps relax your vocal cords.”

But before he could get the tea, he took a business call. Then he left the room, and when he came back, he didn’t have any tea. I was too shy to mention it, so I just took a sip from my water bottle.

He said, “Let’s practice scales.”

I sang a scale. “That was terrible!” I moaned.

“Stop doubting yourself. Let’s do the song line by line. We’ll ease into it.”

I started the song. It was not going well.

He said, “Take a sip of your Throat Coat tea.”

But I didn’t have the tea. He’d never gotten me any. I smiled and took a sip of my water, hoping he’d forget about it.

“No, try the tea,” he said.

“No, I’m okay,” I said.

He reached over to a table beside me and picked up a Styrofoam cup. “Take a sip,” he said.

He was holding the cup right up to my face. It was almost empty. He was being insistent and I was so mortified that I couldn’t bring myself to say, “This is Katie Holmes’s cold backwash of Throat Coat tea.”

I drank it. As he watched, I downed Katie Holmes’s backwash. It was gross and creepy and definitely unsanitary. Sure, we’d swapped spit years ago with the Scorpion Bowl, but that had germ-killing alcohol! It was disgusting, but in some weird universe, it was better than drinking a stranger’s tea. At least she was an A-lister. Or married to one.

By the end of our session Eric had me record the whole song. I could hear that it was off, but not bad for my first time singing in years. He told me that if we had weeks to work on it, we could probably get it to a place where I was comfortable, but since we only had one session, he was going to recommend that they bring in someone to mix with my voice and enhance it. I was fine with that!

A few days later I went to a recording session. I recorded the song, and then a cute professional singer in her thirties sang along with my recording. I heard her do it. She had a soulful, raspy voice. I have a white-girl cutesy voice. They had her do it again with a more pop-y feel. Of course she could do that—she could do anything. This girl was known for matching different singers’ voices. She’d done Beyoncé, Britney Spears, Jennifer Lopez. In theory, her voice would blend with mine, enhancing the places I couldn’t hit.

I didn’t hear the song until I was on set and had to mouth it. I was aghast. It was probably 95 percent professional singer and 5 percent me. At best. I could barely recognize myself until it came to the last “All I want for Christmas is you.” The very last word of the song was me. And one “baby” somewhere in there. Ah well, I never said I could sing.

TWO DAYS BEFORE the whole family left for Utah, I got a massage at home in Malibu. I was eight weeks pregnant. My friend Cheyenne, who used to do massages for us (and, let’s not forget, the fabulous Kelly Wearstler), had been on maternity leave for a while, and since Hattie was four months old I’d been working with a male masseuse whom Cheyenne had suggested. When she first recommended Brendan, I asked if he was gay. She said she couldn’t divulge that information, but that the two of us would get along. From that, I was confident that he was straight-friendly. I hadn’t known him long, but I was semicomfortable with him. Still, I didn’t tell him I was pregnant. I wasn’t telling anyone yet, and it was early enough that I could still lie on my stomach and not worry about it.

I lay down on the table on my stomach. Brendan had barely started when I coughed. I felt something wet—had I peed a little? How weird and embarrassing. Maybe this was what happened in a fourth pregnancy. Anyway, Brendan started working on my shoulders, and I felt more wetness. This was getting awkward. I hoped the pee wasn’t visible or anything. Then Brendan paused to get a sip of water and I reached down to the wetness. I looked at my hand and freaked when I realized it was blood. I rolled over and looked down at myself. There was blood everywhere. A lot of blood. My heart dropped. My fingertips went numb. I screamed, “Oh my God! I’m so sorry. I have to get up. I’m pregnant. And I’m bleeding. I think I’m having a miscarriage. I’m so sorry, oh, I don’t know what to do.”

I climbed off the table and headed to the bathroom, yelling for Dean. By the time I cleaned myself up, it seemed that the bleeding had stopped. But I had no idea what it meant. Had I miscarried? I texted Dr. J and sent him a picture of the blood.