Still Growing: An Autobiography (20 page)

He seemed nervous and somewhat awkward that evening, but 100-percent genuine. He had no pretension, which was incredibly refreshing.

I liked him from the start. I found myself thinking about him when I left work.

When my friends heard I was working on
Growing Pains
, the common question was, “What’s Kirk Cameron like?”

“You’d be so surprised,” I answered. He seemed like somebody I could have grown up with on the East Coast. It kind of floored me. He didn’t strike me as a self-absorbed, Hollywood teen idol.

He was really sweet and down to earth, and kind of shy. And his mouth! I was crazy about his mouth. He had the greatest crooked smile—I would just watch him as he talked to me. Sometimes I wouldn’t even hear what he was saying. I was just thinking,
I would love to kiss that mouth
.

When Chelsea came back for 13 weeks, I about flipped when I read the script titled “Triangle.” There, in the middle of the episode, I was supposed to kiss her.

What are the writers thinking? I’m going to kill ’em. They’re going to blow my cover!

I tried to play it calm and cool during the initial table reading, though my heart thumped like the bass to an MC Hammer hit. In the script, Kate and Mike are in an acting class together, performing a scene from a play. Mike is playing George, who says to Kate’s Virginia, “Don’t cry, I’ll be back” before planting a big kiss on her lips.

Mike had kissed a lot of pretty girls on the show, but none were even close to Chelsea in beauty and spirit. All I could think of was what she would think of me after I kissed her on taping night.

I had major angst over this.
She probably has preconceived ideas that this teen idol must be Mister Smooth—Don Juan
. With my overactive imagination, I could see her backing up after the kiss, startled, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand and saying, “What are you, a chicken? Do you have a beak for lips?”

During rehearsals, I played it cool by waving my hand and saying, “And then we kiss and I leave.” I hoped to pull off an unaffected, breezy attitude that gave the impression I wasn’t fazed in the least.

I never actually kissed her in four days of rehearsing the scene. It seemed to go unnoticed until a cameraman said, “I need to see how the kiss shot frames up, Kirk.”

He was on to me.

When it came time to kiss Chelsea in front of the audience, I knew I had to come up with something to take the edge off. I purged the First Aid kit in the prop department, looking for the right balm. I needed
this to work, so I lubed up my mouth like lip gloss on a cheerleader’s senior photo.

Perfect.

When it came to the part where he kisses me, he
really
kissed me. It just wasn’t what I expected. This was no half-hearted screen kiss.

I noticed, though, that some of the crew smirked and held back laughter. What was so funny?

The kiss was nice, but I was surprised how moist Kirk’s lips were.

I licked my lips to get the wetness off. Within seconds, my entire mouth—my tongue, my gums, my teeth—were utterly numb. The camera pushed in on me, waiting for my line.

“My mouth is, like, paralyzed,” was all I could say. “What’s going on? I can’t feel a thing.”

Kirk turned to the audience and shrugged. “What can I say? That’s the effect I have on girls,” he cracked. “My kisses are electrifying.”

I had smeared Anbesol, a numbing gel for teething babies, on my lips. And I had put a
lot
on to make sure it worked. It did. It also broke the ice and made it easier for me to kiss her.

I think director John Tracy gave me a hand by insisting we do the scene over and over. “Uh, Kirk . . . bad focus here. Can you do it one more time for me?”

“Happy to take one for the team,” I grinned.

That memorable scene made me see how fun he was. I loved his sense of humor. After that, Kirk and I began seeing each other frequently.

I still didn’t think this amazing girl would be interested in a date alone with me. When Michael W. Smith came to the Universal Amphitheater
on the Go West, Young Man Tour, it was the perfect chance to ask Chelsea to go with me and my buddies.

She agreed. And this time I didn’t have to call anyone. I really did plan to go with some friends.

We met at Mom and Dad’s house. After introductions and small talk, I opened the door for Chelsea to sit in the back seat with my buddy’s date and jumped into the passenger seat to ride up front. At this point, I was sure she only saw us as friends and I didn’t want to make her uncomfortable.

Dad shook his head in disbelief. I could hear him saying, “Son, are you crazy? Have I not raised you right?
Why
are you not sitting with that gorgeous girl in the back?”

I realize I was 19, but I was too anxious to be alone with her. Being that close would be awkward. I wouldn’t know what to say or where to look. How would I play it cool without being obvious about my feelings?
Do I cross my arms? Fold my hands in my lap? Can a guy sit with hands in his pants pockets? No, that looks ridiculous!

I chose the safe route and, like a doofus, left my date alone in the back.

Although we had spent quite a bit of time together on and off the set, we hadn’t really been dating. I wasn’t exactly sure where the relationship was headed, but it definitely felt like we had romantic potential.

One night, after dinner, the two of us sat in his parents’ living room. He reclined on the couch, clear across the room from me. I was sitting next to the fireplace.

“I wanted to tell you that I’ve really loved spending time with you,” Kirk finally said, after staring at me for a bit.

“I’ve enjoyed it, too.”

“Well, uh, hey, I just wanna . . . I gotta tell you something. The more time I spend with you, the more time I want to spend with you. And I think I’m . . . falling in love with you, which is not good if you’re not feeling the same way. So if you’re not, tell me now. I’ll get over it and put it out of my mind.”

I was relieved that he’d said it first.

“I feel the same way,” I said.

Kirk had the ability to make me feel like I was 12—his words and the way he said them made me blush. He wasn’t a suave charmer—the guy sat on the opposite side of the room (when he wasn’t leaving me in the backseat of a car!). It’s that he was so sincere. He didn’t ever seem to put on an act for me. He let me see the real him, and that’s who I was falling in love with.

We sat there looking at each other, thinking,
I am so happy right now
.

I kissed her goodnight at the front door of my parents’ house before she left. It was our first
real
kiss.

Walking her out to the car, I waved as she drove off. My casual stride to the front door switched to mad whooping and hollering once inside the house.

I ran around the place like a crazy man, probably leaving tread marks on the walls.

We didn’t announce our romance to the world, but it was pretty obvious. When Chelsea walked onto the set, a smile appeared on my face that made me a dead ringer for Happy the Dwarf.

I had found everything I ever wanted in a woman. She was beautiful—inside and out. She had very strong values of her own. She loved her family. She loved God. She wasn’t impressed or overly interested in my celebrity, but rather, wanted to get to know the real me.

The funny thing was,
I
had a hard time knowing who I was at that time. I had spent my entire life listening to directions from other people. From the time I was nine, my existence was written, produced and directed by others. I needed to figure out who I was. Chelsea helped me to do that.

The tabloids, however, had another take on our relationship.

Older Vixen Robs the Cradle:
Growing Pains
Cast Fears for Kirk’s Life!

Oh, the hysteria. For a time, the media had found their angle. Chelsea, being a few years older, was the best story the press could concoct. I suppose it was a better headline than “Wholesome Kirk Cameron Dates Even Wholesomer Chelsea Noble!”

Chelsea didn’t bat an eye at the coverage. She found a way to laugh at what was said about her, even when one magazine said things like
“She whipped her brown mane around like Shahrazad’s veil, capturing Kirk with her smoky brown eyes. Some would even say she was a Svengali.”

I couldn’t fight things people believed, so I didn’t even try.

From the start, Kirk never seemed young to me. He seemed older than many people my age, because of his life experience. He was living on his own and he was working a professional job. I was just out of college, so compared to my college friends, he was a mature guy. He seemed so much more serious and surefooted than the guys my age. I never felt the age difference, not at all.

Of course, if he had been older than me, no one would have said boo.

Not long after I sat by the fire and unleashed my true feelings to Chelsea, Valentine’s Day was upon us. Though February 14 is a manufactured, Hallmark holiday, I wanted it to be unforgettable for Chelsea.

I put a blindfold on her eyes and put her in a limousine. It was about 5 o’clock in the evening. The driver drove around a little to disorient her before pulling up in front of my house. Then he opened the door for her, helped her out and took off the blindfold.

I was a bit startled. A man in a tuxedo, looking much like a maitre d’, waited for us at the bottom of the long flight of stairs leading up the hill to Kirk’s guest house. He gave a little bow. “Good evening, Miss. It’s good to have you here.”

Tiny fairy lights twinkled up the hill, lighting the path along the stone stairway.

The man opened the door to the guest house. I gasped.

Fresh flowers in an enormous wreath framed the huge picture window that looked out over Simi Valley. Candles were lit, transforming a simple room into something elegant and terribly romantic.

We were seated at a table with a linen cloth and handed a menu. Kirk had hired someone to cook a delicious four-course meal.

I was overwhelmed. This had obviously taken a good deal of planning and effort. And it had been orchestrated especially for
me
.

The evening was magical.

When we had finished our meal, Kirk escorted me to the bottom of the stairs where the limousine waited to take me home. We said goodbye. When I arrived home, Kirk was there waiting for me . . . 
in my apartment!
It might have been a sweet, romantic moment, except that I had decided earlier in the day that it was time to do a little spring-cleaning—I had literally dumped every drawer of clothes all over the apartment so I could sort through them.

I was mortified.

In early April, Chelsea decided she wanted to go home and see her parents in Cheektowaga, New York. She was very close to her family and planned to stay for a couple of weeks.

Not even a day into her trip, I felt as if my insides had been ripped out. I went home to hang out and Bridgette was there.

“Hey, Bridgette, come here and look.” I took her to the back of my car and pulled out Chelsea’s jacket. “It smells like her,” I moaned. I inhaled deeply, her perfumed scent filling my nostrils.

“Don’t let the paparazzi cameras catch you making that face,” Bridgette laughed.

“I miss her
so
much.”

Bridgette, who had seen one too many Molly Ringwald flicks, switched into sappy mode: “Kirk, you must run.
Go to her
.”

“What?”

“Get on a plane,” she answered, with the unwavering conviction only a teenage girl can muster. “You must tell her how you feel. Before time runs out.”

“I’ll do it!”

I called Chelsea’s parents (who I had never met) to be sure it was alright with them for me to come. Her father gave the okay, so I bought a ticket, threw some clothes in a suitcase and hopped the next plane out.

One day, my dad popped into the room and said, “Let’s go to the Asa Ransom House for dinner. I’ve got my mad money. Let’s make an evening of it.”

I loved the Asa Ransom House, an inn located near the home I grew up in. At dinner, Dad and Mom asked questions about Kirk. They wanted to know everything about him. He was a little sketchy in their eyes, due to the fact he was an L.A. actor. Though they were skeptical, my parents trusted me. After all, I had lived in New York City alone for two years and had proved to make mostly good decisions.