The Naked Truth: The Real Story Behind the Real Housewife of New Jersey--In Her Own Words (5 page)

I pulled up to Lisa’s house, turned off the engine, and then realized,
Wait a minute. Nicky is not going to be able to ask Lisa to go out with me for a ride. I will have to do the asking. I can’t do that. She’ll see right through me.
I did end up asking Lisa to go for a ride, but unexpectedly she walked over to get inside from
the damaged side of the truck. Surprised, Lisa asked, “What did you do?” I looked her straight in the eye and told her that I had screwed up my dad’s truck on the bridge. Lisa saw how afraid I was and immediately offered to loan me the money to get the truck repaired. It was $120 to get the truck fixed—that was a lot of money at the time.

A part of me enjoyed the attention I derived from wrecking my dad’s truck. While I got it fixed, when my dad came home, I still admitted what I had done. Surprisingly, my father didn’t do anything except give me the money to return to Lisa.

Nicky did not always offer the best advice, but she did always provide me with good company, and I believe Nicky was an important key to my maintaining my sanity when I was being sexually abused. Besides my puppy, Suzie, I had only her to talk to about it, and sometimes I could feel Nicky touching my hair the way I wished my mother would. At other times she’d tell me that what my abusers did was wrong, and she was sorry she wasn’t strong enough to keep them away from me. Nicky always wanted to fight for me. She just wasn’t physically big enough to fend anybody off. She felt somewhat guilty that she couldn’t prevent what was happening. She could only be there and support me through it. She was present when I needed her, and that was all that really mattered.

Gradually, in high school, I became much more confident as I came into my own and I needed less and less of Nicky. These days she appears infrequently, but it’s reassuring to know
that she’s still available if I have to call upon her; Nicky still comes around when I
really
need her.

I am aware that Nicky doesn’t exist outside of my own mind. I gave her life because she helped me with mine, and I know that without her I couldn’t have survived many of the tragic things that happened to me as a child. At times I’d actually convince myself that the abuse was happening to Nicky and not to me. Sometimes, when you are falling through the cracks in life, there’s no safety net. But I always had Nicky.

BRIGHT LIGHTS IN A DARK WORLD

My aunt Barbara was one of the strongest blessings in my childhood. From early on, she said proudly to my mom, “Watch out for that one. There’s something very special about that little girl.”

Aunt Barbara and her husband, Uncle Bob, were a breath of fresh air,
literally.
As opposed to my immediate family, they always smelled good. I couldn’t wait to see my aunt, hug her, and breathe her in—she always wore the latest and most expensive perfume and couture designs. Uncle Bob would smoke a pipe filled with cherry tobacco that smelled delicious. I always felt safe and content when they were around. My aunt and uncle owned several beautiful homes in Manhattan, Toronto, and California. I don’t remember what they did for
a living—it wasn’t important to me. My aunt Barbara was my mom’s sister. The youngest of nine children, she was very different from the rest of her family, so much more worldly and well traveled than all the others. She and her husband obviously knew about the finer things in life. I don’t know why I was so drawn to them. Maybe it was because of the money and their ability to buy the better things, stuff I wasn’t accustomed to, or perhaps it was just because they actually treated me like a little girl …a little princess, in fact. The way they treated me was a bright light in contrast to the darkness of my life at home with my parents.

Unfortunately, Aunt Barb (as I liked to call her) wasn’t a daily presence in my life; she visited only on holidays and when we had special family events. She and Uncle Bob
became
my Christmas. They would show up at our home in the latest and most expensive new Cadillac. Where I came from, it was always a big deal to have a luxury car, and when she would arrive, it felt like a red-carpet event. Barbara was tan and pretty and her hair was always perfectly highlighted. Her skin was amazing, beautiful, bronzed, and glowing. Best of all, when I looked into her kind eyes, I could tell she was genuinely happy to see me. She would always make a big deal about my doing cartwheels and splits, and when I played my flute, she was transfixed until I finished the last note of the song.

When Aunt Barbara was around, I felt that no one would dare misbehave or abuse me in any way. I was sure that she and my uncle Bob would easily pick up on something like that.
Therefore, every fiber of my being felt at ease when I was in her company.

When I was fifteen years old, Aunt Barbara became ill with cancer. I was devastated, but I thought that even though she was sick, she wouldn’t die.
She is going to be in my life forever,
I thought.

My mother went to visit Barbara in California for three weeks while she was ill. With my mom away, my father went off somewhere, so nobody was home watching me. I had a boyfriend at the time, but he was away at college. My appendix ruptured when I was by myself. I was so sick that I could barely move. I tried to get to the phone, which was mounted on the wall in the kitchen, to call for help, but was so weak that I could barely stand up. I yanked the phone off the wall in desperation, then passed out on the kitchen floor.

My boyfriend drove home from college that day, and twelve hours later he found me, still lying on the floor unconscious. He rushed me to the hospital, where the doctors did an emergency appendectomy (I have a scar that goes from my pubic bone all the way up to my belly button from the surgery). My mother finally arrived from California and rushed to the hospital to check on me. I was still weak and had lost twenty pounds when she arrived, but I could hear a lot of yelling out in the hallway— my mother was extremely upset because my father hadn’t been there for me. When my mother came into my hospital room to comfort me, all I wanted to know was how Aunt Barbara was doing. I could not have cared less about myself.

Not long after, I saw Aunt Barbara when she made a visit to the East Coast. Sadly, it was one of her last—she was obviously losing her battle with cancer. She was weak, and I knew she didn’t have long to live. As we talked, she started saying she was sorry; she was sorry because she had to die and leave me. I asked her not to go. Begged her. I was heartbroken. When she passed away, I was very aware that no one else in the world believed in me the way she had, and I suddenly felt incredibly alone and truly lost without her. It was also clear to me that I wouldn’t feel safe around my family ever again.

At Aunt Barbara’s funeral, I lay across the top of her casket, sobbing and not wanting to leave her. I didn’t want them to close the top of the coffin because I didn’t want to ever stop seeing her face. People kept coming up to me and telling me we had to leave the funeral home; Uncle Bob was the only one who could comfort me and get me to let go. For some reason, I never again saw Uncle Bob after that day, but whenever I smell cherry tobacco, I can’t help but think of him. Those are some of the best memories.

I was upset for a long time after Aunt Barbara’s death. I questioned God. I didn’t understand why this woman who had been so incredibly kind to me was taken away so soon. First Ronnie, then Barbara—why did the people who loved me die?

I don’t have many good memories after my aunt Barbara’s
death, except for those of my horse, Love (this was a different era, and horses were cheap to buy in the country in those days). She was beautiful, lean and tall, with a black mane, tail, and forelock, and a chestnut brown body. To me, horses represented freedom and I always felt more in control when I was in their presence.

I knew how to ride horses well. I rode western mostly, but I was also trained in equestrian-style riding, which I thought felt too formal. Love was an incredible show horse. She jumped well and did the obstacle course perfectly. She could turn on a dime and pirouette like a ballerina. She was incredibly fast. Love would put her head back, take off, and just go and go! I think she needed to let loose and run just as I did. I would lie on her neck and the horse would practically fly. She would run so hard that she’d have foam coming out of her mouth. I didn’t have to kick or use spurs or a riding crop: all I would have to do was hold on. We had a unique bond and trusted each other fully. And
nobody
could get on that horse but me.

My father owned a stallion, named Diablo, that he kept in upstate New York along with Love. This was another horse nobody could ride but me. My father would attempt to ride Diablo, but the horse would behave wildly as soon as he climbed on his back. Diablo would try to turn and bite my father’s ankle in an attempt to get him off. I would always chuckle to myself watching Diablo try to shake off my father. Then I would mount Diablo and he would be completely relaxed and at ease. Diablo ran fast, too.

I began to show my horse, Love, a lot more as I took up
competitive western horseback riding. I’d compete every weekend and became very good friends with Susan, whom I met at the horse shows. I eventually spent a lot of time at her family’s gorgeous ranch in upstate New York. They had huge stables that were cleaner than most people’s homes! One day Susan told me that her brother Luke had a crush on me. In fact, Luke was the first boy who took interest in me. He was a great horseback rider and I had an instant connection with him. It was an innocent flirtation. We didn’t do anything beyond hold hands and have nice conversations. I couldn’t wait for the weekends so I could ride horses and see Luke.

The few things that I enjoyed in my childhood eventually somehow fell apart, and one night my father didn’t close the corral gate correctly and Love escaped. She reached the highway and was hit by a truck and killed. I was inconsolable. Love was not only my pride and joy, but also my friend. Heartbroken after the loss of my horse, I lost contact with Luke and Susan. What a shock to lose her in this way—the one thing left in my young life that I truly loved.

When I was eight years old, my father decided that he wanted to foster another child. My parents didn’t want a baby, as it would have been a lot of responsibility. They wanted a boy or girl who was a bit older. We had fostered many children
during the years after my arrival, and in the end, my parents never opted to adopt any of them, with one exception—Pam.

Pam was a year older than me when she came to our home. I remember that she was a sad child who had seemingly survived quite a bit before becoming a part of our family. When one sad person looks into the sad eyes of another, you can almost imagine what they have been through in their life. I find that this particular level of sadness often can be a common thread between two lost people.

Soon after Pam arrived, the sexual abuse slowed down quite a bit and eventually came to a halt before my ninth birthday. I believe that my abusers felt Pam would tell on them. We shared my bedroom and now what had been my personal space was occupied by more than just myself. This prevented me from remaining easy prey.