Jeannie Out of the Bottle - Barbara Eden [82]
Another night, he came home late while I was fast asleep, and shook me awake.
“Get up, Barbara, you’re taking up too much room in bed!” he yelled at the top of his voice.
I refused. We had words. Then he kicked me so hard that I fell on the floor. But instead of whimpering, I dusted myself off, picked up a book, locked myself in the bathroom, and stayed there all night, reading, while Chuck banged on the door relentlessly, yelling for me to come out.
Through all the noise and the banging, the name-calling and the abuse, I just kept on reading. When dawn broke, gambling on the strong possibility that Chuck was now sleeping the pill-induced sleep of someone coming down from a cocaine high, I crept out of the bathroom and into the living room.
I sat there on the couch, having a silent dialogue with myself.
You’re insane, Barbara Eden. Why are you doing this? Why are you staying married to a man you don’t even want to be in the same room with?
Then I got up, got dressed, took a cab to the storage facility filled with all my things that hadn’t yet been delivered to the apartment, and had them shipped back to Los Angeles. Then I headed back to the apartment. It was afternoon by the time I got there. I packed my suitcases and called to make airline reservations.
As fate would have it, all flights between Chicago and Los Angeles were booked for that night, so I got myself a ticket on the first plane that was scheduled to leave the next morning.
Then I heard the door open. It was Chuck. A clever man, with good instincts, he’d come home from work early. Then the sales talk began.
“I love you, Barbara Jean, I love you,” he kept saying, over and over. He called me Barbara Jean because he knew my family had always called me that, and he believed that if he also used that name, it would give him power over me.
“I love you, Barbara Jean. I’ve never loved anybody like you, never,” he said, over and over.
I didn’t believe him, and yet … For a little while longer, I was sold on him again. After all, he was my husband, I still loved him, and so I stayed.
On New Year’s Eve, I had to work at the Fontainebleau in Miami Beach, and Chuck flew down to Florida to be with me. When I first found out that he was coming, I wasn’t completely bowled over by his devotion, as I knew that he had close friends down there and was keen to party with them. However, I abandoned my misgivings and let my guard slip after he promised to be in the audience.
That night, I was happy at the prospect of him seeing me in the show, and I had just finished applying my makeup and was about to go onstage when the phone rang. Without any preamble, Chuck announced that he wouldn’t be in the audience after all. There was no explanation, no excuse. The disappointment was so sharp that it felt as if Chuck was stabbing me in the heart with a rusty bread knife. Too dispirited to argue, I hung up and did my show anyway.
At the back of my mind was the nagging question of why Chuck hadn’t invited me to join him after the show was over, no matter how late that might be. But instead of moping around, I reminded myself that it was New Year’s Eve and accepted an invitation to a party given by our friends Charlie and Rusty Stein.
I was doing my utmost to join in the spirit of the night and have a good time when, out of the blue, some supposedly well-meaning woman suddenly blurted out how lucky Chuck was to be invited to Sinatra’s party that night. So now I knew the truth—my husband had chosen Frank Sinatra over me. Even worse, as I later discovered, he had taken one of his former wives, the beautiful model, along with him as well, and that hurt.
But heartbroken as I was, I carried on partying with the Steins and their friends. After all, it was New Year’s Eve. Besides, I’ve always believed in not betraying my deepest emotions to anyone. In fact, you could say that the song “Don’t Cry Out Loud” was written with me in mind.
I was