My Journey with Farrah - Alana Stewart [20]
September 21, 2007
Farrah and I went outside and sat in the sun. Well, I sat in the shade, and she sat in the sun. At times in my life when I’ve felt terribly overwhelmed and anxious, I’ve envisioned having one of those old-fashioned southern nervous breakdowns that my mother was always having, and going to one of those sanitariums where people in the South used to go. Farrah and I used to joke about it; we would say what a nice rest it would be, to sit in our lawn chairs with blankets over our legs, staring blankly out over the green, rolling hills. It hit me while we were sitting outside today that this place fits that picture to a tee. I guess you have to be really careful what you wish for.
We’re quite a pair. People always think we’re sisters because we look alike—it must be the hair. “Yeah, she’s the older sister,” I’d always say whenever they’d ask (never mind that I’m a couple of years older).
“Yeah, Alana gets younger every year,” Farrah would tease back.
I’d try to convince her that she needed to lie about her age, but she’d always resist the urge.
“Why bother?” she’d say. “It always says, ‘Farrah Fawcett, comma, insert age here,’ when they write about me.”
I’d smile, but then I’d see her name in print and she’d always be right.
She always was a Texas girl.
In October 2007, Farrah and I went to Texas, after the second trip to Germany in September. We were there for her dad’s ninetieth birthday, which was where this picture was taken. We stayed with him and his second wife, Sophie, for three or four days. Farrah gave him this sweater, and he was so happy that she had come home.
After a few days with her dad, we headed for Nacogdoches, my hometown, to see my Uncle Gene. Farrah wasn’t feeling great, but she was determined to be a trouper; she didn’t want to let me down. She was probably the only friend I’ve ever had whom I could always enjoy Texas with, who understood what it meant to be home. We had the most fun on that road trip—just two Texas girls cruising around the back roads, miles and lifetimes away from Germany and everything from the last year. We kept joking that we were Thelma and Louise without the .38.
All along our drive, we’d stop in these little dive restaurants, and the college girl waitresses would say to Farrah, “Does anyone ever tell you you look like that actress from Charlie’s Angels?”
She’d smile and reply, “Yeah, sometimes…”
We stopped at Johnson’s Café in Corrigan, Texas. We had heard they cooked a hot lunch buffet with chicken-fried steak, turnip greens, and black-eyed peas, and our mouths were watering. We were in hog heaven. The owner, a man named Dooley, said that if we let him know when we were coming back through, he’d cook us up some chicken and dumplings (my personal favorite) and some pies. We kept to our word, and so did he—and he made us lemon and coconut meringue pies to take home with us.
We spent the night in this motel and we had little adjoining rooms. Farrah went into her room and there was this huge bug in the bed. So after trying to oust it unsuccessfully, with much screaming and giggling, she came into my room and slept there instead. We were crazy, silly, and loving every minute of being Texas girls once more.
A PLEASANT DISTRACTION
September 24, 2007
It was a beautiful day again, and we sat outside in the afternoon and read. Today kind of reminded me of those wonderful weekends when we were younger and we’d occasionally escape to Ryan’s beach house in Malibu. My kids would spend the weekend with their respective dads while Ryan would take care of Redmond at their house in town. Meanwhile, Farrah and I would run away for a couple of days of rest and recuperation from our busy schedules.
Just sitting in the sun and doing nothing was the most restful, healing medicine in the world. We’d bring a stack of fashion magazines and pore over them, comparing the things we found that we liked. We’d splurge and have the manicurist come down and do our nails and toes,