Then Again - Diane Keaton [83]
I saw her dive into the water with dozens of other little sardines in bathing suits and caps. They swam in and out of the shadows cast from the skylight. Dexter caught the sun just as her arms stretched through the water of her designated lane. Heat 2, Lane 5. In that instant, she joined the other darling daughters racing upstream. So many girls swimming toward their destiny. For me, it was just one girl. Dexter.
Message, 2002
“Diane, this is your mom. I’ve been going through my checkbook, and I realized I made another mistake on the check I sent. I’m going to give up. I’m just going to give the whole thing up. I made it out for 200 million or something like that. I don’t know—200 thousand? Would you check what you have, and call me back and tell me what my next move should be? I don’t know why I can’t get that into my head, but anyway, call me back, will you, as quick as you can, ’cause I’m sick of this. I’m going to close the books and never write another check. Okay, Diane … bye bye.”
I’m Going to Miss You
I found cat feces in a plastic wineglass next to a pee-stained envelope of a long-forgotten bill addressed to Jack Hall. These are the days of derelict debris and a mounting stockpile of nonsense. Where’s Irma, the new housekeeper? Anne Mayer, Mom’s second daughter, as we call her, tells me Dorothy won’t let Irma in. The rose-colored wall-to-wall carpet is filthy. I don’t want Duke rolling around half naked on the surface of old cat poop. I knew I could lure Mom out of the house with the promise of a visit to her beloved Randy.
Everything was spotless when we returned. Mom shuffled into the kitchen, shaking her head as she held on to the walls for support. “Where am I?” She heaved a sigh and sat on the edge of the couch. “I don’t know where I am. This isn’t the place. Do I live here? I mean, I’ve been here before, but I don’t live here now, right, Diane? That isn’t my cat, even though it looks like a cat I would have. This is where we live? I can’t put it together. Like right now, if you went off and left me here, I’d miss you, ’cause you wouldn’t be there for me. Wait a minute. I think I’ve got it figured out. I’m in the living room, but I’m still confused. I’ll tell you this: I’m going to miss you. What I want is to be somewhere comfortable with you. I kind of dread being here by myself. It disturbs me. I need company. I’m afraid, because I’m not real familiar with me. So, I’m here to stay? Is that it? What’s later? I can’t get a vision of how I’m going to make it work. I’m going to try to make the best of it though. It takes time to get things rolling again. Right? One more thing—could you tell me where my kids, Dorrie and Robin and Randy, are?”
Two Gifts and a Kiss, 2003
Nancy Meyers and I were having lunch. She’d become one of the few highly sought-out female directors after her debut with Parent Trap, starring Lindsay Lohan, followed by her $374 million blockbuster What Women Want, with Mel Gibson. In the interim, I’d made more money buying and selling houses than acting in a string of bombs, including The Only Thrill, The Other Sister, Hanging Up (which I also directed), and Town & Country, all critical and box-office failures. I was pretty much washed up as an actress and certainly as a fledgling director.
Over salad, Nancy told me she was writing a romantic comedy about a divorced playwright, Erica Barry, who falls in love with Harry Sanborn, a famous, womanizing owner of a record company. While Nancy filled me in on the details, I plotted career changes. Could I flip houses professionally? I needed an investor. I didn’t want to keep restoring homes Dex and Duke and I lived in, only to sell them a year later. Was that good for the kids? When Nancy unequivocally said she wanted me to play Erica Barry and she was going to offer the part of Harry to Jack Nicholson, I snapped out of it. “Wait a minute. Jack Nicholson? I’m sorry, but Jack