Happily Ali After: And Other Fairly True Tales Read online

  DEDICATION

  To all my girlfriends . . .

  The names and identifying characteristics of

  some of the individuals featured throughout this

  book have been changed to protect their privacy.

  However, if you meet me on the street I will tell

  you their real names and e-mails.

  CONTENTS

  Dedication

  Introduction: The Prime of Miss Ali Wentworth

  PART I: INSPIRATION

  CHAPTER 1 Live and Let Die

  CHAPTER 2 Opportunity Knocks

  CHAPTER 3 Set It Free

  CHAPTER 4 Be Curious

  CHAPTER 5 That Stinks

  CHAPTER 6 Greatest Self

  PART II: MARRIAGE

  CHAPTER 7 Grounded

  CHAPTER 8 Tug of War

  CHAPTER 9 Couples Therapy

  CHAPTER 10 The Other Good Wife

  PART III: PARENTING

  CHAPTER 11 Not Without My Daughters

  CHAPTER 12 Awfully Crabby

  CHAPTER 13 Happily Ali After

  CHAPTER 14 For You, My Pet

  CHAPTER 15 Help!

  CHAPTER 16 Pool of Regret

  PART IV: WELLNESS

  CHAPTER 17 Move Me

  CHAPTER 18 Ch-ch-ch-changes

  CHAPTER 19 Going for the Bronze

  CHAPTER 20 Not the Face

  CHAPTER 21 Is That All There Is?

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Also by Ali Wentworth

  Credits

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  INTRODUCTION

  The Prime of Miss Ali Wentworth

  I’m forty-nine years old. God, that hurts. I want to lie, I really do. Please, can’t we all shave off a decade? Well, not you teenagers—unless you want to go through puberty again? Now, I know if I were a Pilgrim I would already be dead (their life expectancy in the early 1600s was forty years old). And I have no reason to believe I’ll be taken down by scurvy. So, the glass is half full, right? No, the glass is empty and cracked. I’m not concerned about living until I’m a hundred years old; in fact, I’d rather NOT live that long. I don’t want to go any deeper on the timeline. I don’t want to lose the last few moments of what an elderly person would consider my youth. You see, my prime is behind me and she’s laughing at my sagging tush.

  How did this happen? Why didn’t anyone tell me? I mean, I had a sense about the weather-beaten skin and osteoporosis, but what about the emotional toll? My night sweats are over a loss of bloom, not estrogen depletion. My salad days are over. The greens are wilted and soggy. And who wants leftover salad?

  I thought I would delicately leap from forty-nine to fifty the way I have the other stepping-stones of life—with a large slice of bittersweet chocolate cake and some dirty dancing. But not this time. I have lost my balance and fallen into the river of senior despair. Yesterday I peed a little when I laughed.

  So now, in my pre-fifty spiral, I decided that instead of succumbing further, I would endeavor to improve myself. I would start training for my second childhood, the winter of my life. And vent. And try to understand exactly what is happening to my abdominal region. This will be difficult because I am losing my memory. Sometimes I stare blankly at one of my daughters because I honestly can’t remember what we named her.

  But maybe turning fifty is a wake-up call! A chance to stave off decrepitude and better myself in all areas! I know, I’m not going for the gold in gymnastics . . . but I might get out of bed before noon?

  When I started writing my last book, I created a Twitter account, as writers are encouraged to do—it is the modern-day way to rise from obscurity and create a fan base (a better fit for me than making a sex tape). I loved the challenge of coining humorous thoughts in 140 characters. (In fact, because I know my editor is reading this: how about we knock this book out in 140 characters and call it a day?) I reveled in the excitement of clicking out my thoughts to the Twittersphere and receiving instant reactions. I now follow everything from @VanillaIce to @BenjaminMoorepaint. Maybe it’s because ours is the first generation to have social media. I’m sure it felt the same way in 1876 when the telephone came along: I would have been crank-calling everyone from Grover Cleveland to Sitting Bull. Imagine playing Words with Friends with Emily Dickinson?

  A few weeks into my pre-midlife crisis, I stumbled upon an inspirational-quote Twitter feed. I decided to follow it. I’m not that discerning; I also follow @GrilledCheese. The way the feed worked was this: every day at around 9:30 A.M., they sent a single inspirational quote. Now, I grew up in the 1970s when the sayings were very clear and simplistic—“Make love, not war” and “Hang in there, baby”—so at first I felt overwhelmed by some of the deep and intellectual aphorisms. But after a couple of weeks the quotes started to really resonate. They weren’t necessarily motivating or goading me, mind you, but rather were making me feel uncomfortably aware that perhaps I wasn’t “living life to the fullest.” I suddenly felt intense pressure to live a souped-up version of my life based on “Doors of Life” desk calendars and “Sweaty Wisdom” water bottles. What if I did “live today as if it were my last”? Well, I’d be in the Turks and Caicos with a twenty-year-old surfer, a box of Yodels, and a bottle of rosé. No, that sounds superficial and heartless. I would be in Paris with my husband and two daughters. And twenty-year-old surfer—what? I need a babysitter!

  The inspirational Twitter feed had me reflecting on my past, as well. I had worked for Oprah Winfrey for a few years as a correspondent and costar on her Friday live show. There was always a “takeaway” from every show and an opportunity for an “aha! moment.” And I saw firsthand how virtually every one of her guests was applying the learned spiritual truths to his or her life. One of Oprah’s favorite sayings was, “Turn your words into wisdom.” But I never said anything that could be remotely construed as enlightened—let alone enlightening. I was still treading water under the “Shit happens” slogan.

  I didn’t want to be spiritually impotent, I realized. I yearned to breathe deep and contemplate more metaphysical matters than the going rate for the tooth fairy or which HP printer was on sale. I’m not an avid churchgoer, Buddhist, Scientologist, or vegan; my gurus are the techie who can fix our WiFi and anyone who can create smoky eyes. A daily inspirational tweet was more my speed. It would be my own spiritual movement. Oprah would be proud. Well, not proud; it takes a lot to make her proud. She’s proud of Maya Angelou and Nelson Mandela. But, if all went well, I’d buy some land in upstate New York, a tent, and some chickens, and form a cult.

  Now, I realized I faced some obstacles in my path to spiritual enlightenment. I have been accused of being cynical and jaded on this particular subject. I don’t read self-help books, except the ones that guarantee I’ll lose forty pounds in one hour. And I enjoy being codependent. My best life is never going to resemble, say, Angelina Jolie’s; I don’t have the cheekbones, can’t fly my own plane, and refugees make me too sad. But perhaps I could step up the consciousness a notch.

  And while I was at it, why not broaden the quest? I keyed in on the four major food groups of life: spirituality, marriage, parenting, and wellness. Maybe, I thought, as with a car, a lady needed to take herself into the shop for a full overhaul every now and then. Yes, I could use some tinkering under the hood: higher consciousness would definitely give me better road mileage. And exploring marriage would guarantee a cleaner engine and better climate control. Searching for an exceptional navigation system could help steer me through parenting, no? And as for the exterior, well, I wanted a smaller trunk. In other words, I wanted
to become Ali 2.0—dynamic, sleeker, and turbocharged. With no money down.

  Some might argue that personal growth is a myth—that neither inner nor outer work lasts. But neither do your teeth. Did I emerge from my endeavors a changed person? Yes. Am I thinner? No. Did I decide to start a cult? Well, I have been looking at land in the Catskills. Oprah, you game?

  Inspiration

  YOU CAN’T HAVE EVERYTHING.

  WHERE WOULD YOU PUT IT?

  —STEVEN WRIGHT

  CHAPTER 1

  Live and Let Die

  TODAY I CHOOSE TO FORGIVE INSTEAD OF HOLDING

  ON TO RESENTMENTS. TODAY I CHOOSE TO SEE

  EVERYONE WITH THE EYES OF LOVE.

  —UNKNOWN

  There are very few times in my life when I have truly lived an inspirational quote. And by very few, I mean only once. We can’t all be Deepak Chopra, but if we strive for at least one spiritual incentive we may not need Ambien to sleep or chew off nail polish with our teeth. I can’t profess to always be able to see people with the eyes of love. Well, maybe John Stamos circa 1992. There have been people I wished unholy harm to—facial disfigurement and genital boils, those sorts of things. I’m not proud of it. But I also don’t think I’m alone here; everyone has their pipe dreams. As you’re reading this, take stock of the times you considered slashing your boss’s tires or putting laxatives in the birthday cake of your diabolical sixth-grade math teacher. In high school did I ponder hiring a prostitute with chlamydia to sip from the same Sprite bottle as the woman who cheated on my father and embezzled all his money? Yes, I did. But I didn’t execute it. Mostly because I didn’t know how to find a hooker (I hope there’s now an app for that) and I had about forty bucks.

  But of all the many people who have emotionally harmed me, failed me, or not cast me in a movie of the week, there is one who remained my arch foe for years. I didn’t actually know her, but that didn’t deter me from eating every crumb of beastly gossip that was handed to me by a third person twice removed.

  Daphne was an actress in Los Angeles. Although she and I were the same age, we were different “types”—she was statuesque, brunette, and fetching to my slight, pale, and nonoffensive sex appeal. We didn’t run in the same circles. My circle was a bowl of incestuous improv actors who ate their feelings and were encased in insecurity and sexual ambiguity. Daphne’s circle was a halo of meticulously scrubbed thespians who were gently kissing success on the lips. On any given weeknight I could be found eating cold enchiladas with my three-legged dog, Racer, while Daphne enjoyed inebriants and giddiness about on-set mishaps with the cast of Friends.

  And months later she too heard the trumpeting horns of the marching band of fame heading right for her. She was cast in a hit sitcom! You have to understand that being a twenty-year-old actor in L.A. is much like being part of a flock of hungry, begrimed pigeons in the park, and once in a blue moon someone walks by and throws three sunflower seeds. There is a vicious skirmish, an explosion of feathers, and out of the frenzy one bird ascends up to a ranch-style house in the hills with a small infinity pool and their own (leased) BMW and a photo shoot for InStyle magazine (back page). The other pigeons yearn for the seed-carrying bird to be decapitated by a telephone wire.

  Wait, this story is making me look bad, not Daphne. Did I mention she had big boobs? I suppose that’s not an atrocious characteristic. Let’s just assume, for the sake of my story, that she bit the heads off kittens. And screamed at babies. The sick ones in the hospital with sad eyes. Orphan babies.

  As luck would have it, Daphne worked on a show with my then boyfriend. A writer who, in his youth, went to an all-boys school and would have given a finger if someone like the divine Daphne from the Catholic girls’ school even looked at him. So there she was with her lithe body prancing on set with her script and her nefarious boobs. Nefarious boobs. Nefarious boobs. Right, I said that. My boyfriend decided to use her as chum in the bloodied waters of my own insecurity. “Daphne is so needy, she’s always coming on to me,” or “Daphne sleeps with all the writers so she gets a better story line,” he would tell me. Well, as a dignified and unemployed actor, I was horrified by the cunning tricks of this minx. She was a slut who bit off kittens’ heads! How dare she sully the reputation of all the other refined actresses who were horizontal on casting agents’ shag rugs with their legs up in the air, doing their best to gain employment in Hollywood?

  I would catch explicit images of her on magazine covers (clutching her exposed breasts with a surprised look as if to say, “I didn’t realize there was a crew, hair and makeup, lighting, and a photographer here?”). And walking the red carpet? Well, she did fill out a dress and she was a walking advertisement for doing Tae Bo. But as my mother would say, “She leaves nothing to the imagination!” And I’m not saying that just because she was a teenage model in Paris and I was an overweight gal in gunnysack dresses and jelly sandals.

  I broke up with the writer boyfriend for reasons you’ll find in my first book, Ali in Wonderland (New York Times best-seller, still available on Amazon.com) and rented a bungalow in Santa Monica. Okay, so here’s where Daphne radiates in all her deviltry. The day after I left my boyfriend, she showed up at our house (well, now only his house) in a Superman T-shirt WITHOUT A BRA! Not even twenty-four hours and she drives over to seduce my (once) man who was still facedown on the sofa! She didn’t even allow him a grieving period! Plus, everyone knows, you don’t pinch a guy whose ex-girlfriend is jealous of you. Yes, I left him . . . but what a strumpet! Even if her intention was to drop by to console a man who was supposedly devastated and impotent, you can’t go braless! It’s like going commando to sit shiva.

  Apparently she was very good at “making him feel better” because within hours they were together every night. And then he took her to the Bahamas. Granted, it was summer and nobody goes to the Bahamas in July, but it was a vacation. And when people vacation together they either return as enemies or hire a wedding planner. This is just my own personal philosophy. When I discovered they were rolling around (hopefully on a nest of sand fleas) together, I had the epiphany that I had made a grave mistake and wanted to reconcile with the writer. I also wanted back in my house. I wanted back in my life. I wanted Daphne gone (gone like Gone Girl gone). He took me back, mostly to punish me for leaving him in the first place, and Daphne drove off in her black Lexus. She did leave a silver charm bracelet in a drawer on the bedside table. I threw it in the fire and watched it melt and bubble over a Duraflame log. The dollop of metal is probably still stuck to the side of the hearth.

  I moved back into our house (taking care to urinate around the property line) and life went on.

  Unfortunately, my rage against the Daphne machine also went on. I mean, I did win! So why was I so fixated on her eradication? The very mention of her name or the word “Newport” (that’s where she was born) churned my stomach. Even my closest friends were militarily taught to see her as the enemy. I had gained something I’d only read about in books and seen in James Bond movies: a real nemesis!

  I assumed I was as much an antagonist to her. I had thwarted her happiness? Destroyed her life? You know, the shit nemeses do without crushing the person with pythons or using a grenade launcher from a helicopter.

  A year later Daphne was getting married to a handsome, athletic, and successful real estate broker. And she was pregnant. This is not the plight of the villain? She was supposed to have her face melt off down to her jawbone or be harpooned under water by a poisonous spear gun! One afternoon I was driving up Coldwater Canyon and screeched to a halt moments before hitting a woman in her forest green sweats and scruffy ponytail. It was Daphne. And she looked blissful hiking with her virile husband and panting dogs. I realized the irony of almost running her over. And more important, of how fast I would be whisked off to prison after my friends’ anemic defenses betrayed me on the stand with, “She always hated Daphne! I’m surprised it didn’t happen sooner! I think Ali even had an unregistered gun!”

&nb
sp; Years later, I was married with babies and living in D.C. I’m not proud of all this preceding disclosure, but I do it in the name of a life lesson I’m providing for you the reader. Occasionally I would catch Daphne on a talk show or in a home magazine, showing off a captivating, classic, spacious, light-filled two-story home with an adjoining stone patio surrounded by a bucolic perennial garden. The ten-foot ceilings boasted a formal powder room, a grand dining room with a subsequent butler’s pantry for staging gracious entertaining, a state-of-the-art gourmet eat-in kitchen, and an exquisite master suite with his and hers marble baths complete with sunken tubs. I would badger my husband with photos of her in magazines looking dewy on an exercise bike or flushed on the cover of some pregnancy magazine and I would say to him, “She’s so weird looking! Isn’t she weird looking?” To which he would have to reply robotically, “Why yes, honey, she is weird looking.” Never once looking up from his book, Lyndon B. Johnson and the Transformation of American Politics.

  If you, dear reader, have never experienced those feelings or had similar appalling fixations, please keep reading! I redeem myself in the end!

  My aha! moment struck one spring afternoon as I was perfecting the art of the homemade cinnamon bun and watching TV. As a child I was allowed only one hour of TV a week so, consequently, in my adulthood I keep the TV on all the time. Much the same way the children who aren’t allowed sugar at their home come over to our house and choke on mini marshmallows and finish all my coffee ice cream. A rerun of a show Daphne was guest-starring on suddenly appeared on the screen and I just stopped (mid twisting dough that began dripping through my fingers) and stared in a way I hadn’t since the verdict of the O.J. trial. It suddenly hit me: I loathed that woman with more discipline and determination than I had applied to any other endeavor in my life. And yet I met her maybe twice in my life. Had I fabricated the idea of an evil adversary and projected it on to her? Was I just looking for any prey on which to unleash my venom? She dated a guy I had severed ties with, it’s not like she drowned my dog or stole my identity. And it was in this moment that I decided to see Daphne through the eyes of love.