I cued up “Practice What You Preach,” which I saw as a direct hit at him. I was standing in judgment of someone who I felt had compromised his values. As he listened, the blood drained from his face until it was ashen. What have I done? I thought. He nodded, and started crying, which got me crying.
“Jess, it’s beautiful,” he said. I thought he was bluffing. I played another song, “Rolling with the Punches,” his story set to my music. Again, my voice filled the room as I said nothing. “I see a little kid crying in you,” I sang on the track. “I see the little kid dressed in his Sunday best.” I went right into “Party of One,” which is about how abandoned I’d felt by him and my mother choosing the very moment I needed them most, becoming a mother, to go off and start their new lives. I’d never been brave enough to tell him I was mad at him. I watched his face as he listened, eyes closed. I don’t know what I expected from him. Anger? That he would leave? He didn’t. He got up and put his arms around me until I shook with tears.
“I am so proud of you,” he said.
For the first time in my entire life, he was responding to something I created not as a manager, but as a father. “You’re not mad?” I asked.
“No,” he said. “I’m sad I’m not the one promoting it.” I waited for him to start with a business plan, some pitch to lure me back in. Instead, he just said, “I love you.”
A weight, one I didn’t even know I was carrying, lifted. I’d gotten so used to it. The sense that my father wouldn’t love me if he wasn’t managing me. The certainty that I did something wrong. But instead of relief, I felt untethered. Who was I if I had no one to blame for my life but myself?
The edges of my memory begin to blur here. I know I led him upstairs, and he talked about coming back for the party later. “I’ll see you tonight,” he said.
I held it together until he was outside, then I leaned on the closed door. Slowly, I fell to a sitting position, put down my glittercup, and slumped down to lay on the cold, pale, white stone floor of my entryway. On my back, I looked up at the vaulted ceiling, focusing on the chandelier as tears fell. I lost him, I thought. Even though he loved and accepted it, I experienced the pain of him not being my manager for the first time. I had been so frustrated with him that I never mourned the loss of his guidance. How was I ever going to be successful without him? And why in the world would I ever be so judgmental of my father when I wasn’t true to what I said in my life? Forget what he preached. I was a fraud. I took all the pressures in my head and blamed them on my relationships with other people. Instead of it being my relationship with myself.
I felt nekkid. Not naked, nekkid. Truly bare, with no one else to blame anymore but me.
I wasn’t drunk. Trust me, two was not doing it at that point. All the feelings I had been suppressing washed over me in a rush, and I was drowning in them. My world was rotating around me so fast that I didn’t have any clue as to how to control it. I tried to talk to God, because we had always worked things out together, no matter how lonely I felt in life. He would tell me, “Get up, Jessica,” and give me the strength to do it.
Nothing. I heard nothing. I still knew He was in control, though. He was doing this to me so I understood I couldn’t live like this anymore. That I had to change. And then a voice did come.
“Are you okay?”
It wasn’t God, it was our house manager Randy. He was my dad’s best friend when I was a kid. His wife, Beth, was my dance teacher in fifth grade, then my choreographer on tour, and now she helps run my clothing line. When I love you, I want you to stick around.
I didn’t answer at first. It was a real question. In my entire life, whenever someone asked me if I was okay, the answer was a reflex: “Yes.” Because, no matter what, I always wanted it to be true.
“I am not okay,” I said, surprising myself. I said the words again, differently each time, like an actress trying to get hold of a line, seeing what it felt like to admit I needed help. “I am not okay. Randy, I am not okay.”
He went to get other people. I don’t know who. There’s always a lot of people at my house. The entryway is a high-traffic area, and people literally had to walk over me to get the house ready for the party. I had always been the boss, always in control, so I guess they thought I just needed a minute.
There was a flurry of texts. My friends freaked out and called Eric. I always joked to them that I was a mess, but the girlfriend bat signal had gone up for real: “Jessica’s not okay.” I was ashamed, and more so because it was Halloween. I had to be a mom that night. I had to take my kids trick-or-treating. I had to be here for the eighty people who were coming over. And now I was stuck on the floor—
Ace would see me like this, I thought. At any moment he would walk in with Eric. That’s what got me up. I needed to hide.
I got another glittercup. By then my close friends started arriving to check on me. I greeted everyone the same way: “I’m not okay.” Not as an apology, but a baffled realization. I couldn’t fix it. The car I drove at a hundred miles per hour was out of control with the steering wheel locked, and I could only turn to the passengers and say, “Well, this is bad.”
Then the hair and makeup team arrived. A glam squad for a breakdown. The plan for my Halloween costume was to dress me up as Willie Nelson, my friend and spirit animal ever since we worked together in late 2004 on my first film, The Dukes of Hazzard. We still call each other by our character names, Daisy and Uncle Jesse. He and his wife are my role models for marriage. My own marriage was collapsing during that movie, and on set I hung out in his trailer, let him see through the happy face I put on for people. Now and then through the years, just when I needed it, he would text me a simple, “I love you, Daisy. Love, Uncle Jesse.” I needed it every time.
Me dressing up as Willie was Eric’s idea. We were in our study, where I have a big picture of Willie with his friend Waylon Jennings on a shelf, right below Eric’s 49ers helmet. He looked at the photo and decided it would be hysterical if I went as Willie and Eric as Waylon.
I zoned out while the team went to work for hours, gluing a gray beard to my face and helping me into a wig of Willie’s signature long braids and an American flag bandana. I stared at the mirror, relieved not to see me at all.
Eric came in and I made like I was in character. It saved me from being honest. He asked if I wanted to help the kids get ready. I didn’t answer. I let it seem like I was too busy, when he knew that kind of stuff was always a joy for me. Maxwell was home, he said. I was terrified of letting her see me in that shape. She was going to be Belle from Beauty and the Beast, while Ace was going to be a cowboy. I am ashamed to say that I don’t know who got them into their costumes that night. I was the mom who set the alarm an hour early if my daughter wanted a French braid for school. Usually, I would a hundred percent be there for a moment like a Halloween costume. I wasn’t.
But I needed the picture to post. Eric and the kids didn’t care, but people expected it, I told myself. Through the window I saw Eric, who in his black hat and vest looked more like Kevin Richardson from the Backstreet Boys than Waylon Jennings. My mom gathered Maxwell and Ace for the photo, and I finally joined them outside. People had already started to arrive, and there were so many kids. I strummed my guitar as Willie would, holding it out to keep people at arm’s length as they laughed at my transformation. Ace looked uncertain, but I was relieved when I realized it was because he didn’t know who I was in my beard and braids. Perfect, I thought. This broken person is not your mother, my sweet son. Nothing to see here.