Chapter 11

Saturday, June 10, 2000

The movie premiered in New York. I went with Tiffany and Tonya brought Eric. My parents came too, mom wearing a Vera Wang dress that she had bought for the occasion, and Dad in a new tuxedo. They'd hit the bars before coming, and I knew that their red carpet interviews would give me a headache in the morning. The only person missing was David, who was the person I most wanted to be there.

I left the after party early to get some sleep; I had an early morning flight. We would begin shooting for 'My Neighbors the Nudists' (I hadn't been able to convince them to go with a better title after the pilot picked up a lot of buzz) Monday.

I sat next to David on the flight, which made it seem a lot shorter. I checked my cell phone on the way to the baggage check. Al had left a message for me:

"Jack, call me back as soon as you get this; it's urgent!"

I told David what he'd said.

"That's weird," he responded, "do you think there's something wrong with the show?"

"No, they wouldn't call about that when they knew I was on an airplane."

"Hey, look! you're on TV!"

I looked up at a TV monitor right before it cut from a publicity shot of me to an interview of my dad. He was wearing his new tuxedo, but the shot wasn't of the red carpet, and he looked a little drunker than I remembered him being. We met our driver and walked out to the parking lot, where we were met by a horde of reporters, shoving cameras in my face and shouting unintelligible questions about my father.

"I don't know what's going on, and I'm not taking any questions right now," I shouted, and ran to the car. Some of them followed us to the hotel, but we ran inside. We met Tonya in the lobby. The network had gotten us a three-bedroom suite, apparently not thinking it at all awkward for me to be sharing a hotel suite with my 'ex-girlfriend.' She didn't look happy. "Jack, something's happened."

"I figured as much. do you have any idea what's going on?"

"Yeah. I'll tell you about it in the elevator."

We got in the elevator and she turned to me. "Your dad got really drunk at the after party and started talking to a reporter. He told her everything."

"You mean about David?"

"No, wait, he knows about that?"

"He could have guessed."

"No, it's about the other thing."

"You mean with the sofa?" David asked.

I didn't know what he was talking about. "What sofa?"

"You know, when you came to school with a black eye and said you'd fell on a sofa."

"You knew about that?"

"It was kind of obvious. You were really defensive. I was going to wait to talk about it when you were ready, but..."

"Dad beat you to the punch?"

"Yeah."

"Fuck. Ok, I guess we need to talk then."

When we got to the hotel suite, I sat down on the couch and told David everything that had gone on between me and my parents. By the time I finished I was sobbing into his shoulders. He hugged me and let me cry for a while and then suggested we order lunch.