Mommywood Read online

  Our neighbors started setting up for the parade. It was straight out of the fifties. Dogs frolicked on the bright green squares of lawn in front of each house. Dads and kids were working together to hang American flags. Somebody had a megaphone. People started putting out plastic woven lawn chairs so they could sit and watch the parade go by. Uh-oh. I stopped short. I’d invited a bunch of friends to the block party, but I didn’t know about the lawn chairs! There was no Block Party Lawn Chair Instructional Email! By chance I had two folding beach chairs with drink holders and everything. I had owned them even before I moved to Beaver Avenue. I was very proud of that. But what about my friends? If we wanted to fit in with the crowd, they definitely needed lawn chairs! I sent out a frantic email to my friends: “Make sure you bring sun hats, lotion, and lawn chairs.” Jenny wrote back right away. “I’m sorry, who are you? Did you just ask me to bring a lawn chair to your house? Because (a) I don’t own one, and (b) I’m pretty sure you don’t have one, and (c) I’m not even sure you know what a lawn chair is. Is this the new suburban you?” Clearly I was in a bad way, because all I could think when I read that was, In the time it took her to write that snarky email she could have gone to Target and bought some lawn chairs!

  An hour later, Jenny, Mehran, Sara, Amy, Bill and Scout, Suzanne, and Gueran were all at our house, ready for the big party. I showed off my lawn chairs to Jenny.

  At ten in the morning the parade began. All the kids and dogs were dressed in matching red, white, and blue Beaver Avenue Fourth of July T-shirts. “Born on the Fourth of July” blared on a staticky sound system. Waving flags, kids pulling wagons with their younger siblings in them, the group started at one end of Beaver and marched to the other end. Hello, Mayberry. My stepson, Jack, pulled Liam in his festooned wagon. Liam waved the whole time. He loved it. Ten minutes later they reached the other end of Beaver. Parade over, on to the next activity.

  There were other activities—square dancing, tug-of-war, face painting. One house had an exhibit showing photos of Beaver Avenue and its houses in the seventies. That’s when I realized that they’ve been doing these same block parties since the seventies. When I looked closely at the photos, I saw that it was the same street, lined with the same trees, the same houses…and the same people. I actually recognized my neighbors—some as children, some as adults—in the photos. It was incredibly sweet, even if it reminded me a little of that creepy photo at the end of The Shining. Still, it made me realize they’d all lived on the same block for a very long time. No wonder they were so worried that we might put up a wall. No wonder they were put off by our camera crew of four. They had to protect the Beaver Avenue Twilight Zone where nothing and nobody ever changes.

  Unfortunately, my block party performance anxiety had just begun. Dean suddenly developed a horrible migraine—must have been the incredibly exhausting parade walk—and went back inside to lie down. But, but…it said on the email that he was the official egg toss host! It said so on the flyers! (We ourselves had never specified Dean as the family representative, but I guess the husbands were the designated hosts.) As 2:15 approached I went into full panic mode. Dean was still upstairs. What if we were the only house that was late to begin our activity? Tori Spelling—Block Party failure! I was doomed. Thinking fast, I herded all our friends into the front yard. I had to drag Mehran away from the Vogue magazine he was reading comfortably in our den. If we didn’t have Dean to lead the show, we’d at least compensate with a large, enthusiastic crowd of egg toss supporters. I lined my friends up and prodded them until they had sufficiently welcoming smiles.

  At 2:10—with just minutes to spare—Dean showed signs of life. I heard him grumble and ran upstairs. “Dean! It’s time for the egg toss, come on!” He stumbled to the bathroom. Would he make it downstairs in time? At 2:13 he came downstairs, fastening his belt on the way. I pushed him out the front door. Okay! We were psyched and ready. The crowd, moving as one well-organized mass, was approaching. Tick, tick, tick. It was 2:15 on the dot. All systems were go. We made it! I breathed a sigh of relief.

  Just as the egg toss contestants arrived, an announcement came through the megaphone. The keeper of the megaphone was Wally, the fence-monitoring neighbor who had turned nice when I hugged him. Suddenly, our now-nice neighbor announced, “The fire department!” We all looked up the block. Indeed, two big red fire trucks were at that moment rounding the corner. Like soldiers, the crowd turned away from our house as one unit and ran toward the gleaming fire engines. (They stopped looking like soldiers as soon as they started climbing all over the fire engines.) I was like, “Come on, guys, have you never seen a fire truck before?” But they were gone. All that was left in our yard was us, our friends, and twenty-four eggs. The egg toss was officially postponed.

  Per the Block Party Potluck Table Instructional Email, the deadline for delivery of all desserts, precut, was 6:00 p.m., Pacific time. Mehran went with me for the presentation of the cake. We walked to the table—a card table in the middle of the street (provided, presumably, by someone who had been assigned “Beaver Avenue July Fourth Potluck Table” much as we were assigned “Beaver Avenue July Fourth Egg Toss”).

  On the table were four other desserts. They were store-bought. And they were sitting there in pristine condition. Not one of them had been savagely cut into unattractive, portion-sized pieces. I was aghast. My cake…I’d even bought a plastic silver tray for it. It would have been a shining star.

  I had no choice but to submit my cake as it was. I looked around, but there was nobody to whom I could present it. No reception committee to whom I could at least explain how hard I’d tried. Even worse—as I looked around I realized that there was nobody on the entire street. All day long people had been bustling around, hanging decorations, chatting across yards, coming in and out of their houses. But right now, at the moment of judgment, the streets were empty. You know how when you’re in a café and you put money in the tip jar, you kind of want someone to see you do it? This was like that, but on a much bigger scale. I needed these people to know how much I’d tried, how much I’d worked on this cake and fretted over the rules, how much I’d done everything I possibly could to fit in, to participate, to be a good neighbor. But no one was around. Nobody cared. “Come on,” said Mehran, “put it down.” But I couldn’t.

  “We have to wait,” I hissed. “Somebody has to see that I participated.” After five minutes Mehran was like, “Let’s go.”

  “But they won’t know I brought cake.”

  “You’ll know,” said Mehran. I think we both knew that wasn’t the point.

  A couple of hours later, when it was all over, and all the friends left, and the cleanup committee was efficiently clearing the block of any sign of the festivities, I took stock of the day. Cut or uncut, my cake had been eaten. Fire department notwithstanding, the delayed egg toss had been a success. Were my expectations too high? Had I wanted something from the block party that it couldn’t possibly give me? If trying hard and following all the rules didn’t make me fit in, what would? Was I trying too hard? Or did I have to have grown up on this block to feel comfortable here? I looked down at my Beaver Avenue Block Party beer cozy and sighed. So this was neighborhood life. It was very stressful.

  Hollywood Halloweens

  July Fourth was a bust, but there was still hope. Halloween was just around the bend. Halloween was always my favorite holiday—as soon as I was allowed to choose my own costume. That is, when I was an adult. When I was a kid, as with my birthday parties and pretty much everything else, my mother’s preferences dominated. And my mother’s preferences were always over-the-top. My brother and I wore Halloween costumes that were custom-made by Nolan Miller, the costume designer for Dynasty and most of my dad’s other glamorous shows. They were beautiful costumes, but I can still feel the weight of my Marie Antoinette wig every time I get a headache.

  In all my childhood we never had a trick-or-treater come to our house. I longed to see the kids in costumes, to hold out a bowl of
candy, but no child in his right mind would have come up such a long driveway. And that was the house we lived in before my parents moved to the Manor. Now, for the first time in my life, I lived in a real Halloween neighborhood. My family would have the costumes I dreamed of. We’d have a Halloween party. We’d share a classic Halloween.

  A week or so before Halloween we saw Sam, the five-year-old boy who lives across the street, in his front yard with his grandmother. Sam was dressed in a superhero costume. He was very proud of it and was flying all around the yard to show off, with Liam chasing excitedly behind. The superhero’s grandmother confessed that she’d made his costume and he wouldn’t take it off. The costume was a pair of long johns with purple underwear—the purple version of tighty whities—pulled over it. She’d sewn a superhero-type letter on his shirt and attached a cape. He was wearing a mask she’d cut out of double-layered felt. It was charmingly handmade-looking.

  I loved that the grandmother made the costume, in part because the idea of my mother sitting down at a sewing machine to make something for Liam was amusingly absurd. But I also thought about how inexpensive store-bought costumes are these days, and how those long johns alone probably cost her just as much as a store-bought costume. Clearly, that wasn’t the point. I’m sure she wanted to take the time to make the costume herself because to her, a homemade costume—that was love. For my mother, maybe those elaborate custom costumes were love (and if love is measured by the height of the wig, she loved me a lot). And now, for me, being able to say, “Look Liam, your store-bought bee suit is right here, inside its plastic shrink-wrap”—that was love. You see, all I ever wanted growing up was store-bought simplicity. And so buying Liam a normal costume from Pottery Barn, a costume like any other kid might wear, a costume that wasn’t made by a famous costume designer—there’s nothing better to me. And that’s part of why I bought myself the adult version of Liam’s jenky polyester bee suit. We were going to be matching store-bought bees together. Now that was love.

  That was the plan for Stella too. I wanted her to be a ladybug, since we call her “Ladybug” or “Buggy,” but when I tried to put her in the little red spotted bunting costume I bought for her, she rejected it. She wasn’t going for the leg restriction of the bunting bag. Stella’s a kicker.

  I had learned my lesson about forcing Halloween costumes—first from my mother, who simply never asked what we wanted, and later from Mimi, when I lost my temper trying to force her into her ballerina outfit. The day before Halloween found me running around trying to find Stella a costume that she’d tolerate. I found two different ladybug costumes at two different stores, but both were too big on Stella, so that night I got to work. I attached the wings from one costume and the tutu from another to a red onesie. And when I say attached, I mean that I sewed the costume together. That’s right. I, Tori Spelling, both bought and home-made my daughter’s first Halloween costume. And if that isn’t true proof of some big Halloween love, I don’t know what is.

  Once the onesie body and the soft little headband with antennae were ready, all I needed were some black tights to complete the costume. The next morning—Halloween—I ran out to get them. Black tights. How hard could that be? Doesn’t every infant need black tights at some point? When the costume stores didn’t have them, I went—well, I went to the only place that sprang to mind: Kitson Kids on Robertson in Beverly Hills, trendy boutique to the stars.

  Kitson Kids sells baby Uggs. They have mini True Religion jeans. They have Little Marc Jacobs dresses, and crib shoes designed to look like leopard satin high heels. Basically, if you want your kid to look like he or she belongs on the fashionable sidewalks of Beverly Hills, Kitson Kids is the place for you. They showed me the pink faux leopard fur coat. The crystal-encrusted pink Uggs. The hair accessories—every hand-crafted baby barrette known to man for the two hairs on Stella’s head. The Splendid leggings (but none in black!) for forty-eight dollars. You know, all the celebrity baby staples. Aren’t black tights a celebrity baby staple? Apparently not.

  I finally found the tights at a shoe store, assembled the costume, and I have to say the result was damn cute. Stella even tolerated her headband. That’s my girl—born knowing that the outfit is nothing without the accessories.

  In the afternoon, Liam’s best friend, Ollie, had a Halloween party. Dean and I brought Liam, Stella, and Jack, who went as a gothic vampire. Dean was dressed as a gladiator/Hercules-type person, and I, of course, was a bee. When Ollie’s dad opened the door, he oohed over the kids appropriately. Then he looked at me and Dean and said, “Wow. Kudos. You get an A plus.” I smiled: our efforts had paid off! You see, I wasn’t just dressed in my store-bought bee costume. I had yellow and gold shimmer eyeshadow. I had black and gold false eyelashes on. My fingernails were painted black. I was wearing a bright yellow wig with black bangs. (I know, quite the find. It went perfectly with my bee costume.) We had good costumes. Cool. I beamed with pride.

  That feeling lasted about two minutes. As soon as we stepped into the party, I realized that we weren’t the parents wearing the best costumes. We were the only parents wearing costumes. No wonder we got an A plus. No one else completed the assignment. My pride immediately turned to indignation. Couldn’t they stick something on? A witch’s hat? Cat ears? Why didn’t they dress up? It was just sad. How about a little effort, people?

  As the party went on, my disappointment in the other parents gradually turned into mild self-consciousness, then full-fledged embarrassment. As I had for Stella, I had combined two costumes to achieve my perfect bee outfit. One was an oversized, foamy bee suit with black tights, a headband, and wings. (That was the costume that matched Liam’s.) Then I had the stripper version of a bee. That’s right. Some costume designer came to work one day and had the brilliant idea of making a stripper bee. It’s a completely ridiculous concept. (Stripper nurse, okay. Stripper bee? It’s a tough scenario to imagine.) Anyway, the stripper bee was a tight, low-cut costume with a short black tutu. I wore the stripper bee body over a black turtleneck and opaque black leggings, which toned it down from slutty to cute. I wore the wings from the big foamy bee suit. But that wasn’t all. In addition to the false eyelashes, the black fingernails, and the wig in bee palette, I also had black and yellow legwarmers and—I was so proud of having found them—black and yellow striped heels. I was carrying a fuzzy purse that said “Honeypot.” I wasn’t just the girl with the witch’s hat. I’d clearly invested a lot of time and thought in my costume. It was starting to feel like a little much.

  Then a few moms asked, “When did you have your daughter?” and I started worrying that in addition to being overdone, the costume was also too tight. I thought I had covered my bases by putting the turtleneck and leggings underneath the stripper bee. Had that not done the job? Did I look like a whore? Were these moms judging me? Whenever I feel judged, I feel like there’s an extra layer of judgment. I’m not just some wacky mom in a stripper bee costume. That’s who I want to be. Instead, I’m Tori Spelling in a stripper bee costume. I’m cocktail party joke material. Now I felt like a jackass (a bee-ass? a jack-bee?) and wanted to leave.

  Meanwhile, Liam’s costume wasn’t playing exactly as I had planned either. Stella was fine. She looked adorable, and let’s just say she wasn’t the only ladybug in attendance. But Liam—well, the little boys at this particular Halloween party were all in much more studly outfits. One boy was David Beckham. He had fake tattoos, hip soccer shorts, and a shirt that said, “I love Victoria.” Our host, Ollie, was a golfer. Ollie had on a bow tie, argyle socks, a hat, and sported a mini golf bag. Then there was Liam. My little Pottery Barn bee in a big, fuzzy costume (at least I found him black and yellow Nikes, which gave him a modicum of studliness). Liam was only one and a half. Did he really have to start dressing like a boy? Couldn’t I hold on to the animal costumes for a little while longer? Apparently not. As if picking up on the testosterone-fueled disapproval of his peers, Liam started to hate his stuffy little costume, and given my Marie Anto
inette history, I wasn’t about to force him to wear it. My Halloween fantasy wasn’t off to a good start, but I still had hope.

  After the Halloween party we came home, where we were going to have a little party with friends before trick-or-treating up and down the block. The dining room was decorated with all sorts of spooky paraphernalia. I made a pumpkin full of chili, and evil eggs. (Get it? Instead of deviled eggs?) There were ghost cupcakes. I had gone to the farmers’ market to find the same caramel apples with candy corn and gumdrop faces that my mom used to get for me. And as a finishing touch I used a huge plastic cauldron as a drink bucket, ready with chilled Diet Coke, Sprite, Sunkist, Veuve Clicquot, and Mott’s for Tots juice boxes. It was a well-stocked cauldron.

  We were ready. Would my friends at least show up in costume? Or would I have to accept that I was an overdone bee slut and let it rain on my Halloween parade? Sara and her daughter, Emma, showed up first. Sara was all in black. No costume. But I could have predicted that Sara wouldn’t dress up. She was pregnant, and I knew she was the type to think it was silly anyway. Then Jenny and her family walked in. Jenny, who is also the type you’d think wouldn’t be dressed up, was in a full-on Cinderella costume. Oh my God. She was perfect. The headband, the long dress. Her own beautiful blonde hair. As she stood at the door, I could see a couple of little girls out on the street staring at her with open mouths. They were in love. I said, “You could work at Disneyland!” Dean said, “You look hot!” Jenny said, “Target, five dollars.” I said, “Settle down, Dean.”