Lady Parts (7 page)

George (
left
), Dad (
right
)

Dad was silent as we got in the car. I felt the need, as I always did with my father, to keep talking.

I could not remember ever having an in-depth conversation with my dad. I had never been comfortable revealing how I really felt or who I really was for fear of being criticized. Our conversations were more like the superficial banter on a talk show. Dad was the host. He asked me light, trivial questions, and I, the perfect, good-humoured guest, answered him in a cheerful and non-confrontational manner. I made jokes and he laughed as if it were my job to
entertain him. It kept us engaged but at a distance. I longed for an intimate connection. That’s why I had suggested the trip. Dad was now in his eighties and I was in my fifties, and yet neither of us was at ease in each other’s presence. This was going to be the perfect opportunity, I thought, for us to let down our guard and speak from our hearts. After all, we were in an enclosed vehicle, unable to run from each other even if the intimacy became unbearable.

Dad’s demeanour was softer than usual. He was vulnerable after having spent time with his close friend. Our conversation began like it usually began. Dad asked me questions about my work, the same questions, the default questions, the safe questions, that he always asked.

“Do you have anything coming up, honey? Do you think you’ll be working with anyone famous? Will it be better than the TV show you just did? I hope so. Jesus Christ, that was a terrible show. It wasn’t very funny. None of my friends thought it was funny either. When do you think you’ll get a break?”

I laughed loudly and uncomfortably.

“Well, Dad, I shot a movie a year ago, and it’s out in theatres right now. It’s called
Hedwig and the Angry Inch.
I don’t think I’ve been more proud of anything. The movie has gotten rave reviews, and I’ve received some wonderful press from it. It’s kind of an underground film but so cutting-edge and hip and smart, and John Cameron Mitchell is a genius, and I am honoured to be in his company. The music score is
brilliant, and I think it will win many awards. I would love you to see it.”

“I saw it,” said my dad. “I didn’t like it. I couldn’t understand it. But your hair looked good.”

This time I didn’t laugh. I took a deep breath and held on tightly to the steering wheel. When I regained my composure, I spoke with compassion and clarity.

“Why would you say that, Daddy? Don’t you know how badly that makes me feel, how hurtful that is?” My dad was silent.

“What did you think of my acting?” I continued. “All the years you have seen me in plays and on TV and in movies, you have never commented on my acting. You talk about the other actors and how someone else stole the show, but with me you only talk about how I look. It makes me feel like you don’t think I have talent. That you don’t think I’m a good actress. That someone else is always better. You have never once told me you thought I was good in anything.”

Dad lowered his head and stared at his feet. After a few moments he spoke. His speech was halting and uncertain. His voice cracked. He was crying.

“I don’t know anything about acting,” he tried to explain. “But I do know about hair. I know what looks pretty.”

My dad’s vulnerability was heartbreaking. In that moment, he was a child who had been caught and scolded and was ashamed of what he had done. I was sorry I had confronted him. I wanted to retract everything I had said.

Neither of us spoke. I kept driving. Dad wiped his eyes as he turned away and looked out the window.

I took his hand and held it. “Daddy, can we make a pact?”

“What is it, Andrea?” he asked quietly.

“From here on in, every time you see me in anything, whether you don’t care for it or understand it,” I said smiling reassuringly, “can you just say to me, ‘Andrea, you were wonderful? I loved seeing you up there.’ Can you do that?”

“Yes,” said my dad as he continued to look out the window. “From now on, I’ll never say anything else about your hair.”

Dad kept his word. He never criticized a performance of mine again, nor did he ever mention my hair. From 2001 until he died in 2009 at the age of ninety-two, whenever he saw me in anything, he would say simply, like an obedient child, “You were wonderful. I loved seeing you up there.”

2013

“Your dad loved you, Andrea,” Paul Trusciani explained. “He probably said the things he said because he wanted to help you.”

I was in Maine. I was staying at the Black Point Inn. I had come here to talk with Mr. Trusciani, now eighty and a long-time business associate of and best friend to my dad. I needed him to fill in the blanks so I could finish this story. I had been working on it for months and couldn’t find an ending. I was hoping Paul had some answers.

I met him at his grocery store, Paul’s, on Congress Street in downtown Portland. The space in which his grocery store stands has been the home to other grocers since 1900. All the years I lived in Portland, I’d walk by the store and never notice it. I was shocked at how absent I was in my youth.

“Your dad wanted to be successful. And he was. He was legendary. He had an eighth-grade education but was a marketing and retailing genius. He was my mentor. If it wasn’t for him, I wouldn’t have this supermarket. I loved your dad. Everyone did.”

“Was he a perfectionist? Was he critical of the people who worked for him?” I asked.

Paul laughed. “Johnny used to say, there are two kinds of luck in the world. Good luck and bad luck. And the harder you work, the luckier you get. He hated it when people would tell him how much they liked his stores and restaurants. ‘You can’t learn from that, Paul,’ he’d say. And so, with his employees, he wouldn’t tell them what they did right, he would tell them what they did wrong. Then they could fix it and make it better. Bob Cott, who handled John’s advertising, told me that John was probably the most conscientious, customer-driven client he had ever worked for. Your dad actually read each and every customer card. He expected absolute perfection from every one of his employees.”

“But, Paul, that kind of pressure to be perfect is hard on a child. The message when I was growing up was that I was never good enough, that I never looked good enough.”

“Your father was tough on women, tough on your mother. Appearances were important to him.”

Paul laughed as he remembered an incident where my mom came into my dad’s office and said she had just been to Weight Watchers and had lost six pounds. “She was so excited,” Paul explained. “Your father looked at her and said under his breath, ‘Look behind you, Sybil, and you’ll find them.’

“He was hard on Liza too [my dad’s second wife], always on her for what she ate and how she looked. He kept after his women. Listen, your father believed in persistence and determination. He wanted to help people succeed. And he wanted to help you. I bet he thought if you changed your hair, you would look like a Hollywood actress. Your dad loved beautiful women. He loved movie stars. He couldn’t tell you how great you were because then he wasn’t helping you, but if he could tell you how to look or wear your hair, like the Hollywood stars he saw in the movies, he could help you be as successful as they were.”

“You know what my father asked me after I won my first Tony Award? He said, ‘Now do you think you’ll get a break?’ It was preposterous, Paul. A Tony Award is the highest honour in the theatre.”

“Listen, Andrea, all I can say is that your father was very proud of you. But he was never satisfied with what he had. He pushed himself. And he pushed you. He probably was hoping you’d be cast in a movie and become a big star
like Lana Turner or Elizabeth Taylor or Gina Lollobrigida. That’s what he meant by a break. You would be in something that everyone would see and then you’d be famous.

“I want to show you something.”

Paul led me to the front of his grocery store. By the entrance, nailed to the wall, was a framed yellow paper with words written in calligraphy. I recognized the script. Dad was an unschooled yet talented graphic artist. He created all the print ads for his stores and restaurants.

“Your dad had this hanging on the wall in his office in the first supermarket he owned. He was only in his twenties when he opened that store. When he retired, I brought it to my store. It’s been hanging on my wall for over twenty-five years. It’s by Calvin Coolidge. Your dad lived by these words.”

“Your dad was relentless at following through. He worked seven days a week. He always said that if the boss wasn’t in the store, the store wouldn’t survive. He deserved every nickel he ever made. He was generous to everyone. He was loyal. He expected the best. He worked hard, gambled hard, and loved to entertain. I remember him saying, ‘Paul, if I die and I have $2 left, I’m gonna get up on the casket and spend it.’

“Your father was the best businessman I ever knew. Do you know that when he sold his six supermarkets, Martin’s Foods, to Hannaford Brothers in 1972, he was in his fifties? He had already made millions of dollars in the supermarket business. He then opened The Art Gallery restaurant in downtown Portland, and the Merry Manor in Westbrook. And they became extremely successful. He started a second career in his fifties, and by the time he retired he owned and operated five restaurants in Maine, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts. It was just him. No committee, no partners, no company behind him. Just John Martin. He never looked back. Just kept moving forward, always thinking of the store, the restaurant, never John Martin. He was kind and had a wonderful sense of humour, and he was always watching out for his customers. John always delivered on his promises.”

I told Paul about the trip in the car with my dad and how Dad had cried when I confronted him.

“You got through to him. He knew he was being too tough. Your dad had a good heart. Don’t forget, Andrea, he
was the son of immigrant parents who both died by the time he was thirteen. John wanted you to succeed. He loved his family. I’m not saying he would have been easy to live with. I’m not saying that appearances weren’t important to him. But he loved you.”

Paul and I walked across Congress Street to Starbucks, ordered coffee, and continued talking. It had been almost four hours since we began our conversation. That morning I had learned more about my dad’s success as a businessman than I’d ever known growing up. But I was still searching for something. Yes, I had gained insight into our relationship, and an explanation for my crazy hair obsession. But I had expected the revelations to be emotionally cathartic. They weren’t. In fact, I felt strangely detached.

I knew my dad had loved me. But what I came to realize, while writing this story, was that his love and criticism for me were inextricable. They were intertwined. Once the criticism had stopped, I felt a strange void. Without his criticism, his love felt empty. He was a brilliant businessman and innovator. He did the best he could as a father. He was generous and provided financially for his family—my brother and my sister and our children. He was a leader in his community. He was loved and respected among his peers. He was a good man, and I was proud of all he accomplished and proud to be his daughter. I loved him and laughed with him and to this day miss him dearly, but I finally understood that what I had been searching for, my dad was incapable of giving.

I longed to hear, as any child does,
You’re perfect just the way you are.
But for my dad, perfection got you nowhere. Imperfection is what pushed you to success. It’s what made you who you were.

I handed Pascal a page I had ripped out of a magazine showing a twenty-five-year-old model with platinum blonde hair.

“Do you like this, Pascal?” I asked. “I don’t like my hair. I want to do something different.” Two weeks earlier I had turned sixty-five.

Pascal glanced at the photo.

“
Mais oui,
every haircut looks better blonde. It will not look good on you. Now go get changed. I’m going to fix your hair. I’m going to make you younger. I’m going to make the colour right for you. Trust me and forget about everything. You are going to feel much better after my work. It is your birthday is why you feel that way. Is why everything bothers you. Every time you get a birthday, you feel fat and ugly. Everybody does.”

“Do you think I’m crazy to fly to Atlanta to get my hair cut, Pascal?

“
Mais non.
You’re lovely and we take care of you. And it’s an investment on your beauty.”

“Why do you think women come from all over the world to see you, Pascal?”

“Because I do something with love and passion that nobody else does.”

“You certainly do, my darling. There’s no one like you.”

“And I adore women,” he continued.

After Pascal cut and coloured my hair, he held up a mirror for me to peruse his handiwork.

“It looks beautiful,” I said.

“
You
look beautiful,” he replied as he gently and erotically brushed the little pieces of hair off my neck and back.

“Oh, Pascal,” I said coyly. “You are bad. You are such a flirt. See you in eight weeks.”

“Oui, ma chérie. Au revoir.”

As I was boarding the flight to New York that night I called a friend and asked if she wanted to have dinner when I got back to the city.