Taylor Made Owens (33 page)

“Whatever became of Jeremy anyway?” he’d asked on their second date back in early February.

“Last I heard, he manages a grocery store in London.”

“Oh. What about Kristen?”

“She’s a doctor in California.” That’s all Jennifer volunteered at the time, and Robert thought it too awkward to pursue. Over the weeks, he learned she lived in Palo Alto, worked at a children’s hospital, and was planning a career in the pediatric oncology field. He eventually came right out and asked about her marital status, just a few days after she had intercepted and erased Kristen’s phone message to him. He intended to call her if she was unattached.

This question infuriated Jennifer. She’d hoped he would propose after her triumphant performance at the GRAMMYs. No woman had ever looked so perfect, he’d told her. She got her record deal, and stardom was at her doorstep. Yet, not only did she get no proposal, he was asking about his damn cousin again. She had to do something to get his mind off that woman.

“Oh, didn’t I tell you? She married a doctor named Andrew a while back,” Jennifer lied. “Her name is Mrs. Katz now.”

Tears rushed to his eyes, and he turned away from Jennifer. “Um, I, I have to go to the bathroom,” he said, trembling. In the bathroom, this grown man, who’d been through it all, sat on the side of the bathtub and cried. This just one week after being demoted to the minor leagues. It was the worst time in his life since Iraq, and he needed companionship.

After settling down, he emerged from the bathroom with red eyes, walked up to Jennifer, went down on one knee, and said, “Jennifer Taylor, will you marry me?”

She was stunned, but without delay said, “Yes! You’re the only man I’ve ever loved. I’d love to marry you, Bobby.” He stood, and they kissed.

The wedding took place seven weeks later at a chapel in Manhattan with just her father and mother in attendance. The exquisite bride had never been happier. The groom was enchanted by his beautiful bride, but secretly sullen that he’d got the wrong Taylor. Her record company insisted on a low-key ceremony. Young, sexy pop stars with just the ability to carry a tune for talent are much harder to sell to the record-buying public if they are married. And absolutely no getting pregnant.

Robert was displeased that his marriage had to be kept secret. Not only did it make plain his second-class status behind her career, it meant the two couldn’t make a habit of appearing in public together. To make matters worse, she was in the midst of a tour with one of those untalented, transposable boy bands, and resumed it directly after the wedding. An entertainment news show reported a rumor about her and one of the boys. Jennifer assured her husband it wasn’t true, but said her record company liked the publicity and told her not to confirm or gainsay the rumor. His patience began to diminish.

In the meantime, Andrew was pressuring Kristen for her answer. They met for lunch near the hospital and talked around the issue. She learned that Dr. Katz wanted no more than one child. She’d wanted three or four with Robert, but found herself thinking one would be okay with Andrew. She inferred he’d like her to sign a pre-nuptial agreement; all she had to her name was student loans, but he had amassed quite a few assets. Kristen was put off at the lack of trust, but thought she could agree to it. The couple set a dinner date for twelve days hence, after his return from a European junket. She would give him her decision then.

Back east, all was not heaven between the newlyweds. Jennifer, whose third song was climbing the charts, let the fame she’d tasted go to her head and was acting like a pampered Hollywood starlet. As her fame rose, she started treating everyone else, including him, with less and less respect. She was a trial to listen to, and he was unhappy with the relationship. He never did love her; now he was beginning to dislike her. He began hinting and warning that he wouldn’t stand for her illaudable behavior, but she paid little attention.

In late June, after weeks of hard consideration, Kristen decided to accept Andrew’s proposal. On the night of their dinner date, however, Providence intervened. While walking from a parking lot to the restaurant, they were mugged by a man with a gun.

“Gimme all your money and jewelry or I’ll blow your fucking heads off!” the mugger informed them. A trembling Kristen handed over her purse and her gold necklace. A tremulous Andrew stepped behind Kristen and handed the mugger his wallet and the engagement ring. Not too valiant of him, she reckoned, and the assailant apparently agreed. “You sure can pick ‘em, lady,” he remarked as he ran off laughing.

“We did the right thing, not arguing or anything,” commented Andrew, looking at the ground. “He could have killed us if we didn’t keep our heads.”

“Well, he could have killed
me
, anyway. Did I make a good shield, Andrew?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Never mind. My answer to your proposal is a most definite no. Goodbye!” She hailed a cab home.

The Taylor women required of their men a high standard of chivalry. Using her as a shield fell short of that standard. He didn’t have to thwart the robbery; a gesture of protection such as stepping in front of her would have sufficed. She considered his stepping behind her, on the ready to catch her lifeless body, an inadequate gesture. Andrew was history. Kristen was left with no prospects and decided to immerse herself in her work and forget about men. Who could blame her?

•

Things improved briefly between Jennifer and Robert in late July. Her tour was done, but she was headed back to the recording studio for her second album. She was also doing rehearsals for the first video from the album. The video featured a lap dance, and she practiced on Robert. The practice was paradise for him—every time, they ended up making love—but the idea that his wife would be doing this dance with another man on film was disconcerting.

She invited him to watch the shooting of the bawdy scene in mid-August. The owner of the lap, a handsome singer called Jason Snow, who had a gift for raising hackles rivaling fingernails across a blackboard when he sang—his hit song, “Huffing Glue with Red Savages,” failed to find favor with the politically correct crowd, but caught on with teens when they tried to ban it—was permitted way too much freedom as Robert saw it. Throughout the shoot, Jennifer continually glanced over at Robert to gauge his reaction. The minx savored his jealousy because it was his solitary overt sign of feelings for her. Jason ran his hands over her shoulders, back, and legs. He was treated to an unimpeded view of her breasts, and he even fondled them. Only when Jason clutched her breasts did she object, and then playfully.

Robert considered plowing Snow, but decided to walk out instead. He left for Rochester without saying goodbye.

He wouldn’t even take her calls over the next few days. Nervous, she went to Rochester to see him and apologize. It was an awkward visit. Despite her advances, he didn’t even make love to her that night. She lay in bed, awake, trying to recollect if he had ever once said he loved her. He was growing colder by the day, she knew, and she was trying to reassure herself that they still had a future together. She worked herself into a frenzy and woke up Robert to ask, “Do you love me?”

He replied, “For Christ’s sake, it’s the middle of the night. Go to sleep.” His brusque tone made it clear she was not to ask again. After she left, he remained cool to her, and over the next two weeks with her in New York and him on the road, the two spoke only when she called. His end of the conversation was always terse.

When they next got together after a late August series in New York—he’d been recalled to the majors six days prior to replace an injured reliever, though he hadn’t told his wife—she was a different person. She’d reverted to the captivating person that she could be when she chose, the one who’d successfully courted him. After an afternoon of doting on him and drinking champagne, she doffed her clothes and made her act of contrition; he was magnanimous in accepting her cogent offer. The offer came with a special inducement to stay with her permanently, though he was oblivious to it for the time being.

The next morning, Robert dropped a bombshell: “Jenny, I’m sorry, but I can’t do this any longer.”

“What are you saying?” she asked.

“I’m saying I want a divorce. I don’t love you.”

This couldn’t have come as a shock to Jennifer. Not only had he been sending warning signals for weeks, the evening prior had been a disaster. The two had attended a gala staged by her record company. Jennifer wore a white, body-hugging dress that was so short and so short of opaque, Robert had asked her not to wear it, but she’d dismissed his concerns saying it cost her ten thousand dollars, and, anyway, it showed much less than a bikini. She was sporting a new look, with shorter hair that surrounded her face, and eye-catching makeup—dark pink lipstick and blush, heavy blue-grey eye shadow, black eyeliner and mascara, and blue-green false contacts—rendering a countenance of singular perfection. Bedecked in gold and glittering diamonds, she sat seductively in an armchair with legs crossed, her face unmistakably communicating,
I know how much you want me
.

No man was immune to her charms. Four gay men declared, “Oh, now I understand the attraction!” At any one time, at least two rich, famous men from the entertainment industry were besieging her.

Robert sat in the corner, observing as the sharks circled his wife. Always the coquette, she welcomed her attackers brazenly with an eye on Robert. Resentment mounting, he glared and fidgeted. He then attempted to give her some of her own medicine by flirting with some pretty women, but they were either celebrities themselves or had their eyes on the stars and were cool to this nonentity.

She saw him fail with the ladies and tittered. His bile rose, so natural and effortless was her scorn. Continuing to dig her own grave, Jennifer came up to him with three handsome men in tow. They’d asked whom she came with, and she walked them over to Robert. As they approached, one, an executive producer, asked what Robert did for a living. She said he was a pitcher.

“For what team?” the man asked.

“Oh, that’s not important,” she said.

“I guess he’s a minor leaguer,” he said as he and his buddies chuckled.

That was all his pride could take. Robert retorted, “What you bag-lappers think of me I couldn’t care less, but let me take this opportunity to update
Miss
Taylor. I pitched yesterday against the New York Yankees.” He omitted the part about allowing five runs in one inning.

“Batting practice?” said the executive producer as the three men laughed.

Robert turned and walked toward the exit, Jennifer jogging after him, grabbing his arm and asking, “Why didn’t you tell me?”

He jerked his arm away and said, “What the hell do you care?”

She gave him an anxious look and said, “Calm down. Why did you call me Miss Taylor?”

He leaned up close and whispered, “Tonight was the last straw,
Miss
Taylor.”

Flustered, she shrieked, “What is that supposed to mean?” Everyone looked, confounded to see her studied poise become unbridled panic. “I’m really sorry. Please don’t leave. Bobby!” He walked out, Jennifer following and pleading for an explanation. He went to their hotel room and to bed without saying another word. When she joined him in bed, he moved to the couch.

No, his request for a divorce couldn’t have been a shock, but it was devastating nonetheless.

“What? No, Bobby, you can’t do this to me,” said the upset young lady. “I love you.”

“No, you don’t. You love only yourself and your career.”

“That’s not true! What is it really? Now that you’re back in the majors, you think you’re too good for me?”

“That’s the way you think, not me. You might be the most spoiled woman alive. You must have your five thousand-dollar hotel rooms, ten thousand-dollar dresses, caviar, and on and on. And you’re mean as hell. You keep insulting people and treating them like dirt. You don’t treat me much better. It’s embarrassing to be near you. Your conduct last night … God, Jenny, what part of that conceited little brain of yours figured I would ever put up with your humiliating me?”

“I absolutely did not intend to humiliate you. I was just trying to find out if you love me.”

“By flaunting and flirting? That’s pretty bizarre—but, then, that’s you through and through: playing the seductress with all those men. It makes me wonder how far you go when I’m not there.”

“Once again, I am not fooling around.”

“God, you practically did it right in front of me with that strip-tease business. That bastard felt you up in front of me, and you smiled. Even if people knew we were married, I’d be a laughingstock the way you let other men—”

“As I already explained to you, he fondled me without my permission. I got mad, but I didn’t want to make a scene in public. After you left, I was screaming at him and threatening charges against him.”

“Why didn’t you have the ass jockey charged if he sexually assaulted you?”

“My record company asked me to let it drop.”

“Yeah, it’s bad for business, so that slimeball gets away with it.”

“You know how this business works. Look at how popular I am now. Don’t you want that for me?”

“Not if it means I don’t really have a wife, just some manufactured flavor of the year who deigns to spend a day with me here and there. Do you know how many nights we’ve spent together since our wedding? I figured it out the other day. Sixteen. That’s all. I’m sure you neither knew nor cared about that.”

“It’s not all my fault. You’re on the road half the time, and the other half you live in Rochester, of all places.”

“I’m not there anymore, remember? Anyway, you could be with me if your frigging record company didn’t dictate the terms of our goddamn marriage!” he repined.

“What you’re saying is you want a sweet housewife, barefoot and pregnant, cooking your meals and kissing your cheek when you walk in the door.”

“You know, when I got recalled to the Twins last Monday, I called to tell my wife, but I couldn’t get a word in as you went on and on about some flunky bringing you the wrong drink after a hard day of dance rehearsals. After that, I didn’t want to tell you. You’ve lost touch with reality in your rarefied world.” Jennifer hung her head down. He continued, “I want someone to share my life with, not someone I have to schedule an appointment with. I want a real person who I can be with, show off, rely on, and love, not a spoiled bitch who I have to sneak around with as if I’m having a secret affair. I want a wife who loves me, not one who refuses to acknowledge my existence. I want a wife who reserves herself for her husband, not a slut!”