An unhappy chapter in a 48 year Love Story
- Posted on 7th July 2015
- in divorce & remarriage, Entertainment, entertainment books, Hollywood memoirs, Love Story
- by Ben
Could our
love story
end in separation then – Divorce!? I finally knew that Elizabeth was really gone when she had the Kawai moved out. An unhappy excerpt from Waiting for Elizabeth, chapter 32 (1997–2001)
“After camping out in her friend’s Murray Hill apartment for a few months, in late ’96 or early ’97, Elizabeth had moved back to the Upper West Side a block from the penthouse. Our friend (really more EH’s friend) Wendy had one of those legendary seven or eight room, rent-stabilized apartments and she was renting one room. She kicked out her tenant and Elizabeth moved in. This is when the grand piano left my house. I had bought the instrument but it was definitely her piano. I made no protest.
“When friends asked me if we ever saw one another I would explain that we had joint custody of our Saab. But other than automotively related occasions we saw one another rarely. Since she had a day job and I made my own schedule I was in charge of parking. For those who dwell in less congested areas that statement requires explanation.
“New York City, like many urban areas, has certain ninety-minute periods each week when no-parking for street cleaning rules are in effect. These regulations are referred to as “alternate side” as in, Today is Kwanza. alternate side is off. The thing about our neighborhood is… You’re familiar with the game Musical Chairs. Okay, imagine a game of that splendid sport in which there are 20% more players than chairs to begin with then further assume that the players are cars and the chairs are parking spaces. You now have an inkling of what it’s like to own a car where we live and not have a monthly garage space. Everyone has their own strategy for getting to the side that doesn’t have to move for two or three days but occasional driving around for an hour waiting to spot the car that’s about to pull out is unavoidable. So being in charge of parking is no small obligation.
…
“And sometime in here Elizabeth decided that we needed to be Legally Separated. What could I do but go along with it? And a few months later the D word was spoken for the first time. Another body blow! And I had no real choice but to go along with that, too. Even though I was not going to contest it I was not too eager to pay a lawyer. Finally we agreed that she’d find one and get (it turned out to be a) him to do a simple flat rate deal. She did and the whole thing was to cost $1,500. There was no negotiating to do, just draw up the papers and we’d sign them. Well that flat fee turned out to be bullshit but I was committed to pay half of the agreed on deal and that was it. Elizabeth never did tell me how much extra he ended up charging her but she really got $crewed by the guy. I signed the papers as necessary.”
Neither one of us can remember exactly when we became legally divorced – maybe 1999 – but I was so sad about the dissolution of our marriage that the signing of actual final papers had little impact. The good news is that after we got back together we had a little ceremony. We took a metal wastebasket out onto our terrace and burned the papers.
Tags: Elizabeth Hepburn
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