How I Went From Trophy Wife to Career Woman
My eye was swollen shut, and my blond hair was tinged orange from my bruised and bloodied face. This was the aftermath of the accident that made me see my life very differently.
"You're lucky you didn't die," the nurse told me.
It was 3 AM. I was in the emergency room at New York City's Bellevue Hospital. Only hours before I'd been sitting behind my boyfriend on the back of a Vespa when a car hit us. I'd spent a brief moment in mid-air, then landed on the concrete with a thud. Even the Darth Vader-like helmet that covered my head and face cracked in two. When I tried to move my right leg and couldn't, I attempted to scream, but it hurt too much move my mouth. Now the nurse was examining the bruised right side of my body for broken bones while another nurse scanned my bloody scalp. According to the doctor, I'd been riding on the back of what hospitals in Manhattan commonly refer to as a " donor vehicle."
"Vespas should not be legal," the nurse continued. "This isn't Rome. New York drivers can hardly handle bicycles, let alone scooters."
Rome was responsible for my boyfriend Ross wanting a Vespa. I never attempted to maneuver the scooter through the Roman streets on my own, yet I willingly rode behind Ross, a la Audrey Hepburn, as we cruised around Piazza Navona, the Coliseum and the Spanish Steps.
I'd met Ross while interviewing him about a film he co-directed. I was an assistant at a magazine, where I made eight dollars an hour writing short news items by day and interviewing movie stars by night.
Suffice to say, I was a broke 25-year-old. Ross, on the other hand, was 37 and had just won an Academy Award. He not only knew what he wanted out of life, but he'd actually accomplished it. I reveled in his confidence, unsure of the direction of my life.
"You are capable of anything," Ross would tell me. The five words that made me fall for him.
Unlike me, fear wasn't a part of Ross' vocabulary. His mantra – better to ask forgiveness than beg for permission – was the exact opposite of mine. But I enjoyed being around my opposite. In Ross' company, I felt comfortable boarding a plane before my zone was called or drinking a beer in broad daylight at the park across the street from our New York City apartment.
By letting him take the controls, I believed he could protect and guide me. So I quit my job. Ross didn't mind. I happily agreed to let Ross buy me a computer, settle my $1,000 credit card debt and whisk me away to far off destinations at a moments notice. I was tired of standing on the wrong side of the velvet rope desperately trying to get quotes. I wanted to be on the red carpet, so he took me with him.
But what I really loved to gush about was my travel opportunities, provided by Ross. I'd gone from a reporter who didn't expect to travel anytime soon to someone who'd seen Portugal, Spain (twice), Italy, Japan, India, New Zealand, Australia, Mexico, St. Barths, Zambia and Tanzania in the course of three years. It was invigorating.
Back in New York, I'd spend my days taking continuing education classes, working out and writing the occasional profile if the subject interested me. Not worrying about how I was going to pay my rent was freeing.
But four years later I was 29, married, and sitting in the emergency room. I was given an MRI, and nurses tended to my black eye, swollen jaw, broken hand and stripped knee. Ross was uninjured.
"I'm so sorry," he whispered in my ear.
"It wasn't your fault," I whispered back.
But six months later, everything about our relationship had changed.
"I want to try and get pregnant," I told Ross. My face had finally shrunk back to its normal size.
"Now?" He seemed startled. "Why?"
Being thrown from a scooter made me keenly aware that life could end after a mundane dinner. I was convinced that the collision had been a sign that I needed to start checking things off my wish list, like children. But all Ross wished for was his nightmares of me on the pavement to end.
He also wanted another Vespa.
"You're kidding, right?" I asked him. When I looked into his eyes, though, I knew he was serious.
"I could've been killed!" I shouted.
Ross stared at his shoes. He tried to change the subject.
"If you want to be with me, you're never getting another one," I warned.
"Don't tell me what I can and can not do," he barked. "I'm 41 and you're not my mother."
I wondered, who did he love more: Me or the Vespa? To me, a Vespa represented a single, unshackled life-a life without me, his wife who wanted a baby.
Around that time things changed again. The stock market crashed and the economy bottomed out. Ross' job opportunities dried up. So did his bank account.
"You are going to have to pay some bills," Ross said gently at dinner one night.
A child and another Vespa were officially off the table for the foreseeable future, so I hunkered down and looked for work. I no longer could ride Ross' coattails, which had been the foundation of our relationship: Ross, the star, and I his biggest advocate. Financially, I was too scared to sit in the back seat and Ross didn't know if he could (or wanted to) be alone in the driver's seat anymore.
Instead of paying for exotic monthly trips for us, Ross took the jobs he could get. I stayed home and worked. Analyzing movie revenues and writing profiles gave me a sense of purpose, along with the income I needed. I was starting to gain a vague sense of direction.
Then on the one-year anniversary of our Vespa accident, after my final physical therapy appointment for my once-broken hand, I met Ross for a celebratory drink.
"It's been a hell of a year," Ross said, raising his glass. "We made it."
But had we?
"Do you still want a Vespa?" I asked.
"Yes," Ross said with some trepidation, "I do."
I could feel my heart rate increase. Not only had the crash left me with a scarred knee, and a permanent twitch in my right cheek, it left me angry. Anger at myself that I'd been the kind of woman who preferred to see the back of a man's head as opposed to the road ahead of me. Anger that I was the kind of woman who envied the wives who didn't work. The fact is, making a living was harder than I'd expected. The instability and low pay made me realize that having a man support me was a good deal, although it wasn't on the table any more.
I almost yelled at Ross but didn't. I was sitting across from the same man I'd fallen for-but his circumstances had changed. And so had mine. I was being pushed -- kicking and screaming -- toward becoming the adult I needed to be. Was I going to resent Ross for the rest of my life or be grateful for the opportunity to take some control over my professional life?
I took a breath. If Ross and I were going to make it, we both had to drive from time to time.
"Have you ever thought about a car?" I asked.
