In Pieces(64)

But it wasn’t over; it was the beginning of what the doctors thought were petit mal seizures, although they were never witnessed by any medical personnel because I wouldn’t let Eli go through the tests. I knew that the procedure of being held down while various pieces of equipment were attached would frighten him, and being frightened made him angry. The seizures only occurred when Eli got angry. From then on, whenever anything happened, I knew I had to get to him fast. If he fell down when learning to walk, if his brother took something he wanted, if I heard him start to cry for any reason, I’d run to pick him up, to soothe him before his anger became bigger than he was. And if I missed that tiny window of opportunity, then his body would send him into a helpless fit, until eventually he’d pass out and I’d rock my little son, trying to soothe him back into consciousness. And it wasn’t just me; Baa and especially Steve were always on the alert. But the amazing thing is, at about two years of age, when Eli could say words like shit and fuck—words that Steve and I gleefully taught him—when he could use language to get angry and not his body, he stopped having seizures. Something that, in my heart, I had known would happen. But even now, I’m convinced that his episodes were my fault. Eli had to deal with a very angry mother any way he could, and if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em.


We’d been living in the Topanga house for about a year when one morning I found a bewildered messenger standing unannounced in the middle of my disheveled living room, having wandered in off the beach and through the sliding glass door that stood open. In his hand, he held a manila envelope addressed to me with the Screen Gems logo pasted on. It contained a thirty-five-page screenplay, the pilot for a new series written by Bernard Slade, the same man who had written the pilot for The Flying Nun—and years later, would write the play Same Time, Next Year. As soon as it arrived, the phone started ringing and a stiff, unfamiliar voice announced it was John Mitchell’s office calling for Sally Field. John H. Mitchell was the president of Screen Gems, a position he’d held for the entire time I’d been employed there, though I don’t remember ever meeting him. Nor can I remember what exactly he said that day, but I presume he told me that Screen Gems wanted me back. Then came a call from Bob Claver, who had produced the Gidget pilot, and who had been my reading partner and support system through that summer of auditions in 1964. He would be producing this pilot as well, and if the network picked it up, he’d be there for every episode of The Girl with Something Extra, which, like the Nun, had been written for me. Last, and totally least, came a call from my agent to let me know that I’d been offered another series.

I remember standing at the stove a day or so later, holding Eli on my hip and stirring a pan of Campbell’s tomato soup, while Peter sat on the floor dancing tiny plastic animals on the linoleum before him. It was just like the memory I had of my mother holding me perched to one side, my brother playing behind us, while she memorized Chekhov and cooked supper for her children. Now I stood, lost in thought, caught between what I wanted to do and what I felt I had to do to support my family. The script was funny—in a glib sitcom sort of way—and we needed money, plus I wanted to work. But I did not want to do another sitcom. I felt I’d be losing something, giving up, caving in. I couldn’t think. I couldn’t stand back and logically weigh all the pros and cons because every time I tried, fear would rise up and block any other points of view I might have.

Steve appeared in the doorway wearing shorts and a tattered T-shirt, wet from the ocean as if he’d jumped in on an impulse. I wanted him to say that I was worth more, to say, We’ll be okay, hold out awhile longer. But he didn’t. He watched for a moment, then, with a matter-of-fact “happens all the time” attitude, said that Bob Claver had offered him an associate producer position if I agreed to do the show. I felt immediately betrayed and angry and began to pound the wooden spoon into the hot soup.

“I don’t want to do it,” I flared back.

“But we could work together,” he said, trying to convince me, and after a moment of silence he added, “You have to earn some money, Sal. I really think you should do it. And I’d get to work too.”

When he left to take a shower, I watched the tomato soup boil up and over the edges of the pan, looking exactly like I felt. Was I being asked to walk away from what I’d been working toward, so that Steve could find a career for himself? Was I to give up on myself, swallow my longing, so that he could dabble in this new arena? Is that how I saw this moment, why I felt so angry? Or did I see Steve as Jocko, like a mole in my organization, appearing to be on my side but actually in cahoots with the enemy? Sometimes when I was caught in an argument with Steve, I’d be so overwhelmed with rage I couldn’t find any other parts of myself. I’d lose sight of love and trust, then literally have to start packing my suitcase, blind to anything other than my need to run. Usually the fury dissipated before I had emptied the closet.

I think there was always a part of me waiting for a reason to walk out the door, to be safely alone and hear nothing but my own heartbeat… to put myself back into that little pine house next to the big sycamore on Libbit Avenue.

When the pilot was shot in February of ’73, Steve worked in the production office, but by the time the series sold, with a schedule to go into production in July, he was no longer an associate producer—whether he quit or I was callous enough to tell the studio I didn’t want him there, I don’t remember. He decided to focus on the completion of the house. We gave up the place on Topanga Beach to rent a house in Toluca Lake, only blocks from Columbia Ranch, where I’d be filming, allowing me to be closer to the kids. Steve didn’t live there with us.