This Will Only Hurt a Little(64)

Marc stayed at his own house that night, because I thought it would be fun for him to see me for the first time at my surprise entrance. In the morning, I woke up and checked my face. No sign of the midge bite: Dr. Lancer had worked a miracle. Emily and Leigh Ann and Michelle helped me get ready at the Standard Hotel downtown, close to the space where the party was. Leigh Ann and Emily went over to the venue early. When Michelle and I got the call from Marc that everyone was there, we went down to my waiting car and headed over. I kept breathing really hard, deep long breaths to steady myself. We had photographers as well as someone shooting the wedding on Super 8 film, and in the video you can see me breathing in and out so deliberately.

The ruse that everyone was told was that I thought Michelle was taking me to an art opening but really it was my own surprise birthday party. But of course, the surprise would turn out to be on all of our friends. Marc and I had planned a perfect party, with our favorite restaurant catering and cucumber martinis and so many colorful flowers, including marigolds, my favorite since childhood when my mom would plant them in the front yard of our Chicago home.

Marc was the best person I had ever met; of course I wanted to spend the rest of my life with him. We had written our vows together and he had sweetly put them in Final Draft, the script software, so that I could read them like a script. But I didn’t need to act the part. I was ready for the next chapter of my life. I was ready to start my own family. I couldn’t wait to say those vows and to hear them said to me. I was a girl who had always wanted to get married, had always thought about what her wedding would be like. And here it was, finally. About to happen.

We pulled up, and as planned, Michelle ran in ahead of me, through a giant curtain. It was totally silent and for a second I was alone. I took one last deep breath and then I walked through the curtain to Marc, who was waiting for me on the other side.





WHILE YOU WAIT FOR THE OTHERS


(Grizzly Bear)


We realized in August that we had actually forgotten to sign and submit our wedding license, so we had lunch at the Chateau with Phil Pavel, who married us, and Emily and Abby as our witnesses, and signed it there. Weirdly, Heath was having lunch there, too, at the table next to ours, and we laughed that he had somehow managed to make it to our wedding anyway. He and Michelle were in the process of separating at that point, and I felt sad for both of them but weirdly like something would be figured out and it wasn’t the end of the story for them. They were so young and that baby was the light of both of their lives. They were just working all the time and it was complicated. Shit is always complicated. Especially when you’re twenty-eight. And movie stars. With a baby.

I had decided not to return to ER for the full season, since we felt like with the work I was doing, I should be made a regular and paid as such. They didn’t agree and were paying me less than half of my television quote. I’d worked hard to get my TV quote and I didn’t think it was fair to go under it.

Soon it was clear that there was about to be a writers’ strike. A writers’ strike meant that all production on TV would effectively stop, including the pilot season for that coming year. There would be a truncated one, for things that were commenced or written before the strike. It also meant there would be fewer movies shot.

One night, I turned to Marc. “Should I have a baby?”

He looked over at me.

“I mean. Maybe?”

“Have you ever gotten someone pregnant on accident?”

“No. I don’t even know if it all works. Why don’t you just go off the pill and we can see what happens?”

Exactly one month later, I sat straight up in bed at three in the morning, because it felt like there was a lightning rod shooting through my stomach.

“HOLY SHIT!”

Marc rolled over groggily. “Whaa? Are you okay??”

“Yeah. Go back to bed. I just got pregnant.”

I had to wait a few weeks to take a test, but those two little lines showed up before I had even stopped peeing. Marc and Abby had started walking the picket lines with other writers, showing up every day as if it truly was their job. We joked that if the baby was a boy, we should name him Strike. Strike Silverstein is a badass name.

There were some projects hiring despite the strike, so I was still auditioning for movies, mostly while trying to keep my expanding belly hidden under swingy dresses. I auditioned for a movie and they wanted me for a part in it, but when they found out I was pregnant, they said they wouldn’t be able to insure me and offered the part to someone else. I was super bummed. I also was cast in a big animated movie, which I was very excited about, but then was replaced with someone far more famous than I was after I did a day of work on it.

Things weren’t really going my way work-wise, but it was okay, since I was pregnant. Marc had sold his house right after we got married, but now we found ourselves in a bit of a situation, house-wise. My house was great for a single actress living alone but not necessarily the greatest place for a baby. We decided to start looking for a new place, something that we had planned to do anyway at some point. That point was now sooner rather than later. Just like that, we had a looming deadline and needed to figure it out fast. We listed my house. The housing market was taking a little dip, which wasn’t a huge deal and was certainly in our favor as buyers, but our Realtors told us that selling my current house could be a little tricky, especially since I owed so much on it—I had bought it at the peak of the market. We found an amazing house and put in an offer, along with nine other prospective buyers. I wrote an impassioned letter about how much I needed this house, how I wanted to raise my children in this house, how this was absolutely OUR HOUSE, and our offer was accepted. Being the daughter of a Realtor paid off! And it was a very sparkly letter.