I had known there was trouble even before I married Doug; I just chose not to see it. I was seriously considering canceling the wedding when the cards and gifts started pouring in from relatives and co-workers. I remember sitting in the foyer at the church and wondering what on earth to do. I couldn't go forward and I couldn't go back. If I canceled the wedding, Doug would be humiliated. Many of our co-workers were so happy for him because in all the years he'd worked for the company, they'd never seen him with a woman. He always showed up to company events alone. I just wish I wasn't the one to get stuck with him.

My wedding day was one of the saddest days of my life. I didn't even feel like showing up to the church. I was the manager of a dog kennel in Hidden Meadows, and an hour before the ceremony began, one of the puppies got sick, which made me happy. It prolonged the inevitable, even if I did spend the hour before the ceremony cleaning a whelping box in my wedding dress and up to my ankles in puppy sh*t.

I'm still convinced I'm the only bride in the universe that didn't mind it.

The thing that bothers me the most is that when I finally did meet up with my intended in the church parking lot, he wore an old leather coat with hole in it. Had my life really come to this? At one time I lived in Beverly Hills, and after that, in a three-story condo over looking the beach on Carmel Valley Road. How quickly life can take a dive!

I asked Doug, "Couldn't you buy a new coat?"

He said, "No," and that was that.

I was a single mother and had managed to buy the dress, the shoes, and get my hair done. I also paid for the wedding pictures and if I'm not mistaken, my own ring, which should have been my second clue.

Now, I'm sure you're thinking I deserved what I got. I was acting completely stupid in every possible way. But consider that I grew up horrendously abused and neglected. To this day, my judgment is often non-existent, although it's much better than it used to be. I've had a few therapists on and off over the years, and every one of them was shocked to hear my stories. They said I had no parenting and that my parents were evil and sadistic. I agree. Don't think for a moment that they were some drug-addicted maniacs from the wrong side of the tracks. They were actually quite privileged--we all were--except when it came to feeling loved.

Anyway, when I went out into the world, I really didn't have any discriminatory skills to work with. I had no way to pick a decent husband because I'd never seen one. In his autobiography, "Stories I Only tell My Friends" Rob Lowe describes a stiuation much like my own, where the kids of the wealthy in Hollywood virtually raise themselves. Like Lowe, many kids I went to school with died young because they weren't old enough to be operating speedboats or cars on their own. At twelve, I was dating a guy sixteen. We'd go to parties on the weekends, shoot pool, drink beer, and make out in the back of his mother's station wagon.

Nancy's mother had a few weird hang ups. She said her mother never allowed her to have any fun, so she let us do anything we wanted. We'd have slumber parties at her house and then roam the streets at all hours of the night. I don't feel she let my parents down at all. They could have easily figured out what was going on if they had only probed me as to what was happening to all of the toilet paper in the house. I was taking at least twenty-six rolls with me to every pajama party.

At fourteen, my friend, Barbara, would tell her parents that she was staying at my house, and I'd tell mine that I was staying at her house. Then we'd take my dad's Mercedes to San Luis, Mexico where I'd sing with the band in a nightclub. Sometimes the whole town would come out to stand on chairs and clap. After a few months, the club's owner gave us a motel room to stay in so that we didn't have to sleep in the car. It's a wonder that nothing bad ever happened to us.

The lead singer of the band was Felipe. His mother was Anglo-American and his father was Mexican, so he spoke fluent English. He'd have the band tape the music onto cassette tapes so I could practice during the week, but that all stopped when people started asking if Mindy was going to be there, the second he got out of his van. Apparently, that really pissed him off.

To be continued manana...