If I Did It Read online

  I was floored. I was tired and jet-lagged and I honestly wasn’t even sure I’d even heard her right, but she repeated it, saying she didn’t understand why I looked so surprised. We’d been having problems for a long time, she said, and we should both look at it as an opportunity to work on ourselves and think about the problems, yada yada yada. “I want to try living apart for a month,” she added. “But I don’t want to get the lawyers involved.”

  Then she suggested that that I move out of the Rockingham house, to make the separation less disruptive for the kids, and I knew right off that I had to stop this thing before it got any crazier. “I don’t know what you think you’re going to accomplish by us living apart for a month,” I said. “I’m hardly here as it is, traveling all the time. If you want to work on yourself, you’ve got plenty of time to do it. And if you think I need to work on myself, maybe you can te II me what needs fixing.”

  “No,” she said. “That’s not it at all.”

  “Then what is it?” I said. “I’m confused. Is there someone else?”

  “No – God! How can you even think such a thing?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I’m trying to figure out how it came to this. I know we don’t have a perfect marriage, but who does? And I thought we were doing pretty well.”

  At that point she began to talk about the fact that she had spent her entire adult life with me – fifteen years – and that she felt as if she was living in my shadow. “All of our friends are your friends,” she said. “Everything we do is stuff you want to do. Our life together is basically about you.”

  I tried to defend myself, saying that I was always listened to her, and that I had never stopped her from pursuing her own interests and her own friendships, but she wasn’t really paying attention. “I want to be around people who like me for me, not because I’m O.J. Simpson’s wife,” she said.

  I thought that was bullshit, too, and I told her so, but she was adamant: she wanted to take a break from the marriage.

  “Fine,” I said, trying to keep emotion out of it. “If you want a break, I’ll give you a break. But there’s no way in hell we’re doing this without lawyers.” We needed the lawyers so that we’d be absolutely clear on what was going on, I explained. She wanted out, not me, for reasons I couldn’t really understand. And the Rockingham house pre-dated our relationship. It was my house, a fact that was clearly spelled out in the pre-nuptial agreement. That house held a lot of history for me, including the drowning death my infant daughter, Aaren – the little girl I had with Marguerite during the rocky tail-end of our marriage – and I wasn’t going to let anyone tell me to move out.

  At the end of that month, with the lawyers already hard at work, Nicole moved into a rented house on Gretna Green Way, not eight minutes from my place, and – given my hectic travel schedule – took physical custody of the kids. I was in a state of mild shock for several weeks, to be honest, unable to get my mind around what had happened, and how it had come to this. Her mother was in shock, too, as were most of her friends. None of them seemed to think that our problems were all that significant, though of course one never really knows what goes on behind closed doors.

  The only person who had seen it coming was her best friend, Cora Fishman, because Cora had known about the affair – the one Nicole denied having. It wasn’t anyone she was serious about, I learned much later, but it had happened, and when shit like that happens you know that deep down something is very wrong. It’s strange, though, because years later, in a letter she wrote me when she was trying to reconcile, she still said nothing about the affair. Instead, she talked about the 1989 incident, and how that had been the big turning point in our relationship – for her, anyway – which was kind of off odd because she was no longer blaming me for what had happened. She said she was beginning to realize that she had contributed as much to our problems as I had, if not more, and that looking back on it she felt that I’d been right from the start – that we did have a pretty good life together. It was the first time she had taken responsibility for her actions, and it was a good thing, but unfortunately it came too late. When I read that letter, it about broke my heart. All along I thought we were going to make it, and I guess I never really understood the depth of her unhappiness – let alone the reasons for it.

  So we started our new life, in separate homes but still committed to making it work – like so many other couples. I was optimistic, to be honest. I had been through this before, with Marguerite, twice, and we’d managed to survive the first separation, so in my heart it wasn’t over. We’re just separating, I told myself. We’re trying to get back together. And this time I’m determined to make it work.

  Still, it wasn’t easy. I didn’t enjoy watching Nicole settle into a new place with the two kids, watching her move forward without me. She even found a guy to help out with babysitting and running errands and stuff, someone she’d met skiing in Aspen, and she let him move into the guest house, rent free, instead of paying him a salary. His name, as you may recall, was Kato Kaelin.

  When that first Valentine’s Day rolled around, less than three weeks into the separation, I was in Mexico for a celebrity golf tournament, but I sent Nicole some nice flowers and a note, and she was very appreciative. I told her I wasn’t giving up on us, and I didn’t. I was still traveling a great deal, mostly to New York, but whenever I was in town I’d take her out, sometimes alone, and sometimes with the kids.

  From time to time we even ended up in bed together. On occasion, she cried after we made love. I don’t know if she was crying from being happy or unhappy, to be honest, and I don’t think she did, either, but I kept hoping it was because she loved me, and because in her heart she knew that we belonged together.

  Still, I wanted to give Nicole her freedom – the freedom she thought she wanted – so I didn’t get pushy about wooing her back. It was pretty weird, though. Early on, for example, she went on a couple of dates, and she was a little worried about protocol because she hadn’t really dated anyone since she was a teenager. “You think the guy’s just trying to get into my pants?” she asked me at one point.

  “Honey, what do you expect?” I said. “You’re gorgeous, you’re smart, you’ve got your own money, and you don’t want more kids. For most guys, that’s an unbeatable combination.”

  “So should I go out with him?”

  “Yeah. If you like him. Why not?”

  “But how do I know if he likes me for me,” she said, “and not for something else.”

  “What? You think he likes you for your car?”

  “I’m serious, O.J. This is all new to me.”

  She sounded like a teenager, but it struck me that in dating terms she really was a teenager. “Nicole, stop worrying so much,” I said. “You’re a great girl. Just be yourself and have fun.” I was sitting there, on the phone, trying to build up her self-esteem, and when I got off the phone all I could think was, Man, that’s my wife! That was bizarre!

  If there is one good thing I can say about the separation, it’s this: We never fought about anything. In fact, during that entire period we only had one argument, and it was because some of her friends were racking up charges on my account at the golf club in Laguna. My assistant, Cathy Randa, spotted the charges and brought them to my attention, and I immediately called Nicole. “Who the hell do these people think they are, eating and drinking at my expense, and why the hell are you allowing it?” Nicole apologized, promised she’d take care of it, and that was the end of that.

  Afterward, we were friendly again – maybe too friendly. Nicole got into the habit of calling me two or three times a day, to chat, often about some of the guys she was dating. I thought that was a little strange – I felt she was treating me almost like a girlfriend or something – but I didn’t mind. I realized that, if nothing else, I was probably her closest friend, a friend she could talk to about anything, and it gave me hope. She always began by talking about the kids – that was the excuse, anyway – and within a
minute or two the conversation shifted to stories about the men in her life. This one guy was a complete schmuck, this other guy seemed so nice at first but had turned into a real creep, and so on and so forth. I would think, Why are you wasting your time with them? You could still be living with me! But I didn’t say it. I didn’t want to push her. I wanted her to know I was there without putting any pressure on her.

  Then early in May, while I was back in town for a few days, I was out at a club with a group of friends and ran into Nicole and a couple of her girlfriends. I remember thinking it was kind of odd to see her there: We had been living apart for more than three months, and this was the first time I’d run into her in public. One of her girlfriends made a little joke about the situation: “O.J., are you stalking your estranged wife?” And I smiled and said, “Yeah, me and my whole posse.” We exchanged a few more words, everything warm and friendly, then went off to enjoy the club with our respective friends.

  Later in the evening, my entourage and I took off for another club, and I guess Nicole was gone by then, because I didn’t see her. About an hour later, when I left the second club, alone, I found myself thinking about her, and missing her a little. And on the drive home I decided to stop by her house, the one on Gretna Green, to see if she was still awake. I parked on the street and approached the front door, and as I drew close I noticed lights in the window and went to have a closer look. Nicole was inside, on the couch, with a friend of hers, Keith Zlomsowitch, one of the partners at Mezzaluna, a Brentwood restaurant. It was pretty hot and heavy. I took a deep breath and turned to go, but paused to knock on the front door – I rapped on it twice, hard – just to let them know that they’d been seen.

  I went home and got into bed, alone, and I must tell you – I was pretty steamed. I think maybe it was just beginning to dawn on me that the marriage was over, and I wasn’t real happy about it.

  The next morning, I went off to play golf, and I forgot all my woes, but on my way home I called her and told her that we needed to talk. I stopped by the house and she invited me in, and right away I let her know that it was me who’d rapped on her front door the previous night. “What you do is your business, but the kids were in the house,” I said. “I don’t think it would be too cool for them to walk in on that shit.”

  Nicole was very apologetic. She said that she’d been drinking, and that she had never meant for anything to happen with Keith, and that nothing like it had ever happened before.

  I didn’t know what to say, so I reminded her of our little agreement. “We both decided that if we were going to get involved with somebody else we would tell each other. From where I was standing, that looked pretty involved.”

  “No,” she said. “He’s just a friend. It’s never been like that with him and that wasn’t supposed to happen.”

  “Well, it happened,” I said. “And before it happens again, at least think about the kids.”

  I left, feeling lousy. In my opinion, shit like that doesn’t happen unless you let it happen. You always hear stories about guys crying to their wives about some woman they screwed while they were away on a business trip or something, and how it didn’t mean anything – at they’d been drinking and they were just missing them and that it just sort of happened. Well, that’s bullshit. You’ve got to be in a place in your relationship for something like that to happen, and I was beginning to see that Nicole was already in that place. As for me, I wasn’t there yet. I was still acting like a married man. And guess what? I hadn’t been laid in months.

  A couple of weeks later, late that May, my suspicions were confirmed. Nicole went down to Cabo San Lucas with some friends of ours, including Bruce and Chrystie Jenner, and one of them called to let me know that she’d met a guy there. I felt like I’d been kicked in the nuts, but I handled it. I life throws some shit at you, and you deal with it. I went in and looked in on my kids. They were both fast asleep. They looked like angels.

  A couple of days after that, with Mother’s Day looming, Nicole called and told me she was flying back from Cabo, and wondered if I could drive the kids down to Dana Point so we could all spend the day with her family. I took the kids and met her there, taking flowers for both Nicole and Juditha, and the whole family went to church together. Nicole and I stayed for dinner, and drove back late that night. The kids fell asleep in the car.

  “That was nice,” Nicole said. “Thanks for coming.”

  “It was fun,” I said. But it wasn’t fun. All along, I’d been expecting her to tell me about the guy she’d met in Cabo, per our agreement, but it didn’t look like that was going to happen.

  We got back to my place and put the kids to bed, and that’s when Nicole broke the news. “I met someone,” she said. “A guy I’m pretty crazy about.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “I know.”

  “What do you mean you know?”

  “Some of my friends were in Cabo, too, remember?”

  I didn’t say it angry, and I didn’t say it with attitude, and I didn’t pass judgment. I just said it: I know you met someone. Period.

  There was nothing else to say.

  When Nicole left, I poured myself a drink and sat on the couch and tried to figure out what it all meant. Strangely enough, by the time I’d finished my drink I felt kind of relieved. Nicole was telling me it was over. It was that simple. For four months, I’d been wining and dining her and sending her flowers anti being the perfect estranged husband, but now I didn’t have to keep trying. I had wanted her back, yes, but obviously the feeling wasn’t mutual. She was done with me. If I kept chasing her, what kind of fool would I be? Hadn’t the woman just told me that she was in love with someone else? So, yeah – I accepted it. My marriage was over. My wife didn’t want me anymore. It was time to move on.

  2

  So Happy Together

  From that night on, as God is my witness, I made absolutely no effort to pursue her – never once talked to her about the possibility of reconciling – and I defy anyone to show otherwise. The following day, I called her – and I kept my emotions out of it. “I thought about what you said, and I get it,” I told her. “Let’s have the lawyers help us get through this as quickly and as amicably as possible.”

  Maybe deep down I hoped she would say something – “Oh no, O.J.! It’s not like that! We can work this out!” – but that didn’t happen. She grumbled a little about the lawyers, but that was about it, then she started talking about personal shit – managing the kids’ schedules, her crazy family, money issues, and so on – so I tuned her out. I realized I was going to have to pull away from her completely, and when she paused for breath I told her that it might be best if we didn’t talk for a while.

  “Why?” she said.

  “We should let the lawyers handle it,” I said.

  I’d seen plenty of couples in similar situations, and they tended to get highly emotional during the proceedings, and that generally made everything worse. As I said, I wanted to keep my emotions out of it.

  “Okay,” she said.

  “Great,” I said.

  I remember hanging up and thinking, Well, O.J, it’s time to get back in the game.

  The funny thing is, during the previous three or four months a lot of my friends – including Marcus Allen and his wife, Kathryn – had been pushing me to start going out with other women, but I wasn’t interested. I thought I still had a chance with Nicole, and I thought I should wait it out. I’ll be honest with you, I’d been bothered by that one incident – when I saw her through the window of her house, going at it on the couch with Keith Zlomsowitch – but I would have been willing to forget it. The way I saw it – or the way I rationalized it, anyway – a fling or two might actually be a good thing, especially if it made her see that I wasn’t as bad as all that.

  Anyway, it didn’t quite work out that way. At the end of the day, we were headed for divorce court, and at that point it was pretty much out of my hands.

  That same night, I was out an L.A. club, with friends
, when I ran into a Hawaiian Tropic model I’d known years earlier. She came over to say hi, and to offer her condolences. “I hear you and your wife separated,” she said.

  “We did more than separate,” I said. “We’re getting a divorce.” She was sorry to hear that, too, she said, but not so sorry that she refused an invitation to dinner. She came over to the house a few days later, and we had dinner, and all I could think was, O.J. is coming out tonight!

  Sure enough, after dinner we retired to the bedroom. Just as we were starting to get serious, I heard someone at my front door, so I excused myself and went down to see who it was. Kathryn and Marcus were outside, and they’d brought a friend with them – a woman. Her name was Paula Barbieri, and she was absolutely stunning. I remember thinking that she looked a lot like Julia Roberts, only prettier.

  I invited them in and got a round of drinks, and I just couldn’t take my eyes off Paula. Unfortunately, she wasn’t in the market. She’d gotten married recently, and it hadn’t worked out, so she was in the process of getting an annulment. Of course, from where I was sitting, that was a good thing.

  That’s when my housekeeper came into the room and signaled to me. I couldn’t understand what she was doing. Couldn’t she see I was in the process of falling in love with this gorgeous creature? I got up and went over. “What?” I said.

  “There’s a woman upstairs, in your bedroom,” she said.

  Shit! I’d forgotten all about Miss Hawaiian Tropic. I told the housekeeper to have her come down, and she did, and of course Paula and my friends were there, and it was a little awkward. But what could I do? We had another round of drinks, and I showed my guests to the door, and then Miss Hawaiian Tropic and I retired to the bedroom. That was the night I began life anew as a single man.