If I Did It Read online

  Of course, the next day, I couldn’t stop thinking about Paula, so I called her and we began to see each other, but not romantically. She wasn’t ready for that yet – she had that annulment to get through – and I didn’t mind. I just felt good being around her: This was the kind of woman a man would wait for. We went out as friends for about a month, and it was a real clean period in my life. I wasn’t drinking, and I’d stopped eating meat for a while, and I felt physically pretty good – except for the arthritis, and my knees, which were both banged to hell from the years of football. Paula was also into clean living. She never had anything stronger than a glass of wine, and she was serious about staying in good shape. She had to be: She was a model, and a very successful one at that. Strangely enough, this was the first time in my life I’d been out with a woman who worked. I liked it, to be honest. Maybe it made her more interesting to me, maybe it gave her more substance – I’m not sure – all I know is that every time I saw her I liked her more.

  It was during this period that Nicole’s phone calls started becoming more and more frequent, even obsessive, you might say. She would begin with some news about the kids, as she always did, then get to talking about her various personal problems – whether it was with friends, with Kato, or even with this guy she was supposed to be so damn crazy about. The constant phone calls got to be a little much, frankly, especially since Paula and I were beginning to get more serious about each other, so most of the time I ignored them. I knew that if it was about the kids, and it was urgent, she’d call Cathy Randa, my assistant, and Cathy always knew where to find me.

  Thankfully, I was actually pretty busy during this period. I went down to New Orléans for about ten days, for the Olympic trials, and spent most of July in Barcelona, covering the Olympics. When I got back, I did some traveling for Hertz, and for a few other corporate clients, and in the fall I returned to New York to cover football. I came back to L.A. from time to time, of course – once to do a story on the Los Angeles Raiders, and a couple of times to shoot scenes for the Naked Gun sequel – but I hardly ever saw Nicole, and I liked it that way. In fact, whenever I had to pick up my kids, I usually asked Cathy Randa to fetch them for me. I didn’t want to get into anything with Nicole – not about the kids, not about her love life, and not about my own love life – and I thought this was the wisest course of action.

  Then the calls began again, but this time they were less about her various problems and more about the issue at hand – specifically, the divorce proceedings. This was when she informed me that some of her friends had been advising her to exaggerate my socalled violent tendencies. She had told them what I’d said right after the 1989 fiasco – that I would willingly toss the pre-nuptial agreement if something like that ever happened again – and apparently they thought she should try to use that to get a better settlement out of me. “They want me to say that I’ve been traumatized by the repeated batterings,” Nicole said.

  “Repeated batterings!” I said. “What the hell is that supposed to mean? What repeated batterings?”

  “I know,” Nicole said. “I can’t believe it either. They’re trying to convince me that I’m a victim of abuse.”

  I didn’t know what she was going to do, frankly, but I figured that when the time came she’d do right by me. As it turned out, I was called to the stand first. I admitted that I’d become physical with Nicole in 1989, and I described in detail the events leading to the blowup, and I pretty much blamed Nicole for the argument. Still, I took full responsibility for my response. I also said that Nicole had attacked me on several occasions, in the years prior and in the years since, but that I had learned to handle it by physically removing myself from the room – from the house, if necessary.

  Nicole sat in the courtroom, listening, saying nothing, and the session ended before she could take the stand. She came over, smiled pleasantly, and asked if I was free for dinner. We had a very nice time at dinner. I felt like we were married again.

  The next day, we were back in court, and it was Nicole’s turn to testify, but she didn’t show up. She reached me on my cell, in court, and said, “O.J., I just can’t do it.” I must tell you, I was pretty impressed. She was a good, moral, churchgoing person, and she simply refused to lie.

  While we waited for the divorce to become final, we sometimes hung out together, mostly for the sake of the kids, and it was fairly pleasant. There was absolutely no animosity at that point. Some couples get angry and stay angry, and some just feel sad, and we woe definitely closer to the latter type. I think, like many people, both of us wished it had worked out. I had always imagined growing old with Nicole, and watching our kids grow up and have kids of their own, but that wasn’t in the cards. So I dealt with it – we both did – and tried to get on with this business of living. My older daughter, Arnelle, was in college at the time, and one day she asked me how come I wasn’t angry with Nicole. “When she calls, you talk to her. When she asks you for advice, you give it. And when she just needs you to listen to her, you listen. I don’t get it. I thought the divorce was her idea.”

  “What’s there to get?” I said. “The marriage ended. We both got us to this place. What sense would it make to be angry with her? When you’re angry, you’re only hurting yourself. Life is too short to be carrying grudges. You gotta rove on.”

  And that’s what we did, Nicole and I – we moved on. I didn’t ask about her boyfriends, and she didn’t ask about Paula, and whenever we were together we were focused on the kids. The idea was to make them feel safe, to let them know that we were there for them, and that – the divorce notwithstanding – we loved them more than ever.

  As it turned out, these little family gatherings began to affect Nicole, too. Before long, she was calling me again, at all hours of the day and night, to tell me how sad and confused she was, and to reminisce about our many years together. I guess that’s normal – part of the grieving process or something – but it was beginning to affect my relationship with Paula, and I decided I needed to put an end to it. Now, when the phone rang, I always checked to see who was calling, and whenever it was Nicole I tended not to answer. One day she kept calling and calling, and I wondered if something was wrong, but I knew Cathy would be picking up the kids later, and dropping them off, and if anything was wrong I’d hear it from her. But about an hour before the kids were due over, they showed up – with Nicole, not Cathy. I hugged and kissed the kids, and they ran past me into the house, heading for the pool.

  “What’s up?” I asked Nicole.

  “Nothing,” she said.

  I could see that something was on her mind, but I didn’t pry. If she had something to tell me, she’d tell me in due course.

  A few days later, when I was in New York, she called. “I need to talk to you,” she said.

  “Yeah?”

  “I’m pregnant.”

  That kind of threw me a little. “With the guy you’re so crazy about?” I asked.

  “No,” she said. “Someone else.”

  “So you’re not crazy about that other guy anymore?”

  “That ended a long time ago.”

  “Oh,” I said. I didn’t know what else to say.

  “I guess I’m going to have an abortion,” she said.

  I didn’t know what to say to that, either. Was I supposed to give her my blessing or something? “I’m sure you’ll do what you think is best,” I said.

  “Thanks,” she said.

  “For what?”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “For listening, I guess.”

  One night, not long after, I was busy in my home office, working, and I could see Nicole was trying to reach me. She called my cell, my home phone, the cell again. I finally picked up, angry. “What?” I barked.

  “I want to read you something,” she said.

  “I don’t have time for this Nicole.”

  “It’s from my will.”

  I took a deep breath. “Okay,” I said. “I’m listening.”

&nbs
p; “This is in my will, word for word,” she said, and she quoted directly from the document: “‘O.J., please remember me from early in our relationship, before I became so unhappy and so bitchy. Remember how much I truly loved adore you’.”

  “That’s very nice,” I said.

  “Don’t forget,” she said. “I mean it.”

  “I won’t forget,” I said.

  “Promise?”

  “I promise.”

  In October of that year, 1992, the divorce became final. Everything had gone pretty smoothly. Finances, custody, visitation – all that stuff that divorced parents are only too familiar with. As part of the custody arrangement, we agreed to spend the first Thanksgiving and Christmas with the kids, as a family, to give them a little more time to get used to the idea that we were no longer together. We figured we’d celebrate Thanksgiving in New York, at my Manhattan apartment, and Christmas in L.A., and Nicole and I discussed every little detail – down to where I was going to get the turkey, what side dishes the kids liked hest, and how many pies she thought we would need. Two days before Thanksgiving, with all the travel arrangements in place, she called to tell me that she wasn’t bringing the kids to New York.

  “What do you mean?” I snapped. “I changed my whole work schedule for this! The network rearranged things so I wouldn’t have to go to Detroit so that I could spend Thanksgiving with my kids!”

  “Well, we’re not coming,” she repeated.

  “Why? You’ve got to give me a reason!”

  “I can’t,” she said. “Just, you know – the trip’s off.”

  I couldn’t believe it. This was the same woman who would call me two and three times a day, to walk down memory lane, to talk about feeling sad and lost, and here she was, telling me she wasn’t letting me see my kids over Thanksgiving – and not even bothering to explain herself.

  “We decided this in court!” I shouted. “In front of the judge! You can’t change the deal on me!”

  “I don’t like it when you raise your voice to me,” she said, and hung up.

  I was furious. I called my lawyer and he called her lawyer, but by then it was too late. I didn’t get to spend Thanksgiving with my kids, and I ended up going to Detroit for the network, as originally planned, which made them happy. Still, I decided I was never going to let anything like that happen to me again, and after Thanksgiving my lawyers called her lawyers and read them the riot act. They agreed to let me have my kids over Christmas, alone, just me and them, and I was immensely relieved and immensely excited. I went shopping for presents, got tickets for shows, and arranged to do all sorts of fun stuff with the kids. It was going to be a non-stop party. I was going to make it a Christmas they’d never forget!

  I called my older daughter, Arnelle, and asked her to fly the kids to New York, and I booked the three of them on a flight for December 21.

  I was excited, but I was still wary – still pissed at Nicole for pulling that little Thanksgiving stunt. Later, I found out that she’d had a fight with yet another guy – the guy that got her pregnant, I think – and that she had been feeling needy and fragile and had wanted the kids to herself. I wondered if she was going to keep her shit together over Christmas, or whether she was going to try to mess up those plans, too. And I wondered whether I was going to get drawn into Nicole’s bullshit and drama for the rest of my life. It didn’t seem right. I’d always been there for her when she needed me, during the marriage and long after, and I suspected that her inability to get her life in order was going to create endless problems for me and the kids. I didn’t like it.

  On December 21, I went to the airport to pick up Arnelle and the kids. We were over the moon with happiness. We spent the next day running around town, shopping and eating and having fun and visiting with friends. I thought to myself, Being a single dad ain’t half bad!

  Then next day, December 23, I got a call from Nicole. She was crying so hard I couldn’t understand a word she was saying, but she finally pulled herself together and told me that she desperately wanted to come to New York. “I can’t he away from the kids,” she said. “I miss them too much. Please, O.J. Let me come. I want to be with my kids. I don’t want to be alone.”

  Now don’t get me wrong, I was pissed at Nicole, but I’ve never been much good at holding grudges. “Okay,” I said. “I’ll have a ticket for you at the airport.”

  “Really?”

  I guess she couldn’t believe it was going to be that easy. “Yes,” I said. “I’m sure the kids would love to have you here.”

  “Thanks, O.J. I mean it.”

  “There’s one catch,” I said. “You can’t sleep in the apartment with us. Paula wouldn’t like it. I’ll get you a hotel.”

  She didn’t complain, she didn’t say a word, in fact, because she knew this didn’t concern her in the least. Paula and I had been dating for several months now, and we were very happy together, and I wasn’t going to do anything that might jeopardize the relationship. Of course, Nicole didn’t know that Paula wasn’t actually going to be there over the holidays – she was spending Christmas in Florida, with her parents – but that didn’t make any difference to me. If I let Nicole sleep in the apartment, it would have been disrespectful to Paula, and that wasn’t going to happen. Unfortunately, I had to call Paula to tell her what was going on, and I kind of dreaded it. Paula had taken the time and trouble to fix Christmas dinner for me and the kids before getting on her plane to Florida, and this is how I was going to repay her – by spending Christmas with my ex-wife? “Paula, it’s me, O.J. How are things in Florida?”

  “Great. How are you? You sound funny…”

  “I’m fine.”

  “How are the kids?”

  “They’re great,” I said. “But I sort of wanted to talk to you about Nicole.”

  “Nicole?”

  “Yeah. She decided she wanted to be with the kids for Christmas. She’s flying in tomorrow.”

  Paula got mad, and things went downhill from there. She hung up on me, and when I called back she wouldn’t answer. I called back obsessively, and for a few hours I imagined how Nicole must have felt when she was trying to get hold of me and not succeeding. I left messages – “I’m sorry. I can’t do anything about it. She’s the mother of my kids” – but Paula didn’t return my calls.

  Anyway, to make a long story short, Nicole joined me and the kids in New York and we had a very nice time together. We went to Radio City Music Hall for the Christmas pageant, ran around the city like tourists, and on Christmas morning we opened all the presents Santa had left.

  That afternoon, the weather was nice, so Nicole and I took the kids for a long walk in Central Park. When we got back, we ate leftovers and put them to bed. Afterward, Nicole and I packed their bags for the flight home the next day, and when we were done Nicole poured herself a glass of wine and came into the living room. “Thanks for letting me come,” she said. She looked real sad.

  “The kids had fun,” I said.

  “Did you?”

  “Sure,” I said, trying not to look at her. I didn’t know where she was taking the conversation, but I knew I didn’t like it.

  “What happened to us?” she asked, and she began to cry. “We were so happy together.”

  “Us?” I said. “What do you mean us? You left me.”

  “I’m such a mess,” she said, still crying.

  “Look,” I said, cutting her off. “We had a few great days. Let’s not blow it. I have to go to work tomorrow, and I’ve got notes to review, and the limo’s coming at eleven to take you and the kids to the airport.”

  She finished her wine and left for the hotel, thanking me again, and I went to review my notes for the next day.

  At that point, to be honest with you, I really didn’t want to hear any more of her shit. Paula was still mad at me – it had taken three days of calling before she even spoke to me – and I was in no mood to listen to Nicole. We’d had some great times together, sure, but the last two years had been tort
ure. Nicole had been erratic, moody, and worse, and it didn’t look like she was getting any better. I had vowed keep her at arm’s length, and I’d failed, but that Christmas I decided that things were going to change. I was only going to communicate with her if it was about the kids. I didn’t want to hear about her personal life. It was her life. She had chosen it. She had made that bed, and she needed to start getting used to it.

  For the next three months, I hardly talked to her. She called once to tell me that she had decided to get into therapy, and that she was very happy with the shrink she was seeing. This wasn’t one of those high-priced, Beverly Hills, you’re-a-beautiful-person shrinks, she said this was the real deal.

  “I’m beginning to see that I messed up a lot of things for us,” she said. “I’m sorry I blamed you for everything.”

  “We both fucked up,” I said, trying to be generous. “I’m glad you’re getting help.”

  Of course, years later, when I was fighting her family for custody of the kids, my lawyers got hold of some of the therapy notes from her many sessions, and the picture that emerged was a little different. One thing that really pissed me off, and that they tried to use against me, was about the kids, of course. She told her shrink that after that Christmas visit I hadn’t called the house in weeks, and she wondered if I even cared how the kids felt about that. It was total bullshit. I had called, but I called when Nicole wasn’t around, for obvious reasons. On several occasions, in fact, I spoke to Nicole’s mother, Juditha, and she puts the kids on the line, and I talked to them at length – and my lawyers have the records to prove it. The lawyers also explained, in court, that I had been deliberately avoiding Nicole, whose constant phone calls were beginning to affect my relationship with Paula Barbieri. I had told her, repeatedly, that I didn’t want to talk to her unless it was about the kids, and then only if it was an emergency, and I had even made arrangements to have my assistant, Cathy Randa, shuttle them to and from our homes – all because I wanted to avoid further drama.