TV Radio Mirror (Jan - Jun 1955)

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But even now she wouldn't laugh at it. "It wasn't funny," she said. "That Christmas night — that miserable Christmas night — was an important night in my life. In a way, spending that Christmas away from Desi is one reason why we are so happy today. "I think of that night," she said, "as the point of no return. That's what airplane pilots call the place where they have just enough gas left to turn back or to go on to their destination. And they know that, if they don't turn back before they reach the point of no return, they'll never be able to. I think every marriage has a point of no return, a turning point, a place where you have to make the right decision — or else." She might have said, "A point where the people in it have to become mature" — but she didn't need to. Instead, she continued: "I sat in my hotel room that night and thought about my marriage and my career, and I knew I had to make a decision." .Lucy's contract with M-G-M, her touring, kept her tied to one side of the continent, while Desi's work kept him on the other side. She had worked hard for her career and she thought that, if her contract was broken, she would never work again. But the constant separations were wearing their marriage thin, and she knew it. "I sat in my hotel room and thought about those separations. For years, we had been passing each other on the highway, getting an hour together in Chicago or Des Moines between trains, or five minutes together while I was dressing to go to the studio and Desi was undressing to go to bed. We had had six years of this type of thing, and the strain was beginning to show. We weren't a marriage any more. We were like a rubber band that is stretched until it starts to break. "That night, I thought about all the bad times, the mixed -up plans, the way I felt going home after work when Desi was away on tour. It had gotten so bad that I would do almost anything — visit friends, eat a late dinner out, stay at my mother's — to keep from going home to our empty house. "And it was worse on Desi than it was on me. At least I had the house, the dogs, and our families. Desi had nothing but a hotel room. He would get so homesick, he would call three or four times in one day — sometimes just to ask how the garden was doing. "I thought: You can't have a happy marriage unless you're together some of the time. I ran my fingers across the suitcase I had bought him and remembered how he was away when all the important little things happened at home. For example, we were so proud of our first watermelon that we named it: Minnie the Watermelon. We watched Minnie for months. Then, when Minnie was finally ripe, Desi was on tour. "I thought back further, to the time we started to get a divorce, and how that, too, in a way was caused by my being alone and having to deal with things myself The Arnaz attempt at a divorce lasted only a few months, and it started the last year of the war. In a way, it was the house that caused it all. The house had just been redecorated, and it sparkled with white drapes, a thick white rug, and new furniture. It was a windy spring day, and the peo ple next door were having their roof painted. They called Lucy up and told her that the painters, being in the neighborhood, would do her roof for a low price. It sounded all right, and Lucy called Desi, who was away, to check. If she thought it was all right, he said hesitantly, he would take her word. Yes, she said, she thought it was all right. So Lucy okayed the job, set the men to work, and left for a shopping tour in town. Unfortunately, the men knew little about their job. They slopped red paint over the walls, the cats and the dogs, and the strong wind carried the paint over the rest of the yard. When Lucy returned at 9:30 that night, the first thing she noticed was that her white drapes were a pale red. The dogs ran to greet her. The dogs were all the same pale red color. So was the floor where they had rolled, the furniture they had sat on, the rugs they had walked across. By morning light, the damage was even more catastrophic. The trees, shrubs, and chickens were all pale red. The grass and flowers were not only red — they were very, very dead. To have such chaos repaired in the last year of the war was a difficult thing. The man who sanded the paint off the floors had never used a sander before — but he didn't tell Lucy this. When he was through, the floors had to be refinished. It took two months to completely repair the house. Tempers were short, nerves frayed. Desi's visits home were anything but peaceful. In the end, the chaos was too much for everybody. And Desi left. He was not gone long. That quarrel was patched up, and so were the others, but they left scars. And they were all caused by strain and separation and the fact that the telephone is a good medium for urgent messages but not a good way to settle misunderstandings. And now Lucille Ball sat in her hotel room and thought about all this and more. ... One time, Desi was in New York for a band engagement, and he had told her he would call her at the studio. She waited for his call, but she was through work early. So she decided to go home. She told the studio operator to have Desi call her at home. When he called the studio, she had left. But, when he called the house, she had not arrived. Then he had to go back on stage. When Lucy got home, she waited for his call. She had a bowl of soup and some crackers and brushed her hair. Then she waited some more. Finally, she called the theater. He had just left. She called his hotel. He had not arrived, but the hotel operator, whose name was Evelyn, would tell him that his wife had called. Lucille looked at her watch. It was getting late, and she had a six-o'clock call the next morning at the studio. "Please tell him I called," she told Evelyn, "and that I'm going to bed now." Desi arrived at the hotel and called his wife again. Evelyn refused to put the call through. "She's gone to bed," Evelyn said. Desi got angry. "Put that call through," he ordered. "Okay," Evelyn said. "But you'll be sorry." The call woke Lucy up. Desi's first words were: "Where in blazes were you?" "I got off early," Lucy said. "You say you're going to be somewhere, you should be somewhere." Lucy hung up. Desi called again. Lucy hung up again. The next call was from Evelyn. "Look," Evelyn said. "Maybe I explained things