Free The Adventures of a Love Investigator, 527 Naked Men & One Woman by Barbara Silkstone Page B

perhaps...”
    He pauses and looks out over the hills. “I was blown away because suddenly she was speaking with such clarity about everything that had happened. I was twenty-six when she finally came around. For twenty years of my life I had wondered when my mom was going to get out. I actually had an epiphany when she passed away. It was a spiritual thing. I was in an airplane coming back home from her funeral. I had been sitting back and quietly crying. I had my eyes closed, but I saw clouds and my mom’s face. My mother spoke to me, she said ‘Honey, don’t worry. It’s all going to be okay.’ At that moment, the burden I had carried since I was a small child left my shoulders.”
    Gently he brushes the fine golden hair from the baby’s forehead. She wrinkles her nose.
    “I accepted that my creative spark was due to all those years I spent desperately wanting to be successful for my mother. I always had this dream as a kid that I was going to become really wealthy and take her out of the hospital and buy her a home, because all she really needed was love.”
    We sit silent for a moment. I dare not speak.
    “Now I realize my mom was ill. She would never get well enough for me to rescue her. She never saw me become successful. She never saw me act, but ... whenever I fantasize about the Academy Awards I know I would thank my family, but certainly my mom because she is a big part of who I am. She was my first love and my driving force.”
    The baby whimpers in an infant dream.
    John walks me to the door and thanks me for listening. I thank him for sharing. My emotional state is one of complete exhaustion. Without laying a hand on me he has savaged me.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
    “My mother is the center of my emotional growth.”
    ~Fred, 37, married
    Case 440 / Fred
    I’m still in L.A. and the opportunity presents itself to interview a well-known, successful film producer. Famous for shunning publicity, Fred agrees to talk to me.
    This producer’s personal office is the size of a small subdivision. A cream-colored leather sofa dominates the room. I can imagine a dozen film executives sitting around, putting together a major motion picture deal.
    Greeted with a handshake, I’m offered a beverage and accept a bottled water. Fred directs me to a seat on the monster sofa and then settles in five cushions away from me. This seating arrangement is not going to work. I need intimacy.
    I pop up all perky and lovable and plop down smack next to Fred. I put a sofa pillow on my knees and use it to support my notebook.
    Mr. Movie Mogul is thrown off for an instant by my bold move, but then he grins. “Where do we start?” He nods at my feet, “Nice boots.”
    “Tell me your vision of a woman worth your love.”
    I take a sip of water and place the bottle back on an expensive looking coaster. I feel him judging me.
    “As I experience women, I feel quite badly in many ways for them because many times this feminism or women’s movement or whatever it is that you want to declare it, did not give them the liberation one would have hoped.”
    My first impression is that perhaps this is a prepared speech as it flows so easily from his lips. But then a concerned look settles on his face as he continues, “What it’s done in some ways has been to say, that if you’re not successful in the context that men are successful, your life hasn’t been worth living.” He shakes his head. “I just don’t believe that.”
    I inhale the luxury of the room, and wonder if it’s easier to say these things once you’ve conquered the world.
    His voice is softer now, “I believe from the bottom of my heart that one of the greatest women that I’ve ever known is not an overly bright woman. In the context of success in the outer world, her success is almost nonexistent.”
    “Who is this woman?”
    “She is one of the most honest, loving, giving human beings I’ve ever met. On that basis she is a hugely successful individual – my mom.”