Dustin Diamond Page 12

  I understood why Linda wanted to avoid all that L.A. barscene bullshit. So she invited me to stop by her house any time and gave me her address. I couldn’t believe it: yes, I had a fake ID and could get into any club in L.A. but when Linda said, “Stop by my house,” all I could think was, “Holy Shit, I can’t fucking drive! I need a chaperone!!”

  That’s when things stalled. I tried working every possible angle in my mind on how I could look cool getting dropped off at Linda’s house by my buddy Brian (who was a few years older) or—horror—my parents. It just wasn’t going to happen. I wanted to draw any attention away from my age and hone in on any real feelings that might be there. I didn’t want to do anything that might wake Linda from what I could only assume was a dream in which she found me interesting, maybe even attractive. I was determined to not do anything that might make her say, “Whoa, what am I thinking?” if indeed that’s what she was thinking at all.

  So I never did drop by Linda’s house. Not then, anyway. We wrapped up our twenty-six-episode season and headed our separate ways for a four-month hiatus.

  During those hiatuses, the cast, crew, execs, and everyone else involved with the making of the show didn’t keep in real close contact. It was a real hiatus in every sense—from the show and from each other. Think about it: working long hours together, day in and day out, collapsing once you got home to be back early in the morning to do it all over again with the same people. It was almost too much like actual work. As far as I was concerned, when hiatus rolled around, I didn’t even want to look at my cast mates again until I had to. In a way, that’s really the sadness of Hollywood and being a child star. I’m just as guilty of it as anyone. People you’ve worked closely with, cared about, and shared experiences with for years lose touch the instant they’ve moved on to new projects, barely batting an eye. There’s almost a sense of relief to leave an acting job in the past as you build credits and move on to new opportunities. In my experience, it’s very rare to maintain friendships with fellow actors beyond that intense window of the creative project you came together to produce, whether it’s a three-month film project, a television pilot, or even over a decade on a hit show together. I say it’s a sad thing, but that’s not entirely true. I never really liked any of them very much anyway.

  Any of them, that is, but Linda.

  * * * *

  When you’re under contract as an actor on a network television show, you do a lot of events. The network calls and says, “You’re going to (insert city).” And you say, “Okie, dokie.” You don’t get paid for the gig, but you fly first class, get put up in a penthouse suite, and they pay for all your food and expenses. Top shelf all the way. At least that was the world I lived in when SBTB was a hit show on NBC. I don’t know how things work these days, especially on cable and especially since the world financial markets crashed and everybody’s assholes pinched shut. On this particular trip, towards the end of the original SBTB, the network called and said, “Dustin, you’re going to New York City.” And I said, “Okie, dokie.”

  St. Peter always stayed in the best hotels. He was never one to just crash at the airport Marriott. When we traveled with him, we stayed in “his kind of hotels,” like the Rega Royal, the Omni Berkshire, The Mark (one of Peter’s favorites), and The Time. St. Peter was wealthy beyond belief, so when we were with him, it was always the finest accommodations. My suite in New York City had a living room, a kitchen, and an honor bar! Woo hoo! I was hanging out in Manhattan, drinking from tiny booze bottles and living like a rock star. I had a hotel room better than most people’s apartments.

  Best of all, just a few doors down from mine, was Linda’s room. By the time of this trip, Linda had become St. Peter’s producing partner and had been made president of Peter Engel Productions.

  That night, we returned to our swanky hotel from the day’s event. My cast mates and some others wanted to go out and party in the city. I had a fake ID at the time, but it was pretty lame. Here’s how clever I thought I was: I figured everybody gets a fake ID that says they’re twenty-one, but that’s just too obvious. I insisted on one that announced my age as twenty-three. I reasoned that the obscurity of the number would throw off any suspecting bouncer. The only problem was that, even when I actually was twenty-one, I still looked like I was twelve. It took a long time for it to dawn on me that I wasn’t swift at all, in those days I was just benefitting from a lot of cool people who looked the other way so I could fully enjoy my time on the scene.

  I didn’t feel much like hitting the town and, fortunately, Linda decided to hang back, too, since her mom had joined her on the trip and was staying with Linda in her suite. Linda’s friend and assistant, Robin, who also worked on SBTB, had traveled to New York also, but she was staying in a separate room.

  I shuffled down to Linda’s room, and Robin was there, which was awkward because she was like, “Hey, it’s the little Dust Man. How’re you doing. It’s getting kinda late, huh?” All I could think was, “Alright, Robin, don’t fuck this up for me.”

  Linda’s mom had already gone to bed. Linda’s suite was big with one of those separate, French-door-type-deals where, on the other side, her mother was fast asleep. Linda and Robin were sitting on the couch, drinking wine. Unremarkable enough, until I noticed that on the television was one of those soft-core chick movies with some Fabio-looking guy dispensing his rough, yet tender, brand of seduction. You know, the kind of thing with a loose semblance of an actual plot before the woman gets ravaged. I found the background moaning kind of encouraging. When I asked what they were watching, Linda and Robin just giggled. After a while, Robin said she was tired and excused herself. I have no doubt that she was oblivious to any sexual energy between Linda and me. I know because Linda was two different people when it came to me. Around other people, she was the network executive; when we were alone, she was the honest, beautiful listener whom I couldn’t stop thinking about. As I matured, I realized why it had to be this way.

  After Robin left, Linda offered me a glass of wine. I already had a drink in my hand, one I’d brought from my honor bar. I was playing every angle I could think of to appear mature in her eyes.

  I made my way over to the couch. Linda was wearing one of those silky, button-up executive blouses. Every time she leaned forward I stole a glance of the heavenly view between her buttons. Linda was in terrific shape. So beautiful. Fireworks exploded behind my eyes (and that’s not the only place). I knew I’d swore to myself that if anything was ever going to happen between us, it had to be her that made the first move. But in that moment, I knew I had to act. It had to be something subtle, something suave, something I could quickly back away from to save myself from crushing humiliation if all these signs I thought I saw, all these signals I swore I recognized, were nothing more than my own hormonal delusions, just boyish fantasy. “But look!” I thought. “Linda’s knees are turned inward. Isn’t that another sign? A subliminal invitation for sex? Isn’t that what my grandfatherly Yoda, Sidney Sharron, taught me in our unit on psychology and human behavior?”

  The couch could easily seat four, but I positioned myself on the same cushion as Linda. My eyes searched her body for any invitation. Whenever her gaze wasn’t directly on me, mine was on her. But I was nowhere as smooth as I imagined. She caught me looking at her chest, her legs, her hair. Then Linda, after gesticulating to emphasize some point she was making, placed her hand on my leg. And left it there.

  I started thinking, “If something happens here, this is no notch on my bedpost. No quick bang on the road. Far from it.” Linda had been there for all my formative years. I’d shared everything with her. She was someone I truly cared for.

  I leaned forward, inhaled. “Your hair smells good,” I said, leaning back again.

  Linda removed her hand from my leg. She rearranged something on the coffee table. My worst fears had been realized, I’d read the situation all wrong. I was so stupid, stupid, stupid. I leaned forward again, setting my drink down. Backpedalling, I said
, “I really do think your hair smells good, I didn’t mean to …”

  We kissed. Slow and romantic. The kind of kiss that builds, rising to a fearful elation, cresting, then ending with a smiling sigh. My heart was like a crazed wolverine trying to tear free from inside my chest. Sure I’d kissed girls before, but this was a woman, one of the most powerful women in network television. I thought about her mother sleeping in the next room. I knew instinctively this moment was not going to proceed to the next step. But while it lasted, it was magnificent. Still, I was a guy. I was making out with the woman of my dreams. I had to try pushing the envelope. I moved my hand to her waist. I thought, “What now? Do I do the same stuff I do with the girls I pick up at Disneyland?” With those girls it was easy. With them I’d settled into a comfortable level of cockiness. With them, I’d just go for it, make a move. If they shooed me away, I’d say, “C’mon baby, I’m a TV star!” With Linda, everything was different.

  When the kissing subsided, there was a long moment of Okay. We just did that. Now what? I found myself upright again, arm slung over the back cushion of the couch, hyper-aware of every movement I was making. “It’s getting late,” she said, matter-of-factly.

  Next thing I knew, I found myself standing in the doorway telling her I’d see her tomorrow. She gave me a kiss—short, soft, and full on the lips. I thought, this must be what it’s like when a woman kisses her man goodbye. Someone she really cares about. She closed the door. In the hall, I leapt in pure joy. But I knew I couldn’t tell anyone. Not a soul. Not until now.

  And that was only the beginning.

  * * * *

  My first vehicle was a brand-new, $35,000, 1993 Ford Bronco, Eddie Bauer Edition, deep forest green with mocha trim, bug shield, tow package. It was the shit, and I loved it. The reason I remember it so well is because this is the car I used when I finally took Linda up on her offer to stop by her house “anytime.” Anytime had finally arrived. We were taking things to the next level.

  I parked in her driveway, killed the ignition, and just sat there. Since New York City and the weeks that followed, there wasn’t as much uncertainty anymore about Linda’s feelings towards me. The trip to New York had been on a weekend. When we returned to work that Monday things were completely different yet still exactly the same. Different in my head and my heart. Different in the way I looked at Linda and the way I searched her eyes for any glance in my direction. But the same in that it was time to get back to work. The show must go on. We sat down at the big T-shaped table on stage for our first Monday table read. St. Peter and the director (who for a long time was Don Barnhart) sat at the head of the table, and we began to read through the script. At first, all I could think about was how glad I was that I’d worked hard and graduated from high school early, at sixteen, so that Sidney wouldn’t have to stand up at one point—in front of Linda—and announce, “Okay, everybody off to school” and herd me out the door like a little kid in short pants. We read through the entire script, timing it for length—cutting and adding where necessary—laughing at the jokes that worked and “punching up” the ones that didn’t. When we finished, we took a fifteen-minute break then returned to block out our positioning on the set for each scene. This is where the director would offer guidance as we moved through each scene and began rehearsing our dialogue.

  During the break, all the executives, including Linda, disappeared into their offices, while the actors stayed on stage. Yes, things were definitely back to business as usual. But as I sat there at the table, reading my lines aloud, glancing up into the shadows where I knew Linda was seated, I couldn’t help but think about how much things had changed.

  So, there I sat in Linda’s driveway, the engine of my new Bronco now cold, my thoughts swirling with the possibilities and pitfalls of the unknown. I knew Linda cared about me and had her reasons for extending the invitation for me to visit her at her home. But I also knew that whatever happened inside, we would be forced to maintain a purely professional façade when we returned to work. It was the way it had to be, and I understood the reasons why. That didn’t mean I still wasn’t a ball of nervous energy. I knew this visit could be the biggest moment of my life. I’d been with dozens of chicks before and stumbled home at night with many a Disneyfinger, but this was a whole new ball game. In fact, this was the majors.

  I thought about the time I lost my virginity. It was May 15, 1992—my fifteenth birthday. It was to a girl I met at—where else?—Disneyland. Her single mom was an employee there, and let me just say this about that magical night: that mom totally let me tap her daughter. The way the whole thing went down, I was convinced that I was pretty slick. I told them both that there was a cool trick I knew that involved kite string, whipped cream, and condoms. I looked at the mom as she shot me a glare of mock sternness, and I said, “Calm down. It’s just a prank.” So I talked the mom into driving us to the store to buy all three of the aforementioned implements. Back at their house, I filled a condom with water (she had purchased a box of twelve) and whipped cream, tied it off, knotted a length of kite string around the end and then took it outside in the yard. I gave it a few, good bolo swings above my head and released it splattering against their garage. They were delighted. Later that night, before heading up to bed, the mom said, “All right. There are eleven condoms left. There better be the same amount when I wake up in the morning.”

  There were ten.

  Inside Linda’s house, she hugged me hello. No kiss? Kinda weird, but okay. I played it cool as best I could. Linda gave me the grand tour. I recall my exhilaration as I became increasingly aware of my physical body moving through her house, her private spaces. Especially her bedroom.

  In the kitchen, she offered me a glass of chardonnay. I started to relax, deciding I was driving myself crazy by over-thinking everything. I was just going to have fun and enjoy my time with Linda. In the living room, she showed me photos of places she had traveled, awards she had received. She put on some smooth, wine-and-cheese jazz. I lowered myself onto the couch. Linda followed, but leaving more space between us than I had hoped. I couldn’t help myself, my insecure thoughts crowded in again as I steeled myself for her to say, “Look, what happened between us was a mistake. You have to understand, this relationship has to stop here …” In my head, I rehearsed my easy response wrapped in faux-nonchalance. I would need to fall back on what I knew: acting.

  Linda scooted closer. She stroked my hair, asked how I’d been. There was no mention of our rendezvous in New York City, nor any talk of television shows. Instead, we simply talked about each other. Finally, I gathered the courage to own why I was there, in that place,

  in that moment. It was time for me to act like a man. I leaned in and kissed her. We kissed for a long time on the couch, groping, fondling, groaning, and fumbling until we began to remove our clothes. I had a flash of recognition: Wow, this is really happening. My fantasy was crossing over into reality. But that thought quickly passed as I slipped deeper into the wonder of the living moment.

  We moved to the bedroom. I was painfully nervous but thrilled, fully in the experienced, compassionate hands of an older woman. A beautiful, sexy, powerful woman. I may have driven my Ford Bronco to Linda’s, but Linda handled all the driving after that. It was a singular, seminal moment in my life, a sensation of intense excitement and emotion that can never be recaptured. It was awesome. Not awesome in the sense that Screech might use the word to describe his robot, Kevin, but awesome like the Taj Mahal. Awesome like Niagara Falls. Awesome like the sun.

  Afterwards, we lay tangled in the sheets, talking and giggling. I remember full well the first word I spoke to her: “Wow.”

  At her front door, she paused, her face suddenly darkening, “Dustin, at work …”

  I cut her off. “Of course.”

  Linda smiled. Yes, indeed. The Dust Man was growing up.

  Linda and I would steal away for our clandestine meetings and private moments with less frequency as the months, then years, went by. There
was never a conversation, never a decision to spend less time together, eventually we simply drifted apart. I got interested in playing my music, the cast split apart as we transitioned from the original show and through the abbreviated season of SBTB: The College Years. Then Den and I moved on to SBTB: The New Class. I started dating Tiffany Anastasia Lowe, granddaughter of Johnny and June Carter Cash. I would go to Johnny Cash’s house in Nashville and The Man in Black used to give me Christmas presents. My favorite was the cologne he gave me called “One Man Show”.

  When Linda was around thirty-eight, she was diagnosed with breast cancer. I don’t know how long she kept it a secret, but when she did decide to share the news I was devastated. We embraced, just holding each other. At that point, it had been a long while since we’d been together.

  She lost her raven hair fighting through her first course of chemotherapy. Later, her hair came back gray. She fought hard again as the disease reemerged. Later still she took to wearing a wig as she fought on. For a while, the prognosis seemed positive. The cancer was in remission. She continued to work, becoming head of programming at ABC Family Channel, continuing to attending meetings, finally in a wheelchair, up to her death in 2003 at the age of forty-four. I had already moved to Wisconsin when I heard the news of her passing. It was a shock. I was numb. There were memorial services held in Los Angeles and in her hometown of Chicago. But I couldn’t go. My mom had also died of that same disease, when I was nineteen, and I just couldn’t go.