Carole Bayer Sager - Theyre Playing Our Song

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Simon & Schuster

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Copyright 2016 by Carole Bayer Sager

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information, address Simon & Schuster Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020.

First Simon & Schuster hardcover edition October 2016

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Interior design by Ruth Lee-Mui

Jacket design by Jackie Seow

Jacket photograph by Steven Arnold

Back Jacket photograph by Matthew Ralston

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.

ISBN 978-1-5011-5326-6

ISBN 978-1-5011-5328-0 (ebook)

For Cris and Bob

This is my song

And for too long I sang to someone elses melody

It wasnt really me

Somehow I took myself for granted

In someone elses eyes

I saw reflections of the girl I was who caught me by surprise

Seeing a woman whos defined by you, I never realized

I cant love you, I cant love me

Through someone elses eyes

Someone Elses Eyes, Carole Bayer Sager, Burt Bacharach, and Bruce Roberts, 1991

MORE THAN ONCE ITS crossed my mind that if my mother had been just the tiniest bit more nurturing, if shed have looked at me a little less critically, maybe I would have felt like enough. But then I would never have had the intense need to be seen and heard, and I wouldnt have had the life Im about to share with you.

My mother, Anita Bayer, was pretty much afraid of everything, from flying on an airplane to being raped in her apartment to the idea that my father might love me more than her. When I was two months old she was giving me a bath when I slid out of her hands like a bar of soap and slipped underwater. Instead of lifting me out, she panicked and raced out of the bathroom, leaving me alone and submerged.

Help! The babys drowning! she screamed to her oldest friend, Sally Held, who, thank God, was visiting. She rushed in and pulled me out of the water. As Sally later told the storyand believe me, she told it oftenit was she who calmed me down and laid me in my bassinet, at which point my mother put her face really, really close to mine, kissed me on my forehead, branding me with her bright red lipstick imprint, and said, Never scare me like that again!

MUSIC PLAYED ALL THE time in our Manhattan West Side apartment. My father, Eli Bayer, favored classical music and could pick out any song on our piano by earwith one finger. My mother loved all the great divas. Her favorite, Judy Garland, blasted daily through our walls. We had records of all the top musicals, and I grew up knowing the lyrics and melodies from every show by heart.

Addie, who took care of me while my parents were at work, taught me to say my prayers every night. We would both get on our knees, clasp our hands in front of us, and, despite the fact that I was Jewish, recite the Christian childs prayer: Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep. If I should die before I wake...

If I should die before I wake? Who thought to put that idea into a kids head? Now each night I had to worry about not waking up. The fear of death, so intuitively instilled in me in that bath, took an even stronger hold. Falling asleep was very high on my list of Things That Were Unsafe.

Oh, and my dad went to prison. Always the good guy, he helped his older brother by bribing an army officer friend to keep his nephew out of World War II. When I was two he spent six months in jail. Of course, I have no cognitive recollection of what his sudden disappearance from my life felt like, but I didnt have to remember the feeling. It remembered me. It especially remembered me at bedtime when the panic would engulf me.

People used to say I was the image of my father. When I was a baby they said, Put a cigar in her mouth and shell look just like Eli. All I saw was that I had his hazel eyes and we both tanned easily, unlike Mom, whose skin burned in the sun. And my dad always carried some extra weight, so thats another tendency I may have gotten from him.

Anita Nathan was five foot two and with a more than ample bosom. She happily passed to me her diminutive stature but withheld her big boobies. As an assistant dress buyer in the Garment District, she managed, with little money, to cut a fashionable figure. She loved when her more sophisticated friend Sally let her tag along to her uptown parties, where one night she met Eli Bayer, twenty-two years her senior. They began going out, and when he got her pregnant, he did the right thing and married her. Anita would have definitely been happier if I hadnt come along so fast, but then, without me the deal would never have been sealed. She was still a child herself who wanted my dads complete attention, so I grew up feeling her resentment of his deep love for me. In truth, she would have preferred that I wasnt there.

AND THEN THERE WAS the real world outside of apartment 10-A, with all of its dangers. For one thing, there was polio. Millions of kids worried about catching it, but I was certain I already had it. I lay in bed at night imagining myself becoming paralyzed. In an attempt to allay my fears, my mother had bought me a walkie-talkie so I wouldnt feel so afraid.

I buzzed. Mommy, are you there?

The walkie-talkie crackled. It depends whos calling.

I knew this was her being funny, but this was no laughing matter. Its me. Carol. Im scared.

Polio again, Im guessing?

I heard my mother get up from her comfy bed and dutifully come into my bedroom. She took my plump leg and bent it backward and then forward. She did the same with the other one.

See! They both bend. If you had polio, they would not bend. Now, get up and walk around. I walked once around my small room.

If you were paralyzed you would not be able to walk. Youre fine. She gave me a kiss on the cheek and left. Unfortunately, her reassurances only lasted until she was out of sight. I counted backward from a hundred, and then, still awake, I got up and hurried into their room.

Im still scared, I announced.

Eli, my mother said, tell me whats wrong with her. Why cant she just go to sleep like a normal child? How could I tell them I didnt feel normal?

Some nights I got lucky and they let me sleep in between them. As I got a little older and it became less appropriate, I would tiptoe back into their room after Mom was asleep. Id tap my father and hed get out of bed, point for me to sleep on his side, and shuffle off to sleep in my room. Id pull his blankets way over my head so if Mom woke up shed think I was him. In the morning, he would wake me up and Id quickly run back to my room, trying to shake off the humiliation from my bizarre nighttime ritual. I would go off to school showing no signs of the crazy drama each night held. I was one of the popular kids. I was happy by day, so none of my friends had any idea of the other Carol.