I remember that after my marriage to Chendo ended, my mother went with me to a furniture store in the city to help me pick out a pullout couch. It was blue with a delicate flower pattern, the kind of fabric that she loved. For once, we found something we could agree on, as I loved the couch, too. I remember feeling so happy she was showing an interest in my life that when she offered to pay for the couch, I agreed.
If I had known how little money she had, I never would have let her. It was only much later I learned that her nest egg from the sale of the Long Island house was almost gone. She had handed her share of the money over to an investment broker at Merrill Lynch. My mother knew nothing about finance, and the broker took full advantage. He churned the stock to generate commissions, until her account was whittled away to almost nothing. The little money she did have left she started giving away to the TV evangelists she watched on her black-and-white set in her apartment. I remember going to visit her and finding a slim stack of envelopes on the credenza, each envelope holding a single dollar bill and addressed to an evangelist. She called these donations “tithing.”
While my mother withdrew inside herself, my grief after Robin’s death propelled me forward. Right before she died, Robin was beginning to make a name for herself as a singer-songwriter, playing the clubs and bars of Philadelphia. She had always been musical. A scout from Warner Bros. had spotted her, and she was in talks for a record deal. Robin hadn’t lived long enough to achieve her dream, but I became determined to achieve some of mine. I got my GED, finally able to say I was a high school graduate. I began to think about a career beyond working at Bergdorf’s. I knew I was tall and slender and photographed well. I had had some modeling test shots taken, borrowing my mother’s pale yellow bridesmaid’s dress from Grace’s wedding to wear for the shoot.
(Later that year, with complete disregard for the dress and its historical value, I wore it to a Halloween party at the Underground Club in New York. I don’t remember what happened to the dress after that. Somewhere along the way, with so many of my mother’s other belongings, it was lost.)
I connected with some of the smaller modeling agencies and did more test shots. I started to have some success, and my portfolio grew. I left Bergdorf’s to focus on my new career. I met with my mother’s agent, Eileen Ford. She remembered my mother well and wanted to help, but she told me I was better suited for runway than for print. She sent me to Gillis MacGill, the owner of the Mannequin modeling agency. Gillis was in the process of putting together a group of girls to send to Japan, and I was given a three-month contract. All I needed was the plane fare. My father loaned me a thousand dollars for the flight. Everything else would be taken care of when we got there—the agency in Tokyo would handle our living arrangements. I stayed in Japan for five months, appearing in TV commercials, print ads, and runway shows.
Now that I was modeling seriously, I changed my name from Nina to Nyna with a y, to help me stand out. My sister Jill had already changed her name to Jyl with a y. I kept hurtling forward in life, pulling together whatever pieces I felt I needed to make a complete picture for myself as I went.
Then I met David. I was on the plane traveling to Tokyo. He was heading there on business. I remember he was goofing around with some children on the airplane, entertaining them during the long flight. From the first moment I felt drawn to him, to his strength and kindness. After we both returned to the States, we became inseparable. He was so supportive, offering me the kind of stability I knew I needed. Soon after, we decided to get married, and a year and a half later, I was pregnant. My new husband was everything I felt I wanted and needed. He came from such a good family, and his mother, Dee Dee, was a wonderful, loving person, too. My new mother-in-law had two sons; she started referring to me as the daughter she never had. Dee Dee and I went shopping together and met for lunches at Bloomingdale’s. These were small things, but they meant the world to me. Like Chendo’s mother before her, she became my surrogate mother.
While I had been away in Japan, my own mother had lost the apartment on Fifty-eighth Street. She moved to Philadelphia, as if she could somehow feel closer to Robin there. Jyl was also living in Philadelphia by then. We were both so worried about our mother. Housing was a continual problem; our mother was always bouncing from place to place. For a short time, she lived at a home for women run by Catholic nuns just outside Philadelphia. None of us understood or knew what to do. In August 1982, Jyl decided to call Grace in Monaco. Grace had sent such a kind condolence note to my mother after Robin died; perhaps she would have some advice for us now. Jyl managed to reach Grace at the palace. The princess promised Jyl she would do anything she could to help. She was planning to come to New York later in September. Perhaps she could see Carolyn then.
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BUT GRACE NEVER returned to New York. That September, she was driving her daughter Stephanie to the
