Despite the fact that I know tons of people, my No Matter What Club is actually quite small—as yours probably will be too, when you really start to think about it. Number one is obviously my daughter, Ava. My love for her is unwavering and has the capacity to springboard over the top of any future dysfunction of hers. There’s also Ava’s nanny, Nana, who has probably done more for me than any other person in my life.
And Ronnie Cutrone, my first husband. Ronnie and I haven’t been intimate in decades, but our love has morphed into different forms over the years. Ronnie doesn’t have any other family, so I’ve gone from being his much younger second wife from upstate New York to the executor of his estate and closest of kin. (Years ago, he called me and told me I’d have to share this duty with Tatiana, one of his ex-girlfriends.) I’ve always known that when Ronnie nears the end, regardless of what’s going on in my life, I’ll drop everything to be at his side—and that it will ultimately be me who buries him. It doesn’t really matter what’s happened in the past, because my love for him is bigger than any of our antics.
Then there’s my mother, my sister, Allison, and my brother, Lee. Despite the fact that I grew up with all of them, we’re completely different. Unlike some families, we don’t share political beliefs or any common interests. Take my brother. He’s into Nascar; I’m into Margiela. He lives in Virginia; I live in SoHo. Jesus is his God; The Mother is mine. Even though my brother and I don’t see eye to eye about things like Michael Moore and politics, I have to tip my hat to him, for he placed me in his No Matter What Club long ago. When we were growing up, it was me who held Lee’s hand and told him not to worry at the zoo, that the animals weren’t going to bite him. But as we got older, my brother became the leader, and I the loser.
I was just beginning to burn through all my money in L.A., using drugs, and erasing the life I’d built for myself in New York (my first PR business, my friends, my husband), when my brother called to offer his support. He was only nineteen at the time, at the University of Rochester on a hockey scholarship. But he was so obviously distraught over my situation that he burst into tears on the phone and told me he felt I might die. He even offered to cash in his scholarship and come take care of me until I got back on my feet again. I may not have grasped the significance of all this at the time, but if Lee called me in distress today, I would be there as fast as I could. (And yes, Allison, I would do the same for you.)
Unfortunately, not everyone in your No Matter What Club will put you in theirs—in fact, some will probably drop you despite how much you love them. This was the case with a good friend of mine who was a prominent fashion editor in L.A. During our ten-year friendship, we shared each other’s horrors and joys, including but not limited to her endometriosis scare, the birth of my daughter, my breakup with my second husband, and her husband’s draining her bank account to fund his addictions. I could talk to her about anything. After she got a divorce, she met another guy, a wannabe video director whom only she found really interesting. Our friends all made a point to welcome him into our world, but it soon became clear that this guy was a loser and a user.
Years passed, and we had another mutual friend who discovered while trying to get pregnant that she was riddled with breast cancer. After getting several opinions, it was decided she needed a radical double mastectomy. The night before her surgery, I convened a dinner among friends to toast our friendship and celebrate my friend and her beauty. My fashion editor friend brought along her annoying boyfriend. I was running late to the dinner because I’d been working at a photo shoot all day, and no sooner did I walk in than I heard the clinking of glasses. I assumed it was a toast to my friend who was about to go through one of life’s most harrowing experiences.
Instead, the wannabe video director stood up to announce to the table that he and my fashion editor friend had decided to get married. They went on to gush about how they were going to do it barefoot on the beach in Mexico, where an infamous, annoying queen we all knew would officiate at the ceremony. Without really even thinking, I stood up and told my fashion editor friend that I thought this was the most inappropriate thing I’d ever heard. Our friend who was sick looked shocked. (She couldn’t defend herself, and rightly so!) But by then I’d already established a reputation as a straight talker. I was just being myself, and everybody knew it.
The next day, I called up my friend so we could talk. Obviously, we had extremely different viewpoints on the evening, and some mending was in order on both sides. I didn’t really feel I’d overreacted. Hadn’t her announcement been slightly insensitive?
“No,” she replied. “It’s unforgivable that you said I was selfish for announcing my engagement at the dinner table, and I’m never going to speak to you again.”
And she never did. Obviously, she wasn’t a
