Closed Mouth Preview

SHE WAS WORTH IT ALL 385 one gave different advice. The lawyer told Lacy to move to the state where they were. Lacy told that lawyer he didn’t want to be anywhere near her because of the false accusations from before. “I don’t trust her at all and will never go where she is.” “Not even for your son?” the lawyer asked. “If I were to go where she is in another state I risk losing my freedom if I were to be set up again, and then my son will have the same life I had. No. I will do what the other lawyers said. I will wait.” Lacy became depressed and cried each night. His friends tried to cheer him up and told him that this was the first time in their lives they didn’t see the Lacy smile they were used to seeing. He began to lose weight and work from three in the morning to nine o’clock at night to keep his mind off of the pain of not seeing his son. Howard noticed his weight loss and the terrible cough he had and drove him to Santa Monica and got him admitted to St. John’s Hospital. When they saw Lacy, they immedi- ately put him in bed and hooked up the IVs. They told Lacy he was severely physically exhausted and needed to rest. The doctor spoke with Lacy in private and asked what was going on in his life. Lacy broke down in tears and told the doctor that he completely failed his son and didn’t know what to do. He told the doctor that history was repeating itself and his son would suffer just like he did. The doctor told Lacy he must calm down and try to relax. The doctor told Lacy that he would eventually see his son and they would have a wonderful relationship but that would never happen if Lacy continued his sleepless nights and overworking himself to numb the pain. He ordered Lacy to stay home for three weeks. He told Lacy to only get out of bed to go to the bath- room and to eat. Lacy stayed with Randy and Randy looked after him along with Howard and Marcus. Marcel told Lacy he felt very bad for him and said he could help Lacy with his customers since Marcel taught martial arts here and there. Since Lacy was concerned about paying his high rent he agreed and thanked Marcel for helping. Mom stopped by and told Lacy this is why she told him to abort the baby and if he did he wouldn’t have gone through all that shit. That was not what Lacy

386 LACY WESTON needed to hear. That was when Randy told Mom that the doctor said that Lacy shouldn’t speak much and must rest. Mom gave Randy an odd look and left. The next day, Lacy contacted Marcus and told him that he hadn’t tried calling the woman from overseas. He said he would give it one last try and also said if he doesn’t reach her he would stop trying altogether but that he believed he would find her. Marcus told Lacy to let that be the very last time so he could move on with his life. Lacy told Marcus that she was carrying the twins and he knew it. Marcus said, “Lacy, you’re supposed to be resting man, so maybe you want to call another time because you’re talking crazy right now.” “You’re right Marcus,” Lacy said. “I’ll rest and call later. See you later Marcus.” “Yeah man, I’ll stop by later,” Marcus said. Lacy called the overseas op- erator and gave her the woman’s name and asked if she could locate her. For the first time in many, many calls that particular operator asked Lacy why he was calling for a person in another country because the operator had never experienced such a call. Lacy told the operator that he lost contact with his friend when she was called home for some type of emergency. He told the operator they never had a chance to say goodbye. The operator told Lacy that she was staring at the number of the person he wanted and Lacy said, “Neeeeetoooo! I mean, wonderful.” The operator said, “I hope you and your friend have a great reunion,” and gave Lacy the number. Lacy called the number immediately and a guy answered. Lacy asked if Felicia was there and the guy said she was away on business. Lacy wanted to ask the guy if he was Felicia’s hus- band or brother but the guy interrupted Lacy’s next sentence and said that Felicia would be back on the weekend. Lacy asked if he would let Felicia know he called and that he would call on the weekend. The guy said sure and they hung up. Lacy called Marcus and told him the news and Marcus could not believe it, just as Randy had a hard time believing it and everyone else that knew the story. That weekend, Lacy called Felicia and she told Lacy how glad she was to hear from him. She said she had just gotten home from a business trip and was in the middle of

SHE WAS WORTH IT ALL 387 moving out of her ex-boyfriend’s place, but she asked for Lacy’s address and said she would write to him very soon. They said their goodbyes and hung up. Lacy just knew things would work out. Once Lacy was better and back to work, Marcel said he would like to continue working with Lacy but Lacy had always been against family working together in business, at least his family. After a few conversations, Lacy agreed, and within a few weeks, Marcel told Lacy that Mom said that he should ask Lacy for a partnership. Lacy reached out his hand and asked Marcel for his key to the busi- ness and said, “This is where we part ways.” Marcel asked him what the heck was going on. Lacy told Marcel that Mom had no influence over his business decisions and for her to make suggestions was too much for him so they were done here. Shortly after that incident with Marcel, Felicia’s letter arrived from overseas. Lacy called her all the time and they wrote letters to each other back and forth. Just as Lacy was approaching the sixth month in his new training studio, the movie “Terminator” with Arnold Schwarzenegger came out fea- turing Linda Hamilton, and she looked fantastic. She was on the “Donahue Show” talking about how she got her body in shape with a trainer, and over- night, Lacy’s phone rang and rang and rang as people held onto the cards and flyers about his training programs he constantly put everywhere he could. By Christmas, Felicia arrived and they spent that Christmas together. The next movie that came out was called “Staying Alive” featuring John Travolta. He went on talk shows talking about how he got into shape with the help of a trainer, and Lacy’s phone rang again and again and again, and that was when Lacy needed more hands on deck and put a call out for more trainers. That summer, Felicia visited and stayed for one month, then Lacy went overseas to meet her family and they were married months later. Shortly after they were married, Felicia was changing TV channels and Lacy

388 LACY WESTON asked her to stop when he saw Trisha from the Imperial Health Spa on the Playboy channel, topless and walking through a bar scene. “Do you know her?” Felicia asked. “Yes,” Lacy said. “We dated for a very short time but it was long ago.” A few months after the marriage, Lacy was going to meet Felicia for lunch on Lake Avenue but when he arrived he saw police cars, a fire truck, and an ambulance, and wondered what happened. A man that recognized him from his ads told him that his wife was in the ambu- lance. Lacy ran to the ambulance and knocked on the back door. The medic asked what Lacy wanted and Lacy told him that he was told his wife was in the ambulance. The medic said, “I doubt this is your wife because this is a white woman named Felicia.” “That’s my wife,” Lacy said. The medic asked Felicia if that was true, and in excruciating pain because of her broken neck she said, “Yes, that’s my husband, open the door.” After months of rehab and medical visits, she healed. She didn’t want to work for other companies anymore and asked Lacy if they could work together, but Lacy was against family working together in busi- ness. He knew that was true of his family but wasn’t sure about his new family. This was an ongoing discussion for at least one year. Lacy was not at all used to asking for help outside of needing a place to stay like in the past. He also found it difficult to ask for what he needed, so he wasn’t sure how to work with Felicia in a business capacity. Working with trainers and other business people came easy but working with someone he slept with was very new to Lacy. Much of this was dealt with when Lacy had four clients that he trained back to back. Three of the clients were psychologists and the fourth was a behavioral specialist. On the days when Lacy worked with those four clients, he would tell Felicia that he felt they were probing his head every second of those sessions and he was doing all he could to not let them in.

SHE WAS WORTH IT ALL 389 He said he was extremely exhausted by the end of those four sessions. The three psychologists were women and the behavioral specialist was a man. One woman worked in schools with teenagers and she would walk in the front door firing off questions. “Hi Lacy. Wow! Look at all those cups in the trash can. You must be inundated with customers and so proud of yourself since you built this business from the ground up. Who taught you how to do all of this, your mother or father?” Lacy looked at her then laughed and said, “Jack LaLanne.” Of course, that was his way to get out of speaking about his parents. After that session, the next psychologist came in and mentioned how she had a challenging morning and asked Lacy how he handled challenging days and how his parents handled them. Lacy told her that he didn’t remember how they dealt with challenging days. He said he dealt with challenging days by dissecting what was challenging about it, then dealt with that challenge appropriately. He told her that he also meditated and spent more time being grateful for each day than not, which less- ened the degree of the challenges. She told him she admired his ap- proach and outlook on life. The next psychologist would directly ask Lacy about his childhood and what it was like for him. Lacy didn’t like talking about that. Lacy would mention all of his friends and the fun they had. The woman would press Lacy and ask him about the fun he had at home. Lacy told her he played board games inside and hide and go seek outside like most children did. “Why are you digging into my childhood so much?” Lacy asked. “Each time we train it seems to be the topic of discussion.” The woman told Lacy she didn’t want him to feel uncomfortable but she could tell he was holding onto so many se- crets and pain, especially when she asked what he planned for Mother’s