The Blue Butterfly, page 1
PRAISE FOR THE BLUE BUTTERFLY
“The Blue Butterfly is an unfiltered, first-person narrative told in glittering detail. It is the almost mythic story of a glowing, spirited woman who is captured and showered with riches beyond imagining - a butterfly in a gilded cage. In this very fast-paced book, which spares no detail in the telling, we see how dearly Marion Davies paid for her willing captivity.”
—LAUREL DAVIS HUBER, author of the award-winning
The Velveteen Daughter
“Leslie Johansen Nack redeems the tragic legacy of Marion Davies, William Randolph Hearst’s long-time lover, in her newest, The Blue Butterfly. Dripping with diamonds and gilded with grandeur, The Blue Butterfly takes readers from the bowels of the New York stage to the glittering life of Hollywood and its stars. Haunting and heartbreaking, The Blue Butterfly elicits the gut-punch that what we do for love colors our lives forever.”
—ASHLEY E. SWEENEY, author of the award-winning
Answer Creek
PRAISE FOR FOURTEEN: A DAUGHTER’S MEMOIR OF ADVENTURE, SAILING, AND SURVIVAL
2017 Independent Press Awards Winner in Memoir
2016 Beverly Hills Book Awards Winner in Memoir
2016 Indie Excellence Winner in Young Adult Non-Fiction
2016 Readers’ Favorite Awards Bronze Winner in Non-fiction: Travel
2016 Next Gen Indie Awards Finalist in Memoirs (Overcoming Adversity/Tragedy/Challenges)
“A debut memoir reveals a turbulent adolescence. At first glance, the voyage of Bjorn Johansen and his three daughters from San Diego to the islands of Tahiti in 1975 . . . has all the makings of a standard adventure story. In keeping with the tone of the project as a whole, [the] ending, while somewhat abrupt, is powerful and inspiring. Perhaps the only quibble is that Nack leaves readers wanting more. An engaging account, gripping from start to finish, that should appeal to a wide audience, including sailing enthusiasts.”
—KIRKUS REVIEWS
“The raw and emotional debut novel by Leslie Johansen Nack has it all: mid-Pacific monster storms, emergencies at sea, a young female heroine, sex and drugs all while exploring the world on a 45-foot custom-built sailboat. All of this intrigue combines to tell the incredible true story of a young teenaged girl, as told by the author, her two sisters and their father, as they untangle the daily web of incredibly wondrous and equally appalling experiences while sailing from Oceanside, San Diego, to the Marquesas, Tuamotu and Society islands. Full of conflict and secrets, adventure and survival, this page-turner is as good as it gets and will be passed on to passionate sailors for decades to come.”
—PACIFIC YACHTING MAGAZINE
“Fourteen is the riveting story of a girl and her sisters coming of age and struggling to survive staggering odds as her father pursues his dream of sailing his own boat to Tahiti. This book totally captures the intrigue and romance of arriving under sail in the South Pacific during the mid-’70s.”
—JOHN NEAL, Offshore Cruising Companion and author of
Log of the Mahina
“Fourteen is the poignant and gripping coming-of-age story of Leslie Johansen Nack, a smart, strong girl who sails to Tahiti with her two sisters and predatory father in 1975. With him as captain of their 45’ boat, Nack’s life depends upon him . . . until he falls ill. The skills and confidence Nack gains from sailing, combined with her indomitable will, help Nack fight back against her father’s abuse and might even help her save his life. In candid, clear, even-handed prose, Leslie Johansen Nack’s Fourteen is an important book, one that takes us on a lush journey to distant lands and through the complexities and resilience of the human spirit.”
—JANNA CAWRSE ESAREY, author of The Motion of the Ocean
“Fourteen is a simply beautiful tale of wild bravery.”
—SAN GABRIEL VALLEY TRIBUNE
“Nack’s interest in sailing is not superficial. She has a respect for the ocean that her father teaches her; this is one of the reasons she is so close to him. But she knows she has much more to learn. She battles the standard teenage demons of boys and school, but her unconventional home life is a fascinating tale. Set against the background of life with a floating home, the teenage angst is not the focus of the story. [Fourteen] is not just a sailing story, nor is it a coming of age tale, but a splendid mix of the two.”
—SAILING MAGAZINE
“As the story unfolds, you find yourself simultaneously holding your breath for the next episode of her dad’s strange behavior, and cheering for Leslie’s growing strength in dealing with it. She not only survives, she shows an amazing strength in dealing with situations that would overwhelm many adults, let alone fourteen-year-olds. I found the book gripping.”
—CAROLYN SHEARLOCK, The Boat Galley.Com
“Despite a dysfunctional family life, 14-year-old Leslie Johansen learns to stand up to her father’s abuse and becomes an accomplished sailor. This true adventure about sailing the South Pacific is an uplifting testament to the strength of a young teen.”
—THE ENSIGN
Copyright © 2022 Leslie Johansen Nack
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, digital scanning, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, please address She Writes Press.
Published 2022
Printed in the United States of America
Print ISBN: 978-1-64742-347-6
E-ISBN: 978-1-64742-348-3
Library of Congress Control Number: 2021923636
For information, address:
She Writes Press
1569 Solano Ave #546
Berkeley, CA 94707
Interior design by Tabitha Lahr
She Writes Press is a division of SparkPoint Studio, LLC.
All company and/or product names may be trade names, logos, trademarks, and/or registered trademarks and are the property of their respective owners.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
To the bubbles in the champagne
CHAPTER 1
NEW YORK, 1907
Mama named me Marion Cecilia Douras, and I was the baby in the family of five children. By the time I was ten, I had to fend for myself. Mostly, I liked it that way. I was a tomboy, and being a troublemaker came easy to me.
Mama wasn’t exactly neglectful. She just ran out of hugs by the time I was born—the fifth child in eleven years. She was tired and always preoccupied with my three older sisters and brother. Five-foot-two, with big bosoms and a stern voice, Rosemary Reilly Douras was discreet, mighty, and fierce, like a quiet thunderstorm. When she smiled, her eyebrows lifted, her mouth opened a little, and her face became soft and tender. When she smiled at me, which wasn’t often, my whole world lit up.
Mama saw the bleak economic realities for women like us. Our opportunity to meet and marry wealthy, eligible men was in the theater, where the lines between the classes blurred. In the fantasy world filled with glitz and glamour, relationships between distinguished gentlemen and dancers were not openly acknowledged by high society, but they were prevalent. “It’s a way to get your foot in the door to a better life,” Mama always said. Some might say she encouraged us to be gold diggers, but I say she helped us navigate the world the best she knew how.
I hid in the shadows, sneaking in and out of rooms, watching my two oldest sisters Reine and Ethel dress and do their hair before heading off to jobs in the theater. My third older sister, Rose, who was just two years older than me, stuttered like I did, which created an unspoken bond between us. Rose loved to boss me around, and we were in constant competition over everything.
Of my three sisters, I was most like Ethel in personality. We were jokesters, kidders, and tricksters and strove to make people laugh, if not to outright shock them. We didn’t look alike at all. I had curly blonde hair and big blue eyes while Ethel had kinky brown hair and brown eyes—opposites on the outside, but twins on the inside.
One time when I was eight, as a prank we hid in the pantry and sewed the meat of Reine’s roast beef sandwich together with a needle and thread. I held the sandwich and Ethel pushed the needle and thread up and down a few times so the meat wouldn’t pull apart when Reine bit into it. When we sat down to lunch, it was hard to keep a straight face as our dainty older sister, with her perfect chestnut hair and red lipstick, pulled and yanked the sandwich from her mouth. I snickered softly and the joke was up. Mama smacked my hand and gave Ethel a squinty-eyed scowl. Honestly, I hoped to grow up elegant like Reine, but funny like Ethel.
Our only brother, Charlie, drowned before I could form too many memories of him. I was four and he was eleven when they found his body in the swamp behind our grandparents’ home in Florida. Mama never talked about what happened other than to say how it devastated Papa to lose his only son. In fact, Papa kind of slipped away from all of us after Charlie died, finding relief in drinking, gambling, and other women’s arms. Mama never said anything bad about Papa, but I saw her avoid eye contact with him. She didn’t have time to comfort him—she had four girls to raise in a society that favored wealthy men.
In the early 19
By the time Reine and Ethel were eighteen and sixteen years old, Mama knew she needed to get them closer to the work they were trained to do. This was how we came to live in the semi-posh neighborhood of Manhattan called Gramercy Park. I say we came to live, but really it was just Mama, Reine, and Ethel at first. Rose and I had to stay with Papa in Brooklyn during the week for elementary school and dance lessons.
Compared to the Victorian house in Brooklyn, Gramercy Park felt like we’d taken a giant leap up in the world. The houses were brick and brownstone rowhouses, upscale and fashionable as were the people walking their dogs and pushing their baby carriages.
I played basketball well enough to make the championship boys’ team in Brooklyn. But an athletic tomboy wasn’t valued at my house, so I vacillated between being a brash, outspoken romp at school in Brooklyn, and a prissy, elegant girl twirling and dancing in our Gramercy Park living room on the weekends, the kind of daughter I knew my mother wanted.
One weekend in Gramercy Park, I joined the Second Street Gang, a pack of seven boys who played in the park across the street from our house. I placed my hair in a cap, put on some old trousers and a baggy shirt, and marched across the street, asking to join them. The leader, an older boy named Butch, said I could join if I could make it through that evening’s “fun.”
Fearful of stuttering, I nodded and stared at the ground.
“First, we gather old fruits and vegetables from behind the stores and put them in bags,” Butch said as he chewed a blade of grass.
John, another gang member, leaned toward me with a scowl and said, “After that, you follow our lead. Got it?”
I nodded again and followed the boys’ lead as we snuck to the back of the store to steal our ammunition. I grabbed rotten peaches, mushy plums, and stinky heads of brown lettuce. We ran to Prospect Park, where all the rich people lived. Butch ran up the stairs and rang the doorbell. We stood shoulder-to-shoulder at the bottom of the stairs, and when the door opened we fired our stash of produce at the butler until he slammed the door shut. Laughing, we ran to hide in the alley. We did this twice more. I wasn’t expecting it when Butch pushed me, so I stumbled back against the brick wall where I couldn’t hide my giant smile.
“You’re in,” he said. “What’s your name?”
“Marty,” I said in a low voice, happy I hadn’t stuttered and was part of the group.
At the fourth house, we got rid of the rest of our produce—apples and carrots—but the police pulled up, surprising us. “Run!” Butch yelled and we scattered like cockroaches in the light, but the cops caught me, Butch, and one other boy.
At the police station, after they hauled the boys down the hall, one of the cops asked me to take off my hat. I cowered in the bright lights, shaking as I pulled my newsboy cap into my lap, my blond hair tumbling to my shoulders.
“Where do you live, little girl?” he asked.
I gave him my address, and the policeman delivered me to Mama, who hauled me inside by my ear as she swatted my head.
He cleared his throat, waiting for a chance to speak. “Ma’am, I thought you should know that one of the houses bombarded with rotten fruit was Mr. William Randolph Hearst’s house. His butler called to report the hooligans.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry. I had no idea,” Mama said, closing the door in embarrassment.
“You’re a hooligan now?” Reine asked me as she sat on the couch, painting her nails. Reine was not somebody who’d join a gang, but I could tell she was pleased with me.
“We’re so proud of you,” said Ethel, looking up from her magazine to wink at me. She had a tomboy streak too.
“Stop encouraging her,” Mama scolded. “We all need to keep a better eye on her.”
Looking at me, she said, “Don’t you dare smile, little girl. I am sending you back to Brooklyn first thing in the morning.”
I lowered my head in defeat as Reine and Ethel snickered quietly. “Don’t laugh,” I yelled at my sisters for Mama’s sake, but flashed a sly smile at them before marching upstairs. I missed dinner that night, but Ethel snuck me cookies and came to read and snuggle with me in bed. Watching the Second Street Gang play basketball from our living room window, I knew I’d never play with them again.
Reine and Ethel’s work on the stage earned enough money to pay the rent on our four-bedroom, two-bath house in Gramercy Park. They were the first to change our last name to Davies. They came up with the new last name when they saw a “Davies Real Estate” sign on the way home from the theater. Douras was too Irish of a name and was hindering them in getting jobs, while the last name of Davies was more European and acceptable.
Mama reminded Reine and Ethel constantly about their real purpose for working in the theater——which was to marry a rich patron. I tried not to roll my eyes while she preached about avoiding the traps of romantic love. Money was more important than love, she told us.
Reine, now twenty-one, was the first to make good on Mama’s wishes when she married a newly rich, forty-five-year-old theater director named George Lederer and they immediately had two children, Charlie and Josephine. We all called Josephine “Pepi,” because she was. After a few years of marriage, they moved to Chicago where George turned his money into an absolute fortune with a chain of movie theaters. That’s when she invited all of us to move to Chicago to live with them in their palatial three-story, twenty-five room mansion on the lake.
I was thirteen and brought my tomboy toughness to Chicago, even though I was starting to get attention for my looks. The more attention I got, the easier it was to play the part—wearing fancy dresses, jewelry, and a little makeup. Ethel would compliment what she called my “angelic face and show-stopping eyes” whenever we were alone.
Rose’s looks blossomed as well, but it seemed she veered away from the delicate features everyone admired. She felt slighted that I was getting all the attention and it was driving a wedge between us, but when we were getting along, we had plenty of fun. We stole the flowers from the vases in the entryway of George’s mansion and sold them on the street for candy and movie tickets. If we couldn’t raise enough money for the movies, we’d show up at one of his theaters and inform the cashier that we were the Lederer children and should be admitted for free.
During our second year in Chicago, I almost lost my best sister Ethel when she fell in love with a rich manufacturer. But after he asked his wife for a divorce and they fought, he had a heart attack and died. I know I shouldn’t have been happy, but I was. Ethel was mine, and I didn’t intend on sharing her with anybody.
Reine had the freedom to work on stage, starring in some of the biggest plays in Chicago, because Mama watched Charlie and Pepi. One evening the whole family attended the premiere of her latest play. I got to watch her from the wings of the theater, standing just offstage with Mama, Ethel, and Rose. The split-second costume changes, and the men scurrying behind the curtains in a coordinated effort to raise the curtains and change the sets, captured my complete attention. At the end of the play, after Reine sang in the grand finale but right before the curtain came down, I ran onto the stage to face the audience. They clapped and laughed at my shenanigans, when one of the stagehands tried to catch me with his stage hook and missed. It was comedy and I was hooked on it. I bowed and curtsied as I ran around the stage, evading him until I was sure the crowd loved me.
The noise from the audience filled me up and made my insides glow. That feeling stayed with me and I looked forward to the day when I could be on stage in a production. Mama, of course, was less than pleased, and when they finally hauled me off stage, she grabbed me by the ear, forced me outside, and gave me a good spanking.
