Idiot Page 5

  Don’t get me wrong, I came to LA with the intention of getting my acting career started. But it was like unleashing a kid in a candy store. Except . . . more like an addict in a drug store. I mean, a store filled with drugs. Not, like, CVS. An addict in CVS would probably be fine.

  Like I said, I knew I was going to make it . . . but seventeen-year-old Laura thought that this meant I didn’t have to work for it. That success would just find me. That’s how life worked, right? #notatalldelusional.

  While I was waiting for my million-dollar movie deal, I had to do SOMETHING, so Neesie and I would smoke weed every day and go out to clubs every night. (Meanwhile Neha was busy focusing hard at her internship and being somewhat responsible.) We were staying in Westwood, a total college town, so there were frat parties galore. I met enough frat guys that summer to get the complete college experience.

  When it came to acting, I had no idea what I was doing. I kind of figured that in Hollywood, you just had to look beautiful and go to a department store. Some major producer would discover your insane talent while you purchased a silk scarf. Or in my case, while I walked out of Macy’s with three pairs of pants layered under my jeans.

  I had one friend in town who knew a manager. She offered to pass on my headshot and résumé. Sorry, what? I didn’t have either of those.

  “You need a résumé if anyone is going to consider signing you.”

  Okay. I found some dodgy modeling photos I had taken back in Downers Grove with an amateur photographer, complete with fake tan and incredibly skinny eyebrows. I also was bleaching my teeth with dollar-store teeth whitener, so I had white bleach spots all over my gums. Hello, world!

  And résumé-wise . . . I wrote it out by hand. By HAND. I want you to know that I had access to a printer, but did not use it. Instead I chose to whip out my ten-year-old-boy handwriting to really nail my professionalism as I wrote: Special skills include horseback riding, driving a car, and a Macedonian accent.

  On that résumé I made a bunch of shit up. I knew that a list of high school plays was not going to impress a real life LA manager! So I added some fake local community theater productions as well. Boom! Ready to knock their socks off.

  I handed it to my friend to pass along.

  “Dude. This isn’t legible at all.”

  “. . .”

  Thankfully, she had much neater handwriting than I did, so she rewrote the whole thing more legibly. (But can someone tell me why we didn’t just go to the library and print it??? Why did we not think of that?)

  Suffice it to say, I did not get a meeting with that manager.

  I wasn’t exactly getting any auditions, but so what? I didn’t need auditions. I was MEETING people. LA is really stratified during the day. At nine a.m., the movie executives take their elevators to the twenty-sixth floor of their skyscraper offices and the unemployed actors smoke weed in their apartments (right?). But at night, we all drank at the same bars and danced on the same dance floors until three a.m. See? There’s a bit of community in having a cocaine problem.

  The day might be filled with rejections, but at night, people loved me.

  One night, I was standing outside the Argyle at two a.m., smoking a cigarette. This really pretty boy approaches me. Damn. Is he . . . prettier than me?

  He came over to me. “You’re gorgeous,” he said.

  “Oh God, you too,” I blurted out.

  “Oh, thanks. You should be a model.”

  I gasped, flattered, but the cigarette in my mouth made me cough a little. “Really? You think so?”

  “Yes. I would love to shoot you.”

  “Um . . . with a camera, right?”

  “Ha-ha! Wow. You’re funny, too.”

  But seriously, with a camera, right? Right?? His name was Damon. He gave me some cocaine, so I gave him my number. And just like that, I became a professional model. Well, not actually, but if you had tried to convince me otherwise, I wouldn’t have heard it. That’s the LA dream for you right there!

  On one night out I met an agent from Endeavor with a huge cocaine problem. This was my chance to sell my talent to him.

  “You don’t understand. I’ve got what it takes. I’m the next Charlize Theron.”

  “Really?”

  “Absolutely. Give me a script and I will fucking destroy it. I’ll interpret the shit out of it. You think you’ve seen real acting before, but you haven’t until you’ve seen me.”

  I think they typically call this liquid courage, but in my case it was powdered.

  “All right. I’m sold. Call me next week.” He handed me his business card.

  And that’s how it’s done, bitches.

  Although I was the slightest bit worried he was too high when we met to remember me at all. I gave him a call anyway, trying to channel the same confidence I’d had that night.

  “Of course I remember you, Laura!” he exclaimed.

  Oh thank God.

  “I got you an audition for X-Men!”

  My mouth went dry with fear. Excuse me? X-Men? Let me remind you that I’d never had a real professional audition in my life. And I was supposed to jump straight into X-Men?

  “Perfect. That is perfect for me.”

  “Great. We’ll see how you do on this audition and then we’ll talk about your future.”

  “You won’t be disappointed!”

  Oh, fuck.

  In the daytime, my fearlessness drained away. It was like in the dark of night I couldn’t see all the things I was afraid of. Nighttime Laura really liked to fuck over daytime Laura. Mostly it was just hangovers and no energy at all, but this? This audition? This was terrifying.

  I prepped as hard as I could. I learned the sides forward and backward, and then I got nervous that I would accidentally do them backward, so I repeated them forward twenty more times. I knew I couldn’t give myself any excuse not to show up. When I walked into the casting office, I was ready to give the performance of my life.

  It was a basically empty room, except for a table, a camera, a few producers, and the casting director. The casting director smiled at me. “Okay, Laura, we’ve heard great things. I’ll be reading the lines with you. You ready?”

  Say yes, Laura. Say yes. Say something. I was petrified. I think I just opened my eyes really wide and nodded. That’s normal.

  She read the first line to me: “I’m the wrong guy to play hide and seek with.”

  I took a breath and LOOKED STRAIGHT INTO THE CAMERA.

  “Who’s hiding, dickhead.”

  The casting director glanced awkwardly at the producers as I MAINTAINED EYE CONTACT WITH THE CAMERA LIKE AN IDIOT. She continued on.

  I gave my entire reading staring into the lens.

  Can you guys imagine watching a movie where every character looks straight into the camera the whole time? It’s not exactly what they were going for.

  That is the most rookie mistake someone could ever make. I just imagine the director watching the tapes later, uncomfortably trying to avoid the super-intense big-eye glare of a girl more nervous than anyone has been in the history of the world. Or laughing his ass off. Most likely that.

  I didn’t know how to audition! I had no idea that it was even something I needed to learn how to do.

  By the way, the part was Kitty Pryde in X-Men: The Last Stand. Ellen Page plays her in all the movies, and she didn’t look into the camera even once. So, good choice everybody.

  The coke-problem agent called me shortly after the audition. “So . . . I got some notes back from the casting director.”

  “Oh great!” Lay it on me, buster. I can handle it.

  “She just said . . . your client needs auditioning classes.”

  After this, he didn’t want to represent me. Who knows why?

  Let’s just say this was a humbling experience. I realized that there was a craft I needed to learn if I actually wanted to book jobs. And I did take some auditioning classes.

  I’m only slightly embarrassed to say that this was the h
ighest point of my career during my first stint in LA. But at the time, I wasn’t embarrassed at all! I felt fucking successful, going on auditions and shit, and successfully getting high every day. I was solid.

  Toward the end of the summer, things started to get more and more out of control. Neha, Neesie, and I ran out of money. We had already paid rent, luckily, but money to eat? Not so plentiful.

  No worries! I had skills for this. I knew how to get free stuff! I trained my whole life for this.

  I pulled into the In-N-Out drive-thru with Neesie, fully aware that neither of us had any money. She was not down. “What the fuck are you doing, Laura?”

  “Chill out. I got this, okay? I got this. Just order. They’re going to give it to us.”

  Neesie looked at me skeptically. Hey, save the skepticism for conspiracy theories! I pulled up to the window and we ordered. And then came time to pay.

  I patted my pockets EXCESSIVELY. And then dug through my purse. “Oh shit. Oh shit, where’s my wallet? Oh my God, did someone steal it?” I looked at the cashier for any hint of sympathy. There was none whatsoever. Damn. LA was definitely not the Midwest.

  Neesie was getting worried. “Hold on one second,” I said. I put the car in park, walked over to the dudes in the car behind us.

  “Hey, I’m SO sorry. But I can’t find my wallet and I already ordered . . . could I borrow some money?”

  The dudes were super annoyed. But they paid. And we lived another day!

  I began to realize my trusty stealing methods really didn’t fly in LA. But am I the type of person to give up?? No!

  Meantime, I had given myself some scars on my lower stomach from an at-home bikini wax gone wrong (do those ever go right?). Because I was not really feeling up to rock some vagina scars, I needed to get some scar cream. I went to the CVS on La Brea and Santa Monica and found the creams. There was one for five dollars . . . but there was also one for forty dollars. I could have easily bought the five-dollar one. But the forty-dollar one was probably better. I mean, why else would it cost that much?? I wanted it. I needed it. I deserved the best.

  Years later in Alcoholics Anonymous, I learned that this is a trait of the alcoholic. It’s either grandiose or comatose. Either I’m the best and deserve the best! or I’m a piece of shit and I’m killing myself tonight! Once you’re sober, you practice learning that you’re no better or worse than anyone else. But in this moment . . . I was feeling grandiose.

  I slipped the forty-dollar scar cream into my purse and walked out.

  The manager was this big, angry man. You could tell that he had been pissed off for the last fucking time today as he followed me to the exit.

  “HEY! STOP! One of my employees saw you put something in your purse. What did you take?”

  This was not a man I wanted to pick a fight with. I immediately pulled out the scar cream.

  “I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry. I took your scar cream. I couldn’t afford it and I have scars from something I don’t want to talk about and if you were a woman you would understand, but here it is, take it, I’m so sorry. Please. I’ll just go.”

  He snatched the cream back and eyed me. I could tell he wished I had resisted more. He really wanted to yell at someone.

  “What else do you have in there?”

  “Just that, I swear.”

  Then, I’m sure he thought, Fuck it, might as well just yell at this seventeen-year-old! He turned to the twenty-five people waiting in line to check out.

  “HEY, EVERYONE. LOOK WHO DECIDED TO SHOPLIFT TODAY? MISS—What’s your name?”

  “Laura.”

  “LAURA WANTED SCAR CREAM!!” Everyone in line looked at me pityingly. The manager turned back to me. “Get out of here.”

  I walked out of that CVS with my head down, a walk of shame more humiliating than ANY of the times I had come home at eight a.m. in my clubbing dress. I crossed the street as fast as I could, but then I heard police sirens. The manager had called the cops on me.

  “HANDS OVER YOUR HEAD. HANDS OVER YOUR HEAD.”

  Are you fucking kidding me?

  I was in front of the busiest Starbucks in LA, leaned against a cop car. My most public performance to date!

  This police officer wanted to arrest me so badly. It was like a tall seventeen-year-old girl had killed his wife or something and he had a vendetta against all of us. He searched madly through my purse for anything he could get me with. He found my older sister’s ID.

  “Who is this?”

  “My sister.”

  “Why do you have it?”

  “Because—because I’m not twenty-one!” I sobbed.

  He pocketed the ID. And then he pulled out an empty baggie . . . that previously held cocaine. He looked closely at the white residue.

  He scoffed angrily. “If there was anything in this you’d be going fucking downtown. Get the fuck off my car.”

  He was horrible. To him I was the scum of the earth. And I truly felt like it after that interaction.

  There was a huge crowd of spectators outside the Starbucks, staring at me. I wiped my eyes, took a bow, and started my second walk of shame back to the apartment. Mondays, amirite?

  That was the last time I ever shoplifted.

  The end of summer came quickly after that. Neha and Neesie had to go back to Northwestern, a.k.a. their real lives, and I had to go back to . . . nothing.

  We had our suitcases all packed.

  “Ready to go, Laura?” asked Neha.

  “Yeah, um, one sec.” I went out the front door to the street. I stood on the edge of the curb and held my arms open.

  “Hello?? Anyone out there that can find a way to keep me here? Anyone want to discover my talent? Please? Anyone want to give me a large sum of money in exchange for my work as an actor so that I can keep this Westwood apartment by myself??”

  There was no answer. A few BMWs whizzed by dangerously close to the curb I was standing on. One car honked at me. FINE. I’d go back to Downers Grove and figure out a way to settle here later on, especially now that I REALLY understood how LA worked. Obviously. This was fine!

  In the back of my mind, I was a little disappointed in the fact that I wasn’t a big star yet. I didn’t really blame my drinking or drug habits. I thought I was just having the time of my life.

  In reality, though, I had totally lost focus. I had gone from dinky motel-room parties to the coolest clubs in LA, unlimited drugs, and no parents to answer to. It had been a three-month-long party and a high that I did not want to come down from.

  When I got home, the questions of how it was came rolling in.

  “It was awesome. I auditioned for this huge movie,” I said nonchalantly.

  “Just one audition?”

  Whatever! I wasn’t discouraged at all. This felt like a step toward my career. I had gotten out of Downers Grove once, and I was going to again. I didn’t know how it was going to happen, but it would. This was just the beginning. I was completely, unwaveringly sure.

  Okay WHOEVER keeps calling me delusional, I can hear you and also—SHUT UP.

  CHAPTER 4

  How to Ignore a Hundred Red Flags

  I got back to Downers Grove expecting things to be the same as when I left. It still looked the same for sure—but all my friends were gone. Maggie was at Northwestern, and Jack was in Wisconsin at St. Norbert. They were all doing great things and making career moves, and I was so happy for them! But for me it sucked.

  I did have Colleen, though. She was living at home, working at the restaurant, and going to community college.

  “How did my investment do in LA?” she’d ask, referring to all the money she lent me for my summer away.

  “I’m gonna get you ten times that money after I make it big.”

  Colleen and I were opposites in some ways, but the same in others. I was a rebellious, loudmouth weirdo, and she was an introverted, quiet weirdo. She had no friends and would just read books all day and play guitar and sing in French. When we were younger, she love
d school and was good at it. She would even offer to write my high school essays for me, scrawling out the entire thing in tiny handwriting on a couple notecards so that I could take them to school and copy them over in my clumsy, boyish handwriting. When she offered the first time, I was stunned.

  “Seriously. I’ll write your essay for you.”

  “You’ll write my essay . . . and I’ll do nothing in return?”

  “Yeah. I just love US History.”

  I took her hand. “I don’t understand you at all, but I will gladly take advantage of your weirdly vast knowledge of early-American aviation.”

  Colleen looked into my eyes. “They dreamed of flying and they did it, Laura.”

  She also had a water bed. Yes, the bed she grew up sleeping on was the sexiest bed of the ’90s. I’m not sure how it got that title, seeing how it just felt like sleeping on a weird bladder. We’d slosh around on it for hours, talking and laughing and eating pistachios. And if I jumped onto it hard enough, she would go flying off from the waves I made.

  But being at home wasn’t easy. I felt my cabin fever coming back. I grew impatient for a way to get back to LA.

  Oh. There’s one thing I forgot to tell you. The day I got back home, I started getting phone calls to our landline.

  “Hello? Laura? It’s me!” There was a long pause. “Damon!”

  “Who??”

  “Damon! We met at the Argyle!”

  I had to rack my brain. The Argyle? OHHHHHHHH. Damon. He was the very pretty man I met outside the Argyle in LA who gave me some coke and told me he wanted to shoot me. With a camera. How could I forget anyone who was generous enough to give me a free bump??

  Side note: What kind of confidence did this dude have to start off a phone call with “It’s me!” after I had met him just one time, two months ago. As if there were any chance I would just recognize his voice?

  “Come out to New York so I can shoot you!” he said excitedly.

  I barely remembered him. Honestly, he was just evidence that my summer in LA went super well. So of course I said no to his offer! Jeez, who do you think I am??