Wild animals are no better. My mom practically aims for them on the road. I should rephrase: She does absolutely nothing to avoid them. She’ll defend this by saying, “Well what in the hell’d you want me to do? Swerve and kill us both?”
I have been woken up many a morning to the sound of my mom spraying the deer in the backyard full of beebees. She’ll be cloaked in her pink, quilted bathrobe and matching spongy slippers with a pellet gun firm against her shoulder, padding through the yard like Elmer Fudd. “I don’t pay for all the teenagers in the neighborhood to come into my kitchen and eat all my food. Why should I be feeding all these deer?” she’ll say, tracking a deer that’s wandered into her garden for a snack. POW. She’ll nail one right in the butt. It’ll sprint away, its ass flailing wildly in the air. (The bullets aren’t strong enough to kill the deer, she’s assured me many times, in the same harangue about them spreading Lyme and being over-populated.) “They’re a menace to society,” she’ll say, then swish up the back steps to get her egg casserole out of the oven.
We’re not terrible people, I promise. We like humans. We really like humans! Most of the time. And it’s not that we dislike animals; we’re just not quite sure what to do with them.
Somehow, we used to have a dog. A Welsh corgi named Choo-Choo, because at age two my brother thought she ran like a choo-choo train. We liked Choo-Choo; I swear we did. I even cried when she died. My dad picked me up from my fifth-grade afterschool French class and told me the news. I mustered up some tears because it seemed like the thing to do.
Here comes the bad part: For her fourteen years with our family, Choo-Choo primarily lived outside. While this was an acceptable arrangement when we lived in Georgia, I’m not so sure how humane it was once we moved to Connecticut. “She has a house of her own,” my mom would say, motioning toward the door-less, insulation-less wooden shack with three feet of snow on either side. My dad would add, sitting slipper-footed by the fire, “Would you want to live inside this hot house with a fur coat on? I don’t think so.” I’d look outside as dusk enveloped the miniature wooden igloo, and then back inside at the roaring fireplace, the tartan-plaid blanket draped across the overstuffed sofa, and think to myself, I’m not so sure.
It’s terrible, I know. Fortunately, it sounds like my mom has turned a corner. “Oh that was just horrible!” she said one day when I mentioned Choo-Choo’s living in the cold. My dad, on the other hand, didn’t budge. “She had a house!” he said, waving a page of his newspaper wildly. “With blankets!”
There are some animals, however, that I sincerely love. I love whales. The Voyage of the Mimi was my favorite educational film of all time. It even inspired me to have a Free Willy–themed birthday party in the fourth grade. And dinosaurs, I love them. Do they count? I guess I like animals that you can love in a more abstract way.
While I realize furrier animals are inherently cute, fun to cuddle with, and good, loyal companions, they’ve never really done it for me. Yet I’ve never understood why it’s socially acceptable to openly hate cats, but when I indicate my indifference toward dogs, people look at me like I’m a registered sex offender with a swastika tattooed on my face.
I even saved a cat once. Or saved a party of people from a cat, I should say. (This depends upon whether you were viewing the situation from four legs or two.) A group of us rented a house for a wedding in upstate New York, and we hosted a party after the rehearsal dinner. In a drunken stupor, someone left the front door wide open. In ran a collarless cat, full-speed ahead, weaving through clusters of people and jumping on the furniture. You should have seen how these people reacted. They leapt onto couches, dove onto tabletops, locked themselves in bathrooms. It was as if a chainsaw-wielding, hockey-masked murderer had crashed the party. It’s just a cat, people; it’s not going to kill you. The cat, no doubt as freaked out as the party guests, retreated to the second floor.
A few minutes later, one of our friends descended to announce, proudly, that he’d solved the problem: He locked the cat in the room with the guy who was passed out. Everyone laughed and seemed to accept this as a suitable solution. Perhaps it was years of latent guilt, my subpar animal affection calling me to arms, but I did not see this as a suitable solution. I put down my Solo cup of vodka-soda and marched up the stairs, opening the bedroom door with the “I’ve come to save the day” swagger of a male stripper dressed as a fireman. While our human friend was sleeping soundly on the bed, our new feline friend was sprinting in psychotic circles on the floor.
A wave of panic and nausea came over me. I began to have flashbacks from my childhood. The only other time I’d picked up a cat was during a celebration dance after winning a riveting game of Mall Madness at my friend Veronica’s house in the third grade. The cat seemed nice enough: gray and white and named Mr. Moe. I scooped him up, hoping he’d partake in my victory dance, but instead he just bit me on the face. I tried as best I could to shake the memory from my mind, crouching down in a coaching-third-base position. If I were wearing sleeves, I would have rolled them up. I reached down and squealed as I scooped up the little fur ball. He did not seem to like this, so I had to hurry down the stairs, his legs dangling awkwardly below my “this baby’s got a dirty diaper” grip. When we arrived at the front door, I considered tossing him to see if they really do always land on their feet. But images of Free Willy flashed through my head: Would I throw a whale at a sidewalk to see if it landed right side up? I don’t think so. Instead, I placed the kitty gently on the front lawn, pet him affectionately on his creepily small head, and sent him on his way.
Star Gazing
Throughout all my shifts in the box, I’ve never seen a celebrity at the hotel, though I am sure they have been there. They are everywhere in LA. That’s one thing Us Weekly actually has right: Stars are just like us. They really are at the grocery store, and at the gas station, and behind you in line at the bar. (Correction: They are in front of you in line at the bar.) With the box, it’s sort of strange to think that, for once, they are looking at me, not the other way around. I’m so accustomed to watching their faces inside boxes, but in the lobby of this hotel, they are forced to watch mine. Well, not forced. I guess they could look at the ground. I am sure they are not particularly impressed. But are they looking? If the box really is a human art installation, as it purports to be, then am I the performer here, and they my audience? The thought is sort of thrilling.
Not-So-Model Behavior
The first time I entered the fabled halls of the Condé Nast building—home of The New Yorker, Vogue, and Vanity Fair—it was not for an interview or a magazine assignment, but to get my picture taken for Lucky magazine. Someone knew someone who worked at Lucky and thought I would be a good candidate for the magazine’s “real people modeling.” (Apparently the magazine-slash-shopping-guide features both “models” and “real people.” As if the former is not a member of the latter.) It was the summer after my college graduation, and I was living with my parents in Connecticut desperately trying to get an editorial job within those fabled halls. Or anywhere, for that matter. When this peculiar opportunity presented itself to me, I thought, why not? I mean, who doesn’t want to be a “real person” for a day?
If nothing else, it was reprieve from my fruitless job search and an excuse to get out of the house. Before the meeting, I spent an embarrassing amount of time orchestrating my outfit. I’d have to wear heels, of course, but I’d wear flats for the walk from the train station. I settled on skinny(ish) jeans—this was 2004, so that version of “skinny jeans” was what would now be called “straight leg”—a loose-fitting tank, and a long, layered necklace that draped to my belly button. My mom dropped me off at the station, and while on the train, I consulted my CoverGirl compact a few too many times.
When I emerged from Grand Central and felt that first subway grate blow its hot breath through my blonde hair, I thought, This is my Marilyn moment. Never mind the wet garbage smell. With that, I strutted up East Forty-second, one foot meaningfu
lly placed in front of the other, popping my hips to the side like Tyra had taught me on Top Model. I was certain she would think I was fierce.
When I arrived at the famous address—4 Times Square—I hid around a corner to switch my shoes and blot my sweaty face. Once my complexion finally transitioned from dripping to dewy, I popped on my pumps and headed inside. The women in the building were just as I’d imagined: tiny, impeccably dressed, terrifying. I was feeling less model-like by the minute. Why didn’t they just cast people from their own lobby? While waiting outside the model booker’s office, I thumbed through a copy of Lucky, the only magazine they had. A few other women were waiting as well. I tried to figure out if they were models, “real people,” or just regular real people. The booker eventually emerged and called my name. She looked startled as I stood. Oh god, I thought, it’s that bad? I don’t even qualify as a “real person”? I told her that yes, I was Lilibet, and reached out my hand. “Oh!” she said, shaking it, “I thought you were a real model!” These words nearly knocked me out of my pumps. I tried to mask my elation. “Oh,” I said, swatting an imaginary fly in front of me, “I don’t know about that.”
After quitting track in college, I gained a lot of weight—forty pounds, to be exact—while studying abroad. “I thought the food was bad in London,” my friends would say after spending their semesters enjoying crepes in Paris and fettuccini in Florence. “Well,” I’d tell them, my inflated arms crossed self-consciously, “Clearly I found plenty to eat.” I think, more than anything, my body was in shock. I went from eating like an anemic squirrel and running more than sixty miles a week to spending six months waddling across a pub to fetch another murky stout and a second basket of mayonnaise-covered fries. By that summer after graduation, I had lost most of the weight, but I still didn’t feel like a model, and certainly not a “real” one.
Beyond the initial flattery, the model booker was all business. She snapped a few Polaroids: “Look right, look left, hold your hair back with your hand. No not like that, like this. Okay now smile—okay don’t smile that much.” Before I left, I got her card so I could send her a thank you note while casually mentioning I was looking for a job at a magazine.
Months later, after moving to California, I thumbed through the stack of business cards I had acquired during my interviews in Manhattan. While I knew most of the magazines didn’t have editorial offices in LA, I thought someone might know someone in publishing out here. No one did.
When I tried the booker at Lucky, she replied: “So, I don’t have any close contacts in magazines out there, but I do know several modeling agencies.” I read the email again. Modeling agencies? Was I seeing this right? Even though this woman never used my photo in Lucky, she thought I had what it takes to be a model in LA? To have an agent? I checked my reflection in the monitor of Rachel’s parents’ PC. My skin was tanned and my hair was sun streaked. Most of that college weight was gone. I sucked in my cheeks and puckered my lips. I swished my hair across my shoulders and, with the back of my hand, pushed a half-eaten bowl of ice cream to the edge of the desk. I rolled my shoulders southward and watched as my slouching spine began to unfurl itself, making me three inches taller. I think I might have winked at myself. Flashing a toothpaste-commercial smile at my own reflection, I placed my hands delicately on the keyboard and began composing my reply.
“Thanks so much for getting back to me!” I typed. “I am very interested! Please pass on the necessary details!” I hit send at the top of my Hotmail inbox and watched the email disappear into the abyss. The hairs on my arms stood straighter, too. I crossed my arms and rubbed my hands against my triceps, giving myself a hug. Maybe this wasn’t part of the plan. But screw the plan. I was going to be a model . . . in LA.
The booker at Lucky put me in touch with her agent friend, who called me in for a meeting. On the afternoon of the interview, I made a right onto the agency’s street—in Beverly Hills, of course. The streets really were lined with palm trees. I craned my head out my window and looked up. They seemed to stretch skyward forever. It looked just like Troop Beverly Hills. But where was my Shelly Long mom figure to comfort me and buy me pedicures? The unfamiliarity juxtaposed with the creepy film-set reminiscence made me queasy. What was I doing? A model? In LA? Was this really for me? What would my parents think, having just spent upward of $100K on my college education? I sat in the parking garage and gnawed on my nails. I was early because I had given myself an hour to get there. I drummed my thumbs against the wheel, pulled down the visor, and checked my reflection in the mirror. I licked lipstick from my teeth, and with that, I went into the building.
I told the receptionist I was there for an interview, feeling silly calling it that. Is that what they call it in the modeling world? I wasn’t sure. The president of the agency, a friendly former model named Francine, asked me to take a seat in a conference room. Her first words were, “I love your outfit. You look so cute.” She liked my outfit; we were off to a great start. “So tell me a little about yourself,” she asked.
“Well, I graduated in May and recently moved out here with some girlfriends.” I decided to forgo the business about the writing and the journalism degree. What good would that do anyway? “And I’m really ready to take on something new and exciting.” I tried to sit up as straight and skinny as possible on the saggy couch. She asked me a few more questions: where I was from, what part of LA we had moved to, that sort of thing. Then, after only a few minutes, she clasped her hands and said, “Okay, well, I think you’re great!”
I was startled. That was it? That was all she needed? No Polaroids, no runway walk, no height, no weight, no measurements? With just a quick look, she was sold. Why had I underestimated myself?
“So,” she went on, “your primary responsibilities will be . . .”
Responsibilities? Hmm, I thought. I wonder what those are? Working out twice a day? Applying Crest Whitestrips? Brushing my hair a lot?
“. . . faxing, filing, answering phones, scanning.”
My confusion must have been palpable because she paused. “You do know how to scan, right?”
I tripped over the beginning of at least two sentences. She must have thought I was really scared of scanning. Finally, I stuttered, “No. No, I’m sorry, I actually don’t know how to scan.” My shoulders slumped back to their normal elevation and I cupped my hands together on my lap. “But,” I said, wagging a convincing finger in the air, “I am a quick study!”
I think part of me was relieved. While the thought of being a model was flattering, I wasn’t sure I had it in me. It seemed like an awful lot of work, staying so skinny. I accepted the job as an assistant at the agency. I would have taken any job at that point; I needed to pay my rent. Even though I was fairly certain I hated LA, I desperately wanted to make the city work, if for no other reason than to prove it to my parents. My poor mom had flown to Boulder after graduation to help pack up my things, which we then boarded onto a U-Haul and drove across eight states to Connecticut. Before I left Boulder, I sold my car—because, I told them, I wouldn’t need one in Manhattan. Then, three months later, I announced I was actually not moving to New York, but to California, and they’d have to pay to ship all my belongings back across the country. Oh yeah, and could they please buy me a car because I’d need one in LA. I had caused my parents enough anguish already. The least I could do was get a job so they would no longer have to pay my rent. Plus, this woman Francine was pregnant and from New Orleans. Her easy laugh was warm and welcoming and, in the middle of those freakishly unfamiliar surroundings, her southern accent felt like home.
The fact that working at a talent and modeling agency in Beverly Hills enlisted absolutely none of the skills I acquired while getting a writing degree was not lost on me. In addition to various administrative duties, one of my primary responsibilities was getting the models to go to their castings, which, I would learn, actually took some skill. It was like herding a pack of underfed, hungover, directionally retarded house cats. (The f
ollowing year, Rachel got a job at a talent agency, and her boss eventually confessed that it wasn’t her education or work experience that got her the position, but the fact that she used to be a camp counselor. “That’s just what you need to talk to actors,” her boss said.)
From the mouths of models, I have now heard every excuse, explanation, and inane utterance imaginable. Or I should say, unimaginable. You just couldn’t make this stuff up. The excuses ranged from the typical “My car won’t start” or “I overslept” to the outrageous “I can’t make it to the casting because I burnt my eyeballs in the tanning bed.” Were her eyes open in the tanning bed? It was a real head scratcher. There were some I had to write down, like the following:
Me: “I’m calling with a casting for you for 2:00 pm tomorrow.
Model: “I can’t go on any castings tomorrow.”
Me: “Oh. Why not?”
Model: “Because it’s a holiday.”
Me: “Wait, it is?”
Model: “Yeah, Valentine’s Day!”
Me: “Well that’s not like a real holiday.”
Model: “What do you mean?”
Me: “The banks aren’t closed, the schools aren’t . . . you know what, forget it. Enjoy your day!”
The models often stopped by the office to pick up checks or say hello. They’d roll in, looking effortlessly stunning without a stitch of makeup, sipping iced coffee and smelling of cigarettes. Sometimes, if they didn’t have any castings to attend, they’d hang out all day, twirling around in office chairs, regaling us with stories of parties at celebrities’ houses in the Hollywood Hills. Some would prattle on while we worked at our desks, trying to ignore them. One day, one of the models announced that she wanted to get a gap put in her teeth.
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