Fortunately, I got some reprieve during a quick break for lunch, though I noticed there was a collective lack of enthusiasm for food when everyone was dressed in bikinis. After lunch, the director asked if anyone was willing to swim across the pool, underwater. I’d clearly inhaled too much chlorine because I shouted, “I’ll do it!” as if he had asked for a volunteer to make out with Adrian Grenier. Perhaps I was under the impression there was such a thing as a “really wet bump.” There is not. In addition to that, let me explain something about my swimming skills: I don’t have any. I can string together enough aquatic aptitude not to die, but beyond that, there’s not much to work with. If I swim one length of your standard twenty-five-meter pool, I am grabbing onto the wall at the end, gasping for breath, coughing up chlorinated water. People are often curious about this. “Doesn’t endurance from running translate to swimming?” they’ll ask. I can say with conviction, it does not. I can run six miles and look like I’ve only done a jumping jack or two, but if I swim a couple of laps, I’m not right for days.
To be clear, the director had said he needed a volunteer “to swim across the pool.” While I now realize that could be taken in the plural, I took it to mean that he needed someone to get from one side to the other, once. It was a small pool, much smaller than the one at the gym that had made me see white. If I pushed hard enough off the wall, I figured, I’d basically already be at the other end. The director told me I was to swim across the pool, underwater, then emerge from the water, walking slowly up the steps. Then I was to stroll around the side of the pool, passing by Adrian Grenier and Kevin Connelly. Well, I thought, with that level of direction, and that much action for my character to take on, I had basically just been upgraded to a series regular. As I slow-walked around the pool in a bikini, I’d be the object of the two main characters’ eyes. This would be my Phoebe Cates in Fast Times At Ridgemont High moment. My breakthrough. Lord only knows who would be banging down my door after such a performance.
I clung to the ledge in the deep end, ready for takeoff. When the director said, “Rolling,” I was to push off the wall and begin my swim to stardom. I glided across the bottom of the pool, underwater, opening my eyes halfway through so I didn’t slam into the stairs, then held onto the railing with the poise of a ballerina and sashayed up the steps. As I rounded the corner, I made sure to make some serious eye contact with Adrian Grenier. If the director didn’t love me, then maybe he’d say something on my behalf: “What about that polka-dot bikini girl? We should find a recurring role for her.”
When the director said, “Cut,” I was certain I had done what it takes to win over not only the director and the stars, but the hearts and minds of America. I figured a prop stylist would be scurrying out at any minute with a terrycloth robe with my name monogrammed on the back and a cup of herbal tea, ready to escort me to a trailer they were no doubt redecorating for me at that very moment. I was snapped out of my daydream when the director addressed me directly: “Swimmer!” he said. “Back in position.” Oh. I had to do it again? Had I not absolutely nailed it on the first attempt?
I readied myself in the deep end, pushed off the wall, and did two frog-like strokes to get across the pool. Then I walked up the steps and around the pool. I would perform this combination of maneuvers at least twenty-five times.
After only a few passes, my very short haircut was matted to the sides of my head like a rugby helmet. After several more takes, my sinuses were filled with snot, my fingers were past the point of prune, and the skin on my hands was transparent, like rice paper. My eyes were bloodshot and watering like an addict on the fourth day of a meth bender in the Appalachia. I was dizzy. Exhausted. Freezing. I no longer cared about the “wet bump.” I would have taken a “dry cut” to get me back on that chaise. I would have taken a “double dry cut” to get me into my bed. That day, I learned a valuable lesson in show business: They never do one take. They never do twelve takes. They do one million and fifty-five takes. And then, just before nightfall, when you’ve lost all hope, when you’ve resigned yourself to the fact that you will die on the set of Entourage, the director says, casually, “That’s a wrap.”
As the bus barreled back to the Robinsons-May shopping center, I was comforted by one fact: I was going to be all over the camera. I might have been waterlogged, and my lips might have been blue, but my fifteen minutes of fame were due.
I immediately told everyone I knew. I told my coworkers at the restaurant and the magazine. I called my parents. I sent a blast email with the word “Holla” tacked at the end. People told other people, and every time someone told someone else, my role became significantly more substantial. “Bikini Girl,” which was already a stretch, morphed into “Guest Star,” which morphed into “Recurring Series Regular,” which morphed into “Dating Adrian Grenier in real life.” And who was I to correct anyone?
Three months later, the episode aired. There were watch parties.
Okay, there were not watch parties, but a lot of people watched. I watched from my apartment, by myself, my stomach twisted into knots with anticipation.
Exactly five minutes and eighteen seconds into the episode there was a very, very, very overhead shot of the W Hotel pool. It looked like it was taken from outer space. In the center of that pool was something that looked like a tadpole, or a sea monkey. From exactly 5:18 to 5:20, that tadpole swam, for two underwater strokes, across the pool. Then the camera cut to a close-up of that tadpole emerging from the pool: blonde, tan, and toned . . . with a camouflaged bikini and a large lower-back tattoo. I watched in disbelief. I rewound on my TiVo. Every time I watched her taught, tattooed body get out of the pool, it was harder than the last. Who was this imposter? Was this my body-double? What was wrong with my un-tattooed body? While I was apparently fine to use for the camera angle that was shot from a satellite, for the close-up, I didn’t make the cut. I imagined the editors’ conversation:
“Well, the swimmer girl looks a little banged up,” one would say.
“Yeah, she looks like she’s sort of struggling to get out of the pool,” the other would add.
“Plus, that rose bush back tattoo is hot.”
I continued to watch anyway, hoping they’d flash back to the pool scene, thinking maybe there was still a chance. About a quarter of the way through the episode, they cut back to the W Hotel pool. The camera closed in on Adrian Grenier and the brunette British girl. At eight minutes, twenty-five seconds, there I was again: side-profile, a pixilated smudge of myself in the background wedged between both their heads. The camera cut to Kevin Connolly and the blonde British girl for a moment, and then slowly made its way back left. As it panned across the pool, I could see the guy with the halitosis wading by the stairs. The camera then stopped for a while on Adrian Grenier and the brunette. Maggie was visible for most of the scene, even in the background, while I was entirely blocked by the British girl’s head. I could see Maggie pretend-talking to me and, peeking out from behind the large head in the foreground, I could see my right hand dramatically gesturing back.
7 This is the actual email.
Signs That You Have Made It
You can shave your legs without hitting your head against the wall of the shower.
You can’t vacuum your entire home without unplugging the vacuum.
Your bed doesn’t have to be crammed in the corner of the room.
Your bed is not the “double” your parents bought for your sophomore year in college.
You have a dishwasher.
You have a washing machine.
Your refrigerator makes its own ice.
Your refrigerator has food in it.
You don’t have to work in the box.
Signs That You Have Not Made It
Your credit card company asks if you’ve considered a new line of work.
Hooters vs. The Box
When my girlfriend at the restaurant told me she used to work at Hooters, I eyed her tiny, ninety-five-pound frame and couldn’t help but noti
ce she was lacking a key ingredient for the job.
“I know,” she said. “I don’t have big hooters.” She seemed more than happy to go on. “The girls who didn’t have big boobs or implants wore two padded bras on top of each other, and we put our Hooters T-shirts over that. It worked really well.”
Hold the mail. What? I couldn’t believe it. It felt like learning Dolly Parton stuffed with shoulder pads.
My friend’s stories from Hooters made me appreciate the restaurant where I worked. At Hooters, she said, the servers were encouraged to egg the men on. That was the point. Eat a basket of wings, drink a pitcher of beer, look at a roomful of hooters (or padded bras under T-shirts, idiots) and flirt with your waitress. She said Hooters girls were required to sit at each table for at least a few minutes—bat their pretty little eyes, bait the men. “That was a requirement. If we were folding napkins or talking to each other, the manager would come over and say, ‘Go sit down with your customers.’”
Hooters girls also had to leave a cocktail napkin on each table with their name written on it and “some sort of flair” (she was a smiley-face girl). On slow days, she said, whoever had the most napkins with their names on them could go home early. “It was funny; the guys thought you were giving them your name to flirt with them, but really you just wanted to be sent home early.” Another requirement: They had to ask each table if they wanted fries, no matter what. “That’s why people think Hooters girls are dumb,” she said, laughing. “Two guys would go in and order cheesecake and we’d have to ask them if they wanted fries with that.”
Every time a Hooters girl typed an order into the computer terminal, they had to print out the ticket, stand on a stool, and sling the ticket into the kitchen while yelling, “Hooters girls!” The rest of the Hooters girls would then have to stop what they were doing and say, in unison, “Oh, yeah!” There was a large Hooters Girls manual that outlined all of this. I found these details endlessly fascinating. My favorite part: In the back, there was a vending machine for the tights and socks they were required to wear. “Like a snack machine,” she said, “Except it was full of nylons and ’80s scrunch socks.”
“Why the thick, shiny figure skater tights?” I asked.
“They suck everything in. Plus it makes you feel less naked. The shorts are so tiny.”
My friend said she’d immediately tell all her tables she was in college, to distinguish herself from the other girls. “Apparently if you get a boob job while working at Hooters, you can write it off as part of your job, so a lot of girls were just working there for that.” Others, she said, wanted to be Playboy Bunnies. “The Playboy people were in there recruiting a lot.”
A Hooters girl’s primary job, she said, was to look good. If you came to work and your hair wasn’t down or your makeup didn’t look good, you could be sent home. Hooters girls were also more than allowed to go out with the customers. “Guys would pull up in limos to pick them up,” she said. “But you couldn’t be seen leaving in your Hooters outfit, so everyone zipped Juicy velour sweat suits over their uniforms and left wearing that.”
I would rather shoot myself. And I’m not talking about the Juicy Couture sweat suits. I can think of nothing worse than being required to lead on a stranger I have absolutely no interest in, especially after racing back and forth to fetch another couple rocks for his Scotch, doll; just a little more wasabi, darlin’; another napkin, mine fell on the floor, sweetie.
At the restaurant, some of the cocktail girls could work it. I could not. I couldn’t even up-sell a dessert, let alone up-sell myself. I’d see some of the girls getting phone numbers from men who had said, “So, what else do you do? An actress, wow, what do you know? I’m a producer, I bet I could help you out.” I’m sure plenty of these men were legitimately in the business, but I was always skeptical. I couldn’t bring myself to be the damsel looking to be saved by someone who may or may not have been a producer—or a sex offender. It made my skin crawl. Another waitress friend of ours, Jill, couldn’t do it either, and she was a real actress. When customers would ask what else she did, she’d say, dead seriously, “Nothing.” Being a young girl in LA and only a waitress made people very uncomfortable. They’d smooth their napkins in their laps nervously. “Yep,” she’d say, gazing gaily at her surroundings. “This is it!”
But why, I wondered, was I okay with wearing about as many inches of material as a Hooters girl when I was inside the box? At least they are bringing stuff to eat. I don’t even come with buffalo wings. I am providing absolutely no service other than being something to look at.
I think the answer lies in the two-inch thick glass. In the box, I don’t have to engage. I know a wall of glass separates me from them. I am protected in there. I don’t have to interact, egg them on, flirt. I don’t have to offer my name with a heart over the i. No one knows my name. I’m seen, I’m noticed, but I’m also left alone.
I Was A Box Bunny
In 1963, for her famous piece of undercover reporting, “I Was A Playboy Bunny,” Gloria Steinem became a bunny herself, serving cocktails at The Playboy Club on East Fifty-ninth Street in Manhattan. She gave herself a new name (Marie Catherine Ochs) and a new age (four years younger than her real age, as she was beyond the bunny age limit). But, as she noted in the essay, she and Marie shared the same address, phone number, and most importantly, measurements and face. She could only mask so much.
Steinem embarked on this reporting assignment with a journal and an ad that read: “Attractive young girls can now earn $200-$300 a week at the fabulous New York Playboy Club, enjoy the glamorous and exciting aura of show business, and have the opportunity to travel to other Playboy Clubs throughout the world. Whether serving drinks, snapping pictures, or greeting guests at the door, the Playboy Club is the stage—the Bunnies are the stars.” The ad went on to say: “If you are pretty and personable, between twenty-one and twenty-four, married or single, you probably qualify. No experience necessary.”
During her Bunny interview, Steinem was told, “Sit over there, fill out this form, and take off your coat.” The application was short: address, phone number, measurements, age, last three employers. The “Bunny Mother,” a madame of sorts named Sheralee, took several Polaroids and looked over her application. Steinem tried to give the Bunny Mother a page she had fabricated about Marie’s personal history, but the Bunny Mother resisted. “For the record,” she said. “We don’t like our girls to have any background. We just want you to fit the Bunny image.”
Before Steinem knew it, she was being outfitted in her Bunny uniform, and the wardrobe mistress was stuffing an entire plastic dry-cleaning bag down the top of her bust. (Other items the Bunnies used for stuffing included Kleenex, cotton balls, cut-up bunny tails, foam rubber, lamb’s wool, Kotex pads, silk scarves, and gym socks.) “Just about everyone stuffs,” the wardrobe mistress told her. “And you keep your tips in there. The ‘vault’ they call it.”
Like being a Box Girl, being a Bunny came with its own specific set of rules. The Bunnies could get demerits for a long list of things: wearing heels that were less than three inches, having runs in their pantyhose, wearing crooked or unmatched bunny ears, keeping an untidy bunny tail, and having underwear that shows. (Unlike Box Girls, Bunnies were probably encouraged not to wear underwear.) Messy hair, bad nails, or bad makeup cost them five demerits, while chewing gum or eating on the clock was ten. They were also required to react appropriately to the entertainers. If a comic was performing, then they had better laugh. For that matter, they were required to appear “gay and cheerful” at all times (“Think about something happy or funny,” they were told).
Steinem received a copy of the Playboy Club Bunny Manual—The Bunny Bible, as the Bunnies called it. The Bunny Bible suggested the following techniques for stimulating sales: “The key to selling more drinks is customer contact . . . they will respond particularly to your efforts to be friendly . . . You should make it seem that their opinions are very important . . .”
Steinem
also learned, “If Bunnies are meeting boyfriends or husbands after work, they must do it at least two blocks from the club.” Playboy Club clientele were never to know the Bunnies had lives—or heaven forbid, husbands—outside the club.
The Bunny Bible also told the Bunnies they must “eye-contact” each of their guests immediately upon approaching their table. I don’t think I’ve ever heard the phrase “eye contact” used as a verb, but the suggestiveness it takes on when repackaged as such makes me blush. To “eye-contact” someone seems a lot more X-rated than simply “making eye contact” with someone.
But, The Bunny Bible went on to firmly explain, the Bunnies were not allowed to give out their phone numbers or go on dates with the customers. Nor were they allowed to give out their last names. The Bunny Bible used the following to illustrate this point: “Men are very excited about being in the company of Elizabeth Taylor. But they know they can’t paw or proposition her. The moment they felt they could become familiar with her, she would not have the aura of glamour that now surrounds her.”
Later, during the “Bunny Father Lecture”—a narrated slide-show with jazz in the background—Steinem learned that, if customers tried to “get familiar,” the Bunnies were supposed to politely reply, “Sir, you are not allowed to touch the Bunnies.” As Steinem points out, there is a problem here, a disconnect. While the women were required to “eye-contact” and pamper their customers, they were also obligated to reject them. As soon as they seemed available, the Bunnies were apparently no longer desired.
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