by Laura Roppé
When the movie finally came out, Brad and I practically sprinted to the theater. As the lights dimmed, he squeezed my hand and grinned at me with excited anticipation. We were on the edge of our seats.
We didn’t have to wait too long for my big moment: The UCLA film school scene was one of the first in the movie.
Oh my God, there I was. There was my school bus–size, shiny face, framed by my massive mop of frizzy hair, reacting with cartoonish repulsion to Jim Morrison’s student film—my over-the-top facial expression more reminiscent of a 1920s silent-film star encountering the Mummy than of the second coming of Meryl Streep. And then there I was again, in yet another extreme close-up shot, uttering my now famous line—“No, it wasn’t. It was worse!”—with a cringe-inducing zeal smacking of Darla from The Little Rascals.
I should say that I was jubilant—two full-screen reaction shots and a speaking line!—but the truth is, I was just in shock at how unattractive and unnatural I looked on film. Did I really look like that? Had my performance really been that bad?
Hold it together, Laura, I thought. The Whisky a Go Go scene was still coming. Surely I hadn’t screwed that up, too.
But when the Whisky scene appeared onscreen, there was nary a glimpse of “the girl in the yellow-and-red-checkered minidress.” Not a glimpse!
I was crestfallen.
The ending credits began to roll. My greatest glory still awaits me, I realized. It was time to behold my name in lights in a big-budget studio film. I was Girl One, damn it, and no one could ever take that away from me, crappy performance and all.
Brad squeezed my hand and we scanned the torturously long list of names scrolling down the screen, our anticipatory excitement threatening to spout like a geyser. Okay, there were the lead actors’ names: Val Kilmer, Meg Ryan, Kyle MacLachlan . . . yes, yes. Now there was someone credited as “Indian in Desert.”
The names continued to scroll. “Bouncer.” “Bartender.”
We scanned . . . and scanned . . . and scanned. And scanned. Where was I? There was “Girl in Car.” Not quite.
Finally, yes, here was some guy credited as “UCLA Student.” But where was my name? Shouldn’t my name appear next to his?
Now the credits had moved on to technical contributors: makeup, sound, casting director, transportation. Transportation?
Where the hell was I?
And then the lights came up. Movie over. My name had not been listed.
Brad and I sat silently in our seats for a long moment as streams of moviegoers shuffled past us in the aisles.
“I hated it,” I finally mumbled after several minutes, my gaze still directed at the now blank movie screen in the empty theater.
Brad, who knew me so well, hugged me without saying a word.
I haven’t seen the movie since.
Chapter 7
As much as my doctor’s initially uttering the word “cancer” cut me at the knees, the word “aggressive” as a modifier for “cancer” was a sucker punch to the jaw. And then, two days after I heard that my “aggressive cancer” had spread outside my breast—much to the surprise of my doctor—the damned surgeon called yet again.
By this time, I hated the sound of that son of a bitch’s voice. “Hey, Doc,” I greeted him wearily, resigned to the fact that he was undoubtedly calling with more bad news. “What’s new?”
“Laura, we’ve done further lab testing.” Enough with the lab testing already! “Your cancer cells are unusual; they’ve tested negative for three receptors typically found on cancer cells.” What the hell does that mean? “In recent years,” the surgeon continued, sounding professorial, “we’ve made great strides in treatment by targeting these receptors. It’s rare to find cancer cells without even one of them.” Did he just say the word “rare”? Another sucker punch.
I paused, waiting for more. But apparently he was finished. “What does this mean for my treatment?” I asked mechanically. No tears came. Just numbness. Resignation. Those Scary Words had now anchored their hooks deep inside my chest cavity, in my organs, in my heart. It was too much to defend against, too much to rise above.
“Well,” he said, “it would be best for an oncologist to explain the recommended treatment for this particular type of breast cancer.”
Well, thanks a whole hell of a lot.
Was I imagining all of this? Or, even worse, had I manifested a disaster of this proportion as a desperate ploy for attention?
When I was seven or eight, my sister, Sharon, went to the hospital overnight to get her tonsils removed. I was so pea green with envy about all the presents and attention she got—she even got to eat ice cream for dinner!—that I tried to break my own leg, leaping off the three-foot retaining wall in front of our house over and over. But, alas, I didn’t have the courage to land awkwardly, and my damned stick legs never broke. Was all of this just another pathetic attempt to garner attention and presents?
After the “you’ve got a rare and aggressive form of cancer” phone call from the surgeon, Brad disappeared immediately into his study to gather information online. Several hours later, he emerged to tell me he had figured out my diagnosis: I had something called “triple negative breast cancer.” Doctors had discovered its existence only about five years ago, he said.
“Because it’s really aggressive and shows up quickly,” Brad explained (having obtained his MD online in a matter of hours), “it’s typically seen in younger women, like you.” He stared at me expectantly, but I didn’t say anything. “Only about ten percent of breast cancers are triple negative,” Brad continued, astonishing me with his infinite expertise. Really, forget real estate brokerage; he should have been saving the world with his oncology. “And of that ten percent, the disease mostly strikes African American women. Only a small percentage of triple-negative girls fit your profile.”
“So, I’m the minority profile among patients with a rare kind of cancer?” I summarized. I was always striving to be unique, but this was ridiculous.
Brad tried to lighten the mood with humor. “Why do you have to be top two percent in everything you do?”
I appreciated his attempt to add levity to the situation, especially given how emotional we’d both been over the past week, but I wasn’t about to take his word for my diagnosis, thank you very much. “I’ll wait for an actual doctor to tell me what I have,” I told him. I was snippy. “It might not be this triple-negative thing.”
“It is triple negative,” Brad persisted.
“I’ll just wait to hear what the oncologist says.” Now I was pissy. “I’m not going to play armchair oncologist based on information from the Internet.”
Over the next few days, Brad and I consulted three different oncologists, seeking second and third opinions. And guess what? They all said the same thing.
Diagnosis: triple negative breast cancer.
Brad was right. Damn.
Treatment: (1) eight chemotherapy infusions, administered every two weeks, and after those, (2) radiation therapy, administered five days a week for about seven weeks.
Double damn. I hated it when Brad was right. Especially about this.
Chapter 8
At the end of my first year at UCLA, I moved into an off-campus apartment with a fellow theater major named Holly. I commuted to and from my new apartment on a lawn mower–size scooter, wearing a black, Darth Vader–style helmet that was bigger than the scooter itself. One day, an old lady in a sedan left-turned in front of me as I was riding my scooter to class, causing my massive helmet (with my head inside) to crash right through her driver’s side window.
As I lay on the asphalt, dazed and incredulous among the sprays of glass all over the street, I could see looky-loos gawking at me from their apartment balconies.
They’re looking at me, I mused. I’m the accident.
Despite a sirens-blaring ambulance ride to the hospital and a few bruises and scratches, I was perfectly fine, though. Better than fine, actually—within a few days, I picked up a check f
or about $6,000 in a legal settlement from the old lady’s insurance company. I was living large. Even after a collision, I still came out ahead. Nothing bad ever happened to me.
Six thousand dollars might as well have been $6 million to a nineteen-year-old, and it was burning a hole in my pocket. On a weekend visit home to San Diego, Brad and I wandered aimlessly into a pet store, saw a puppy mill–bred, black-and-white Boston terrier with bug eyes and bat ears, and purchased him on the spot. No planning, no forethought; we just thought he was so ugly, he was cute. We named him Buster—actually, Buster Francis Martín Hoffman. (“Roppé” later became affixed to the end of that, after Brad and I tied the knot.)
Buster had a smashed-in face only a mother could love. When I was walking him along a busy street, a car pulled over alongside me and the driver yelled out, “Is that a pig!?” And, in addition to his being ugly-cute, we came to find out the damned dog was a lunatic. He barked and attacked like a velociraptor when we tried to leave the house. And, though typically affectionate, he might, without warning, fly into an uncontainable rage toward any creature he viewed as either vulnerable (like a golden retriever puppy) or a threat (like a full-grown Rottweiler). He was disgusting, too: He farted and snorted, and tunneled his way under our covers to the foot of the bed, then came out gasping for air when he could no longer breathe (due to either the suffocating blankets or the fumes his nonstop farting created).
I’d had no luck training Buster, so I figured maybe a superhero doggie trainer could whip him into shape. Of course, this being L.A., I had struck up an acquaintance with an Irish “dog trainer to the stars,” who looked just like Bono and frequented the dog park across the street. For a hefty sum paid up front (again, I guess that settlement money was burning a hole in my pocket), the trainer agreed to provide twelve weekly one-on-one training sessions.
Each week I took Buster to this Irish dog trainer, and he dragged and pulled Buster around the park on a leash as if Buster were a wet beach towel on a rope. “Heel!” Bono the Irish dog trainer commanded. “Heel, Buster! Heel! Heel! Heel! Heel!”
It didn’t seem like Buster was heeling, but I figured the guy knew what he was doing. Six weeks into training, though, Bono came to me and said apologetically, in his sweet Lucky Charms lilt, “Please don’t tell anyone about this. I’ve got a reputation to maintain, I do (dewe). But your dog would sooner die (diye) than mind me.” And then he unceremoniously placed a full refund in my hand.
The refund was a nice chunk of change, but, thanks to my recent spending spree, it was just a drop in the bucket. I needed money.
I got a job working as a valet parker at Hollywood parties, parking the Porsches, Bentleys, and Lamborghinis of the stars. George Burns (so old)! Sidney Poitier (so elegant)! There I was, nineteen years old, dressed in my red valet jacket, black slacks, and black sneakers, parking cars worth more than I would earn in my lifetime. I couldn’t imagine a better job.
At one particularly raging Hollywood party, Robert Downey Jr., one of my all-time favorites, emerged and nonchalantly handed me his valet ticket.
“Right away!” I chirped, and flew to the nearby lot to find his car, which turned out to be a stunning black Porsche. I had just recently been drooling over Robert Downey Jr. in Less Than Zero, and now I was sitting in the driver’s seat of his car. My hands are touching where his hands touch, I thought, as I gripped his steering wheel. My butt is touching the exact spot where his butt touches. I smiled. There was only one degree of separation between our butts’ touching each other. I was in sheer ecstasy.
I wanted to savor this moment, memorize the scent of him lingering on his finely appointed leather bucket seats, but, alas, I had work to do. With a sigh, I turned the key in Robert Downey Jr.’s ignition and carefully made my way back to the party.
As I drove the car toward the front of the club, there he was, standing on the curb, chatting with his pretty date.
Lucky girl, I thought about Robert’s beautiful companion. And, my God, she really was beautiful.
I pulled the car up to the curb, and Robert came over to the driver’s side door. Just as I reached out to open the door, Robert opened it for me with a dramatic flourish, as if I were a star arriving at a movie premiere.
Robert, in the role of Valet Parker, held out his hand to me, Young Starlet—and, with a broad smile, I slid my hand into his.
Warmth spread throughout my body as he pulled me out of his car and up to a standing position, close to him.
And then there I was—gushing, smiling, blushing, beaming—standing face-to-face with Robert Downey Jr. He kissed the top of my hand and said, “My lady.” And then he twirled me and dropped me into an elegant dip, instantly transforming my red valet-parker jacket and black slacks into a feathery gown.
When I came back up, flushed and speechless, he bowed deeply and formally to me, to which I responded with something like, “Grf.”
Robert smiled his dazzling, warm smile and gestured to the small crowd on the curb for applause (which, of course, he received). He then handed me a $20 bill as a tip, got into his sparkling black Porsche (with that sparkling woman sitting right beside him), and sped away into the night, taking a tiny piece of my heart with him into eternity.
I stood for a long moment, watching Robert Downey Jr.’s red taillights speeding away.
Lucky girl, I thought again. But this time, that lucky girl was me.
Oh, how Robert Downey Jr.’s random act of kindness that night put a spring in my step! Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, he had walked into mine. My goose bumps didn’t subside for weeks.
And on top of that, the man was a great tipper! Twenty dollars was a helluva lotta clams for a young girl like me, particularly since I would have paid him one hundred times that amount to play Ginger Rogers to his Fred Astaire, just for that fleeting, fairytale moment.
But the truth was, although Robert’s big tip was much appreciated, it was not unusual for me. I raked in the dough as a valet parker. For one thing, I was bubbly and vivacious and obviously having an epically good time. I was thrilled down to the tips of my toes every time I caught even a glimpse of a movie star. And I was giddy with excitement each time I got behind the wheel of a Lamborghini, Porsche, or Ferrari—if only to drive it to a parking garage one hundred yards away. I’m sure my benefactors got a kick out of my unabashed exuberance for valet parking.
But let’s be honest: The real reason for my customers’ largesse was that I was the only female parker in the entire company (not to mention the only English-speaking parker on any given team). It was like taking candy from a baby. Man, oh man, I worked it! I chatted and charmed and laughed and smiled. And I’m pretty sure I hair-flipped a time or two (or thirty) as well. Money just fell out of the sky and into my grateful hands like gum drops raining down in Candy Land.
At the end of each shift, my fellow valet parkers and I threw our tips into a common pool and then split everything equally. My first three or four shifts, I contributed fives, tens, and twenties to the collective pot, while the other poor saps put in dollar bills. It didn’t take too long before I wised up and started bringing a wad of singles with me to the job. From that point on, I threw dummy tips into the pot after each shift, having furtively stuffed my bonanza of real tips into my bra.
Sadly, when the white-haired, fiftysomething-year-old manager of the valet parking company asked me to join him for a weekend trade show in Las Vegas—just him and me—it was time to quit the job, though I loved it so.
Still in need of some extra cash, I got a job at a Beverly Hills rare-coin store, even though I didn’t know the first thing about coins. If a customer had a question about a particular coin, I’d smile politely and say, “Just a moment, please,” and then I’d find the store owner, who slaved away (at who knows what) in an office in the back.
On my lunch breaks, I walked up and down Rodeo Drive, window shopping at the fancy stores and gawking at supernaturally beautiful women as they click-clacked past
me in their stiletto heels and designer dresses. I was always, always, on the lookout for a movie star on a shopping spree, but to no avail.
And then one afternoon, the little bell over the front door jingled and in walked one of my all-time favorites, the regal and beautiful Anne Bancroft.
Anne Bancroft! Mrs. Robinson!
“Hello,” Anne Bancroft greeted me. She handed me a gold coin. “Can you please tell me the value of this?”
That voice! I recognized that voice! I could hear it asking a young Dustin Hoffman, “Do you want me to seduce you?”
And that face! That gorgeous face, conveying earthiness and elegance all at once. This was a woman of substance.
I could not speak, I was so enthralled.
I nodded, smiled a goofy smile, and took the coin from her outstretched hand.
With my eyes glued to her iconic face, I turned to walk to the back of the store. I was so starstruck, however, that I smacked into the wall behind me, banging my forehead with a loud thud.
When I turned sheepishly back around, touching the already rising lump on my forehead, Anne Bancroft flashed me a loving, maternal smile.
I gratefully returned her smile, a bit embarrassed, and made my way gingerly to the back of the store.
“Anne Bancroft’s out there!” I stage-whispered to the store owner, holding out the coin. “Mrs. Robinson!”
With a loud exhale, he leaped up from his desk, plucked the coin from my hand, and bustled away, murmuring, “Stay here!”
I stayed behind, as instructed, but I watched the festivities through a crack in his office door: Mrs. Robinson listened intently to the store owner’s pontifications, her head cocked and her eyebrows questioning; Mrs. Robinson took the coin back with a polite “thank you”; Mrs. Robinson walked out of the store, apparently not satisfied with whatever the store owner had said.
And that’s when it hit me: This was no coincidence. Anne Bancroft hadn’t randomly wandered into my rare-coin store!