“Well, what can I say? My family were Vikings.”
“What the fuck does that mean?”
“I have strong sperm. Whatever, Busy. Prove that it was mine.”
I slammed the receiver down and ran out of the restaurant and up the street. I just wanted to get the fuck away from everything and everyone. Kendra ran after me and grabbed me and we tumbled to the ground and both cried on the side of Shea Boulevard, as cars whizzed past us. After that, Becca was okay with me dating Shawn Harris. Not happy about it, but okay with it. I avoided Ben at school, which wasn’t that hard.
Toward the end of the school year, my French teacher announced that she would be taking a small group of students on a two-week tour around Europe in June. Kate and I both decided we should go. Our parents agreed. I think my parents were rightfully not looking forward to the summer with me. I was dreading my due date and would be glad to be out of the country for it. I still cried regularly in bed at night, sure not only that I had murdered a baby but that I was also going to hell. How would God ever forgive me? How would my own father? How would I?
Our tour of Europe was only about ten kids from my high school. In every town and every city we visited, we would be taken to the cathedral in the center of town. And in every single one, I would light a candle and pray for forgiveness. Pray for my baby. Pray that God would allow me to have beautiful children in the future. Sometimes I would cry, and Kate would wait patiently for me in the pews until I was finished, and then we would go explore with the rest of the group and buy chocolate and postcards to send home before getting back on the bus and continuing on.
Our teacher was very cool about letting us drink so we could truly experience “European living”; after all, we were almost sixteen. I felt such freedom walking around these beautiful old cities with my friends, having coffees and gelato in cafés and wine in the afternoon, visiting places we had only read about and seen in movies (basically just The Sound of Music!). In Florence, we met up with my aunt—my mom’s sister—who was living there at the time. She came to meet us at our hotel, ate breakfast with us, and smoked about a million cigarettes. I could tell my French teacher was impressed with her worldliness, and I felt cool that I was related to her, even if we didn’t really have much of a relationship because of my mom’s complicated feelings about her.
By the time we got to Rome, we were tired, but I was feeling pretty good. Our first morning there, we visited the Colosseum and Kate and I took pictures standing and smiling where all the tourists do. Then it was off to the Vatican. When we arrived, our tour guide turned to us and said in his cheerful Italian accent, “Oh. It seems there is extra security today! Bags open, everyone!”
Everyone went through one by one, but I was stopped by a security guard. There was conferring back and forth in Italian with another guard, and my teacher called our tour guide back to intervene.
“He says you mustn’t go in! We have a bit of a problem here. Let’s see . . .”
He then explained that I was wearing overalls, really nice cream overalls that I had borrowed from Emily (of course) for the trip. Overalls are not allowed in the Vatican. It’s a rule that has something to do with farmers not going to church in dirty overalls or something. Honestly, I have no idea. But we didn’t know what to do. We weren’t close to our hotel. I couldn’t change into anything. And I had to see the Vatican!! After a bit of discussion, the tour guide came back to the little group that was waiting with me while everyone else had gone in ahead.
“Okay. We maybe have a solution! Does anyone have a sweater???”
Kate pulled one out of her backpack and waved it around. “I do! I have a sweater!!”
“Okay! So, Miss Busy, you just put the sweater on and it must remain on the whole time inside, okay? Are we good??”
I pulled Kate’s sweater on over my head, the guards gave us a nod of approval, and in we went. As soon as we entered the Vatican, I was awed by not only the sheer size and beauty but also the number of people crushing in there. We could barely see anything. Someone in front of us turned around.
“The Pope is here!!!!!”
The Pope? THE Pope? Pope John Paul II? THAT Pope???
I grabbed Kate’s hand. “Come on. We’re getting a picture for my grandma.”
And around we scooted, weaving through the hundreds of people all clamoring to do the exact same thing. We made our way to the right side of the church and pushed forward. At some point I lost Kate, but I kept moving ahead, determined. This was it. I was about three people deep behind the rope. There was lots of jostling and shoving, but I kept pressing forward.
Then something insane happened. Well, a few things actually. A woman turned around, looked me straight in the face, and said, “Go! You need this more than I do.”
And with that she grabbed me and shoved me in front of her. You already know I clearly don’t have the best balance. I fell forward as the man who was in front of the woman stepped to the side. I would have fallen to the ground, but someone from the other side of the rope grabbed my right arm, the arm where I wore the little ball chains I’d bought at the hardware store with my dad and wrapped around like a bracelet because I thought it made me look punk rock and cool. It was a large security guard. He pulled me up, and just like that, I was face-to-face with Pope John Paul II. Inches from him in fact. I was staring into his eyes.
“Es Deutches?”
I shook my head.
“No. I’m—”
“Oh! Americano! Americano!”
He smiled and laughed and then took my cheeks in his hands and said something softly in Italian, I guess? A prayer for me. He made the sign of the cross on me and put his palm to my forehead and then nodded at me and turned and walked away, back through the door where the Pope goes to do Pope stuff. I remember his eyes. They were soft. I remember that he really had love for me. Truly. I remember I knew it was okay.
I’ve never told this story publicly; I haven’t even told people I’m very close with. It almost feels sacrilegious for me to be typing these words now, giving this to the world. Imagining having to talk about this in an interview for a gossip magazine to sell my book, or seeing the headline, reducing what was the most incredible thing that has ever happened to me to clickbait. But I don’t exist without this story. And the story doesn’t exist without this ending. It doesn’t work for me without getting the absolution I needed. And from the only person in the world who could give it to me: the Pope in Rome. When we got back to the hotel I called my parents and woke them up. It was June 14, 1995, in Rome; June 13 in Arizona. It was my due date.
INTERSTATE LOVE SONG
(Stone Temple Pilots)
I had been begging my mother to let me get an agent ever since I was in third grade. How did a third grader in Arizona know what an agent was, you might ask? Well, my friend Ami had an agent in Los Angeles and would fly out for auditions and put herself on tape. She even screen-tested for Wednesday Addams in the Addams Family movies, the part that eventually went to Christina Ricci. Ami also sang the jingle for her dad’s window-tinting company on the radio. To the tune of “Stupid Cupid,” her little voice would ring out from 104.7 FM, “Polyglycoat you’re the one for meeeeeeeee!”
Third grade was when I landed the role of Wilbur the Pig in our grade’s production of Charlotte’s Web. Actually, I wasn’t the only Wilbur. The whole play was double cast, in order to give more kids parts. Jeremy Babendure was the other Wilbur. Jeremy also had some professional experience. The year before, he’d been cast as “Scamp with Squirt Gun” and had gotten to deliver three whole lines in the classic Coen brothers film Raising Arizona. I felt a little bit of pressure, sharing the part with such a seasoned professional, and I became determined to shine brighter as the other Wilbur.
The week before the play, the teachers explained to the two casts that one would be performing at the morning assembly in front of the kindergarten through second-grade kids, while the other would perform for the fourth through sixth graders, a
nd that it was up to me and Jeremy to decide who would perform for which group of kids. Well, I’m not an idiot. Obviously, the power move is to perform for the older kids. Who gives a fuck what a bunch of babies think about my portrayal of Wilbur?? I wanted the fourth, fifth, and sixth graders to know how talented I was. I remember this moment of manipulation so clearly, it still makes me laugh. I immediately turned to Jeremy and very earnestly said, “I think you should do the morning show; you really have a way with younger kids that I just don’t have. Honestly? I just think they’re going to like your Wilbur better. They’ll understand ’cause Wilbur is a boy and you’re a boy. I think they might get confused by me playing it since I’m a girl, right?? Don’t you think???”
I mean. Jeremy didn’t stand a chance. It was way more satisfying to have older kids come up to me in the weeks after the play than it would’ve been to have impressed a bunch of kindergarteners. I also made sure I took off my pig snout for curtain call so that kids who maybe didn’t know me before would be able to recognize me in the halls. I was one hundred percent hooked on the love of performing, but I think the recognition was more important. Sometimes it still is. SEE ME! LOVE ME! TELL ME I AM THE BEST! TELL ME YOU LOVE ME!
I knew that in order to procure work as an actress, one must have an agent. After Wilbur, my mom did take me into the local Ford agency, where I was rejected by the agents working there. I clearly wasn’t meant to be a child model: too short but not tiny, not conventionally or uniquely pretty enough. So I kept doing my theater programs, auditioning occasionally for an open call that my mom would find in the paper. But she wasn’t about to figure out how to take me to L.A. to get me an agent. My parents didn’t really have the expendable income to have a child actor. Especially back then, if your kid really wanted to act, one of the parents would essentially have to give up their lives and move to L.A. to live in one of those horrible apartment complexes that the out-of-town kid actors all live in and devote all of their time and income to making the impossible happen. No. My parents weren’t interested in that.
“When you graduate from high school and make it through at least two years of college, Busy, then you can really try. But your dad and I will not be paying for that!”
I was convinced the only thing that could somehow redeem any of the previous few years of my life was if I were to become famous doing the thing I’d declared I was going to do in third grade, and as soon as possible. Honestly, the only time I’d ever expressed interest in being something else when I grew up was when I’d decided at age three that I was going to be a red bucket. The final straw in my high school years—which had, more often than not, fucking sucked—was having Shawn Harris cheat on me repeatedly after he went away to college, and then give me HPV (because OF COURSE HE DID). I was due for something good.
One morning, I was listening to the radio on my drive to school when the entertainment reporter had a bit about how they were making a TV show from the movie Clueless. I was beside myself all day. I should be the new CHER! OF COURSE! I’M MORE LIKE ALICIA SILVERSTONE THAN ANYONE I KNOW! This was my plan. I was sure of it.
“You have to get me an agent,” I said when I got home that day. “And headshots. I need headshots.”
My mother looked up from the giant piles of house listings she was sorting through. “Actually, you know what? Dixie’s friend told me about this woman you should meet! She’s got her own little agency in Paradise Valley. I think she’s more of a manager, but her daughter is an actress.”
A week later, my mom took me after school to a normal-looking house in Paradise Valley, where I met Ellen Anderson. That day at school, I’d dressed up more than I normally did, saying to some girls in the theater hallway, “Oh, yeah, it’s not a big deal but I’m going to meet a new agent today and see about an audition. They’re making a TV show from the movie Clueless and I’m probably going to put myself on tape for it.” I had no basis whatsoever for this other than what I’d heard on the radio, but I had convinced myself this was a very real possibility for me.
Inside of a dimly lit, fairly messy home office littered with headshots with résumés stapled to the back, Ellen gave me the once-over and decided that I could probably find some local work. In my head now, she’s basically Joey’s agent from Friends, but I know she was just a nice lady in Arizona whose daughter wanted to be an actress and she figured out how to do it all herself, probably so she didn’t have to deal with small-time agents, who are terrible anyway. She asked me what kind of work I was interested in. I took a deep breath.
“Well . . . I heard they’re making a Clueless TV show. Like from the movie? I think I should be on it. Can I audition for that??”
She looked at me. “Okay . . . ummm. Let me look into it. It may already be cast. But you know, if there are things that are casting in L.A. that you’re right for, we can see about putting you on tape for them and sending them over.”
She told me I needed headshots that showed different characters I could play. (A cheerleader! A nerdy girl! A fun girl!) Also, I needed to make up a résumé using the plays I’d been in and to really beef up my special-skills section in order to make up for my complete lack of actual experience. Oh, I had special skills! Singing? Obviously. Dancing? All the damn time! Good with kids? Yup. Some French? Oui! Ice-skating? Roller-skating? YOU BET! BIKE RIDING?! OH, I CAN FUCKING RIDE A BIKE.
My mom and dad agreed to pay for headshots since they’d paid for my sister to get some pictures taken recently. (And you know, EVERYTHING HAD TO BE EQUAL!) Leigh Ann had recently been signed by the local Ford agency as a plus-size model. She was getting a ton of catalogue shoots and had even been on the cover of a local magazine. So my parents got me headshots. They were ridiculous. I’m wearing so much makeup I look way older than seventeen, with dark lipstick and heavily contoured cheeks, an attempt to give my baby-fat face some angles. At least I didn’t actually wear costumes, like people did in some of the other composite cards I saw in Ellen’s office. I figured that you could tell I would make a good cheerleader without me having to actually put on a uniform.
Ellen liked my pictures and assured me auditions would be coming. They weren’t, exactly. I had a few, for commercials that were shooting in Arizona and therefore nonunion. Ellen encouraged me to be an extra on a made-for-TV movie about an alien invasion that Luke Perry was starring in. I strutted onto that set and immediately figured out that the AD (assistant director) is the one who you want to be friends with if you’re looking for some screen time or to be “featured.” I worked so hard to try to be noticed. And even when I wasn’t, I decided I could put “featured extra” on my résumé because A) who the fuck even knows what that means, and B) who the hell will ever even see this insane movie?
A month later, Ellen called with what she described as a great opportunity for me. The Mattel toy company was coming to Scottsdale to have their annual “pre-toy fair” and they were looking for local actors to present the new toys to buyers. Specifically, they were hiring women to be live versions of the dolls they were trying to sell. Live Barbie dolls.
“Look, mostly, they bring actors and actresses in from Los Angeles for this, but it’s a good job, and you make great money for two weeks of work. I think it could be a good fit and they were excited about you. The only thing is that I told them you were eighteen, so just say that.”
The auditions were held in a ballroom at the Phoenician, one of the nicest resorts in Scottsdale. I went to my appointment with my headshot in hand and signed in. The casting director came out and handed some material to me and another woman who was waiting. It was basically a monologue filled with sales projections for a particular Barbie, explaining to the buyers why this doll would sell so well. It was completely generic in tone. What I didn’t know is that apparently, the toy business is very serious, and toy espionage is actually a thing of concern. So my audition piece was the generic Barbie audition piece that all the girls received. I did it in what I thought was my best Barbie voice. When I was finished, the wo
man who was clearly in charge pulled a script out of a manila envelope.
“Busy!” she said, beaming at me. “That was really great! You know, part of the job is that you’re portraying the live version of a new doll to our buyers.” Here she looked over to her cohort, who nodded. “And one of the dolls that’s coming to market isn’t actually a Barbie. It’s a doll from an upcoming TV show that we think will be incredibly popular. I assume you’ve seen the movie Clueless?”
Was this woman fucking with me?
“Well, we’re launching a line of dolls to coincide with the show’s premiere, and we’ve been looking for a girl who could play the live version of Cher. Will you take a look at this material and see what you think?”
Do I even need to tell you what happened next? As you can well imagine, I fucking killed it. My Cher impression had been AT THE READY for MONTHS. And here we all were. It wasn’t exactly how I’d imagined I would be putting this particular talent to use, but it would do. The job paid like two grand a week! I’d been working as a hostess at California Pizza Kitchen for over a year and still hadn’t made that much.
I had several fittings before the pre-toy fair in order for them to build a life-size version of the outfit the doll came in. Also, four full days of rehearsal. Yes. Rehearsal. My script was one of the longest, about nine pages total. And in those nine pages—which I was to deliver in my VERY BEST CHER impression—were tons of statistics and projections and also just a basic explanation of who these characters were and why toy shops all over the world would want to sell them.
The two giant ballrooms at the Phoenician were transformed into a toy wonderland, a maze of perfectly art-directed lands for the dolls and their human counterparts to live in, to do their very best to be sold to buyers from around the globe. I learned fairly quickly what the deal was from the Barbie girls who were flown in from L.A. and had done the circuit before. Basically, different groups of buyers were to be shuttled through the various rooms with a guide from Mattel. The Mattel marketers responsible for your doll would almost always be in the room with you, in case there were questions that weren’t in your script. But if the question was something covered in your script, they preferred if you answered the buyer directly and in character.
This Will Only Hurt a Little Page 9
