Rock and Roll High School: Growing Up in Hollywood During the Decade of Decadence

by Marisa Tellez

  I adjusted to having Sniffy in our family along with my new social life, which revolved around spending every weekend at Cassidy’s house. Sometimes we’d go out, but even when we didn’t the house was always full with people. There was rarely a quiet night at the Gardner house.

  CHRIS PENKETH (Swingin Thing ): Me and Mandie got in a fist fight at the Gardner house one night anddestroyedthe livingroom.I waslyingonthecouchwithDinaIthink,whenMandiecameininthe house. He popped me in the face, and we just started kicking each othersasses. WebrokeCassidy’stabletoo. EverytimeheandIhung out for some reason, we ended up fighting each other (laughs). But after a few minutes we’d stop because we realized we were friends andit’dbecool.Nowourkidshangouttogether,it’sa trip.

  DINA PALMER-GOMES: One memory from the Gardner house that stands out was that big car accident. Faye and I were in the bathroom,drunk, talking,andcryingaboutgirlstuffwhenwehearda big crash.Therewasanaccidentrightacrossthestreet.

  We all r an out there when Bam and I think it was maybe Mandie, pulled two guys from one of the cars because the accident knocked them out. Then there was the other driver who they hit, a guydriving ajeep.Hisbodyflewoutofthe jeepandwent underneath a house across the street. It was below the porch, next to the porch steps. So basically his head and upper body were in the house, underneaththeporchandhislegswerestickingout.

  I wastalkingtothetwoguysthatwerepulledfromthecar ,and they were drunk. They ran a red light and hit the guy in the jeep. More people came outside to see the accident and started screaming at the two guys, “You killed him! You killed him!” The two guys started freaking out, and one of them started screaming and crying onhiskneessaying,“Dinaplease tellme Ididn’t killhim!” Ijust kept telling both of them to wait till the cops got there, but we all knew the guy driving the jeep was dead. I just remember thinking, “Oh my god,I’veneverseenadeadbodybeforethisiscrazy!”

  CASSIDY : I was in Vegas with Amie the weekend that car accident happened. It was also the same weekend my hamster Sexy died.Mandiewashamstersittingformethatweekend.Well,hewas SUPPOSEDtobe.

  MANDIE( TheGlamourPunks):I rememberCassidysayingbefore she went toVegas,“Nothingbetter happentoSexy!” because we used to fuck with that hamster constantly. I’d get it drunk and just fuck with it all the time. But I swear I didn’t do ANYTHING to the stupid hamsterthatweekend.Ican’tbelieveitdiedonmywatch.

  I continued spending every weekend at the Gardner house until Cassidy had an unexpected houseguest that sent me on a temporary hiatus. His name was Pediculus Humanus Capitis, aka head lice.

  Cassidy called me one morning to tell me most of her roommates had contracted lice, and a few even had scabies. I’d been itching like a dog the past few days, so I asked Lucy to check my head. We went into the bathroom, I bent my head over, and she told me I had eggs in the nape of my neck. I let out an “Ewwww!” in complete horror.

  She immediately went to buy me one of those home lice kits with the shampoo, the spray, and the little comb. My mom washed all my bed sheets, my clothes, and sprayed the hell out of my bed while I drenched my head with this awful shampoo that dried the shit out of my poor hair. Lucy tried to comb the eggs out, but the comb wasn’t grabbing onto the eggs because my hair was too fine. So she proceeded to scrape each egg out with her nails, which took her almost 3 hours. Cassidy and her entire house had gone through the same regimen, with the shampoo and the spray. About a week later, I went back to Cassidy’s house to spend the weekend. When I came back I started itching. Lucy took a look at my head and confirmed I had eggs once again.

  “This is the last time I’m going to do this, and if you get it a third time, I swear I’m going to let them eat you,” she said completely annoyed.

  While Cassidy spent the next few days thoroughly fumigating her house and her roommates, I spent that time looking for a full time job and trying to get my affairs in order. I still had my part time telemarketing job with her, Kennedy, and Joelle, but I was tired of flying by the seat of my pants. I really wanted to get a full time, permanent job, so I updated my resume and signed up with a few employment agencies.

  It wasn’t all that bad spending a few weekends at home though. It made me realize that as much as I enjoyed spending every weekend in Hollywood at Cassidy’s, I never wanted to live in Hollywood. I liked being able to leave the madness and come home to a quiet, sane house where I could sleep soundly without people filtering in and out all hours of the night. I just couldn’t imagine that being my life 24/7. I don’t know how Cassidy did it.

  A few days before my lice hiatus from Cassidy’s ended, I was sitting in bed late one night, going through job listings in the L.A. Times when my phone lit up.

  “Hello?” I said.

  “Hi,” a male voice said.

  “Who's this?”

  “It's Dresden,” he said.

  “Uhh…hi. How did you get my number?”

  “Emily gave it to me.”

  I wasn’t sure what to make of the situation. Although we

  had a good conversation at my birthday party, it was the first time we’d ever spoken to each other. After a few minutes of uncomfortable silence and trying to feel out the situation on both our ends, we suddenly found ourselves engulfed in a long conversation about our families, all the crazy people in Hollywood, and how I thought he was a dick when he first moved to L.A.

  “I always thought you were a big asshole because you would talk to everyone but me,” I said.

  “That's because I liked you,” he said.

  “Whaaaat?”

  “You were with Sebastian at the time, and I didn't want to

  disrespect him. I avoided talking to you because I liked you.” “And now?”

  “I still like you.”

  I didn’t know how to respond, so I changed the subject and

  asked him more things about living in New York. After talking for two hours, we finally got off the phone. I couldn't stop smiling. I had little butterflies in my stomach and then it hit me. I really liked Dresden as more than a friend.

  Although Cassidy and Dresden had long been broken up, I still didn’t want to make any waves. I tried to make sense of the situation and came to the conclusion that it was a simple case of me being in rebound mode. Dresden was the first nice guy I had met since my breakup with Sebastian, so I assumed the feelings I was having for him would fade. Therefore, there was no reason to tell anyone because I wasn’t going to act on it. Yep, that’s it. Dresden was just a rebound, nothing more.

  After swearing that her home was flea free, I started hanging out at Cassidy’s again. I was also running into Dresden at parties, only now we’d actually talk to each other. We also continued talking on the phone too. I didn’t say anything to the girls because I was still trying to convince myself (and hoping) that the feelings I was having for Dresden would go away. Unfortunately, my “rebound” feelings continued to grow stronger. I was bursting at the seams to talk to someone about it. Especially when Dresden admitted that it was him who sent me the roses on my birthday. I finally decided to confide in Kennedy since she and Cassidy were my closest friends at the time.

  “So what’s going on with you guys?” Kennedy asked. “Nothing actually. All we've done is talk on the phone. Like A LOT,” I said.

  “You guys haven’t hung out yet?”

  “Not at all. The only times I’ve seen him are at parties.” “But you obviously like him right?”

  “Of course I do, but I don’t want to. I have no idea what

  the hell I’m going to do about it.”

  “You better do something either way because it's getting

  hard not to notice.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You guys just naturally gravitate to each other at parties

  now. That never used to happen before. Your feelings for each

  other are starting to show, and people will start noticing too if

  they haven't already.”

  Aside from my friendship with Kennedy, Cassidy was t
he

  person closest to me, and I didn’t want to do anything to

  jeopardize that. Since Cassidy and Dresden hung out for such a

  short period of time, maybe she wouldn’t be upset if I told her I

  liked Dresden? After all, Cassidy was a direct, straightforward

  kind of girl. I knew if there were any issue, she wouldn’t hesitate

  to come to me directly.

  Over the next few days, I thought about my conversation

  with Kennedy and came to the conclusion that she was right. I

  needed to come clean with Cassidy and tell her I had feelings for

  Dresden. She and I had plans to go to a show on Friday night,

  so I called her that afternoon in the hopes we could hash things

  out in time to enjoy the weekend.

  “Hello?” Cassidy said as she answered the phone. “Hey it's me. What's time should I come over tonight?” I

  asked.

  Click.

  I figured we had a bad connection, so I called her right

  back. Her answering machine picked up, and I left a message. “Hey Cassidy, it's Marisa. Did we get disconnected? I

  wanna see what time I should go over to your place tonight. Call

  me back, bye.”

  A half hour later, Kennedy called me. There was a

  tremendous amount of background noise, like she was standing

  in the middle of a busy intersection.

  “Hey, where are you?” I asked.

  “I’m at a phone booth down the street from Cassidy’s,” she

  said.

  “Why are you calling me from a pay phone? Is Cassidy’s

  phone not working? I tried to call her a little while ago and got

  disconnected.”

  “You didn’t get disconnected, she hung up on you. I was

  there.”

  “Why would she hang up on me?”

  “Someone told her you were sleeping with Dresden.” “What! Who would even say that to her? I’ve never even

  kissed him!”

  “I know you haven’t, but someone told her you guys have

  been having sex in her house for weeks.”

  “That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard. She doesn’t

  really believe that does she?”

  Apparently she did.

  My first thought was to immediately call Cassidy back and

  come clean about talking on the phone with Dresden for the last

  few weeks. But Kennedy suggested I give her a few days to cool

  down and that she would try to talk to her, so I did just that. Almost a week had passed since Cassidy hung up on me, so

  I tried to call her. I left messages. I sent smoke signals and

  carrier pigeons. I’d either get her answering machine or one of

  the roommates telling me she wasn’t home when I knew damn

  well she was. I was blown away that she would believe

  something so stupid. She was my best friend. I thought at the

  very least she would’ve called to confront me, at which point I

  could explain what was really going on.

  I was kicking myself for not telling her sooner. By hiding

  the fact that Dresden and I were talking on the phone, made

  things look even worse. I continued to try and get a hold of

  Cassidy. But as the days turned into weeks, it seemed my

  blacklisting from the Gardner house was set in stone.

  CASSIDY: Kennedywassleepingoveralotduring thattimetoo, andshegotMarisatoadmit onthe phone that shelikedDresden. We were sitting on the bed as Kennedy talked to her, but Marisa didn’t know we were listening to the phone call. Kennedy had the phone pulled awayfromherearasshewastalking to her,some,Dina,and Amiecouldhear everythingMarisawassaying.That’showwefound out.

  I never heard the rumor about them having sex in my house. That was probably something Kennedy made up to tell Marisa as a reasontoexplainwhyI wassuddenlymadather.Itwasbetterthan admittingshewasplayingboth sidesofthefenceandsetherup.

  Thejistis,w e were allmadat Marisabecausewehad afeeling she was lying about things. Not the Dresden thing because nobody caredat that point.Ourbiggestissueinthegroupwasthatshewas lying.

  I guess it was sort of a blessing that I was forced to stay home during that time. My health wasn’t all that great and my eating habits were atrocious. For months I would sleep all day, wake up in the late afternoon and stay out all night until the sun came up. I never ate anything healthy. I lived off of fast food and soda. I actually loved vegetables and salads, but I was just too lazy to prepare them. I was tired all the time, and when my mom took me to the doctor for a checkup, she told me my skin tone was grey. After running a few tests, my doctor told me my iron level was a quarter of what it should be. I was bordering on becoming anemic and had high cholesterol, which was completely unheard of considering I was only 19 and underweight.

  My doctor put me on a strict diet, which consisted of eating and drinking nothing I was consuming before. She had me make a list of all the healthy things I liked to eat and taught me ways to prepare those as my main meals on a daily basis.

  For the next two weeks, I ate steamed vegetables with chicken and white rice, freshly made salads, and substituted soda with lemon water. Within days I felt an immediate difference because I had a lot more energy. When I finally went back to the doctor for a follow up visit, she told me she knew I was doing better without having to run any tests. I asked her how she could tell, and she said it was because I actually had color in my face.

  12

  FIRST LOVE…OR NOT

  With my physical health back on track, it was time to focus on my mental health. It had been weeks since I’d last spoken with Cassidy, and I’d given up on trying to make amends with her. Most of the girls had turned on me except for Kennedy. By that time, she had left the studio apartment she once shared with Emily and moved back to her mom’s house in Norco, about an hour east of me.

  I was sitting in my bedroom with Sniffy on another eventless weekend, when Sebastian called from out of nowhere. He had heard about my exile and said that was the exact reason he didn't want me becoming friends with the girls. He knew it was a matter of time before some type of blowout would happen, and that was a big part of him wanting to keep me more isolated to him when we were dating. Great, NOW he tells me.

  With no social life and essentially no friends, I felt I had nothing left to lose. So I let my feelings for Dresden grow, and I quickly fell in love with him. But what I felt for Dresden was nothing I had ever felt with Ronan, Sheldon, or even Sebastian. There were no head games and no bullshit when it came to Dresden, which I found refreshing. He’d call when he said he’d call. He’d open doors and pull out chairs. He was sweet, attentive, just a total gentleman and he made me laugh uncontrollably. For the first time ever, I had a man in my life that didn’t cause me stress or come with an agenda. We would talk a few times a day and spend a majority of our free time together. So when he formally asked me to be his girlfriend, I squealed with delight.

  On the flip side though, as great as I thought Dresden was, I sensed something dark about him. It wasn’t anything he was doing that gave me that impression. There was just something about his energy that I couldn’t quite put my finger on. With previous boyfriends I had before, their behavior was outright, and I knew up front what I was dealing with. But with Dresden, I sensed something hidden. I didn’t know exactly what it was. Since I had no evidence to support that theory, I decided to put that concern on the back burner for the time being.

  Christmas was rapidly approaching, and I couldn’t wait for us to spend the holidays together. On Christmas Day, after spending the afternoon with my family, I cut out a little early to spend the rest of the evening with Dresden.

  Dresden shared a house just off Melrose near La Brea with Bam. Their living room consisted of little more than a TV, a dining table, and an unused firep
lace. When I got to Dresden’s that evening, the three of us were full of holiday cheer and ready to celebrate by getting smashed. So we sat on the floor and tried to figure out what we wanted to do that night.

  “Well let’s see. We’re all broke and it's Christmas Day, which means everything is closed. So the possibilities are endless,” I said sarcastically.

  “The liquor store is open at the corner,” Dresden said. “Yeah, and Cold Goose is on sale for two bucks a bottle,” Bam said.

  “HELL NO, we ain't buying no Cold Goose,” Dresden

  said.

  “What's Cold Goose?” I asked.

  “The nastiest wine you can imagine,” Dresden said. We gathered our money together and put it in a pile on the

  living room floor.

  “What the fuck is that?” Bam said, pointing at our measly

  pile of money. “That shit wouldn't get a cricket drunk.” “So what are we gonna do?” I asked.

  “We’ve got enough to get about eight bottles of Cold

  Goose,” Bam reiterated.

  “Man, that shit is nasty,” Dresden said.

  “So eat chips as a chaser dick!” Bam barked.

  Dresden snatched up our money, gave me a kiss goodbye

  and left with Bam. I leaned back next to the cold chimney,

  grabbed the remote, and flipped through the channels until they

  got back.

  I thought Bam buying eight bottles was an exaggeration.

  But sure enough, when he and Dresden returned, they both had

  their arms full with eight clacking bottles of Cold Goose, along

  with one bag of crumbs, which I'm sure must have been chips at

  some point earlier on the journey home. Dresden grabbed three

  plastic cups from the kitchen and came back into the living

  room. He popped open the first bottle of Cold Goose and filled

  each of our cups.

  “Cheers muthafuckas!” Bam said as he lifted his cup. We all tapped plastic and took a sip of our drinks. “It's not THAT bad,” I said.