Rocking the Pink Read online

  Me? Verging on excited hysteria at all times? No sirree!

  Naimah had turned out to be the coolest person I’d ever met, and I didn’t want to alienate her by revealing my true personality. She was so cool, in fact, she was dating the biggest basketball star at UCLA. Once, I came home to the suite to find her and her boyfriend lounging on our no-frills dorm couch with Mike Tyson. Yeah, that Mike Tyson—the famous heavyweight boxer who was, back then, still undefeated and terrifying. Naimah introduced me to “Mike” and let me “chill” with their party in our sitting room. (Ever since our complicit run-in with the law, I’d earned a standing invitation to “hang” with Naimah and her friends—that is, if I didn’t talk too much.) I sat there, staring at Iron Mike Tyson, such an anomaly in my dorm room, and tried to look unimpressed and relaxed.

  His hardscrabble youth was etched all over his face, even as he laughed and bantered with Naimah’s boyfriend. His laugh was unexpectedly high-pitched. Good God, the man’s hands were massive. Those hands could kill you with one punch, I’d read somewhere.

  Other than squeaking out a chipmunklike “hello” when Naimah briefly introduced me, I didn’t utter a word the entire night.

  As the school year progressed, Naimah and I encountered a troubling situation: Roommate No. 5’s boyfriend had slept over every single night for the past two months. Why was this a problem, you wonder, since it was in the adjacent bedroom in my suite? Well, how about you try sharing one bathroom the size of a broom closet with five other girls, and then add one bonus guy on top of that? I’m certain you’d agree in a flash that this was an intolerable situation. But we didn’t want to create World War III. Our living quarters were close enough without our creating conflict between the roommates.

  Naimah and I hatched our plan.

  As luck would have it, Naimah worked in the UCLA admissions office, so she was able to swipe one sheet of official UCLA letterhead. And on that official UCLA letterhead, I weaved my magic, writing a letter that went a little something like this:March 3, 1989

  To the residents of Hitch Suites, Room D-6:

  It has come to our attention that one of you has been permanently housing a nonresident in your suite. Please consult your Hitch Suites Student Manual, section A.6, which explicitly prohibits nonresidents from staying overnight in any university housing complex.

  We do not know which of you has committed this infraction, and we do not wish to know. If we receive any further information that a nonresident is residing in your rooms at any time, then all residents of Hitch Suites, Room D-6, shall be evicted with no additional warning. In that event, no refunds will be provided.

  Sincerely,

  Director of Student Housing, UCLA

  I then made six copies of this missive and placed a copy in each roommate’s student mailbox, including Naimah’s and mine. In due course that day, each girl collected her mail and was surprised to receive the startling letter. Apparently, none of the girls had noticed that the letter was not signed, nor that the “Director of Student Housing” did not even identify him/herself. No one even remotely suspected that Naimah and I were the fraudulent “codirectors of student housing.”

  When Naimah and I sauntered into our suite, holding our letters in our hands with looks of feigned incredulity, we encountered sheer pandemonium already in progress. Marie and Erica were shouting at Roommate No. 5’s boyfriend. Erica, who’d been nothing but mild-mannered and sweet up until then, was shouting that Boyfriend had to get out!

  “I’m not getting kicked out of here for you!” Erica screeched, her eyes bulging with panic. “My dad would kill me!”

  I joined in the sentiment, but oh so calmly and rationally, saying, “Yes, I agree. If I get kicked out of student housing, my parents will be quite upset with me.”

  That should have been it, right? Boyfriend should have said, “Of course, ladies. I’m sorry I’ve jeopardized your housing situation. You will never see me again.” And with a sweep of his cape, he should have been gone. But no, that’s not what this immature little prick did. Instead, with veins bulging in his neck and left temple, he told us in a high-pitched whine that we girls were being “selfish.”

  Well, I lost it. “Selfish?!” I thundered. “You want to know what’s selfish? Selfish is a guy who forces himself onto five unwilling roommates in an overcrowded dorm room with one bathroom. Now, that’s what I call selfish!”

  I had said my piece. If Boyfriend had kept his mouth shut at that point, I would not have uttered another word about it. But when that jerk had the nerve to then call me a bitch, I felt a rage I’d never felt before course through my body. I hurled myself toward him with the intention of beating him to a pulp—an impulse I have never otherwise experienced in my entire life. Naimah physically held me back, or I believe I would have thrown a haymaker on that guy. Boyfriend and Roommate No. 5 then left in a flurry of expletives and tears, never to return again (except at some point to collect Roommate No. 5’s personal effects while everyone else was at class).

  Erica hugged me and thanked me for backing her up, never suspecting that I had manipulated her into doing my dirty work in the first place.

  Naimah, my accomplice, turned to me, winked, and said, “Girl, you’re all right.”

  Chapter 5

  “Mommy has some bad stuff in her breast—in her booby,” Brad told our girls, Sophie and Chloe, ages eight and six, respectively. I sat next to him on the bed, trying to look unconcerned and casual. He continued, “But the doctor’s already gotten it out. Just to be sure, though, the doctor’s going to take out some more of the bad stuff next week.”

  The girls were fine with this calm explanation, until Brad admitted that the “bad stuff” was called cancer. Apparently, Sophie had heard this word before in connection with the death of a classmate’s aunt, and she started wailing. Chloe, who’d initially thought cancer was something like chicken pox, now started crying, too, not fully understanding, but alarmed by her sister’s reaction.

  “Could you die?!” Sophie shouted at me between hysterical sobs.

  “Oh, no!” I almost scoffed. “No, no. Some people die from cancer, it’s true. And that is very sad. But my doctor caught this very early on, and he says there is no way I’ll die.” I figured if I was wrong about that, we’d cross that bridge when we got there.

  I don’t want to leave my girls, I thought. I want to see them graduate from high school. I want to see them get married. I want to hold my grandchildren in my arms.

  I had always presumed I would do all those things. I was entitled to do those things, wasn’t I? And, oh, I didn’t want to leave poor Brad to raise those little girls all by himself. Brad. The love of my life. I had always thought I’d grow old with him. I had diligently put money into my 401(k) based on that assumption.

  And my music. Oh, God, my music. I had only just discovered what I could do. Who I really was. My dreams, just now within my grasp, were over. My dreams are over. My dreams are over. My dreams are over. My life is over. I am a cancer patient.

  But on that night, as we sat on Sophie’s four-poster bed as a family, I didn’t say what I was actually thinking. Instead, with a beauty-pageant smile plastered to my face, I proclaimed, “Everything’s gonna be just fine.”

  A week later, after the surgeon had removed more of my breast and five lymph nodes from my armpit, I was socked in the gut by yet another damned phone call.

  “I’m sorry, Laura,” the surgeon said. “Lab tests are showing that the cancer has, indeed, metastasized outside the breast, into the lymph nodes.”

  I was speechless. Going into surgery, I had been told that the chances of this happening were slim, and I had relied on the percentages. I had still continued to believe nothing truly horrible could ever happen to me.

  “This is a surprise,” the surgeon continued. “With such a small lump, we had not expected the cancer to have spread. But that’s the one thing you can count on with cancer: It’s unpredictable.”

  Things had just go
ne from bad to worse. I’m not gonna be like Sheryl Crow, I realized, tears springing to my eyes. This is not the way this was supposed to go. I was starting to dislike talking to this guy.

  “Thanks, Doc,” I said when I finally managed a voice. “At least I know what I’m up against.” I wanted to get off the phone and collect my thoughts. “So, I’ll just make an appointment with the oncologist?” I was trying to wrap things up.

  “Uh . . . there’s more . . . ”

  Is this guy fucking kidding me? I waited. What more could there be?

  The surgeon paused and cleared his throat. “Further analysis of the cells has revealed an extremely aggressive cancer. The cancer cells are multiplying at a very rapid rate. Really unusual.”

  I actually started to laugh. Holy crap.

  A panic was seizing me.

  Bad things were happening to me!

  Hooks! Anchors! Spears! Invaders! I was being attacked!

  “I’m so sorry, Laura.”

  Chapter 6

  My best friend in the theater department, Amy (Amy Bo Bamy to me), had seen an ad in Variety seeking extras to play hippies in an upcoming movie about the Doors, by famed director Oliver Stone. A group of us donned flowing skirts, put flowers in our hair, and went to the cattle-call audition. I was a lock to get cast, I figured: I looked like I had just emerged from Woodstock.

  As we hippie wannabes shuffled through a massive line, a casting director ordered everyone either “to the right” or “to the left.” We didn’t know what these designations meant. Did we want right or left? But when I got to the front of the line, the casting director said, “Go stand over there,” indicating a man with a clipboard.

  Hey, that’s neither right nor left!

  When I made my way over to the man with the clipboard, he took my picture with a Polaroid camera, scribbled something on a piece of paper, and then directed me to take his note to the costume trailer.

  Costume trailer?!

  When I got there, the costume lady told me I had been assigned to be a film student in a scene in which Jim Morrison (played by Val Kilmer) presented his student film at UCLA.

  What? But I’m a hippie.

  The costume designer fitted me in a ’60s-ish miniskirt, button-down shirt, and loafers and told me to come back on the appointed day of filming.

  Hy-per-vent-elation!

  On the designated day, I arrived promptly for filming (repeatedly reminding myself it would be inappropriate to yell, “Action!” on set); got into costume, makeup, and hair (they brushed out my long, permed hair into an unattractive frizz-fest); and made my way to the crowded set. I was instructed where to sit in my scene, among a “classroom” of other students, and we then eagerly awaited the appearance of Oliver Stone and Val Kilmer. An hour later, Mr. Stone appeared on set, to our noisy applause. After explaining the scene and what he wanted us to do, he scanned the crowd and began singling out several people.

  “You . . . you . . . you,” he said, variously pointing. And then he looked right at me and said, “You.”

  My stomach lurched. Me? Me!

  The small group—including me!—followed Mr. Stone to a corner of the set, at which time his assistant handed each of us a page from the screenplay—the screenplay!

  “You’re going to read for Girl One,” the assistant told me.

  No sooner had I glanced down at the page, trying to find the line attributed to Girl One, than Oliver Stone beckoned another girl and me over to him.

  “Go,” he said to the other girl, without prelude. She read the line, flustered. He then turned to me. “Go,” he said. I read the line with gusto. He pointed to me. “You’re it.” Before I could speak, he walked away briskly.

  And that, my friends, is how I snagged the illustrious and breakout role of Girl One in the epic, blockbuster, big-studio film The Doors.

  When I sat back down in my designated seat on the set, the other extras now looked at me with awe and envy. Who the hell is she? What’s so special about her? I’m prettier than she is, they thought. And, in all honesty, they were right. I could not account for Mr. Stone’s selection of me. But I wasn’t going to let him down.

  As it turned out, Girl One was not intended to be a Grace Kelly type. She was not there to capture the leading man’s eye or dance backwards in high heels with Fred Astaire. No, she was a symbol of the uptight establishment. Girl One wouldn’t have understood true art if it had bitten her in the ass. Girl One was a total and complete bitch!

  Here’s the scene: Jim Morrison shows his disjointed and bizarre black-and-white student film to his UCLA film class. The camera pans to the student audience, showing various people reacting to the film—including one frizzy-haired young woman with oily skin. She makes an exaggerated look of disgust (subtlety, apparently, not being her specialty).

  After Morrison’s short film is over, the lights come up and the professor, played by Oliver Stone himself, says something like, “This is pretty shocking stuff, Mr. Morrison. Nazism and masturbation? Not sure what you were trying to do there.” Then, motioning to the class, he asks, “What do you all think?”

  A male student says, “It was better than a Warhol picture.” The crowd erupts in agreement or disagreement—I’m not sure which.

  And then (drum roll, please) . . . the frizzy-haired, shiny-faced girl says . . . (ahem—silence, please), “No, it wasn’t. It was worse!”

  At this point in the filming, Mr. Stone stopped and said, “Whoa! Girl One, that was the most poignant performance I have ever been honored and privileged to witness. Thank you for sharing your art—your soul—with us today.” And then the entire room, including Val Kilmer, stood up and applauded for a full six minutes.

  Okay, that last part didn’t happen. But the frizzy-haired girl most certainly did utter her line with aplomb, and the room really did erupt, as instructed by Mr. Stone, with emotional reactions to her apparent inability to recognize true art.

  Continuing the scene: The professor (Mr. Stone) turns to Jim Morrison (Val Kilmer) and says (something like), “Okay, okay [responding to the outburst from the class]. Mr. Morrison, what are your feelings on this?”

  And Mr. Morrison/Val Kilmer, sitting at the front of the class on a little step, quietly says, “I quit.” And then he walks out.

  Scene!

  You might be surprised to learn that it took over eight hours to shoot that little scene. An entire day! And I was paid by the hour, too! And I was treated to a fabulous lunch of chicken and rice, catered by craft services!

  When I sat down at lunchtime to eat my scrumptious meal with my fellow extras, everyone wanted to hear the story of how on earth I had snagged the coveted part of Girl One. Of course I obliged, repeatedly—feeling like a special young lady, indeed.

  At the end of the long, hot day (during which any makeup that had been applied to my oily face melted off), one of the crew pulled me aside to make sure he had the correct spelling of my name. After all, he said, he wanted to be sure it would be listed correctly in the credits. The credits?! Yes, the credits. As Girl One, he told me. It was too good to be true. Not only that, but this little speaking line would get me into the Screen Actors Guild, something countless aspiring actors aimed to accomplish. Heaven!

  How would I ever be able to wait a full year for the movie to come out in theaters so I could see my name in lights? Waiting was going to be sheer agony!

  What I needed was another exciting adventure to distract me as I awaited my destiny. As luck would have it, a few weeks later, Amy Bo Bamy and I were invited to appear as lowly extras in another scene in the movie, accompanied by our friend Marco Sanchez, a ridiculously good-looking guy of Cuban descent (who joked he was actually an Irishman named Marc O’Sanchez). The scene was being shot at the famed Whisky a Go Go, a music club in Hollywood where the Doors, along with other rock icons like Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin, had made rock ’n’ roll history in the ’60s. Unlike with my earlier classroom scene, there was no question this time around that I would
be an uncredited extra, known (only to myself) as “the girl in the yellow-and-red-checkered minidress.” But that was fine with me—I’d already secured my ticket to superstardom in the UCLA film school scene, so this additional chance to be on camera was just an unexpected bonus.

  In the scene, the (pretend) Doors, led by Val Kilmer, who writhed around in tight leather pants that left nothing to the imagination, performed the song “The End,” the Doors’ lengthy, Oedipal song culminating in Jim Morrison’s shouting that he wants to “fuck” his mother and “kill” his father, as the crowd, which included Amy, Marco, and me, tried to act like we’d never heard anything like this before.

  For angles focusing on the crowd’s reactions, in which only the lower half of Kilmer’s body was visible in the frame, a body double wearing identical black leather pants came onstage to assume writhing duties. As we tried to look as if we were witnessing the most progressive rock performance we’d ever seen, the body double, who apparently had never seen footage of the real Jim Morrison in action, gracefully danced jetés and pirouettes across the stage.

  In “the end” (just a little Doors humor for you), Marco, Amy, and I were treated to at least sixteen billion simulated performances of “The End” over the course of our sixteen hours at the Whisky (and an equal number of graceful pirouettes by Val Kilmer’s dance double). And through it all, a fierce yearning bubbled and simmered inside my veins: I longed to join the ranks of Jim Morrison, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, and Val Kilmer—and, hell, even Val Kilmer’s clownish double—front and center onstage at the Whisky a Go Go.

  It was only a matter of time before my destiny would be fulfilled, I knew. Once the movie had premiered, probably in about a year, the world would be captivated by my groundbreaking performance as Girl One, and my Hollywood career would be on the fast track. I simply had to exercise superhuman patience until that fateful day arrived.