Geez. She didn’t need to text that frequently. I knew how to read time!
When it had finally been two hours . . . she sent one last text.
It’s Hammer Time.
IT’S HAMMER TIME??? Never have I heard that joyous exclamation used in such a menacing way.
Next time I really want to instill fear in someone, I’m going to try a deep stare into their eyes and whisper, “It’s Hammer Time. (Oh-oh oh oh oh-oh-oh).”
The time it really was, though? Time for me to get out of Downers Grove.
CHAPTER 3
My Summer of (possibly too much) Freedom
My senior year of high school, I was voted Most Likely to Be Late to Graduation. Which is rude! I was totally on time.
I already mentioned that I had to take geometry three times, right? Well, the third time was my senior year of high school. And if I didn’t pass . . . I was staying another year. I barely, barely passed—and the only reason I did was because my oldest sister, Tracy, is a high school math teacher and she coached me through it. So in defense of the title I won, I very well could have been late to graduation: a year late!
BUT I WASN’T. Let’s focus on that.
I walked across that freaking stage at graduation and said my final “fuck you” to that godforsaken place. I was finally ready to get to LA and do what I was MEANT to do. Acting!
There was only one problem. I had no plan at all. And no money. And no job lined up.
Cool.
Oddly, I had this unshakable faith that I was going to make it. Some might call me delusional, but I’d rather think of it as trust. Faith. Blind faith! Becoming an actress was my destiny, and when someone has a destiny, it always comes true. Right? Okay, now that I’m saying it out loud I can hear how delusional I sound. Maybe I was delusional! But! . . . Look at where I am now—living the dream.
When my opportunity to move to LA came, I was slightly surprised. I got a call from Neha, a girl who I did speech with. Neha graduated a year before me and was going to Northwestern now. She had it together in high school, so she got in. Good for her.
“Neesie and I are going to LA this summer. I’m interning at a production company and she’s going to stay with me for fun. Come out with us! I know you want to.”
I gasped. “Oh God, this is it.”
Neha continued, “I mean, you’d have to pay rent and stuff, and I know flying out there can be pricey so you can take some time to think about it—”
“I’M THERE. WHEN? TOMORROW? OH WAIT, I HAVE TO GRADUATE THIS WEEK. CRAP. FUCK IT, THEY WON’T MISS ME. I CAN COME TOMORROW.”
“Dude, not tomorrow.”
“Right.”
“You don’t have to ask your parents?”
“Who?”
I didn’t even ask my parents if I could go. I knew they’d be fine with it. Instead I simply told them I was leaving.
“Bye, Mom and Dad! I’m off to follow my acting dreams in Los Angeles without any practical steps or a plan!”
“Have fun, honey!”
“You can do it, you’re amazing!”
They did not have the same perspective that most traditional parents did. They never tried to steer me toward a more practical, steady career. I have so many friends who got discouraged from their art by their parents before they even had a chance to try. They had to hear things like “Do you know the odds of you making it?” and “How are you going to support a family with that?” So they never even attempted it. My parents were the opposite. They’d say, “If you want to act, then do it. Life is short.”
Honestly I’m so grateful that they had this mindset. Yes, I lived a bit dangerously for a while, but I firmly believe that if I ever gave myself a plan B, an exit door from my dreams, I wouldn’t have been able to become a full-time working actress by twenty-three. I would have taken the exit. Reaching your potential is fucking scary.
I still had the money issue to solve, though. Luckily, my family believed in me just as much as I did. Colleen was earning some money working at a restaurant at this time, so she and my mother both put in money to help me pay for rent and the plane ticket. This was happening!
I knew that Neha and Neesie were only going to LA for the summer, but I wasn’t planning on coming back to Downers Grove! If I had found a way to get myself out there, I knew I would find a way to stay.
Just days after graduation, I flew straight to LA.
I stayed with Neha and Neesie on their living room couch. I was perpetually out of money and never knew how I was going to pay for my next meal! It was the most fun summer of my life thus far. My first taste of real ADULTHOOD. Which to me was . . . partying.
Don’t get me wrong, I came to LA with the intention of getting my acting career started. But it was like unleashing a kid in a candy store. Except . . . more like an addict in a drug store. I mean, a store filled with drugs. Not, like, CVS. An addict in CVS would probably be fine.
Like I said, I knew I was going to make it . . . but seventeen-year-old Laura thought that this meant I didn’t have to work for it. That success would just find me. That’s how life worked, right? #notatalldelusional.
While I was waiting for my million-dollar movie deal, I had to do SOMETHING, so Neesie and I would smoke weed every day and go out to clubs every night. (Meanwhile Neha was busy focusing hard at her internship and being somewhat responsible.) We were staying in Westwood, a total college town, so there were frat parties galore. I met enough frat guys that summer to get the complete college experience.
When it came to acting, I had no idea what I was doing. I kind of figured that in Hollywood, you just had to look beautiful and go to a department store. Some major producer would discover your insane talent while you purchased a silk scarf. Or in my case, while I walked out of Macy’s with three pairs of pants layered under my jeans.
I had one friend in town who knew a manager. She offered to pass on my headshot and résumé. Sorry, what? I didn’t have either of those.
“You need a résumé if anyone is going to consider signing you.”
Okay. I found some dodgy modeling photos I had taken back in Downers Grove with an amateur photographer, complete with fake tan and incredibly skinny eyebrows. I also was bleaching my teeth with dollar-store teeth whitener, so I had white bleach spots all over my gums. Hello, world!
And résumé-wise . . . I wrote it out by hand. By HAND. I want you to know that I had access to a printer, but did not use it. Instead I chose to whip out my ten-year-old-boy handwriting to really nail my professionalism as I wrote: Special skills include horseback riding, driving a car, and a Macedonian accent.
On that résumé I made a bunch of shit up. I knew that a list of high school plays was not going to impress a real life LA manager! So I added some fake local community theater productions as well. Boom! Ready to knock their socks off.
I handed it to my friend to pass along.
“Dude. This isn’t legible at all.”
“. . .”
Thankfully, she had much neater handwriting than I did, so she rewrote the whole thing more legibly. (But can someone tell me why we didn’t just go to the library and print it??? Why did we not think of that?)
Suffice it to say, I did not get a meeting with that manager.
I wasn’t exactly getting any auditions, but so what? I didn’t need auditions. I was MEETING people. LA is really stratified during the day. At nine a.m., the movie executives take their elevators to the twenty-sixth floor of their skyscraper offices and the unemployed actors smoke weed in their apartments (right?). But at night, we all drank at the same bars and danced on the same dance floors until three a.m. See? There’s a bit of community in having a cocaine problem.