I slipped the forty-dollar scar cream into my purse and walked out.
The manager was this big, angry man. You could tell that he had been pissed off for the last fucking time today as he followed me to the exit.
“HEY! STOP! One of my employees saw you put something in your purse. What did you take?”
This was not a man I wanted to pick a fight with. I immediately pulled out the scar cream.
“I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry. I took your scar cream. I couldn’t afford it and I have scars from something I don’t want to talk about and if you were a woman you would understand, but here it is, take it, I’m so sorry. Please. I’ll just go.”
He snatched the cream back and eyed me. I could tell he wished I had resisted more. He really wanted to yell at someone.
“What else do you have in there?”
“Just that, I swear.”
Then, I’m sure he thought, Fuck it, might as well just yell at this seventeen-year-old! He turned to the twenty-five people waiting in line to check out.
“HEY, EVERYONE. LOOK WHO DECIDED TO SHOPLIFT TODAY? MISS—What’s your name?”
“Laura.”
“LAURA WANTED SCAR CREAM!!” Everyone in line looked at me pityingly. The manager turned back to me. “Get out of here.”
I walked out of that CVS with my head down, a walk of shame more humiliating than ANY of the times I had come home at eight a.m. in my clubbing dress. I crossed the street as fast as I could, but then I heard police sirens. The manager had called the cops on me.
“HANDS OVER YOUR HEAD. HANDS OVER YOUR HEAD.”
Are you fucking kidding me?
I was in front of the busiest Starbucks in LA, leaned against a cop car. My most public performance to date!
This police officer wanted to arrest me so badly. It was like a tall seventeen-year-old girl had killed his wife or something and he had a vendetta against all of us. He searched madly through my purse for anything he could get me with. He found my older sister’s ID.
“Who is this?”
“My sister.”
“Why do you have it?”
“Because—because I’m not twenty-one!” I sobbed.
He pocketed the ID. And then he pulled out an empty baggie . . . that previously held cocaine. He looked closely at the white residue.
He scoffed angrily. “If there was anything in this you’d be going fucking downtown. Get the fuck off my car.”
He was horrible. To him I was the scum of the earth. And I truly felt like it after that interaction.
There was a huge crowd of spectators outside the Starbucks, staring at me. I wiped my eyes, took a bow, and started my second walk of shame back to the apartment. Mondays, amirite?
That was the last time I ever shoplifted.
The end of summer came quickly after that. Neha and Neesie had to go back to Northwestern, a.k.a. their real lives, and I had to go back to . . . nothing.
We had our suitcases all packed.
“Ready to go, Laura?” asked Neha.
“Yeah, um, one sec.” I went out the front door to the street. I stood on the edge of the curb and held my arms open.
“Hello?? Anyone out there that can find a way to keep me here? Anyone want to discover my talent? Please? Anyone want to give me a large sum of money in exchange for my work as an actor so that I can keep this Westwood apartment by myself??”
There was no answer. A few BMWs whizzed by dangerously close to the curb I was standing on. One car honked at me. FINE. I’d go back to Downers Grove and figure out a way to settle here later on, especially now that I REALLY understood how LA worked. Obviously. This was fine!
In the back of my mind, I was a little disappointed in the fact that I wasn’t a big star yet. I didn’t really blame my drinking or drug habits. I thought I was just having the time of my life.
In reality, though, I had totally lost focus. I had gone from dinky motel-room parties to the coolest clubs in LA, unlimited drugs, and no parents to answer to. It had been a three-month-long party and a high that I did not want to come down from.
When I got home, the questions of how it was came rolling in.
“It was awesome. I auditioned for this huge movie,” I said nonchalantly.
“Just one audition?”
Whatever! I wasn’t discouraged at all. This felt like a step toward my career. I had gotten out of Downers Grove once, and I was going to again. I didn’t know how it was going to happen, but it would. This was just the beginning. I was completely, unwaveringly sure.
Okay WHOEVER keeps calling me delusional, I can hear you and also—SHUT UP.
CHAPTER 4
How to Ignore a Hundred Red Flags
I got back to Downers Grove expecting things to be the same as when I left. It still looked the same for sure—but all my friends were gone. Maggie was at Northwestern, and Jack was in Wisconsin at St. Norbert. They were all doing great things and making career moves, and I was so happy for them! But for me it sucked.
I did have Colleen, though. She was living at home, working at the restaurant, and going to community college.
“How did my investment do in LA?” she’d ask, referring to all the money she lent me for my summer away.
“I’m gonna get you ten times that money after I make it big.”
Colleen and I were opposites in some ways, but the same in others. I was a rebellious, loudmouth weirdo, and she was an introverted, quiet weirdo. She had no friends and would just read books all day and play guitar and sing in French. When we were younger, she loved school and was good at it. She would even offer to write my high school essays for me, scrawling out the entire thing in tiny handwriting on a couple notecards so that I could take them to school and copy them over in my clumsy, boyish handwriting. When she offered the first time, I was stunned.
“Seriously. I’ll write your essay for you.”
“You’ll write my essay . . . and I’ll do nothing in return?”
“Yeah. I just love US History.”
I took her hand. “I don’t understand you at all, but I will gladly take advantage of your weirdly vast knowledge of early-American aviation.”
Colleen looked into my eyes. “They dreamed of flying and they did it, Laura.”
She also had a water bed. Yes, the bed she grew up sleeping on was the sexiest bed of the ’90s. I’m not sure how it got that title, seeing how it just felt like sleeping on a weird bladder. We’d slosh around on it for hours, talking and laughing and eating pistachios. And if I jumped onto it hard enough, she would go flying off from the waves I made.
But being at home wasn’t easy. I felt my cabin fever coming back. I grew impatient for a way to get back to LA.
Oh. There’s one thing I forgot to tell you. The day I got back home, I started getting phone calls to our landline.
“Hello? Laura? It’s me!” There was a long pause. “Damon!”
“Who??”
“Damon! We met at the Argyle!”
I had to rack my brain. The Argyle? OHHHHHHHH. Damon. He was the very pretty man I met outside the Argyle in LA who gave me some coke and told me he wanted to shoot me. With a camera. How could I forget anyone who was generous enough to give me a free bump??
Side note: What kind of confidence did this dude have to start off a phone call with “It’s me!” after I had met him just one time, two months ago. As if there were any chance I would just recognize his voice?