Down the Rabbit Hole (19 page)

“She's putting in all this time and all she's getting out of it is a drink and a fuck!” Tina said, clearly frustrated that she wasn't getting her way. Like I said, this girl was a hustler.

God,
I thought.
I could never get away with talking to Hef like that.

The room got very silent as Hef sat staring at Tina.

“I like to think of this as all of their dreams coming true,” he said very solemnly. Even Tina was struck silent by how serious he was. Did he really mean what he was saying? It sounded so conceited to assume that simply being in his presence (or bedroom) was a “dream come true” for these women. The “hurt” expression he held on his face forced Tina to abort her mission.

“Okay, sorry,” Tina offered and leaned over to give him a peck on the mouth. As she walked out the door, she called out a thoughtless “Love you!”

For months Hef continued to reject Whitney's pleas to become a girlfriend, but eventually her persistence paid off and one day she moved into the mansion. We quickly discovered she was a pathological liar—and it was actually pretty amusing. Her age, former professions, and life story changed daily.

“Darlin'?” Hef asked, appearing in my dressing area one afternoon.

“Yes?” I asked, pulling my nose out of my French homework.

“I need to talk to you about something,” he said, his brows furrowed, and pulled up my vanity stool. His somber eyes connected with mine. “Did you drug Whitney's drink last night?”

“No!” I exclaimed through a fit of laughter. “Are you serious? Did she really say that?”

The night before we'd gone to the Saddle Ranch on Sunset Boulevard for dinner. Whitney had quite a few cocktails and decided to ride the mechanical bull. While no one really thought twice about it, she was apparently mortified by the decision and desperately searched for a reason to excuse her behavior.

“Yes,” he said. “She feels silly about last night and says she would never have done it normally and believes you and Bridget drugged her drink.”

The smile disappeared off my face as I realized that he was taking her insane accusations seriously.

Bridget and I were so square we wouldn't even have known how to get drugs, let alone be tricky enough to slip them into someone's drink unnoticed. In front of a whole table full of enemies, no less. I made this immediately clear to Hef.

Come on, Whitney,
I thought.
At least go for something somewhat believable.

“That's what I figured,” Hef said, a smile slowly cracking on his face. “But you know, I just had to be fair and ask.”

Phew. Luckily for me, it was Whitney making the allegations. I don't think things would have gone so smoothly if his beloved Dianna or Daphne had made the claims.

Why can't Hef see how awful they are?
I wondered.

I started questioning who would last the longest: me or the Mean Girls? I wasn't sure how much more of the absurdity I could take. After more than two and a half years at the mansion, I felt no more surefooted than I had on the day I arrived. I felt like I was constantly walking on eggshells, trying not to set off a land mine of drama each day.

At the time, I had no idea that their days were numbered. But I wouldn't be the one who took them out. It would take someone else to get rid of them. Someone a little bit more Hef's type than I was: someone younger, blonder, and much, much ditsier.

C
HAPTER
7

Alice felt so desperate that she was ready to ask help of anyone.

—Lewis Carroll,
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

I
t was April 2004 and the air had grown stale at the mansion. Bridget and I were constantly at odds with the other girlfriends. I could sense that even Hef felt he was ready for a change. It was only a matter of time before Hef started spring-cleaning and invited in a new girlfriend.

And just who would it be?

Please be someone nice,
I prayed.

As you might imagine, Hef is both meticulous and exceptionally picky when it comes to his women: girlfriends, Playmates, etc. He has a picture of every girl that's ever come to the mansion—mostly Polaroids. If you were visiting the compound for the first time, a designated staffer would snap a photo of you before you entered the party (as they did to me years earlier), and those Polaroids were compiled for Hef to review the next day. He would label them A, B, or C (based primarily on their looks but also on how scantily clad they were) before having them catalogued in his social secretary's office.

The A category was the most elite—meaning those girls were allowed to be invited back for all events or perhaps even a Playmate test or an evening out with Hef. The B category was reserved for girls Hef would be comfortable inviting back for larger mansion parties (like Midsummer Night's Dream) as well as some of the smaller Fun in the Sun pool parties. The C category was the label bestowed on girls that were to be invited back only if they were absolutely desperate for more warm bodies.

Whether it's for his scrapbooks, his parties, or his magazines, Hef is obsessive about photos. When I lived there, he still reviewed most of the magazine submissions himself—and always gave his final sign-off on an issue. He also felt it necessary to see pictures of every model that would be working one of his parties.

Inside his room there was a calendar of upcoming events, and next to it was a wooden box. Inside the box were photos of Playmates and potential Playmates attached to a notecard with the girl's information printed on it. This was a distinctive pile, because
these
were the girls Hef was considering inviting out for a night. Occasionally there would be a pile in front of the box with photos of girls that had attended a mansion party or girls that had submitted photos to the magazine and weren't being considered as Playmates, but were still cute enough for Hef to consider taking out. For so long, this box was my nemesis, as I dreaded possible new additions to the harem. This time, however, I was determined to finally use the box to my advantage.

Bridget and I were beyond tired of the Mean Girls, but we knew Hef wouldn't be content with just the two of us. We just got along too well for his taste. How could Mr. Drama King feel fought over, coveted, or interesting if his girlfriends actually got along? I knew Hef felt he needed to be seen with a gaggle of women in order to keep up his macho Playboy image, and since he viewed Bridget and me as virtually the same person, I knew a new girlfriend would have to move in in order for us to have a chance at getting rid of the others.

The Mean Girls had already checked out, mentally. Daphne, Dianna, and Elizabeth had been at the mansion for more than two years—and by this point probably assumed they'd never be offered a pictorial. They each began focusing more on their lives
outside
the gates (aka other boyfriends, in some cases), so it was only a matter of time before they moved out or Hef asked them to leave. But even that wasn't soon enough. Bridget and I knew that if we wanted any sort of influence in kicking these girls to the curb and figuring out who their replacements would be, we'd have to act quickly.

A few days before Hef's 78th birthday party, I noticed three pictures stacked in front of the wooden box in Hef's closet. I grabbed the photos and info sheets to scope out our options: Tiffany, Nicole, and Kendra. Apparently, the girls were auditioning to be “Painted Ladies” at the party, and the body paint artist had submitted the images to the mansion for approval. The photos eventually made their way to Hef's private “consideration” pile, which meant he would definitely be keeping his eye out for them at the party.

The day of Hef's soiree, Bridget and I went downstairs to the gym to meet the “Painted Ladies” as they got ready (it took most of the day for these girls to get covered head to toe in body paint). All three girls seemed nice enough, but Bridget and I decided that Tiffany was our favorite. She was easy to talk to and seemed really smart—plus, she had a knockout smile, long ash blond curls, and a gorgeous naturally curvy body. More than hot enough to be Hef's girlfriend, but a refreshing change from the bleached-blond Fembot look.

Unbeknownst to us at the time, Hef had also made a pilgrimage down to the gym to check out the prospects and made a beeline toward Kendra Wilkinson—the most platinum and plastic of the bunch.

Preparing for a mansion party took an entire day. The large parties were the highlights of mansion life, so the girlfriends were expected to look flawless. Couple that expectation with the fact that we girls had a lot of time on our hands, and you get marathon “beauty days.” All of the girls started their day visiting the salon to spend hours on an elaborate hairdo. That year I had purple streaks clipped into my long blond extensions. Costumes were customized down to the tiniest detail and diets were strictly observed in the weeks before a big party. I was so critical of my appearance—particularly my weight. A girl could rarely be too skinny at the mansion. After all, there were expectations that we become the
Playboy
fantasy everyone expected us to be. And in order to be that woman, it was essential that we looked the part.

Plagued by self-doubt, I was constantly troubled by an imaginary belly and would often add a single garter to my costumes to hide a tiny dot on the back of my left leg. God forbid, someone might think I had cellulite. These days I look back at photos from my mansion days and marvel how a girl that skinny could ever think she was fat, but I suppose I was a product of my environment. After spending much of my adulthood as nothing more than a trophy girlfriend whose sole occupation was to look good, I guess I can't really blame myself.

On the night of Hef's 78th birthday party we made our entrance into the great hall around nine o'clock. Hef's photographer Elayne snapped our obligatory photos. As was customary, Mark Frazier, the body painter, brought the “Painted Ladies” over for a photo with us as well. Kendra was already carrying a tray of Jell-O shots and she nervously offered them to us. Bridget, Hef, and I happily took one each as the Mean Girls just ignored her with an icy coldness.

Hef wasted no time inviting the “Painted Ladies” up to his bedroom. Nicole was physically the least Hef's type, with her curvier body and strawberry-blond hair, so I knew right away that she wasn't making the cut, despite her participation in the sack.

Tiffany was the only one who wasn't willing to go all the way (Good for her!), so even though I really liked her, I knew she wasn't going to be invited back.

Through the process of elimination, the 19-year-old platinum blonde from San Diego was in position to be Hugh Hefner's next girlfriend—if she played her cards right. In Kendra's book
Sliding into Home,
she describes Hef asking her to be a girlfriend and handing her a house key
before
he invited her up to the bedroom. Now, I don't know if Kendra is trying to sound extra-desirable, innocent, or if her memory is just super rusty, but of course that's not how it really went down. Hef isn't stupid. He never asked anyone to become a girlfriend before they joined him in bed. And he never made a habit of carrying around extra sets of room keys.

Because Kendra seemed pleasant, Bridget and I started encouraging Hef to ask her to move in. We openly (and loudly) chatted about how nice we thought she was.

“I don't know . . . she doesn't seem to have much personality,” Hef responded.

I rolled my eyes. Since when did he care about personality? Only a positive comment from Bridget or me could turn Hef off to this girl who was so clearly his type. Did I mention he hated it when his girlfriends got along? I could see what he meant, though. In the early days, Kendra wasn't the bubbly, bouncy loudmouth you may remember from
The Girls Next Door
. Her personality could best be described as “deer in the headlights.” It was difficult to get a word out of her, and she seemed to have fried her brain somewhere along the course of her life. At the time, I just assumed she was shy or afraid of making a misstep while trying to navigate Hef's world.

Despite his supposed reservations, he did continue to have her as a guest at the mansion. Kendra was still living in San Diego at the time, so Hef invited her to stay through a whole weekend and join us for the big Easter celebration that Sunday. Bridget and I had gone down to Melrose to pick out matching dresses for the festivities—including one for Kendra. I knew she didn't have a ton of clothes and was probably stressing out just like I used to.

Usually I wouldn't be so eager to dress like anybody's twin, but I knew how adorable Hef thought it was when the girls dressed alike. After nearly three years at the mansion, I was pretty attuned to Hef's preferences. I imagined him seeing the three of us together in matching outfits and thinking, “Oh, how cute.” By getting Kendra to dress the part of a new girlfriend, I hoped it would help Hef make up his mind and set us apart from the Mean Girls, who would most likely show up to the Easter event wearing jeans and bored looks on their faces.