Sliding Into Home (11 page)

I continued to drive my awesome new car to school and to work every day, but after about a year and a half working at Papa John’s, I’d had enough. I promised my grandmother I would continue to work, but I had to get out of there.

I started calling in sick all the time, and one day I just didn’t show up to work. My boss called looking for me, and I told her I was done. She was pissed.

“You are worthless,” she yelled. “You’ll never work at another Papa John’s again in your life.”

“You are damn right I won’t,” I fired back.

I acted tough, but inside I was freaking out because I needed a job—not just because I’d promised my grandmother, but because I needed the money. I was saving so I could get my own place after graduation.

Luckily I had my senior project to keep me on a career path. At the beginning of the year we had to pick a career and spend the entire school year researching it, and at the end of the year we had to give a
report on what we’d learned. The goal was to have us pick something we were interested in and then, hopefully, we’d work toward starting down the path to that career once graduation came.

I decided to do my project on registered nurses because my mom was working at an orthopedic center and I had easy access to nurses. Plus, my dreams of being a marine biologist had long since disappeared.

Working hard on the project but still in need of a paying job, I stumbled upon the career center at school one day. (I know, I was as shocked as anybody that I actually set foot in that place. I was a fun girl who still went to parties and races and stuff; I didn’t do drugs anymore, but I was still not the career-center type.) I figured,
What the hell?
I went in and found an application to be an assistant at a dentist’s office. The only requirement was that we had to be on a college path; the job would provide all the necessary training. It sounded cool so I applied, but a bunch of other students had applied as well, so I didn’t really think much of it. When I got called in for an interview, I was shocked—and extremely nervous.

The interview was scheduled for after school, so the day I had to go for my meeting I went to school wearing one of my mom’s sweaters, a nice skirt, and heels, and I did my hair. I looked so professional. I felt like every head was turning and looking at me as I walked through the hallways, and I loved it. Everyone was just stunned.

When I arrived for the interview I had to wait in the children’s waiting room. I sat in a tiny chair, shaking, until the dentist was free to see me.

Just be yourself,
I kept repeating in my head.

Eventually I calmed myself down and when I was called in I
gave it my all. I went into the interview and wowed the dentist with my professionalism. He didn’t see some girl who screwed up all the time. He saw someone with potential who knew how to speak and sit properly (my mom taught me that just before the interview). He thanked me for coming in and told me that I would be hearing from him soon.

I left that office with my head held high, feeling like I’d kicked some serious ass in there. A couple of days later the phone rang, and I found out I’d gotten the job.
Shut the fuck up!

This was a real-ass job, and I was making nine dollars an hour. Suck on that, Papa John’s! I was so proud of myself. They had interviewed kids from four different schools and probably had so many smarty-pants people walk in there, but they chose me, and I wasn’t going to let them down.

I learned how to do everything at the dentist’s office: the fluoride, the cleaning, the X-rays—anything a dental assistant with a degree would do. I asked tons of questions about teeth and the dentist really trained me well. I’d go in there with my gloves, all ready to work, and when I was done I’d run home and tell my mom about what I’d done that day. It really motivated me.

One time the father of a girl I played softball with came in to the office and I was told to put a crown on him. I thought,
Hell no!
I couldn’t do that on a stranger, let alone someone I knew. Plus, he recognized me, so it was really awkward. But I’d been asked to do something, and it was my job, so I told him to open his mouth. My hands were shaking as I scraped along the inside of his gums to get all the shit off. I ended up putting the crown on, but I was way more comfortable teaching kids how to brush their teeth. That was my favorite part of the job—that and the paycheck, of course.

I was on top of the world. I had a boyfriend who loved me and a real job. I was doing well in school, and I was even in a television production class that I thought was fun and exciting. I did the morning announcements for the whole school and discovered I liked being in front of the camera.

When senior year came to a close I had to get up and give my senior project speech about being an RN. By that point I had been working at the dentist’s office for a little while and no longer thought nursing was in the cards for me. I got up in front of the panel and starting discussing my research on nursing, and then I just stopped in the middle of my presentation.

“Listen,” I said. “I starting doing this research on nursing, and then I got a job as an assistant at a dentist’s office. Nursing is great, but I don’t want to be a nurse. I go after school to this dental office where I . . .”

Then I just rambled on and on about all the great things I did at that job. I knew it was risky to ignore the rules and not read the paper I’d written on nursing, but I was getting real job experience.

“ . . .So, in conclusion, I think I’ve learned a lot from this experience and I hope to someday be a dental hygienist,” I finished.

After a brief awkward silence, the teachers clapped, and I passed. I was going to graduate. I had missed nearly a year and a half of school, but I made it. It was amazing.

My whole family came to my graduation ceremony. It was at Sea World, in the bird department, which was pretty cool. I wore a dress and little heels (which I still hated) and my hair was long and beautiful. It was a proud day, and my mom snapped a million photos. After all I had been through I had really beat the odds by graduating, and I felt like everyone there was happy for me. When they called my
name and I walked onstage in my cap and gown it was the proudest moment of my life. It felt like everyone knew what I had gone through to get that diploma and was standing and cheering for me.

It was a shining moment, but there was one small problem: Without school to go to every day, what the hell was I supposed to do with my life?

CHAPTER 9
 

Working Hard for the Money

I really started to come into my own as a woman during that last year of high school. I wore makeup to school and began ditching the tomboy look. Being on camera for the television production class made me feel sexy—and so did going to car shows with Zack.

Toward the end of senior year and during the summer after graduation, Zack and I would head to car shows in Southern California to check out new and tricked-out, souped-up cars. We’d go alone, or sometimes with a group of his friends.

Since I was always more comfortable around guys than girls, I never really knew if I was sexy or not—and Zack’s friends treated me like one of the boys. Being on TV at school had helped my self-image and allowed me to see that I was pretty, but I really didn’t know how others saw me—and to be honest, I didn’t really care all that much.

When we would go to car shows there would be girls modeling in front of cars and motorcycles, taking photos in company T-shirts and posing for different photographers. It seemed like a cool thing to do, but I never considered myself model material. Plus, I was there for the motorcycles, not the opportunity to be in pictures.

Then one day one of the motorcycle owners asked me to put on a T-shirt and pose for a few photos by his bike. I didn’t really want to do it, but Zack talked me into it. I think he wanted his girlfriend to be like the other girls there so he could brag to his friends that he was dating a model.

“You are so sexy, baby,” he said. “Just take a couple of photos.”

So I put on the shirt, hopped on the bike, arranged my hair (which was down to my butt), and smiled for the photos. It was invigorating. I felt like a superstar, special and sexy.

I was hooked and Zack had a “that’s my girl” look in his eyes, so I knew we would be going to car shows more often. Every time we returned I made sure I looked more and more sexy—I wore cutoff shorts, tight tops, and makeup—and the sexier I looked the more photographers wanted to shoot me. I even had people asking me for autographs. It was great.

It wasn’t a job, though. It was just a fun way to boost my self-esteem every once in a while. Working a real job was becoming a problem; the dentist’s office was starting to wear on me. I put in a good amount of time
there and I was at a point where I couldn’t really move up without more school, but the dentist was pushing me to fill crowns and use some of the sharp instruments that I wasn’t comfortable using. I just wanted to help out and collect my paycheck, and he wanted me to be a dentist. Plus, it was getting boring. I knew it wasn’t going to work out much longer. Adding to my reasons for wanting to quit was the fact that Zack and I wanted to move out
of his parents’ house and into an apartment together, and I needed a bigger income to cover my end of the bills.

So, I needed money. I was feeling sexy because of the attention I was getting at the car shows. I was eighteen. I thought,
I should be a stripper.

“Zack, I was thinking I could start to strip,” I said confidently.

“No way.”

“Look, it’s really just dancing,” I argued. “You know I can dance.”

When I was in high school I was always dancing on tables and grinding on guys at parties. I would go to this all-ages club called Ice House and dance all night on the stage, hogging the spotlight and winning all sorts of ass-shaking contests. I was one of the only white girls up there, and I got a lot of respect for my ass-shaker. Clearly, I wasn’t shy at all—I loved the attention, in fact.

“This is something I can do,” I told Zack. “And I’ve been asking around, and I know I can make a lot of money for us.”

“The money is good, but still—”

“Look, Zack, I love you,” I said, turning on the charm. “This is all about the money. It’ll be strictly business. I would never cheat on you.”

“There are a lot of bad people in strip clubs.”

“I’m tough,” I assured him. “I can handle it.”

I
was
tough. I wasn’t going to let a guy do something that I didn’t want him to do, and I was totally dedicated to Zack. There would be no sex in the Champagne room for me.

“What about drugs?” he asked.

“You know I’m smarter than that. I’m done with that shit. I don’t care what the other girls are doing; I’ll never be some trashy, coke-whore stripper.”

“I don’t know . . .”

“Did I mention how much money we can make?”

He reluctantly agreed. I think he knew I was going to do it no matter what he said so he had no choice but to go along with my new plan.

I don’t know where my new obsession with money came from, but as soon as I was out of school I developed the instinct to make as much as possible. If that meant stripping, then I could do that. I
would
do that. The next day I went down to Cheetah’s, the most popular strip club in San Diego.

“Excuse me, sir, I would like to strip,” I said to the owner. I was a nervous wreck, but I turned on the same professionalism that had landed me the job at the dentist’s office. Of course, this time, instead of my mom’s sweater I wore a tight little T-shirt and short cutoffs. I gave him my driver’s license, and then I had to go downtown and get a stripper’s license. (Yes, they have those. Who knew?) I filled out an application and took a picture for the license, and just like that I was a stripper.

Before my first night of work, I knew I had to go out and find something to make me look the part. All I really owned were cutoff shorts and a few old soccer uniforms. While some guys would probably find the uniform hot, I didn’t think that was going to cut it at this club, so I went out and bought some stupid lingerie and big stripper boots. (Okay, I actually liked the boots.)

The night before my debut, I tried on the new outfit and stripped at home for Zack. He was impressed. My ass-shaking was top notch. I could be sexy, and he knew it. He’d always known it. Now I knew it, too.

I was very nervous on my first night. I didn’t care so much about
getting naked—I was comfortable being naked—but I was nervous about how the other girls would treat me, how the customers would treat me, if I was going to be any good at stripping.

Zack dropped me off and kissed me good-bye, and I walked into Cheetah’s.

Walking into the club that first time was scary. It was dark and seemed overwhelmingly big. When my eyes adjusted, I saw a girl on the pole, naked and swinging around like a gymnast. I’m a pretty open person and I don’t judge, but I hadn’t seen the inside of a strip club at night before. I looked around and surveyed the scene. With the music blasting and the lights flashing, it was intense. I felt like a lost, shy little girl on the first day of school.
I’m going to do it,
I kept telling myself.
Don’t back down.
I had to just keep thinking about the money.