Underneath It All (5 page)

My Walkman blared, pumping my brain full of Ozzy Osbourne. It was 7:25 in the morning and the city bus crawled along the ocean toward Redondo High, where I was just days into my freshman year of high school. The bus was packed with kids and grannies alike, but aside from my older sister, Lorraine, a sophomore, I didn't know anyone.
Stuck without a seat again, I hung on to a pole while we made our way across town. We'd worked out all the kinks in our class schedule. I now had two physical education classes and was able to pawn off the dreaded biology class on Lorraine, who had a much stronger stomach for frog dissection than I did, My sister and I had been swapping classes since the new school year had begun. We got the occasional odd look from our schoolmates, who were hip to our game, but the teachers didn't notice we weren't who we said we were, and I was spared the barbaric task of cutting up helpless creatures.
Imagining myself pole-vaulting in gym, I groaned. I was so tired that I was bound for disaster, but I laughed at the thought of it anyway. At least Maria would be there to identify the body. She was one of the two beach girls I hung with at the time — Maria Sanchez and Sherri Brady, my best friends. Like me, they both had major problems at home. Maria's parents had died a few years earlier in a car crash and her older sister, Anna, was raising her. Her family was Spanish and very religious, but she hated the Catholic Church and was thoroughly pissed at God for taking her parents away.
Sherri's mom was a drunk and never around. They lived in a trailer park a few blocks away from school and the rumor was her mom was a prostitute. Sherri was always getting into fights defending her mother's honor.
I really liked being on a campus so big anyone could get lost, and I blended in well after a few years in California. My hair was soft and sun-streaked. Our crowd's uniform was simple: jeans, OP sneakers, and concert T-shirts. The gang of us liked to smoke pot and to swim. Maria and I were on the swim team and the water was heaven to me. As my body cut through the water, my mind emptied itself of every thought. It was trancelike, taking me away from the chaotic and noisy apartment we now had.
I took the average required classes. My electives were interior design and advanced baking. Interior design was where I constructed my dreams, building my dream house with a magnificent open-space kitchen, a stacked double oven, and a refrigerator with an ice maker.
A few weeks after her split with Daniel, my mother forced us to move back in with her, threatening to call the cops if we didn't.
One minute she leaves us, the next she wants us back.
I was outraged at her selective parenting, and tired —tired of baby-sitting my younger sisters, tired of cooking tuna surprise for dinner, and sick to death of her promising that things would get better when they never did. How could she bring us all the way to California, only to live in poverty again? My little sisters were traumatized from living in the shelter while Mom hunted for an apartment. And Lorraine and I were fed up with the nonstop drama in our lives.
I started smoking Marlboro reds, ditching classes, and crashing out at Roger's when I was too wasted to go home. Lorraine had a new boyfriend and we were always going off somewhere with him. He had a car and we'd take long rides up the coast to check out bands. We'd bake in the sun and drink beers in the alleys of Hermosa Beach.
Music was my only salvation. It made me feel like I was part of something, since so many of the songs seemed to tell my story and reflect my pain. I loved it all, from Journey to the Thompson Twins, from Ozzy to Blondie. I didn't discriminate. I wasn't a rock chick or a pop chick. It was about whatever gave me release, and I'd dig into the words and pick them apart for hidden messages, filling page after page of my spiral notebooks with words of my own that the music inspired.
At school I joined band, but it only lasted a few weeks. The instructor was an impatient man who was always leering at the girls, and I had enough of that going on in my life. He cornered me one day after practice and got right in my face, telling me how he noticed that I was always checking myself out in the mirror while I played the keyboards. He said he too appreciated my beauty. He offered to buy me dinner. I told him I wasn't hungry, and dropped out of band the next day. Once again I was left wondering what I'd done to attract this attention. It seemed like everywhere I went there was some older man trying to feel me up. The most confusing part was that while I ran away from it, and secretly it made me feel wanted, I longed for that attention.
My first love was Dean Weatherly. He was a surfer boy from Hermosa Beach and a senior at Redondo High. I'd seen him around school and noticed him mainly because he always seemed to notice me. He made my skin feel hot and I always made a hasty exit whenever he showed up. Boys made me nervous and this one scared me to death.
I loved the ocean and I had my regular spot on the beach. Lorraine and I would set up camp right by the wall that separated the sand from the bike path, and Dean started showing up more and more, often chatting up my sister. He'd come by on his Strand cruiser holding a brown bag, and they'd go off and drink. I stayed behind in favor of basking in the sun and grabbing a ride on the waves with his Boogie board. My sister said he often asked about me, wanting to know if I was always so quiet or if I just didn't like him. I thought that was funny because secretly I had a crush on him. Beer gave me courage one afternoon, so when he came by while I was a little tipsy, we drove off to score another pint. I was on his handlebars, leaning back into him, my bikini making me feel kind of sexy.
We ended up sitting under the pier drinking Mickey's big mouths and talking about music all afternoon. He told me he loved playing the guitar and was excited about the Us Festival coming up —a three- to four-day band gathering over the summer. All my favorite groups were going to be there and I decided I had to attend.
I fell for him fast. He liked all the things I did and we spent that entire summer drifting in the ocean, lying on the beach, listening to our boom box, singing along to Led Zeppelin, and hitchhiking to the Us Festival. The festival crowd was huge, and it was scorching hot that day, but I had a great perch on top of Dean's shoulders. I fantasized about being on that stage too, and let the music take me away.
The summer sunsets were awesome, with orange, yellow, and blue swirls in the sky. We stayed in the parks until long after dark and kissed for hours. But the closer we got, the more difficult our relationship became. All our friends were having sex except Dean and me. He was losing patience with my excuses, and I was worried I'd lose him. It wasn't that I didn't want to be with him. I could lie there for hours kissing and holding him. It was the next step that scared me. I'd be assaulted with images of Ricky in the field and my father's endless warnings. Memories of that pain and the guilt of letting someone touch me like that would tear through me, and I'd stop Dean from going further.
I just couldn't go there.
My sexuality confused me. The only way to stop the constant pounding in my head was to write, so I did, spending hours with my diary. I suspected my mom might be reading it because every once in a while she'd try to parent me, telling me that I needed to come home after school, that we should talk. But I ignored her.
She must be crazy trying to get to know me now!
I hardly ever went home at this point and I wasn't the only uric. Our little apartment on Vanderbilt Lane seemed like nothing but a pullout couch, all five of us females coming and going as we pleased. Mom had gone back to school again, and had a part-time job at the mall, so I'd literally go weeks without seeing her.
Dean and I dated throughout freshman year, over the summer, and on into the new school term. He was a seventeen-year-old senior and I was a fourteen-year-old sophomore when we started going all the way. The first time was on our one-year anniversary. After school he sat me down in his living room and presented me with a pretty package containing a white bikini I'd been eyeballing in a surf shop for a while. I squealed with delight, wrapping my arms around him. He kissed me sweetly and said it wasn't the only surprise he had for me. There was a treat waiting in his bedroom. I'd been in his room plenty of times, but we weren't allowed to close the door or his parents would come pounding. So when he asked me to wait in the bathroom I thought nothing of it. Then he came in with a bottle of champagne and turned on the shower to mask our conversation, even though no one knew I was there. I'd never had champagne before, and he said it was the good stuff. Tott's, it was called. The bubbles went right to my head and after a while I felt as light as a feather.
We had sex that afternoon and it wasn't nearly as awful as the first time. I was drunk enough to feel brave. He was gentle and it didn't go on for very long. Afterward, I wondered why I had made such a big deal out of it. It only hurt the first few times, and I wasn't worried about birth control because we had made a deal that he'd always pull out.
I found out I was pregnant just after my fifteenth birthday. Completely freaked out, I waited for Dean outside his shop class and broke the news to him there. Without saying one word to me, he turned around and walked away.
My heart sank. I played and now I was going to pay . . . just like my father always said.
Ditching class for the rest of the day to try to figure out what I was going to do, I ended up walking all the way across town to Roger's. He was the only adult I knew besides my mother, and I wasn't talking to her.

When I arrived on Dow Avenue I found Roger in the garage. He had converted it into a mini apartment. The entrance was through the backyard, and as I fought my way through the rosebushes, I bit my lip to hold back the tears I'd been swallowing all afternoon. I didn't know what I was going to say, but I knew whatever it was, Roger would understand.
Smiling with relief when he answered the door, I got a queen's welcome from a gang of attractive guys who were hanging out in his house. The mood was light and the pot smoke was thick as I made my way inside. The place had been transformed: the front had been partitioned off into a living room, where there was a big pullout couch, a mini fridge, a makeshift bar, and brightly colored Egyptian carpets depicting women in various stages of undress on the walls. I blushed at their naked breasts.
A few hours and several beers later, the party cleared out and I was left with Roger and a full-blown buzz that rendered me even more depressed than when I arrived. My story poured out. He listened and fixed me a cocktail. I told him what had happened with Dean, how he just blew me off, that I didn't want to have a baby, and how scared I was of becoming just like my mother —dead broke with kids to feed.
Roger helped me find a clinic where I could get an abortion without my mother's permission. It was set to take place two weeks later, and all I needed was a ride. I returned to school the next day. Racked with guilt, I sought out Dean at school, feeling that maybe I was making a mistake, and hoping he would say something to make it all better, but he avoided me completely. I was damaged goods—used and discarded by age fifteen. He stopped answering the phone at home. He'd see me coming and cross the street. He made me feel like I was a stalker.
I was overwhelmed with rage at my own stupidity. I had been tricked! How could I have ever been so stupid? After what had happened with Ricky, I knew better! I'd learned this fucking lesson already. Why had I allowed myself to believe in love again? I am such a fuck-up! I wanted to punch Dean's face in, make him pay for not loving me. Once again my father's words assaulted me. I could hear his voice saying, "If you play you're gonna pay." FUCK YOU! I thought, hating that he was right. "Fucking hypocrite," I said out loud to the trees, thinking of the magazines under his bed with naked spread-eagled girls. Is that all men ever wanted? Tuckers ... Shit . . . What was I going to do? My rage turned to whimpers as I left the school campus, heading for the beach. Calm down, I told myself. There must be a way out of this.
I blew off school the following day and spent my time circling want ads in the local newspaper. I wasn't sure what I was going to do about the pregnancy. I was scared to death at the thought of being someone's mother at fifteen. I couldn't take care of a helpless baby. What if I did a bad job and it got hurt? How could I bring a child into my cruel world? It was a mind-fuck. I really needed to talk to someone anyone. I had hoped to find the courage to tell my mother, but her absence and my shame guarded my secret. I couldn't find the courage to tell Lorraine either, but whatever I decided, I knew I was going to need money. And money meant I needed a job. Fast.
I did my best to ignore my predicament, but it was hard. I was already two-and-a-half months pregnant when I found out. Having always been blessed with light menstrual cycles, I'd thought nothing of it until my period stopped altogether and the home pregnancy test I took explained why.
Over the next few days, I concentrated on landing a job. I answered ad after ad, but nothing ever came of it. Apparently my age was a factor. I applied at Bob's Big Boy for a waitressing job but couldn't pull off the interview.
I was smart but shy and completely unsure of myself. The manager nicely suggested I come back in a few years.
Roger then introduced me to his friend Lynn. She was a single mother in her late twenties who worked at night and needed someone to take care of her two little girls. I started baby-sitting. My mom seemed pleased I had a job, and said she looked forward to me contributing to the house. But it was hard for me to speak to her, and I could barely look her in the eye.
I had scheduled the procedure for the following week, feeling that I could always change my mind and wanting to find a way to keep the baby but scared to death of what would become of us. As the day crept closer
I had serious doubts about what I was going to do. Was it wrong? Could this fetus feel pain? Thoughts like these tested my sanity: I had never hurt a fly—what was I doing? I had to find another way. I called a hotline for unwed mothers, but after an hour of religious mumbo jumbo, I hung up. They were selling guilt and I'd had enough of that.
It's hard to put into words the conflict I felt on the day of the procedure. I met Roger in the morning and as he drove me to the clinic I felt my stomach turn inside out. I was beside myself and asked him several times if he thought I was doing the right thing. His words were soft and reassuring as he reminded me that if I didn't have the abortion I would end up a penniless fifteen-year-old single mother, a thought that horrified me.
As I was prepped for the procedure, I was quiet and sweating profusely. I felt the needle enter my arm and watched the faces of masked strangers around me as the fire from the syringe ran down my arm. I started to protest, a million thoughts racing through my head, until everything went dark.
I woke up feeling dead, sobbing on a single bed in the recovery room. I wondered if Dean could feel my pain, wherever he was. Did he know how much I hurt? I thought of Ricky and how he made me lie there while he took what was only mine to give. I thought of my father who wanted so badly to punish my mother that he hadn't sent us a dime in support since we left. I thought of Hollywood Boulevard with all those stars on the sidewalk, those people so admired and loved. Why couldn't I be one of them?
I had promised to baby-sit for Lynn that evening. She'd said it was important and too late to cancel. But watching her children sleep peacefully in their beds, I lost what little composure I had left. Lynn came home and found me crying uncontrollably in her bathroom. I told her my whole story, how trapped I felt, and that I was convinced all this was happening because I was a weak kid and I didn't want to be me anymore.
She held me while I lost my mind and calmed me with reason, saying it would all pass. She offered to help solve my job problems by getting me a fake ID and giving me a reference. I just had to promise to say I'd stolen the birth certificate if I was ever caught. I remember thinking that was silly. I mean, who would care if a fifteen-year-old tended bar or waited tables or something?
I ditched classes the next day and walked into the Department of Motor Vehicles in Torrance with the borrowed birth certificate, had my photo and prints taken, and walked out a different person. I was now twenty-two-year-old Kristie Elizabeth Nussman. It was no different to me than when my sister and I switched identities in school, except this time I was leaving Nora Kuzma behind for good. She was the one who had been
raped, used, and abused--and I didn't want to be her anymore. And as for the consequences of my actions, why would I ever even think of them? I was an angry fifteen-year-old acting blindly from a place of rage and desperation, so I never once contemplated the price I would ultimately pay for giving false information to the DMV.
It was payback time now and as I strode across the street from history class toward the Varsity deli I spied my target: Dean. He was laughing with a group of guys from the football team the very same ones who'd recently started calling me "Nora Whora." I was further insulted to hear from friends that my boyfriend had been openly bragging about what a sweet piece of ass I was. I walked full speed ahead looking to blow that mother outta the water. I'd put on the shortest skirt I owned and a borrowed pair of heels from Lynn. As I clicked my way across the street, I felt the power of those shoes.
Smiling, I made a point of looking those boys right in the eye as I walked toward Dean. They all smiled back. Saying I had really good news for him, I flirtatiously asked if he had a minute. We walked down the street, and when we were out of listening distance, I turned on him. I told him that if he didn't give me money for an abortion, I was going to tell his parents about how we had sex in the bathroom and that I got pregnant.
He turned white and agreed to everything. I told him he had twenty-four hours, turned my back on him, just as he'd done to me, and walked away. It was his turn to pay up. The next day I coldly accepted his two hundred dollars. It didn't satisfy my anger toward him, but at least I knew he'd suffered in some small way.
When my ID arrived several weeks later, I lined up a few interviews. One was for a hostess job at the Red Onion and the other had something to do with modeling. I'd been told on the phone that I only needed to be eighteen and it didn't matter if I had a portfolio or not. They were in the business of breaking new talent.
Roger was my chauffeur for the day and I excitedly showed him all the ads I'd answered. He seemed impressed with my plans, so I continued to rattle on about my conversation with Mr. North, the modeling agent. Roger wanted to know what kind of modeling it was. I told him it was called "figure modeling," and that I'd have to model bathing suits and stuff like that. He looked at me strangely, then just smiled, never informing me that I had naively answered an ad for nude models. Looking back on that day, I realize he knew exactly what was going on.
We pulled into the parking lot of the restaurant where my first interview was scheduled. I checked my hair and hopped out of the car, excited by the prospect of employment. The interviewer at the Red Onion was a really young guy and I saw him checking out my cleavage. I was sure I'd get the job.
Instead, I got asked out.
That afternoon we headed to Hollywood for the modeling interview and my spirits were down. I was scared no one was going to like me. What if I wasn't pretty enough? Roger had taken me shopping for a new outfit and made a big deal of telling me how beautiful I looked. But I wasn't convinced. I was really nervous so we stopped for a cocktail. He held my hand, made me laugh, told me how special I was, that I just needed to believe in myself, and that he'd be there every step of the way. He told me it didn't matter that he and my mom had split, he was still my step dad and he loved me.
And in that moment I loved him too.
As we walked down the corridor, a girl with the biggest hair I'd ever seen walked by, making me feel even more self-conscious about my flat, flipped Farrah Fawcett hairdo. Roger seemed to sense my insecurity and squeezed my shoulder in support as he led me toward the office. I could hear a man with a Southern accent talking on a phone. "She gets paid double for a DP and she chooses the guys." A DP? I'd learned in film study that meant a director of photography, but I wondered why she needed more guys.
Nearly a year later, on the set of a porn movie, I was horrified to find out a DP was not a director of photography in the porn world. It was slang for a double penetration scene. This particular sex act involved one woman and two men. Both men entered her at the same time, one vaginally and the other anally. Did people really do that?! Didn't it hurt? I'd never do that, I vowed.
High school girls just didn't have anal sex.
We stood in the doorway waiting for the man to finish his phone call. I was transfixed by the row of eleven-by-fourteen-inch glossy photographs lining the walls on both sides of his desk. He was small, thin, and weaselly, with a skinny mustache. His hair looked greasy and was slicked straight back. Standing up, he flashed a big smile for me, and I couldn't help but stare at the silver tooth peeking out of the corner of his mouth. I looked at his feet to find a gleaming pair of cowboy boots staring back at me. He caught me checking him out and laughed, offering us a seat. He commented on how hot it was in the Valley and how much he looked forward to moving into his new office in Beverly Hills. Excusing himself briefly, he came back with a bottle of champagne. He poured us a glass, raised his, looked right at me, and said, "Forgive my manners, miss. My name is Tim North and I'm gonna make you a star. Sir, your daughter is a looker."
I was flushed with excitement. He was going to make a call right then and there and get some pictures of me taken. He pointed to a sign on the wall that explained the fees, saying he'd always try to get me as much money as possible but all he'd ever take was a flat fee of forty dollars—period.
I went to the bathroom to catch my breath. I felt drunk and high on life. On my way back, I heard them talking about taking Polaroids and saw Mr. North hand Roger what looked like a lot of money. Roger saw me watching and said we were all set. He had the address of the photo shoot and Jim advanced us some cash for expenses. All we had to do now was take some topless photos of me in the back room.
What!!! You mean now? Right now?
I lost my breath, panicking at the thought of being photographed nude.
Roger laughed and handed me a fashion magazine with beautiful black-and-white nude photographs in it. I felt my cheeks go hot, blushing a deep red at the sight of nudes. "It's fashion, Kristie," Tim North said. "If you're really serious about modeling you're going to have to get used to doing nudity." I looked at Roger skeptically, but he just smiled back and nodded in agreement with North.
Was I being immature about this? Is this the way the modeling world worked? Was I blowing my chance to be one of those high-society ladies I used to see lunching on the university lawn near Granny's hill? I thought of the days as a seven-year-old when I had jealously hurled crab apples toward the people laughing on the grass. How much I wanted to be one of them. I could still hear my mother whispering about "social class." I was tired of not belonging anywhere, of being a social outcast.
Maybe this could be the beginning of something new .. .
Mr. North interrupted my childhood memories, snapping at me impatiently, "Now, I'm a very busy man so if you could please go change I'd appreciate it. Oh, and leave your heels on honey, okay? How about another glass of champagne? Want a line?"

Roger and I disappeared into the back room and I started sweating. I wasn't sure about this, but Roger calmed me down. He said he understood that it was scary, that it was natural for Inc to feel nervous and not to worry—he was there and nothing had was going to happen.
North showed up in the hallway with the Polaroid camera. I was still dressed. He looked frustrated. He said he understood it was my first time, but I needed to relax. He told me Marilyn Monroe had started out as a nude model for
Playboy
and then went on to become a huge star.
I said I needed a minute.
When they left, I snorted a line of white powder North called "coke" from a mirror he'd left in the little dressing area. I'd never snorted coke before and it gave me a weird, jittery burst of energy. Suddenly I felt charged, brave from the drug and champagne.
Shyly, I stepped out of my pale pink dress.
I was naked in white panties and high heels when Roger and North walked back in. They both looked approvingly at my breasts.
Roger stood in a corner as Tim positioned me against a wall. "Arch your back and place your hand on your rear end," he said. "Close your eyes halfway and make a kiss with your mouth." He took half a dozen photos and then I got dressed. On our way out he asked for my ID, saying he needed a copy for his records.
Roger was in high spirits afterward. He was proud at how grown-up I was becoming and wanted to drive me to my first photo shoot—at some magazine called
Velvet
.
I asked if it was for a clothing store.
He said, "Sort of."
The jittery coke feeling was wearing off and I wiggled uncomfortably in my seat, replaying the afternoon's strange events. My memory felt fuzzy, though —maybe from the champagne. I remembered getting the Polaroids taken and watching North's beady eyes peering at me. All of it felt strangely ... exciting. Maybe that's because I was being photographed topless? Or was it the way North—and especially Roger—had stared at my breasts? Was it sexual?
I flashed on my father's face again. It had been so long since I'd seen or heard from him. Did he even love me anymore? I pictured myself naked and spread-eagled in one of his girlie magazines. Would he love me then? Would everyone love me? My body seemed to be the only thing men wanted from me anyway. I fell asleep on the way home.