Bad Habits (15 page)

“Just shut up and do it,” I said to her as I self-consciously adjusted my hungry bum.

I mailed Polaroids to about fifty agencies.

A month went by and I heard nothing. I came home day after day still smelling like Polish sausage with absolutely no concept of what my future would look like.

Then one day I heard my mom shout, “Jenny, something came in the mail for you from the Williams Agency.”

Again, I bolted down the stairs, skipping every other step, praying that this time it would pay off. I grabbed the letter and secluded myself in the bathroom. Out of fifty pics I sent out, I got one response.
Okay,
I thought.
That’s all I needed.
I closed my eyes and prayed, “Please, God, I don’t care if this is a small window. I just need You to open it a little. I can squeeze through.”

With that I opened the envelope and read the letter.

“Dear Ms. McCarthy, we received your photo and would love to meet you to see if there is a partnership with our agency.”

“Oh my God!!!”

I ran out of the bathroom screaming and jumped up and down on every piece of furniture. I forgot to mention that my mom had started nannying babies to bring in extra money for the family, so with every bounce I had to cautiously jump over a sleeping infant. It was like baby hopscotch.

I hugged my mom, kissed her face, and told her that this was all I needed. One chance.

I was going to make it happen.

The morning of the meeting, I decided to borrow something to wear from my friend JCPenney. “Borrowing” is a term we poor but fashionable people use when we buy an outfit, wear it with the tags still on, and then return it the next day. I looked really classy as I rode the hot city bus to downtown Chicago.

(For those of you who read this story in a previous book, I apologize, but it’s important and in context to include it in this book too.)

While I rode the bus, I was trying to keep my cool, literally. It was hot and stuffy. I knew ass sweat was building up quickly. As people started getting off at their stops, I became less distracted with my surroundings and more aware of my destination. I started to become self-conscious and imagined myself having to pose in the office for them in my sweaty underwear, so I started to freak out, which made me sweat even more profusely. Thankfully, I always have a spare of clean underwear in my purse in case of emergency, so I figured I could discreetly make a switch. It was now or never. I was a pro at quick wardrobe changes in the back of cars, so I walked to the back row of the bus where it was empty. I could pull this off no problem. Easy and in perfect timing. As I walked up the aisle to get off at my stop, I saw my neighbor Mr. Connors sitting behind the bus driver. He asked me if I was done with the paper. Sure, here you go. I pulled it out and my panties flung with it, straight at him. I was horrified, so I impulsively lied and said, “Those aren’t mine!” and ran off the bus.

Hopefully, if he tells his deaf wife, she won’t hear him.

I walked into the waiting room of the Williams Agency with my fresh Hanes Her Ways feeling like one hot bitch.

I told them I was there to see Catherine Verrill, and they brought me back to her office. I shook her hand and she asked me what my goals were.

“I would love to do commercial work, act, and host. Not necessarily in that order.” I giggled nervously.

“Do you have any more photos of yourself?” she asked.

“I brought some from a photo shoot a couple of months ago.” I pulled out my Faces International photos, but I was too scared to tell her where they came from.

“What was this shoot for?” she asked.

“Um … for a
Star Search
audition.”

Her face started to look perplexed as she scanned my photos and then held one up. “They had you eat an apple while wearing a bikini?”

“I was hungry, and when the photographer caught me eating it, everyone thought it was great.”

“Listen, I brought you in here today because I wanted to save you from attempting to get into this business. You don’t have a commercial look, and based on that accent, no one will ever let you speak. My advice to you is to get a job bartending downtown. You will have a longer career doing that.”

The catatonic look returned. At this point in my life, I had it mastered.

I couldn’t believe this woman was shamelessly destroying my attempt to get into the business.

My eyes filled with tears as I leaned into her desk. “That’s not a very nice thing to say,” I told her. “Shitting on people’s dreams is like telling a child that Santa isn’t real and then laughing at them. I’ll be sure to send you an autographed copy of my major magazine cover.”

I grabbed my photos and stormed out of her office. When I made it to the curb, my body collapsed and I broke into tears.

I didn’t know what the hell I was going to do. And to make matters worse, the price tag had fallen off my outfit.

While wiping the tears off my face, I noticed the building across the street. It had the Playboy icon on it. My thoughts flashed to the
Playboy
magazines in the Polish grocery store and I wondered why I couldn’t do it.

Then my thoughts flashed on my mom shaking her head and sobbing hysterically as she began to drown in her tears of shame.

But I guess my body didn’t care because I found myself walking across the street to enter the Playboy Building.

Once inside, I inquired at the desk about how girls become Playmates. The receptionist dismissed me and told me that no one ever just walks in. You have to submit photos. As I walked back toward the elevator, I decided to surrender my dream and not try anymore.

I was done.

I was going to look for a husband, have babies, and hope I could help my parents out financially in other ways.

“Excuse me. Are you here to inquire about being a Playmate?”

I turned around and saw a man in a suit who obviously worked there.

“Yes,” my mouth said.

“My photographer is doing a shoot back there. Why don’t you come back and slip into a bikini and we’ll submit you?”

My heart was racing.

This was it.

Do I sell my soul to the devil or let go of my dream?

There must have been two devils on my shoulder that stabbed their little pitchforks into the angel and swung him off my body, because I started to follow the photographer as he led me to a dressing room. I looked down at myself as I took off my clothes and put on a skimpy bikini.

When I turned to look in the mirror, I was horrified to see my incredibly hairy bush sticking out of the bikini from every angle. I had never shaved or trimmed down there before. I blamed it on the two-sizes-too-small bikini bottom. I then politely asked for a medium size and successfully covered my roadkill crotch.

Pose.
Click!
Pose.
Click!

On the city bus headed back home, I was so depressed that I was hoping the bus would get into an accident, and I would fly through the window.

By the time I got home, I had received a call on my answering machine.

“Hi, Jenny. We want you to officially test to be Miss October. Please call us back to set up a shoot. You will be offered twenty thousand dollars if you accept.”

I had never been so excited and horrified all at the same time. It was like getting news that your grandpa died but he left you $20 million. My sister Lynette came into my room and I shared the news with her.

“Can you keep a secret?”

“Yeah, okay.”

“I just got called by
Playboy
to be Miss October.”

“What?! You can’t do that. Mom and Dad will kill you. I mean kill you kill you.”

“I don’t have any other choice, Lynette. They are paying twenty thousand dollars! That will pay off my school loan and get me to Hollywood.”

“Oh, God. I’m scared for you.”

I was scared for me too. I came up with a plan to take $2,000 out of my paycheck and send my parents on a cruise the week the issue came out to avoid any backlash. That by far was the smartest thing I had ever done in my life.

The October issue came out. My parents were in the Caribbean when I answered our kitchen phone.

“Hello.”

“Who is this?”

“It’s Jenny.”

“
What in God’s name is wrong with you?
You have completely disgraced the family. This is your uncle Ken.”

My heart sank and my legs collapsed and turned into jelly. This had been one of my favorite uncles.

“Why would you sell your soul to the devil?”

“I want to get to Hollywood. I want to make a career for myself and take care of my parents someday.”

“You will never get a career from this. I’m ashamed. And your parents will never accept your evil money.” He slammed the phone down.

Once again, I sat in my kitchen in a catatonic state. Just when I started to feel like my plan was going to work, I became frozen with fear.

When my parents returned from their vacation, I wasn’t there to absorb the volcano. Playboy had me in San Diego doing an appearance.

Lynette had my back and handed Mom and Dad the letters I wrote to each of them.

My mom did exactly what I expected.

She had a nervous breakdown.

I felt horrible.

She refused to speak to me for three days.

When I finally got her on the phone, she was crying. “What are people going to think? I didn’t raise you to do something like this!”

“Mom, I’m sorry, but I know deep down inside I’m going to make it in Hollywood. I’m going to do something good. I just needed a way in.”

We cried on the phone together for hours.

Eventually, my mom said, “Well, you’re my daughter and I love you. I’m going to stick by you and trust you.”

That’s all I needed to hear.

I was going to make my mom proud.

A few months later, my parents and I received a letter from a cousin who was a priest.

He said that my soul was damned to Hell.

He also said that if I didn’t go to the media and beg for God’s forgiveness, my family would be excommunicated.

I was so angry. I couldn’t understand how judgmental and evil someone from my family—a priest—could be.

This was the fuel I needed to prove everyone wrong. But first I needed to figure out a way to help my family move out of our shitty neighborhood and pay off the debts they had accumulated over the years. And there was one way to make that happen: Playmate of the Year. I was already convinced at this point I was going to Hell, so I figured why not make the best of it and walk all the way into the fire?

Six months later, I came back to Chicago to visit my mom and dad.

I had been living in Los Angeles all these months and wanted to take them out to dinner. I chose a restaurant in our neighborhood that we always drove past but never went into because we couldn’t afford it. While we enjoyed our filet mignon, my mom reminisced about all the people in the neighborhood who were still very upset about my being in
Playboy
. She ended it with, “I’m just so glad this is behind us and you didn’t win that Playmate of the Year thing.”

I chugged my wine and responded, “That’s why we’re eating filet mignon.”

My mom slowly lowered her fork. “What do you mean?” she said.

My dad followed with “You won?”

Again, I had never been so excited and horrified at the same time. “Yes, I won one hundred thousand dollars, and I just paid off every one of your credit cards and loans, and I want you to move out of the house.”

My mom and dad exhaled deeply. I could tell they were experiencing the same emotions I had felt: happiness and terror.

“I remember when we thought we won the McDonald’s Monopoly game,” I said. “It killed me to see you both so excited and then so disappointed. I’ve waited for this day to happen since then. I promise you both that I plan on doing good with this opportunity. I’m going to make you both so proud.”

I flew back to California with an amazing feeling of accomplishment. I took care of my parents just like I had always wanted to, and now it was time to take care of myself.

The only problem was that after paying my parents’ bills, I was back to zero. I was completely broke. But I had faith that I would come back strong.

After all, my hero was Wonder Woman, and that bitch always made shit happen.