Down the Rabbit Hole (39 page)

“What do you know about this business?” the King said to Alice.

“Nothing,” said Alice.

“Nothing
whatever
?” persisted the King.

“Nothing whatever,” said Alice.

—Lewis Carroll,
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

I
t turned out that
Peepshow
wasn't just any small potatoes Vegas revue, this was serious business—and the creator and mastermind behind the production was none other than Tony-award-winning choreographer Jerry Mitchell. I knew that this could be just the opportunity I'd been hoping for. I officially threw my hat in the ring the next day. Auditions and interviews for the show were extensive and brought me back to Las Vegas regularly over the next few weeks.

“Do you guys mind waiting in the other room?” I asked my manager and my friends Angel and Alison. I was preparing for my final
Peepshow
audition in front of the show's director.

“Oh yeah, no problem,” Alison said, motioning everybody into the next room.

The role required me to wear the skimpiest of costumes, which I wore as part of the audition process, and I was still a little self-conscious (despite my new
DWTS
physique) and wanted some privacy. Contrary to popular belief, just because I had posed nude for a magazine doesn't mean I am the most confident, exhibitionistic person in the world. In fact, I was nervous that I wouldn't look good enough to be cast. What if I had cellulite? What if my body looked too “fake”? Seven years of being reminded that I never looked quite good enough was a hard burden to shake.

Plus, I felt sort of dumb performing the choreography while weaving around all the furniture in the cramped hotel suite. I know it seems counterintuitive that I was that nervous for the audition, since I was so eager to perform nightly for a large live audience, but there was something comforting about knowing that I'd be on a large stage, far removed from the crowd (with the appropriate distance between us . . . and, of course, flattering lighting!).

“What if I have tattoos?” I asked Jerry nervously. “And bruises? I bruise really easily—should I be wearing body makeup?”

“Not unless you want to.” He shrugged, with his signature warm smile. “Tattoos and things don't really matter to me. It's more important that everyone in the cast is different, unique, and comfortable in their own skin.”

While that should have sounded reassuring, I was far from comfortable in my own skin. I'd spent most of my adult life at the mansion, being required to clone the other women around me, so the idea of being “unique” was alien. I had a hard time believing that “unique” was really something anyone would want to see. I couldn't even wrap my head around what
was
unique about me. More and more I worried I wasn't right for the part.

After performing the choreography I had learned my audition was done. Though the producers would assure my manager that I had done great in the audition, I had no idea if they really thought that or if they were just giving him a polite answer. I wasn't particularly confident about my chances. As the month went by, more names were being floated into consideration and it was rumored that Lindsay Lohan was the front-runner.

I'm screwed,
I thought, my confidence quickly deflating.
They'll definitely pick her! Imagine the publicity they could get!

One of my
Peepshow
callbacks happened to land on Hef's birthday weekend, which he traditionally celebrated at the Palms in Las Vegas. Mary let me know that Bridget, Kendra, and I had been invited to attend. Naturally, part of me wanted to stay as far away from the man and his party as possible. But, at the same time, you have to understand that I'd been out of the mansion for only about six months at this point, and while I was increasingly coming to terms with the hell Hef had put me through, there was still a part of me that wanted to be able to walk away on “good terms,” with a clean slate, like all his other ex-girlfriends. I didn't want anything from Hef . . . except perhaps for him to stop bad-mouthing me. Plus, I wanted to see Bridget and Kendra. Bridget was planning on singing “Happy Birthday” at Moon Nightclub for the second half of the festivities that night and I wanted to support her. Be that as it may, I agreed to attend the soiree only if I could have my own booth. It was proposed that I join Hef in his booth, but I needed to stand my ground as an individual. I was sick of the attempts to recruit me back into the harem.

I had heard through the grapevine that Crystal Harris had become Hef's new main girlfriend. I was thrilled that he had “fallen in love” again. I hoped her presence on his arm (and the fact that they had just started filming
GND
season six) would take some of the pressure off me. The friends of Hef's that had previously been so supportive of me had recently become less kind, believing I had somehow left him in the lurch. Now maybe things would be different. For my part, I was only interested in moving forward with positivity, despite anything that had happened in the past.

The wind was whipping wildly across the Palms Place pool. Since it was considered a pool party, I chose to wear a black skull-print bikini and denim skirt, but I may have been better served with a windbreaker! It was awesome seeing the other girls again. Kendra complimented me on my new abs and it was great to meet Hank and to see Bridget's new beau, Nick Carpenter. When Hef finally arrived at the party, new girlfriends in tow, Bridget, Kendra, and I went to say hello and wish him a happy birthday. I greeted Karissa and Kristina, who were warm and friendly, and then said hello to Hef, who looked more pale than usual, but otherwise seemed to be in a relatively good mood. Next I introduced myself to his new “main girlfriend,” who was occupying the seat to his left.

“Hi, I'm Holly,” I said with a big smile, sticking out my hand. Remembering how people used to treat me, I made a conscious effort to go out of my way to be kind.

“Hiiiii,” she said in a forced singsong voice, offering me a limp, weak handshake.

Was that a sneer on her face or is the midday sun causing her to squint?
I wondered.

Immediately my gut told me that something was up with this girl, but I tried to give her the benefit of the doubt. She was young and new to all the commotion surrounding Hef. I chose to dismiss her shitty first impression as poor social skills and not the snobbishness that it felt like.

Hef's photographer, Elayne, lined us all up for a photo. As the former girlfriends, Bridget, Kendra, and I lined up next to the new girls, but were directed by Hef and the photographers to stand next to Hef instead. I felt bad that the new girlfriends were being shoved aside for the “famous” ex-girlfriends. I'd been shoved aside so many times myself in these situations and remembered how awful it felt. After the photos were snapped, Hef and the Shannon twins said good-bye as they were whisked away for press interviews. Crystal couldn't even be bothered to look in our direction.

“Y
OU GOT IT
!” my manager gleefully shouted.

“What?” I squealed into my cell phone, hardly able to believe what I was hearing.

Just a few days before my return for the
Dancing with the Stars
season finale, I received word that I had landed the part of Bo Peep for a three-month stint in Las Vegas. I was absolutely over the moon and determined to work hard, promote my butt off, and with luck find a way to become a more permanent part of the production.

The turnaround for production was quick and required me to get out to Las Vegas immediately following the
DWTS
finale. As I busied myself with packing the few things I had in my Santa Monica condo, I got a call from the Shannon twins. They wanted to see if I would meet them for lunch in Beverly Hills. Sure, the twins had a crazy reputation, but I liked them. They had always been nice to me and I assumed they wanted some advice on navigating the mansion—and Hef. Like I said earlier, you don't get a mansion operations manual when you move in, so I was happy to help them any way I could.

“We want you to come back,” Kristina blurted out, not five minutes after we sat down at Il Pastaio.

“Yeah, come back,” Karissa whined, their words almost overlapping. These two literally finished each other's sentences.

“I can't come back; I've already made a decision to move on,” I said sympathetically, picking up a piece of bread out of the basket. “Why, what's wrong?”

I knew something must be askew for the twins to be asking my help.

The girls went on to say that they thought Crystal was mean, scowls appearing on their faces. Apparently, Hef's newest girlfriend wasn't too good at making friends. They even went on to say she was mean to Hef, though they didn't give specific examples.

“Really?” I asked. In the past, I've witnessed some of Hef's more vocal girlfriends fight back or disobey, but never were they outwardly
mean
to him (not to his face, anyway). I wasn't sure what the twins meant when they said she was “mean”; it was just clear that they didn't like living with her.

One of the twins chimed in that Hef was really sick and not doing well before the other one took over, saying that he had fallen down in his bathroom the other day and wet himself.

Kristina reiterated that Crystal wasn't good for him, as if to imply his declining health was somehow Crystal's doing.

“Oh. That's awful,” I said solemnly, bouncing my head back and forth from Tweedledee to Tweedledum, trying to keep up with the story. Friends inside the mansion had confided to me that Hef had become extremely frail and downtrodden. When the economy had crashed and burned in late 2008, I knew that
Playboy
must have taken a pretty severe hit. Hef already had financial pressures gnawing at him prior to Wall Street crashing, so this couldn't have helped matters.

Kristina tried to explain things to me, saying that Crystal felt really threatened by me and that any time she heard I had spoken to Mary she “freaked out” because she thought I was going to come back. Karissa cut in and said that when Hef had heard I was going to be at his birthday party, he took extra time in front of the mirror getting ready and that this had made Crystal jealous.

“Well, she doesn't have to worry,” I said calmly and coolly. “I'm
definitely
not coming back. In fact, I'm really trying my best to give Hef space and—”

One of the blond beauties cut me off, telling me that Crystal took the panel off my old desk with the birds and the initials.

Well, that was fast,
I thought. Years ago, when I had convinced Hef to let me have a desk installed in the vanity, I had a professional woodworker from the mansion staff fashion a beautiful hand-carved panel for the desk drawer etched with the likenesses of my favorite mansion birds. In the center of the panel was a heart with my initials: HM. Considering Hef's monogram, HMH, littered everything at the mansion (notepads, matchbooks, you name it) I figured he could always add an H at the end to make it his own initials on the off chance I didn't last.

I have to admit, I felt a little slighted. Pictures of Tina, Brande, and Kimberley littered Hef's room for years after I had moved in and Crystal was already throwing fits about any sign of me just a few months into dating Hef.

“It's a little early in the relationship for her to be that picky,” I said with a small smile. I didn't want to give the twins any false hope that I was going to come back and I wasn't there to bad-mouth Crystal, so I stopped talking and wrapped up the conversation.

After lunch I hugged the twins good-bye, wished them luck, and let them know they could call me anytime. I didn't know what to make of what Karissa and Kristina had told me. I didn't feel like they were trying to sensationalize things; they just had their own way of communicating that didn't always make sense to me and no filter when it came to revealing others' personal details. (While living at the mansion, the girls even told the
Sun
that Hef was losing his hearing due to his use of Viagra.)

I have to say, I was a little curious about this Crystal character. Though I kept far away from Hef and Crystal (in part to avoid replicating how Tina had made me feel after her departure), it still seemed like Crystal had major jealousy issues. A few weeks earlier, I had run into a Los Angeles magazine editor I knew socially who told me a story about Hef begging him to retract a statement he had made about my being welcome back in his life anytime.

The editor threw up his hands and said he told Hef he couldn't recract it, that he had him on tape saying it and that he heard his new girlfriend threw a fit about it when it came out.

When it came to being dramatic, it appeared Hef had met his match.

A
S PART OF MY
contract with
Peepshow,
I was given a high-roller suite at Planet Hollywood. Not only did I have a steady job, I also had a reason to return to Las Vegas—a place that felt more like home in a few short months than L.A. had felt in almost 10 years. With my Prius brimming with most of my belongings, I said my tearful good-byes to Mary and Captain Bob and headed straight for the desert.

Not long after arriving in town, I was finally able to meet up with Criss's bodyguard at the Luxor in order to grab my valuables that had been sitting in his penthouse safe for the last two and a half months. Criss had told me that mailing them wasn't the best idea.

“I can't
wait
to finally get my stuff back,” I sighed to Angel, who had become my new best friend, as we drove down Las Vegas Boulevard. “It's like severing the last tie of that relationship. It feels good to finally move on.”

“Amen!” exclaimed Angel as we drove into the Luxor's North Valet.