Bad Habits Read online

  20

  PRIEST: You Sold Your Soul to the Devil!

  JENNY: And I Gave It to Him Half Price!

  Do you want your milk in a bag?”

  The Polish woman wearing a babushka just smiled at me and didn’t answer.

  That was my signal.

  I knew I had to pull out the single Polish sentence that I mastered while working at this mom-and-pop Polish grocery store. It was my one “ta-da!” that really added flair to my job description … or so I thought.

  “Chcesz mleka w torebce?”

  “Tak!”

  I double-bagged the milk because I’m that kind of a person. “Dziekuja,” I said, which means “thank you” in Polish.

  The woman hobbled out of the store and I was sad to see her go. That was the most excitement I had experienced in four hours. The workday was a slow one.

  I plopped on my little stool by the register. I was so bored that I even ran out of daydreams. I would spend hours organizing all the inventory and lining up all the labels. I was like that crazy husband that Julia Roberts tried to escape from in Sleeping with the Enemy. Everything was pristine when I was there.

  At the grocery, sometimes hours went by with no customers. My eyes would begin to drift down and look at the rack of dirty magazines that we sold. It always grossed me out when someone would buy one. I was such a bitch about it that I would throw the magazine at them instead of putting it in a bag.

  But on this excruciatingly slow day, I thought I would take my usual casual peek inside one of the Playboy magazines. It was the classiest nudie we sold and didn’t show women spreading their legs enough to see their next egg. I looked inside it and thought, Why couldn’t I do this? The woman I saw in there looked happy as a Playmate and she didn’t have that slutty scowl like some other women in other magazines.

  I imagined posing for the magazine, accepting my money, and then handing over the naughty little keepsake to my boyfriend, as if it were a personal gift made just for him. Then I envisioned his mother finding it in his bedroom, telling my mother, and then being disowned so quickly I snapped out of my little fantasy and put the magazine away.

  I was making $3.75 an hour at the grocery. Paying my college debt off at this rate would take a lifetime. Figuring out a quick way to make cash was in the forefront of my mind daily.

  I jumped off my stool, remembering that I hadn’t checked my lotto numbers for that week. I pulled out my quick pick and checked the numbers. I sat down to compare them and as I approached the last number, I started to scream. I won one hundred bucks.

  Maybe this was a sign. Or a new career path: gambling. I put my ticket in the machine and collected $100.47.

  I was alone in the store, so I did a happy dance behind the cash register. I was lost in the moment as I watched myself in the mirror trying to do my best moonwalk.

  Then two scary-looking dudes walked in the store. I watched them go in the back and grab some liquor.

  I had hoped that was all they wanted, but I had a feeling that something bad was about to happen.

  Then the two men walked to the cash register and slammed down the case of beer. My hands started shaking as I fumbled to press the right buttons on the register.

  Then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw one of them pull out a gun.

  “We’ll take everything you got in the register.”

  My heart started beating out of my chest. I heard a voice in my head that said, “Just stay cool.”

  I opened the cash register, emptied out everything, and handed it to them.

  “You guys got a safe?” they asked.

  “I don’t know. I’m just the cashier. We get only two customers a day, so I don’t think we would have one.”

  Staring down the barrel of a gun forces your brain to quickly review everything you have and haven’t done in your life. Besides not wanting to die because I hadn’t accomplished anything yet, I knew that being Catholic and not confessing my sins, especially the big ones in college, meant that I was going to join Satan in Hell. I wasn’t about to let that happen.

  Then one of the bad guys began to walk around the counter to where I was standing.

  I began to shake. He walked in front of me to lift the cash drawer to see if there was any more money hiding there but there wasn’t.

  The other bad guy started getting agitated. “Come on, man, let’s go.”

  “All right, all right.”

  The bad guy started walking away from me when he noticed my purse sitting behind the counter. He bent over and picked it up, and the men bolted out of the store.

  I stood there in shock.

  A customer walked in about a minute later, and all I could do was stand there frozen.

  “What aisle are the canned tomatoes in?” she asked.

  A tear ran down my cheek.

  Words wouldn’t come out.

  Now that the bad guys were gone, my thoughts didn’t consist of “I almost died.” They were more along the lines of “Those motherfuckers stole my winning lotto money!”

  Once again, I scream-cried into my pillow at home. Nothing seemed to be going right. And to make matters worse, I smelled like Polish sausage.

  I fell asleep that night with hopes of finding a way to get to Hollywood and make my parents proud.

  Click! Click! Click!

  The next morning, I had JoJo take Polaroid pictures of me next to the garage. We took almost fifty of them.

  JoJo was really supportive of my determination to get into show business.

  “You look really dumb standing next to the garage door. This is never going to work.”

  “Well, I don’t know what else to do.”

  “Who are you sending these to anyway?”

  “I called the Better Business Bureau to get a list of legitimate agencies and I’m going to mail them out. I’m not getting scammed this time.”

  “This is really bad. There’s chipped paint on the garage door right behind your head, and when you turn around, I can see your bathing suit is going right up your butt.”

  “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 wh
o 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.”