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Chapters (55)
  1. Cover
  2. Title Page
  3. Copyright
  4. Dedication
  5. Acknowledgments
  6. Cast of Characters
  7. Part One
  8. One
  9. Two
  10. Three
  11. Four
  12. Five
  13. Six
  14. Seven
  15. Eight
  16. Nine
  17. Ten
  18. Eleven
  19. Twelve
  20. Thirteen
  21. Fourteen
  22. Fifteen
  23. Sixteen
  24. Seventeen
  25. Eighteen
  26. Nineteen
  27. Part Two
  28. Twenty
  29. Twenty-one
  30. Twenty-two
  31. Twenty-three
  32. Twenty-four
  33. Twenty-five
  34. Twenty-six
  35. Twenty-seven
  36. Twenty-eight
  37. Twenty-nine
  38. Thirty
  39. Thirty-one
  40. Thirty-two
  41. Thirty-three
  42. Thirty-four
  43. Thirty-five
  44. Thirty-six
  45. Thirty-seven
  46. Thirty-eight
  47. Thirty-nine
  48. Forty
  49. Forty-one
  50. Forty-two
  51. Forty-three
  52. Forty-four
  53. Forty-five
  54. Forty-six
  55. A note on the Author

What’s a Hollywood star to do when she sleeps too much during the day, when she can’t listen to her favorite soundtrack all the way to the end because she doesn’t have the concentration? I had emancipated myself from my dad when I was fifteen because I wanted to be able to work the long hours on the film that would surely be my breakthrough. As it turned out, it ended up going straight to video. I kept my clothes on all the way through and it was still pornographic. Everyone else in that film got their tops off, and I was the one who came out looking bad. The emancipation was set, though. I left my dad. I left Brooklyn. I left myself.

I told myself I was leaving home to advance my career, but that wasn’t really true. Although I got an agent relatively easily, I would do just enough work, and no more, to pay for hotel rooms. Then I would check in and watch television all day. There’s nothing like watching TV in a hotel. It’s better, the way that food off someone else’s plate tastes better than your own. In L.A., if I wanted to watch TV, I’d go to the Chateau Marmont. One time it was full, so I drove around downtown Hollywood and went into the first place I saw. The Magic Hotel. Down the road from the Magic Castle. It has posters of turn-of-the-century magicians on the walls. But I never got around to switching the damn TV on. I lay on the ancient mattress and stared into space. I saw myself disappearing into the posters. In the posters I could wear spangled leotards that I could never get away with in 3D. In the posters I didn’t have to impress anyone, I just had to help. I was the distraction from the trick. I wasn’t the faker, just the accomplice, and even then it wasn’t my fault everyone was transfixed by my breasts, my smile, my feathers, and that, as they stared at me, the magician fucked them over. It made me feel better.

There was a time I enjoyed spending days by myself, buying clothes. But I gained 14 pounds in the last year and the experience became more humiliating than pleasurable. I should move to Europe because it’s only in America that they have a size zero. The perfect woman, in this land of dreams, is a naught. On my last film, the costume designer gave my outfits gathers and ruffles to hide my hips and ass, and then would bitch about me before I had even left the room.