Sliding Into Home (2 page)

“Mr. Hefner saw a photo of you and wants to call you personally,” he told me. “I gave him your number, so expect a call.”

I was stunned. “What are you talking about? Expect a call? Why?” I was weirded out by the whole thing. Why would he want to call me?

“Listen,” Mark said. “He only likes girls in college, so tell him you go to college.”

I said okay and hung up, confused.

The next day I was in the shower when the phone rang. I hopped out and saw that the call was from a 310 number. That’s L.A. I was eighteen years old and lived in San Diego. Who did I know in L.A.?

“Hello?” I answered.

“Hello, is this Kendra?”

“Who is this?”

“This is Hugh Hefner.”

“Yeah, right,” I said, thinking it was a prank call. “Shut the fuck up.”

It wasn’t a prank.

“I look forward to seeing you at my birthday,” he said. “Also, I’d like you to consider being my girlfriend.”

Still dripping wet from the shower, I stood there in shock. I didn’t know how to respond. After all, I had just told Hugh Hefner to shut the fuck up. That probably wasn’t the reaction he’d expected. I brushed off the girlfriend thing, since I had no idea what that even meant. When I finally collected my thoughts, I told him I would see him at his birthday party.

Just as I was wrapping up the conversation, Zack walked into the bathroom to find out who I was talking to. After I filled him in, he was as shocked as I was, and clearly a little worried.

“I want to drive you up there,” he said protectively.

When the big day arrived, I was kind of nervous. During the car ride Zack questioned me about how I was going to handle being invited to be Hef’s girlfriend, but I didn’t have an answer for him. Even though I googled Hef after we spoke on the phone, I couldn’t really imagine what it might mean to be his girlfriend.

After a two-hour drive, Zack and I arrived at the gates of the Playboy Mansion in Bel Air. We buzzed security, who let us inside, and Zack pulled the car right up to the side entrance of the Mansion.

“Be good,” he said as I opened the car door.

“Whatever,” I mumbled back, barely even paying attention to him.

It was hard to focus once I got a good look at the Mansion. I was amazed at what I saw. Everything was so big and beautiful, and like nothing I had ever seen before. After all, I was a Hollywood virgin. Not
that
kind of virgin but, you know, still a little naive.

I got out of the car and was immediately escorted to the gym by security. I rushed by other girls and a handful of workers, and once inside the gym, Mark, who was the talent scout and body painter, told me to take off my clothes.

“Where’s Hugh Hefner?” I asked as I stripped down.

“He never comes down here,” Mark told me.

That sucks!
I thought. I wanted to meet him and find out what he was all about.

Mark and his wife started painting me and putting rhinestones all over my body. It was all very weird. Then they moved away from my boobs and focused on my hair and makeup. I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror. It was my first time ever having my hair and makeup done professionally, and I thought I looked like a drag queen.

Just as they were finishing making me a naked she-man, Hef—breaking his usual rule of staying out of the painted girls’ room—came inside. He introduced himself and gave me a hug.

My heart was racing. “I’ve never met a celebrity before in my life,” I said. “You are the first. This is the coolest thing.”

It really was.

Hef laughed and we talked a little bit about the night. He told me not to be nervous and invited me to stop by his table. The conversation was short and sweet. He was very charming; he had a powerful way about him, and I liked it.

“I’ll see you upstairs,” he said with a smile before disappearing into the night.

For those few minutes with him I forgot that I looked like a clown. A naked clown. I felt special. After all, the staff probably went through thousands of photos to find about ten painted girls, and out of those ten, Hef singled me out. The man who had created this whole world chose
me
. That felt really good.

At the party I served Jell-O shots to celebrities like Jack Nicholson, Pauly Shore, Donovan McNabb, Fred Durst, and Brooke Burke. I was starstruck, but I didn’t act like it. I simply went up to Brooke Burke, gave her a Jell-O shot, and politely told her that I loved her. I was cool like that.

The night ended up being a lot of fun. Being practically naked was not a big deal for me, and after a while I forgot that I didn’t like my hair and makeup.

Then Mark came up to me and told me to bring some Jell-O shots to Hef’s table.

“Are you sure?” I asked nervously after glancing at Hef’s table, which was packed with beautiful women.

As I inched my way toward the group, Hef and I locked eyes. I smiled. He was with his girlfriends, including Holly and Bridget—who I didn’t know at the time—and a bunch of Barbie look-alikes, but he kept looking at me. I offered them shots and hung around the table the rest of the night. Maybe I was paranoid, but I thought the girls were giving me dirty looks the whole time, and with my eyes I tried to tell them
I ain’t trying to steal your man
, but I wasn’t quite sure if the message was received.

The whole evening, Hef and I kept staring at each other. It wasn’t a physical attraction for me, but he was just so cool. The way he
acted and the things he said were unlike anything I had seen or heard before.

At the end of the night Hef came up to me, gave me a key, and asked me to stay the night. I couldn’t—mainly because Zack was sitting outside the Mansion in his car, but beyond that, I felt that being there that night was a job, and I wanted to keep it that way. Clock in. Clock out.

I gave him the key back but told him I would see him again soon.

“Will you be my girlfriend?” he asked again before I left.

Staring into his eyes, I didn’t see a man four times my age with ten times more girlfriends than most. Even though I hardly knew him yet, I saw a sweet man who made me feel really good about myself—a true gentleman. It was weird but in my heart, I felt like he was someone I could possibly trust.

“So, will you?”

There was only one thing I could say: “Um, okay.”

That night my life changed. I had no idea what I was getting myself into, but something just felt right about it. Hef didn’t offer me money or tell me he was going to make me a star. He didn’t say anything, because truthfully that wasn’t the deal. He wasn’t trying to offer me anything other than him (and maybe a pretty cool home).

I liked what I saw at the Mansion and, more important, I liked what I saw in Hef. He was a good guy with good intentions, and in a short period of time I was able to understand that about him, so I was willing to take a risk and uproot my entire life.

I don’t know if many girls would do that on a whim. Such an
offer would scare some girls, and others might look at Hef and see dollar signs and jump at the chance to do whatever he said. I didn’t care about that at all. Looking into Hef’s eyes I knew there was nothing to fear, and mansion or no mansion, I was drawn to him in a way that I had never been drawn to a man before.

I couldn’t put my finger on it, but something about that night felt so right. A new life was definitely beginning, and I was not going to stop it from happening.

As you probably know, I became Hef’s girlfriend, moved into the Mansion full-time, and a year later began filming the hit show
The Girls Next Door
.

I was labeled the sporty party girl of the bunch, and while I didn’t like being labeled, I certainly had a good time living up to the character the producers wanted me to play.

Life has really worked out for me. Maybe it was luck or maybe fate, but I’m pretty blessed to be in the situation I’m in today.

While the show may have opened the door to a charmed life and eventually helped me discover what I really wanted, the reality is, it didn’t come easy. I wasn’t just sitting around deciding which family business to take over when I got that call from Hef. I didn’t just trade in one perfect life for another. It’s been an uphill battle, and while life is great—almost perfect, even—right now, before I can talk about the best of times, I need to tell you about the worst . . .

CHAPTER 2
 

No Room for Daddy

I was three years old the first time my dad left us. We were living in Clairemont, a community in San Diego, California. I don’t remember much from back then, so as far as I know there wasn’t tons of fighting or anger within our house. But my dad wanted out.

My mom, Patti, says that my dad and I were really close when I was a baby. He would take me to the beach and spend lots of time with me. Then, when my mom got pregnant with my younger brother, Colin, my dad wanted no part of it. He just walked out on my pregnant mother and me.

My mom packed our bags and took us to New Jersey to live with my grandmother. My mom says I missed my dad and was old enough to recognize that he wasn’t there anymore. I was sad, but she kept me busy. We would go to the boardwalk in Ocean City, and she signed me up for dance classes at the same place she went when she was a kid. I guess she thought it would be cute if I followed in her footsteps. Even then, though, I think I knew I wasn’t the ballerina type.

If my mom wasn’t sure, she definitely got the message at my first recital. My classmates and I practiced for weeks for the big performance, but when it was finally showtime I walked out with the group and plopped my ass down on the front of the stage. I refused to dance.

“Get up! Get up!” my mom instructed.

No response.

“Come on, honey . . .”

Nothing.

Then she got angry. “If you don’t get up right now . . .”

Her threats had no effect on me. I didn’t want to perform in front of all those people, and there was nothing anyone could do to convince me. The only show they got from me was when my mom finally gave up and I stuck my finger up my nose. I was up there pretty good, so I’m sure the crowd appreciated it. My mom didn’t, however, and that was the end of dance class for me.

Shortly after my less than stellar performance, my dad decided he wanted us back. Colin was an infant, and taking care of two kids was an even larger task than just dealing with me, so my mom decided to give the relationship another shot. Plus, she still loved him. So we said good-bye to Grandma and moved back west to Clairemont.

To me, the time in Jersey felt like a vacation, but I’m sure for my mom it was anything but. Then, when we got back to California, life became even less fun for her. She and my dad bought a town house and had plans to buy a house shortly after, and for a while my dad made an effort to make this family work. But then, according to my mom, he started acting strange. He would stay out late partying and
sometimes not come home at all. A year after we moved back to Clairmont, he was ready to take off again.

This time when he left, although I was young, I remember being put right in the middle of the split. Looking back, it was pretty intense stuff for a child. My dad asked me to go with him and my mom wanted me to stay with her. I knew I wanted to be with my mom but, being a kid, I didn’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings. My heart just wouldn’t let me be honest. I couldn’t say, “Daddy, I like Mommy more than you.” So instead, when it came time to make the big decision, I balanced on a crack in the sidewalk and said, “I’m going to step on this crack and close my eyes and if I fall toward Mom I will go with her and if I fall toward Dad I will go with him.”

I left it up to the gods to tilt the Earth in a way that made me fall in one direction. It was no longer up to me. No one could be upset.

I fell toward my mom and my dad took off.

After he left my brother and I were crying, so my mom took us down to the bay and we went to 7-Eleven and got Martinelli’s apple juice (my favorite). We were walking down by the bay, sipping Martinelli’s and still feeling sad, when a ladybug landed on my hand. I looked down and saw a thousand of them running around on the ground. I got really excited and sat down and started counting them as high as I could count, and before I knew it I started feeling better. From that day forward, ladybugs would be a symbol of happiness for me because on what was a terrible day, they provided a small amount of joy.