Rocking the Pink (5 page)

In the scene, the (pretend) Doors, led by Val Kilmer, who writhed around in tight leather pants that left nothing to the imagination, performed the song “The End,” the Doors' lengthy, Oedipal song culminating in Jim Morrison's shouting that he wants to “fuck” his mother and “kill” his father, as the crowd, which included Amy, Marco, and me, tried to act like we'd never heard anything like this before.

For angles focusing on the crowd's reactions, in which only the lower half of Kilmer's body was visible in the frame, a body double wearing identical black leather pants came onstage to assume writhing duties. As we tried to look as if we were witnessing the most progressive rock performance we'd ever seen, the body double, who apparently had never seen footage of the real Jim Morrison in action, gracefully danced jetés and pirouettes across the stage.

In “the end” (just a little Doors humor for you), Marco, Amy, and I were treated to at least sixteen billion simulated performances of “The End” over the course of our sixteen hours at the Whisky (and an equal number of graceful pirouettes by Val Kilmer's dance double). And through it all, a fierce yearning bubbled and simmered inside my veins: I longed to join the ranks of Jim Morrison, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, and Val Kilmer—and, hell, even Val Kilmer's clownish double—front and center onstage at the Whisky a Go Go.

It was only a matter of time before my destiny would be fulfilled, I knew. Once the movie had premiered, probably in about a year, the world would be captivated by my groundbreaking performance as Girl
One, and my Hollywood career would be on the fast track. I simply had to exercise superhuman patience until that fateful day arrived.

When the movie finally came out, Brad and I practically sprinted to the theater. As the lights dimmed, he squeezed my hand and grinned at me with excited anticipation. We were on the edge of our seats.

We didn't have to wait too long for my big moment: The UCLA film school scene was one of the first in the movie.

Oh my God,
there I was
.
There was my school bus–size, shiny face, framed by my massive mop of frizzy hair, reacting with cartoonish repulsion to Jim Morrison's student film—my over-the-top facial expression more reminiscent of a 1920s silent-film star encountering the Mummy than of the second coming of Meryl Streep. And then there I was
again,
in yet another extreme close-up shot, uttering my now famous line—“No, it wasn't. It was worse!”—with a cringe-inducing zeal smacking of Darla from
The Little Rascals
.

I should say that I was jubilant—two full-screen reaction shots
and
a speaking line!—but the truth is, I was just in shock at how unattractive and unnatural I looked on film. Did I really look like that? Had my performance really been that bad?

Hold it together, Laura,
I thought. The Whisky a Go Go scene was still coming. Surely I hadn't screwed that up, too.

But when the Whisky scene appeared onscreen, there was nary a glimpse of “the girl in the yellow-and-red-checkered minidress.” Not a glimpse!

I was crestfallen.

The ending credits began to roll.
My greatest glory still awaits me,
I realized. It was time to behold my name in lights in a big-budget studio film. I was Girl One, damn it, and no one could ever take that away from me, crappy performance and all.

Brad squeezed my hand and we scanned the torturously long list of names scrolling down the screen, our anticipatory excitement threatening to spout like a geyser. Okay, there were the lead actors' names: Val Kilmer, Meg Ryan, Kyle MacLachlan . . . yes, yes. Now there was someone credited as “Indian in Desert.”

The names continued to scroll. “Bouncer.” “Bartender.”

We scanned . . . and scanned . . . and scanned. And scanned. Where was I? There was “Girl in Car.” Not quite.

Finally, yes, here was some guy credited as “UCLA Student.” But where was my name? Shouldn't my name appear next to his?

Now the credits had moved on to technical contributors: makeup, sound, casting director, transportation.
Transportation?

And then the lights came up. Movie over. My name had not been listed.

Brad and I sat silently in our seats for a long moment as streams of moviegoers shuffled past us in the aisles.

“I hated it,” I finally mumbled after several minutes, my gaze still directed at the now blank movie screen in the empty theater.

Brad, who knew me so well, hugged me without saying a word.

I haven't seen the movie since.

As much as my doctor's initially uttering the word “cancer” cut me at the knees, the word “aggressive” as a modifier for “cancer” was a sucker punch to the jaw. And then, two days after I heard that my “aggressive cancer” had spread outside my breast—much to the surprise of my doctor—the damned surgeon called yet again.

By this time, I hated the sound of that son of a bitch's voice. “Hey, Doc,” I greeted him wearily, resigned to the fact that he was undoubtedly calling with more bad news. “What's new?”

“Laura, we've done further lab testing.”
Enough with the lab testing already!
“Your cancer cells are unusual; they've tested negative for three receptors typically found on cancer cells.”
What the hell does that mean?
“In recent years,” the surgeon continued, sounding professorial, “we've made great strides in treatment by targeting these receptors.
It's rare to find cancer cells without even one of them.”
Did he just say the word “rare”?
Another sucker punch.

I paused, waiting for more. But apparently he was finished. “What does this mean for my treatment?” I asked mechanically. No tears came. Just numbness. Resignation. Those Scary Words had now anchored their hooks deep inside my chest cavity, in my organs, in my heart. It was too much to defend against, too much to rise above.

“Well,” he said, “it would be best for an oncologist to explain the recommended treatment for this particular type of breast cancer.”

Was I imagining all of this? Or, even worse, had I manifested a disaster of this proportion as a desperate ploy for attention?

When I was seven or eight, my sister, Sharon, went to the hospital overnight to get her tonsils removed. I was so pea green with envy about all the presents and attention she got—she even got to eat ice cream for dinner!—that I tried to break my own leg, leaping off the three-foot retaining wall in front of our house over and over. But, alas, I didn't have the courage to land awkwardly, and my damned stick legs never broke. Was all of this just another pathetic attempt to garner attention and presents?

After the “you've got a rare and aggressive form of cancer” phone call from the surgeon, Brad disappeared immediately into his study to gather information online. Several hours later, he emerged to tell me he had figured out my diagnosis: I had something called “triple negative breast cancer.” Doctors had discovered its existence only about five years ago, he said.

“Because it's really aggressive and shows up quickly,” Brad explained (having obtained his MD online in a matter of hours), “it's typically seen in younger women, like you.” He stared at me expectantly, but I didn't say anything. “Only about ten percent of breast cancers are triple negative,” Brad continued, astonishing me with his infinite expertise. Really, forget real estate brokerage; he should have been saving the world with his oncology. “And of that ten percent, the disease mostly strikes African American women. Only a small percentage of triple-negative girls fit your profile.”

“So, I'm the minority profile among patients with a rare kind of cancer?” I summarized. I was always striving to be unique, but this was ridiculous.

Brad tried to lighten the mood with humor. “Why do you have to be top two percent in everything you do?”

I appreciated his attempt to add levity to the situation, especially given how emotional we'd both been over the past week, but I wasn't about to take his word for my diagnosis, thank you very much. “I'll wait for an actual doctor to tell me what I have,” I told him. I was snippy. “It might not be this triple-negative thing.”

“It
is
triple negative,” Brad persisted.

“I'll just wait to hear what the oncologist says.” Now I was pissy. “I'm not going to play armchair oncologist based on information from the Internet.”

Over the next few days, Brad and I consulted three different oncologists, seeking second and third opinions. And guess what? They all said the same thing.

Diagnosis: triple negative breast cancer.

Brad was right.
Damn.

Treatment: (1) eight chemotherapy infusions, administered every two weeks, and after those, (2) radiation therapy, administered five days a week for about seven weeks.

Double damn.
I hated it when Brad was right. Especially about this.

At the end of my first year at UCLA, I moved into an off-campus apartment with a fellow theater major named Holly. I commuted to and from my new apartment on a lawn mower–size scooter, wearing a black, Darth Vader–style helmet that was bigger than the scooter itself. One day, an old lady in a sedan left-turned in front of me as I was riding my scooter to class, causing my massive helmet (with my head inside) to crash right through her driver's side window.

As I lay on the asphalt, dazed and incredulous among the sprays of glass all over the street, I could see looky-loos gawking at me from their apartment balconies.

They're looking at me,
I mused.
I'm the accident.

Despite a sirens-blaring ambulance ride to the hospital and a few bruises and scratches, I was perfectly fine, though. Better than fine, actually—within a few days, I picked up a check for about $6,000 in
a legal settlement from the old lady's insurance company. I was living large. Even after a collision, I still came out ahead. Nothing bad ever happened to me.

Six thousand dollars might as well have been $6 million to a nineteen-year-old, and it was burning a hole in my pocket. On a weekend visit home to San Diego, Brad and I wandered aimlessly into a pet store, saw a puppy mill–bred, black-and-white Boston terrier with bug eyes and bat ears, and purchased him on the spot. No planning, no forethought; we just thought he was so ugly, he was cute. We named him Buster—actually, Buster Francis Martín Hoffman. (“Roppé” later became affixed to the end of that, after Brad and I tied the knot.)

Buster had a smashed-in face only a mother could love. When I was walking him along a busy street, a car pulled over alongside me and the driver yelled out, “Is that a
pig!?”
And, in addition to his being ugly-cute, we came to find out the damned dog was a lunatic. He barked and attacked like a velociraptor when we tried to leave the house. And, though typically affectionate, he might, without warning, fly into an uncontainable rage toward any creature he viewed as either vulnerable (like a golden retriever puppy) or a threat (like a full-grown Rottweiler). He was disgusting, too: He farted and snorted, and tunneled his way under our covers to the foot of the bed, then came out gasping for air when he could no longer breathe (due to either the suffocating blankets or the fumes his nonstop farting created).

I'd had no luck training Buster, so I figured maybe a superhero doggie trainer could whip him into shape. Of course, this being L.A., I had struck up an acquaintance with an Irish “dog trainer to the
stars,” who looked just like Bono and frequented the dog park across the street. For a hefty sum paid up front (again, I guess that settlement money was burning a hole in my pocket), the trainer agreed to provide twelve weekly one-on-one training sessions.

Each week I took Buster to this Irish dog trainer, and he dragged and pulled Buster around the park on a leash as if Buster were a wet beach towel on a rope. “Heel!” Bono the Irish dog trainer commanded. “Heel, Buster! Heel! Heel! Heel!
Heel!”

It didn't seem like Buster was heeling, but I figured the guy knew what he was doing. Six weeks into training, though, Bono came to me and said apologetically, in his sweet Lucky Charms lilt, “Please don't tell anyone about this. I've got a reputation to maintain, I do
(dewe).
But your dog would sooner die
(diye)
than mind me.” And then he unceremoniously placed a full refund in my hand.

The refund was a nice chunk of change, but, thanks to my recent spending spree, it was just a drop in the bucket. I needed money.

I got a job working as a valet parker at Hollywood parties, parking the Porsches, Bentleys, and Lamborghinis of the stars. George Burns (so old)! Sidney Poitier (so elegant)! There I was, nineteen years old, dressed in my red valet jacket, black slacks, and black sneakers, parking cars worth more than I would earn in my lifetime. I couldn't imagine a better job.

At one particularly raging Hollywood party, Robert Downey Jr., one of my all-time favorites, emerged and nonchalantly handed me his valet ticket.

“Right away!” I chirped, and flew to the nearby lot to find his car, which turned out to be a stunning black Porsche. I had just recently
been drooling over Robert Downey Jr. in
Less Than Zero,
and now I was sitting in the driver's seat of his car.
My hands are touching where his hands touch,
I thought, as I gripped his steering wheel.
My butt is touching the exact spot where his butt touches.
I smiled. There was only one degree of separation between our butts' touching each other. I was in sheer ecstasy.

I wanted to savor this moment, memorize the scent of him lingering on his finely appointed leather bucket seats, but, alas, I had work to do. With a sigh, I turned the key in Robert Downey Jr.'s ignition and carefully made my way back to the party.