The Vegas Diaries: Romance, Rolling the Dice, and the Road to Reinvention (30 page)

That trip was kind of the end of any hope I had that I would ever get along with these girls. The fact that they would try and get my best friend banned just to take attention off themselves seemed unnecessarily cruel.

“You should have written
that
story,” Hannah decided. “Bitches of the Playboy Mansion.”

“Maybe someday.” I shrugged. “I’m just afraid of how everyone will react to the truth.”

“Okay,” Hannah began, “so because of all those years of being fucked with, now you feel like you have to be quiet and lie, saying everything was so great there. Why? Because of what ‘everyone’ will think of you? Who gives a fuck? When are you going to start telling the truth? It’s like you’re letting your past control you.”

She was right. And she was saying something I needed to hear. No one had ever forced me to look at my demons head-on. I had the same uneasy feeling I had as when Mark tried to broach the subject, although here, eight months later, I felt closer to being able to admit the truth.

“I don’t know,” I confessed. Hannah looked at me, sincerity in her eyes. She was here for me. She was my friend and this was a safe place,
I tried to remind myself. I’d been skipping over the truth for years to avoid facing these dark, painful memories that I wasn’t quite ready to deal with.

I made checklists and set constant goals to feed this incessant need to always be doing something. There wasn’t a moment to spare or rest idly when you’re setting out to prove to the world that you aren’t the woman everyone believes you to be. My life had become manic because I was terrified to be alone with my own thoughts. I was scared to hear all the chatter, both in my own head and from the outside world. It was time to finally ask myself,
What makes Holly run?

For years, I’d made excuses . . . dodged and weaved.

By opening up in this small way, I was starting to realize that, in order to rid myself of my dark past, I needed to start by accepting it for what it was. I knew that wouldn’t happen overnight, but I had to try.

I had made a decision that had long-lasting consequences. I had lived a lifestyle that some people would never approve of. And that was okay. I was okay.

“That sucks that it wasn’t all good times,” Lindsay offered, “but it made you into who you are today. I mean, you had to learn whatever lessons you did for a reason.”

“Wow, did you just gather a bunch of inspirational quotes from Facebook?” Hannah deadpanned. Lindsay launched a magazine at her and Hannah laughed as she dodged it. “I’m just kidding, nutball!” she said through her laughter. “Seriously, though, as corny as you sound, it’s true,” she offered soberly, looking over at me.

I had to agree. I don’t know what my life would have been like otherwise. Perhaps I would have finally lucked out in one of my auditions or maybe I would have gone to work behind the scenes, or gone back to school. Maybe I would have met someone and had a family, or maybe I would be sitting in this same room with these same girls.

The only thing I can say for certain was this . . . I
liked
the person I had become. And that was a good thing. Sure, I had my occasional
doubts, like anyone else, but I knew now the path that was before me. And that was acceptance.

I had to accept that I kept quiet about my life at the mansion because I was ashamed. I kept quiet because I wanted people to believe the fantasy version because for so long
I
wanted to believe the fantasy. It was a far safer history than the truth.

But maybe now I finally was ready to face all of this head-on. Maybe this realization wouldn’t be fleeting and I could finally do something about it.

“Come on, I want to hear more about those crazy bitches,” Hannah said.

“Okay, I’ll tell you more,” I decided as I smiled, checking the time on my phone and making the final adjustments on my long Rapunzel wig. “But right now we’ve got a party to host.”

“I have been very kindly treated in your lovely City, and everyone has been good to me. I cannot tell you how grateful I am.”

—L. Frank Baum,
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz

I
wasn’t in Las Vegas anymore.

The warm winter air rolled across my face as my convertible twisted up the narrow canyon streets. Hollywoodland is a historic neighborhood just north of Sunset, tucked into the Hollywood Hills. The neighborhood’s entrance is flanked by two large granite stone columns that were intended to act as a gateway to the Beachwood Canyon community that its developers called “Hollywoodland.” (The larger, surrounding area itself was named in 1887 by Harvey and Daeida Wilcox, who owned the property.) The neighborhood was originally conceived as an exclusive gated residential area complete with a market, health club, and horse ranch; one of the amenities to living there was the ability to call the ranch at any time and have a horse delivered to your door.

Once visitors are in the neighborhood, the first house they see is a whimsical little European cottage that looks like it was plucked straight from the pages of a fairy tale with a white wooden sign hanging over the
entryway with the words “Hollywoodland Realty Co.” written in pale blue. When the original developers were attempting to attract buyers to the new community, they wanted to do something to get people’s attention and came up with the idea of erecting a 45-foot-high sign across the ridgeline that read
HOLLYWOODLAND
, which would light up at night.

Every street in the neighborhood was magical, each slightly different from the one before. At its conception, the homes within the community consisted of a collection of four styles: Mediterranean, Spanish, English Tudor, and French Normandy. Some were grand estates and others were quaint little cottages. When the Great Depression hit, building slowed to a standstill and plans to install the entry gate came to a halt. The lights that shone brightly from the sign faded to black, and later, in 1949, “land” was removed and the giant white sign simply read “Hollywood.”

I first visited Beachwood Canyon years earlier and was immediately enchanted by the magical village hidden in plain sight away from the crazy city. The homes were so picturesque and charming that I couldn’t help but smile. Despite being just a few minutes from the perpetually busy Hollywood Boulevard, the neighborhood felt like a woodsy retreat. It captured my imagination.

In many ways Las Vegas had become home, but L.A.’s siren song had grown louder and louder, particularly over the last few months. The holidays always went by in a blur, and this past season shouldn’t have been any different, but something about it was . . . because
I
was different. The year 2011 had been a turning point for me—and as it was coming to a close, I decided that something had to give. Over the past few years, my life had become an amusement park of attractions and distractions. And even though it had been a wild ride that had made for some of my favorite memories, I had achieved what I had set out to do. It was time to get off that particular Ferris wheel.

It had never been my plan to stay in
Peepshow
forever. In fact, I decided over the holidays that I wouldn’t be extending my contract past 2012. It wasn’t a decision I came to lightly. For the past three years, I lived
and breathed
Peepshow
, so the idea of leaving the show at the end of the coming year was both exciting and terrifying. Becoming a successful stage performer had been one of my biggest aspirations, but it wasn’t my only one. As far as I was aware, I had already headlined a show for a longer continuous period of time than any burlesque performer had before in Las Vegas. I needed to move on to what was next. When Ray had asked me, “What’s next for you after
Peepshow
?” the question freaked me out. It made me suddenly feel like a clueless kid who didn’t know what she wanted to be when she grew up. But what I had come to realize was that whatever I did want to do, I knew I wanted to do it in L.A. (at least part of the time). I missed the city. It was the type of place where a hidden community could stand frozen in time, as the visitors and passersby just a few miles below buzzed around, blissfully unaware of its presence. L.A. doesn’t change at the rapid pace Las Vegas does, but my perception of it had. It was still ruthless, dismissive, and impossibly wonderful, but I no longer saw visions of my Playboy years everywhere I went. I had grown past that life and could now see the city with new eyes again.

Ever since my first visit to Hollywoodland, when I was filming
The Girls Next Door
, I dreamed of one day having my own home there, but back then that was more of a fantasy and not a goal. My self-esteem was low, and “goals” were things I thought I could never achieve on my own. Needless to say, since I had been on my own the past few years, my attitude had changed drastically.

Over the past few months, I started thinking about buying a home in Los Angeles and began casually perusing the real estate listings. Months after I started looking, a gorgeous turreted French Normandy popped up on the market. It looked like the kind of home Snow White might live in, equal parts miniature castle and witch’s cottage. The home was built in the twenties and thankfully had escaped any remodels, save for a kitchen update. It was exactly what I dreamed of, and I made an offer after seeing it once; this was going to be my house. It was just too perfect. The keys and garage door openers had been delivered to me in Las Vegas a week
earlier; I could barely wait for the following Wednesday so I could spend my day off in L.A. . . . in my new home!

I made no plans for the day; I just wanted to hang out in my little Hollywood retreat and enjoy what I considered a sort of homecoming . . . by myself. And the craziest thing about it? I was actually looking forward to spending time alone. I had spent years trying to muffle all the chatter and outside noise by surrounding myself with even louder chatter and bigger noise. When I finally recognized this, I felt at peace.

When my car turned onto my new street, my little witch’s castle came into view. Sitting up on a crest behind it were the enormous white letters of the Hollywood sign jumping out from behind a forest of trees. However, given the proximity of the house to the landmark sign, it was partially obscured by the landscape, and I could make out only the first five letters:
HOLLY
.

I smiled to myself, knowing with certainty that this was
exactly
where I needed to be. If this wasn’t a sign (literally!) that I had made the right decision, I don’t know what was. I parked my car in the cul-de-sac next to the house and looked toward the steep seventy-something-step climb up to my new home sitting atop its own little hill.
At least I’ll stay in shape living here,
I thought. There was something that felt so safe about this place. I was so tucked away, but all I had to do was look behind me, past a lush, blooming lemon tree, to see the sparkling lights of Hollywood and downtown L.A. below.

I pulled my keys from my bag and opened the heavy wooden door. When you first step foot inside the home, you’re met with a charming circular entryway with stone and wood patterned floors, another heavy, carved wooden door for the coat closet and wrought-iron banisters lining more steps: three to get down into the living room below, five to get up to the dining room, kitchen, and what was, once upon a time, the servant’s quarters. Another full set of stairs led up to three bedrooms on the
second floor. The walls were all plaster, the kind that looks like frosting, swirled and uneven like the roof of a gingerbread house. There was a tiny empty cupboard in the entry that once housed the original phone from the twenties. The bells that used to function as the ringer were still attached to the wall.

The stairs leading down to the basement laundry room were so narrow, I almost lost my footing trying to navigate them. I pictured the tiny (size six or smaller) feet of a flapper skipping down them without a care.

I strolled through the wood-beamed kitchen, still dominated by a 1940s oven. Beyond the kitchen lay the main patio. It was made of bricks and covered in gorgeous potted plants and sun-bleached wooden furniture that came with the home. I took a seat in one of the patio chairs and looked over my shoulder to spot two deer casually resting in the back of my yard. There were no fences on my property; the rugged, steep hills were enough to keep anyone from wanting to casually wander into my yard. Fortunately, the deer didn’t care and were regular visitors (along with a coyote and a raccoon now and then).

I was struck by the stillness and how nice it was. I could hear my neighbor at the bottom of the hill playing a trumpet, which echoed through the canyon, bouncing off the hills and trees, like the soundtrack to a noir film. For the first time in a long time I wasn’t rushing to get to the next promotional event, panicking that my cell reception was sketchy, freaking out because a crush was ignoring me, or worrying because I hadn’t posted anything on Instagram that day.

Instead, I sat enjoying my beautiful new view and was reminded of a recent trip to church with Angel and of the sermon we heard. I can’t tell you about which Bible passage the pastor was speaking, but I can tell you it left quite an impression on me. He spoke about wanting new things in life, and about how when you want new things, you have to be prepared to give up other things, even if it is just your own free time. We have
only so much room in our lives, and inevitably something has to give. Up until that point in my life I was packing my schedule to the brim and still filling my list of goals with more and more things I wanted to do. Sure, I was making up for lost time, but when was enough going to be enough?

I looked back over the last few years with great fondness. I had done what I needed to do: I rescued myself from my own rock bottom and built a new life. I worked hard, played hard, and enjoyed the hell out of it. While most of the experiences were wonderful, I had my challenges as well, and I needed those because the bad or uncomfortable times are what spurred me to grow; encouraged me to challenge myself, make changes, and look for better.

In Hollywood, a story isn’t finished until it’s wrapped up in a perfect little bow. The movie version of this story would have me ending with a prince charming, a fairy-tale wedding, and eventually, a baby. Though that would all happen for me, I just didn’t know it at the time.

But in this moment, I thought about the journey to get myself here . . . to my picturesque fairy-tale cottage in my little corner of the world. I thought about everything I learned along the way, all the people that I had met and learned from, and the person I had become. When I left L.A., I was a lost girl in a storm of confusion, but now I was returning a different person. I was still me, of course, but I was a happier me. I was done caring about what anyone else thought of the life I chose to live.

I didn’t have all the answers, and I didn’t know yet what my future had in store. I knew only that wherever the road would take me, I would be okay, because I had found peace and finally made amends with the one person I never thought I’d be able to forgive: myself.

Still sitting in the chair, I looked through the trees and down into the city buzzing below, a city filled with excitement and hope. I was so grateful that this adorable place was where I would get to live.

I put my feet up on the table, crunching a few of the dried leaves that
covered it. The two deer perked up their ears to look at the stranger in
their
yard. You see, when you live in this town, it’s not unusual for just a bit of that movie magic to rub off on your world.

“I guess what they say is true,” I smiled, looking at my two doe-eyed friends. “There really is no place like home.”