Paris: The Memoir(10)
When Carter suggested swimming with sperm whales as a honeymoon activity, I was like, “No. I can’t be associated with the word ‘sperm.’?”
“Okay,” he said amiably. “Humpback whales then.”
“Honey. ‘Hump’?”
He laughed. He thought I was joking. He doesn’t get why I’m so hypersensitive. I don’t fully get it myself, but it is what it is.
As a preteen, I was athletic, clever, and completely without fear, which is probably the most terrifying kind of kid to parent, but my mom and dad were a strong parenting team. Sometimes I could bat my eyes and baby-talk Dad into things Mom had already said no to, but most of the time, they were a united front. They were strict, but I felt safe and loved in my immediate and extended family.
Nicky and I went to Buckley, a tony private school in Sherman Oaks, filled with the children of Hollywood executives and industry people. When I was in fifth grade, we were all crazy for these Reebok Pump sneakers that inflated when you pushed a little basketball on the side. I needed those shoes, but when Mom took me to Pixie Town to get them, they had only one pair left.
Mom tried to tell me, “These won’t work. They’re two and a half sizes too big.”
I did not care. They were so cool. I piled on a few extra socks, pumped them as much as they would pump, and wore them to school the next day, thinking I was killing it. Right away, some girl was like, “Oh, my god, Paris! You look like Ronald McDonald.” And then everybody piled on laughing at me as I ran for the bathroom, wanting to die. I pulled myself together and threw the shoes into someone’s locker on my way to the pay phone to call my mom.
“I hate you! Why did you buy me these shoes? Everyone is so mean.”
Mom calmed me down and brought me a pair of shoes that fit, but I had a hard time coming back from that. Once you’re on that end of the bully dynamic, school can get pretty torturous. My grades started to slide.
When I was in sixth grade, everyone was in love with Edward Furlong, the kid in Terminator 2. He was all over Tiger Beat and People and started a whole hair trend. Buckley was K–12, so when the tenth-grade boys with their Furlong side bangs invited me to sneak off campus and go to McDonald’s at lunchtime, I was like, “Sure!” And obviously, I couldn’t walk around town in a dorky knee-length skirt, so I rolled it up and styled it short and got in trouble for that. I wasn’t doing anything with these boys. I just liked the attention.
(I ended up dating Eddie Furlong when I was eighteen. He was an animal-rights advocate, so we had that in common. A few years later, I heard he was arrested for freeing the lobsters from a grocery-store lobster tank, which sounds so epic. Run, little lobsters, run! I wish he’d thought of it when we were together.)
At the end of the school year, the principal told my parents I was not welcome to come back for seventh grade, which sucked, because it meant leaving my middle school bestie, Nicole Richie.
Nicole was in my class at Buckley, and her family lived close by, thank God, so we still had each other. Together, we aspired to be the kind of cool girls Bethenny and Kyle were. We were eager to bring that energy to the early boy-girl parties and simultaneously experienced our first kisses (with different boys) during the same game of Spin the Bottle.
I transferred to a K–8 Catholic school in Los Angeles. John Paul II was pope at the time, and only half the nuns were wearing the old-school Sound of Music habits, but they were all as mean as ever. I’d start a math test feeling like I got this, but after a few minutes I couldn’t keep still. The numbers jumped around every time someone coughed.
There was a bird outside the window.
My sleeves felt uneven.
Sister Godzilla had a mole on her chin.
“Paris, sit still.”
It was like that mole was yelling at me, which made me giggle, and then Sister was walking toward me, saying she was going to call Mom, and Mom was getting so tired of being called. And getting notes. And meeting with the principal. My grades hadn’t hit rock bottom yet, but my parents knew I could do better.
“You’re one of the smartest kids I know,” Dad kept telling me. “You just need to apply yourself. Have some self-discipline.”
Cheerleading was a lifesaver. I wore myself out learning the drill team choreography, the perfect balance of physical and mental workout. After sitting in school for several hours, it was such a relief to jump around, flailing and yelling, getting positive attention for the first time all day. I was feeling myself in the cheerleading arena. One of the cool girls.
I kept an ornately BeDazzled diary in which I recorded all the middle school cheerleader drama and page upon page of ideas for inventions, thoughts about life, poems, dreams, doodles, tirades against anyone who hurt my feelings, odes to whatever boy I was crushing on, and lavishly illustrated stream-of-consciousness stories about wild horses, unicorns, and animal kingdoms.
At some point, I heard Nicky say “That’s hot” and it resonated with me. I wrote it in my diary and doodled flowers and fireworks around it. It’s such a great statement, isn’t it? Positive. Unpretentious. The word hot is evocative; there’s energy in it—hot pink, hot shit, Red Hot Chili Peppers. And if you say it to the next person you meet, I guarantee you’ll see them smile. I mean, don’t be creepy about it, but who doesn’t love a little positive affirmation? If you see something you appreciate, shout it out. Toss a spark of positivity into the world.