Paris: The Memoir(16)

I was devastated to learn that my family had moved back to New York City without me. My grandma’s house was definitely the nicest of all the places I would be imprisoned, but I was stuck living next to a golf course in the desert while my family took up residence in the Waldorf-Astoria. This was a bitter pill to swallow. I was a fourteen-year-old kid. I wanted to be with my family. I needed my mom. I missed the clean smell of Chanel No. 5 on her wrists. I missed trying on clothes in her overflowing walk-in closet. I longed for those amazing afternoons at the zoo with my dad. My little brother Barron was growing taller so fast, I hardly recognized him. My little brother Conrad was a toddler; I hardly had a chance to know him or play with him or love on him the way Nicky and I had loved on Barron when he was a baby.

I was not a bad girl.

I could be mouthy sometimes, uncooperative and stubborn. In other words: I was fourteen. If your fourteen-year-old kid walks around like a perfect little angel all the time, they should probably be tested for Lyme disease. I’d never had a drink of alcohol or tried any kind of drugs. Never smoked a cigarette. I didn’t swear or lie (much), and even though I had the kind of arguments teenage girls routinely have with their moms, I loved my parents, and I knew they loved me. It just hurt me so deeply to think about my family having breakfast and hanging out in front of the TV—all the little things that were happening without me. I cried a lot, wanting my mom, wanting my siblings, just wanting to go home.

I didn’t know what my family wanted. Not me, apparently.

So, I did what people do when they don’t have the family they need: I made one. That’s a good skill to learn, because pretty much everyone, at some point in life, goes through a phase when they’re estranged from the family they’re born into. For many people, it’s more than a phase; it’s a lifestyle. So many of my LGBTQ friends and fans exist in that space, and without oversharing my own stuff, I’ve always tried to make them feel seen and loved. I get it.

Thank God for Gram Cracker.

She and I got along like peas in a pod. I never expected her to play the role of demure old lady; she never cast me as the Catholic school girl. We were just ourselves, Gram Cracker and me. She told me at least a thousand times, “Before you were born, a psychic told me, ‘This baby girl will someday be one of the most photographed and famous women in the world.’ Brigitte Bardot, Audrey Hepburn, Marilyn Monroe, Grace Kelly—you’ll be bigger than all of them.”

I’d never been allowed to wear makeup, go on real dates, or hang out at the mall before. Grandma wasn’t uptight about any of that. She schooled me on all the sensitive topics Mom declined to talk about: boys, bras, mascara, and other matters that were all totally appropriate and necessary for a girl of fourteen. She took me to the salon and let me get my honey-brown hair bleached blond and cut in layers like Farrah Fawcett. She schooled me on current makeup trends: matte foundation, exaggerated lip liner, plucked-to-perfection eyebrows, and subtle glitter finish. She was the master of the Nefertiti eye—an icy blue or lavender lid with silvery white up to the brow bone—but I preferred the early grunge trend that favored a smokey eye.

Grandma let me go to the mall on weekends and made sure I had money for the food court. She let me date and go to parties. I was allowed to have male and female friends over to watch TV in my room, so I didn’t have to sneak out. I was free to do a lot more than my parents had ever allowed, but my grandmother set boundaries, and she wasn’t kidding.

Ninth grade was the last year that I really got anything out of school. I never cut classes. I did my homework and thought about college. I was dating my first real boyfriend, Randy Spelling, who lived with his parents, Aaron and Candy Spelling, and his sister, Tori, in a legendary 56,500-square-foot mansion called the Manor. Randy’s house had a movie theater, a bowling alley, and a lot of other things that made it fun to be his girlfriend. He was a couple years older than me and had a driver’s license, so he came to visit me in Palm Springs, and once he rented a cool bungalow with a pool and hot tub. We made big plans for the weekend. Not sex plans. Just fun. I was a virgin and very clear about the fact that I would be saving myself for my husband.

Raised with a Catholic view of virginity, I looked up to my mom and wanted to marry someone just like my dad. They were loyal and kind to each other. Cherished each other. I wanted to be cherished like that, and it was ingrained in me that to be the right kind of wife, you had to be a virgin when you got married. She drilled it into my head that guys only want what they can’t have, so giving it up meant being unwanted the next day. She said blow jobs were beneath me. “That’s for girls who are desperate. You don’t have to get on your knees. You’re Paris Hilton.”

Mom always told Nicky and me, “Never sell yourself short or give yourself away to someone who doesn’t appreciate your value. See yourselves as the Chanel purse. You’re the Hermès original, not the thrift-store knock-off.”

So, even though I was crazy about Randy, I was like, Be the Birkin. And Randy was cool with that. We could still have a fun weekend, right?

It wasn’t just going to be the two of us; it was a whole group of kids. Very Beverly Hills, 90210 kind of thing. I packed some cute clothes in a little suitcase and told Gram Cracker I would be spending the weekend with my friend Crystal, and she was fine with that because she was good friends with Crystal’s mom. It didn’t occur to me that because they were such good friends, my grandma would call her to check on me. I don’t know how she got the address of the rented bungalow, but I think it proves my point about her Palm Springs network. She booked it over there and pounded on the door while we were all out back chilling in the jacuzzi. I went inside and looked out through the peephole.