Paris: The Memoir(27)
This is my truth.
Someone else may remember it differently, but this is my perception of this experience, as I experienced it. Please be patient with me. I’m sitting here with my eyes closed, my heart pounding, trying to remember a lot of shit I tried hard to forget.
7
The back of the black SUV was specially rigged so you couldn’t open the doors or windows from the inside. The two men were like giant, ’roided-up meatheads, so they had no trouble shoving me in there, even though I was kicking and struggling with every shred of strength I had. As the Waldorf disappeared behind me, I scrunched into a ball, overcome with a weird, uncontrollable trembling. I was shaking so hard, it felt like my teeth would rattle out of my mouth. Looking back, I know I was in shock. I must have been crying, because they kept barking at me to shut up.
I assumed at first that my mother was right; someone had seen me in the tabloids, and they were kidnapping me for ransom, so I begged and pleaded with them, “Please, whatever you want—my parents will pay you.”
They laughed. One of them said, “You brought this on yourself. Your parents had no choice. They’re doing this for your own good.”
My parents—wait—what now?
“You’re gonna learn,” one kidnapper said. “You’re gonna get schooled.”
what the fuck what the fuck what the fuck
(Typically the transport service is recommended by the therapist. They say it’s easier for everyone. Well worth a few thousand dollars.)
On the way to the airport, they made me understand that my parents had hired them to transport me to a “special boarding school” in California. They provided proof; my mother had packed a little bag for me with socks, underwear, toiletries, some pictures of my family, and a basic wardrobe of casual school clothes. They told me the place they were taking me was secluded high in the mountains and that the counselors there would use “tough love” to fix what was wrong with me.
“There’s nothing wrong with me,” I said. “I’m not going there. I’m not getting on any fucking airplane with you.”
The kidnapper showed me the handcuffs again. “Up to you. Do you wanna get on the plane nice and quiet or do you want to get carried on in handcuffs?”
“Fuck you!” I kicked the back of the seat, and they laughed.
“Do that again, and I’ll have to restrain you,” he said. “For your own safety, of course.”
At the airport, they gave me a velour tracksuit and sneakers from the bag Mom had packed. I crawled into my soft, familiar clothes, grateful for that last thread of home. This was before 9/11, so walking into the airport and getting on an airplane was a very different thing. You just went in and went to the gate. Walking through the terminal, I kept my eyes down, feeling like everyone was staring at me. I wasn’t exactly famous back then, but in New York, I was often recognized—that Hilton girl, that socialite wild child from Page Six—so the last thing I wanted was to walk through JFK in handcuffs.
“I’ll be good,” I promised in my baby voice, willing myself to stay calm and be smart. Flanking me, gripping my arms, these two refrigerator-sized men steered me down the concourse, and I hurried along between them, looking for any possible opportunity to get away.
There were none. This was happening.
They were professionals, trained to cover all the bases. I had no choice but to go along with it until I could figure out a way to escape. Crammed into the middle seat between them, I tried to sound like I was excited to go to my new school. Oh, what? It’s in the mountains? How cool is that? I smiled and pretended to sleep, thinking they could drag me to this boarding school, but they couldn’t make me stay. I was confident. I had plenty of experience sneaking out of the house and slipping away from guys who got grabby on the dance floor. As soon as the sun went down, I’d be out of there.
My confidence fell to shit as we drove eighty miles from LAX to Running Springs, California. The road snaked upward into the San Bernardino Mountains. Cars got farther apart and more run down. Trees got taller and closer together. My ears throbbed with the rising altitude. My eyes burned with exhaustion. A cold, hard knot developed in my gut.
We came to an iron gate. It opened.
We drove in. It clanged shut.
The Walter Huston Lodge was built by the Academy Award–winning grandfather of Anjelica Huston back in the 1930s. He was an engineer first and an actor second. The grand, historic structure had a massive stone fireplace, vaulted ceilings, and thirteen guest rooms where his Hollywood colleagues stayed. It was a good place to get away from it all. Far from prying eyes.
Huston died in 1950, and the place sat empty, I think, until CEDU bought it in 1967. The school had been forced from its original home by neighbors who insisted that zoning, which did allow for a school, did not allow for CEDU, because this place—no matter how Wasserman tried to sell it—was not a school. Freaky stories and disturbing rumors went around. Weird stuff went on there. Sex orgies, drugs, chanting, screaming. So much screaming. They didn’t want that in their neighborhood, so CEDU relocated to Huston’s hidden mountain retreat.
A good place to get away from it all.
I was taken into the lodge. I remember a room with two staffers: sort of a messy-looking hippie guy and a gross woman with a pointed weasel face.
(No offense, weasels. Love you.)