Paris: The Memoir(8)
2
I was born in New York City on February 17, 1981, three days after Valentine’s Day: Aquarius sun, Leo moon, Sagittarius rising. Six months later, MTV made its official debut with the Buggles’ “Video Killed the Radio Star.”
It all adds up.
In the context of a technological renaissance, the story of my life makes perfect sense.
Everyone says I was a sweet kid. My parents have hundreds of hours of home videos to back that up. My dad was always an early adopter when it came to tech, and as soon as those bulky old-school camcorders became available, he got one and embraced the idea that everything should be recorded, for entertainment in the present and archival value in the future. He taped everything about my life, starting the day of my birth. I loved the feeling of his focused eye on me. In those moments, his attention was distilled to that little round lens, and there I was at the center of it.
Dad always called me “Star”—in the sense of “movie star,” yes, but there was also a how I wonder what you are vibe.
When I was two, Cyndi Lauper dropped her first single—“Girls Just Want to Have Fun”—and my little sister Nicholai Olivia was born. Aunt Kyle says I was over the moon, crazy in love with Nicky from the second she came home. I have no memories of a life before her. She was my best friend and partner in crime when we were little girls. Mom dressed us in twin outfits. We played dress-up in Mom’s closet, styling each other with scarves and jewelry and sashaying up and down a pretend runway.
I’ve been dragging Nicky into adventures and misadventures ever since. I counted on Nicky to back me up if I was doing something out of bounds, like hiding a ferret in a box under my bed or climbing out my upstairs bedroom window and scrambling down the trellis when I was grounded. She’s been trying to pump the brakes on me since she was old enough to understand the word consequences. When she was in junior high, she turned into a little tattle-nanny, but I believe in my heart that she truly thought she was looking out for me.
From the time I was a toddler, my brain skipped and flickered with the chemical imbalance of ADHD. Sometimes it was too much. I had to get up and dance in the glow of my Disney princess night-light. “Time out” or anything that required sitting still was torture for me. I’m sure I was a handful, but it was never in my nature to lie or be mean. Nicky and I went to etiquette classes, so I knew how to apologize like a good girl, and I got a lot of practice. To be a “good girl” you had to be quiet.
Obey.
Sit still.
I was incapable of these things, so I had to be adorable instead. I had to be cute, precocious, and coy. I had to act silly and put on a baby-girl voice, which came naturally when I was nervous, because tension in your neck and shoulders actually tightens up your vocal apparatus and makes your voice go high and glottal. (I learned that during vocal training for Repo! The Genetic Opera.) I sang and danced and put on shows in Nanu’s living room with Nicky and our pets, but I wasn’t into the idea of performing in public. Fundamentally, I’ve always been shy—an extroverted introvert, overcompensating with performative social-butterfly behavior.
When Nicky and I were preschoolers, our family relocated to Bel Air and moved into a house that my parents bought from Jaclyn Smith from Charlie’s Angels. Jaclyn had built an elaborate playhouse for her little girl—like Barbie’s Dream House come to life—which Nicky and I turned into a pet hotel. I always saved up my money so I could shop for animals at a dank-smelling pet store where they sold tropical fish, snakes, and other fantastic beasts. I wanted to love and comfort any little creature who came my way.
Nicky and I played elaborate games of dress-up and pretend, while Aunt Kyle snapped pictures and filmed us with her video camera. Mom has allowed only a sliver of that footage into public view. On one old home movie, there’s a telling moment when my eight-year-old face is all crooked smile and smeared lipstick, my bangs are right out of “Forever Your Girl”—teased ragged with the appropriate hat—and I’m wearing Boy George blue eyeshadow and layers of bunchy, jewel-toned clothes typical of the late 1980s.
“Hey,” says Aunt Kyle. “Aren’t you that famous movie star?”
“Yes!”
“What’s your name?”
“Paula Abdul.” I run off, chasing a little black-and-white rabbit.
“Are you gorgeous?” asks Kyle.
“No.” I hold up the bunny. “He is.”
“Make a mad face,” she says. “Make a happy face. Make a plain face with no emotion.”
I do each of those on cue, into the game, but only briefly. The bunny was a lot more interesting to me.
My dad noticed and nurtured my love for animals. He took me to pet stores to see the puppies and to the exotic cat show to see the Bengal cats. We spent a wonderful day at the San Diego Zoo, where Dad booked a backstage VIP experience so I could see all the animals up close and help the zookeepers with chores. My grandparents had a ranch, where I got to ride horses. Dad took me fishing and dirt biking and showed me how to handle the newborn chicks in the chicken coop. That’s when I felt closest to him. He and Mom were amazingly cool about my personal petting zoo of ferrets, rabbits, gerbils, cats, dogs, birds, snakes, guinea pigs, chinchillas, even a little monkey, and a baby goat that I kept next to the tennis court at Papa and Nanu’s.
I had a whole community of rats named after all the people from 90210: Luke, Tori, Jason, Shannen, Brian, Ian, Jennie, Tiffani, and Gabrielle. Yeah, I know what you’re thinking—like rats?—but domesticated rats are actually very clean, sweet natured, and intelligent. I had a huge rat named Max who had enormous balls. One day when I was out in the yard cuddling Max, a ferret ran over to me, and poor Max screamed this bizarrely loud scream with his little rat mouth wide open, and then he bit me. I dropped him, and he ran off, waddling up the driveway as fast as he could with his weirdly large balls bouncing away. I started crying, not because I was hurt but because I thought I’d lost him.