Dirty Rocker Boys (5 page)

Next time T-Boy and I got together, I pulled my legs close to my chest like my life depended on it. It hurt like hell at first, but once we got the hang of it, it was game on. I was hypnotized by what our bodies could do together. I started sneaking out at night in my mom’s car, driving over to his house to have sex, and then tiptoeing back in at 4
A.M.
It didn’t occur to me that chasing boys and giving them my all might not be a good idea. All I knew was that with T-Boy, I felt safe, warm, and beautiful. I couldn’t let go of the feeling.

One night I was on my way home from T-Boy’s when I noticed another car following me. I made turns onto random side streets to see if they would follow, and they did. The car followed me all the way home, picking up speed as I did.

A rapist!
I thought, heart pounding as I skidded to a halt outside my house. I ran for the garage, rolling underneath the garage door
Mission: Impossible
style, darting up the stairs quietly as I could. Someone pointed a flashlight through the
windows, and I ran into my bedroom and hid underneath the sheets, trembling. The doorbell rang, and I heard my mom pad down the hall.

“Who is it?”

No, Mom, don’t open the doo
r, I pleaded in my head, wishing she could hear me.

An undercover cop who lived in our neighborhood had spotted me driving and was wondering what I was doing out so late.

“What on
Earth
, Bobbie!” My mom stormed into my room and turned on the lights. Pulling back the covers, she saw I was fully clothed.

“So Lacey needed me, she has this new boyfriend, and he’s, like, abusive,” I lied.

“Bullshit,” said my mom, who never curses. “I’m calling Lacey’s parents.”

Of course, Lacey’s mom scoffed at my tall tale. I was grounded for a couple of weeks and missed T-Boy so much I cried into my pillow every night.

“Mom, please!”

“Cry me a river, Bobbie Jean Brown, you’re as full of it as your father.”

T-Boy waited until I was ungrounded, and then it was game on again. We were together for nearly two years, a golden couple, invited to all the coolest parties. All the girls wanted to be my friend, and all the boys wanted to high-five T-Boy. We even talked about the future. I stopped dreaming about leaving Baton
Rouge and moving to L.A. to stalk Tommy Lee. I imagined myself having a bunch of babies with T-Boy and playing with them in Mr. Earl’s garden. Didn’t sound so bad to me—until Bridgette came along.

Bridgette was a hot cheerleader from another school. She had her eye set on T-Boy from day one, and my friends tried to warn me about her, but I didn’t feel threatened in the slightest. T-Boy and I were solid. One night, we were all at a party when Bridgette sidled up next to me and showed me something in the palm of her hand.

“Open your mouth,” she said.

“What is it?”

“An M&M.”

I don’t remember anything past that moment, except that at 3
A.M.
I showed up at home covered in mud, my hair drenched with Jack Daniel’s. I threw up all night, while back at the party, in front of all our friends, Bridgette was getting it on with T-Boy. When I heard that they had hooked up, it was the worst pain I had ever experienced. T-Boy, who had also been drunk, called the house nonstop, apologizing, begging for me to get back with him, but I couldn’t. I didn’t believe in cheating. “You’re nothing but a fake and a loser!” I screamed at him. Heartbroken, I stopped thinking about my future with T-Boy. I reverted to Plan A—get the hell out of Baton Rouge and make my living as a model, preferably a model married to Tommy Lee or some other cute rocker. The pageant circuit was as good a place as any to start.

In my senior year, I entered the Miss Louisiana Teen USA pageant. My friend Shannon Parker had been doing pageants for years, so I figured I’d tag along. I picked out a long green ball dress, my mom did my hair and makeup, and I lined up along with all the other girls. I went into the contest assuming I had little to no chance of winning. Which didn’t bother me too much, as I had been trained by my family not to be too competitive. I couldn’t believe the cutthroat, crazy drive that all the other pageant girls had.
If I do good, great, and if I don’t, okay,
I thought. Because my goal was never to be the winner, I was able to relax and have fun at the competition.

“So, Bobbie, what’s your favorite hobby?” asked one of the judges.

“Well, I probably shouldn’t say this, but I love listening to Mötley Crüe and drinking Dr Pepper, primarily for its health benefits.”

The audience clapped and roared, entertained by my tomfoolery. In between rounds, the very effeminate gentleman who was directing the pageant pulled me and my mom to one side.

“Mrs. LeSage, I love your girl Bobbie, but that dress—it’s
killing
me,” he whispered.

I glanced down at my heavy, dark green frock that, truth be told, did have a certain Wednesday Addams feel. Luckily, my mom had thought to bring a backup, a sequined puffy-sleeved prom dress that had a plunging neckline and clung to my body
in all the right places. The pageant director beamed when I emerged from the dressing room.

“Bravo, Bobbie, you look just like Krystle Carrington.”

When I stepped back onstage, everyone gasped, especially Shannon Parker, who could not believe what she was about to see—Boobless Bobbie Brown winning the very first beauty pageant she had ever entered. I blinked in surprise as they handed me the trophy and named me Miss Louisiana Teen USA, 1987. At just seventeen, I was a real-life beauty queen—and I hadn’t even had to try very hard.

Winning the competition was half blessing, half curse. It made me realize I might actually have a shot as a model, a shot at being
somebody
. The kind of girl who deserved a real Prince Charming, one who didn’t cheat like T-Boy, and wasn’t mean and drunk, like my dad. But the downside of being declared the prettiest girl in Louisiana is that all of a sudden, people start treating you differently. I wasn’t mentally prepared for it, because in reality, I didn’t actually believe I was the prettiest girl in Louisiana. I couldn’t believe how seriously everyone else was taking it. It was just a little local competition, after all! But the girls who I’d thought were my friends started whispering all kinds of things about me behind my back. And the guys—well if they weren’t humping on my leg, they were running from me like they were scared. Worst of all, Mona, Shannon, Lacey—my best girlfriends—thought I was getting too big for my boots and froze me out. That was one long, lonely winter, I can tell you.
I tried not to let things get me down, even though I still had trouble comprehending why everyone was making such a fuss about me winning. I had the big competition ahead of me at the end of the summer—Miss Teen USA. I wondered how everyone would treat me after that, and reminded myself that it didn’t really matter if I won. All that mattered was getting
some
kind of modeling contract so I could at least leave Baton Rouge, find my rock star, and live a fun and glamorous life like Paulina.

My mother was always encouraging, always supportive, and took great care of me. From grooming to trips to the dentist to dance class, she was always on top of things. As soon as I was old enough, she took me to get my first Pap smear. To our horror, the results came back positive—abnormal cells indicated that I had early-stage cervical cancer. “You’re very lucky we caught it so early,” said the doctors. They said they would need to operate to cut out the cancer, and ended up removing half of my cervix. They said that I would probably never be able to have children as a result of the surgery. When I returned from the hospital, my mother and I cried together. She told me that it didn’t matter what the doctors said; only God could decide if I was supposed to have babies or not.

“Should I still go to Miss Teen USA?” I asked my mom, holding back the tears.

“Most definitely,” she said. “The show must go on.”

Come July, me and my momma said hello to the big West Texas moon that shone bright over El Paso the night of the biggest teen pageant in America. The competition was as fierce as the July heat: fifty-one girls from all over the U.S., between the ages of thirteen and nineteen, all competing for the title of Miss Teen USA. I made friends with Kristi Lynn Addis, Miss Mississippi, and she was a doll. We helped zip up each other’s dresses for the evening gown competition, and tucked in each other’s bathing suit labels. Backstage, we gave each other good-luck hugs before lining up for the big show, which was being televised live across the United States. Our gowns ranged from pouffy to pouffier to pouffiest (this was 1987, after all, the year style forgot), and the El Paso Youth Symphony Orchestra played a classical rendition of Billy Joel’s “Uptown Girl” as we prepared to step on the stage.

Bobbie is five foot eight inches tall and weighs one hundred seventeen pounds,
said the announcer.

I strutted across the stage, a prom night explosion in salmon pink, shoulder puffs so big you could have hidden a small child in each. My hair was sprayed into a formal chignon, my bangs were tall, and my smile was wider than the Rio Grande. I couldn’t believe the size of the audience—I’d never seen so many people in one room before.

Then I had to impress the judges with my interview skills. All the girls donned identical skintight acid-wash jeans with sporty jackets. Miss California was up first. She bragged about
not having to work to get good grades. Miss North Dakota said she wanted to open boutiques in New York, Paris, and L.A., forgetting that she was talking to a Texan crowd. Then it was my turn.

So, Miss Louisiana, what would you like to be when you grow up?

“Well, I’ve always wanted to be a successful model, travel, and make the best of my life . . . and if I can’t be a professional model and succeed at what I want to do, I have college plans afterward,” I lied.

What would you say to a young girl who says she wants to be a model?

“Just to be herself. . . . Enjoy every moment and smile pretty and big.”

Do you have an agent yet?

“No. I need one, though.” (Laughs from the audience)

What kind of agent are you looking for?

“One that can get me work.” (More laughs)

Again, I was just being myself and not trying too hard. And it seemed to work. The judges named me second runner-up and gave my buddy Kristi from Mississippi the Miss Teen USA crown. I couldn’t have been happier. Just knowing I had made the top five was faith-affirming enough to keep me giggling all the way to the airport. When my mom and I boarded that flight back to Baton Rouge, we had no idea what was waiting for us at home—nearly a dozen messages from modeling agencies. Hollywood, apparently, had been watching.

A few weeks later, my mother and I flew out to Los Angeles to meet some of those prospective agents and managers. The traffic crawled along Sunset Boulevard as kids congregated outside the clubs: the Rainbow, Gazzarri’s, the Roxy, the Whisky. It was like a big glam rock street party, guys with guitar cases and leather jackets strolling up and down between the big clubs, while girls who looked like strippers handed out fliers. These kids weren’t hippies, and they weren’t greasers—they were something new, like magnificently plumed birds in skintight pants, tiger print, spandex, and red leather. My heart pounded as I gazed at all these guys, each one the spitting image of Vince Neil, Axl Rose, or (swoon) Tommy Lee. My mom, naturally, was horrified. “I mean, what kind of man goes out wearing makeup?” she tutted when we got back to our hotel. “Mom, that’s the whole point—if you’re a real man, you can wear eyeliner and get away with it.” But she seemed far less enamored with Hollywood than I.

“Honey, are you
sure
you want to move here?” she asked. I felt sure that I did. Hollywood was where I could really live the life of a model. Not Baton Rouge. “I’ll be okay, Mom, I promise. I’m tough, remember?” My mom nodded, and we signed with an agency called East West later the next day. I couldn’t wait to get started, but my mom said I had to finish high school first. So back we went to Baton Rouge, which, compared to Hollywood, felt downright quaint now.

I got a job at Body Masters, a new gym Mr. Earl opened
with my mom’s brothers Jimmy and Wayne. It was while working reception there that I met Kenny, a rich kid who, like me, had dreams of escaping Baton Rouge. He sang in a rock band and had a long mullet and a mustache. When I told him I was going to move to Los Angeles, his eyes lit up beneath his frizzy bangs.

“Let’s go together, Bobbie,” he said. “I’ll be a rock star, and you can be my super-hot girlfriend.” I was nineteen, he was twenty-six, and we were definitely on the same page. A few months later we hit the road with a carful of clothes, headed west toward Sunset.

“Well, don’t you look pretty,” said O. J. Simpson, standing next to me at the bar, sizing me up like I was the evening’s special. Maybe it had something to do with the tight black-and-white minidress I was wearing, but the men were swarming me like flies on shit—Eddie Murphy had introduced himself not five minutes ago, Scott Baio was staring at my ass like it was his long-lost puppy, and now this guy. He looked vaguely familiar.

“Thank you so much,” I said, flashing my biggest Southern smile before heading back to the dance floor, a triple vodka cocktail in each hand. One was for me, and the other was for my guy, Kenny. I looked around trying to find him. We were at Helena’s, a private supper club in Hollywood, whose members included Jack Nicholson and Madonna. It was an intimate mingle zone for the rich, famous, and beautiful. Being neither rich, nor famous, nor beautiful, Kenny always felt insecure when I brought him to Helena’s. I figured triple shots would help.

“Here, babe, drink up!”

“Did you just give O. J. Simpson your phone number,
Bobbie?” asked Kenny, snatching his glass from me, his eyes despondent.