Scrappy Little Nobody (16 page)

It’s a seductive feeling. It would be great if it were real. But I guess I’ve got to count on myself. Which is not great news.

I
. Some dudes like to say that men have the instinct to spread their seed, while women are supposed to protect their reproductive organs from everything but the best sperm for the strongest potential offspring. By that logic every woman in the world should be saving herself for Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and never let any of you shitheads touch her. Seriously, you guys should stop using that argument.

In third grade my fashion hero was Claudia from the Baby-Sitters Club books. She was into fashion and junk food and art and being Japanese. I was into the first two things, so I figured I could model myself after her. I used to reread every description of her outfits (usually found in chapter two, where the POV character describes the other club members), and I compiled them all in a notebook. When my family went to the mall I’d stay on the lookout for things like purple high-tops and printed turtlenecks. Unfortunately, the books were written in the mid-eighties and it was 1993, so my fashion hero was pretty “five minutes ago” but would be right on point today. What’s that? The mid-eighties are out again? AND the mid-nineties are out? 2002 is in? Wasn’t that like three years ago??

Since I could never find what I needed to precisely re-create Claudia’s every outfit, I settled for coveting the most absurd-looking articles of clothing at Contempo Casuals or T.J. Maxx. I was eight years old at this point, and my mother had a brilliant plan: occasionally buy me a stupid-looking outfit, let me wear it, and I’d get it out of my system before I got to high school.

For the most part, “stupid-looking” was the worst offense: stretch pants with sequined piping from my brother’s Michael Jackson Halloween costume, a sweatshirt with an iron-on appliqué and puff paint, a massive faux mother-of-pearl daisy necklace—ya know, stupid-looking. Some of it, though, was hilariously “provocative.” My favorite piece was a black halter top that tied in the back and around the neck. Over it, I wore a sheer white collared shirt with black velvet polka dots, tied up at the bottom. I looked dope. I think I even wore it in our class picture. On its intended customer, this halter top probably would have shown off the navel and full abs as well as a generous helping of cleavage. On me (the eight-year-old fetus) it covered my entire torso, almost up to my neck. It was the equivalent to a toddler wearing an actual dress Paris Hilton got up-skirted in—they’d smell like a stripper but they’d look like a nun.

It caused something of a stir among the other parents. They’d chirp to my mother, “Wow, you let your daughter wear a halter top to school?”

“Yeah, why not, right? If I tell her what to wear now, she’ll just want to rebel even more when she’s sixteen.”

“Oooh, what a neat idea. Not for me, though, I could never let my kid dress like that.”

“Okay, but ten bucks says she’s gonna start dressing like a tramp the second she gets boobs.” Mom would actually wait and say that to me in the car, but it was still awesome.

Even at eight I knew it was pretty pathetic for someone else’s parents to care about what I wore. Perhaps it should have prepared
me for my current state of affairs, where my clothing is the subject of professional debate for equally unaffected people. Bring on the critique,
Fashion Police
! My mom’s gonna have a wicked burn all lined up the second you turn your back!

When I got to middle school my style was informed by the rise of two movements: grunge (which had finally hit Maine) and my personal self-loathing. Even in the summer I wore long sleeves, because a schoolmate gently pointed out that the hair on my arms was dark and revolting. It’s gone away now after years of waxing and perhaps sheer force of will. If you still have dark hair on your arms maybe you don’t hate yourself enough. My mom told me that she had dark hair on her arms as a kid, but it went away as she grew up and the same thing would probably happen to me. (That doesn’t help me right now, idiot! I’m an abomination!!!) I made sure to find clothing that covered as much real estate as possible.

For the most part I had to shop in the kids’ sections of JC Penney and L.L.Bean, but large children’s sizes kept me plenty covered. There was an especially unfortunate plaid bucket hat, and a daisy-covered wallet with . . . a chain. The memory of this wallet chain pops up whenever I’ve been feeling too good about myself. I mostly used clothes as a means to avoid detection. It’s like I thought that if my shirts were baggy enough, I’d be mistaken for a pile of laundry that moved from class to class.

In high school, clothing became armor. Other girls dressed to accentuate whatever they were working with. Since I was working with nothing, I relied on my flared corduroys and a revolving
collection of lewd T-shirts. Now, some of you will have to trust me on this, but there was a time before every douche bag had a “Jesus Is My Homeboy” shirt when printed tees were an actual novelty, especially to Mainers. Around fourteen, I discovered a store called Yellow Rat Bastard. (Shut up! That store used to be cool!) Every time I went to New York for an audition, I’d find my way to Prince Street and buy a funny and occasionally obscene T-shirt.

The shirts were always too big for me, so they hid the fact that I had the measurements of a hairless cat, and they were rude, so they gave off a real “I could dress in cute clothes if I wanted but I’m above it” vibe. One had a picture of Pee-wee Herman captioned “Pervert.” Another had the cast of
Baywatch
and the word “ORGY.” I layered them over long-sleeve waffle tees and took on the world.
I can’t feel bad that I’m not one of the pretty girls if I’m actively making myself look weird! Loophole!
I wanted to be sent home for my inappropriate clothing. Badly. True to form, though, I was terrified and filled with regret the only time a teacher mentioned it.

When Abercrombie & Fitch came to the Maine Mall and created a scramble among the wealthier kids to prove they could afford it, I shoplifted a shirt and wrote “Am I Popular Yet” across the chest with a marker. Suck it, fashion! I’m not your bitch!

Sometime during junior year my friend Sam told me that when guys walked into a room, they scanned the girls and picked out who they’d have sex with. He explained that it was like a reflex, so I’d love to get some feedback from guys on whether this is true. Just tweet me or leave an Instagram comment, or if you
see me in the grocery store definitely just come up and let me know. When I asked if I made his list, he shrugged and said, “Yeah, you’re always on the ‘I would’ side. I think you’re probably on most guys’ ‘I would’ side.”

This. Was. Great. News. Given the choice, with no effort required, guys would rather have sex with me than not have sex with me? This changed everything! I mean, I still didn’t want to have sex, but you’re saying that if I DID I wouldn’t have to promise to wash the guy’s car to get him on board? The revelation that in spite of my boy-chest and braces I wasn’t considered a monstrosity led to about eight months of really sad attempts to highlight my AA cups and gel (gel!) my hair into submission. Turns out that trying to look as pretty as you can and still not being a pretty girl does a real number on you. My waffle tees were more comfortable anyway.

Reverting back to my homely-by-choice tactic served me well when I moved to Los Angeles. I’d never seen people this good-looking. I know lots of people say that LA is full of tall blondes who make you feel like Quasimodo’s ugly cousin. I know it’s unoriginal and feels like a cry for attention. But when you’re auditioning to say one line on an episode of
Entourage
, you can’t help but think,
Even I would cast this part on looks alone
, then scan the room and regret using your last quarter for street parking.

Maybe I had to compete with these girls at auditions, but I was not about to battle the changing tides of style in my spare
time. Boho chic is in, you say? Cool, I’m gonna go buy a
SpongeBob
jacket from the boys’ section of Target.

My closet looked like the by-product of schizophrenia. When you’re searching for an acting job, you never throw anything away because, you know, what if there’s an audition for a futuristic businesswoman who happened to spill ketchup on herself earlier that day? And if something is cheap enough, you’ll buy even the most hideous garments for the same reason. Your personal clothing is less than half of what you own. And no matter how strong you are, you will end up wearing something regrettable like your “spoiled homecoming queen” audition outfit to a party and take a photo with your friend Lacy where you’re both obviously sucking in your stomachs. Maybe your photos will be higher than three megapixels, but it will happen.

For the most part, though, I was happy with my sartorial choices. I thought I looked cool. Maybe I did. Or maybe I looked homeless. Either way, it didn’t occur to me that adults who weren’t auditioning or on a date could wear decent clothes. I once went to dinner with Aubrey Plaza and when she showed up in a skirt and a little white blazer, I thought,
Is she going somewhere after this?

The
Twilight
premiere was my first experience with a stylist. Actually, he was more a friend of a friend who told me he could convince some less-reputable showrooms that he was a stylist, but he was willing to work for free, so the job was his! He got
me three dresses: the pink one was too small, the silver one made me look like the world’s saddest sex robot, and the black one . . . sort of fit. We decided on the black one.

After the premiere, a costume designer friend told me he’d seen a picture of me in a magazine. “You looked cute, you were wearing this kind of kooky black dress.” Kooky? “Yeah, it had a ruffle around the collar and a kind of kooky bell sleeve.” It had a ruffle around the collar? It had sleeves? All I had noticed was that it was a black dress. And it fit me. And it didn’t make me look like C-3PO’s slave wife. I had thought of it as the “safe” option, as a “little black dress.” Turns out someone who knew stuff about clothes immediately identified it as “eccentric.” Lucky for me, he seemed charmed by it. I’d gotten away with “taking a risk” on my first real red carpet. Also, I was the thirty-seventh-most-important character in the Twilight movies, so no one gave a shit anyway.

When
Up in the Air
was chosen to premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival, Paramount Pictures hired a professional stylist for me. I suspect word had gotten back to them that I enjoyed dressing like a teenager who lived in her car, and while that was spectacularly endearing, it would be in their best interest to have someone help me dress like an adult woman. I wanted to do whatever I was supposed to do to promote a movie of that caliber, and I was excited about the prospect of playing dress-up in free clothes instead of begrudgingly spending money I needed for Panda Express at Bebe whenever I got invited to something.

Since the movie wasn’t out yet, and to fashion people indie
films don’t “count,” my stylist was effectively working with someone who had no credits. To be honest, I don’t understand how styling works to this day and I’ve given up trying to figure it out. I think part of the ambiguity comes from the stylist wanting to protect you from the harsh realities of the fashion world. If I mention in an email that I think some designer makes especially beautiful dresses, and my stylist never gets back to me about it, I can assume she didn’t want to say, “No, honey, that designer is a huge deal and you’ve been in one movie that hasn’t come out yet.” So you both pretend the email never happened.

The first time I went to my stylist’s house and pawed through a rack of dresses, it felt like Christmas. When I tried them all on, it felt more like Christmas without presents, food, or alcohol. Her distinctly unfamous client was not a big selling point for designers to give up their best stuff. You can only try on so many olive-green paisley numbers before you seriously consider creating a dress from toilet paper and bedsheets. But buried in this mountain of lamé and brocade, there was one gorgeous soft-pink Marchesa. I still don’t know how she got it. I don’t know if the dress was lined with asbestos, or if they owed her a favor, or if she stole it out of a pile reserved for Anne Hathaway. I had no credits but we got a Marchesa. And the fucker fit. (Also, I learned that things which I thought fit didn’t fit. “Fit” to me now means: it looks more like a piece of clothing than a garbage bag, and it can be made to “fit” with extensive tailoring.)

We decided to go with the pink dress, and after we got it tailored and found a bra that didn’t show, my stylist asked me about shoes. She thought it was important that I wear a pair of
expensive shoes—not just dressy-looking shoes, actual expensive shoes. It turned out magazines were going to decide how seriously to take me based on whether I wore designer shoes or shoes that
looked
nice but didn’t cost enough to feed a family for a month, like some kind of phony. She came to my apartment with three pairs of shoes in a shopping bag and said we should pick one pair and she’d return the rest.