Scrappy Little Nobody (8 page)

When subservient Fritzi poisons Jill, Todd tapped me on the shoulder and whispered, “Get ready.” Fritzi deadpans, “The goddamn show must go on,” and the theater exploded in cheers. I felt electrified. I was just sitting in the audience, but my ears were ringing like I’d been struck by lightning.

When the credits rolled, each character’s face appeared for a moment, with the actor’s name at the bottom of the screen. I gripped my seat waiting for mine. My face came up, and again, that electric feeling went through me. It was MY name. I’m not sure I can explain this properly, but I was still expecting to see my character’s name. This was MY name. This was the name my mother called me and my teachers called me and the neighborhood kid who flashed his penis at me in fifth grade had called me. Seeing it on film gave me the same feeling you get when you see yourself in the background of a photo you didn’t know was being taken. I didn’t feel especially proud or accomplished—if anything, it reminded me what a dummy I was for being so surprised to be listed under my own name—but seriously, guys, holy shit.

Then the strangest thing happened. The audience was on its feet. For a movie with no real actors in it. For a movie about losers who sang show tunes. For a movie that looked like crap and had no production value.

We went out and partied like only a group of dorky teens and young adults who’ve just had an incredible first screening of their weird movie could. That is to say, we crashed the
Pieces of April
party and drank them out of house and home.

Trying to blend in with the established Sundance crowd and succeeding.

The next day, I got a call from a friend back home. At this point, Sundance was at the height of its unintentional rebranding from respected independent film festival to celebrity hangout. In fact, the following year, Paris Hilton showed up for no reason, which actually helped the backlash reach critical mass, and soon after, Sundance returned to being more about movies than celebrities. (Although I’m told it won’t ever be the same as it was in the nineties. We get it, Kevin Smith; it was real back then.) My friend made small talk for a while, then said, “Hey, my mom was just watching
Access Hollywood
and it said something about Britney Spears and Fred Durst being at Sundance right now. Isn’t that weird? You’re at something called Sundance, and then THE Sundance, with the famous people, is going on at the same time. Did you know that?”

“What? No, I’m . . . what are you talking about? I am at THE Sundance.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’m in a movie that is playing at the Sundance Film Festival right now.”

“Wait, really? Have you seen Britney Spears?”

I had not seen Britney Spears, but this conversation recontextualized the underwhelming response I’d gotten in French class. They had heard of the Sundance Film Festival; they just thought I must have meant something else. I suppose it would be like a coworker you’d known for years telling you they were about to compete in the Olympic trials. You assume they meant, like, the company Olympics, and forget all about it.

“No, I haven’t seen Britney Spears, but the movie got a standing
ovation, which everyone says is really rare here. And I met Oliver Platt!”

“Oh. Ross called Lauren S. to ask if they had biology homework for winter break, but she says that she saw him write down the assignment in class.”

“No! Did Jenna dump him?”

Double life. James Bond.

•  •  •

The movie came out and did not do well. The beauty and curse of Sundance is that the screenings are packed with film lovers, most of whom connect to the pain of being an outsider and get obscure references. They are also generous audiences for new talent. They forgave a lot of the film’s flaws.

Marketing the movie to the general public as a teen romp backfired enormously, and many people who thought they were going to see a musical
American Pie
were turned off by the homosexuality, cross-dressing, and vintage synthesizers. They were also less forgiving of the uneven quality of a low-budget film.

Being in that theater at Sundance is one of the great memories of my career, and maybe my life, so far. But when I met a guy in London the following year who said the movie was boring and weird, I couldn’t fault him. And when I met a girl six months ago who told me she named her car and her dog Fritzi, I made a mental note of her distinguishing features in case I had to describe her later for a police sketch.

I
. The first shot of a new scene that establishes the location for the audience. You know how on
Seinfeld
there’s always a shot of the exterior of the diner before they cut inside and we see the gang slowly ruining their lives? That’s the establishing shot!

II
. After the first wide “master shot” of a scene is done, the subsequent camera angles (close-ups, two-shots, etc.) are considered coverage. You know the opening sequence of
Boogie Nights
? It’s the opposite of that.

I
like to tell people that I’m a square. It’s a charming way to warn someone that I’m a finicky little brat without freaking them out. I got to work with Lisa Kudrow recently, and when she told me she thought she was probably an even bigger square, I maintained that couldn’t be true. We traded stories for a while, trying to out-straitlace each other.

For example, I told her about the time my friend found out I’d never seen a movie without paying and he forced me to sneak in to
Iron Man
. I did not enjoy the film at all; I felt guilty the entire time. And when I found myself at dinner with Jon Favreau and Robert Downey Jr. a year later, I confessed my crime and insisted on giving them cash or buying them something on the menu of commensurate value. Lisa knew she’d found an uptight, apple-polishing soul sister. We held a little election to see who would be the ruler of Squaresville, if such a miraculous place existed. I was elected mayor and she, my loyal deputy. To be fair, the thing was rigged in our favor since we were the only two people organized enough to bother voting.

I happen to love rules. I love having a plan. I love a film set that’s run like a well-oiled machine. I thrive in structure; I drown
in chaos. I love rules and I love following them. Unless that rule is stupid. And yes, I have felt qualified, no matter my age, to make that determination. Scrupulous people don’t enjoy causing trouble, but they can be defiant as hell.

As an adult, being square is more or less an acceptable personality trait. The only time I desperately wanted to be rebellious was in adolescence. I wanted to be Rizzo, not Sandra Dee! I had to will myself to break rules when I could stomach it. While I’ll admit I enjoyed the thrill, I was not “the bad kid.” In fact, aside from the following stories, I was a painfully typical example of “the good kid.” During free period, even on the rare Maine sunny day, I’d stay in the cafeteria and do my Latin homework. Not because I was smart, but because I assumed the fabric of the universe would disintegrate if I didn’t. But the qualities that made me a square as a teenager—dedication, independence, maturity—led me to break the biggest rule of all. I committed systematic genocide. (Is she kidding? Let’s read on and find out!)

My adolescent flirtations with rule-breaking were alternately facilitated and foiled by my brother, Mike. Mike was a genuine cool kid. Not a “popular” kid; a wiry, quick-witted, slightly dangerous, well-liked kid. He’d been bullied in middle school but at fifteen he shot past six feet, got into good music and minor drug use, and stalked around the school in baggy white tees and fitted baseball caps. He had that feral look about him that was specific to the early 2000s, like the actors in the movie
Kids
(a movie I should not have watched before puberty). Like me, he had a strict sense of justice, so he had no interest in being unkind or intimidating people who were perfectly harmless, but he once
beat up a friend for trying crystal meth and promised it would happen again if he slipped up. He was like a sheriff or an angsty Robin Hood. He’d be the first to point out what a loser I was, but wouldn’t let anyone else say a word against me. He once made a kid apologize to me after making a crack about my size. (“I didn’t know you were Kendrick’s sister.”) When I got home, Mike asked, “Did Spencer apologize to you today?”

“Yeah, he did! And do you know what I said back?”

“Don’t tell me, dude. I know it’s gonna be something lame.”

It was something lame, so I’ll spare him the embarrassment of putting it in this book.

I got better grades than Mike, but only because, as every teacher said, he didn’t “apply himself.” He eschewed all extracurricular activities in favor of hanging out in a park downtown that a local paper described as being full of “undesirables.” That wasn’t a description of the unsavory types that my brother might find there, that was a description of my brother. He drove states away to go to raves, which he called “parties,” because only your parents and alarmed-looking blond ladies from the news said “raves.”

When people would call the house and ask “Is Kendrick there?” I’d act irritated and say, “There are four Kendricks here, you’ll have to be more specific.” I always knew who they meant.

I still idolized him. He still thought I was a liability at best and figured that dictating my social life was in everyone’s best interest.

At thirteen, I was invited to drink for the first time. Mike tore tickets at a local movie theater, and he and the rest of the teenage staff stayed behind after hours one night to throw a party.
They had beer, vodka, and coffee brandy, a sickly sweet liqueur that you mix with milk. It’s a staple of the low-income New England alcoholic, so naturally I started there. I wandered around the empty cinema, discovering what a buzz felt like and hearing, “Hey, loser, you still good?” at five-minute intervals.

At fourteen, he let me smoke a bowl with him and his best friend, Evan, whom I’d known since childhood. We went to T.G.I. Friday’s and in a haze I said, “Do you guys feel like we’re in a movie?” They laughed at me.

“Yeah, dude, that’s the kind of stupid shit you need to get out of your system while you’re just in front of us. Rookie.”

That same year he took me to my first party (that’s “rave” for all the people out there as lame as me). It was fun and weird, and I liked trying to pick up the dance style—though I might not have if I’d known how stupid I looked. I kept going whenever he would invite me, but mostly for the bragging rights. Mike told me I wouldn’t be allowed to take Ecstasy until I was sixteen, which was fine with me since I found navigating new environments hard enough when I was sober.

When I was fifteen, we went separately to a warehouse rave upstate. I was paying for entry when a large young woman burst through the doors of the main floor, out into the makeshift lobby. She was still about ten feet away when she pointed at me and said, “No. Go home,” and walked back inside. The guy who’d been taking my money shrugged and started to hand it back to me. If you’re confused, it’s because I mentioned that I was fifteen and you pictured a fifteen-year-old. But at this point, I looked about twelve. There weren’t official age limits for a party
thrown in a warehouse—certainly fifteen was old enough—yet she’d decreed I was too young.

This would not stand.
It had taken hours to get there, and, more important, it was embarrassing. I paced away from the venue, wondering what to do, and scanned the small crowd of sweaty youths who had come outside for air. I spotted a friend of Mike’s. This wasn’t hard; he knew everyone.

“Hey, Travis! Go find Mike! Tell him they won’t let me in!”

Ten minutes later my brother was outside and dragging me by the arm across the main floor. He planted me in front of the party’s organizer.

“Trish, this is my sister. She’s fifteen. We good?”

Trish took another look at me. “The age limit is sixteen.”

I’d never seen my brother’s powers of persuasion falter before.

“No it isn’t, dude. There’s a ton of kids in here who are fifteen. I’ll bet you some are younger.”

“Yeah, but Mike, look at her. She looks like a baby. If she ODs at my party, imagine how her picture’s gonna look in the paper. No one would ever rent a space to me again. Any fifteen-year-old that
is
in there at least had the decency to look like a degenerate.”

It was weird, but I kind of got her logic.

“Well, you don’t have to worry about that. She doesn’t do drugs. I told her she can’t try X until she’s sixteen. Let her in.”

In your face, lady
, I thought. I’d just been described as a goody two-shoes who left her drug-related decisions to her older brother, but I walked into the place looking like the smuggest little twelve-year-old there ever was.

Outside of underage substance use, my only dalliance in teen
rule-breaking was some light shoplifting. Jesus, it’s so trashy. It makes me cringe when I think of it.

I visited a friend in New York the summer I turned fourteen and she taught me. Oh, the city kids corrupting us weak-willed country folk! She also tried teaching me to flirt with guys, but soon found that was asking too much. Basically the trick to shoplifting was you went into a store, saw what you wanted, and took it without paying. Cute trick, right? Truthfully, the only thing she “showed” me was that it could be done. I think I would have gone my whole life without it occurring to me that normal people could just steal things. Pray I never witness a murder.