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I knew if I ever came clean, I would look like a complete ass, so Jodi and I made a pact. She would confirm all my lies, and then after Christmas break the following week, we would slowly plant seeds that I was leaving the business. “I had had enough!” was the phrase we agreed I would use.
The teasing from the older girls had come to a screeching halt, and now when I walked down the halls, almost everyone said hello, and a couple of kids even curtsied. Surprisingly, Principal Hiller never called my house again. Jodi’s estimation was that he probably thought he had a psychopath on his hands and felt it was safer to take himself out of the equation.
The Friday afternoon before I was to return to school after Christmas break, Jodi and I were in my sister Sloane’s room trying on her training bras when my father yelled my name.
I ran downstairs wearing my sister’s bra and a pair of parachute pants when my father handed me a manila envelope without looking up. “You got something in the mail.”
I opened the envelope and nearly climaxed. I ran right up to Sloane’s room and jumped up and down. “Jodi! Jodi! Look at what I got!” It was a signed autograph from Goldie Hawn. She hadn’t inscribed it the way I had requested, and obviously I would hold that against her in any future negotiations, but it was made out to me, and it was signed by her.
Jodi and I were jumping up and down like a pair of newlyweds. We ran into my room and grabbed a Sharpie. Luckily Goldie’s handwriting wasn’t very legible, so I added “Mom” in parentheses at the end, and, after much discussion, since I didn’t want to continue with the lying but wasn’t willing to tell the truth either, Jodi and I agreed to leave the note open-ended. This is what I added: “My collar bone is on the mend. Can’t wait to start working with you, if the movie ever gets made. Aaargh! You’re a star!”
“Well,” she said, “it would sure take a lot of guts to come forward now.”
“You’re absolutely right,” I told her, putting the signed photo in my backpack. “Don’t let me forget to make copies of this to pass out at school.”
After the picture had made its way through school, things started to die down, and only once in awhile would someone mention my movie-star status. In those instances, I made sure not to overembellish the fantasies that played out in my head. I would downplay my role as a Hollywood starlet by telling people I was becoming more and more interested in behind-the-scenes work, and what I really had my eye on was directing.
The lesson I learned that year was a valuable one. If you’re going to make up an enormous untruth, make sure you tell it to people you are not spending the rest of the school year with. I can only imagine what Clay Aiken has to deal with on a daily basis.
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