I always said I'd never go to a high school reunion. "Those things are for people who are successful and/or thin" was my attitude. I was neither. Somehow, I ended up going to my 40th anniversary reunion and as luck would have it, I ran into Janie MeDevitt. Radiantly beautiful! Pissed me off that she didn't look any different after 40 years. Lucky I guess.
Janie was my first girlfriend. I met her in forth period Spanish class and it was love at first sight. We never went beyond innocent kissing since we were both too young to drive and consequently were almost never alone. When she found out I had once worked for a major Men's magazine she blushingly told me of this incident which took place shortly after she graduated in 1967.
Well...It all started when I was a senior. My Dad offered me a trip to Hawaii for graduation but one afternoon I stumbled onto an old MGB roadster in a used car lot and fell madly in love! It was robin's egg blue and, with the top down and the wire wheels and everything, well, I just had to have that car! It took a lot of pleading but Daddy finally broke down and got me the MG while sternly warning me that "You'll have to pay for the insurance and the upkeep yourself! Money doesn't just grow on trees you know." My Dad was an insurance agent and he was kind of hung up on "God Forbid...What might happen!" I didn't care about that stuff back then. All I could see was myself tooling to the beach in that baby blue beauty. I got a job at Zody's which was a big discount store and soon had moved into an apartment with a girlfriend and was enjoying my life as a single liberated woman. I was finally able to come and go as I pleased.
And I went everywhere! I loved Beverly Glen and Sunset Blvd. Rode all the way west to the ocean, then up PCH to Topanga where I would head back to Sherman Oaks. My baby blue roadster purring the whole way.
This all began to change when, to my shock, the whole Zody's chain went chapter 11 and I was out of a job! My roommate was sympathetic but she had no money to help me and I didn't want to go to my parents for help.
Finally, I answered an ad in the local throwaway paper for a receptionist with "No experience necessary. Good looks would help." Well, I really had no experience at that sort of thing but I was considered good looking so I drove down to a rather ordinary looking place in the middle of a business park in Van Nuys. I met the boss (his name was Stan) and was hired on the spot for the job. Stan told me they were a publishing company and I could start Monday.
It was only a couple days into the following week that I found out what kind of "Publishing Company" this was. They published pornographic magazines! I'd rather not mention the names of these magazines since I believe they're still being published but suffice to say they were not exactly high class magazines like Playboy or Penthouse.
I was really in a quandary about it. God knows I needed the money and I didn't really have to deal with pornography at work but it just wasn't the kind of place where a girl like me should be working. I knew my Dad would have a fit if he found out about my job but Stan had been really nice to me and the other employees seemed like regular people, so I decided to stay on.
After a month or two I got used to the day to day realities of the job but I still wondered how a girl could just walk into the office...go into the studio, remove all her clothes and allow perfect strangers to photograph her nude body in a wide variety of lewd poses and then sit around and eat pizza afterwards! Like nothing out of the ordinary had just happened! I wasn't a prudish virgin at the time, but my sexual experience was limited to a couple of back seat quickies where I hadn't even removed my panties. It wasn't so much a matter of modesty as it was space limitations. I'd simply pulled the legband of my panties to one side to allow my boyfriend's penis to slide into me. Stan and Harry, our salesman, would kid me about posing from time to time but it was all in fun and I never seriously considered it.
Then one day on the way to work my MG began to make a loud clanking noise and smoke came billowing out of the tailpipe. I knew I was in trouble and managed to limp into a garage where I found out later that my motor had "Frozen up" and would need to be completely rebuilt. The mechanic said it would cost about $500 "If we don't find anything else when we get in there."
Needless to say I didn't have that kind of money and was forced to take the bus to and from work each day. If you're not familiar with the rapid transit system in Los Angeles, California I'll quickly summarize it for you: It takes forever to get anyplace and it costs a lot more than driving a car. Plus! You get to either roast or freeze depending on the season and! You get to associate with sleazeball characters on the street while waiting for a bus that may or may not ever arrive! If I didn't catch the earliest bus I would get to work late and by the end of my second week of busing I could tell that Stan had about had it. I'd been late at least an hour several times and I knew the previous receptionist had been fired for being "Unreliable."
Stan called me into his office late Friday afternoon and I knew the ax was about to fall. We talked a bit about my tardiness and, in spite of my good intentions, we both knew I would be hard pressed to make it to work on time without a car. Los Angeles is just not a rapid transit city.
Stan finally asked me how I was planning to get the MG repaired and all of the sudden I heard myself asking for a chance to pose for one of the magazines! I couldn't believe I'd said it and I think Stan was surprised too. I guess I had been thinking about the money I'd seen girls who were no better looking than me walk out with after only an hour or so of work. I usually typed up their checks and knew that Stan paid them $400 for posing. I figured that, along with my regular check, I could get my car back the next Friday.
Stan said he'd call me later but he was pretty sure he could set something up. He called me that night and told me he'd arranged for a special Saturday shoot and he'd expect me there at ten a.m. I took a deep breath after I hung up the phone. I wasn't so much nervous or excited as I was relieved. I'd get through the modeling job one way or another, get my car fixed and finally go on with my life.