Beauty, Disrupted: A Memoir

315 Pages·2011·18.31 MB·English

by  Carre Otis

BEAUTY, DISRUPTED
with Hugo Schwyzer
Carré Otis
Dedication
This book is dedicated to my teachers,
past, present, and future.
May we all be so blessed to cross paths with
the Wise Ones . . . those who remind us of
the inherent wisdom we all possess . . .
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Dedication

Chapter 1 - False Starts
B A
ARELY OF GE
M
ARIN
T F R
HE IRST UNWAY
S F
AN RANCISCO
A C
GENTS OF HANGE

Chapter 2 - Early Modeling Years
T B A
HE IG PPLE
P , T , M
ARIS AHITI ILAN
T F H
HE IRST OMECOMING
M A
ODELING GAIN

Chapter 3 - The Mickey Years
M M R
EETING ICKEY OURKE
W O
ILD RCHID
B G C
IRD IN A ILDED AGE
P H
LAYING OUSE
C K
ALVIN LEIN
C J G
HRISTMAS WITH OHN OTTI
S S F
HOT IN ANTA E
B B S P
OXING AND A IG UR ROPOSAL
H H
ONEYMOON TO ELL
F A
ALLING FOR ILEEN
O P W
N THE SYCH ARD
T S S , C S A
HE IMPSON UMMER ASES OF POUSAL BUSE
N Y F W , 1994
EW ORK ASHION EEK
H B , H S
ITTING OTTOM EADING OUTH
E S
ARLY OBRIETY
L M
EAVING ICKEY

Chapter 4 - On My Own
M A
AKING MENDS
S I H M H
PORTS LLUSTRATED AND THE OLES IN Y EART
P -S M
LUS IZE ODELING
D M V O
ISCOVERING Y OICE WITH PRAH
N
EPAL
M M
ONKS IN ALIBU
G G V C
ESHE YELTSEN AND THE OW OF ELIBACY
R T
ECONNECTING WITH SULTRIM
F M H T
INDING Y EART EACHER
L M M
AST EETING WITH ICKEY

Chapter 5 - A New Beginning
C H , M M
OMING OME EETING ATTHEW
S H
EXUAL EALING
S , P , J
URGERY REGNANCY ADE
E C
NDURING OLIC
R T : B I W G
OUND WO ODY MAGE AND EIGHT AIN
B K
IRTHING AYA
C B
OLORADO OUND

Acknowledgments
Photo Section
About the Author
Credits
Copyright
About the Publisher
Chapter 1
False Starts
B A
ARELY OF GE
I could feel my sixteen-year-old breasts bouncing against the cool, soft
silk camisole I was wearing, the whiskey I’d just downed burning in my
throat, and my knees nearly buckling with every step I took down the
rickety tabletops lined up to form a makeshift runway. Phil Collins’s
“Sussudio,” the sound track for my walk, was pulsing to the beat of my
heart and even shook the platform beneath my feet, making my gait
even more unstable. My face was flushed with the realization that I was
too young for men to be leering at my body, too young to be in this
godforsaken bar. This runway was no place for anybody, even for a
runaway scraping to get by.
Twenty bucks, I reminded myself. Twenty bucks, and tonight for the first
time in weeks I can eat something that hasn’t been salvaged from a Dumpster.
That thought kept me focused as I pivoted awkwardly in my kitten heels
and made my way back down the line of tables. With every step I took, I
dug deeper to find my dignity. I pulled myself taller, hoping my face
reflected a calm I didn’t feel inside. Through the smoke, the blaring
music, and the jarring catcalls, one thought pushed stubbornly past all
the others: How in hell did I end up here?
Every life is filled with turning points, decisive instants that determine
the direction we will ultimately take. Many such moments had already
led me to this bar and my first modeling gig. And as I started to think
back to where the journey first began, my mind flashed to a time a
dozen or so years prior and a dozen or so miles away, back to San
Francisco, the summer of 1973, and what was the original turning point.
M
ARIN
I was sprawled out on the grass in the little yard behind my family’s Clay
Street flat, staring up at the gray sky. The lonely sound of foghorns
echoed throughout the city. Almost everywhere else in America, August
is hot, but in my hometown it was invariably dreary, cold, and overcast.
I daydreamed as I lay there, fantasizing about a place my parents had
talked about all summer, the sunny place we were moving to. It was
somewhere, I was sure, that my family would be happier. Somewhere
called Marin County. And though I hadn’t ventured there yet, I’d already
invested a lot of hope in that place.
We were going to see our new house that day for the very first time.
For my parents Marin symbolized success. A short drive north of San
Francisco, it’s where many affluent Californians live. Almost all the other
attorneys where my father worked commuted from homes outside the
city, as the suburbs were warm and bright, the schools were top tier, and
the streets were safe. As I neared kindergarten age, my parents wanted
to give my sister and me a chance to grow up away from the crime, the
mist, and the cramped apartments that were the norm in San Francisco.
Moving to Marin meant giving their children the best—more than they
had been given. And it meant giving themselves and their marriage a
second chance, too.
My parents were both from the East and had moved to San Francisco
only so my father could go to law school there. I was born in 1968, just
eighteen months after my sister Chrisse and just one year after Dad
passed the bar exam. Money had been tight during those early years,
which caused all kinds of stresses, but by 1973 my father’s career was
finally starting to take off. In Marin we could have a house of our own,
big enough for my sister and me to each have a room and secure enough
for my parents to lay down roots. That sounded like heaven to me.
When Mom was ready to go, I slipped from my momentary reverie,
clambered to my feet, and ran to the car. We were off to check out
Greenbrae, a town right in the heart of Marin. We drove Mom’s yellow
Volvo across the Golden Gate Bridge and up through the rainbow-
painted tunnel on the other side. Every time we passed through that
tunnel, Chrisse and I would count to three and inhale dramatically,
competing to see who could hold her breath all the way to the other
side. But on that August day it was as if we’d taken the whole ride with
bated breath.
The whisper of promise in the air actually sent a tingle right through
me. I thought about the new friends I’d make and all the open spaces in
which I’d have to play. I thought about feeling warmth inside and out.
And in the Volvo, as we climbed up a winding hill and turned onto Corte
Lodato, I knew that my mother, father, and sister were deep in their own
fantasies, too. Their silence told me that.
Chrisse and I both squealed with delight as the car rolled to a stop.
There was a small knoll dotted with low-hanging oak trees in the center
of the street; to get to the house, you had to drive slowly around it,
making a wide circle so as not to clip the curb. I leaped from the
backseat and raced to our door. I reached up and lifted the brass knocker
that was shaped like a smiling dolphin.
I rapped on the door with that dolphin several times, until my mother
said, “Carré, that’s enough!” I exhaled impatiently, fidgeting and
listening for footsteps approaching from inside the house. When the door
swung open, the owner greeted us. Introducing herself as Martha, she
flashed a broad smile. She had pink frosted lips that twisted in a strange
way every time she spoke. Chrisse and I were fascinated by her to the
point of distraction, like Charlie Brown listening to his teacher, unable to
understand a word she was saying.
We were finally given permission to explore, while my parents stayed
behind to talk with Martha. Chrisse and I raced through the house and
bolted out onto the back deck, where we were surprised to see an
enormous yard, so much bigger than any yard we’d ever seen in San
Francisco.
From the deck I could glimpse the pool my parents had promised.
Separated from the house by a grove of oak and eucalyptus, it was in the
shape of a kidney bean. As I ran toward it, leaving Chrisse behind, I saw
that an old cover lay over the top, partly submerged in what looked to
be murky brown water. The closer I got to it, the scarier it seemed. I felt
a weird sense of dread as I inched nearer still. I circled the pool warily,
my footsteps loud on the concrete that surrounded it. Taking a deep
breath, I lifted the cover—and just as quickly I gasped, dropped it, and
fled. The corpses of bugs, mice, and birds floated and bobbed in the
filthy water below. The stench of death was overpowering. All the
optimism I’d felt in the car ride there left me instantly. I didn’t like this
place at all, with its cold, dark interiors and its foreboding pool. But the
deal was already done. We were moving. This was to be our new home.
By the middle of September, we were settled in. I’d gotten the room
my mom had promised to me—the one with an orange shag rug. It had a
bunk bed, a bookshelf my dad had built, and a desk situated near a set of
windows that overlooked a small garden alongside the driveway. From
there I could easily see who was coming and going. I had one of those
old reading pillows with armrests built into it, a soft yellow blanket and
a tattered but much beloved, stuffed rabbit. I pressed rainbow stickers
onto the ceiling next to images of shooting stars and flying unicorns. I
had made the space my own. When I fell asleep at night, my new digital
clock radio glowed, its steady green light offering reassurance from the
darkness. I would have this clock for many years, its light a dependable
guardian against whatever frightened me and its clicking a reminder
that, like the hour, all fears ultimately pass.
One of the great draws to Marin County was the famed Marin Country
Day School in nearby Corte Madera. MCDS, as it was called, enrolled
students from kindergarten to the eighth grade and was one of the few
private schools in the area. It was a mark of status for a family’s child to
attend MCDS. But that wasn’t the only reason so many people, including
my parents, struggled to pay the steep tuition. In addition to a great
academic program MCDS offered students all the attributes of a close-
knit community. What it didn’t offer, however, were the resources
needed to deal with troubled kids. And my troubles at school, as it
turned out, began very early.
With the start of our first term there, Dad headed back across the
bridge every morning to a new job at a prestigious law firm. And when
Mom wasn’t shuffling us off to MCDS and preparing for the birth of my
little brother, Jordan, she worked part-time at Dominican College in San
Rafael. Meanwhile Chrisse and I were adjusting in our own manner—
and growing steadily apart in the process. Each morning when we were
dropped off at school, we’d head our separate ways, a sadness befalling
me as she’d quickly run off to greet her new friends.
Chrisse was almost instantly popular, whereas I was the complete
opposite. And the comparisons that put a wedge between us didn’t stop
there. She’d been a beautiful baby, but as she got older, she developed a
bad overbite that had to be corrected with the infamous headgear of
1970s orthodontia. My teeth were better behaved, and so in the same