Free The Bunny Years by Kathryn Leigh Scott

hard-nosed stylist poked her head in to make sure the “backless” back was now in the front.
    Mortified, I was pushed into the brightly lighted studio. “That’s better,” the photographer said when he saw me. I crept onto a roll of background paper and tried futilely to bunch up the little black lace flowers over my breasts and crotch. Reluctantly, I faced the camera and struck a number of poses, thinking, “I’m the first
Time
magazine Playmate!”
    Afterward, the photographer invited me for dinner, but I had to tell him I was working that night “waiting tables.” He offered to drop me off at work and I accepted. However, after my absurd display of modesty I could hardly tell him my regular job involved serving food and drink while
half-naked
. I climbed out of his car several blocks from the Club and walked to work in the cold drizzle. I had already begun to fall in love with him but was quite positive I never wanted to see him again.

    Seamstress Betty Dozier Tate, surrounded by the Bunnies, who danced in the chorus line for the Sammy Davis Jr. Tribute at Carnegie Hall, 1964. Back row: Marcia Donen, Barbara Severn; middle row: Eva Nichols, Betty, Cathy Young, Carolyn Bridges, Joy Hayes and Cheryl Walters; front row: Jolly Young and Elaine Freeman.
    The following week, one of the pictures from that shoot appeared in the magazine.
Time
had come to its senses; the photograph pictured me from the knees down to illustrate a story on textured stockings. Eventually, the photographer tracked me down through the Academy and we began to date.

    At 7 a.m. the day of my graduation from the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, my doorbell rang. I sat up in bed and called out, “Who is it?”
    The answer came back, “Surprise! It’s your aunty Pat and Mom.”
    It did indeed come as a surprise, as I was sharing my bed at the moment with a fellow classmate who had appeared with me in our final senior production of
Pajama Game
the night before. As I scrambled to find a robe, my bleary-eyed friend had already joined the pigeons on the fire escape and was pulling on his blue jeans. I took a moment to appreciate the fact that he was every bit as cute as I’d thought he was, and then raced to the front door. I released the chain guard and peered out at the drawn but ever-alert faces of my aunt and mother.
    â€œWhat took you so long? Aren’t you going to let us in?”
    â€œShe’s got a man in there, Hilda. Can’t you tell?” my aunt sniffed.
    My mother stared at me, eyes brimming. “This was supposed to be a surprise.”
    â€œWell, it is, mother. But I’m afraid aunty Pat’s right. You see . . .”
    I launched into a story so incredible that only a loving and completely daft mother could ever believe it. My mother believed it. My aunt, I could tell, did not. I persuaded them to go downstairs for breakfast at a coffee shop while I “straightened the place up.” I retrieved my companion, now fully dressed, from the fire escape and sent him scrambling down the stairs. By the time my mother and aunt returned, I had showered and dressed. I had also dusted, vacuumed and even washed the telephone.
    When my aunt was out of earshot, my mother confided that she’d had a similar experience in Minneapolis during the legendary
Syttende Mai
(17th of May, Norway’s Independence Day) blizzard of 1938. She’d had to persuade my father, then her fiancé, to spend the night rather than brave the storm. Thank God for family precedent. I nodded, volumes left gratefully unspoken between us.
    Second piece of news: I had decided to forgo the graduation ceremony (even though Robert Redford was the guest speaker) so I could work the lunch shift at the Playboy Club. I was saving every penny for a trip to Stratford, England, later that summer, so that I could be there for the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s birth. In light of the