Free Fall to Pieces: A Memoir of Drugs, Rock 'N' Roll, and Mental Illness by Mary Forsberg Weiland, Larkin Warren

(“We’ll bring it up, Miss.” Miss!) and headed for my room, which was beyond my imagination. I walked around touching everything. A TV! Fancy cashews for five dollars! I wanted to eat them. The bathroom was as big as a station wagon and had white makeup lights all around the mirror. The beds (I had a roommate, another girl from San Diego) were pure luxury, piled high with pillows and comforters that looked like silk. There was gold-embossed stationery in the little desk drawer. Now I knew why the rich were so happy. They had comfy beds, pricey snacks, special paper to writer letters on, and someone to carry their luggage. I tried desperately to sleep but could not. How could I go home with this knowledge and be content? Was it even okay to want a life that looked like this? Was there a way to actually work for it, even if I lost this contest? I started preparing for the crash. I would lose, I would be sent home. It would all become a memory, and when I was old, I’d question whether it really happened at all.
    In the next few days, as the Seventeen contestants moved through the city together, our every move was captured by a photographer for the magazine. We went to the Hard Rock Cafe, we went to the musical Grand Hotel —I sat through the performance in stunned silence. I had never questioned how TV came to be, how movies came to be, or if acting was an actual job, but there it all was, right in front of me. I wanted in, I wanted access. Not as an actor (I knew even thenI’d never have the chops to be an actor), but to be part of putting all this magic together—I wanted to do that. I didn’t expect anyone to hand it to me, but I was frantic to know how to ask for the job. Or what job to even ask for.
    As thrilled as I was by Broadway, I was just as thrilled by the food. It was everywhere, and there was a lot of it. Salty pretzels and Italian ices from sidewalk vendors. Hot dogs with mustard and relish from flirty old guys with striped umbrellas over their carts. My favorite eating adventure was at Tavern on the Green, right in the middle of Central Park, rising up and twinkling in the darkness like something Walt Disney had created. Everyone around us was so dressed up, I just knew that people at every table were talking about fascinating things (the fact that many of them were tourists like me never entered my mind). The menu was out of a fairy tale. Baby vegetables. Fancy potatoes, sauces with cream, butter, and wine; herbs and spices I’d never heard of. How long had people been eating like this? How could I decide what to eat? What was foie gras? What was beef en croûte? What was escarole, or shiitake or mascarpone or passion fruit or Napoleons? Why would anybody voluntarily eat raw oysters or snails in a little shell? I ordered an appetizer and an entrée, then I ordered more. Some duck. Some lamb. I wanted to taste everything. I was far, far away from the free-lunch line. When the waiter asked, “May I interest any of the young ladies in dessert?” I answered yes before he even got the entire sentence out. The Seventeen staff was cracking up; this was not typical model behavior (or typical magazine editor behavior either, I’d bet).
    While we were there, Kathleen Turner walked in. Jewel of the Nile, War of the Roses. The first celebrity I’d ever seen. She was regal,glamorous: it was as though light radiated all around her. In that moment, I knew I’d move to New York one day. There was so much to learn.
    The next day, one of our stops was the famous Louis Licari salon for haircuts and color. I had long hair with sun-drenched highlights courtesy of Mother Nature. The Seventeen people told me to sit for a while and wait for the other girls to finish up. I’d never had a professional haircut or color, and there was no way I was leaving without a full makeover. I begged, insisted, and then fought with the hair stylist and the staff from Seventeen . They finally gave in. The sensation of having your head