The chapter opens with a poem in which Anderson fondly imagines her five-year-old self on the beach. Anderson praises her child self, who is playing with the sand and crabs, calling her “the real me—unpolluted” (14).

Anderson grew up in a small coastal town called Ladysmith on Vancouver Island. Her parents met and married as teens, having Pamela soon after. Pamela’s mother was playful, beautiful and very funny, while her father was free-thinking, intelligent, and often argumentative. He loved to play poker and hunt, and he was notorious in the town for rebellious behavior including street racing and reckless driving. Anderson was also close with her grandfather, Herman, who taught her Finnish. A logger and a poet, her grandfather shared Anderson’s love of the outdoors and taught her about the woods.

Anderson recalls her early childhood fun growing up in a little cabin by the beach. While the family didn’t have much money, she did all the activities she could: figure skating, gymnastics, and piano. She especially loved animals and became opposed to hunting at an early age, even persuading her father to stop hunting deer.

Her father’s drinking harmed her parents’ marriage, as he was verbally and physically abusive to Anderson’s mother when drunk. Anderson would comfort her little brother, Gerry, during their parents’ fights. Afraid for her mother, Anderson began causing mischief to distract her father from his anger toward her mother, inviting punishment upon herself instead. Anderson was confused about her parents’ situation, but knew that something was wrong. Meanwhile, Anderson’s young, female babysitter was sexually inappropriate with her on multiple occasions. These incidents confused and scared Anderson, and after an argument with her babysitter, Anderson wished that the babysitter would die. When the young woman was killed in a car accident soon afterward, Anderson connected the events in her mind and felt responsible.

At school, Anderson was creative and a natural storyteller. She had a passion for natural history and dreamed of becoming a paleontologist or an archaeologist. While she was shy as a child, she liked to get attention on her own terms, and was sometimes a class clown. However, as she grew older, her home life began to make her feel more anxious and embarrassed, and she became more withdrawn.

Anderson explains that as her dad’s drinking and abusive behavior escalated, her mother began taking her and Gerry to her friends’ houses from time to time. Eventually she decided to leave him completely and moved to Kamloops, a rural town on the mainland. Anderson felt estranged in this unfamiliar landscape, where she and her brother would play in the parking lot with the neighbor kids. She took solace in her relationship with animals, like the neighborhood cat and some nearby ranch horses. After a year, Anderson’s father located them and drove up to reunite with his family. Anderson was relieved when they all went home together.

The family relocated again to Comox, a small town north of Ladysmith on Vancouver Island. Her father was newly sober and established a new furnace business there. His different demeanor felt strange to Anderson, who missed her old dad, if not his bad behavior. Now going through adolescence, Anderson felt self-conscious about her delayed puberty and tiny frame. Her teens were marked by traumatic abuse by acquaintances and romantic partners. An acquaintance of a friend raped her when she was 13, which she hid from everyone in her life. Her first two high school boyfriends were physically abusive. Anderson struggled to understand why these young men would always seem so nice early in the relationship and then become increasingly violent. Her experiences made her interested in psychology, and she began to read books on the topic to try to understand what made people act violently.

In her late teens Anderson became completely fed up with her father’s abuse of her mother, which had worsened again, and realized that she would never be able to convince her mother to leave him. She moved out at 17, eager to be on her own but with little practical life skills or money smarts. Meanwhile, she worried for her younger brother, Gerry, who hated his father and channeled his energy into rebelling and doing drugs.

Anderson moved to Victoria, the largest city on Vancouver Island, where she stayed with her aunt. She fondly remembers her aunt giving her cooking tips and relationship advice. The two connected over many things, mostly their love of animals. After a few months Anderson moved to a shared house with friends and found work as a waitress. Her abusive ex-boyfriend, Jack, with whom she had an on-again off-again relationship, would sometimes stalk her at her home, tormenting her. Feeling the need to truly escape her past life and Jack, Anderson moved to Vancouver, where she worked at a fitness center.

Here she met Mike, a photographer, and the two quickly began dating and became engaged. Anderson was a romantic and longed to find her life partner; she was also highly conscious of her grandmother’s advice to marry before the age of 25. In the end, Mike became a jealous partner, though he himself was unfaithful with a local model. The 22-year old Anderson got a lucky break when she went to a local football game and found herself on the Jumbotron, to the excitement of the audience. The Labatt beer company began to use her image, and Anderson became a model overnight. Playboy magazine saw the ads and immediately offered Anderson a photoshoot. She agreed. Suspecting Mike of being unfaithful, she decided to leave him, fearful of his jealous behavior. After staying with a girlfriend and arranging her last-minute flights to LA, Anderson flew first-class to California for her Playboy shoot, filled with excitement.

When Anderson arrived in LA, she was amazed. Everything felt surreal and especially beautiful and exciting. Playboy put her up in a fancy hotel, and she was both intimidated and excited to visit the Playboy mansion for a party. The next day the Playboy stylists and makeup artists gave her an extensive makeover, and she chatted openly with the women about her life and her romantic troubles. Everyone was kind and understanding, and Anderson felt a sense of belonging and community among the Playboy crew.

The following day, Anderson was so nervous during her nearly nude photo shoot that she was sick. She struggled with her inner discomfort, willing herself to be more sexually liberated and confident. Marilyn Grabowski, Anderson’s contact at Playboy, offered her a $15,000 contract for another photoshoot and urged her to stay in Los Angeles, where she could make a new life for herself as a model. Realizing that her Playboy opportunity could open new doors for her, Anderson decided to stay in LA.

Anderson considered Playboy’s offer to do a centerfold feature in their magazine. However, the producer Jon Peters, whom she had met at the Playboy party, urged her not to accept their offer. He convinced her to move into an extra home he owned in Bel Air and began buying her expensive gifts and treating her to shopping sprees.

When Anderson’s mother visited, she was amazed by her daughter’s glamorous new life. Playboy owner Hugh Hefner asked Anderson to co-host the television series Playboy After Dark, but Anderson was hesitant since Jon had warned her against being associated with Playboy. Anderson’s actor friend Mario Van Peebles visited her and warned her about becoming too dependent on Jon, expressing concerns about their dynamic. Anderson reassured him that Jon had never pressured her into anything sexual, but Jon soon began bragging to people about their amazing romance, and Anderson realized that she needed to extricate herself from the disingenuous relationship. She moved out into a dingy apartment in Newhall, about an hour from LA. She began dating Mario, who had an intellectual, progressive family whom Anderson admired. With only Playboy offering her work, Anderson accepted their centerfold photoshoot contract. She found the team supportive and fondly remembers the shoot and becoming more comfortable with nude modeling. Now firmly a part of the Playboy company, Anderson would attend Hefner’s parties, which she describes as “quite innocent for debauchery” and “beautiful and sensual chaos” (92). While some men crossed the line at these parties, Anderson always refused to go further than flirting and felt that Hefner himself was a gentleman.