A Little Bit Broken by Roz Weston

Author:Roz Weston [Weston, Roz]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Doubleday Canada
Published: 2022-09-27T00:00:00+00:00

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On any regular day, the Playboy Mansion was just a sad old house full of sad old men. Everyone I met on staff was Hef’s age and just shuffled around trying to look busy. My first day there was what they called an “off day,” which meant no parties, no famous movie night, no naked shenanigans. No bunnies and no booze. But I did get to play with a monkey.

As we wrapped the first half of our interview, which took about ninety minutes, we were invited to have lunch with Hef out back on the patio beside the infamous Grotto. It was taco day! As we were slowly escorted out at a senior’s pace, I took note of every single piece of furniture we passed. Everything was oversized, thick and heavy. Old wood, red velvet, and built for one thing and one thing only. Even the end tables looked strong enough to hold two people—comfortably. We toured the kitchen, which was huge and industrial, like something you’d see in the back of a restaurant. One of the chefs yelled, “Who’s ready for tacos?” as he and a few other people followed us out with trays and trays of food. I’d never had a real California taco before, let alone one handmade by a real Mexican chef, so I was pumped. My dad loved tacos and would always lecture us on what an authentic SoCal taco was supposed to taste like.

It took one bite, without even swallowing, for me to realize I was eating Old El Paso. Hef built his empire on the finer things in life. He had a half-dozen or so staff cook all his meals in a million-dollar kitchen, and there we were eating a store-bought taco kit with iceberg lettuce and pre-grated cheddar. To go along with everything else in that house, this was, hands down, the saddest lunch I’d ever seen. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not above a taco kit—nobody should be, because they’re delicious—but this was the Playboy Mansion, for god’s sake. I wanted to appear appreciative and impressed, though, so I looked at Hef and said, “Man, these are just like the ones we have back home.”

Hef smiled and grunted but said no actual words, while one of his guys chimed in with, “Yup. This is the chef’s special. Hef knows what he likes.” Which tells you just about everything you ever need to know about that place.

I’ve told this story a hundred times over the years, but I always add more boobs.

I never talked to Lexi again, but years later I looked her up. I couldn’t find anything about her, or the company she said she ran, but I did read a story about a woman with her exact same name, who looked exactly like her, who got popped for fraud and identity theft in Florida.

Probably wasn’t her.

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