Down the Rabbit Hole - Holly Madison

CHAPTER 13
For, you see, so many out-of-the-way things had happened lately, that Alice
had begun to think that very few things indeed were really impossible.
—Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
After my breakup with Criss, I returned to La-La Land absolutely lost. I knew that I wanted a
successful career, but I didn’t know how to go about achieving it. Since arriving back in Los Angeles,
I was still reeling from the emotional fallout of my relationships with both Hef and Criss. For the first
time in almost eight years, I was entirely on my own, but this time, I was carrying a whole load of
emotional baggage behind me. What am I going to do next?
God bless Mary O’Connor. After I had spent all those years at the mansion, Mary became more
than a friend to me . . . she became like family. When she and her partner, “Captain Bob,” invited me
to stay in their spare bedroom while I got my feet on the ground, I couldn’t have been more grateful.
While she remained Hef’s loyal and loving secretary for more than 40 years, Mary was also a
compassionate woman who knew I needed her (and knew damn well that Hef respected her too much
to ever reprimand her for taking me in).
Of course I had my own apartment in Santa Monica, but I had become terrified of being by
myself. I was desperately lonely and didn’t feel at ease in my apartment. There was no security at my
building and the neighborhood in Santa Monica where it was located didn’t feel very safe after dark.
Every night I noticed a truck parked across the street from my living room window with a man sitting
in the driver’s seat for hours. I have no idea why he was there, but I found it creepy. What I needed
most was a comfortable, safe atmosphere surrounded by people I loved and who wanted the best for
me. It was the only way I could be sure that my next decision would be a smart one. I was scared of
making another bad choice because I was anxious, lonely, or desperate.
Despite Hef and the producers’ incessant lobbying for my return to the mansion and the series
(even though Crystal and the twins were already occupying our former spots), Mary encouraged me to
make the best decision for me and to follow my heart.
“It’s better for you to be on your own,” she told me. Mary had a wonderfully maternal nature—
and I often looked to her for guidance. “You need to live your life. There’s not much you can really
do at the mansion.”
A few days after I arrived, I contacted Criss’s assistant about shipping out everything I’d left
behind in my hasty departure. When the boxes arrived on Mary’s doorstep, I burst into tears. I knew I