Coincidentally, Kelly Tough (Miss October 1981) went to school with Dorothy Stratten (Playmate of the Year 1980). Dorothy was murdered by her jealous husband at just 20. In my next excerpt from “Tough,” Kelly and Dorothy build their friendship:

“The walls in my school weren’t smooth; stacked cinder blocks, thickly painted white so you could still see the outlines of each brick. There were posters for the weekend dance and flyers for school clubs I would never join, stick-tacked to the walls. I walked alone in the corridor, and caught a faint wisp of smoke. We were only allowed cigarettes in the smoke pit outside, but I could tell someone was smoking in the girls’ restroom. I really, really needed a cigarette, and thought maybe I could bum one. 

Even before I pushed the heavy restroom door, the kind with an oblong steel plate instead of a doorknob, I heard the giggly chit-chatter of several girls. As I entered, three faces turned my way and all talking stopped. I knew these three: in my head I called them the Milk Bone Girls, the ringleaders of the dog-biscuit-throwing gang which included my sister. They hadn’t thrown anything at me for years, and now, in high school, the power balance had shifted. I was now known at school as wild, undisciplined with no parental supervision, kind of a badass. At 14, I had the fully developed body of a woman, and the interest of the older boys. I made the Milk Bone Girls look (and feel) like children in comparison. All three girls lowered their gaze and made a beeline toward the door, which I still held open. As the last former bully shuffled past, I lunged at her with just my head, the rest of my body immobile. She flinched, and a flush of satisfaction washed over me.

The source of the smoke sat amidst the sink pipes under the restroom counter. Dorothy Hoogstraten was a girl I knew since kindergarten. She sat under the sinks when she smoked because she didn’t want to get caught; I never understood how sitting under there would help. Dorothy wore what she wore for years, a pale blue ski jacket with white trim. I expect she wore it so long because her family was poor, her mom raising her and her siblings alone. She had long strawberry hair, and never used makeup because she didn’t need it or didn’t care. Just like me, she attracted the attention of boys, but never got asked out. I didn’t want to get asked out…I knew what sex was and I didn’t want anything to do with that.

“Hey,” said Dorothy.

“Hi. Can I have a drag?”

“Yeah.”

I crawled down beside her, not for the first time. We often shared cigarettes under there, sometimes hers, sometimes mine, whoever could scrounge them. We weren’t really friends, just cig buddies. We mostly sat together in silence, but neither of us said much in school either. Dorothy had been shy and guarded since kindergarten. I rarely talked to kids at school because my life was different; I wasn’t doing homework and watching Starsky & Hutch at night like them. I worked in night clubs until 3am. How could my classmates relate to that? 

Just two loners, sitting under the counter, passing a cigarette back and forth. Even though we weren’t close, Dorothy was never one of the bad people, never one of the bullies. She knew what the bullies had done to me for years. I was comfortable sharing a cigarette with her, comfortable sitting under the counter with her, comfortable not talking. The closest person I had to being a true friend who wasn’t a friend at all. I couldn’t imagine then how this quasi-friendship would play out in the future.”