Friends: A Love Story

by Angela Bassett

  After we finished filming we went on our real honeymoon in Nevis, a small Caribbean island. Once we returned home, Courtney moved into my house. He had already been spending a lot of time over here, coming and going every day. Since he had been renting his house, we figured this house was a good place for us to start. We began to accommodate and make space for each other. I knew that for him to feel like he belonged here I had to make room for him. There was definitely an outstanding mortgage, so we could certainly contribute to that expense. I’d never want him thinking I could say, “It’s my house!”

  As we settled in, Courtney made it clear to me that I was now the most important priority in his life—ahead of work, ahead of his mother, ahead of his family, ahead of everyone else. Nobody had done anything to cause him to broach the subject. His mom or his sister hadn’t made me feel bad or demanded an inordinate amount of his time—they wouldn’t do that. Yet he kept repeating to me, “You are the most important person in my life. The wife’s gotta come first. Everyone else is going to have to get in line.” He wanted our situation to be in line with what the Bible says: Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. (Genesis 2:24). His assurances made me feel very secure. A lot of problems come up when a grown man still put his mama first in his life—whatever Mama wants, Mama gets—as opposed to placing his wife first. Instead, a man should become the head of his own family, as husband. At the same time, Courtney also turned into the son my mother never had. He just loves her, and they talk, they get on really, really well, which is fantastic. As often as he talks to his mom, he talks to my mom. He keeps up with my family; he doesn’t differentiate between my family and his. He keeps up with everyone.

  Of course, we were eager to have children, but with our pastor’s guidance, we decided to hold off for two years and establish ourselves as a married entity first. How do we work? How do we problem solve? How do we do things together? I knew how I had done things for thirty-nine years without input from another person—I might seek counsel but I still made my own decisions. But how would we do this together? We thought it was important to enjoy each other and work on our marriage for a while without the added pressures, demands and responsibilities of raising children. In some families children become the center of the family. We wanted our relationship to form the center, the nucleus, and have the children join us. I was healthy. We thought we had time.

  Courtney took very seriously the responsibility of being the head of the household—of being the man, securing the household, that kind of thing; he took it to heart. In addition to putting his touch on our marriage, he began to put his touch on our household. Right away, he wanted to fix up the house. When I bought it, the walls had been painted a neutral white so it would be easy to sell. I hadn’t done much since moving in. Spending a lot of money made me nervous because I never quite knew when or where my next job would come. That made it hard to plan for major expenditures. Courtney wanted our house to feel more like a home. He also wanted to organize and consolidate our finances and business affairs.

  As we embarked upon this process of coming together, we began to discover that no matter how much you love someone, marriage is a lot different than going together. When you’re single, you’re the head of your household. Even though you’re dating, ultimately you do your thing and I do my thing. You have your house and I have my house. You take care of your business and I take care of my business. We get together around some things, but my decisions are my decisions; your decisions are yours. Whatever you want to do with your life, your home, your things, your career, your money, your travel, your plans—they’re your decisions. Of course, we had planned some things and done things together before. But to really accommodate and listen to each other in all those areas, that was different. Now that we were married we realized this is our house, that’s our tree, that’s our grass, this is our phone, this is our stuff, these are our bills! Two really must become one. Yet we kept behaving like two individuals, with two personalities and two ways—different ways—of doing things.

  I still made my own decisions about the work I was going to do. If we wanted to talk about it, we could. But I thought it was best for us to continue to make our own decisions about the projects we wanted. I knew what I wanted to work on, I had been pretty good at choosing them so far, and I knew what satisfied my soul. I figured I might ask his input or ask him to read a script for further confirmation. But instinctually I know if a project is something that I want to do or not. I thought that for stuff that affected me, I should still make my own decisions. And as a woman—a fully grown woman, at that—I certainly had my opinions about things. Sometimes I had strong opinions and I could be set in my ways. I liked things done in a certain way, in a certain order and a certain time frame.

  Now here came Courtney trying to change and rearrange things. Thinking we should paint the house, buy new furniture, create a family calendar, adhere to a household budget, put together a financial plan, work together to decide what projects we’d take, that kind of thing. The whole time we dated we had hardly had an argument. Not one cross word, not one “watch your tone.” It was just happy to see you, all polka dots and moonbeams. But as soon as we got married, it was more, “Uh, that tone!” Courtney is sensitive, he’s very sensitive. All of a sudden we’d be driving home from church talking about something, and maybe I’d make a joke or a sarcastic comment, and he’d ask, “What did you mean by that?”

  “Do you think I’d hurt your feelings intentionally?” I might have taken a little jab or whatever but I meant it in fun; I’d never hurt his feelings on purpose.

  One set of arguments we had revolved around decorating the house. It’s funny now when I think back on it, but it was very tense at the time. I had hired a painter to paint a couple of rooms. Along the way, he found all sorts of other little projects to do. He was an inside painter but he might see something on the outside of the house he thought we should repair. I’d say, “Well, that does need fixing,” and he’d fix it. Yet he tried to fix the shower door but ended up making it worse. Now the shower door wouldn’t close. I had to hire someone else to fix it. That meant I’d paid to have the shower door fixed twice, but he didn’t want to incur any of the additional cost. (That’s when I learned the “stay in your lane” lesson. You’re the painter, you don’t need to be “fixing” the shower door.) And with every little thing he found to fix, the job lasted a little longer. And each thing he fixed, I paid him a little more money. Eventually with all his fixing of other things, he ran out of time to paint because he had another job that was already scheduled. In the meantime, there were places that weren’t finished, places he had missed—part of a ceiling, inside a door frame, that kind of thing. He said he had to leave and start the new job and would come back.

  At first I agreed. However, now we were on the honor system. Now, I’m good on the honor system, and I guess he figured he was honorable, too. But when he wanted to be paid the balance of the money I owed him, I told him, “I’ll give you five hundred dollars now, and when you complete the rest of the job, I’ll give you the other five.” He got very indignant. He thought I should pay him and trust that he would, on his word, come back. When I wanted to hold back part of his payment, I guess to him I was insinuating something negative about his integrity. He told me he had basically done the whole job, so he expected and wanted the whole amount. At some point in the back-and-forth I said something not so nice about holding back part of his payment. He just got so upset that I said something like, “All right, all right, all right, here’s the whole thing!” We left it that he’d come back and finish.

  So after some time passed, Courtney called him to come back. The painter said something about me. It may not have been all that outlandish, but to Courtney’s ears the man had insulted me.

  “He insulted you and I don’t want him back in here,” he told me.

  “I don’t care if he insulted me or not,” I told him.
“He didn’t finish doing what he was supposed to. I have paid him. He didn’t do his part. I want him back in here.”

  “Well, I’m not going to allow someone in my house who has insulted my wife.”

  “I paid him complete and now I want the job complete. You’re suggesting we should pay someone else to come and complete this job because you think he insulted me? Huh! He’s gonna get his behind over here and paint this—or send one of his guys!”

  We had one big ol’ fight over that one. We were running up and down the stairs, this one overtaking that one, one of us out-shouting the other. I think I ended up in the bathroom with the door shut and locked. Courtney sat on the floor on the other side of the door. And waited. And waited. In the meantime, I sat on the toilet with my hands over my mouth, trying to keep the sharp words inside. Courtney kept waiting. Eventually I had to come out.

  “Please, please,” I finally asked him. “Courtney, can I just have this one? This man has gotten on my last nerve! I’m gonna lose my mind if he doesn’t come back here and do what I’ve paid him to do.”

  “But you’re my wife, he insulted you.”

  “Listen, Courtney, I’m asking you. I know you feel strongly about this, but will you acquiesce and let me have this? Can I please just have this one the way I want and need it? For me?”

  “Okay,” he relented. “For you.”

  Which was a good thing because we were at an impasse—over some paint. Some nothing.

  We had another set of arguments when he wanted to start talking about children before the two years was up. I definitely wanted a family but now that I was presented with the reality of it, all my fears welled up. We both traveled when we worked. So how was that going to work? And I couldn’t stop working—I was making more money than him, and it wasn’t like either of us got a paycheck every two weeks. And I was a forty-year-old black actress. I’d seen what had happened to many of my female classmates and peers, regardless of their race. Roles are few and far between for middle-aged and older women. I felt like I needed to make hay while the sun was still shining. Plus, I love being an actor. I wasn’t ready to stop working yet.

  Sometimes we’d be talking about something and one thought would jump into my head and I’d start to say it, but then another thought would jump in and say, “Keep that to yourself—don’t say that.” He’d wonder why I didn’t want to talk—he’d keep trying to get me to talk. But I needed to think about what I was going to say. Sometimes I’d realize that what I was going to say could be taken wrongly. Or maybe it wasn’t nice. Perhaps it was the first thing that came into my head. Or perhaps it was something I’d heard someone else say at some point—there were a lot of feisty women in my family. But it wasn’t always lovely. And it wasn’t always constructive.

  On more than one occasion I have to admit, I’ve been known to just say those kinds of things to D’nette. Sometimes when I see an area I think needs improving, I can be on her like white on rice. “Oh, I’ve got a new thing for you to try.” When we were younger I used to constantly bring up the short end even though I was just trying to help her improve. Of course, that’s not always how she saw it. I’d be telling her something I thought she should do, then all of a sudden I’d hear that choke in her voice that let me know I’d hurt her feelings. I’d feel badly that I hurt her. I’d try to make nice and change to another subject. Then I’d tell myself, “I’m not going to do that again. I’m not going to be concerned with the short end anymore. Just live your life and do your thing, and let her do hers.” But then I’d find myself tempted to bring it up again. With my girlfriends I’m much more conscious of being gentle. I may say, “Why do you think of that?” instead of “Let me tell you what I think about that.” But with my sister sometimes it’s, “Listen, I know you’re smarter than that and you need to do this, that or whatever.” I can get on my sister’s nerves—and I know sometimes I do—but she can’t get rid of me, she can’t divorce me. I knew my husband could if he wanted to. I began to think about my behavior differently.

  As actors we learn that there is the text and then there’s the subtext. There are the actual words that are spoken and then there’s the meaning behind the words. There’s your tone, and how much of it. Sometimes you might try to say something but the person only hears twenty percent of what you say because eighty percent of what you’re communicating is conveyed by your tone. If your tone of voice isn’t positive and supportive, sometimes the ear hears harsh or harsher words than are actually spoken. On the other side of the equation, we can often bear critique if the tone has love in it.

  So during that time I’d start to say, “Oh, Courtney, why don’t you do so and so because you never…” But that was wrong when I did it with my sister, it was wrong when I did it the last time to him and it is wrong now. Sometimes I’d catch myself; sometimes I wouldn’t. But I’d think, Oh, girl, you know you gotta watch what you say and how you serve it. Sometimes my mother’s voice would echo in my head: It’s not just what you say, it’s how you say it. I know I don’t want to get hit over the head with the truth all the time. So I began to learn to start asking myself, “Do I really need to say that? Is it going to edify or enlighten? Is it something we both do? Is that something I need to say right now? Is this the right time? Is it the right tone?” Many times I’d decide to keep my own counsel—or change my tone of voice. Other times I might decide that it was something I wanted to say, but now wasn’t the right time to say it.

  As much as I tried, there were many times when I’d mess up. One time we were in Santa Fe having a wonderful, fabulous weekend. Riding back to the airport, something happened—a misunderstanding, a wrong tone from me or something. Next thing I knew, he was pulling over to the side of the freeway, getting out of the car, coming around, opening the door and kneeling in front of me.

  “What just happened, babe?”

  “It’s okay. It’s okay. It’s nothing.”

  “No, it’s not nothing, your voice changed.”

  “It’s okay, Courtney. It’s okay!”

  Then, as traffic was whizzing by us on the highway, I looked into his deep brown eyes and realized that he really was committed to working things out. That talking it out, working it out was what was important to him—to the point of possibly missing our flight.

  “Please, let’s just try to talk about it. What the heck happened, babe? What did I do?”

  But I’m not the kind of person who just gets over things. When I’m pissed or upset, I run away from the situation. I gotta work through it, process it, think about it. “Oh, it could have been this way.” “Oh, I should have said that.” “I should have countered this way.” I think about where I was wrong; I have to work out what happened, how I was complicit in our blowup. Then I’d have to figure out, how does it work now? What do we do next? What must I do next? So it might take me a long time to come out of my little funk—not a month or anything like that or I’d have no friends left; usually just a few hours, maybe half a day or maybe a day at most.

  Courtney, on the other hand likes to stay and deal with the situation.

  Sometimes I would say, “I don’t want to talk about it, I don’t want to talk about it, I don’t want to talk about it,” trying to get away from the situation, and with him pulling me back in. At first he always wanted to talk right then, but I wasn’t always ready to talk yet; I’d still be thinking about it. He had done therapy; I’d just done girlfriends. I needed to think about things first. I had learned that I didn’t want to say the first thing out of my mouth. Now I wanted to say what I had to say in a way that was kind, and where he was not just listening but he really heard me, heard what I was saying. It can be so different trying to figure out how to talk to a man so he really, really hears you. I was still learning how to do that.

  When I’d get all worked up, Courtney would take me by the shoulders and look me in the eye—look at me with his big, brown soulful eyes and say, “No. We didn’t get married too soon. All couples go through this. It’s
not perfect all the time. We are going to go through this and we are going to get through this.”

  And he was sure about it and his confidence made me sure. I needed a man in whom I could see strength and resolve. His assurances made me strong in those weak moments. I learned that I’m not fickle at all; I needed the right man for me. Just looking into his eyes, I couldn’t stay in my attitude, my fury, my righteous indignation. I found out that when we’re upset with each other, our five-bedroom house suddenly becomes mighty small. I might be upstairs and he’d be downstairs or I’d be in one room and he’d be in another, but it would feel like there was a dark cloud all throughout the house. It would feel really oppressive and sap me of energy. And I couldn’t not talk to him or go out into the world and, say, stay out late on purpose, thinking, Oh, yeah. He can just wait ’til I get home. I guess he misses me now. I didn’t want to walk around with the weight of being upset on me. Every time I’d see him in front of me earnestly trying to work it out, it would just melt my heart.

  About a year into our relationship—about a year after all this arguing, combining and consolidating—Courtney frantically awakened me one night while we were sleeping.

  “Babe, babe!”

  “Hey, yeah. What’s wrong?”

  “I think I’m dying!”

  “Huh?”

  “Call Dr. Young. Call my doctor.”

  Courtney had just been to the doctor. He takes good care of himself, always working out and taking vitamins. I knew he was very healthy. I realized he was feeling upset, but I didn’t have any reason to believe something serious was wrong. It seemed more like he might have been having an anxiety attack. An anxiety attack is real, especially to the person who’s having it. You do feel like you’re dying.