The Accidental Diva

by Tia Williams

  “You turned it off? You weren’t going to say good night or anything?”

  “No, I…no, it’s…”

  “I can’t believe this. I feel so stupid.” Billie’s voice was shaking. She couldn’t believe he could just shut her out like that, when all she thought about all day was Jay.

  “Billie, I’m really sorry. I know I fucked up. All I can say is that I’ve been really focused, and I fucked up. I love you?” He obviously tried to sound cute, but it didn’t come off. “Look, Billie, I was wrong. I know that. I mean, I got so much going on—the manuscript, the papers, the magazines, Cinemax…it’s crazy. This shit is not a game. You feel me?”

  “I do. You’re telling me the line forms to the left.”

  “Oh, girl, stop trippin’. You know you’re my heart. But it’s weird cuz, like, I met you right when things are getting going in my career.” Jay felt awkward saying “career.” “It’s almost like bad timing, or something. You know?”

  “Bad timing?” Billie’s stomach hit the floor, and she started shaking. “What are you saying? Just say it, Jay.”

  “I didn’t mean bad timing, like we shouldn’t be together. I just mean, in a perfect world, we would’ve met later. Like a year from now. Or something.”

  “Do you want to do this or not?”

  “Of course I do. You know I love you. You don’t gotta see me twenty-four/seven to know that, do you? Shit, you have a demanding job. You know what it’s like to be busy. I mean, you used to be busy.”

  “Jay, I’m getting off the phone.”

  “Billie…”

  “You’ve managed to be perfectly awful in the space of just five minutes,” she said.

  “Don’t talk to me like my name is Edward.”

  “I’m getting off the phone.”

  “I’m coming over.”

  “No, don’t do me any favors. I don’t have to see you to know you love me, remember? I have an idea. Let’s have a long-distance relationship. We can even pretend we don’t live in the same city.” Billie hung up, destroyed.

  * * *

  • • •

  Billie was miserable the next morning. She’d cried all night long, which gave her a massive migraine. She sat at her desk, rubbing her temples and sighing. Attached to her forehead was one of those Mentholatum headache pads that cool your forehead. Mary and Sandy were used to Billie’s episodes and left her alone.

  Billie dry-swallowed a Percocet and called Renee.

  “Crawford & Collier, this is Renee speaking.”

  “I think Jay and I broke up, and it’s all your fault.”

  “What are you talking about? You and Jay didn’t break up.” Her tone was slightly patronizing.

  “We did, we did. At least I think we did.”

  “Why is this my fault?”

  “Because you gave him that goddamned book deal. And now he’s busy writing all the time and don’t want me no mo’.” Billie was barely audible.

  “You don’t sound so hot. How’s your head?”

  “I think I need a newer model. Renee, are you listening to me? My life is over.”

  “Your life is over. Stop being so dramatic and tell me what happened.”

  She did, and Renee shook her head the whole time. “Billie, Jay is an artist. He’s a creative being. You have to give him space to breathe, to produce. Granted, the not calling and standing you up thing is ugly—very ugly and he should be punished—but the reasons behind it are totally valid. I’ll never forgive you if you prevent this man from working on my book. I mean, his book.”

  “I’m not trying to prevent him from anything! I just want him so badly. I want him to only think about me. Am I crazy?”

  “Yes. He’s working hard. And my question becomes this: Why aren’t you doing the same?”

  “What do you mean?” Billie knew what she meant.

  “You do have a job, Billie.”

  “You know what he said? He said I should know what it’s like to be busy because I am, too. And then he corrected himself and said that I used to be busy. I felt like such a loser.”

  “As well you should. You better get on top of your shit, girl.”

  “I can’t think about work. I’m in hell.”

  “That’s the lamest thing I’ve ever heard.”

  “It’s true. Wasn’t it Dorothy Parker who said, ‘Hell’s afloat in lover’s tears’?”

  “The second lamest thing I’ve ever heard. Billie, what I’m understanding here is that you need group. Badly. I’m calling Vida, and we’re taking you to dinner tonight. What do you feel like eating?”

  “My young.”

  “Okay, I can’t talk to you when you get like this. We’ll meet somewhere after work. I’ll call you later.”

  Billie hung up, only to hear Paige’s voice floating out of her office in her direction.

  “Billie Putty, can you come into my office, please? We need to have a ‘come to Jesus.’”

  Billie groaned, and Mary and Sandy shot her sympathetic glances. A “come to Jesus” meeting involved Paige explaining to you that you sucked. Billie peeled the patch off her forehead, applied some Stila lip glaze in praline (the gloss said “confident, but non-confrontational”), and entered Paige’s lair.

  She was perched behind her enormous glass desk, smirking with barely contained glee. Paige enjoyed criticizing her staff—it clearly helped make the few days a month she was in the office more bearable for her.

  “Have a seat.” Paige leisurely picked at the half-eaten foie gras on her breakfast tray, and fixed Billie with her Sophia Loren–kohled eyes. “That Jill Stuart mini kilt is sweeter than sweet, Chicken, but it’s a hundred seasons old. What’s going on with you?” Paige squinted at her, crossed her arms, and took a deep breath. “I’m going to be honest. I think perhaps you’re ill.”

  “Ill?” repeated Billie, confused. “What do you mean?”

  “You can be honest with me if you’re having a, well…a problem. And I’m convinced you do. You come in here late, leave early, and when you’re here your head’s in another place. It’s like you’re being broadcast via satellite.”

  “Paige, I’m not sick. Really.”

  “I don’t think you’re sick sick. I think you’re addicted to painkillers.” Paige punctuated her remark by sticking the arm of her tortoiseshell Gucci glasses in her coral-lacquered mouth.

  “What?” Billie whispered, mortified. Instinctively, she began to rub her pounding head.

  “You heard me. You pop Percocets like I used to do with quaaludes, back in the gold lamé days. The thing is, Putt-Putt, it can be fixed. It’s a delicate problem, and to be honest, it’s not totally unsexy. It’s very mod, you know, very Valley of the Dolls.”

  “Paige…”

  “Pony, it can be fixed. I know a discreet, civilized little clinic that some of my very best—”

  “No, no! Paige, no. I don’t have a drug problem. Come on! I’ve had the same bottle for, like, six months, and I only take one when I’m in pain. I don’t need a clinic.”

  Despite her protests, Billie suspected that Paige knew full well she didn’t have a drug problem. She just wanted to fuck with her.

  “Well then, what’s wrong with you? You’re not being yourself. And frankly, I’m shocked that right when I offer you this huge opportunity, you completely flake out on me. Did you think I wouldn’t find out that you skipped the Estée Lauder cocktail party Monday night?”

  “I know, I know. You’re right; I haven’t been myself lately. I think I’m just really burned out. But I’ll get going again. I will.” Billie looked curiously at Paige, who seemed to be ignoring her, preoccupied with pinching her waistline under the desk. “What are you doing?”

  “I’m sorry, all that talk about clinics reminded me that I’m due
for my monthly colonic. I’m feeling heavy.” She pushed a button and screeched at Mary. “Mare Bare, didn’t I ask you to book my colonic, like, two days ago? Work with me here!” She looked back at Billie, who was grimacing slightly. “Please, it’s not as bad as it sounds. It’s like anal sex, without having to pretend to like it. Now where were we?”

  “We were exploring what my problem is.” Ironic, thought Billie.

  “Right. Now, because you’re you, and you’ve never behaved like this, I’m going to let your lackluster moment slide. Besides, I’ve been waiting for years for you to get properly laid.”

  “Paige!”

  “Come on, Chicken. I know everything. As Mommie Dearest said, ‘I’ll always win because I’m bigger and faster than you.’ But listen. I’ve been down this road many, many times, and I know where it can go. Don’t compromise your job for a man. I don’t care how large his bankroll or his dick is. You are not a trailer park princess looking to be rescued by some guy in a mullet and a Budweiser tank. You’re Billie Burke. You’re fucking fabulous. And it’s a profoundly stupid move to throw it all away for some guy.” She paused, pleased with her speech.

  “Thank you, Paige. I really appreciate the advice.”

  “Follow it. And I better see some changes around here. ’Kay, Pony?”

  She was dismissed. “Okay. I promise.”

  “Oh, and, Billie Putty?”

  “Yes?”

  “The skirt’s vintage. Donate it.”

  Billie looked down, gave Paige a sheepish look, and shrugged. “Pay me more and I could afford a new wardrobe.”

  Paige grinned and waved her away. Billie knew she respected her for being one of the only two women in the world who took her bitchery with a grain of salt. The other was her vicious mother, who Paige had once said liked to introduce her as “the best son a mother could ask for.”

  Billie returned to her desk, where an e-mail had popped up from Deeznuts 1973. The subject was “Begging for Billie.” She clicked on it, and a smile slowly crept across her face as she read.

  Had deep thoughts watching

  Lauryn Hill on MTV

  Wyclef was a fool

  Please please please baby please please please forgive me. I forgot to tell you something about myself: I’m stupid. But the sleepless night without my brainy, bosomy Billie cured me. I love you. I need you. I’m sorry.—Jay

  All was forgiven.

  * * *

  • • •

  That evening, Billie met the girls at Florent, an all-night diner in the West Village worshiped by Billie and drag queens everywhere. The waitresses looked like a cross between Bettie Page and Flo from “Alice,” and were the types of girls who taught bondage classes on the side. Billie, happy to be reconciled with Jay, had found her appetite and was digging into her usual crabcake-and-English-muffin sandwich with gusto. Renee and Vida were worried about her and weren’t holding back.

  “…and you can’t let his moods, his life, dictate yours,” said Renee, whose remarks Vida punctuated with a strident nod. “It’s dangerous to be that dependent on someone else for happiness.”

  “So dangerous,” cosigned Vida.

  “And when are you gonna tell him about London?”

  “I can’t tell him yet, I just can’t. I want to be happy for as long as I can before I have to face that. And it’s all so up in the air.”

  “What is?” asked Vida.

  “The London thing. I mean, everyone at work thinks I’m on board, but I still haven’t decided if I even want to go.”

  Renee looked at Vida despairingly. “Billie, you really need to think about what you’re doing,” she said. “I mean, this will make your career.”

  “And look, all you have to do is give it a year,” said Vida. “You can always come back. Or, you never know, he could go there.”

  “More importantly, if it was the other way around, do you honestly think he’d stay home for you?” asked Renee.

  “Okay, what is this?” Billie looked up from her sandwich, mildly annoyed. “I’m madly in love. This is a new emotion for me, which you both know. I just want to indulge myself.”

  They both looked at her like she was crazy.

  “I know what I sound like. I’m setting back the women’s movement a thousand years. It’s tacky to admit to putting love first. And it’s a played-out argument, the whole ‘will she choose her career or her man?’ thing. But, shit. I’m scared I’ll lose him if I move to London. Is that so wrong?”

  “No, of course not,” said Vida. “But at least try introducing him into your life, you know? You’ve been to his shows, his old neighborhood. You’ve met his people. He’s brought you into his world. What about bringing him into yours?”

  “What world? I play with makeup all day and talk to you guys. I grew up in the strip mall hell that’s northern Virginia. I’ve never suffered any real tragedy. I have no glamorous drug past. I tried eating shrooms once, and that thing with my back happened.”

  Vida suppressed a giggle at the memory of an eighteen-year-old Billie, weeping, convinced her back had floated away.

  “You wouldn’t believe what he’s been through. After we went to Walt Whitman, I stayed up crying all night long. I just felt so bad for him. All I want to do is make sure he’s okay from now on.” Billie sighed, knowing she sounded starry-eyed but unable to be any other way. “He’s such a vivid person. I feel so boring and blah next to him.”

  “What the hell are you talking about!” Renee’s fist pounded the table. She’d had enough. “Look at yourself. Look at your life. People would murder to be in your Manolos.”

  Billie sighed. Her giddy mood was shot to hell. “I hated the way I felt last night. Like I didn’t even matter, and all his other stuff was more important than me. He’s always preoccupied. He has so much work to do, you know?”

  “So do you,” said Renee. “You’re just not doing it.”

  “Exactly.” Vida nodded, pausing to spark a Marlboro Light. “I think the perfect solution is for you to invite him to a beauty cocktail party. You’ll be killing two birds with one stone—Paige will be happy you’re there, and Jay can observe your natural habitat.”

  Billie raised her eyebrows. “Honestly, that never even crossed my mind. What if he hates it and thinks I’m a disgusting fashionista?”

  “Well, you are a disgusting fashionista,” Vida said sweetly. “But you have many other sides to you, and he should see them all. You are more than just his love slave. This isn’t 91?2 Weeks.”

  “God, whatever happened to Mickey Rourke?” mused Renee. “That was a sexy white man.”

  “Heroin,” answered their waitress, refilling the water glasses.

  “See, Billie? Drugs are not glamorous.” Vida punctuated her remark with a perfectly executed smoke ring.

  “My thing is this,” started Renee. “Why are you worried about him feeling out of place at one of your events, when you had to suffer through that night o’ poetry?”

  “Oh, it was the worst. I couldn’t believe that LaLa bitch.” Billie momentarily forgot that she was currently the subject of an intervention. “She tried to kick it to Jay—in my face!—and then had the nerve to challenge my blackness. Please.”

  “You’re not allowed to be too fly,” said Vida. “Apparently, nowadays black is draping yourself in muslin and mudcloth.”

  “Which was why it was so rich when that magazine outed Erykah Badu’s fake dreads,” Renee said, smirking. “She was so embarrassed! Next thing you know, she shaves her head for ‘spiritual’ reasons. How are you gonna talk all that shit about happy to be nappy and then get caught out there with a dreadlock weave?”

  “Remember when I went with one of those one hundred percent Asiatic Black Males?” asked Vida, laughing. “Remember? Noire? Worst sex I’ve ever had. We fucked to a Gi
l Scott-Heron CD. Can you imagine giving head with ‘the revolution will not be televised’ blaring in your ear? And he kept going on and on about how submerging into the ripe gourd of my womb is so uplifting it’s like we’re stretching over time and continents to grasp hands with our tortured ancestors and all this madness. I was like, nigga, go ’head! Why can’t black people just fuck like everybody else?”

  “Yikes. Is it even possible to have sex and think about our tortured ancestors at the same time?” wondered Billie.

  “I mean, don’t get me wrong,” continued Vida, now serious. “If you ignore or dismiss your history, you’re living a lie. But I sincerely believe that our grandmothers and great-grandmothers went through all they did so we wouldn’t have to wake up in the morning with plight and torture and insurmountable odds on our shoulders. So all I’d have to think about are things like outfits, clients, parties, rocking my industry, and taking over the entire goddamned world.”

  Renee was incredulous. “That’s what you think about?”

  “Well, that, and what Lisa Lisa’s up to these days.”

  “Ohhh,” sighed Billie. “A moment of silence, please, for the phenomenon that was Lisa Lisa.”

  “I kissed my first boy during a slow dance to ‘All Cried Out,’” reminisced Renee. “It’s been downhill since then.”

  “Renee, you never give Go Down Moses any respect,” said Billie. “You know you love him.”

  “Moses is like homemade lasagna. It can be really good, but perfecting the recipe takes years.” She shrugged. “Most of the time I’d rather order takeout.”

  Billie nodded slowly, totally confused. “I never thought of it that way.”

  Vida rolled her eyes and changed the subject. “So, Billie, how much are you loving that gangsta sex?”

  “Why do you think I’m so obsessed?”

  “Girl, I hear that. Jay is so fine. So fine.”

  Billie smiled. “And sexy and charismatic and mmmmm. You know what? He just got approached from some guy at Cinemax to headline a special on the spoken-word scene. Isn’t that incredible?”