But of all of my traits, negative or positive, nothing has ever been more polarizing than fame. I’m sure I’ve mentioned this before, but fame is super weird. It comes with a ton of perks like free appetizers and desserts, but because everyone thinks this is so fun and glamorous, you’re not allowed to complain. But seriously, sometimes the only thing keeping me from eating a chocolate cake is the fact that it’s not literally sitting in front of me. When I’m at a restaurant and decline to look at the dessert menu but then the manager sends over a huge slice of chocolate cake, it’s like FUCK! Whose side are you on, manager dude? I came here for the salads! Stop ruining my life! Plus, it would be rude if I sent the cake back or didn’t eat it, and my momma did not sing in the subway and raise me right to have me send a free piece of cake back! But see? I look like an asshole for complaining about free chocolate cake! There’s no winning here. Fame is a double-edged sword, and there are so many kinds of chocolate cake to devour or avoid.
Much like chocolate cake, people started to show up in front of me just because of what I do for a living. That’s usually fine. I’m in the business of entertainment, I meet other entertainers while I’m at work, and we often click because there’s a common thread of understanding between us. That’s cool. I have plenty of friends I wouldn’t have met if I wasn’t an actress, and I’m grateful to have them all. What sucks are the droves of attractive dudes who just kind of show up in one way or another in front of me and flirt with me and spend time with me only to hand me a script or ask me to post a picture of them on my social-media accounts in order to boost their followers. Can I complain about that? Please?
When I was boy crazy as a teenager, I guess I thought, When we’re adults, it won’t be like this. We’ll be too busy working and, plus, we’ll be married by then! (Yes, in my inner thoughts, I refer to myself as “we” and I, excuse me, we don’t think that’s weird.) Problem is, I’m busy and not married yet but, shit, I still have time to check out a package or two. Maybe age and business have nothing to do with my boy craziness. Maybe it’s just another birth defect like my sarcasm and sassiness. Either way, if a cute dude starts flirting with me, I’m suspicious but also intrigued. This problem has worsened since I’ve become an actor, and as long as I have eyes and lady parts, it’ll probably be a problem forever. I’ve told you how soon I put dudes into the friend zone, or rather I put myself in the friend zone and eliminate myself from the possibility of anything more. I’m working on it! In the meantime, the guys I do pay attention to are the ones overtly flirting with me and asking me out in a romantic way. Even I find those signs hard to ignore.
So I’ll let them take me to dinner or drinks or whatever, and I get to play my least favorite game ever: the “Is This a Date?” game! Fun for no one! Here’s how it goes. Flirty dude will text me some flirty/friendly shit a few times, and then say, “We should link up.” Now the word link is some tricky Clinton administration number-one shit. It’s language that makes it hard to tell what’s actually happening. You can link up with your mom to celebrate her birthday, but you can also link up with the dweeb you cheat off of in science class to let him cop a feel under the bleachers. What exactly does link up even mean? Nobody knows! And you can’t know until after the linkup! I once asked my straight friend who was helping me to text a dude I liked if I could change the language from “linkup” to something more clear like “hang out,” and he looked at me like I was a murderer. When I asked if I could just be honest and say, “Come over and eat me out,” he refused to help me anymore.
So then flirty dude is all like, “Meet me at this place for dinner.” Dinner? Does he mean dinner or does he mean dinner? See?! So much confusing wordplay! Also, he said, “Meet me.” If this was a date, he would’ve picked me up, right? This is where the real nonfun begins because you have to start adding and subtracting points. “Meet me” will cost this date five points. If he says, “What’s your address, I’ll pick you up,” you can give the date ten points until you remember that your gay best friend and your straight platonic male friend also pick you up, so you dive deep into your own psyche and deduct ten points for being crazy before you even get in the car.
Once you’re officially at the linkup (once you’ve lunked?), you can start to assess the situation at hand. Did he bring you anything? Flowers or something? A Snickers bar or a key chain from some other city he was just visiting? I ask because this has happened to me. A guy who truly did not want to bone me planned a linkup with me and brought me flowers and a cross from Canada, and it was confusing as fuck! You want to think, Gifts! This is definitely a date! One hundred points! But I assure you, flirty dude is definitely up to something sinister. Flowers? The fuck?! Deduct five hundred points.
When you’re both looking over the menu and trying to decide what you want and if he orders the same exact item as you, flip the table and run out of there as fast as possible to escape that psychopath. Even if this is a date, you don’t need that bullshit in your life. What kind of person sits down at a restaurant with another person and orders the same exact thing? This is a restaurant, homie! There are so many options! If I’m ordering something you want, it’s your duty as an AMERICAN to get the second-most-desired item so that we can have both! Are you even serious right now? You think Jay Z and Beyoncé go to restaurants and order the same meal?! Deduct one thousand points! If he has some human decency and orders a different meal for both of you to enjoy, then I guess you can add ten points. It’s lasagna. Not an engagement ring. Don’t get crazy.
Here’s the part of the game that really fucks with me. The question-and-answer portion of the Maybe Date. Flirty dude will ask, “So, you seeing anyone lately?” Obviously, the answer isn’t yes . . . yet. Really, you don’t know yet. You could be seeing this dude, but the game isn’t over yet so we don’t know. If your answer is no, flirty dude will ask why, and asking why someone is single is an insane question to ask! It’s always a trick! Like I’m really going to answer, “Because I have a rancid personality! That’s why!” So what do you say to the question of whether or not you’re seeing someone? You say, “Lately, I’ve been focused on walking in my purpose, you know? I’m just out here reading books, going to church, and saying YES to life right now.” What does it mean? Nothing! But it doesn’t mean yes and it doesn’t mean no. One hundred points for you (US!). Then flirty dude will say some stuff about relationships, and I guess you should listen or whatever, but your appetizer is probably in front of you by now so don’t hesitate to ignore any warning signs, red flags, or genuinely interesting things flirty dude might have to say and dive right into that fried calamari. Then flirty dude will ask how work’s going. If you’re me, and I am me, this is when you really start paying attention. This is usually where it all comes together for me. I may humble-brag my way through how tiring being on the number-one show in the country is and how it’s a lot of work and how, yeah, Japan was great and I loved it and can’t wait to go back but it’s so great to finally sleep in my own bed for once. Whatever he says after that will determine whether or not this is a date. What he says next will move us into the lightning round. What would be great is if his next line was something like “I want to travel more,” “What’s your favorite country?” “My favorite trip was such and such,” or whatever, as long as it keeps the conversation going. Give this guy fifty points! On the flip side, what usually happens to me is he’ll say, “You’re busy. I hope you’re not too busy to come to Haiti to shoot my documentary,” or “I hope you’re not too busy to take a look at the pilot I just wrote,” or “Wow! I want to go with you! Let me know when you’re going again! You can hire me to carry your bags! Whatever I got to do.” Even worse is “Damn! Let me know if you need a date for the next award show. I would love to go with you. I can’t wait to meet Taraji P. Henson. That’s my wife right there! I want to meet celebrities. You’re so lucky.” Deduct one million points. This is not a date! This is a networking meeting.
I’ve been on all of these linkups over and over,
and I’ve played so many rounds of “Is This a Date?” that I’m paranoid. So, really, I lose the game before I even start to play. I haven’t crunched the numbers on how much of that is actually my own fault, but I’d still like to go ahead and place the blame squarely on flirty dude. You smile at me and make me feel like a normal girl even though I have known my entire life that I am not normal. You ask me out and then you try to be friends with me. You’re nice to me. What the hell is that about? You know I’m not normal! What are you doing? I’m a celebrity! Life should be hella dope for me in all ways! Chocolate cake shows up for me when I didn’t order it! Why can’t someone who’s interested in me, not in my career, show up for me, too? Why do all these super-eligible bachelors just want to be my friend? New rule! If you don’t want to bone me, you’re not allowed to be nice to me. Be super mean to me so that we both know at all times if this is a date or not. I’m sick of playing.
It’s clear that I’m more cracked than the Liberty Bell. That’s probably the real reason I’m single. The weird part is, I’m fine. I know I said some things that would make me seem like the opposite of fine, but I’m good. I’m not even lonely. I’m sure you’ll read this and begin to see me as a stressed-out woman who spends her Friday nights alone with her twelve cats, researching restaurant menus before going to bed with one of those weird pillows with a man’s arm sewn onto it to hug you back. That’s weird. I won’t deny that I love cats and menus, but that pillow is what nightmares are made of. I usually spend my Friday nights out with my friends. Or I spend them at home writing. Most important, I spend my Friday nights doing whatever I want to do. I know that if I had a boyfriend or, even worse, a husband, I’d spend my Friday nights compromising. I don’t think I really want to do that yet. One of my favorite things to do is randomly go on out-of-town trips and not let anyone know where I’m going. I once had a boyfriend who would get mad at me every time I left town but would make no plans to hang out with me when I was around. So I stopped telling him where I’d gone. He found that to be disrespectful. Made me feel like a baller, though. I can be anywhere in the world at any time and it’s really only my business. I like that kind of freedom. Life just got interesting for me. Making big decisions on my own without having to think of some dude’s feelings is pretty much my jam right now. I don’t miss having a boyfriend most of the time, and I don’t care anymore if this is a date or not. I’m just really into walking in my purpose and saying yes to life right now. Ya know?
14
Another Psychic Told Me So
You should really get into film and television.
—the psychic I saw a month ago
MY FRIEND CRYSTAL AND I were walking around in Manhattan. We were in that weird phase when you’re done being a kid but you’re not a full adult yet. If we had a weekend off from college, we were too old to spend it at an arcade or in Times Square under the window of Total Request Live. (Remember TRL? We used to cut class and hang out there to get a glimpse of pop stars. Obviously, we were so cool!) But we were too young to have a boozy brunch and get our nails done. So we window-shopped. This one day, a woman approached us and touched my arm, stopping us.
“I’m sorry. I know this is weird, but I just had to stop you and tell you that I see a very bright future for you.”
“What?” I asked, confused.
“I’m a psychic and I can see in your eyes that you’re going to be a very important person. I don’t usually stop people on the street like this, but I just had to tell you that you’re really special.”
I looked at Crystal. We shared an expression of suspicion and intrigue.
“What?” I was still confused.
“I’m telling you. You’re special. You’re gonna be famous, girl! Like Oprah! I do psychic readings for a living. I have a shop around the corner. I’d love to give you a reading. I’ll do it for you for free.” She started to write the address and her number down on a piece of paper. This was exciting but also kind of sketchy. Even then I knew that if something was free I should be suspicious of it. She handed me her information and urged me to come in. I never did. Seemed crazy. I was at the worst stage of my eating disorder, depressed, and pretherapy. In other words, having a pretty bad time in life that year. At that point, I was contemplating not having a future at all. So hearing that something good was going to happen was important. Not that I really believed that psychic. Or Tola, either. Years had gone by since my cowry-shell reading, but there was that word again: famous. Let’s be clear. I actually don’t see any personal value in fame. Life is life, and being famous doesn’t make it any easier. When I was a young kid, I thought it might be fun and amazing to be famous because I assumed that fame resulted in a better life. But as a teenager, I realized that Amy Fisher was famous. There are several movies and books about her, and she even has a cool celebrity nickname, the Long Island Lolita. She’s totally famous, but not for a good reason: she slept with a married man and then attempted to kill his wife. Monica Lewinsky is someone else whose life was kind of ruined by the bad kind of fame.
Mom is a little famous, with her pretty large following from singing in the subway, and has been for years. This is not the bad kind of fame, to her way of thinking, but it caused me nothing but trouble. When I was out with Mom, people would recognize her and tell her how much they appreciated her voice. Then they would often ask me if I sang like my mom. I hated this question. It felt like pressure to be as amazing as Mom was. I would often say, “I sing better than my mom!” in order to seem . . . precocious? (No points for precocious, but many points for being an awkward yet manipulative weirdo.) Anyway, Mom’s always been pretty good at taking a compliment when (and sometimes before) she hears one. I, on the other hand, would panic simply because a stranger was looking and talking to us. “What the fuck, stranger? Can we live? Who even are you? Stop talking to us! She’s MY mom!” was my inner dialogue. As I grew, so did my panic. I look a lot like Mom, and by the time I was a teenager, I was almost as tall as she was (I’m still not taller. At this point, I’m just waiting for her to shrink. Then I’ll be the boss!) and we shared the same body type, so when I was on the train or bus by myself, people would sometimes ask me where I was going to perform. They thought I was Mom. Rude, right? She’s a smooth thirty years older than I am! I know that black don’t crack, but COME ON! So I had to explain to a stranger that I wasn’t Mom, and then they’d ask me if I sang, too, and how old I was, and all of a sudden I was trapped in my worst nightmare: SMALL TALK WITH A STRANGER! AHHHHHH!!!! This is what I thought fame would be like and I preferred not to be famous. Just rich, please and thank you!
Later in the same year that the psychic stopped me on the street, Mom told me that she had met a director who wanted to work with her. A film director named Susan Batson. Ms. Batson happens to also be an actress and a famous acting coach, but Mom had never heard of her. Ms. Batson was at the beginning of adapting the novel Push by Sapphire to film, and she wanted Mom to play the role of Mary, a poverty-stricken mother living on welfare. Mary has a daughter, Precious, who she molests and abuses. (I know what you’re thinking, Wait, isn’t that your role? and you’re right. Just chill. We’ll get there, babe.) Mom’s a singer, not an actor. Ms. Batson wanted her anyway. She thought Mom would be able to play Mary as a woman with dreams and talent whose life was derailed by the birth of her daughter and who takes her frustrations out on the girl through physical and sexual abuse. Mom hated that idea. She explained to Ms. Batson that she’d been an educator and didn’t want the parents of her students to see the movie and think she was capable of doing such a terrible thing. Ms. Batson asked her to read the book first before making up her mind. “So you’re going to be a movie star!?” I asked excitedly that day.
“NO! I’m not doing this movie! You know people are crazy! I don’t want people to think I’m really like that.”
“Are you serious?! It’s a movie! No one’s going to think you’re down with child sexual abuse!”
“No. I don’t think I can do th
is. I’m gonna read the book, but I’m almost sure I won’t do this movie.”
Dammit, Mom! Didn’t she realize that she could be a real-life star? The star she was always meant to be? A day or two later, Mom left for a tour of Spain. She was singing with a choir. Mom read the book while traveling, and when she got back, she came to my room to tell me that she had officially decided to pass on the role. I thought she was insane and I told her so. She handed me the book, and said, “Here. When you read it, you’ll see why I don’t want to do it.”
“Ugh! Fine. You’re still crazy though.”
“I shouldn’t play this role. No one knows me. People might think I’m really like this. I don’t need someone trying to fight me in the street for what I do in a movie. It should go to a known actress. Mo’Nique should play this role. People know she’s not really like this.”
“People aren’t that crazy, Mom!”
“Just read it. And if you want, I can see if they’ve cast the daughter yet. Maybe I can get you an audition.”
This Is Just My Face Page 15