I Like You Just the Way I Am

by Jenny Mollen

  Guess what, kids? My big break never came. I got out of school, and reality smacked me across the face. Now, instead of just a handful of playful peers, I was competing against professionals who’d been working in film and TV since before I’d even heard of theater camp. I wasn’t the gifted actress that years of conditioning and coddling led me to believe. I was pretty much a total amateur hack who had no idea what I was doing. I didn’t know how to audition without looking directly into the camera. I was broad and over the top with an inability to stand still. I was afraid to be funny because I didn’t want to seem like a bimbo, and I was always too loud because I still thought I needed to project. In my mind, I thought I was doing great work. I considered myself a dramatic tour de force and turned even Taco Bell auditions into crying scenes where I’d have an entire nervous breakdown. I’d walk into a room and immediately start mentioning all the places I’d studied, then say things like, “This episode of Law and Order truly feels like it follows all the rules of a great Aristotilean tragedy.” When I’d get a callback, I assumed I basically had the job. Then when I didn’t get the job, I’d beat myself up and fall into a deep depression. I hung Goethe quotes on my walls (“I wish the stage were as narrow as the wire of a tightrope dancer, so that no incompetent would dare step upon it.”) and wrote in my journal about how one day I would emerge like a phoenix from the ashes. I tried to build myself back up by thinking about how I’d answer James Lipton’s Proust Questionaire and taking new headshots where I wore a simple turtleneck and stared at the camera expressionless. I was serious and needed Hollywood to know it.

  * * *

  My dad continued to pay my rent while I insisted fame and fortune were just around the corner. If I were I boy, I feel like he would have forced me to get a job, but since I was a girl, I don’t think he expected my contribution to society to be great anyway. Eventually, I learned how to audition, but it took years to learn how to actually work and even longer to make any money at it. With perseverance and the right boyfriends, I finally found my footing.

  By my mid-twenties, I’d lost my entitled drama-school-cunt attitude, stopped referring to myself as “Baby Judi Dench,” and started doing television guest stars. I played the girlfriend, the grieving witness, the hard-hitting FBI investigator, the zombie-fighting teenager, the privileged trophy wife, the desperate chick at the office, and the girl who got raped by Tom Sizemore. Sometimes I’d recur for a whole season; other times I’d get Tasered to death by Patricia Arquette within the first thirty minutes of an episode. I shot a handful of independent films and even the occasional commercial, but nothing seemed to pop. I was always the random girl from that random thing you caught showing her jugs on Starz at 3 A.M.

  So why did I keep going? The same reason all actors do—because there is always the promise of that dream job just around the corner. Actors are like gamblers. We can’t help but think that if we cash in our chips and walk away, some other bitch is going to be buying Chanel boots with our jackpot. We are addicts and we want our Chanel boots!

  Over the course of my career, I’ve come to consider myself one of the most “almost-hired” actresses in the game. I’ve been inches away from jobs that could have changed the course of my life, and watched them slip through my fingers, sometimes for the most arbitrary reasons. Just like a roulette wheel, Hollywood is random. But the closer you get to almost hearing your number called, the deeper into your pockets you dig. And I’ve dug and dug and basically bet my entire self-worth on winning something substantial. When you are up, there is nothing like it. But when you are down, your life feels meaningless. For the 2 percent of the time you feel like Angelina Jolie, there’s that other 98 percent where you feel like her creepy brother, James Haven.

  While in college I wrote a one-woman show, but really only so I could play every part and make the rest of the department hate me for my versatility. I always kept a journal that I’d fill with intensely deep sentiments like this:

  Sometimes I’d contemplate writing a movie, then stop and buy something online instead. I never saw myself as a writer. I have horrible grammar and can’t spell to save my life. I never had an English teacher single me out or imply that I showed any promise beyond being a B+ student. If anything, I was japed for my egregious penmanship and misuse of the word “jape.” But after hearing “no” enough times, even a B+ student can be pushed to try something new. So I wrote a script.

  Unlike acting, I had no expectations. My agents agreed to pass it around, which sounded cool, even though I didn’t actually know what “pass it around” meant.

  * * *

  It was a Tuesday night, and Jason and I were over at Amanda and Larry’s house for dinner. Larry was busy grilling while Amanda walked around the kitchen, asking if we thought her engagement ring looked small. Just then, my phone rang. I answered the blocked number, assuming it was work related. My manager and agent stopped their conversation and said hello. When both your representatives are on the phone, it’s usually a sign that there’s good news.

  “Good news!” Pamela said cheerfully.

  I racked my brain, trying to remember the last thing I auditioned for.

  “Am I going to play the mother on How I Met Your Mother?”

  “Did you audition for that?” my lit agent Leanne asked, confused.

  “No. The last thing I went in on was something that involved Highlanders. But I just thought I’d ask. Am I going to play a lady Highlander?”

  “No. We actually have some even crazier news.” Pamela’s line sounded like she’d just walked into Studio 54.

  “I’m going to play a man Highlander?”

  “No…,” Pamela said over the music.

  “Wait, where are you?” I asked, straining to hear her.

  “My house. Why?”

  “Sounds like a party.” Leanne shuffled through some papers, half-listening to us.

  Pamela had been my manager for over two years, and I always suspected she led a double life. At work, she was a soft-spoken girl with neutral nails and classic style. She rarely cussed, never wore jewelry, and refused to talk about boys. She was almost too appropriate to be real, and because of that I’d convinced myself she was a sex maniac.

  Uncomfortable with the attention, Pamela steered the phone call back on track.

  “Stan Wylan liked your script and wants to meet you.”

  The loud thumping of Pamela’s Tuesday night sex rave faded away as a door shut behind her. I stopped for a second, collecting my thoughts, then let out a shriek of excitement.

  Leanne explained that if I liked and felt I could incorporate Wylan’s ideas, we’d work together to develop the script into something he could sell.

  “So this meeting is like my final callback?”

  “Kind of. Sure.” Leanne was still at the office, and I could tell she wanted to get off our call so she could go home to her non-sex-ravey apartment.

  “This is awesome. Thank you, guys.” I hung up and walked back inside.

  Both elated and confused, I explained the situation to Jason.

  “A really important person likes my script! He wants to meet me and talk about it.”

  Saying it out loud felt preposterous. I was never the actress with beginner’s luck. I didn’t get out of college and accidentally land a starring role opposite Anthony Hopkins.

  My first job out of school was a part-time gig making six dollars an hour at the Coffee Bean. Then, after realizing that six times five only equaled thirty, I quit. When the manager called several days later, asking if I wanted my final paycheck, I tried to be nice. “Aw, you can keep it.”

  My only real goal was to get work as an actress, and that was never easy. Every gig I got felt like a struggle. Then one day, I write a script, mostly just to have something to do with my time instead of feeling sorry for myself, and someone instantly responds. It didn’t compute in my mind.

  “Why is it that when you don’t care about something it comes so much easier? But the things you want more t
han anything, you rarely get?” I interrupted Jason as he was telling Amanda that she didn’t deserve a bigger ring.

  “Ew! You aren’t my husband!” Amanda stormed away.

  “It’s like dating,” Larry chimed in now, eager to escape the inevitable ring drama. “When someone is too eager to be with you, you assume something is wrong with them. When they kind of don’t give a shit, you have to have them.”

  He was right. With acting, I’d become the needy, desperate carny on the side of the street with three dirty kids and a fiddle. As a writer, I was just an unassuming masochist who knew how to use Final Draft.

  I told myself that no matter what happened with Stan Wylan, I was not going to beg, I was not going to cry, and I was not going to buy a fiddle.

  * * *

  The first writer’s meeting of my career happened the following Monday. I prepared for it by reminding myself that this whole thing was a fluke and that the outcome didn’t matter. I then marched directly into my closet and started stressing out about what to wear, because I obviously needed the outcome to be resoundingly positive and amazing. I tore through my drawers, trying to find the most “writer-y” look I owned. I wanted to make certain I conveyed the proper message: hardworking, lighthearted, but damaged enough to have a good time with. The desperate actor in me settled on all black, allowing Stan and Co. the freedom to project whatever bullshit they wanted onto me.

  By Monday, I’d worked myself up so much that I’d started my period two weeks early and a zit I’d almost dried out on my forehead now had a second zit growing out of it. My aesthetician called it a carbuncle. The word alone made me want squeeze the shit out of something, but I refrained and just prayed that Stan’s office was dimly lit.

  I got to Santa Monica an hour early and parked my car at a thirty-minute meter directly outside. I knew I’d get a ticket, but the thought of driving around the block searching for something better was far too overwhelming.

  I walked into a gorgeous, two-story glass building and gave my name to a bitchy, impeccably dressed gay guy whose approval I could already feel myself craving. People always claim that women dress up for other women, but the truth is, women dress up for impeccably dressed gay guys. And this gay guy was killing it in a Thom Browne wool-twill mélange two-piece with grosgrain trim throughout and Lanvin brogues.

  “I’m Fabian. Have a seat, I’ll let Mr. Wylan know you’re here,” he said, staring directly at the two zits humping on my face.

  Before I had time to apply more concealer to my carbuncle, and imagining Fabian scolding me for not owning a Burberry trench, Stan Wylan appeared.

  “Hi, Jenny. Come on back.”

  He was taller than I imagined, with salt and pepper hair and a laid-back, California-kid attitude. Even though he seemed like a charming teddy bear, I knew he had a reputation of being a hard-hitting businessman and even a bit of a bully when things weren’t going his way. When we got to his office, he asked me about myself, told me he loved my script, then called in his two development execs, Cosmo and Rico. I tried to relax and prepared myself to agree with anything anyone said.

  Cosmo looked ten but was probably closer to thirty. He seemed studious and slightly Aspergers-y. Rico was Latin and loud, and instead of giving me his notes, he found it easier to act them out. I tried to interject lots of head nods, eyebrow squints, and courtesy laughs whenever I could find an opening.

  The four of us sat in Stan’s pristine, all-white, rich guy office and talked shop for over an hour. Cosmo and I squeezed together on a chenille love seat while Stan and Rico rocked back and forth in matching midcentury Eames bucket chairs. I was intimidated, but felt my performance thus far was golden.

  At one point, Cosmo’s pen fell from his pocket and landed on Stan’s virgin cushions.

  “Cosmo, your pen! It just fell out! Don’t let that thing bleed all over my couch,” Stan cautioned angrily. For a split second, I saw the side of him I never wanted to get on.

  Cosmo grabbed the pen, secured the cap, and stuffed it back into his slacks. Besides fearing that Wylan might one day turn on me and eat my face off in an angry rage, I was having the time of my life. For the last decade, the Stan Wylans of the world didn’t even know I existed. If they did, it was only as Jason Biggs’s wife, who showed up on set and ate all the ZonePerfect bars. Now I was sitting there as Jenny the Writer. I was being asked for my opinion and acknowledged for my own voice. I felt like I’d stepped into somebody else’s life, and I never wanted it to end. Certain I’d lived up to their expectations and grinning from ear-to-ear, I was ready to finally go.

  Cosmo and Rico left the room, first giving Stan and me a moment to finish up. Stan continued talking as I gathered my belongings and tried to remain hilarious, competent, and less of a hot mess than the heroine I’d written in my movie.

  Then I saw something that made my face go white. I’d say as white as Stan’s couch, except it wasn’t so white anymore. It was red. Vagina-blood red. Somewhere between Stan telling me he liked my script and me never wanting to give back whoever’s life I’d stolen, my period had leaked its way past my super-plus absorbency tampon, through my jeans, and into the fibers of Stan’s upholstery. I started to choke on my own breath.

  The whole time Stan was worrying about Cosmo’s pen going ballistic and ruining his immaculate sofa, I was sitting right next to him, hemorrhaging all over his goddamn sofa. As hard as I was trying to be everything they wanted (even though I told myself I wasn’t going to do that), the real me was seeping out all over the furniture.

  I assessed the situation and deduced that I had only three options: Blame Cosmo the savant, jump out the window (more blood), or confess. I paused to work out the logistics of Cosmo being on the rag when Stan asked if I was okay. Impulsively, I threw my purse over the pancake-sized pool of blood and charged him.

  “Stan, listen to me,” I said, holding him by both arms against a picture frame collection of him and Adam Sandler doing body shots off each other in Maui.

  “I … I really don’t know how to tell you this and I’m super mortified, but I bled on your couch,” I flinched, half-expecting his fist to reach out and deck me in the face.

  Stan looked confused and started scanning me for violent wounds. I decided I had no choice but to throw decorum out the window and be completely blunt.

  “I got my period all over your couch,” I said, settling any doubt in his mind that the crazy main character I’d written into my movie was indeed the real me.

  “Umm. Well … Don’t worry about it,” he said, craning his head to see the stain.

  Stan wanted me to go, but there was absolutely no way I was going to leave the premises with what looked like a minor miscarriage in his office.

  “No, Stan, that’s not how this is going to work. I’m staying. You’re leaving,” I whispered now, calmly revealing the real me.

  “What? Where am I going?”

  “Anywhere,” I said sternly, now pushing him out of the room.

  “My assistant Fabian will help you,” he offered, acquiescing.

  Stan called out to Cosmo and Rico in the adjacent room. “Come on, guys, we’re going to lunch.”

  “Bon appétit!” I waved.

  I hovered over the Rorschach test I was about to give Fabian, my could-have-been new gay bestie, and tried to see if the fabric on the couch was by chance a removable slipcover. It wasn’t.

  “Why are you still here?” Fabian said with one part curiosity, one part “I work for fucking Stan Wylan” arrogance.

  “You’re not gonna be happy.” I laughed nervously. “I … Do you have soap, water, sponges…?”

  “You spilled your coffee?”

  “Not exactly…”

  “Then what?” Fabian hated me and was about to hate me more.

  “Well, actually … I’m bleeding.”

  “From where?” he asked, still not getting it.

  “Umm. My pussy.” I cut to the chase, scared we weren’t moving fast enough.

&nbs
p; Fabian looked at the couch, threw up a little in his mouth, then made a beeline for the kitchen. He returned seconds later with a bottle of hand sanitizer.

  “I’m not gonna touch you, if that’s what you’re worried about,” I said harshly. I was now over being friends with Fabian, because he was obviously not the type of gay guy who understood women.

  “Aren’t you a little old to not be in control of your own period?”

  I contemplated smearing menstrual blood all over Fabian’s smug little face Last of the Mohicans–style, but decided against it, since I did still secretly want him to like me.

  After I scrubbed the shit out of the crime scene like a coke-addled Lady Macbeth, Fabian flipped the cushions upside down and returned the cleaning supplies to the kitchen. Looking like I’d just gotten off a shift at the Hormel slaughterhouse, I went to the bathroom to hose myself off. Once the door shut behind me, I lunged into a stall and yanked the saturated tampon out of my body, dropping it into the toilet. My relief lasted only as long as it took me to read the small sign positioned eye level on the back of the stall door:

  UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES SHOULD YOU EVER THROW TAMPONS IN THIS TOILET. WE WILL FIND YOU AND HOLD YOU RESPONSIBLE FOR THE MASSIVE PLUMBING DAMAGE DONE AS A RESULT OF YOUR CALLOUS INDISCRETION, YOU CUNT BITCH.

  I couldn’t flush my tampon. Stan had an all-male office. If I did, it was going to be so obvious whose period ruined Christmas. Left with no choice, I held my breath, pulled up my left sleeve, and reached into the bowl to fish out my now waterlogged blood baby. Half-drenched in my own urine and the entire production company’s DNA, I dropped the ’pon in the trash and fled the scene.

  As I walked toward the exit, I could feel the soaking wet sides of my jeans rubbing against my skin. Instantly, I was transported back to my days in theater camp, where I’d laughed at Carly Millhouse when she peed her pants before curtain call. I made a mental note to Facebook-stalk Carly when I got home and write something nice like “Beautiful” on one of her profile pics.