I'm the One That I Want (18 page)

He was subtly persuasive in his way. There was something about him that obsessed women. It had to do with the way he withheld. He was like a geisha, or a Victorian ingenue, offering a tantalizing glimpse of his inner being. This frustrated me and many like me to total madness. I think he was proud of it.

He told me that he had once volunteered on a suicide hotline. A disturbed woman became fixated on him and he tried to break away. He had the hotline transfer all her calls. She got angry and threatened to do something bad. He did not believe her.

When she finally got him on the phone, she told him she had pulled out her eyes. The Bible said that if her eye offended God, to pluck it out, so she was calling him to tell him she had done it. She was stunned and creepily calm and not yet feeling the pain. Then suddenly, she felt it. She screamed at him fearful, primal screams, and the whole time he was trying to get her to tell him where she lived so that he could send her an ambulance. He had to talk her through it all, stand in the darkness with her. He said it was the scariest thing he had ever done.

Later, they would meet. She, of course, was now blind, and had become a nun. I thought about them meeting and how maybe she would be curious about how he looked. I thought she would ask to put her hands on his face, and he would let her, reluctantly, as he did everything.

When he told me that story, it made me feel strangely inadequate, as if my obsession with him would always pale in comparison. I wanted to kiss him when he was in my house, but he wouldn’t let me. He was already cheating on his fiancée with another woman who worked on my show and he didn’t want to three-time her.

What was so seductive about him was that I thought he cared about me when nobody else did. That bound me to him. I wanted him to kiss me so bad and he did and then he didn’t. He pushed me onto the floor and left. That place in my house is haunted by the electricity that went through me. Later, when I missed him I would lie in that space and remember his hands on me.

Right after he left, he called from the car and said he didn’t want things to be strained between us. He was sorry, but he wasn’t sure for what.

He’d call every couple of months, to vaguely make plans that would never happen, or to put me off, or to be friendly, or to leave a message to call him, which he’d conveniently never be around to receive, pushing me further and further into my obsession. Days went by with me dressing and waiting by the phone and it never, ever rang. Not once.

I would keep putting on makeup and the sun would move across the sky. Finally, it would be too late for anyone to be calling or making plans, even though I thought he still might, and I would just get high and wait longer, phone by my bed. I’d fall asleep on top of the covers, completely dressed and made-up. It would be morning and the birds would be singing and I would wake with a sharp intake of breath and a realization that I had wasted an entire day waiting. The lights from the night before would still be on, throughout the house, and ashamed and desperate that I had lost another twenty-four hours of my life, waiting for a man that did not care if I existed, I would get up and do it again.

After thirteen episodes had been shot,
All-American Girl
was on hiatus, so I had nothing to do but spend my life in preparation to meet him. I went to a silversmith and ordered a beautiful flask engraved with, “Astronauts, Movie Stars, Politicians. I know you would if you could . . .”—a sort of attempted private joke that was so private that I am sure only I got it. It was a cryptic reference to the fact that I had been loved by all these illustrious men and that he would love me if he could just be as accomplished as they were or something ridiculous like that. I realized somewhere along the way that it was insane, and I never gave it to him. Actually, I never saw him and therefore was unable to give it to him. Now, I display it prominently in my home as a reminder to never let myself go so insane again.

I was so fucking crazy and I did so many drugs just to keep this fantasy of him alive. He did take me to dinner once at Off Vine. I tried too hard to seduce him during dinner, and unconvincingly licked red wine off my fingers. He said that I would have to do a lot more than lick wine off my fingers.

He took me home in his stupid Acura Vigor with the ugly sheepskin seat covers and drove me up Vine. Later in my obsession, depression, I would drive myself up Vine and feel special. What kind of life is that?

It was just like being dead, and this waiting and wanting was with me for two years. I never got over it. I heard through the grapevine that he had broken off with his fiancée. I saw her ad in the
Recycler
: “Wedding Dress For Sale $800, Never Worn, Call Reese S _________.”

That set me off trying on bridal gowns like
Muriel’s Wedding
. I found out that I don’t look good in them anyway. What I loved about it was that everybody at the bridal boutique was so
nice
. It was the happiest place on earth: the women trying on gowns, and the women with them on the verge of tears anytime anybody came out of the dressing room. It was this joy that was so seductive. When I left those shops, I couldn’t help thinking that I really
was
getting married to Jon, and it would be only a matter of time until he would realize it.

“The Wedding Fantasy” has been one of my most lasting and persistent daydreams. They go back as far as T. Sean, my blue-eyed Texan beau, from when I was just twenty. I saw marrying him in quickie Vegas fashion. Smoking a cigarette in a pink shantung silk suit, ’60s style, tapping my foot impatiently, holding a tiny bouquet of baby roses in a trembling gloved hand.

Curiously, I also saw our make-believe marriage fall apart, and me drunkenly stalking him into his next relationship. I fantasized about being found by his young son from his next marriage, passed out on their porch early in the morning wearing a fur coat and pearls and nothing else, and clutching a broken champagne glass—
That’s Dad’s
first wife before Mommy. She’s having some trouble letting go. Can I call
the ambulance? Please? Please? Please?

I saw getting married to Jude, a country-western crooner I had a brief affair with, just as clearly. That particular ceremony was held in a stone church in wine country, C&W all the way down to white cowboy boots. The justice o’ the peace would be Col. Sanders, and he, of course, would also cater the event. Jude would sing to me, and all the girls would cry at the romance of it all and the fact that he was taken for good.

My fantasy wedding to Marcel, my last most horrible boyfriend, seemed far more real. We’d go to the South of France, to Provence, where he had attended a wedding years before. The theme would be turn-of-the-century peasant, and we would serve stone soup. There would be fiddles and tiny flowers weaved into my unruly mass of
Manon of the Spring
hair. All the men with their black vests and pocket watches like old-time bankers would lift the heavy oak table and set it outside in the field, where we would dance and drink the night away.

I never pictured my parents at these functions because they represented the awful truth, the bad shit, not that they were awful, bad, or shitty—they were just
real
, and I could not live without lying. They were the black watermelon seeds of my existence. I wanted to just have what I thought were the good parts of my life, seedless and sweet.

I got deeply into this fantasy, thinking I could go to 1900, that expensive boutique on Main that is open by appointment only, just to price antique cotton, to see what a dress would be like should this fantasy come true. I didn’t want to lose my head about my wedding dress as many a young bride is known to do. There were so many new magazines to buy—
Bride’s
and
Modern Bride
and such, just like
Vogue
but with a sense of purpose and direction. The gowns in there were ugly and puffy. I realized as always I’d have to go the vintage route, or perhaps design it myself.

I thought about the bridesmaid dresses. Lemon yellow granny dresses, sort of ’70s Gibson girls with big bubbly bun hairdos, which of course they’d never wear again, but who cares? Who wears anything again? I saw myself in Victoriana, white gauze and delicate white lace and daisies in my bouquet, and the bridesmaids, my friends Siobhan, Ebby, and Marcel’s sister Louise, in yellow to match the yolk of the daisy.

And suddenly, it wasn’t a fantasy anymore, it was outright planning. Later, when the relationship went sour and I could barely stand the sight of Marcel, I still didn’t want to break up because I had spent so much time on my fantasy. In fact, I was being held hostage by my fantasy. I was willing to let myself be miserable in this relationship, to stay with someone I hated, someone who tortured me every time he looked at me, talked to me, or touched me. I was going to endure a lifetime of hell for the pleasure of ONE IMAGINED DAY!!!!!!

No matter how hard it is, I am not going to fashion a wedding fantasy for my next crush. I will stop living life for a future happiness that does not and may never exist. I will live for now and stop wasting my time. Every moment I live can be as beautiful as a fantasy. Every second of life is precious. I vow to stop wasting my time on these dreams that turn my life into a nightmare. I vow to live, to be mindful, to pay attention to life and hold it hard to my heart. Every beat another second going by.

It was so hard then to not want to lose myself in the lacy, white emotions, the soft, womanly caresses of the bridal salon. I was insane, I was being a lunatic. Trying on wedding dresses, preparing for a wedding to someone who would never even call me back. But the ladies at the boutique didn’t know that. They just wanted to help me be ready for my Special Day, the one I would remember for my entire life.

I tried on a dress, which didn’t look good on me anyway. I went to wait outside for Sledge to pick me up. Curiously, he didn’t think anything that I was doing was strange.

I was standing on a corner of Ventura Boulevard and this guy drove up and looked at me and then went and parked his car and walked back. He started talking to me and saying that I was attractive and asked what was I doing. It took me a long time to realize that he thought I was a prostitute! Sledge came roaring up in his Acura and I got into his car and he drove my crazy ass home.

14

TALES OF THE RECONSTRUCTION

The show was under massive reconstruction. Since there had been such a backlash from the Asian-American community, an effort was made to make the show more “authentic.” An Asian consultant was hired, mostly to help actors with their accents and to determine the Feng Shui on the set. It was all the more insulting because the actors didn’t need any help, and “authenticity” was never the problem. It was insensitivity. The idea that there is one defining, “authentic” Asian-American experience ignores the vast diversity of which we are capable. It discounts the fact that there can be many truths, and holds us in a racial spiderweb. We were accused of being racist because we did not ring true as an “authentic” Asian-American family, when the real racism lies in the expectation of one.

Of course, the network had little time for discussions on race and culture. It was decided that the show should be moved out of the family environment into a Generation-X communal living situation. The family would still be in some of the episodes, but the focus was shifted to my life without them. This seemed closer to who I was, but it wasn’t the right solution. The show was changed drastically to be more “me,” but since I was never allowed to do any of the writing, and lines I put in were edited out of the final shows, it was as bad as ever.

Twenty-something angst was hot, so we jumped onto the
Friends
bandwagon. We did a few episodes where my character moved to the basement, said no to casual sex (something I would NEVER do), and moved into an apartment with two girlfriends. We even parodied
The
Real World
.

Then, two of the writers were fired. Rain and Sherman were young members of the staff, and they had become friends of mine. I did not really know what they contributed to the show, as I was never allowed into the writers’ room, but their sudden dismissal angered me. It made me feel powerless, though I don’t understand why that did when almost nothing else had.

I used my muscle as the star of the show to get them rehired, which surprised everyone, because it was so incredibly late in the game. I just had no idea I had that much control.

It never occurred to me that I was the star.

It never occurred to me that I could have told the network that I didn’t want to lose weight.

It never occurred to me that the only reason anybody was there was because of me.

The show was called
All-American Girl
and I was the
All-American
Asshole
because I never realized it. Rehiring Rain and Sherman was of no use anyway because soon all the writers were fired, including a very pissed-off Gary.

I felt bad for Gary because even though the show wasn’t funny at all, he really tried. He was also understanding when my diet pills would keep me up all night and I would storm into his office in a drug- and hunger-induced frenzy, making him take notes while I babbled incoherently about story lines based on
The Celestine
Prophecy
, a book I had never read but thought sounded good.

The show was shot one last time as a new pilot. All of the original characters, with the exception of myself and Amy Hill, who played “Grandma,” were gone. I was now living with three men, and it was “slacker-centric.” The comedy fell flat, as it was all supposed to be ironic and cynical, with the humor emerging from the language as opposed to jokes.