Why Not Me? (20 page)

After babbling amiably with a silent Will, I followed him to an empty ballroom and he told me to have a seat. I noticed with horror that my phone was dead and, in a desperate tone used only by women begging for their child’s life, asked Will if he had a charger. How would I get a picture with the president with a dead phone? He politely said no and left. I waited there alone for forty-five minutes, growing increasingly nervous. Just when I thought I might sneak out to a bodega and buy a disposable camera, Will came back to check on me. He gave me a bottle of water and thanked me for being so patient. He also pulled a phone charger out of his pocket and handed it to me like contraband. I was so excited that I gave him a hug.

WILL
: I had no idea this would make you so happy.

ME
: It’s just that I was in the middle of a really important game of Candy Crush.

Will chuckled.
A chuckle!
He doesn’t hate me! And that’s historically all the encouragement I need! I saw my opening.

ME
: You’re really helpful and nice. I bet you were like, class president.

WILL
: Actually, I was. All four years of high school.

ME
: This is cool. I’m meeting a lot of presidents today.

As Will was trying to get a handle on my B+ flirting, he got word that I would meet the president. That was a moment when I realized how cool my life is. I was trying to hit on a guy and was being interrupted by the president of the United States. We walked down a hallway, and President Obama emerged from a massive ballroom with Sarah, the woman who had arranged our meeting.

President Obama shook my hand and said, “I hear you like romantic comedies, like my wife.”

I almost fainted.

We spoke about movies and storytelling, and then he asked about my parents. I’m one of those people who is infatuated with her parents, so it was thrilling to talk about my mother with him and see him listen intently while I described their journey to this country. But mostly I just beamed at him and let him talk, because I knew this would be a story I tell my grandchildren. Who cares what I said? I forget some of the details of what we talked about, but I will never forget the feeling of being in his presence.

The official White House photographer took a photo of the two of us (didn’t need a disposable camera after all!) and Will escorted me back to the lobby of the Waldorf. We rode the elevator in happy silence.

“I could tell he liked you,” Will said. I deflected this comment, which is my habit upon receiving any kind of compliment. Will interrupted me and touched my arm. “No, stop. He did.”

There are times when I feel especially lucky that I have dark skin, because you can’t see me blush. This was one of those times. After Will walked me back to the lobby, I thanked him for the experience and told him to “email me anytime, for anything.” He smiled, and not a tight-lipped one either. He said he would, and I believed him.

RE-CON

June

The single best thing about working in a writers’ room is that you can disrupt the entire writing process to discuss and investigate your latest crush. My staff on
The Mindy Project
is composed of nine people in their twenties and thirties who have traded the prime of their adulthood for writing jokes on a show about a woman who believes “recycling makes America look poor.” And as their leader, I have learned one thing: their hard work must be rewarded with soul-replenishing gossip.

The hardest part of investigating a crush online was that I had deleted my Facebook account five years earlier when I had smartly realized that Facebook would mean an end to my productivity or ever putting on pants. Why go out when I could see pictures from my ex-boyfriend’s ex-girlfriend’s family trip to Napa? So I did what any reasonable person would do: I made all of the other writers log in to their Facebook accounts to see if they could find Will. We quickly found him but saw that his account was set to private.

We were outraged. “Who the hell does this guy think he is? Harry Connick Jr.?!” we shouted. And then, like Katniss volunteering to be a tribute for her useless sister, Prim, one brave writer, Tracey Wigfield, said she would request Will’s friendship on Facebook so we could learn more about him while protecting my identity. I was moved beyond words, which might provide you a glimpse of how truly shallow I am.

Showrunner Matt Warburton asked, “Won’t he just look at where she works and figure out pretty easily that she’s friends with you?”

“Shut up, Matt!” I barked.
I don’t need no logic! I have a crush!

Of course, Will didn’t accept Tracey’s friend request because he had no idea who she was.

And then, a month after I met him, out of the blue, Will emailed me. He said the president had enjoyed spending time with me, and asked for an address to send the photo of us. I replied a day later (to show that I was busy, which I was, but not busy enough to not reply immediately), and this kicked off an exchange that lasted more than a year.

Over email I learned that Will traveled everywhere with the president. I also learned that he was very funny, in a dry way. I have the opposite of a dry sense of humor, so I’m always impressed by it. My sense of humor is wet and loud and risqué, like topless day at the water park.

I have a terrible habit of impulsively sending text messages that reveal my true feelings and frighten people off, such as: “I like you so much it scares me.” So Jeremy Bronson, one of my closest friends, proofread my communication with Will. Jeremy has been doing that as long as I have been friends with him, so much so that if you ever text with me, there is a 70 percent chance you are actually texting with Jeremy.

Will and I developed a steady texting relationship, but he was always off solving problems for the president. He was one of the few guys I’ve met who is busier than I am. It was at once frustrating and totally sexy. One day I confessed that I’d had Tracey request his Facebook friendship. This charmed him, and the next day, Tracey raced into the writers’ room, excitedly announcing that Will had accepted her friend request. This unlocked a treasure trove of Will-related tidbits, like what city he was born in, that he loved
The Daily Show
and hiking and had gone to the University of Pennsylvania. Even though it was fairly generic and painted a picture of several hundreds of guys we knew, it felt like the most exciting day of my life.

THE STATE DINNER

February

Over the next six months, I discovered another benefit of my new friendship with Will: I began to receive invitations to incredible events in Washington, DC. I was invited to the White House Holiday Party, a luncheon for Asian American artists (I was excited to technically qualify as one), and the White House Easter Egg Roll to read stories to children (excited to be considered a person who doesn’t scare children). I could never attend anything because I was filming my show, but I paraded my invitations around the set so people could touch the fancy stationery.

And then one magical day, nine months after our meeting at the Waldorf, I got an email from the White House saying, in gorgeous presidential cursive: “The President of the United States invites you to a State Dinner honoring François Hollande, the President of France.”

It was a save the date for a
state dinner
!

I scrolled to the very unsexy second page, which instructed me, at my earliest convenience, to please provide this long list of incredibly personal information, including my social security number, federal tax identification number, driver’s license, and place of birth. It occurred to me that this might be the smartest identity-theft scam ever. But even if it was, I didn’t care, because what a glamorous scam! Like the Hollywood Film Awards!

The best part was that Will offered to give me a tour of the White House. I remember bursting into the writers’ room and telling everyone. They were excited about the state dinner, but their interest in Will had waned. Like with any good story, they needed a plot twist. Executive producer Charlie Grandy shrugged and said, “Please sleep with him or something before you come back. This story needs to move forward.” I nodded, understanding that I had a lot to do in DC.

My trip got off to a rocky start. My flight was delayed and I missed Will’s private tour of the White House. How was I going to have a sexy trip if I couldn’t even show up for things?!

My guest to dinner was my best friend, Jocelyn, who had taken the train down from New York. We forewent seeing any DC museums or national monuments to order cheeseburgers and watch
Will
&
Grace
in bed at our hotel, because we are real best friends, not lame fake friends trying to impress each other with how fascinated we are with culture and learning.

I’d hired a hair and makeup team to get us ready. They regularly did hair and makeup for a very famous African American actress, whom I’m dying to tell you about but I can’t. (How about this: if you ever run into me on the street I will tell you.) The whole time we were getting ready I was trying to get dirt on this actress but they revealed nothing, which drove me crazy, because celebrity secrets are more valuable than diamonds. The only thing I was able to sneak out of them was that the actress uses Preparation H on her face as a primer before makeup. I loved this so much that I insisted they do the same to me.

I have Preparation H smeared all over my face in these pictures. I have no idea what it does to the sphincter, but it keeps my makeup looking flawless.

As you are ushered to the receiving line to meet the president and First Lady, they announce you,
My Fair Lady
–style: “The Honorable So and So and his wife, Madeline.” Just before our turn, the aide asked me how I would describe Jocelyn’s and my relationship, and, of course, I prattled on about our backstory as if he were a therapist, not knowing he wanted a succinct answer. So our formal announcement was literally “Miss Mindy Kaling and her best friend from Dartmouth College, Miss Jocelyn Leavitt.”

I didn’t have time to feel too embarrassed, though, because all of a sudden we were talking to the Obamas. Here is the part of the story where I feel really cool. Instead of shaking my hand, as he was doing with everyone else on the receiving line, the president heard my name, lit up, and hugged me. He then said to his wife, “This is Mindy. Malia was reading her book in Hawaii.”
My
book! Malia Obama was reading
my
book! The one
Amazon.com
reviewer “My2Cents” called “sort of meh”! I was walking on air.

And then I saw Will.

Will stood next to and slightly behind the First Lady, dutiful and handsome in his dark suit. I was still beaming from my interaction with the Obamas, so when I saw him, I called out “Will!” and pulled him into a tight hug. From the way he reacted, I got the distinct feeling that you are not supposed to embrace the man standing to the right of the First Lady, but I didn’t care. He looked great, he smelled great, and I looked great, and smelled like my hotel’s tiny complimentary body lotion. So I impulsively topped the hug with a kiss on the cheek.