I loved waiting tables for the same reason I love giving blow jobs: You get to put on a little show. Corydon is a small southern Indiana town. Small towns are so completely foreign to me, and I love foreign things. I thrive on being completely out of my element and chronically constipated from unfamiliar foods. The Corydon Ponderosa has an all-you-can-eat steak night. The waitresses chew gum and say things like, “Y’all ready for another steak?” There’s a pharmacy with an old-timey lunch counter and soda fountain in the town square called Butt Drugs. Diane knows the Butt family and could get me a job working the lunch counter. Retired farmers sit at the counter sipping on two-dollar cups of coffee and talking about the good old days. The waitresses wear T-shirts that say I HEART BUTT DRUGS. Why wouldn’t I want to work there?
The casting door opens up and this time a spunky-looking blond lady with a blowout sticks her head out and calls me in.
Sometimes I’ll get notes during the audition like “remember you love him. He’s your husband! He’s Jim Belushi!” Or I’ll walk into the room for an audition and the producers will literally shake their heads: “No.” Sometimes they nod: “Yes.” The blond blowout lady, who must be one of the writers or maybe a producer, explains to me again how Horny Patty is in her head—obsessing about sex. She’s living in her isolated world of animal shows and SeaWorld. She doesn’t have to love Jim Belushi. Or anyone, really. Just sex. I may have a shot at getting this part.
“You look hilarious,” the blond lady with a blowout says and points to my faded black skirt from the Gap. “That skirt is so bad. I love the stains. The dirty hair, perfect.” I don’t mention that these are my normal clothes and I washed my hair this morning.
It was so effortless for me to inhabit this sad horny lady that I walk out feeling . . . good. The blond blowout comes running after me, grabs my shoulders, and stares into my eyes. Maybe she’s looking to see if I have the soul of Horny Patty.
“You’re okay with nudity, right?”
I tell her the same thing I tell the guy at the liquor store—“Sure!” (Whenever a creepy guy asks me to show him my tits, I do it. I don’t want any trouble.)
On the drive home from the audition, Allen calls me. “They want to double-check that you’re okay with nudity.”
Absolutely, I tell him. No problem. Nudity is not a big thing for me. I’m an actress. Nudity is the given and the honor of the trade. Like a high-class hooker or a crack-house hooker. I’m a professional.
The next afternoon my phone rings. It’s Allen. “It’s between you and two other girls. They really want to be sure you’re okay with full nudity.”
Yes! Yes! Yes! They could have asked me if I was okay living in a tree trunk for a year and having a micropenis and the answer would have been “YES!”
Please god, let me get this job. I can’t move to some small conservative Hoosier town and wait tables. The only gay people in small towns like that are married to women, have awful taste in music, and direct the church choir. Diane told me that the one black family in Corydon has the last name Black. I’d never be able to tell if people were being overtly racist when they said things like, “Oh well, he’s a Black.” I’ll double-check when I get home, but I’m fairly sure you can buy I HEART BUTT DRUGS T-shirts online. If my career comes to a grinding halt because of this baby, I’ll lose my mind. Or maybe I won’t. I’m sure if you asked a dancer what she’d do if she lost her legs she’d say the same thing.
The calls keep coming—“So there’s a chance you’re getting this. Stay tuned.”
The next morning at ten, Allen calls again. “Amazing news. Weeds, you got it.”
Quick question: They didn’t mean naked, did they?
I’d like to be jumping up in the air, punching the walls, and yelling “I GOT IT!” but the joy of getting the part is a little murky.
I can’t be naked. They don’t want me to be naked. Nobody wants to see me naked.
“Yes, full boobs, butt, and stomach. I don’t think your lady hump, though,” Allen tells me.
Oh good, so my parents can still watch it.
Allen assumes I’m being insecure because of my ten-pound pregnancy weight gain. “But don’t your boobs get bigger? It’s perfect!”
“No . . . it’s not. They’re not. There’s a problem.”
“You’re a robot and taking off your clothes reveals your hidden control box?”
“Close. I have an inverted nipple.”
Long pause.
“What does that mean?”
“You know. It means that it doesn’t cut glass. The turkey’s never ready. Tokyo can’t tune in.”
Once I run out of analogies for erect nipples two hours later, I have to get medical. “It’s like an innie belly button. Except cleaner. And don’t pity me. I’ve lived my life as normally as I could.”
The boyfriends of my past would give it a quick “Okay, what do you do here?” glance, give it a nice “meet-ya, meet-ya” squeeze, and move on. I don’t usually have to bring it up because nobody but David ever sees it and he politely looks away to save it any embarrassment. Once I jogged by a guy in New York City, and he looked at my chest and said, “One?”
“I wouldn’t worry about it.” Allen congratulates himself and hangs up.
I can’t stop worrying about.
I’ve seen dead bodies on TV but never an inverted nipple. Actors have been recast for far less serious infractions. An actress friend of mine was fired after Kelsey Grammer didn’t think she seemed excited to meet him. When they see my nipple, they’re going to recast the part. I’ll never have enough money to get my kid a haircut. Or Botox or whatever the new hot trend is when he turns two.
I shave down everything I can find. I shave my bathmat.
At the table read, a red-haired actress who’s playing an office worker in the episode sits next to me, sees what part I’m playing, shrugs her shoulders, and laughs. “Ugly girls. At least we’re working, right?”
I say, “You said it, sister! So true!”
“Square peg,” “mildly masculine,” “not as cute as her friend”—those I can live with. But “ugly”? I’m sure she didn’t mean to call me ugly when she said “ugly.” What she meant to say was “At least we’re working because we’re so lucky to have anything positive happen in our lives besides winning the spelling bee.” I lost the spelling bee. So now I’m back to just being ugly.
There are two fears that I’ve always had about being a woman—one is that I am ugly, disgusting, and smelling like a maxipad and the other one is that once I turn forty and have a baby I’ll never work again.
All the confidence that I accidentally had when I walked into the room has been bled out of me. I’m going to get fired at the table read. Not for being ugly. I may have been hired for that. It took me a year to recover after being fired from The Daily Show. Jon was named man of the year by all of humanity, and I couldn’t understand how someone didn’t like me. As if my entire career was based on being liked.
A tall, ruggedly handsome man in a plaid shirt and no shoes walks into the room. It’s Thomas Jane, the lead actor. God, I hope he likes me.
“Dead body in a casket, dead body in a casket . . .”
For a moment I wish I could run to the bathroom to put some makeup on, but it’s too late.
He looks my way.
“Hi. I’m Horny Patty,” I say and give him a little wave. Pretty ballsy move for an ugly girl.
Maybe I should tell him how much I’m looking forward to working with him. That will sound like I’m looking forward to having a sex scene with him. Maybe he wants to hear that. Maybe he doesn’t. Maybe I should get up, walk over, and quickly disabuse him of some of the misconceptions about inverted nipples. No, leave him alone. If he’s anything like Jon Stewart, the only inverted nipple he wants to discuss is his own. Or Elizabeth Warren’s.
Thomas says, “Hi, Horny Pa
tty” back to me and the entire room bursts out laughing. Doesn’t seem quite fair, since I was the first to use my name in a dry, casual way, but it’s still kind of a thrill.
The blond blowout lady, who is indeed one of the writers, comes up and does that thing where she grabs my shoulders and stares at my face again. “You have too much makeup on.”
“It’s just Carmex on my lips.”
“Wipe it off.”
“Should I go in the parking lot and throw some rocks at my face?” I suggest.
She squints her eyes, contemplating. “No. Not yet.”
I want to bring up the inverted nipple so that maybe they can rewrite the scene, but I can’t get myself to bring up nipples just yet.
Walking onto the Paramount lot the day of the shoot I’m completely focused on my character. Like Marlon Brando. “Just play the scene, don’t worry about the nipples. Just play the scene, don’t worry about the nipples.”
A production assistant tells me one of the other actresses had her first sex scene the day before and brought her manager, her best friend, and two different sponsors from two different twelve-step programs for support. She drank two glasses of wine and still was a nervous wreck.
“When she took her robe off and stood there naked in front of everyone, did she have like a giant hair patch on her lower back or anything like that?” I ask the PA hopefully.
“No, she’s gorgeous. I mean, like, drop-dead hot, perfect body, but she was still nervous.”
The “body makeup specialist” is a lady from Argentina. She must be used to dealing with pre–sex scene jitters. She’s very professional. In order for her to spray me down I need to stand completely naked with my arms and legs spread.
“Do you pretend you’re icing a cake sometimes?” I ask.
“No problem.”
“Have you ever accidentally spanked someone?”
“No problem.”
The process ends with her putting a sticker over my pubic area that is held in place by a long stringlike sticker that is attached to it and goes up my butt. Not into my anus but like a string bikini. That’s all I will be wearing for my nude scene, and it’s all I’m wearing when there’s a knock on the door. It’s the blowout lady writer. I put a robe on so I can save the big reveal.
The Argentine makeup lady points to my nipple. “Problem.” I’m not sure why it’s a problem for her. Did she want me to breastfeed her? She’d seemed so sensitive to my naked-lady comfort level a few moments ago, and now she’s going to get me fired. I’m changing her name from “No Problem Makeup Lady” to “Problem-Making Makeup Lady.”
Blowout ignores her, walks up to me, and practically talks inside my mouth she’s so close.
“Feeling okay? You okay?”
This is the time to tell her. I can tell her. So I do.
“What does that mean?”
“It’s like an innie belly button.”
She wants to know if it’s ever come out. I tell her no.
There’s another long pause while she stares at my face. She’s thinking. She claps her hands. “I love it! I’m gonna write some new lines.”
Out the door she goes. Hey, this could work out! Finally this freak show is going to get me some perks. More lines!
Ten minutes later there’s another knock on the door.
“Didn’t work out. But be sure to check the new script pages on your table, had to cut some of your lines. Have fun today.”
They escort me to the set like a dead man walking. I make my way through the gauntlet. As I pass, people turn their backs, look down at their shoes, and make the sign of the cross. It’s a closed set, meaning no visitors or press. Or anyone who doesn’t have to be there. Everyone is instructed to give me personal space and not ogle, which I appreciate, but as I sit on the edge of the bed waiting for Thomas Jane, I make an announcement: “Listen, everybody, I have an inverted nipple, please don’t pity me.” I hear one lone “HA!” that I think got whoever fired since right after that it was very, very quiet. Now it’s out. I’ve told people. The hardest part of my role is the monologue, and I don’t shoot that until tomorrow, so all I really have to do is look like I’m having sex and not think about the nipple.
The smell of a cigar fills the studio. Thomas Jane has arrived. He’s on the phone arguing with his wife about child care. He puts his cigar out in a coffee cup, which is the costume people’s cue to run in and grab my robe. He—TJ—drops his robe. All of my fears about the horror my inverted nipple was going to cause disappear when I see TJ naked. He’s incredibly sexy. He’s so sexy he should be an actor.
“Okay, funny lady, let’s go.”
He calls me “funny lady,” which is exactly what you want before you’re about to be naked and having sex with someone on camera. “Okay, funny lady, lie down.”
He forgot his sticker. Must have gotten stuck to his robe.
Thomas fluffs himself—not in a “sexual fluff” way but more of an “unsticking sweaty balls from sides of thighs” way—and mounts me. He grabs my legs and slams into me so quickly and so rapidly that my sticker gets jammed up my butt.
Hysterically giddy laughter ensues. I’m hanging upside down off the bed and I can’t stop laughing. Between takes I’m laughing. I’m having such a good time that it’s embarrassing for the crew. It’s easy to enjoy it because Thomas doesn’t talk to me at all. He’s in his own world. And it’s helpful. My character on True Blood raped a guy and I had to straddle him for hours. We talked about his condo and his life back home in Australia, about his family and so on, and I felt very caught up in how he was doing. It made it hard to fake rape him.
The camerawoman comes up to me when we’re done shooting. “I was worried he’s pounding so hard he’ll hurt the baby.” The baby. That’s right. There’s a baby. Oh god. I’m going to have a son. How will I explain this? Actually, I know exactly how I will explain it. I’ll tell him how the part was one of the many thousands of jobs that I did to take care of him, to put food on the table and books in his hands. It’s got a bit of an “I was stripping to get through school” vibe, but hopefully that won’t matter when he’s enjoying his invisible braces and college education.
• • •
Leo was born a month ago. David has been such an amazing help, running around washing apples, fetching napkins, and making salads.
After the birth, we decided that he should be the stay-at-home dad. “You have more earning potential,” he said to me. I haven’t worked at all since my Horny Patty sex scene.
I’ll never work again. I’ll try to work, but I’ll always be thinking about Leo. Worrying about him. My friend Gay Jay recently turned down a job in New York because he simply became unhinged when he was away from his family. A job would have to be life-changing to get him to make that sacrifice. It wasn’t even a hard decision. He simply didn’t want to go. He was talking about his dogs but I understood the comparison; he did breastfeed them.
How on earth will I be able to be touring and gone all the time? It won’t work. It’s all I’ve done since I was twenty-five years old. It’s not even work, what I do, because I love it so much. I used to say it’s all that I lived for. This little baby with his wandering eye is all I want to look at, hold, and eat. I’d eat him if I could.
I’m struggling to breastfeed Leo when the phone rings. My inverted nipple did come out, right after Leo was born, just like the old ladies at the breastfeeding store the Pump Station told me it would. It doesn’t matter, though. I offer it up; he takes a look at it and turns away: “Oh, that’s okay. Suddenly I’m not hungry.”
It’s Allen.
“Hey, Weeds, good news. They want you back for more Horny Patty.”
“There’s a little problem.”
“I can’t talk about your inverted nipple right now. I’m in the middle of a meeting and I’m driving and I’m at the airport Skyping with
a client.”
“No, no. Not that. Could you tell the producers that I’m about thirty pounds heavier than when I shot the first season? I can’t be fully naked. I’m not being falsely modest. I’m overweight and it would be such a statement to see me naked on TV that it would be distracting. My inverted nipple is nothing. It’s my freakish breast sizes. There’s the one gigantic breast that Leo likes and the ex–inverted nipple one that he’s neglected to such a degree that it’s atrophied away like a little mini limb.”
After he stops gagging, he says he’s going to call them and see what they say.
He hangs up and calls me right back.
“I told them and they said ‘perfect.’” God bless Blowout Lady.
My lips are Vaselined. My hair frizzed. Tonia was wrong. Damn, it feels good to work. On my way out of the makeup trailer I see my friend Emma, whom I haven’t seen since the audition. She’s been cast as one of the gigolo’s female clients.
“Hey, Emma, how are you?”
She takes one look at me and smiles an ugly girls’ “Hey, at least we’re working, huh?” smile and walks away.
I’m working. This is the character. Thank god for character actors. Thank god for this part. I’m bringing home the bacon, frying it up in a pan.
It’s a nude scene again. Of course.
The director has heard I’m concerned about full nudity. She calls me to the set and takes a break from shooting a scene to talk to me. After a long speech about how giving birth to twins, understanding women’s relationships to their complicated post-birth bodies, and a documentary she made about eating disorders, she pushes her baseball cap back on her head and takes a loud slurp of her coffee. “Okay, let’s see what we’re working with. Open your robe.”
I open up my robe. “Oh god, they look like breastfeeding boobs. COVER ’EM!” She yells this over her shoulder and a pit crew from the Indy 500 runs up and gets to work.
The head of the crew is a very sweet young girl from Michigan named Kate. She’s the youngest girl in a Catholic family of thirteen kids. “I can’t even believe you had a baby!” She puts me in a teddy to make sure that my stomach is covered up. “Not that you need it!” The director tells her to make sure the teddy is taped to my boobs so that they don’t fall out. As she tapes me up I stare at the ceiling and take deep breaths. Do men go through this? Do they worry about saggy balls? At least my big saggy boobs are keeping a person alive. Saggy balls don’t.
Miss Fortune Page 14
