Читать книгу Fame - Justine Bateman - Страница 13

Circle

I’m going to tell you about something that happened the other day. I mean now, you know, present day. I was meeting some new friends, people in the business, and there was this one woman, actress. Well-known, yes, but not overly so. Where am I, on the Fame scale there? I don’t know. How famous am I? How do I rank compared to her? I don’t know, it doesn’t matter. It shouldn’t matter, but she’s somehow ALIVE. You know? Alive and magnetic and ON. Not in a bad way, in a good way, in a magnetic way—she’s just in that zone. And I mention the “where do I rank” question because I found myself doing that leaning-in-and-listening-to-whatever-she-was-saying thing. That thing I told you about a couple of pages ago. I’m doing that thing. We’re all oriented around her. I think we are, I can’t tell because we’re in a circle, you know? Anyway, I don’t feel myself. I’m fucking DIVESTING. I feel like I’m “divesting myself in front of Fame.” That’s why I’m asking myself about the “ranking,” the Fame ranking, because I’m trying to reason with myself.

“C’mon. She’s not more known than you. You should be able to keep your sense of yourself. This is easy. WHY ARE YOU NOT FEELING LIKE YOURSELF NOW?” I try to jolt myself back into “being myself” by talking more energetically and loosely when I see a chance to speak. It doesn’t work. I try again. I try to focus on someone else. Fuck. She’s great, this actress. I like her a lot, but fuck. She has that thing on her, that sheath. OK, we all did, in that group, to some extent, sure, but hers was turned ON. It was plugged in and I felt it. That magic thing. Fucking weird. We’ll figure it out. Maybe by the end. Maybe on the last page here in this book.