It can, though, take my word for it. It happened to me. I know my life went downhill just as soon as I read those words.
You thought you were reading about someone going through a hard time. One of two things would happen–either things would get better for her, or they wouldn’t. You were prepared to follow the story from the beginning through the middle to the end, and then you were going to put it down and get on with your life. You were prepared to feel better after it was all over–if it ended happily you’d feel good, of course, but if it didn’t you’d still experience the catharsis Aristotle talked about. You were going to feel good watching me suffer.
And now you’re the one who’s going to suffer. What do you think of that?
I stopped going out. I skipped auditions. I sat on my floor and stared at my carpet, which was a truly hideous shade of brown. I spent a lot of time wondering why anyone would make a carpet that color. And when I wasn’t worrying about my carpet I thought about Jessie.
I couldn’t turn on the television without seeing her. There were ads for her movie, there was Jessie herself being featured on some entertainment show or talking to Jay Leno about what a sweetie Harrison was. And when her movie came out it got worse. I didn’t go see it, of course–there was my carpet to think of–but just about all the critics liked it. The skinny guy on that Sunday evening movie review program practically fell in love with her, though the fat guy didn’t go that far. No one noticed that she wasn’t a very good actress, that she was missing something. I wondered if, in addition to all my other problems, I was going crazy.
Whenever I went to the supermarket, there was her picture waiting for me, on the cover of People or some tabloid. One month she was even featured in a house and garden magazine, with pictures of the interior of her Malibu condo. I couldn’t help myself–I paged through the article while standing in the check-out line. She’d told the reporter that she wanted to create a space filled with light. I doubted it–she had terrible taste, could barely even dress herself. Probably that was something her interior decorator had said.
I’d been invited to that condo, not once but dozens of times. She urged me to come along with her to parties, told me about the directors and producers who would be there. She offered to take me to dinner. I made excuses, stopped returning her calls. All I needed, I thought, was to owe Jessie my career. No, I’ll be honest here–I just didn’t want to see her.
I thought a lot about envy. In college I had been in a production of Marlowe’s Dr. Faustus, in the scene with the seven deadly sins. I’d played Envy: “I am Envy, begotten of a chimney-sweeper and an oyster-wife . . . I am lean with seeing others eat. Oh, that there would come a famine over all the world, that all might die, and I live alone, then thou should’st see how fat I’d be!”
If I tried I could remember the six other sins–pride, anger, gluttony, sloth, lechery, and greed. Envy was definitely my sin, though. I thought I would have taken almost any of the others: pride, lechery, even gluttony. Sloth would be good. Here I was, I thought bitterly, envying other people their sins.
The phone rang. I worried that it was Jessie, full of more cheerful good news, but for some reason I answered it. It turned out to be Ellen, a friend of mine from college, and I relaxed.
“Hey, isn’t that woman in the movie Jessie What’s-her-name?” Ellen asked after we’d caught up on news. “I met her once at your house, didn’t I?”
“Yeah,” I said.
“Well, give her my congratulations. It must be exciting for her.”
“Yeah,” I said again. There was silence–a puzzled silence, I thought–at the other end of the line. “I guess this proves beyond a doubt that Hollywood values looks over talent,” I said finally.