It was a sign of a disastrous week to come. The very next day, we climbed into our bathing suits and headed out to the beach for a little adventure, quickly deciding that we’d all pile into a banana boat to explore the waters and bask in the sunshine. Not even ten minutes into the ride, the boat turned over and all of us were in the water, swimming with the fishes, gasping for air as we screamed and desperately tried to anchor ourselves to the boat. My one friend, the one with the fanny pack, tried to kill us all to save herself, flailing and pulling us into the water so she could get a firmer grip on the plastic yellow contraption that was holding us up. “Damn, girl, stop pulling!” we yelled. “You have on a life vest, you’re not going to drown! Shit!”
We did manage to have some small measure of fun the night before we left; we found some ratchet club in the middle of the city somewhere and had a blast drinking and dancing and acting the fool. We paid for it the next day: everybody, save for me, was sick as hell, throwing up and battling bubble guts, the unfortunate consequences, no doubt, of drinking the water. Piling onto the misery, Ptosha fell off a bridge into a pool of water while running to get to the van. She came to the hotel’s front desk, where the rest of us were checking out, soaking wet, just seconds before we were about to get into a waiting van to rush to the airport. She ended up changing her clothes in the backseat of the car while my other two friends took turns throwing up out the window and debating whether they should stick their asses out of it, too, to empty their bowels. That’s how sick they were. Exhausted and hungover, I just sat there in my seat, arms folded, eyes half closed, shaking my head. “See? I told y’all not to drink the damn water. Next time, we’re going to Jamaica.”
? ? ?
Each of these women gives me exactly what I look for in a friend: Loyalty and trust. The challenge to be a better me. The space to be unapologetically rough, rugged, and raw. I’m not biting my tongue around them, and while I know they won’t judge, I can trust them not to tell me what they think I want to hear. They work me, which I appreciate because it leaves the space for me to be me. This is important, because being fake with the ones I love isn’t an option—I’m not that girl. I get paid to pretend, but I won’t do it in my real-life relationships.
This is what I appreciate about my friendship with the R&B star Mary J. Blige. She and I are kindred spirits; game recognizes game, and I count her among my closest friends precisely because of our mutual ability not only to be our authentic selves, but also to do so unapologetically and in a way that lets women from our backgrounds, who’ve experienced our same struggles, know that they’re going to be all right.
Ours was a friendship that almost didn’t happen. The first time I met her, she hurt my feelings so bad, I didn’t know if I’d ever recover. This was back in 2000, when I was still a relative newbie to the industry, shortly after I’d wrapped filming Baby Boy. John Singleton and I were party-hopping all around town during Grammy week, and I was fresh on the scene, wide-eyed, and excited to be rubbing elbows with bona fide stars. When I spotted her, my celebrity crush, across the room at one of the gatherings, I leaned into John and tried my best not to squeal into his ear. “Oh my God, you have to introduce me to Mary J. Blige,” I said, punching and pinching his arm. “Take me over there.”
Shaking his head and smirking at my excitement, John took me by the hand and led me over to Mary the way a parent does a child on her way to meet Santa Claus. I was anxious and excited for my moment in her space—a moment I’d been waiting for since the release of her first album, What’s the 411?. I needed to tell her that she was a salve for all the pain I felt when I was going through the emotional trauma of dating Marcell’s father, and that she was the salve for my broken heart when Mark and I broke up. I needed her to know that her album My Life was my life, lived out loud in musical form, and that when she cried, I cried. I needed her to know that her art inspired me to keep going and that deep down in my gut, she was, and forever will be, my heroine.
When John walked me up to her, I was ready. And then Mary turned around to face me. She was trying to focus on my face, perhaps to figure out if she knew me. I should have known it wouldn’t go well, but, starstruck, a tad naive, and completely undeterred, I launched into my soliloquy. “I love you so much, you inspired my work, you got me through so much,” I said, barely taking a breath while singing her praises practically at the top of my lungs, over the noisy din of the music and the crowd. I expected her to open wide her arms and tell me to fall in—maybe ask me for my phone number or maybe offer to accompany me on a lunch date so that we could really get to know each other.
Alas, this wasn’t to be. When I finally finished gushing, Mary adjusted her clothes, looked me up and down, sucked her teeth, and, with a dismissive wave, turned her back on me.
I was devastated and felt like less than nothing. Crushed. I walked around for a good forty minutes, watching her from afar, and then I got weird. Maybe she didn’t hear what I said, I told myself. It is loud in here. I convinced myself that it was actually a really good idea to go back over to her and tell her again how much I loved her, only this time louder.