Dec 17, 2014
"Happy birthday!"
Pretty much everyone was required to say those words to me today. Even strangers who heard what today was. Including this one.
Technically, it should mean more when family and loved ones say it. But hearing it from this stranger, in this context, was still the highlight of my birthday and a top highlight of my recent life -- at least it seemed to be at the time.
Before then, it had been enough to get tickets for "Cabaret" on Broadway on the date of my 30'th birthday. It was mainly a big thing because Emma Stone -- the celebrity I'd idolized and written about the most over the last few years -- was starring in it.
But as much as I looked forward to seeing her sing live about 100 feet away from me for over two hours, I mainly dreamed of seeing her about two feet in front of me for about 10 seconds. That would happen after the show, when I would get a good spot behind the barricade in back of the theater -- before she came out to sign Playbills for fans like me.
None of those fans were like me, though. Maybe one or two of them had a birthday today too, but I doubted they wrote extensively about her. Or if they did, it wasn't in smutty stories that were consistently among my highest rated.
That should have made me feel very awkward and creepy, in truth. Being that close to someone I lusted and loved, and wrote about in so many dirty but steamy and sexy scenarios. It should have made me feel a different kind of nerves and a different kind of star struck than normal.
But that had nothing to do with this -- at least I prayed it wouldn't. There was only one thing I'd have time to say to her when she signed my Playbill, and only one thing I wanted to say to her.
I practiced my lines to myself for days before getting to New York. I practiced it in my head one more time while waiting outside after the show. And when Emma came out of the building, with her red hair up in a bun despite how it was already shorter than usual, and with a light trench coat on after prancing around in black dresses, frilly pink robes and....thought provoking stockings on stage, my own personal curtain came up.
I said my lines right on cue after she reached me and took my Playbill. "Today's my 30'th birthday. Coming here and seeing you was my present, so thank you."
And as I hoped, she responded with a "Happy birthday!" with genuine warmth in her amazing voice -- even after using it to sing and speak in theatrical accents for the last two hours. Between that and getting her signature, my birthday wish was complete.
Yet in the one split second I had left, I got greedier. Despite how she had other fans waiting for autographs next to me, I still asked for a picture. And still she accepted.
I had to put my camera away when Emma came out, so I quickly took it out and gave it to the person next to me. I promised everyone else we'd be quick, as I put my back to the barricade and Emma leaned closer to me behind it, getting into frame.
I had to make myself stare at the camera and not at Emma. Once I printed out the picture and framed it, I'd have proof forever that Emma stood next to me and smiled with me. But seeing it on a frame wasn't the same as the real deal.
I had to avoid getting distracted anyway, and I did. I figured that would be that -- until Emma said that she had one more song left in her.
After getting my name, she then used it in the third verse of the Birthday Song. So did everyone else she told to sing along with her.
When the serenade was finished, my temporary cameraman took another picture of me and Emma -- right when she kissed my cheek. I snapped out of my daze just as the applause ended and she had to go over to the next very patient fan.
I snapped out of it in time to say, "Thank you! Good luck with the show and Oscar season!" It wasn't as rehearsed or planned as my first line, obviously. But she thanked me anyway, giving me one more smile and happy glint from her piercing green eyes.
My eyes finally broke from Emma, if only to take my camera back. It then came to me to ask if anyone had actually recorded the song on their phone. When the second person I asked said yes, I got her to e-mail the file to my phone.
I relieved the song and kiss on my brand new phone just as Emma made her way to her car on the curb. She briefly talked with someone before looking back at us -- and I could have sworn it was right at me. Regardless, she smiled and thanked everyone again before getting in and closing the door.
I figured that was that, so I left the crowd to start walking back to my hotel. That is, until the man who talked to Emma came right over me. He gave me an address and told me to take a cab there, and I had no response to that before he left.
Eventually, I did decide to do what he said and hail a cab to the address. I greatly resisted the urge to get on my phone and look up where it actually was, telling myself I wanted to be surprised. Maybe it was because if this wasn't a case of Emma inviting me to....somewhere private, I didn't want to rule it out sooner than I had to.
But it was popped anyway when we arrived. It was some of kind restaurant/club, not a hotel or anywhere else people could have secret sex in. Then again....
I shook it up, paid my fare and got in before my imagination ran away again. I could have been excused for thinking it did anyway, when I actually saw Emma come up to greet me. She mentioned I must have gotten her message, but her black dress, heels and her being Emma Stone nearly blocked that out.
I did manage to hear clearly that her and her cast mates were here for a cast party. And with Andrew Garfield either away in London or on a shoot -- that part I blanked on -- she figured there was an extra invitation I could fill.
It really started to sound absurd at this point. I almost said it was something right out of my smutty stories, but I fortunately caught myself.
Instead, I just commented on how she did all this for someone she didn't know. But she figured I had time to give her more to go on before the others arrive. Indeed, I got the essentials out there, and seemed to entertain her with them, before the rest of the cast showed up.
The next hour or two was a real blur. I remember snippets of specific conversations with people who weren't Emma, and snippets of talks with her too. The overall dizzying feeling of being here, with these people thanks to Emma -- who I was also with -- overwhelmed my specific memory, though. It all blurred together in one big, non alcoholic high.
I shouldn't have thought about anything other than Emma and all this. Technically, what I thought of did have something to do with Emma, though. Mainly, the new story I wrote about her just before I left, and which went up today -- or as of five minutes ago, yesterday.