Free But Enough About Me by Jancee Dunn Page A

presented reassuringly up front, your subject will get visibly riled.
    An assistant broke my trance. “Hiiiii,” she said. “So Madonna’s ready for you.” I couldn’t breathe, but I followed her down the hallway, surreptitiously wiping my hand on my sleeve. If only it were the fifties and I could wear gloves. What else did the publicist say? No chitchat. Get right down to business. Which I can respect. Why bother with the blah-blah? We both had a job to do.
    We were in her office and oh Christ, there she was. I had probably seen her face more often than I have seen my own. Smells fear! Like a dog, smells fear! Dog! Fear! Smelling fear! Run away run away run away!
    I shook her hand and looked her in the eye. At that point, I was so filled with terror that my body reversed its natural inclinations and my palms were bone dry. “Hello,” she said. Cordial, but all business. As usual with every single famous person except Clint Eastwood and Uma Thurman, I found that she was smaller in person: five foot two. And, at the time, pregnant with little Rocco. It was odd to see her heavily pregnant, because despite being one of the globe’s most photographed women, hardly any photos existed of her with child, assumedly not a coincidence. Because she didn’t look like the image I had of her, I was almost able to pretend she was someone else. This quieted the internal screaming, somewhat.
    Time to show my lack of fear. Deep breath! “I just read an interview in which you complained about your adult acne,” I said, scanning her face. “What a load of shit! That’s just something you say to make us feel better about ourselves.” Sassy, yet unctuous! I saw her smile a little. Good. Then I pulled out my I Get You question, about a book that I remembered she wanted to option for a film years ago, Jeanette Winterson’s The Passion, which I, too, had loved. What came of it? I asked, and she sprang to life, telling me that she once wrote a letter to the author and never heard back, and how disappointed she was.
    Then I started right in with questions about her new album as she slowly, gingerly lowered her pregnant body into a chair. It made her uncharacteristically vulnerable, and slightly less frightening than she would have been in her Sex book days. At one point, a crazy montage of all of her videos, films, and life events flashed through my mind, unbidden —Remember that video when she was a redhead? What was that? “ Fever, ” right— and with a Herculean effort, I tamped it down. Four questions down. Good. Good. Then it happened: As she talked away, I realized that I couldn’t remember my next query. My notebook was in the car in the car in the car, and when she finished talking about how her spiritual quest informed the album, we were just going to stare at each other in hideous silence.
    Take it easy, I counseled myself. Pull out some lightweight emergency questions that you usually reserve for interviewees who keep checking their watch. Usually it is the first time they have heard these questions, so they are fun for your subject to answer, and you can avoid the dreaded prerehearsed response. No one wants to answer for the three thousandth time the question about her musical influences, or how this album is different from the last one. Instead: What did you think about before falling asleep last night? What day did you see your parents differently? What smells remind you of childhood? What can’t your friends tease you about? When is the last time that you were truly content?
    I threw a reliable one at her (what was your worst high school job?) to gain some time until the other questions finally reappeared in my head. She answered immediately that it was cleaning houses, and it was gross, and she had to clean the toilet bowls of boys she went to school with. Then I shored things up with a few more album questions. As the end of our chat loomed all too