What Would Beyoncé Do?! Read online

  I hated seeing my mum sad all the time and I hated how conditional my father’s love seemed to be. I didn’t like life, and something inside me kept telling me that I was meant for more. That it shouldn’t be like this. It can be so hard trying to figure out what you want to do in life, what your place is. But I always felt that I had to know happier times than I was having now. Here’s the thing with me: in a weird way I feel like I have lived the life I want before. I used to cling on to that thought, that I knew there was better out there because I had experienced it in a past life. Despite all the crap, there is a part of me that knows I deserve and can have better. I might not know the name for it, I might not know how to get there, but what I did know was that whenever I got to play, be that improvising in front of my classmates or re-enacting Sister Act with my grandma, time stood still. I was present and I liked it. So I spent most of my teenage years and early twenties trying to find that feeling again.

  I signed up to dance classes, but they didn’t feel right as once again I would freeze like an awkward antelope. The am dram society was depressing. But put me in my drama class and the teacher was like ‘Luisa, get up, start a scene’ and that would feel just right. It wasn’t learnt; it was something that I assumed I was and would be. I just loved the feeling of people watching, and showing off, but only ever in the safety of rehearsals, my grandma or the Hoover. Not really the basis for a successful career in cinema.

  So I’m 18 and leaving college; time to audition for drama schools. I figured I would need a student loan anyway if I wanted to do further education so I may as well get the same loan for drama school. Besides, anyone who I spoke to said if you wanted to get anywhere in the acting world, you had to go to drama school.

  I lined up a bunch of auditions – Mountview, RADA, Edinburgh Uni and Manchester. But on the day, cue dance class all over again. Something happened, the panic of feeling like I didn’t belong. The people in the waiting room were all flexible-limbed and had great posture; the straighter they stood, the more I curved. I didn’t have money or an eating disorder. I didn’t have a posh accent and I didn’t keep saying ‘I just live for the art.’ I was just a weird Polish kid who really wanted to be famous, because hello, in a past life I must have been?! This didn’t go down well. I froze at every audition; even if I didn’t freeze, I didn’t read well. I didn’t get in to any of them.

  Hurt, lost and confused, I called my father and he said he wasn’t surprised and suggested again that I try and do law. I nodded and said I’d look into it and went elsewhere for help. Help came in the form of a little module I saw when scouring university prospectuses. The module was called ‘Stand-Up Comedy’. These words shone out on the page as if they were highlighted. I looked at the school. Hello land of dreams, Salford University, a BA Hons in Performing Arts. Yes, I am Destiny’s Child.

  I rocked up at Salford for the audition. The uni was rough as fuck, paint peeling off the walls; the skies were grey, terraced houses and council flats lining the streets and the air full of northern grit. For a girl from a small town in the south where the sun shone every day and people waved to you, this was a shock. It was not the glamorous drama-school lifestyle I had dreamed about, but in a way it was better. It had stand-up as a module. It wasn’t going to be until year three, but nothing else felt as good as the idea of doing this course. As I walked around the council-estate campus, I asked the universe for a sign. I found myself on a street called Strawberry Road, and as I love strawberries, I thought, that will do.

  My audition was with a guy called Mark Bishop, smoker, pot face, middle-aged, receding hair. Who for some reason I found sexually irresistible. I warmed to him instantly, I don’t know why, but I remember liking being in the room as long as he was in it. Later down the line he gave me a lift home once and reverse-parked with one hand. I nearly came all over the seat. Jesus, I have daddy issues.

  Mark made me do a Shakespeare monologue, so I did the same one that didn’t get me in to Mountview, RADA, Manchester or Edinburgh. You would think I’d have learnt to perhaps try and change my technique, but I thought, fuck it, it’s Salford, what are they gonna do? Say no? They can’t – the gods have spoken, Strawberry Road was my in! I read through it once, standing in front of him. He then suggested I read it again, and for some reason I chose to lie on the floor.

  In hindsight he must have done something to my hormones as subconsciously my womb spoke to me, saying, ‘Brace yourself; you should lie down for this one as you need to get pregnant.’ So I did, I lay down and looked up at him as I quoted it. It was sexually charged, poorly recited Shakespeare, and as I was coming to the end of the monologue I got up, stroked his face and held his gaze. I was a really horny 18-year-old.

  I got an unconditional offer from Salford about a week later. Fast forward to results time, I got 2 Bs and a C. I called Salford to secure my place, the phone rang twice and I panicked and hung up. What the fuck was I going to do at Salford? It was so rough and why do I have to be poor, I don’t want to be poor. Sure I do love strawberries and that lecturer stirred weird feelings in my vagina, but that’s hardly the basis for a life-changing decision. Also, is it worth going somewhere for three years just for one stand-up module?

  I mean, come on, I should be able to go to a good drama school, I am meant to be a famous actress. Like hello, what would Beyoncé do? She wouldn’t be going to some shit-hole. I am meant to be in movies already, not Salford. I am not going to some rough institute even if it does do comedy. I’m Beyoncé. I am meant to be Yoncé. Why does this not feel Yoncé? Salford is not Yoncé!

  I called up Salford and rejected their offer. My mum said I should do a TESOL certificate, teaching English as a foreign language. Well that sounds much more Queen B. So I went through clearing and found the solid career choice subject of ‘Communications’; they were offering a TESOL cert as part of the course, so even if I didn’t like the course I could travel and teach English. Even though I never liked the idea of travelling and I could not care less about teaching English, I called Salford and said sorry, my bad, I am securing a better future for myself: I am going to Lincoln to get a degree in communications. That’ll show ’em.

  My first day at Lincoln and the halls were rough as fuck. I opened my bedroom door and I cried. It was gross. There was a dirty dark grey carpet, a stained single mattress next to a massive window. A plastic chair with Tipp-Ex stains, and a broken wardrobe. There was a sink in the room with a cracked mirror, and as I opened the desk drawer, the desk came apart and rat poison fell on to the floor. My mother’s cleanliness had turned me into a snob. I didn’t want to be at Lincoln. What the fuck am I doing here? I should be at Salford. Oh FFS.

  My mum, stepdad and little sister left me at uni, and rather than feeling excited, ambitious and ready for all the casual sex that was promised in freshers’ week, I felt lost, isolated and shat myself. As I went back into the dorm from the car park I met a girl called Pas. I looked at her and said ‘Ahh, you’re pretty’ and that was the basis of the lifelong friendship that followed.

  A month in and going to classes on linguistics, which I really had no passion or attention for, I kept thinking about performance and how I wished I was acting, or getting up in a room with an audience and making people laugh. I went to look for Pas in the dorm and passed this pink fairy-lit room with the Destiny’s Child Survivor album playing, I went in and looked around. I liked it. In popped this woman with a slicked-back ponytail and the most amazing drawn-on eyebrows I had ever seen. This was Delia’s room.

  Delia and Pas were the reason I went to Lincoln, to pick up those two bitches. We have been best friends ever since. At the time, I was so upset and angry with myself that I couldn’t get into drama school, that I didn’t have money, that I was living in a shit-hole. But in hindsight, everything happened for a reason: meeting Pas and Delia, that’s why I went to Lincoln.

  Despite meeting the two girls and my discovery of pear hooch and the ’80s classics that they played in nightclubs (mind blown),
I couldn’t stay. Two months into the course I rang Mark Bishop at Salford and confessed I had made a terrible mistake and would like to come back the following year. He said he remembered me and would welcome me in September. I quit Lincoln. See, remember I told you I was bad at trusting my own decisions? Case in point.

  So after those long Lincoln months, and 19 years young, I moved back into my mum’s house, called the whole thing a gap year and decided to look for a job. I got one, selling massage machines in department stores. Little thing you should know about me: I’m a hustler. I’ve always been really good at winging life and winging jobs; when I was 16 I was on £6.80 an hour when most of my friends were on £4. Speculate to accumulate was my motto, even though it had nothing to do with me earning £6.80 an hour. I just remember hearing it once and then using the expression for everything.

  My massage job meant standing in a garden centre or department store and convincing old people to sit down and have a free massage. I then had to encourage them to part with £289 worth of machinery which for today only was £200. For every machine I sold, I would get £80.

  Technically to get a healthy day rate of £80, I only needed to sell one a day. You would think this simple maths would bring out my inner Wolf of Wall Street and drive me to try and sell four or five in one day. But I am lazy, and this only confirmed my laziness; to be honest, I just looked forward to the lunch breaks. I agree with the notion that you should always hire lazy people to complete a difficult task, as they will find the easiest and quickest solution.

  I would be massaging customers in the aisle of a Debenhams or a Daniel’s and they would ask me what I really wanted to do (I don’t know what it was about my aura that gave them the impression I wasn’t satisfied in a career selling massage machines). I would tell them I wanted to be an actress and they would laugh and say they would look out for me on TV. I liked them saying that. I like it when people say good luck and wish you the best. I felt like their good wishes and intentions were putting messages out to the universe. That all these would collect and I would be an actress.

  If only I could find a way in. The arts seemed like a club to me. It’s not always very nice. I have never liked people telling me that I am from a certain class, or opportunities are out of reach for me because I don’t have money. That suggests that my dreams and aspirations are out of my hands. I always found these people stupid, like what are you talking about? Of course I am going to achieve everything I want and live the lifestyle that I want. But that lifestyle seemed to be behind the doors of this club. And the gatekeepers to the club were the drama schools, a system put in place to keep people like me out. Why? I couldn’t understand: how could they not see that I belonged?

  But at the same time, when it came to the crunch, I couldn’t deliver; the fear I had in those dance classes years ago carried on to acting. I would get nervous, and although I could do well in rehearsals, it would get to stage time and I would be so aware that everyone was looking at me and I would freeze. Leaving Lincoln and having a year to work myself up for Salford just made me more anxious. And when I was anxious I was funny and then I would relax again.

  That was comedy. In my auditions with drama schools, even though I didn’t get in, I could get a laugh – not enough of one to warrant a scholarship, but enough of one for me to feel acknowledged. Addressing the wooden performance, commenting on how awkward and awful it was, the relief of pressure would exhale through laughter. And that moment, that moment I really loved.

  Laughter was my form of mindfulness.

  3.

  WORKING 9 TO 5 (P.M. TO A.M.)

  So my massage job didn’t work out. As much as I was happy with my sell-one-machine-a-day intention, my boss was not in the business of hiring someone with such a low sense of ambition. I got fired, became depressed and was sharing a room with my little sister. Which I actually enjoyed; she was ten and fun. I would get upset over some guy who hadn’t texted me and ask her for her advice, and she would reply, ‘I don’t know, I’m ten.’ She’s a legend.

  I started temping in a call centre for about a month or so (that’s where I met Zana) before my mum signed me up to a three-week intensive TESOL course. My mum offered to pay for the course on the condition I would help her teach at home. My mum was running a home-stay business. So we would have people from all over the world stay at our house and she would teach them English in the morning then go show them the sights.

  I qualified and despite my mum’s appeals decided to fuck off to Greece. Absolutely nothing to do with teaching English and everything to do with fear of missing out. You see, at the grand old age of 19, when everyone had done their group holidays to Ibiza in matching T-shirts three years beforehand, I’d never been there, done that or got the T-shirt.

  I didn’t ever really have a group of girlfriends. I was always the odd one out at school and I kinda felt like I was flying solo a lot. My mum would give me a haircut like my three brothers had, so while the rest of the girls would come into school with their hair in a French plait, I would be rocking the latest in the bowl-around-the-head cut. Think Beatles in the ’60s, but before they were cool, i.e. never. Saayyyyy whhhaaattt! (hello I love Cher?!) But my mum wouldn’t let me dress up in a black see-through lace bodysuit to straddle a cannon, so Beatles-inspired it was.

  It’s amazing how much of a beacon for sex appeal a bowl haircut can be, so much so that when we used to play kiss chase in the playground, I would walk really slowly and they never managed to catch me. I can remember clearly Valentine’s Day, aged about eight, and Daniel Woolmer brought in Valentine’s cards. I was so excited as he gave them out. I was the only girl who didn’t get one. Daniel Woolmer turned out to be gay. I couldn’t get a Valentine’s card from a gay guy; maybe giving it to me would have been too obvious and outed him. Still, at the age of eight, I was like whatever and just did a headstand in the corner of the room.

  So when it came to my holiday, I did what I have always done and thought, if I can’t go with a group of girlfriends that I don’t have, I will go by myself. I booked a flight and a two-week holiday to Zante. What was the worst thing that could happen? Apart from getting mugged, attacked, cut open and left for dead on a beach, or worse, getting lonely?

  On the day of my flight, my stepdad Johnny dropped me off at the airport. I gave him a cuddle and said bye, then I started crying as I didn’t know why I was going and I hated change. Why do I always make stupid choices? I don’t need to go abroad by myself just to experience life. He said, Luisa, I have never known you to do things by halves or not land on your feet. If you hate it, you stay for a two-week holiday and then catch your flight home.

  As it happened, I loved it and stayed out for the season. My first day, I walked past this shop offering cruises around the island, with this tall, skinny gay guy handing out flyers, calling, ‘Cruise around the island.’ I had just landed and had no tan, and no make-up on because I wanted to get a tan. (PS Who are these bitches that go to the beach full face?! PPS I love tanning, tanning is my jam; besides, cellulite has never looked sexier than when it’s orange, am I right ladies?!) So there I was looking rubbish and he had no time for me. Conversation went as follows:

  Me: Hi sorry my name’s er Luisa and I just got here, you can probably tell from my pasty skin, haha, er sorry I haven’t got any make-up on and so look awful but I er sorry just wanted to sorry get a job, haha, sorry . . . (My assertive skills were on fleek.)

  Daniel: Right . . .

  Me: And er well you just look British, sorry well I mean you stand out ’cos er sorry you are, you know, well burnt like a lobster and sorry I thought maybe you could give me some pointers? (Again nailing it.)

  Daniel: Riiight, listen, just go into bars, make an effort with your appearance and ask for a job. You can get one like that.

  Me: Oh, OK, sure, yeah, I do scrub up well, anyway sorry for er my face, er thanks OK er bye.

  And I strutted off like the strong, independent woman I am.

  That day I spe
nt hours on the beach, caught a bit of colour and then decided to get dressed up to the nines. Armed with a cute butt and a winning smile, I was gonna try and get anything: a job, a boyfriend, a dream.

  On my way out, I bumped into the shallow gay guy. He was like ‘God damn, hi babe! You look amazing!’

  ‘I know, right,’ and we became the best of friends for a season.

  There is something really honest about shallow people, you can kinda tell straight away where you stand, and for a woman by herself in the middle of Zante, having a gay best friend who told me when I looked awful was better than having no friends at all. Dan and I started hanging out every day, always hustling for a way to make money. He would flyer for cruises, and I picked up a job pretty quickly in a bar called Ghetto Club. It had an outside seating area, a square bar and a dance floor under a roof, TV showing football on every wall, neon pink lights, a smoke machine and the loudest Destiny’s Child remix playing from the speakers. It was perfect. This was fate, I was home.

  I was the only woman they hired, and I worked alongside five gorgeous local guys. They took me under their wing and I felt in my element; it was like being a little sister again, but a fancied one. I know, right, dreams really can come true. These guys found me attractive, I had a tan, I looked mixed race and beautiful and my body was slamming. I started having the time of my life.

  My job was to be a hostess and greet people, get them to come into the club; I would go round with a tray and offer them free shots. I loved the attention of getting groups of men into the bar, but it was always more friendly than sexual. I feel very comfortable around groups of men. Growing up with brothers, I like having guys as friends; they make me feel safe and like I am at home.

  It was an easy enough job: give out shots, clear glasses, serve drinks, dance a bit, €15 a night, cash in hand, done. I’d work until about 2 a.m., then meet up with Dan, go dancing for a couple of hours and then head to the burger café for breakfast/dinner before going back to my apartment to sleep. The next day I’d wake up at noon, get my bikini on, go down to the beach, practise sunbathing half-naked, getting paranoid and covering my boobs with my hands every time someone walked past, then head on back to the apartment. And then do it all again.