The Whitney I Knew (8 page)

As soon as the standing ovations and last good-byes to the crowd were over, she sought me out. “What happened?” she asked.

I was still stunned by my encounter with the flight agent—my flurry of abusive language. So I plopped down next to her on a couch and told her what happened with my flight and how heated I got. I never mentioned anything about using profanity, but she looked at me and asked, “Did you swear?”

“Um, yes.”

She lit up, wanting to know every detail. This was a big deal to her because since the beginning of our relationship, she had never heard CeCe or me use any profanity. She even asked us once, “Why doesn't anyone in your family curse?” When she asked that question, I realized how she absorbed everything, even the slightest of differences in our behavior. She never missed anything.

Well, she promised not to say a word to anyone and begged me to re-enact the whole scene. So, since I was stuck there for two more days, I entertained her for free. And oh, was she entertained.

You broke, right? And I'm rich, right? So I can buy whatever I want for y'all.
Whitney, being CRAZY

One of the times during filming of
The Preacher's Wife
when Whitney was staying in New York for a few weeks, she called and tried to convince me to hang out. She knew I was already in New York, and that I had plans, but in typical Whitney fashion, she asked anyway.

“BeBe, won't you stop by?”

Basically, she was lonely and wanted some company.

“Whitney, you know I have things going on, and then afterwards I'm going to the hotel because I'm tired and I . . .”

“Just come by here. Please. C'mon.”

So I obliged. Whitney was one of those people who would continue asking until you broke. And to make matters worse, she knew me pretty well. She knew my breaking point.

I showed up on the set of
The Preacher's Wife
and was meeting people and talking with Whitney. At one point, Whitney went off to do something and Penny Marshall, the director, approached me.

“Hey, BeBe,” she said. “I was thinking during the break how great it would be if you would sing Whitney's song for her—you know, the one from this scene, ‘I Believe in You and Me.' ”

I saw Whitney enter the set and I pointed at her and said, “Oh . . . no. You see, I'm just here for
that
girl over there. And besides, I don't even know the lyrics to that one.”

Penny smiled and said, “Oh, come on; it will be fine. It's just us. It'll be fun.”

“Sorry, Penny. I'm just gonna hang out and observe, ya know?”

Penny gave up. After the segment ended, I walked over to Whitney. “Listen, Penny asked me to sing your song for you. And you know I ain't doing nothing of the sort.”

Whitney just stared at me.

“I need you to tell her that
you
invited me over here to hang with you—for some company,” I urged. “I didn't come here to sing. I ain't singin'.”

At that moment Penny walked up again and said, “Hey, Whitney, I was just telling BeBe how great it would be if he would sing your song—just for fun, just to encourage everyone a bit. What do you think?”

I looked at Whitney, fully expecting her to tell Penny how bad that idea was. Whitney looked at me, leaning her head and raising
her eyebrows—that mischievous look—then glanced over at Penny and back at me. She was milking the moment.

“Oh, Penny, I think that's a
great
idea!” she exclaimed.

My eyes about bugged out of my head. Whitney had just sold me out.

“Really?” replied Penny.

“Yeah, of course. BeBe, c'mon; it'll be great. I'll feed you the words. We'll do it just for fun,” Whitney said.

We wrangled around for a few minutes, but it was pointless. I finally relented and agreed to sing “I Believe in You and Me” as long as Whitney did it with me. And, I had one more stipulation: no cameras. “I don't want this thing recorded,” I told them. “It's just for fun.”

Penny agreed and assured me that there would be no cameras. So, we sang the song. It was all rather harmless and it
was
fun, I have to admit. In fact, my entire time on the set was great.

Well, weeks later, I was meeting my friend Pauletta Washington—wife of Whitney's costar, Denzel, in
The Preacher's Wife
—for spin class at a local gym. When I arrived at the gym, she approached me and said, “Hey, BeBe, you were great last night at the ball. I think it's great what you did, singing that song with Whitney on the film set.”

I had no idea what she was talking about.

“What ball?” In my head, I was saying,
Because I
know
no one saw me singing at no ball, because Whitney and Penny both said the cameras weren't rolling
.

“Whitney's song, ‘I Believe In You and Me,' from
The Preacher's Wife.”

She replied as if I was playing games with her. But I wasn't playing a game. This was news to me! Apparently, not only had cameras been rolling but the footage had been shown to a group of people.

“Pauletta, where did you hear me sing that song with Whitney?”

“Denzel and I were at the Carousel Ball in LA last night. We saw the video there.”

The Carousel Ball, from what I knew, was a major event. So you can imagine my shock. I was trying to sort it out in my brain:
There's no way those people saw a video of me singing with Whitney. There's
no way,
because Penny
assured
me that the cameras were not rolling
.

I called Whitney to ask her what was going on. You can imagine the response I received: “I don't know what you're talking about, BeBe.” I could almost hear her internal giggling through the phone. Then, as she came clean, I found out that at first, she didn't know the cameras were rolling either. So, Penny got us both! But now Whitney was reveling in the fact that she and Penny got
me
. Luckily, Penny still has a copy of this video and she made me a copy.
GO TO TheWhitneyIKnewVideos.com TO VIEW THIS AND OTHER BONUS MATERIAL.

You can't pull stories like this from the Internet. You
live
them. They're the kind of stories you have of your friends, the stories that you laugh about over dinner or on the back deck when you're hanging out.

Whitney's mind was crazy. Not crazy in a negative way. Crazy in a zest-for-life kind of way. It was in her DNA to push things to the limit with regard to our friendship. And by
push things
, I mean, have fun with them. If she knew your buttons, she'd push them.

When you lose someone close, eventually you stop saying goodbye. Saying good-bye is the
hurt
; it's the process of letting them
go. If we're honest, it can be a selfish time for the one who remains. We want the ones we've lost for ourselves. We want them back in our lives because they enriched us so much. But there's another level you eventually reach. It's the level where you've said good-bye for the final time and you're content to laugh through your fondest memories.

I'm at that point in the good-bye process with my brother Ronald. I think there will always be a tinge of hurt and “Oh, I miss you, brother.” But Ronald's memory now gives me so much joy—joy that I had him in my life, and joy in receiving the great life he gave to us all.

I'm not there yet with Whitney. I can't escape seeing the tabloids. Someone's constantly drumming up some ridiculous concoction of a story, marring her name even in death. It's bad enough that we as a culture brutalize celebrities—who we seem to forget are human beings—by spreading lies and distorting truths about them in the media when they're alive. It's a different ballgame when we do that after they die.

I just want it to stop. I want to erase the unflattering pictures and the false articles about her and hoist the banner of truth that is Whitney's life in totality. Like Aretha urged people about Whitney after her death: “Remember the hits. Forget the misses.” Why can't we revel in someone's actual life instead of the shadows of the truth? Why can't we respect the family who's lost one of their own, and let them grieve in private or go public as they will? Why can't we grow up?

For me, the time will come when I move from hurt to sweet memory. But I do wonder about those who were closer to Whitney than I was. It's hard enough to lose a mother and a daughter and a sister. That loss is compounded, however, when a culture that raised her up as their princess won't let her pass into the peace that passeth
understanding because they want to gossip about the nuances of her death.

But my disdain for the popular media does not overshadow her memory—the Crazy Whitney still lives in my mind. That memory helps me through the hurt and is helping me move into the peaceful good-bye. It helped me get through her funeral as well.

I told myself that I wasn't going to say anything or even sing at Whitney's funeral because I didn't want to cry in front of everyone. But I didn't really mind. Now that I look back on the event, I realize I said that more for me at the time. Still, before I even reached the pulpit and the music began, I broke down and started to cry. So I turned right back around and looked at CeCe and said, “Get up. You're coming up with me.” Which is the way it should have been, because she and Whitney and I spent so much time together.

In that moment, what kept coming to my mind was the fact that we talk about Whitney's voice and we talk about her talent, and we'd already established that it was a beautiful and unique gift. I could have easily echoed the sentiments of so many who loved her voice, but on this occasion, that just wouldn't do.

“What I'm going to miss most of all is Crazy Whitney,” I said as memories flooded my mind. Like the one when me, CeCe, Robyn, Robert Matta, and Whitney went to see
Prince of Tides
, starring Barbra Streisand and Nick Nolte. Whitney always wanted to know why I never liked to go to movies with her. Well, because she talked so much. She'd just talk and talk, all the way through, commenting on everything. It drove me crazy! But the four of us went with her that night. I sat behind her because I actually wanted to hear what was being said. Whitney sat in front of me with CeCe and Robyn. I watched Whitney talk CeCe's ear off; she couldn't help herself.