Mariah also does not say exactly which people told her that she would
limit herself if she put the kind of hip-hop-inclusive work she was
already doing for remixes on the album proper. They were just "people in
corporate positions." She does say that she has a good relationship with
Columbia Records president Don Ienner and does not consider him just a
Sony person. Tommy Mottola, head of all Sony people, declined to be
interviewed for this article but faxed this statement: "Mariah and I
continue to enjoy a close personal and professional relationship. I
enthusiastically support her musical evolution and the creative
decisions she’s made in conjunction with Butterfly. It is her best work
yet. Mariah is a world-class superstar, and I remain her biggest fan."
In another part of Mariah’s dream, I am writing the number 10 on a pad
of paper, and when asks me why, I tell her that it’s the number of times
she used the word like. I guess this could be anxiety about whether
she’s like, expressing herself well; or it could be an acknowledgment
that the interview process is about finding out what she’s like; or it
could be about whether people reading this piece will like her. In fact,
Mariah’s insecurities are likable, which is a very rare quality.
It is the day after the dream, at about 2 in the morning, and Mariah,
whose workday started at noon, is wearing a brown Tocca tank and
cardigan, brown DKNY tights, brown Manolo Blahnik high-heeled boots and
what looks like a miniskirt but is a Gucci bathing suit bottom ("Not to
give away my secrets or anything, but it is. I found in the other night
when I was desperate"). Although it may seem like a contradiction in
terms, Mariah is a responsible pop diva and understands that it is her
duty to wear tight, short clothing for public appearances. When she’s
just being a responsible something else- and if it’s all within the
parameters of a 27-year-old entertainer’s ability, you name it and
Mariah is responsibly it- she wears a tight tank top and jeans. She’s
from Long Island, after all- born in Huntington Bay, N.Y., she moved 13
times in 14 years before concluding her odyssey in Greenlawn, where she
graduated from high school. She herself would be the first to cheerfully
admit this Jordache Jeans, feathered-hair heritage. For a Halloween
party she gave recently, she chose to go as one third of Charlie’s
Angels. ("Farrah, of course. When I was little I had to be Farrah or I
wouldn’t play."
We are having dinner at a downtown Manhattan brassiere, along with one
of Mariah’s friends, Tracy, of whom there are two, and the League, a
hardcore hip-hop group, of whom there are seven, although they are
strangely capable of seeming like many more. The League, who are with
Mariah’s label, Crave, have come from taping a TV performance. It has
been a long day, and this is actually Mariah’s second late dinner- her
first was with her label head, Don Ienner, and her new manager, Sandy
Gallin. (Mariah changed managers and lawyers after her separation; her
previous manager, Randy Hoffman, and lawyer, Allen Grubman, are longtime
associates of Mottola.) Since noon, she has also rehearsed for her tour;
met with the Halston people who are doing the clothes for it and with
Miramax co-chairman Harvey Weinstein about a possible film project; been
there for the League at the taping; and stopped in at the party for
which she is still dressed up. She is also supposed to watch a video of
Bell, Book and Candle that her agent has sent a long, although nobody is
recalling why.
In other words, like most of Mariah’s days, this day has required her to
be present in more professional capacities than could probably handled
by all five Spice Girls put together. She is a nocturnal animal by
temperament, and also an insomniac. She works in an industry that keeps
irregular hours, and she is compensating for not having gotten out much
during her marriage. ("If I don’t go out sometimes, I feel like life is
passing me by, because I missed so much fun in the… past," she says
tactfully.) So I’m just speaking for myself when I say that if my
subconscious were as active as hers, I might sleep only a few hours a
night, too.
In fact, one of the funny things about Mariah’s dream- and as far as
dreams about isolation, abandonment, persecution and loss of identity
go, I think you’ll agree that this one is relatively funny- is the way
it hurtles along at the breakneck pace that in real life makes keeping
track of Mariah’s bag an epic struggle meaningful enough to leave its
mark on her unconscious. She grew up without much money, the biracial
child of an Irish-American mother and a black Venezuelan father, and has
often said that her peripatetic childhood left her feeling as if the rug
could be pulled out from under her at any time. Watching her in action,
the thought occurs that a good way to avoid this is to not stay in one
spot for too long. But according to Mariah, this is not the reason she’s
on the go. She’s just busy.
Either way, she’s enjoying herself in general and at the moment. The
mood in the now-empty restaurant is goofy, like it gets at 2 in the
morning, and although she doesn’t end up doing so, she could stay out
all night if she wanted. "Ma-ri-ah, come and rescue me, sings one of the
League to the tune of Mariah’s own "Dreamlover" as he does a little
after-dancing dance. "Come here, silly goose," says Mariah, responsible
label head, locating her bag and taking out a credit card. "Could you
find the waiter and give him this?"
Mariah has been linked by the press to an assortment old men, including
Sean "Puffy" Combs, Q-Tip and New York Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter.
Actually she seems to hang with her close girlfriends and a more loosely
knit community of professional friends- rappers, radio and record
people, and whatever Russel Simmons is (even impresario no longer seems
sufficient)- whom she sees in groups, as if she’s stepping into the
social scene pretty much where being a world-class superstar and
suburban wife had caused her to stop out in her late teens and early
20s. Asked whether she feels she missed her youth she says, "No, because
I don’t think it’s gone."
If Mariah’s relationship to her own adulthood is one that’s only just
being allowed to blossom, her relationship to her childhood is a
carefully preserved flower, maybe like the single rose Mottola has sent
her at the very start of their relationship, a rose she still has. She
doesn’t have many pictures of herself from when she was a child, so she
values the ones she does have- there’s one with the Christmas tree in
the background, where she’s a little, little girl, and another where
she’s older and has some majorly large blond-and-black hair. We are at
Mariah’s rented town house- the place came furnished, which Mariah
doesn’t mind, since it’s nicely furnished and she feels like she spent
the last four years choosing fabrics, wallpaper and carpet for the
Bedford house. We are sitting in Mariah’s large, clean kitchen, talking
about her childhood. "My mother gets very upset when I say we were
poor," says Mariah, who is wearing a little tank top that says FLIRT and
a pair of jeans. "But, then again, we had a conversation the other day,
and she was recalling that she worked three jobs at one point. And I
don’t think that’s something to be ashamed of. She really worked hard to
keep us afloat."
Mariah’s dream, in the wish-that-your-heart-makes sense of the word, has
been, since childhood, to be a star. This dream started to come true
almost 10 years ago, when she (legendarily) handed her demo tape to her
future husband at a Columbia party she had gone with late-‘80s disco
diva Brenda K. Starr, for whom she was singing backup vocals at the
time. "I almost didn’t go to the party, because I had this deal with
Warner Bros.," she says, "but I went. I waited, like, two hours for her,
freezing my ass off in the one little black dress that I had, sitting on
the floor. And she finally showed up and we went. And the rest…" Is
history? "Yep."
The funny thing about Mariah’s dream (in this context) is that it is the
direct result of the kind of feelings that may also have prompted her
other, sleeping dream. Hers is the kind of drive that draws strength not
only from the desire to reach what lies ahead but also from the desire
to reach what lies ahead but also from the desire to lose what’s left
behind. "I’ve always felt so separate from everybody, even if I never
talked about it to my friends, or my mother, or my family," she says.
"Because of a lot of reasons. Because I didn’t have as much as my
friends. Because my father’s black and my mother’s white. Because I’m
very ambiguous-looking. Because white people often mistake me for white
and will therefore say things in front of me that are offensive."
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