I’d like to believe Debra Messing is following me. After all, she appeared next to me in line at the Hollywood Video in Los Angeles seven years ago. She wore sweat pants and purchased a Monsters Inc. stuffed animal. I wore track pants and purchased a bag of popcorn. 
Then, this weekend, she sat behind me at a Tribeca Film Festival screening in New York. Coincidence? Perhaps we cross paths with people all the time and only realize it when they have famous faces. Or maybe I was meant to confess, once and for all, that I watch Will & Grace two times a day; I believe we would be great friends in real life; no, really, we would; our apparent appreciation of the cinema and comfortable clothing bolsters this assumption; and I would very much enjoy accompanying her for an encore performance of Midnight Train To Georgia (I got to go! I got to go!).
When she entered the Lower East Side theater — grey jeans, rain boots, no makeup and red hair pulled back in a ponytail – Chris spotted her first and got so flustered he spilled his Coke, sending a sticky river of soda down the floor. I ran frantically to fetch napkins while he mouthed the words “look. who’s. behind us.” Basically, we played it cool.
Then the movie started, and we had the jolting experience of hearing “Grace” laugh at all the funny scenes. I wouldn’t need to accost the poor actress, I decided. It was enough to watch a movie with her and be The People Who Spilled the Coke. Maybe we’ll see her again in 2016.
