She's The One

by J. J. Murray

  It will only take a few seconds, just to see how I look …

  She looked around. Katharina had told her that cameras covered and recorded every room, nook, and shadow in the entire mansion, but Bianca had never actually seen a single lens. It’s because she thinks I’m a Latina, Bianca thought at the time, which was partially true. She was actually a “Latalian”—half Caracas, Venezuela, and half Ravenna, Italy—her parents having met at USC.

  She slipped out of her Chacos and into the McQueens, her feet feeling …

  What? Bianca thought. Rich? Buttery? Creamy? Like double-churned butter pecan ice cream? Like Godiva chocolate crisscrossed by licorice?

  My feet still feel like feet.

  She looked down at her toes.

  My toes are not rejoicing.

  She replaced the sandals with her two-year-old Chacos.

  My toes rejoice!

  Bianca Baptista was an earth woman working for a sky queen.

  And it still made no sense to her.

  Bianca, an English major, was an assistant to a woman who occasionally spoke pleasant English and possessed Bianca’s alter ego. Bianca didn’t get her eyebrows plucked twice a day. She actually liked her thick black eyebrows, though Katharina often told her to “trim those bushes.” Bianca didn’t get her nails done—ever. She simply trimmed and filed them smooth with an emery board. Bianca didn’t get facials, preferring to wash her face and apply some damn lotion, thank you very much. Bianca didn’t get her feet scraped and sanded. She actually liked the feel of her rough feet on carpet, and the sand at the beach kept them smooth enough—and for free. Bianca never wore makeup, desiring the world to see what she really looked like at all times. Bianca rarely dressed up, choosing to dress comfortably and economically, shopping primarily at clothing outlets and Walmart.

  And Bianca ate her entire sandwich, crusts and all.

  Bianca wasn’t even supposed to be Katharina’s assistant anymore. Katharina should have already fired her by now. Like all the others. And then Bianca would be hard at work writing a tell-all book that she’d probably never send to an agent or publisher, mainly because there wasn’t a whole lot to tell. Katharina Minola was actually quite boring. Now, if she had only fired me just after she won her Oscar, I’d be set, Bianca often thought. But what was I, seven at the time?

  Bianca, who spoke Spanish and Italian fluently, knew she should be teaching at a bilingual elementary or middle school somewhere in L.A., knew she should be working with special needs children, knew she should have been saying more than “Yes, Miss Minola” while mind-surfing, mind-climbing, and thinking “Die, Katha-diva, die!” all day long.

  I need a vacation from all this opulence, these bad vibes, and Scottie’s noxious gas.

  Bianca was supposed to be driving her ancient sky blue Jeep Cherokee to Yosemite to go mountain biking and mountain climbing with her camera, snapping away in black and white and in vivid color. She was supposed to have sand-encrusted toes while exploring tide pools in Carmel or San Clemente. She was supposed to be biking up Highway 1 to San Francisco on her Moots Vamoots Compact Dreamride Edition Distance Racer (a wonderful graduation gift from her father) at least once a year. She was supposed to be playing her trumpet in a jazz combo down in Newport Beach. She was supposed to be going to an Eagles reunion concert. She was supposed to be anywhere but matching boxes and packing one freaking thousand pairs of shoes, most of them unworn, while wearing Chacos almost as old as the puking, farting, neurotic dog she bathed, dressed, fed, and walked every morning, noon, and night.

  Katha-diva is holding me back! Bianca reasoned. I have to get fired. Getting fired by Katharina Minola is a mark of distinction in this city. All I have to do is slip and call her “Dena Hinson” or “Katha-diva Bologna” just once, and I’ll—

  “Bianca!”

  Bianca walked to the nearest purple intercom. “Yes, Miss

  Minola?”

  “Have you finished packing yet?”

  Bianca closed her eyes. “Not yet, Miss Minola. I should have your shoes done by midnight. I will start on your, um, lingerie in the morning.”

  Bianca waited for the commands. She didn’t have to wait long.

  “Make sure you fold everything neatly!” Bianca sighed. “Yes, Miss Minola.”

  “But before you do another thing, I need you to run over to Lucentio Pictures to deliver a letter to Vincenzo Lucentio.”

  Hopefully it’s the announcement of your permanent retirement from show business, Bianca thought. Wait. She asked if I had a passport. I want to go somewhere! I’m wearing little feet into the concrete under that stupid purple umbrella by the pool. “Yes, Miss Minola.”

  “And take Scottie,” Katharina added. “He needs a little fresh air.”

  And you’re sending him and me into the city? “Yes, Miss Minola.”

  This day can’t possibly get any better.

  Chapter 6

  Penelope buzzed Vincenzo a little before noon. “A Miss Baptista is here with a dog and a letter from Katharina Minola.”

  Vincenzo relaxed for the first time since he sent the offer. Katharina had kept him waiting for only three days. He had fully expected her to wait until the last possible moment to accept his offer. I’m glad she’s feeling desperate, he thought. Desperate actresses often turn in outstanding performances. “Send Miss Baptista in.”

  When Bianca entered his office, Vincenzo relaxed even more as he marveled at Miss Baptista’s natural beauty and skill at holding a snarling, drooling Scottish terrier under one arm and a large purple envelope under the other.

  “Bianca, right?” he asked, standing and offering his hand.

  Bianca nodded and put Scottie on the floor. “Sorry about the dog. His name is Scottie.” She sighed. “Katharina said he needed some fresh air.” She shook Vincenzo’s hand firmly.

  Nice eyes. I’ll bet there’s a nice smile under those pouting lips, too. What is she, Latina? Such nice skin tone. “Katharina doesn’t get into the city much these days, does she?”

  Bianca wrinkled up her lips and shook her head. “Nope.” She handed the envelope to Vincenzo and stuck both hands in the back pockets of her faded cutoff jeans. “She hasn’t been out of her house since I’ve been working for her.”

  “Please, sit,” Vincenzo said.

  “I need to stretch first,” Bianca said. “I hate sitting in traffic.” She glided to the window, Scottie sniffing along behind her. “Isn’t there an ocean out there somewhere?”

  Vincenzo stood beside her and pointed. “If you look very carefully, you can see Catalina Island right … there.”

  “I don’t see it,” Bianca said.

  Vincenzo laughed. “Neither do I most days, but I know it’s out there.”

  He returned to his desk and opened the envelope, removing an elegantly handwritten (in purple) letter. He waded through a full page of Katharina’s usual demands—a certified dog walker on the set, all-black furniture, blackout drapes, humidifier, roses—until he found a single sentence:

  I hereby accept your offer.

  Vincenzo buzzed Penelope. “It’s a go. Deposit the money.”

  He found a pair of blue-gray eyes looking at him. “Well, um …”

  “Please don’t send me back already,” Bianca said. “It’s so nice not to hear my name echoing through the mountains for a little while.”

  Poor kid. “Has Katharina told you what all this is about?” Vincenzo asked.

  Bianca shook her head and drifted to the only bookcase in the room, pulling out an ancient copy of Washington Irving’s The Sketch Book. She flipped through a few pages and looked up. “Is this a first edition?”

  Vincenzo shook his head. “I don’t think so. I’ve had that one since college. UCLA.”

  “What was your major?” she asked.

  “Art,” Vincenzo said, “with a minor in film. Didn’t you graduate UCLA, too?”

  She nodded, returned the book to the shelf, and gazed at several Ansel Adams prints on the wall. “Do
you go to Yosemite often?”

  Vincenzo moved out from behind his desk and leaned on a chair. “I used to. Before my father died and I had fewer responsibilities.”

  Bianca smiled. What is Vincenzo, forty? Bianca thought. He wears it well. Kind of Richard Gereish without the squint. Quite handsome. Dark eyes, seems fit. Wearing a T-shirt, blue jeans, and hiking boots! Very cool for an executive. “You should go back. The air tastes like jasmine this time of year.”

  Vincenzo smiled. “After this picture is over, I think I will.”

  Bianca squinted. “What picture?”

  How much can I tell her? Vincenzo thought. If Katharina fires her in the next twenty-four hours, Bianca could run immediately to the media and ruin everything. “You seem like a nice, honest person.”

  Bianca continued to squint.

  “That was a dumb thing to say,” Vincenzo said, returning to the safety of his chair behind his desk. “What I should have said was …” He sighed. “I’m so used to dealing with, um …”

  “Head cases? Egomaniacs? Two-faced people? The terminally self-serving? The continuously stuck-up? The functionally dysfunctional?”

  “Yes.” Vincenzo hesitated. And so cynical for one so young. A captivating combination. “Them. You seem normal, Bianca, and that’s a wonderful compliment around here.”

  Bianca laughed. “Thank you. I like being normal.”

  And I like your normal attitude, too, Vincenzo thought. And you have dimples when you laugh. “Bianca, what I’m about to tell you cannot leave this room.”

  Scottie chose this moment to fart.

  “Um, does he have to go outside?” Vincenzo asked.

  “No. That was an airy fart.” Bianca frowned. “It’s the wet ones you have to worry about.”

  How do I respond to that? Vincenzo wondered. I guess I don’t. “Well, um, you see …” He sighed again and listened a moment for a wet fart from Scottie. Hearing none, he said, “We’re paying Katharina five million dollars to make a movie.”

  Bianca’s eyes betrayed no surprise. “Why?”

  She’s sharp and unshakeable, this Miss Baptista, Vincenzo thought. “We’re trying to sort of, um, rehabilitate her.”

  “You’re doing an intervention,” Bianca said evenly.

  Vincenzo smiled. “That’s it! Yes. An intervention. That’s exactly what we’re doing. Why didn’t I think of that?”

  Bianca finally flopped onto the overstuffed black leather couch, a favorite of his father’s. “Is this the casting couch?” she asked, raising a single eyebrow.

  Vincenzo blushed. “Um, no. I’m not … I don’t … We don’t do that sort of thing at Lucentio Pictures. We make family films, um, wholesome, uh, for the family.”

  He’s so cute! Bianca stared at his desk. “I don’t see any pictures of family on your desk. I just thought that maybe …”

  Is she flirting with me? He blinked away the thought. He was almost twice her age. “Um, no. I haven’t found the right woman yet.” He cleared his throat. “Getting back to our intervention, we, um—”

  “Why not?” Bianca interrupted.

  “Hmm?” Vincenzo asked.

  “Why haven’t you found the right woman?” she asked.

  Vincenzo stared into space, trying not to make eye contract. “I, um, I haven’t really been looking, Bianca. This is … this is a busy job.”

  “Oh,” Bianca said. “Just wondering.”

  Vincenzo blinked. Bianca is an interesting person. “Um, where was I? Oh. The intervention. We’ve already gone to great lengths and made some serious investments of time, talent, and energy to make this work, and if we’re successful, Katharina will be back to the actress the world fell in love with fifteen years ago. We want to help her get back on top.”

  Bianca leaned forward and clasped her hands together. “And what do you need me to do?”

  “Um, we don’t need, um, we really hadn’t planned to …” Bianca’s eyes are dancing. Why are her eyes dancing? “What, um, what could you do for us?”

  She put her hands behind her head and leaned back. “Hmm. There are so many things I’d like to do to her. Some of them are illegal.” She shook her head. “Nope. Most of them are illegal. What exactly are you going to do to her?”

  Now she’s suddenly coy, Vincenzo thought. Bianca has range. “Please keep all this in strictest confidence, Bianca. If Katharina found out, we’d be out five million dollars and most likely have no picture to show for it.”

  Bianca sat up. “Found out about what?”

  Vincenzo took a deep breath. “We’re taking her to the middle of the middle of nowhere, to the heart of the cold, dark, snowy Canadian wilderness, and she’ll be there for sixty days with just her wits and mainly the clothes on her back.”

  “That doesn’t sound so—”

  “And,” Vincenzo interrupted, “we’ll be filming her every word and deed without her knowing it the entire time.”

  Bianca’s face remained blank. “What else?”

  What else? Vincenzo thought. What does she mean by “What else?” What else could—”What else do you think we could do?”

  Bianca laughed softly. “You’re going to strip her to her essence in an attempt to banish her current evil diva self from planet earth, and all you’re doing is taking away her clothes?”

  “Um, no,” Vincenzo said. “We’re taking away her shoes, too.”

  Bianca groaned. “I have been packing them for three days and I’m almost finished.” She sighed. “What else are you going to do?”

  “Well, we’re going to keep all but you and Katharina from entering Canada,” Vincenzo said. “Two jets will take off, but only one will arrive in Canada. The other jet, containing the rest of her porta-posse and Scottie, will go to Costa Rica with all her luggage.”

  Bianca nodded. “Sounds like an okay plan. Makes me wish I was her hair stylist, though.” She smiled. “Poor Katharina. She’ll have to do her own makeup and hair because I have no skills that way.” She fluffed her dark, naturally wavy hair. “As you can see.”

  “You have nice, normal hair, Bianca.”

  “Thank you.” She suddenly frowned. “Oh. I may have to dress her.”

  “In what?” Vincenzo asked.

  “Oh yeah.” Bianca smiled. “Cool.”

  “I mean, other than the costume we provide for her, she’ll have nothing really to be dressed in.”

  “It won’t be purple or tiger-striped, will it?” Bianca asked.

  “No.”

  “Some days I think I work at the children’s zoo,” Bianca said. “Only no one’s doing any petting.”

  I will leave that one entirely alone. “Katharina will be staying in a rough-hewn cabin with the barest of necessities and none”—he picked up Katharina’s letter—”and none of her usual demands. There’s no phone, no television, no Internet, and no cell phone service. There isn’t any electricity, either. There isn’t even any food in the cabin, and the only running water is ice cold. No hot baths, unless she figures out how to do it. She’ll have to cross a mountain stream that has no bridge each day to get to and from the set.” In for a penny, in for a pound. “And we’ll be writing the script as she happens.”

  Bianca smiled broadly. “How positively existential. But, what if Katharina decides not to happen? She is the moodiest, most stubborn person I have ever met. She can sit under a pool umbrella from sunup to sundown. If she doesn’t leave her cabin, I’ll be stuck with her. Does Canada have the death penalty for capital murder?”

  Vincenzo blinked rapidly. I hope that was a rhetorical question. “Bianca, she’ll have to leave her cabin. It will be in the script.”

  “But doesn’t she trash scripts?” Bianca asked.

  Vincenzo sighed. “Yes. All the time. But essentially she’ll be writing the script, right?”

  “Oh yeah,” Bianca said. “Pretty shrewd. How, um, how remote is this place? I mean, can she escape?”

  Vincenzo shrugged. “I doubt it. It is about ninety miles to t
he nearest town in Quebec, over a hundred miles to the nearest airport.”

  Bianca wrinkled her lips again. “This is beginning to sound like a kidnapping, and that could make me an accomplice.”

  Again, I hadn’t thought of this. “But we’re paying Katharina a ransom before she gets there,” Vincenzo said. “It’s being deposited to the old account she had with us even as we speak.”

  Bianca nodded. “So the contract you sent was basically bogus.”

  “No, it’s a genuine contract that we will honor to the letter.” He paused. “With or without a movie. We would much rather have one or even two movies for our efforts.”

  Bianca closed her eyes. “Let me get this straight. You’re filming her for sixty days, sunup to sundown, which is roughly … sixteen hours a day.”

  “Something like that.”

  “So you’ll have about … a thousand hours of footage,” Bianca said, opening her eyes.

  Vincenzo nodded. A very sharp girl.

  “And you plan to condense it all down to two hours?” Bianca asked. “What about what’s left over?”

  Vincenzo shrugged. “We’re not sure what we’ll do with it. We may do nothing with it, and we may release parts as extras for the DVD. Keep in mind that we will be in Canada to film a real movie. And, um, I’m the director slash cinematog-rapher.” Sort of. Fish will get the cinematography credit.

  Bianca laughed. “You are going to direct Katharina Minola?”

  Vincenzo nodded.

  “But you’re not a director, are you?”

  “No, and I’ve never wanted to be one,” Vincenzo said. “I assisted Katharina’s director for My Honey Love. She wasn’t the diva she’s become back then, but she sure could spit the venom. I have seen hundreds of directors at work since then, so I know how to overreact, scold, scowl, berate, throw tantrums, throw up my hands, praise, flatter, walk away, and criticize with the best of them.”