by J. J. Murray
“Or a pizza,” Fish said. “All the meats. Lots of cheese.”
Pietro sighed. “Look, she’s an adult. She knows her own needs. When she gets hungry enough, she’ll eat. We’re not dealing with a two-year-old here. And didn’t we want the diva to disappear? The diva is gone. So until then, I say we wait, keep her warm, and offer her food. That’s all we can do, and that’s all we should do. She is under contract for a lot of money, and she has to earn that money, right?”
“This ain’t right,” Fish said. “None of this is anymore. Send Bianca back in there. Have Bianca say she lost her damn mind, and ‘What was I thinking, you’re the best actress who ever lived.’”
“I have to agree with Fish,” Walt said. “She’s a broken woman. Bianca has to go back.”
“I really want to go back, Vincenzo,” Bianca said. “Just look at her. She needs me.”
“I can’t believe what I’m hearing!” Pietro yelled. “Are you all forgetting who is in that room? That is one of the most headstrong, stubborn, and capable women on this planet. She was, at one time, one of the most powerful people in Hollywood. You all assume that she has no coping skills. As much as I dislike her, I believe in her ability to shrug all this off and get back to work. She is a survivor. She made that rotten movie, and she didn’t crumble, right? This is minor in comparison to that. She’s lived without assistants before. She went on then, right? No. We leave her alone until she decides to get it in gear.”
Vincenzo hated to admit it, but Pietro was right. “Seventy-two hours,” he said. “If she hasn’t snapped out of this in seventy-two hours, we may have to have another intervention. Be thinking of how we should do that, okay?”
“Another intervention?” Pietro scowled on his way to the door. “We haven’t even finished the first one yet.”
Pietro and Curtis plowed through the snow to his cabin. He tied two bundles of split wood to Curtis’s back and continued on to Katharina’s cabin. He knocked, heard no reply, and entered. He stoked the fire and had it blazing in no time with the new wood. He picked up a pot of venison stew—uneaten again—and carried it to the door. He fought the urge to speak, but he couldn’t help himself. He went to Katharina’s door. “I bring food later. You eat.”
He received no response.
“I make chicken soup.”
He heard only the crackling of the wood in the fireplace.
“I come back soon.”
After Pietro left, Katharina turned away from the window, staring at the crack in her door and listening for the cabin door to shut, then closed her eyes. She had no tears left to shed, no desire to warm up properly in front of the fire, no inclination to even open her door wider so the heat could flow in.
I never really wanted to do any of this in the first place, Katharina thought. Never in a million years.
I just wanted to get out of Roanoke, to see the world, to have an adventure or two before I finished college, found a regular job, and maybe settled down and got married. That’s all. I just wanted something exciting to happen to me, one major rush to look back on and remember for the rest of my life. One last chance for Grandma Pearl to be proud of me before … before she died.
The summer after graduating high school, I answered a call for extras for a blockbuster movie filming in northern Virginia. I showed up, and so did half of northern Virginia, it seemed. It was like the day-after-Christmas sales at Walmart, a stampede of people crowding each other, pushing, shoving, being rude, trying to be first. All those people jockeying for position, and most of them carried portfolios containing glossy pictures and résumés.
I just showed up. Here I am. Take me or not.
I left most of the little application blank, walked in front of some people writing on clipboards, and smiled.
“You’ve never done any theater?”
“No.”
“Not even in high school?”
“No.”
“Commercials?”
“No.”
“Modeling?”
“No.”
I thought it was over.
And then I got a callback and an itty-bitty contract.
That movie turned out to be track practice. I ran from unseen monsters, I ran from blasts of death rays, I scurried for cover around barns, I looked up in anguish at the skies, I cried, I screamed, I sweated, I trembled.
Hmm. Kind of like I’m doing now. Curtis is kind of a monster. I guess the death rays are the snow showers now.
Luckily (or unluckily) I didn’t get stepped on, zapped, or pulverized. I was a survivor, making it into the last scenes of that movie. The whole process was kind of fun, too, though the hurrying up and waiting became tedious.
When the movie came out, I watched for myself, and there I was, running for my life, pure fear and real sweat on my face. My friends … who I don’t even know anymore … Yeah, Bianca was right about that. Those friends who I don’t know anymore thought I was fantastic, great, believable, a star.
I shrugged it off and was in community college when I got another call. “It’s a small role, a bit part,” the casting agent said. I took it. I was the smart older sister to a precocious little brat. It went so well they even added a few more scenes and lines for me.
I thought that was it.
But the calls kept coming, so I hired Cecil. The first thing he told me: “Get yourself a new name. Dena Hinson isn’t knocking anyone’s socks off.”
I didn’t have to think about it for very long. Grandma Pearl suggested “Katharina” since Katharine Hepburn won four Oscars and was nominated twelve times. I chose “Minola” because it sounded exotic, European, and said “not American”—since so many foreign women were winning awards and getting the choice roles in those days.
And Cecil, as greedy as he was, came through. He found me supporting roles, mostly. I was the best friend, the gal-pal, one of the girls, the guy-pal and confidante, the dedicated fill-in-the-blank. I never had a major role and was kind of a foil to the main character. I was a helper, and I was actually content. The money was great, the hours decent, I got to travel, and I could even afford not to work at all for months at a time so I could spend time with Grandma Pearl.
Then Lucentio Pictures plucked me out of that happy rut, said, “You da woman,” and gave me the role of a lifetime—the devoted single mother who finds love and fulfillment despite a slew of obstacles. At first, I was still Dena from Tenth Street, so agreeable, so kind, so malleable. I did everything they told me to do the exact way they told me to do it.
One day, though, I just couldn’t say the line as written. I fussed at the writer, Walter Yearling, a few times. “She wouldn’t say it that way. She’d say it this way.” Walter, always the most patient man, agreed, and the lines were changed in my favor. Paul Stewart, the director, worked me to death and pissed me off often with take after take and suggestion after suggestion, and I pissed him off take after take with suggestions of my own.
And it all paid off. I was proud of my work in that movie. I could look at that movie and say, “There’s a black woman who isn’t a stereotype. She’s real. She’s nobody’s doormat, punching bag, sex object, comic relief, or femme fatale. She’s an African-American Everywoman.”
I didn’t even think I’d get nominated for best actress, but when I did, my life took off so fast I had little time to think or to even breathe. Talk shows, interviews, photographers, endorsements for this and that, money like rain, suggestions from Cecil to hire this, buy that, invest in this.
Cecil told me to have a huge Oscar party and get Vogue to pay for it. I figured, Vogue, that’s a major magazine, they can afford a big one. They said no. I should have asked Ebony or Essence or at least hired a decent Southern-style caterer that made edible, home-style food. That party sucked so bad. No one came.
No. Walter Yearling came. Yeah. He even stayed and helped me clean up after I fired the caterer and threw some burgers and hot dogs on the grill. He wrote My Honey Love just for me, he said. Just for me. I
thought: older guy, unmarried, trying to get some attention from a young starlet, maybe trying to get some from a young starlet.
But it wasn’t like that. He wanted to be my friend. “After you win the Oscar,” he said, “I’ll have another script for you.”
Only Walter and Antonio Lucentio thought I had a chance to win.
Sitting there at the Academy Awards on TV in front of a billion or so viewers, I heard my name the first time as a nominee. When the lights hit me, I did a little wave and a shy smile. I looked so relaxed, but my heart was banging hard against my ribs. When I heard my name a second time, I shook. “Katharina Minola quivered,” they said the next day. “She was shocked and overwhelmed.”
I didn’t even have a speech ready. I never expected to win. I was almost crying by the time I took the Oscar and stood shaking in front of the microphone and a billion people. “I cannot believe this,” I babbled. “Are you sure?” I saw people standing, heard the cheers, felt the warmth of the lights, felt this tingling rumble up my body.
“I have so many people to thank …”
And then I blanked.
Completely.
I couldn’t remember the director’s name, or Walter, or my costars, no one. I simply held up that chunk of metal … and cried.
The next day the phrase “overwhelmed by emotion” appeared in twenty-seven different newspapers and news reports. I called everyone connected with the picture the next day to thank them personally, apologizing especially to Walter, who took it, as always, in stride. “You were just being human, Katharina,” he said. “I wouldn’t expect anything less of you.”
And then the offers flooded in, but out of respect and for launching me, I stayed with Lucentio Pictures for three more projects. They were wonderful films with messages, depth, feeling, and emotion. But I thought I was in a rut playing the long-suffering, sassy, savvy sweetheart who gets her man in the end. I didn’t think Lucentio Pictures was giving me a chance to show my range.
So I did the dumbest thing probably anyone on earth has ever done, and jumped for the money and the title role in Miss Thang. That role turned me into a caricature, a cartoon character that has given me a reputation that I just cannot shake. Oh sure, I lived the part for ten months since Cecil and that studio (which shall remain forever nameless and hopefully will file Chapter 7 soon) thought it would be great publicity if I lived the role until the premiere.
And then … It’s like I got stuck, my development arrested, the things coming out of my mouth beyond bizarre; the more I talked, the more ridiculous I became. I still cringe at some of my appearances on late-night TV, wondering who was that freak wearing fake tiger-skin sunglasses at night and inside a building. Didn’t she have any home training? Even Grandma Pearl had her limits: “I raised you to be the show, baby girl, not the sideshow.”
They had planned to do Miss Thang 2, but when the reviews came out …
I turned off my phones, my TVs, stopped the magazines, the newspapers—I hid. At least I tried to. I took vacations to exotic destinations, and somehow the paparazzi always found me, taking unflattering pictures of me in bikinis and wet T-shirts. You can’t hide from fame or infamy, gaffes or glory anymore, and I was stupid enough to think I could.
And then I got mad, and when I’m angry, my heart turns to stone. I took out my frustrations on the rest of the world. I became the angry (though well-dressed) bitch. Bianca nailed that one right on the head.
I have wasted so much time and talent hating.
Cecil (when I wasn’t firing and rehiring him) suggested I play an evil bitch on a daytime soap opera. It had its appeal. Because of who I had become, I wouldn’t have had to do much acting. I asked him what else.
He said, “There is nothing else, Katharina. You’ve become a, um, a specialty act.”
“What?”
“You’re a diva,” Cecil said. “When diva roles come up, I put in your name, and truly, Katharina, there is nothing else.”
I asked, “C’mon, really, Cecil, what else? There have to be other roles out there for me.”
“There is nothing else,” he repeated.
“Well, what if I read for parts that don’t specifically say ‘black woman’ in the script? Why not a judge, or a lawyer, or a doctor, or a mayor? Or the boss? Why can’t I read for the part of someone’s boss?”
Cecil actually laughed at me. “You know those roles exist only for white people.”
“Those roles do exist, Cecil, and they should exist for everyone, regardless of color. Whatever happened to hiring the best person for the job and forget the race or gender of the actor? Hollywood is the most freaking backward, most close-minded, most uncreative—”
“You want the part or not?” Cecil interrupted.
Evil soap opera bitch. That was the last time I fired Cecil.
That was also the last time I saw most of my money.
From running for my life in front of a blue screen to running from my life here in the middle of a Canadian wilderness. And where am I?
Hiding again.
And who am I?
A runaway slave from Virginia. I know I’m capable of playing this role. I mean, I’ve been in this role … for most of my life. I’ve been a slave to the dictates of Hollywood, a slave to what the media says I’m supposed to be, a slave to what the United States expects me to be … a slave to where the money is.
Katharina turned and looked into the snowy gray day outside her window.
Who I am is out there somewhere.
And tomorrow, I hope I find her.
Chapter 26
Fish, nearly nodding off, noticed movement on the big screen a little after sunrise. “Katharina has left the building.”
“All right,” Walt said, leaving the couch for the command center. “Good for her.”
“Headset is a go, tree cams are on, and …” Fish cleared his throat. “She’s, um, she’s walking the wrong way. She’s not going to the clearing, Walt. She’s walking …” He looked at Walt. “She’s coming this way.”
The transmitter squawked. “Fish, are you seeing this?” Vincenzo asked.
“Yep.” The next camera to pick up her progress went dark. Fish sighed. “There must be a camera out.”
“Where’d she go?” Bianca asked.
Fish zoomed in from a camera farther away. “I got her. There’s just a dead spot in the grid because of that malfunctioning camera. Cold might have killed it.”
“So she’s still in the grid,” Vincenzo said.
“Barely,” Fish said.
“Maybe she’s just out stretching her legs,” Walt suggested. “Or getting some nice shots of all the snow with her headset. Or …”
“Trying to escape,” Fish said. “She’s only two hundred yards away from Pietro’s fence line, and closing. She’s going to see this house, Vincenzo. She’s going to make a house call.”
“I guess if she comes to the house …” Vincenzo’s voice trailed off.
“One fifty and closing,” Fish said. “Finish your sentence, Vincenzo.”
“But Bianca,” Vincenzo said, “that wouldn’t …” The rest was garbled.
“Young lovers and their spats,” Walt said.
“One ten and closing,” Fish said.
“Fish,” Bianca’s voice said, “if she comes to the house, don’t let her in.”
“Gee,” Fish said, “I wouldn’t have thought of that.”
“I mean, look how she’s dressed,” Bianca said. “Would any homeowner open the door to let something looking like that come in?”
“I would, shit,” Fish said. “If I lived alone on the prairie and a hot woman stumbled up to my door, I’d give her a bath my damn self. Seventy-five yards and closing, and she ain’t slowing down.”
“Does she know you, Fish? Would she recognize you?” Walt asked. “She’d probably recognize me.”
Fish growled. “Listen, y’all. It doesn’t matter if she recognizes me or not. She’ll know something’s up the second I open the
door. Oh my, there’s a black man opening the door way up here in northern Ontario, where so many black people love to live in all this cold, ice, and snow. Oh, what’s that over his fireplace? A whole bunch of monitors and a huge TV. Oh look—there’s my room back at Cabin 3.”
“She’s within fifty yards of the fence now, Vincenzo,” Walt said, “maybe eighty yards from our door. What about Pietro? Could he get here in time?”
“And do what, Walt?” Fish asked. “Tell her this house is poisonous, don’t touch?”
“Pietro’s too busy making his stew, anyway,” Vincenzo said. “He swears he can get her to eat tonight.”
“That might not be necessary,” Fish said. “Walt and I might be cooking for her in a few minutes.”
“Why is that shot so wide?” Bianca asked.
“I only put a few cameras on Pietro’s fence line because I didn’t think she’d ever come this direction,” Fish said. “This is our last line of defense.”
“She’s slowing down,” Walt said. “Look! She’s hiding.”
“She stopped.” Fish adjusted the closest camera, zooming in on Katharina’s face peering out from around some tall grass. “She has to see the house. Why would she just … stop?”
Katharina crouched behind a clump of tall grass topped with snow. Civilization? Here? She saw three huge windows framing a two-story room jutting out from the rest of a completely brown and beige stone house with countless small windows and skylights. I hope Bianca made it over there that night, she thought. She has to have made it somewhere safe. Sly or Alessandro have to know she’s gone for good. They would have said something to me otherwise.
Damn! What a massive house! Big SUV, smoke coming from the chimney, electricity, hot water. I’ll bet they even have showers, cereal from this century, hot chocolate. I would kill for hot chocolate right now. I could just go over there, ask to use the phone, maybe get warmed up by their fire, eat a chicken salad sandwich with or without the crust …
