The Crossroads Cafe

by Deborah Smith

  And I wanted to remain his fantasy.

  Beautiful.

  PART TWO

  Most urgently, women’s identity must be premised upon our “beauty” so that we will remain vulnerable to outside approval, carrying the vital sensitive organ of self-esteem exposed to the air.

  —Naomi Wolf

  I, with a deeper instinct, choose a man who compels my strength, who makes enormous demands on me, who does not doubt my courage or my toughness, who does not believe me naïve or innocent, who has the courage to treat me like a woman.

  —Anaïs Nin

  Chapter 7

  Cathy The Phantom of Hollywood

  “Heads up, One. The kitten is at the doorstep. Repeat. The kitten is at the doorstep.”

  “Copy, Two. The door is open. Watch for coyotes. Multiple coyotes in the street.”

  “Copy, One. We’re turning in.”

  My code-talking bodyguards were as serious as Secret Service agents, and just as well-armed. I sat between two of them in the backseat of a small limo with windows so deeply tinted it felt like a cave inside. Outside, the bright May sun gleamed on the palm trees and expensively watered begonias of my mini-mansion in the Hollywood Hills. I was free of the hospital, finally. Now I could be a prisoner in my own home, instead.

  “Sorry, Ms. Deen,” one of my bodyguards said, as he threw a thin black blanket over my head. “Just to be on the safe side. These windows aren’t completely opaque.”

  “No problem,” I said from under the blanket. I liked being covered.

  As we rolled through the open gate of the twelve-foot stone wall that surrounded my home, security people blocked a small herd of paparazzi who leapt out of vans and cars. My attorneys had gotten a restraining order against the guy who videotaped the accident. For the next twelve months, at least, I didn’t have to worry about being ambushed by him. But I was still a meal ticket to the other “coyotes” in the paparazzi pack. They wanted one thing from me: the first, priceless photograph of my scarred face.

  My mission in life was to keep any of them from getting it.

  Ten seconds later, the gate closed behind the limo, and the bodyguard pulled the blanket off of me. Weak with relief, I gazed out at the Italian cypress and Mediterranean elegance of my sunny courtyard. “I want out.”

  “Just a few more seconds, Ms. Deen. Let us pull into the garage, first. We suspect there are photographers stationed on a rooftop up the hill. If you get out now, they’ll spot you.”

  I nodded and sat there stiffly, fighting an urge to claw the windows. Sweat slid down my forehead. I was swathed in a scarf, sunglasses, a long-sleeved shirt, and baggy trousers. Not to mention wearing a tight therapeutic mask over my entire head. Picture support hose, for your face. I looked like I might knock over a convenience store. Under my clothes I wore a custom body stocking of the same material. These would be my second skin for months to come. Hopefully, the pressure would force my healing skin to form flat scar tissue instead of the Freddy Krueger variety.

  The limo pulled as far as its length would allow into the cool, quiet confines of the five-car garage. I looked at my collection of cars and shivered. Only the Trans Am was missing. Thieves had filched parts of its burned hulk from an L.A. warehouse. The steering wheel had shown up on eBay.

  I didn’t want it back, anyway. I’d never drive a sportscar again. Or any car. I didn’t even want to ride in cars now. The quick limo trip from the hospital had filled my mind with images of being chased, of crashing. Of burning. I added cars to my growing list of phobias.

  “Senora Cathryn! Welcome home!” Bonita and Antonio Cavazos ran up to me as I tottered from the car. My legs were weak, my nerves were raw. I nearly fell into the Cavazos’ arms. The middle-aged couple managed my house from top to bottom, inside and out. They supervised maids, cooks, and gardeners, and lived in a small guest house near the pool. Now it would be just me and them. The fewer people who saw me, the better.

  “Did you have all the mirrors in the house removed?” I asked.

  They looked at me sadly, and nodded.

  Yes, it was neurotic of me, but I couldn’t stand looking at myself. Not only my face, but my body. A serpentine pattern of scars ran down my neck, shoulder, and right arm. They made a patchwork of weird textures and colors, as if my skin had melted then re-formed. There were splotches of scar tissue on the side of my once-perfect right breast. I had puckered scars on my right hip, and a network of scars trailing down my leg like infected vines. If I looked in a mirror again would I see another vision that hinted at my doomed future? I shuttered to think how much worse it could get.

  “No mirrors,” I emphasized dully.

  “No, no mirrors. Come inside, querita,” Bonita soothed. I walked slowly, limping a little, holding her and Antonio’s arms. My legs shook. When I finally stepped into the mansion’s cool, stone and red-brick interior, I was so exhausted I couldn’t muster the energy to cry when I saw the main rooms.

  Empty.

  Gerald had left the house but taken all the furniture.

  “But we had one of the guest suites decorated in all your favorite styles,” Bonita assured me, crying. “Come and sit on your balcony and I’ll bring you something cool to drink, and you can look out over the city.”

  “Gracias. Antonio, are the new awnings up?”

  He nodded. “Just as you asked. Every patio and every balcony is covered. Awnings. Side panels. And see-through curtains across the front. You can sit outside anywhere, and no one can watch you. I even told them to install a cabana beside the pool.”

  “Gracias.”

  I wasn’t just worried about photographers. I couldn’t stand the sun. Some sections of my healing skin were super-sensitive and easily sunburned. I itched constantly. My right hand, bound by scar tissue that needed several more small surgeries to stretch the skin as it healed, felt like it was covered in a rubber glove. Heat that hand in the bright L.A. sunshine? No way.

  The Cavazos helped me creep to my bedroom, a lovely cocoon in warm blues and sage green with a touch of pink silk here and there. The furniture was a mix of English and French country pieces, the wood golden, the styles simple. The bed was a big four-poster with a lace canopy. Light filtered in through tall, arched windows. Double doors opened on a private balcony, now completely covered in the tent-like awning. Off the bedroom were a large bath and sauna, an exercise room, and even a small kitchen. I’d told Bonita and Antonio to have the gas stove removed. No flames. Only a microwave remained.

  “Your friends sent a gift,” Bonita said. On a vanity table sat a box from Delta. Bonita and Antonio left the room, softly shutting wide doors behind them. The silence felt overwhelming. Loneliness filled me, so deep my bones ached.

  I shucked my scarf, my sunglasses, my shirt, my pants, my shoes, and stood there in nothing but the ugly body stocking. Slowly, I pulled the face mask off, and dropped it on the cool, tiled floor.

  I opened the box. Delta’s biscuits, with soul-sustaining cream gravy. And a large manila envelope. On the envelope was written “Welcome Home, Cathy” in neat, blocky script, as if a draftsman had outlined the words for a blueprint.

  Inside were the most wonderful photographs. I recognized the scene instantly. Granny Nettie’s house, and her barn, and her pasture, and Hog Back, and deer, and turkeys, and spring flowers, and a sunset.

  And a note. Simply signed, “Thomas.”

  Welcome home. It’s waiting for you.

  I hugged the pictures to my chest and cried.

  I wasn’t brave enough to go.

  My new life as a Hollywood recluse settled into a daily routine. Though I still underwent small procedures, I was able to return to some semblance of a normal life. It was just that my definition of “normal” had changed.

  I had no past and no future. I lived like a vampire in a four-million dollar bat cave, avoiding uncurtained windows and never venturing outdoors except late at night. Over my pressure suit and head mask I wore hoodies, scarves, sunglasses, and
hats. I looked like a bag lady with a Gucci logo.

  I spent my time waiting for the next package of biscuits, gravy, and photos from North Carolina. There were weeks when the thought of them was all that got me out of bed. I read self-help books that didn’t help, watched the safe and cheerful Food Network, slept, cried and taped Thomas’s photographs all over my room, photos of the home I was too terrified to visit. One picture had a hand in it, pointing to a flower. That must be Thomas’s hand. A nice hand. Surprisingly lean and virile-looking for an aging grandpa.

  Not only would I never meet Thomas in person, I might never leave my house again. The beauty of being rich and eccentric is that, for a price, almost everything and everyone you need will come to you. Doctors, therapists, nurses, security guards. I became the queen bee of a pay-per-visit hive in the midst of west L.A.’s most protected mansions. A recluse among recluses. My gates had gates.

  The sight of a match flame or lit stove on television made me queasy. Even the Food Network sometimes ambushed me with flaming desserts. I couldn’t watch Cops because the highway chases made me hyperventilate. When forced to go back to the hospital for outpatient procedures—stretching, sanding, nipping, all of it painful and humiliating—I rode in service vans to hide from the photographers who always lurked outside my gate. So far, I had been dirty laundry, a couch that needed new upholstery, and termite control. During the trips I shivered and sweated and prayed not to crash and burn.

  My divorce from Gerald would be final by autumn, a few months away. The pain of his abandonment went deep but the pain of my own stupidity went even deeper. How could I have been foolish enough to marry such a cold-blooded huckster? I was thirty years old when I fell in love with him. I waited until I was a grown-up to tie the knot with someone. I’d intended to marry one time only—a smart, mature partnership for a lifetime. Instead, I’d fallen for a man who treated me like a champion Persian. Something to show off and sell.

  Gerald forged ahead with Flawless as if nothing had happened. The notoriety of my accident actually helped launch the company. I began to realize he’d isolated me at the hospital because he wanted the public to forget the real me. He wanted women to look at my face in the ads and be inspired to buy the products, not think of my flame-grilled skin.

  He wanted me, the real me, to be forgotten.

  And I was all too eager to go along.

  “The irony is,” I told Delta during one of our phone calls, “the last time I talked to my husband, right before he sent the lawyer with divorce papers, was the time I felt most loved and accepted by him. When he called to introduce you to me. He was wonderful.”

  “Almost like you were talking to a sweet stranger,” Delta said in a sly tone.

  “Yes.”

  “Why don’t you come for a visit? These mountains will do your heart good. No photographers, no gates, no walls, no curtains. Thomas will take you up on Wild Woman Ridge to your granny’s house. You need to meet Thomas.”

  “Oh, I can’t travel for a long time, yet. Don’t believe what you read in the tabloids. I’m not a recluse, I’m just devoting myself to my therapies. The doctors think they can fully restore my face. There are amazing new treatments and some plastic surgery techniques you can barely imagine. I’m going to be just fine in a few months. My agent is already fielding all sorts of new offers.”

  Lies, lies, lies.

  My agent sat on the hearth of my empty living room. I sat in a lawn chair where Gerald’s sofa used to be, wearing my face mask, a lovely Versace scarf and a sweat-suit.

  “Aren’t you hot in that outfit?” my agent asked, shivering in my sixty-degree air conditioning. “How can you stand that . . . that ski mask?”

  “It’s therapeutic. The more I wear it, the more my skin grafts will heal smoothly. My face is going to look fabulous in a few months. Really.”

  “Cathryn, I’m sorry, but it’s time to deal with reality.”

  “Absolutely! You said you have a long list of offers to discuss with me. So let’s discuss.”

  “I’m not saying I recommend these offers, but I’m duty-bound to tell you about them.”

  “Let’s start with movie roles. I’m willing to take something small, classy, maybe an indie film by some up-and-coming director. Hmmm. It’d be so much fun to go to Sundance for an indie premiere. I love Utah in the snow season. All those frosted Mormons.”

  My agent stared at me. “Movie roles? No. There aren’t any movie offers.”

  I knew there weren’t, just as I knew my face would never look fabulous, or even semi-normal, again. But I had to keep up the façade of pride. Pun intended. “Oh, all right, we can work on the movie angle later. What else have you got?”

  “A tell-all book deal about your accident. Movie rights to the book deal. Talk show appearances about your accident. Larry King and Oprah—Oprah wants you first, though. She never takes Larry’s leftovers.”

  “I don’t want to talk about my accident. I want to act.”

  “Okay, well, I do have some offers in that regard. Not movies, but solid guest parts on television.”

  “All right, so I’ll jump-start this new phase of my career on the small screen, first. Maybe it would be good to star in my own series. I’m thinking classy. Romantic comedy. HBO or Showtime. One of those well-written series that smart people watch.”

  My agent looked away and cleared her throat. “Here’s what you can choose from: a stoic burn victim whose husband was murdered by his ex-wife on Law & Order. A courageous young doctor with burn scars on ER. An idealistic prosecuting lawyer who had acid thrown on her face by a vengeful ex-con on Boston Legal.”

  “You’re kidding . . . right? What am I, the new poster girl for fried skin? When casting agents type ‘Singed Actress’ in their data bases, my name will pop up?”

  “Look, I’m just the messenger.”

  “Don’t you have any better messages?”

  “Last but not least, you have offers from at least a dozen major magazines. All of them want exclusive rights to your first post-accident photographs. Vanity Fair is guaranteeing you the cover if you’ll pose nude for Annie Leibowitz.”

  Pose nude? Naked and scarred? Look at the freak. I stared at her. Inside, another small part of me withered and went into hiding. “Have you lost your mind?” I said softly. “I can still act. I’m a good actress. I was going to be the new Elizabeth Taylor in Giant, for God’s sake.”

  “Well, sweetie, now you’re the post-Richard Burton Liz. You’re Elizabeth Taylor settling for a chance to play Wilma’s mother in the live-action remake of The Flintstones. I’m sorry.”

  “I still have my talent, my personality.”

  “You were valuable because of your looks. You were special. Without the face, you’re just another actress. You can’t even distract people with a sexy body. You can’t wear a low-cut dress anymore, or go sleeveless.”

  “I’m not just a bunch of parts. Women are more than the sum of their parts.”

  “Not in this business. Not in any business where men like to watch. Television, movies, video games. Take a look at the perky little reporters on the cable news shows. Size six and under thirty-five.”

  “That’s just the news business.”

  “Oh? You think Rachael Ray is a star on the Food Network just because she’s a good cook?”

  “What about Paula Deen?” I shot back. “She’s older and motherly and gray-haired and . . .”

  “She’s a great cook. You can’t even make spaghetti.”

  “All right, all right. But couldn’t I play character roles? Look at all the successful, pizza-faced men playing strong roles on television—”

  “Women get wrinkles. Men get character lines. Yes, that saying is true, Cathryn. There are double standards. Women get fat. Men get ‘love handles.’ Women get dumped for younger wives. Men get . . . younger wives. Men control most of the choices. They control most of the money. In ways that don’t always seem obvious, despite decades of progressive work in women’s ri
ghts, men still call the shots. And we women go along with it. We’re traitors to our own kind.”

  “I never knew you felt this way. Do you hate men?”

  “No, individually, they’re just fine. But group them together and they’re dick-wagging tyrants. And women let them get away with it. We want to please them. We don’t want to be the ugly broad or the fat chick or the flat-chested bitch they ignore. We know they want to look at pretty women. Pretty, young-looking women. All the rest of us are just the support system for the breeding stock. Or the butt of the joke.”

  “That’s not true! Look at all the women who are successful because of their brains and hard work.”

  “They’re the exception to the rule. Tell that to every fat, homely, or just ordinary-looking female who’s ever cursed the system.” My agent’s expression became distant, angry. “Growing up in Minnesota, I wanted to be a figure skater. My parents spent everything they had on my training. I was a true athlete, Cathryn. I had the chops to pull it off. But when the important coaches started picking out the girls who had the best chance of becoming champions, the ones most likely to make it to the Olympics some day, they wouldn’t even give me a try. Not because I didn’t have the talent, or the heart, but because I wasn’t pretty enough.”

  “You could have taken up speed skating. Or ice hockey. Or . . .” Suddenly I realized how clueless I sounded. “I’m sorry,” I finished wearily. “Remember that old TV commercial where the model said, ‘Don’t hate me because I’m beautiful?’ And everyone hated her just for saying that? I never understood why. I thought it was a joke. I didn’t ask to be born beautiful. I realize it gave me a lot of advantages, but I didn’t ask for them. Now I can understand why other people resent those advantages, but does that mean I shouldn’t get a chance to prove myself?”

  “Cathryn, my Jewish grandmother used to say, ‘Luck is a bouquet of roses, bubelah. Some people get it in one big bunch. Other people get it a single flower at a time, until one day they go—Ah hah! I have a whole bouquet!’”