She's The One

by J. J. Murray

  Katharina sighed again. I don’t want to think about Grandma today, but I can’t help it. She was so much a part of everything I ever did, the reason I even tried to do any kind of acting. “Little Miss Thang,” she used to call me whenever I’d overdress for school or church. And even when I became Miss Thang for that abysmal movie, Grandma Pearl still loved me. She raised the hell out of me and turned me into an angel. Okay, I was one of those diva angels like the ones who parade around in wings for Victoria’s Secret, but I was still an angel.

  That night on the red carpet …” What was she thinking?” they said. The fact is, I wasn’t thinking at all, but I had the best reason. While I was in that limo, Great-Auntie Nancy had just called to tell me that Grandma Pearl had just had a stroke and had been admitted to the ICU back in Virginia. I told the driver to get me to the airport, but the limo in front of us wouldn’t move. That limo was blocking my way out! As for that thirty-nine-minute walk of mine—which I swear was only ten minutes at the most—I don’t remember a bit of it. Auntie Nancy said it was only a mild stroke, not to worry, she’s in the hands of Almighty God. All I know is that I was wandering back and forth in near hysteria thinking about my grandma … who pulled through, only to die six months later in her sleep.

  Katharina felt tears bubbling behind her eyes. And Grandma Pearl’s why I blubbered like a fountain on the Walk of Fame. I was missing her so much. I knew she was looking down on me from Heaven, but I just wished she was there to … I don’t know, tell me that everything I went through would work out in the end, make me some of her chunky chicken salad sandwiches, make me some of her homemade chicken noodle soup, tell me to hold my head up proud—anything. I was really weeping, and the world thought it was fake. That was no “performance.” That was the real me missing my grandma.

  Bianca saw a tear slide down Katharina’s cheek. It’s going to be one of those days. In Bianca’s mind, she hopped off the surfboard and began climbing El Capitan, Yosemite’s coolest and most dangerous rock formation—barefoot. Yeah, Bianca thought. No one’s ever done this three-thousand-foot rock barefooted. I am going to get the nicest tan!

  If I only knew then what I know now, Katharina thought, I wouldn’t be in this mess. I would have kept my mouth shut. There would have been no quotes to misquote, no Prozac to inhale, and no CD to exhale. I would have kept my money in my possession so I’d have some now. But no, I had to live the role and spend money as if it were an endless supply. I would have kept a closer eye on Cecil, and when I caught his ass, I would have taken him to court instead of hiding my shame. If anyone knew that I was living royalty paycheck to royalty paycheck now, almost like the rest of the world, I’d probably be on one of those “Where Are They Now?” segments on Entertainment Tonight.

  And now, delivered straight from Heaven, are five million reasons to leave this house and start over. She let a tear drop to her robe. Grandma Pearl, your little Miss Thang is about to shine again.

  Katharina nodded once.

  Bianca shook and almost fell off El Capitan in her mind. She’s made a decision? No way. I thought it was her job not to think. This could actually be an interesting day for once.

  * * *

  Katharina nodded again. I have four days to make my decision. If I call Lucentio Pictures today, they’ll think I’ve lost my edge and attitude—which I have, but I don’t want them to know that. I will wait three days, then. No, all four. Yes. I need to sweat them a little. And they have to expect me to play this little game, right? It’s all part of this business. You give me an offer, I act uninterested, you sweeten the offer, I act less uninterested, and then you give me an ultimatum that I grudgingly (and now joyfully!) accept.

  What a business. And the real acting hasn’t even begun.

  Now, if shooting begins on September 30, and if it takes a day’s travel to get there, that leaves me … eight days.

  Hmm.

  Eight days to pack is cutting it kind of close, but sacrifices will just have to be made. Oh, the weary, troublesome life I lead … for five million dollars! Yes! Thank You, Jesus!

  “Bianca!” Katharina yelled, and she distinctly heard an echo this time. I’ve missed that echo. The world is going to hear that echo again, and soon.

  Bianca slipped, fell off El Capitan, and actually made a whistling sound as she plummeted back to earth. She stepped forward. “Yes, Miss Minola?”

  “Find my passport.”

  We’re leaving the country? Yes! Bianca tried not to smile. “Yes, Miss Minola.”

  “You have one, don’t you?” Katharina asked. You bet! “Yes, Miss Minola.”

  “I need you to start packing,” Katharina said. “Today, Bianca. Not tomorrow. Today.”

  Damn. Bianca nervously twisted a yellow rubber bracelet on her wrist. “What do I pack, Miss Minola?”

  I need to make a grand reentrance to the filmmaking world, an entrance no one will ever be able to forget. And since I don’t know where I’m going …” Pack it all, Bianca. Everything.”

  Bianca swallowed. “Everything, Miss Minola?” Even the truly trashy stuff that even mannequins would be ashamed to wear?

  Katharina smiled. “Everything.” My entire, mostly out-of-fashion arsenal of once-fabulous if-only-to-me clothes. “And if you need to purchase more luggage, do so.”

  Bianca swayed a little. I may not get paid again this week, she thought. The bags Miss “Katha-diva Bologna” buys cost one thousand dollars each! “Um, maybe we should just call U-Haul, Miss Minola. Or Allied Van Lines. They could box it all up in no time.”

  She’s right, of course, but a U-Haul? For clothes, maybe, but never for shoes. Katharina turned sharply to Bianca. “What are you trying to say, Bianca?”

  Bianca looked at her Chacos. “I’m just saying that you have a lot of clothes, Miss Minola. The shoes alone will probably fill fifty large suitcases, unless I take them out of their boxes first. Then it might only take twenty suitcases.”

  “They must be boxed.” Katharina sighed and frowned. Yes, Bianca has a point, and yes, Bianca is lasting longer than some of my other worthless assistants, but I am her employer. “Prove your worth, Bianca.”

  “I’ll do my best, Miss Minola.” “You have … six days to pack.”

  A tremble flashed up Bianca’s body. “Yes, Miss Minola. Six days.” Witch! Whore! Heifer! Bianca thought, turning to go. “And don’t forget Scottie’s clothes, too!” Katharina yelled. Scottie, the dog that has more clothes than I do. “Yes, Miss Minola.”

  “Make sure his clothes are cleaned and pressed.” Scottie, the dog that has a twenty-dollar-a-week dry-cleaning bill.

  “Yes, Miss Minola.”

  Katharina waved Bianca away.

  I may be a woman alone, Katharina thought, but I will be dressed for each and every occasion, whatever and wherever it may be.

  It is about time the movie gods … Katharina frowned. It is about time the movie gods did what? Oh. Yes. It is about time the movie gods remembered their goddess!

  Geez, Katharina thought, I had forgotten how much work it took not only to be a diva but to think like a diva. She smiled. I’ll just practice in front of the mirror and on Bianca for a few days. That should do the trick.

  Katharina Minola smiled at the smog. “I’m back,” she whispered. “Miss me?”

  Chapter 4

  Pietro Lucentio smiled at his new mule, Curtis, as they wound their way through a cold and muddy peat bog near the Quebec border in northern Ontario, Canada. Curtis looked back occasionally with his striking blue-green eyes.

  It had taken Pietro several weeks of searching to find Curtis, who was grazing with some cows and horses near Fin-castle, Virginia, a small town twenty miles northwest of Roanoke.

  “Why’s it so durn important the mule has this color eyes?” the cattleman had asked, looking at a splotch of color on a postcard.

  Pietro had no earthly idea why his brother Vincenzo had asked him to find such a rare mule, but he had answered, “Very important,” and he had ha
nded the cattleman one thousand dollars in cash to prove it.

  “Curtis is just a mule,” the cattleman had said. “I couldn’t ask you for no more than … four hundred. At the most. And I’m still practically stealing from you.”

  Pietro had stared hard at the wiry old man. “Keep the change—and keep your silence.”

  The cattleman had nodded. “Who’d believe me, anyway?”

  Pietro and Curtis paused on a rise above “the set,” as his brother Vincenzo called an undeveloped part of Pietro’s land, some thirty acres of mountain, peat bog, and mostly pine forest 725 kilometers (450 miles) dead north of Toronto near the Abitibi River and 140 kilometers (87 miles) from Rouyn-Noranda, Quebec, the closest substantial town. Lucentio Pictures couldn’t have picked a more inaccessible, brutal spot on the planet for its experiment. Today the temperature was a balmy 9 degrees Celsius (48 degrees F). By the end of the week, it would drop to –2 degrees Celsius (29 degrees F) and usher in the season’s first significant snow.

  Pietro had already placed dozens of cameras throughout the set with the help of John Fisher, and he had already stocked Cabins 1 and 2 with enough food and wood to last four months. He had measured off an acre next to a cascading stream midway between Cabin 1 and Cabin 2, but Vincenzo had told him not to clear it. “Leave it wild,” Vincenzo had told him, “and don’t walk around on it at all. No footprints. It must appear pristine, the ultimate unspoiled wilderness.” Pietro hadn’t asked why, trusting his brother to know his stuff.

  Vincenzo had instructed Pietro to leave Cabin 3 completely alone, except for adding a fax machine, a ream of plain white paper, and several dozen more cameras, and again Pietro didn’t ask why. Cabin 3 was about one thousand meters east and five hundred meters up a steep slope from the other cabins, facing the teeth of the wind. Cabin 3 was where—Vincenzo had told him—”a spoiled actress is going to live, complain, whine, moan, go off, and scream … and eventually make film history.”

  Pietro never asked who this particular spoiled actress would be. They were all the same to him since his first brush with that rude actress—Katharina Minola—fifteen years ago. She was one of the prime reasons he left show business for the untouched wilderness of Canada. He decided that he couldn’t put up with such ridiculous behavior from a woman he was paying millions to be someone other than herself for a few months. He also preferred the pure solitude of Ontario to the smoggy bustle of Southern California.

  Pietro Lucentio wanted to see his breath—not hold it.

  Vincenzo had instructed Pietro to pick up this actress and her assistant at Val-d’Or Airport over in Quebec on September 29 and drive them 275 kilometers (170 miles) to the set.

  “Try to drive over the worst, most spine-jarring roads possible, cart paths and dry creek beds preferred,” Vincenzo had said.

  Pietro was also told to blindfold both of them for the entire journey before taking off their blindfolds at the beginning of the S-turn-filled, rough-cut path to the “set.” He was to provide Curtis for the actress to ride on that rugged path.

  “And after that, who knows?” Vincenzo had said. “Just make sure you deposit them at Cabin 3 in time for dinner.”

  For a dinner that won’t be there, Pietro thought. Hollow wood. I’ll never understand that place as long as I live.

  Nor did Pietro understand women.

  At all.

  His six disengagements proved it. He didn’t even remember their names anymore—just the dates they returned the rings. He had marked six spaces on his calendar to “celebrate” his solitude, his freedom, and his manhood.

  And ultimately, his loneliness, but it was a contented loneliness.

  November 27. She was the tall one. Athletic, ripped, a beach volleyball player from São Paulo, Brazil. So many curves in all the right places except for her stomach, which had to be the flattest on earth. Her bathing suit barely contained her, and volleyball action shots of her “shaved area” and bubble butt showed up all over the Internet at porn sites. Her derrière was briefly the number one computer wallpaper on the planet. He had proposed to her after she and her equally hot volleyball partner won a tournament at Venice Beach, and she had accepted. The marathon sex they had was steamy, powerful, and gritty. “Yes!” and “More!” were her favorite English words. He introduced her to his estate during the depths of a bitter ice storm in November. She acted like a caged leopard for her entire visit, stalking back and forth in front of the big picture window and cursing the snow and ice in Portuguese. “No!” she said once the roads cleared. “I no marry you! No tan here! Beach, not snow!”

  Pietro decided his next girlfriend and lover would speak English as a first language.

  December 24. She was the shy one. Stocky shoulders, powerful legs, a champion triathlete with triceps cuts, from Stockton, California. Second-generation Californian by way of Italy. Spoke some Italian, too. Strongest legs he had ever had wrapped around him. Looked very good in Spandex shorts and top, especially on a cold day. He had proposed to her after she had won a triathlon in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado. She had accepted with a shrug, a smile, and an “Okay.” The sex was shy, tentative, slow, and peaceful. He brought her to Ontario on Christmas Eve. He told her they could be snowed in for months but that he had plenty of wood to keep her warm. That’s when he found out that she was acutely and, as it turned out, violently claustrophobic. She broke the main picture window in his great room with two pounding fists, shouting, “I can’t breathe! I need to feel the air on my face!” He had to break out two of his snowmobiles to get her to the airport and away from his life.

  He decided he would make sure his next girlfriend and lover wasn’t psychotic in any way.

  May 29. She was the curviest one. As much front as back, and more than his hands could contain. A heart surgeon born in Nairobi, Kenya, whom he had met, strangely, at a Toronto Maple Leafs hockey game. She spoke better English than he did and looked hot (and bothered him) in whatever she wore. The softest lips he had ever kissed. He had proposed to her while giving her a massage. “Yes, oh yes!” she had whispered. “Work me lower all night long!” The sex was miraculous, sweaty, loud, and spiritual. He waited to bring her to his estate in late May … when the horseflies, mosquitoes, and sweat bees feasted on her tender, dark African flesh. She broke it off when he told her she’d “never have to work again.” She had scratched at her bites and said, “I did not leave Africa not to work! And the bugs here are worse than the ones in Kenya!”

  He decided his next girlfriend and lover wouldn’t have a career she couldn’t easily leave for him.

  July 21. She was the sultry one. Eyes as big as saucers, brown thighs as smooth as oleo. A waitress whose parents immigrated to Toronto from India and had opened a restaurant. Again, she spoke English better than he did. Traditional, brightly dressed, mysterious—and chaste, at least in front of her parents. When they were alone, however, she had the softest hands, moistest lips, and strongest tongue he had ever had roam his body. He had proposed after a late-night meal of tandoori chicken, and she had accepted. He waited until the bugs weren’t as bad in July to bring her to his estate. He also had to bring her entire extended family. Her father was not impressed. He, and not July 21, returned the ring, calling it “a trifle.”

  He decided that his next girlfriend and lover would not respect her parents’ wishes as much and have a mind of her own.

  August 18. She was the wild one. A Chinese-Canadian artist with the sexiest stomach tattooed with little yin-yang symbols. They had met at a charity art auction, mostly of her work, in Montreal. She was always looking for the next rush, and she could say the nastiest things in bed in three languages. The sex was crazy, involved, and acrobatic—and as it turned out, crowded. The fastest, hungriest, most educated tongue he had ever known. He had proposed midstroke, she had accepted, and the tattooed couple in the bed next to them had applauded. He never got her up to his estate, because in the morning, she was intertwined (in a position the Kama Sutra never imagined) with th
e tattooed couple. She paused long enough to hand him the ring, then said, “Oh well,” and turned into a human pretzel again.

  He decided his next girlfriend and lover would not be a sexual freak of nature.

  December 12. All Pietro could say was she was the most recent one. A local Abitibi woman of the Abitibi 70 Indian Reserve. Very long hair. At six-one, nearly as tall as him. Hardy, healthy, strong, and proud. Vincenzo feared her, and with good reason. She could chop a cord of wood between breakfast and lunch, and skin a bear in minutes. An elementary schoolteacher. The sex was nonexistent because of her six long-haired, chaperone brothers, though she kissed him with fervor and gusto and promised him lots of children. He had proposed to her while the two had shopped at The Soap Lady in Béarn, Quebec, her brothers in the beat-up truck outside. She smiled and nodded. They were going to have the strongest, most weather-resistant children ever born, a new breed of Canadians who could survive comfortably even in the Himalayan Mountains. She loved his estate … until she consulted some long-lost treaty that said his land really belonged to her tribe. She had hurled the ring into the night and vowed to sue.

  He had never found the ring.

  She had never sued.

  He was alone.

  Curtis stamped his front feet.

  “I know, I know,” Pietro said. “It’s too cold to take a walk down memory lane today.”

  I just hope that actress brings some sensible shoes.

  Curtis paused to excrete a particularly nasty blob of poop.

  And shoes she doesn’t mind throwing away.

  Chapter 5

  As she carefully dusted, boxed, and packed Katharina’s shoes for the third straight wearisome day, Bianca fought the urge to slip on a pair of Katharina’s unworn six-hundred-dollar Alexander McQueen sandals. They were a half size too small, but they looked so comfortable and so black.