by J. J. Murray
I almost feel sorry for her. “Sorry, Miss Minola.”
Katharina flung herself onto the other side of the bed. “No. There won’t be anything else.”
Bianca scurried from the room to the other bedroom and felt under the mattress. Yes! A big bag of raisins! She tiptoed to her doorway, waved at the cameras, then zipped back to her mattress. She ate whole handfuls greedily, making sure not to leave any strays on the down comforter. After eating half the bag, she slipped over to the fireplace and added another log. She pulled a chair closer, took off her socks, and let her bare feet warm near the grate.
Yeah, this is the life, she thought.
“What are they doing now?” Walt asked, returning from a quick call to his wife and kids.
“I’d say they’re thawing,” Fish said. “Looks like Bianca is on fire duty. Poor thing.”
Walt brought a folding chair next to Fish. “I don’t know. Bianca seemed to be having fun. She’s easy to look at, huh?”
“Katharina is still sexier,” Fish said. “A whole lot sexier.”
“Ah, but Bianca is nicer,” Walt said. “That makes her beauty all the more appealing.”
Fish clicked from Bianca to Katharina, who had yet to move from her “flung” position. “Katharina’s pissed.”
“She’s just exhausted.”
“She slept five hours on the plane,” Fish said, zooming in. “Look at how she’s gripping her comforter. That woman is pissed. Her knuckles are almost white. By the way, aren’t we supposed to keep her awake all night?”
“Let’s give her one good night’s rest.” Walt squinted at the screen. “She’s mumbling something … Can you punch up the sound?”
“Volume up …”
“I am so hungry,” Katharina mumbled, “I could eat a mule, even a mule that smells like thousand-year-old shit …”
Chapter 13
In her dream, Katharina Minola was reaching for a chunky chicken salad sandwich lying on a huge blue dish, Grandma Pearl humming “I Don’t Feel No Ways Tired” in the kitchen. The dish, a relic from Grandma Pearl’s grandma’s slavery days, however, was sitting on a strangely ancient wooden table in front of a roaring fire somewhere out in the open in the woods. Katharina’s hand had just grasped the sandwich when a shotgun blast shook the cabin, rattling the windows. She jumped up and ran out of her bedroom.
“What … the hell … was that?” she wheezed.
Bianca, groggy but sated by half a bag of juicy raisins, sat up and stretched. “It sounded like a shotgun, Miss Minola, 20 gauge, I think.” Or something like that.
“‘It sounded like a shotgun, Miss Minola, 20 gauge, I think,’ “Katharina said, mocking Bianca. “I know what a shotgun sounds like.” She retreated to her bedroom. “You go look.”
Bianca added two more logs to the fire, threw on her jacket, and stepped outside.
Whoa, she thought. “Wow,” she whispered. Whoa, she thought again. “Whoa,” she said aloud.
Bianca looked out into the forest primeval. Mist rose from thick green vegetation and curled around pine trees. Streaks of sunlight reached through a thin layer of fog into the ice-blue sky. She saw no paths at all and could barely see the smoke from Pietro’s cabin in the distance to the west. The trees around Katharina’s cabin were so thick that Bianca imagined herself to be on an island of pine, the crisp scent thrilling her nose.
I’m in an Ansel Adams picture, she thought, only this one’s in color.
The wind whipping up and the tree branches swaying, Bianca’s toes told her to go back inside. As she turned, she saw a plain wooden box on a rocking chair at the far end of the rough-planked porch. She picked up the box, saw “Katharina” stamped in black ink in one corner, and sat in the rocker, creaking back and forth and smiling.
This place is so beautiful, she thought. And I bet Katha-diva doesn’t even notice.
“Bianca!”
“Right on cue,” Bianca said. She stood, heard the sound of rushing water far to her right, and went inside, laying the box on the table.
“I didn’t see anything, Miss Minola,” she said. “Maybe Alessandro shot a grizzly bear.”
Katharina shuffled from her bedroom to the table. “I hope he shot his mule by mistake.” And this morning, I would eat me some mule steak. She stared at the box. “What’s that?”
“I don’t know, Miss Minola. It was just sitting outside on a rocker. It has your name on it.”
Katharina shook her head. “Funny way to deliver a costume. You open it. It might have mule spit on it.”
Bianca pried the top off the box, pulling out a plain brown dress with a single large pocket the width of the dress. She laid it flat on the table.
Katharina sighed.
Bianca pulled out a pair of flattened brown leather boots, white leggings, a brown headband, and a wicked-looking knife, its handle rough and weathered.
“It all looks authentic,” Bianca said.
Katharina sat in front of her costume. “It all looks low-budget.” She picked up the knife and sliced the air several times. “This is nice.” She felt the edge. “Sharp, too. I might skin me a mule today.” Or the man leading said mule.
“You know, Miss Minola,” Bianca said, “it looks exactly like what a runaway slave might have actually worn.”
Katharina rolled her eyes. “Of course it does, Bianca. But they had better rags on Roots.”
Footsteps sounded on the porch.
Katharina started to get up but sat back down. “I hope to God that’s my breakfast.”
After a single knock, Pietro barreled in with a steaming cast-iron pot and two wooden spoons. He waved the pot over the table until Bianca had removed Katharina’s costume and laid it carefully on a chair. He set down the pot, removed the top, and stuck in the wooden spoons.
To Bianca in Italian he said, “Eat first, and eat fast. Find some buckshot. It’s on the bottom. Act sick, run out, I’ll come back in, take the pot, and throw out what’s left. Everyone else has already had seconds, and although it’s venison, you tell her it’s grizzly bear.” He nodded and left.
Katharina picked up the knife. “That is a rude man.” She stuck the knife in the table. I wouldn’t skin him, though. Too hairy. The man has hog bristles. He might dull my knife. She peered over the edge of the pot. “What is that … lumpy goo?”
“It’s grizzly bear stew,” Bianca said. “It smells delicious, doesn’t it?” She took a spoon, dipped it, found a nice healthy lump of meat, and put it in her mouth. “Oh, this is so good.”
Katharina gingerly dipped her spoon. She brought the spoon to her lips, then pushed it back to analyze it. “What’s this chunk here, Bianca?”
Bianca swallowed her second spoonful and looked at Katharina’s spoon. “Looks like a huge hunk of grizzly gristle.” I’ll bet that’s the first time anyone heard “grizzly gristle” in a movie. “I wouldn’t eat that if I were you.”
Katharina curled up her lip and dumped the “gristle” back into the pot. She dipped her spoon again and came up with a small chunk of meat. “What’s this?”
Bianca dug for some buckshot with her third spoonful, found some, and carefully lifted it to her lips. “Ooh, Katharina, you are so lucky. That’s part of the grizzly bear’s liver. It’s supposed to be the best part, an Asian delicacy. And it looks so bloody and rare! I’ll eat it if you don’t want it.”
Katharina returned her spoon to the pot.
Bianca let the buckshot roll around in her mouth before removing three little pieces of metal and dropping them one by one onto the table. “Watch out for buckshot. I’ll bet he just killed it! Hmm. Nice and fresh and rare. The grizzly bear’s flesh was probably still steaming when he put it in the pot.”
Katharina gulped hard. “Wonderful.” She dipped her spoon again. “Any buckshot in there?”
Bianca looked carefully. “I don’t think so. Unless it splintered. The slivers are too small to see, and I hear they can do some serious damage to your intestines, but I wouldn’t wo
rry about it.”
Katharina held the spoon in the air over the pot and turned the spoon over. “I’ll just get some broth, then.” She skimmed the top and filled the spoon to the brim, audibly licking her lips.
Just as Katharina was bringing the spoon in contact with her lips, Bianca grabbed her stomach, belched loudly, and screamed, “Oh my God!”
Katharina dropped her spoon into the pot.
Bianca ran outside and leaned over beside a tree, retching, gagging, and smiling for the unseen cameras.
“She’s fantastic,” Walt said.
“A natural,” Fish said.
“And sexy,” Walt said.
“An outstanding regurgitationist,” Fish said.
Walt blinked. “That’s not even a word.”
Fish shrugged. “It should be.”
Pietro appeared from behind a thick stand of pine trees. He nodded once to Bianca. Bianca winked.
Pietro barged inside and snatched the pot off the table. “No good!” he yelled. “Make sick.” He collected the pot and spoons and left, slamming the door behind him.
Walt pointed at the interior shot of Katharina. “Zoom in on Katharina.”
Fish smiled. “Zooming …”
Katharina’s eyes fluttered, her tongue lolling around her lips. She seemed to be muttering something.
Fish laughed. “Boosting volume …”
“Grizzly bear-freaking stew and bullets for breakfast?” Katharina muttered. “Lumps of grizzly gristle? Rare bloody bear liver? Buckshot slivers?” She pulled the knife from the table. “I’d kill for a bloody English muffin.”
“Cue Vincenzo,” Walt said. “Hey, I better start typing some of this.”
Fish pointed at another computer. “All set up for you. Everything dumps into that one. Just press REWIND. You can run the video on one half and Word on the other.” He pressed the squawk button twice on the transmitter. “You’re on, Vinnie. You got the headset?”
“Roger,” Vincenzo said.
Vincenzo knocked on the door and entered holding a headset, a so-called “point-of-view” camera with a lens in the center of a headpiece, a wire microphone on the side. He saw Katharina slumped on the table. “Ah. You are up. A beautiful, misty, foggy day to begin, yes? The light outside is fantastic, the sky so blue.” He put the headset on the table. “This is what you will wear today and every day.”
Katharina laughed softly. “I’m a runaway slave with a tiara on my head?”
“No. You are the camera, and this is—”
“Not now, not now,” Katharina interrupted. “I need breakfast. Coffee. A croissant. A Pop-Tart. Hell, some damn Raisin Bran. An Egg McMuffin. Anything.”
Vincenzo sniffed the air. “You did not have the grizzly bear stew? It was delizioso.”
“It made my assistant sick to her stomach,” Katharina said. “You probably passed her.”
“Oh. So sorry. Is she all right?”
A guttural, gagging sound emanated from outside the door.
“Oh. So sorry. I guess not.” Vincenzo lifted the dress from the chair. “Have you tried on your costume?”
Katharina shook her head slowly. “Like I said, I need to be fed first.”
Vincenzo took the rest of Katharina’s costume and laid it on the table. “Ah. But this is, how you say, kismet, fate? Your character would be hungry, too, yes? She might even be starving.”
Katharina nodded. “Yes, but c’mon, Sly,” she moaned. “Some coffee at least.”
Vincenzo rapped the table with his knuckles. “She would have no coffee. She would not have eaten maybe for days, a week. You ate yesterday, yes?”
“I need my strength, yes?’”
Vincenzo shook his head. “Your character would be very weak, very tired. Desperate.”
“I am desperate, Sly. A plain piece of toast?”
Vincenzo picked up the headset. “You must wear this at all times unless I say otherwise. The viewer will see what you see, hear what you hear. Very cutting-edge stuff. If you fall, the viewer falls. If you run, the viewer is running. If you swim, the viewer goes—”
“I understand the concept, Sly,” Katharina said. “I’m not three years old.”
“Good. I will be able to see what you see on my monitor, and we should have immediate playback capability. I will take wide shots every now and then, but mostly it is you who will determine what the audience will see, hear, and feel.”
Katharina smiled an eerie grin. “And if I really just want to see a plate of eggs, hear bacon sizzling, and feel buttered toast sliding down my throat, will all that happen if I put on my magic crown?”
Vincenzo sat back. “Ah, but your character—”
Katharina shot out of her chair and leaned heavily on the table. “Shut the hell up about my character! This is a freaking movie, Sly, not reality. I eat. It’s something I do. I am not this slave woman, and I will not leave this cabin until I am fed. Understand?”
Time to instill a little fear. “Ah, but the light, the fog, the mist—it is calling for you. It will be much, much colder and cloudier tomorrow. It may even snow, and when it snows around here, it snows a great deal. It snows meters, not centimeters. We must get these shots this morning.”
“What shots? The script still hasn’t arrived.”
Vincenzo darted his eyes to the mantel over the fireplace. “The script will be along any minute, I assure you. Any minute now. But I already know the opening scene very well.”
“You ready?” Fish asked.
“I’ve been ready, Fish,” Walt said. “I’ve just been waiting for the best moment to send it. It’s all about timing, you know.”
“Um, Vincenzo just said ‘any minute now,’ like he expects it, um, any minute now.”
Walt shook his head. “He said ‘any minute.’ So, I’ll pick a random minute. And this isn’t it.”
Fish returned his gaze to the monitor. “You writers take things way too literally.”
“I tell you what,” Vincenzo said. “We will do the opening scene this morning, and then you will get your breakfast. I promise.”
Katharina closed her eyes. “What will I be fed?”
“Alessandro has made his special porcupine and turkey gizzard salad. Very tasty and nutritious.”
Katharina coughed.
Fish coughed, too. “That even sounds nasty to me, and I like sushi.”
“I make joke, Katharina, I make joke!”
Katharina tried to smile. “Yeah, a joke.”
“No, no. Alessandro has another stew cooking, and it is not grizzly bear this time. It is venison. Very tender. I promise. So. Please get dressed.” He stood. “Alessandro’s mule will take you down to the set.”
“Uh-uh,” Katharina said. “I am not riding that mule.”
Vincenzo smiled. “But did you not ride him last night?”
“Yes, but it was dark as shit out. I can see today. Thanks, but I’ll walk.”
Vincenzo nodded. “As you wish. You are the star! I will go see about your assistant.”
“Wait, wait a minute,” Katharina said. “Did the other plane arrive yet?”
Vincenzo shook his head sadly. “Um, no. Sorry to say, but the plane that replaced the first plane had engine trouble, too. Too much weight, they said. All that luggage. Something about shoes. They got only to Las Vegas and had to land. They have to wait to get a bigger plane.”
“How long?” Katharina asked.
“Oh, I don’t know. There is a big poker tournament in town, they say. Not many planes available. Maybe several days. Scottie is fine, though.” He went to the door. “Ciao.”
Katharina covered her head with her hands. “Don’t say that word.”
Vincenzo leaped off the porch and saw Bianca bent over and gagging beside some trees. He squatted next to her and whispered, “You were wonderful last night, Bianca.”
“Thank you,” Bianca whispered. “And thanks for the food.”
“I’ll bring you more whenever you tell me to,” he said. �
��But about last night. You were sensational. I really mean it. I don’t give out empty praise. Okay, I just did with Katharina, but …”
Bianca burped loudly and grimaced.
“Are you really sick, Bianca?”
She nodded. “I kind of am. I ate too many raisins last night. I may have the runs later.”
Vincenzo put his lips very close to her ear and whispered, “You just told Fish and Walter that.”
Bianca looked up. “I don’t care.” She held her stomach. “I need to find a gabinetto freddo.” She smiled. “That was pretty funny.”
Vincenzo looked up as Pietro came into view, leading Curtis. “My cabin, Cabin 1, the first one you passed? It has a nice modern bathroom. When Katharina finally gets going, why don’t you go down there until you feel better?”
“Thanks, Vincenzo,” she said. “I will, if she’ll let me.”
Pietro turned Curtis around up at the porch.
“Katharina won’t ride him again,” Bianca said.
“That’s not the point,” Vincenzo said. “Check out Curtis’s eyes.”
Bianca squinted. “They’re … blue-green. Are they contacts?”
“Nope. Pietro found him and brought him up from Virginia.”
“Amazing,” Bianca said. She looked briefly into Vincenzo’s eyes, then back at the ground. “You really go all-out, huh?”
“Bianca!” Katharina howled.
“Oh God, how I hate that sound,” Bianca said, slowly rising. “I wish I could change my name.”
“I like your name,” Vincenzo said.
Yeah. He likes me. “It’s showtime.”
Vincenzo winked. “Break a leg.”
Bianca took a step and winced. “I’d rather break both of hers.”
Chapter 14
“Where have you been all this time, Bianca?” Katharina whined, struggling with her leggings. “Help me get into these.”
Bianca helped Katharina get dressed, grabbing her belly occasionally.