by J. J. Murray
“Must …” Pietro said. He pantomimed taking off his clothes. “Get dry.”
Say what? “That ain’t in the script, Fonzi.”
Pietro shook his head. “You wet. Must get dry. You die.”
Katharina backed away toward the brush. “You’re out of your damn mind, Fonzi. I am not taking my clothes off.”
Vincenzo set his camera and monitor on the log. “Alessandro! Come!”
Pietro walked quickly toward Vincenzo, his eyes fierce.
Vincenzo yanked Pietro’s arm, whispering, “We have to have a long argument. Make it good.” He pushed Pietro back with two hands. “This is working!” he shouted angrily in Italian. “We’ve done two scenes in one day! It has to be a record for Katharina! Isn’t she beautiful?”
Pietro threw up his hands, and in Italian bellowed, “Oh, she really is nice looking once you get past her horns and the pitchfork tail!”
Vincenzo dug a finger into Pietro’s chest, wincing as he did so. “She doesn’t have to take off her clothes today, does she?” he spat in Italian.
Pietro balled up his fists. “It’s going to start raining heavily in half an hour!” he yelled in Italian. “It would be great if the rain put out her fire, yes?”
Vincenzo nodded and walked slowly to Katharina, his hands in his pockets. “I hate to say it, but Alessandro, he is right. You must take off some of your clothes.”
“Wet,” Pietro said. “Must dry.”
“Y’all aren’t serious,” Katharina said. “My clothes aren’t that wet.”
“Your dress, Katharina,” Vincenzo said. “At least pull off the dress. You still have clothes on underneath, yes?”
Katharina shook her head. “Oh, like she’s just going to disrobe in the wilderness because of a little wetness. Why can’t she just sit by the fire and get dry that way?”
Vincenzo sighed. “In this weather, in this place, staying dry is most important for survival. Yes, you will shiver, but that is good. That is the body’s way of keeping itself warm. Wet clothes will only make you colder, and they will dry much faster if you, I don’t know, um, hang them on something.”
“Branches, sticks,” Pietro said.
“Near the fire, but not too close,” Vincenzo said. “Your dress is irreplaceable.”
“You don’t have another one?” Katharina asked.
“No,” Vincenzo said. “That dress is one hundred and forty years old. A rare find, yes? And so well preserved.”
That explains the mothball smell, Katharina thought. These clothes should be in a museum, not muddied up by me. An actual slave woman wore these. Amazing.
“All right,” Katharina said. “I’ll take off and dry the dress, but not in front of him.” She pointed at Pietro. “Or his mule, or even you.” She tapped her headset. “I’ve got this shot, now … get on and get out of here.”
Pietro, Vincenzo, and Curtis left, winding their way up the hill.
Katharina fashioned some longer sticks into a tripod of sorts near her fire pit, using a piece of the long grass to bind the sticks together. She pulled her dress over her head, draping it over the sticks, and then warmed herself, rubbing her hands over the flames.
Her stomach rumbled mercilessly.
That’s my cue, she thought. I am doing Scene 3 now. Time to go find some food.
Chapter 19
Fish flashed his fingers over the keyboard, watching Katharina, who wore only her undershirt, bloomers, leggings, and boots, on monitor after monitor as she walked, finally stopping at the edge of a wilting field. “Where is she going? What is she doing?”
“So effortless,” Walt said. “That’s the Katharina I remember.”
“Walt, what is she doing?”
Katharina stooped to pull out a weed of some kind.
“She’s gone on to Scene 3!” Walt cried. “She’s actually following my script!” He turned to Fish. “It’s the food-gathering scene. Run me a search for edible plants in this part of Ontario.”
“Why?”
“She has to eat something,” Walt said, “and I don’t want her eating the wrong thing and dying or getting dysentery.”
“Pietro will know. He lives here, remember?” He pointed to another monitor that showed Pietro hiding behind a tree near Katharina. “He’s not letting her out of his sight. And, anyway, how are we going to get the information to her? The fax machine is still jammed.”
“Oh yeah.”
Fish zoomed in on Katharina’s hands. “I hope that shit isn’t poisonous,” he said. “Diarrhea is the least of our worries.”
Katharina smelled the weed, which looked like just about every other piece of vegetation in the forest, and it smelled like grass. She had run by moss on rocks and lichen gouging several trees, and hoped she could eat something leafy. She pulled a single leaf from the weed and brought it to her mouth—
Pietro grabbed her wrist from behind. “No.”
Katharina turned and tried to break Pietro’s grip. “Why not?”
Pietro let go of her wrist and put both of his hands to his neck.
“It would kill me?” She dropped the leaf and the weed.
“No.” Pietro said. “Make sick.”
Katharina walked to an evergreen-looking shrub that held bright red berries. “I don’t appreciate you following me, Fonzi. You keep ruining my shots. And, anyway, what if I want my character to get sick? You ever think of that?”
“Che?”
“Sick.” She pantomimed gagging. “Now go away. You’re still in my shot.”
Pietro moved in front of her, crouching down and picking several berries, popping them into his mouth. “No. Keep you safe.”
“You’re a real pain in the ass, you know that?”
Pietro smiled as he chewed. “Sì. You try.”
She plucked a tiny berry. “What is it?”
“Kinnikinnick,” Pietro said. “Bearberry.” He ate several more.
Katharina put a single berry in her mouth. It was bitter but palatable. She looked around and saw more of the same bushes sprouting between the rocks on the hillside.
“Okay, Mr. Pain-in-the-ass, what else can I eat?” she asked.
For the next hour, Pietro led Katharina through the forest, pointing out but not plucking or picking the various plants she could eat safely. She did the picking and the sampling, tasting dark blue and black elderberries, the pith of fireweed, wrinkled blueberries, chicory, crowberries, and lotus leaves.
Pietro cracked the shell of a walnut and handed her the pieces. “Much protein,” he said. He looked up.
Katharina nodded and took a small bite. “Decent.” She, too, looked up, but not at the ominous clouds. “If I could eat these pine trees, I’d be set.”
Pietro reached up to a thin pine branch and snapped off the end. He peeled the bark off a thin twig and chewed the wood. “So-so. Sour. Better in spring. Sweet.”
She jumped for a branch but missed. “I’m too short.”
Pietro blinked.
She jumped again. “Do you mind?”
Pietro pulled down a limb but released it before she could grab on. “Vitamin C.”
“No shit,” Katharina said.
Pietro smiled. “Eat many berries, lots of shit.” He laughed heartily and pulled the branch down again. “Joke!”
As before, he released the branch before Katharina could latch onto it. “Must go,” he said.
“Why?” Katharina asked.
A thunderous, cold rain plummeted from the sky, as if a drain plug had been pulled from the clouds.
“Go!” Pietro yelled. “Get dress!”
By the time Katharina slogged through the forest to the clearing, the rain had soaked her dress completely, her fire only smoked, and smaller puddles were forming into larger puddles, ministreams running in snakelike rivulets through the clearing. She wrung out her dress as she ran for the bridge, her nipples threatening to chop down trees as she passed them by.
* * *
“She looks as if she’s do
ne for the day,” Fish said. “Crossing the stream on the bridge.”
Walt sighed. “I wish I could resend the entire script.” He had watched and listened to Bianca cussing at the fax machine before kicking it and throwing up her hands. “We’re good for a few days. She still has to get the fire going again, gather some food, and build her shelter.”
“Approaching Cabin 2, Pietro on the porch drinking coffee.” Fish zoomed in on Pietro. “Ah, shucks. I know he’s gonna start some shit. Why does he have to do that?”
Katharina no longer felt the rain by the time she approached Pietro’s cabin. In fact, she was numb from the top of her head to the tips of her big toes. Her leggings clung to her body, her nipples threatened to secede from her body through the fabric of her undershirt, and her boots made squishing sounds.
Pietro, warm and dry on his porch, held out his coffee mug. “A good day, yes?”
Katharina paused to catch her breath. Is he toasting me? Smiling? Like he saved me or something. His cooking is terrible, his espresso is sludge, his mule—”Shit!”—has loose bowels.
“Ciao, bella,” Pietro said. He winked and went inside his cabin.
Why isn’t this my cabin? Katharina wondered. It’s closer to the set.
She continued on, scraping her boot on a rock and the side of a tree. He called me “beautiful” again. Right. Soaked to the bone, though I am right perky up front. He didn’t give me attitude this time, either.
But Pietro’s grin annoyed her. Fonzi had a shit-eating grin. He doesn’t think I can do this shit on my own. I’ll show him. I know what to eat now. I know how to build a fire now. I’m even going to trap some critters, build a shelter like the Taj Mahal, and I’ll even do it all without any of his help. Poco molto lento that, Fonzi.
Chapter 20
Bianca heard steps on the porch and dashed from her bedroom to the bathroom, shutting the door behind her as the front door banged open.
“Bianca!”
Bianca counted to ten before flushing the toilet and the wrapper from the granola bar she had just finished. Opening the bathroom door, Bianca jumped when she saw Katharina.
I shouldn’t even be thinking this, but damn! Bianca thought. I wish I had a camera! The Enquirer would pay top dollar to see what’s left of Katharina Minola.
“Who else did you think it’d be?” Katharina asked. “You look like you’ve seen a damn ghost.”
“You’re soaking wet,” Bianca said, rushing to Katharina and taking the dress. She took it into the bathroom and wrung it out over the tub. “I’ll get that fire blazing for you in a minute, Miss Minola.”
“Whatever,” Katharina said.
She said “whatever” like, well, “whatever” is supposed to mean, which is “I don’t care.” That’s a good thing, isn’t it? Bianca peeked out and saw Katharina sitting in a chair, her legs crossed and resting on top of the table.
After hanging the dress from a hook attached to the mantel, Bianca stoked the fire and added more wood. “I tried to get the fax machine to work, but it’s still jammed or something. It says there are twenty pages waiting to be sent.”
Katharina sighed. “Don’t worry about it. I won’t need them.”
Bianca smelled something vile. “What’s that smell?”
Katharina nodded at her boots. “Mule shit. Watch your step out there.”
Bianca blinked. Is she suddenly being nice? Bianca trembled for a split second. This is scary. “Um, I will, Miss Minola.”
“Where’s my coffee?” Katharina asked.
Bianca sighed. “It’s all gone. I’m sorry, Miss Minola.”
“Whatever,” Katharina said again.
Twice she says that, Bianca thought. Geez, the suspense is killing me! “Um, how’d it go out there?” She winced and waited for Katharina’s normal venom.
“It went well, actually,” Katharina said. “That fire feels nice.”
My God, Bianca thought, is this the old Katharina back already? “Thank you, Miss Minola. Um, I’m glad things are going so well. I’m still not feeling that well, so if you don’t mind, I’d like to go lie down for a while.” And eat some more granola bars.
“Where’d you go, Bianca?”
To Vincenzos nice bathroom to relieve myself of half a pound of raisins, “bear” stew, and Kashi. Oh, and I ate some microwave popcorn. Movie-theater butter. Yum! “My stomach was still bothering me, so I came up here to relieve myself.” That was weak. “I, um, I am feeling a little better.”
“I expect you to be close to me at all times.”
“I’m sorry, Miss Minola. I’ll try not to let it happen again.” Oh, but it will! Bianca thought joyfully. Vincenzo also has ham-and-cheese Hot Pockets, too!
Katharina drummed her boots on the table. “Well?”
“Oh. Sorry.” She removed Katharina’s boots, careful to avoid touching the sole soiled by mule dung. She propped up the boots against the screen, but the heat from the fire reactivated the stench. “I’ll, um, I’ll put these outside.”
“Don’t bother,” Katharina said. “I’d rather have stinky dry boots than wet ones.”
“Um, okay,” Bianca said, and she sat in the other chair. “So, it’s really going well?”
“It’s going,” Katharina said. “I have to build a shelter down there next. How would you do it? You used to frolic through the woods, right?”
Bianca nodded. “Yeah, but I use a tent when I go camping. I wouldn’t know how to build a shelter if my life depended on it.”
Katharina closed her eyes. “So you know what I’m up against, then.” She snapped her eyes open. “Do we still have that pan that had the coffee in it?”
“It’s in the bathroom sink soaking.”
“Well, rinse it out and warm up some water.” She smiled. “You’re giving me a sponge bath. We don’t have a sponge, do we?”
“No.”
“A washcloth?”
Bianca nodded. “Two.”
“Soap?”
“A little bar, um, like you get in a hotel.”
Katharina chuckled. They have thought of just about everything to make me miserable. “Well, don’t waste it. I just need you to knock off some of this dirt.”
Bianca rinsed and filled the pot, pushed it into the coals under the fireplace grate, and waited until she could hear it bubbling. She pulled it out carefully and left it on the floor to cool for a few minutes. Dipping in one of the washcloths, she brought it steaming to Katharina’s face. She dabbed it on the back of her own wrist. “It’s kind of hot,” she said.
“I’ll be fine,” Katharina said.
Bianca wiped off Katharina’s face, neck, shoulders, arms, and hands with one washcloth, drying them with the other. The water in the pot turned beige. “I can boil more water if you like, maybe get Alessandro to bring that cauldron back so you can take a proper bath.”
“It’s okay,” Katharina said, starting to nod off.
“I can go get you something to eat if you like,” Bianca said.
“Sure,” Katharina said, her eyelids drooping.
I like this person, Bianca thought. She has character. She even takes naps like normal people.
Bianca took the comforter off her own bed and snuggled it around Katharina’s body. She slipped into her coat and left the cabin for Vincenzo’s.
“That was hot,” Fish said.
“What was?” Walt asked.
“You were watching, weren’t you? One hot woman giving another hot woman a bath like that? Man, you have been married too long.” He pressed the squawk button. “Vincenzo, Bianca is on her way to your place to get some food. What do you have?”
“I could whip up some macaroni ‘n’ cheese,” Vincenzo said.
Walt smiled. “Is it the kid kind, the one with the funny shapes?”
“I’ll check.” A few moments later, Vincenzo said, “Yeah. It is.”
“That’ll do,” Walt said. “Our girl had a good day today, didn’t she?”
“Yeah,” Vincenzo sai
d. “What’s she doing now?”
Fish zoomed in on Katharina’s face, her eyes rapidly moving behind her eyelids. “That girl is dreaming hard. I don’t know how she can sleep, though. That espresso looked 180 proof.”
“I thought we were supposed to try to keep her awake, Vincenzo,” Walt said. “If we had that fax machine working, we could spit out pages whenever she started to doze off.”
“Maybe tomorrow,” Vincenzo said. “She deserves her rest.”
* * *
Bianca knocked on Vincenzo’s door, and he opened it without a wig on his head.
Bianca entered. “What if I had been Katharina?”
Vincenzo showed her his walkie-talkie. “Fish told me she was sleeping.”
Bianca went into the little kitchen and examined a pot. “Are those noodles?”
“For macaroni ‘n’ cheese,” Vincenzo said.
“Yum!”
He opened a tiny refrigerator sitting on the counter. “And because you’ve been so good, I’ll even add hot dogs.”
Bianca bit her lower lip. “How good have I been?”
Vincenzo counted out three hot dogs.
Bianca took two bowls from a cupboard and two spoons from a drawer. “I’m her official taste-tester, so I’ll have to eat some before I go back.”
An hour later, the two had polished off an entire batch of macaroni ‘n’ cheese with hot dogs and had to make more, this time without the hot dogs.
“You have a little cheese right …” She wiped a smudge of cheese from Vincenzo’s cheek.
“Thank you.” He sighed. “I, um, I wish you didn’t have to go. I wanted you to be able to see all the footage we got today.”
“And pop some more popcorn?”
He nodded. “But …”
“Yeah …”
The walkie-talkie squawked. “Target is awake and hungry,” Fish’s voice said, “target is awake and hungry.”
Bianca took the walkie-talkie from Vincenzo’s back pocket. “Is she pissed off, awake, and hungry, or just awake and hungry?”
“Hey, Bianca, this is Fish, and Katharina is pissed.”
Vincenzo put a top on the pot and handed a serving spoon to Bianca.