“You answer your own door?” I blurt, a mix of surprise and enchantment as my eyes adjust to her. Like they’re suddenly seeing daylight.
“Yeah,” she says. “We had a butler, but he died in the pantry a few years ago. Who are you?”
“I’m Charlie Besson. I’m a big fan.”
“You don’t look very big,” she responds, intimidatingly sharp for being so tiny, five foot one, with all that life squeezed into that little frame. She grabs the door as if ready to slam it on me.
“I’m here for the personal-assistant job,” I say.
“Not the colonic?” Kathi says, disappointed, yanking the e-cigarette from her lips and letting her hand flop to her side, her shoulders slumping, her other hand still holding the front door, letting it sway slightly closed then open then closed then open, as if she’s considering.
Excitement drains from my limbs. A colonic? Ah, this is why I was granted such quick entry; she expected someone else. I’m not who she wants, of course.
“Sorry,” I start, feeling the magnitude of the not completely unexpected moment—my unforgettable hero has forgotten we had an appointment. Cue my shame, horror, foolishness. Except I notice Kathi Kannon beginning to smile. She stands up straight, pops the e-cigarette back in her mouth, lets go of her front door, allowing it to swing open.
“Acting,” she says smugly, raising her eyebrows, proud of herself.
“Wow,” I say, speechless, entranced.
“I’m just fucking with you,” Kathi says dryly. “Come in.” She turns casually and walks into the wonderland that is her home, motioning for me to follow. She moves with ease, her comfort and calm at odds with the commanding surroundings. We’re in the definition of a “great room,” with vaulted ceilings and a huge disco ball the size of an oven affixed high overhead. Sunlight from a skylight is hitting the little square mirrors of the ball and sending twisting and twirling bits of pinks and blues and purples all around. The far wall is covered in antique portraits of animals: Someone’s beloved cat. An aristocrat’s precious dog. A bird that looks suspiciously like Sean Penn.
Kathi turns back to me as I pass through the doorway. “Please wipe your feet,” she says. “The floors are made of endangered trees.”
I look down and wipe my feet on an absurdly tiny, vintage-looking Mickey Mouse rug resting on an ocean of caramel-colored hardwood flooring that stretches under us in all directions. This is not the kind of wood flooring I’ve ever seen before. These planks are not the kind from Lowe’s or Home Depot. These look like huge, ancient, wide and thick rectangle-cut logs—no doubt from some haunting enchanted forest—which have supported this house and its various occupants over the years, through every earthquake, man-made and not. To my right is a massive roaring fireplace and, above the mantel, the mounted head of a huge hairy moose staring down at us. To my left is a piano covered in photos of Kathi Kannon’s family and friends: Her flipping off a laughing Barbra Streisand. Her smoking with Bruce Willis. Her Lady-and-the-Tramp-ing a hot dog with Tom Hanks.
Kathi motions around us. “Here we are,” she says, adding, “I think. There’s no actual proof, existentially speaking.”
Beyond the piano are a few stairs leading up to a dining area. A formal dinner table is another huge hunk of wood, spanning the wide length of the room, another piece of furniture that didn’t come from West Elm. The walls are stucco, painted in faded hues of peach and blue with artistic minimurals here and there: stars, flowers, a guillotine. The accent lighting is neon pink and electric blue.
In the middle of the room, under the disco ball, directly in front of us, is a bright white Native American–style rug supporting a circle of nine old leather chairs. And that’s where Kathi Kannon turns to face me again. She takes a seat, her legs folding unnaturally beneath her like a thousand-year-old yogi. She squints, taking me in as I sit across from her.
“How old are you?” Kathi asks.
“I think it’s illegal to ask that,” I say, regretfully but playfully.
“Well,” Kathi says. “Brace yourself.”
I smile. “Everyone says I look young. I’m twenty-nine,” I say. “I guess it’s my Louisiana genes. I’m from just outside of New Orleans.”
“Interesting,” she says coldly, in a tone that could be intrigue or disgust.
In the quiet that follows, I let my eyes dart this way and that, searching for something to keep the conversation going. It’s not that there isn’t something curious in the room to ask about, it’s that there’s too much, too many things requiring inquiry, so instead I turn to my arrival on this property, asking her, “Was that you who buzzed me in at the gate?”
“I don’t know what happened,” she says. “I just wanted the ringing to stop.”
I clear my throat and instantly fear it’s too loud. I swallow hard. I force an unnatural smile—I’m thinking, How is it possible that I’ve forgotten how to smile?! I try again to brush down the curl on the side of my head. I feel my body heating up, the warmth emerging unreservedly from my forehead, my back, my armpits, all traces of a cool countenance fleeing, oozing from my pores, from my very being.
Yet Kathi sits perfectly still, her body planted in the chair, her shoulders slightly hunched as if the idea of proper posture escapes her. She observes me without a real tell about how she’s feeling about me, watches me like I’m a television.
She doesn’t make another move, another comment; she doesn’t budge. This is a woman who must be used to an awkward encounter, familiar with people who want something from her. Maybe she’s used to waiting to be asked for things—a job, an autograph, an ovum. This is a woman with a lifetime of training in inconvenience, observation, assessing. This is a woman who, despite her stature and wit, fame and fortune, forceful and bold motions through life, doesn’t seem to care who takes charge. Maybe she doesn’t really give a shit whether I start talking next or she does, whether this conversation continues or not. Maybe the mystery of what will happen next is what is most amusing to her.
And so I blather. “These are cool chairs.”
“Yeah, I like their attitudes,” she replies, awakening from her easy-breezy trance. “I got them from a flea market in Paris and had them shipped over. I feel bad that they’re made out of animal corpses, so I named them after Chinese emperors, and they all seem fine with it. You’re sitting on Qin Shi Huang. How is he on your buttocks?”
“He’s … nice.”
She raises her eyebrows again, tilting her head slightly, as if to say, What else?
“Um. I’m very grateful for the opportunity to meet with you,” I say.
“Me, too. For the opportunity to meet myself,” she says quickly, like this is her tenth take of this scene. She sucks again on her electronic cigarette, then opens her mouth, letting the vapor float out; no blowing here, no exertion, this is not going to be hard work for her. The mist calmly dissipates like clouds in summer.
I’m in awe. Kathi Kannon seems brilliant but enigmatic. Pleasant, but her teeth are slightly clenched. There’s a vibe—jesting but tangible—that she doesn’t want to be doing this and doesn’t want to be here and this whole day would be going a lot better if she was just in her bed taking a nap. I feel it as rejection, that familiar friend I’ve known since my earliest days in my lack of childhood playmates, my mother abandoning me with her tragic and early death, my father, who grew colder and colder the more I grew up and, to his horror, didn’t grow out of my more effeminate qualities.