I struggle to keep it going, this new, semi-electrified life I started living back at Kathi Kannon’s front gate and now want so badly to never end, as if I’m instantly important just by proximity to her. I decide to be bold; perhaps she’s not used to people being frank and forward, perhaps that’s what she’s looking for.
“Miss Kannon,” I say, trying to exhale away my encroaching stress-related neck pain. “I hear you’re looking for someone who can help you with your writing, and I’ve been a writer for many years now, a journalist, so I’m trained to take down information and to be sure it is precise and accurate and grammatically correct. And I can do that for you, help you with your writing and whatnot, if you want.”
She coughs, looks away, then back at me. “What?”
“I’m very responsible, I’m always on time, I’m hyper-organized, and no task is too big or too small.”
I pause for her praise.
She says, almost with frustration, “I feel like I’m dreaming and if I could just wake up, I’d be thinner.”
I continue, “I’m also good with things like organizing and maintaining a calendar. Do you have a scheduling system?”
“Yeah,” she says, standing and reaching into her pocket, pulling out scraps of paper and reading them. “‘Call Jessica Lange’—done,” she says, tossing it onto the floor. “‘Get erotic birthday cake for Russell Crowe’—done,” she says, and again tosses it aside. She pulls another scrap and reads, “‘Take birth control—’” then gasps, grabbing her stomach, “Oh my GOD!”
I grip the arms of the Chinese emperor chair and start to stand, to comfort her, to offer her peace, to counter my own confusion at how she can still be on the pill at fifty-six years old. Then she smiles.
“Acting,” she says, sitting back down with a sigh, but one chair closer to me this time. I take it as a good sign and wonder what to do next. Another eternity passes in silence, and her face again cues me to keep going, get it over with, deliver this breech baby before we all die, her of monotony, me of inherent nothingness.
“You keep your calendar on scraps of paper?” I ask, like a stunned child who just accidentally saw Chuck E. Cheese take off his costume head, revealing an awful rat man.
Kathi collects the scraps of the calendar papers and stuffs them back in her robe like treasure, glancing at me as if to say, Who doesn’t?
“Why do you want this job?” she asks.
“I hate my life,” I say, regretting it instantly, feeling myself blush, my hand uncontrollably going to the curl on the side of my head. My unruly hair, an unhinged reminder that I was prepared for every question about my entire career history—college, experience, references—but I was not prepared for this simple one about my life.
Kathi lets out a humph. “I relate,” she says, mostly to herself.
I count this as a tiny victory, so I press on, quick to turn the subject away from my neurotic problems and back to the measurable marks of this employment opportunity. “I was told you want to get serious with your life and career, that you need an assistant to help you be more professional. Do you want that?”
“I’ll be honest, it doesn’t sound like me. But when I’m bored, I’ll say anything.”
“Are you bored right now?” I ask.
Kathi apologetically nods, yes.
Despite my efforts, I can feel my body sinking with disappointment, failure.
She says, “But don’t worry, it’s not you, it’s me. Or maybe it’s us—it’s too soon to tell. Maybe it’s because we’re not sitting on Emperor Yi.” She nods to a leather chair across from us. We stare at it, as if he’s about to talk. She looks at me. “Come on. I’ll show you around.”
Kathi Kannon stands, her legs unwinding beneath her. She turns and takes off to the right and I think I can hear the sound of her eye roll. I don’t know if she’s giving me a tour because she’s warming to me or if she’s apathetic and trying to pass the time as quickly as possible.
She motions to the room where we’re standing. “This is the living room, as opposed to the dying room. I named it Mateo’s room. That’s Mateo the Moose up there.” She points to the moose head above the fireplace. “I saw him in a hotel in Bulgaria and I just felt so bad for him and figured I’d try to give him a happy life. He’s been here for so long. He once saw Jack Nicholson nude.” She looks at me to gauge my reaction. Shock, of course. And fascination. She’s pleased. Kathi turns to Mateo the Moose again. “My life’s greatest mission is to find the back half of him and put it on the other side of the wall in the other room. Come see.”
Kathi walks, and I follow, into the adjoining room, a bit deeper into her mansion, her world. The room is painted entirely red, like a womb, and is filled with boats—paintings, statuettes, drink coasters. Clusters of fragile model ships sit crammed, poised precariously, on the mantel above what I have now counted as the second raging fireplace. On the floor, there’s an ocean of throw pillows large and small, patterned and solid colors, shapes like lips and flowers. I wonder why Kathi needs so many cushions—perhaps for when she has friends over for talking, reading, orgies.
In the corner is a bar, where Kathi Kannon, film icon, takes a glass from a shelf, grinds it into an ice bucket until the glass is full, and pours a Coke Zero on top, fizz and bubbles nearly spilling out in a close call that she doesn’t even register. “Want one?” she asks.
I can’t tell if she’s being kind or if this is an order.
“Well, do you? I don’t offer to serve people every day. This isn’t Apple-tart.”
“Applebee’s?” I ask.
“Whatever the fuck,” she says, taking a gulp of her soda like a kid drinking chocolate milk.
“No, thanks,” I say. “I can’t believe you make your own drinks.”
“Who else is gonna do it? I have a few people on staff around here, but they’re mostly just ambience. Sure you don’t want one?” Kathi smirks, like she knows something. Like she’s known all along what I want, one of many things she gleaned instantly upon meeting me, probably upon meeting anyone—she knows them. Maybe it’s a natural, brilliant gift. Maybe it’s because she’s met so many people in her life, she can zero in on you like a laser. She’s met every personality type, seen every quirk. And she’s pegged me: Twitchy, uptight, wounded. And thirsty.
“Okay, sure,” I say, “I’ll take a Coke Zero.” I’m thinking, Why not—just another bit of texture to add to this weird experience. I’m thinking, I’ll write about this in my suicide note after I leave, after she rejects me.
“The most important part of the assistant job is…” Kathi starts, pausing to hand me my Coke Zero.
I chime in, “Keeping you organized, updating and backing up all of your phones and computers, helping you write every single day?”
“Keeping my e-cigarettes charged,” Kathi says.
I say, “Right.”
I say, “Got it.”
I say, “That’s the job.”
She asks, “Have you ever had one?”