Light from the hallway jets into and across her room as I open the door. Things inside start to reveal themselves: a massive pile of clothes on the floor, an elliptical machine draped in evening gowns and a single dangling bra, a nightstand overwhelmed with books and papers and pill bottles and a lamp and a phone that’s off the hook. A king-sized bed fit for a queen, the queen, my queen, my new boss, apparently, now reduced to a lump. She’s a single woman and presumably alone in bed, but I’m not totally sure. She’s under what appears to be a huge pile of quilts and blankets and throws knitted from the fur of some soft and exotic wild animal—like one of those creatures featured in National Geographic, previously living a life of horror, desperately avoiding predators, hungrily hunting for food, dying an early and violent death in a hot and miserable climate—now woven into a flat work of comfortable art adorning the body of an internationally celebrated millionaire.
The room is wall-to-wall blue shag carpet. Her bed looks as if it’s made of pages of books, but they’re just interwoven scraps of linen upon which pages of classic works of fiction have been printed: Shakespeare, Edgar Allan Poe, Kathi Kannon. E-cigarettes are charging in every power outlet, casting a pulsing, eerie red glow in the air.
“Good morrrrrrrrrrning,” I softly speak-sing to her, my voice cracking, not used to this new cheery tone. She doesn’t budge. Her body is so entombed in blankets, small and isolated like an island in the middle of a king-sized ocean, it’s not possible to notice any movement, any breathing.
“Good morning,” I say, louder and even cheerier, hoping she’s not dead, which would end my life’s rebirth, my new power position, my wresting of my dull life from the clutches of nothingness, before it even began.
“Hi,” I say sweetly but more authoritatively. No movement. I swallow, my smile fades. “I brought you…” I say, looking down at the ice and soda and pills, “… breakfast.”
I lean in, my eyes scanning this space where my childhood hero from TV and film has landed as a collection of actual living atoms and molecules.
“Are you dead?” I whisper kindly. (ALWAYS BE POLITE! I hear my father screaming in my head.) “Are you dead, ma’am—I mean, Kathi?” I look around for a clue, what to do next, but then I hear something.
“Mmmmm,” Kathi groans, and rolls onto her back. “What? Who?”
“I’m Charlie, your new assistant. I’m here. Obviously. I got your toothpicks. They’re in the kitchen.”
“My what?” she asks.
“And I have your breakfast here,” I say, chipper, relieved, nervous, hoping I’m doing all of this correctly. I unsteadily balance the tray on one hand, and with the other I crack open the can of Coke Zero and pour its fizziness over ice. “It’s a lovely day. Isn’t it great to be alive?”
“I feel like I’m in a cocoon of quiet and not quiet,” she says.
“Here’s a soda and cereal and your favorite antipsychotic medications. Where do you want them?”
“Anally.”
“Ha ha,” I say. Literally the sound ha and then ha, the fakest enthusiasm I’ve ever heard, the faking of faking of real.
“Oh, my,” she mutters, maybe thinking this has been a mistake, and by this, I mean me. “You must lighten up, Cockring.” She checks out the goodies I’m carrying. “Just put all that stuff on the nightstand.”
Beside her bed is not technically a nightstand but a weathered drop-front secretary desk, as if she’s the kind of writer who can’t bear to be far from her work, even while asleep. But there’s no evidence of its intended use. It’s covered in candy wrappers, books, jewelry, makeup, a huge lamp with a leather shade featuring cowboy patterns. I start to push the trash aside. I move a few half-full cans of Coke Zero to the back. I hang up her phone receiver.
“Thank you for the job,” I say.
She says, “It’s not a job, it’s a lifestyle.”
I continue to collect obvious garbage, a rock-solid half-eaten brownie, 7-Eleven receipts, a crusty spoon.
“What’s happening?” she asks.
“I’m just making room for your … treats—”
“No, what’s happening in the world?”
“It’s a beautiful day outside. Life is glorious—”
She turns to me playfully, brushing wisps of hair out of her face, revealing evidence of the kind of night she must have had: thick mascara, glitter on her eyelids, a smudge of lipstick remaining on her lips. “Are any celebrities dead?”
I think for a moment.
She says, “I mean, I know there are dead celebrities in the universe at large, but are there any who are newly dead today?”
“Not that I know of,” I say.
“I read yesterday that doctors removed a bird’s feather from a boy’s cheek. They have no idea how it got there.”
I say, “Wow!”
She says, “Do you have any news like that?”
“Not immediately. But I’ll get back to you.”
“Am I still famous?”
“You’re hanging in there.”
Kathi chuckles, reaches for her soda, and takes a sip. “I was up all night. I kept getting emails from someone named Linda Kin. Who is that?” she asks, handing me her phone.
I look at her home screen, with 105,271 unread emails and 97 unread texts. My heart palpitates at the slow reveal of the scope of my new duties.
“Linda Kin. K-I-N?” I ask.
“Yeah.”
Kathi’s emails load and it becomes clear.
“Do you mean … LinkedIn?”
“Whoever she is, make her stop!”
I move the emails to her spam folder. She’s trying to gift me a sense of humor; I’ll try to gift her a sense of order.
“Want to do some writing today?” I ask. “Work on your next book? Do you want me to proofread anything, type anything up?”
“There’s nothing to proofread. I haven’t written anything. Yet! But we will, Cockring. Don’t worry.”
“Can I get you anything else?”
“No. Thank you, Cockring. I need to rest a little longer.”
“Okay,” I whisper, bowing only slightly, barely noticeable, as a servant leaves royalty. “Thank you again for the job.”
“You mean the lifestyle,” she whispers back, rolling farther away from me, deeper into her wrappings, sinking further into her memory foam and back into slumber.
“Yes, the lifestyle.”
I put my hands in my pockets as I back out of her room, my right fingers rubbing my cell phone, my left fingers tracing my keys down to the key ring, to that familiar tiny, oval shape, down to my mother’s locket. I’m thinking, Hello, Mom. I’m thinking, Maybe you’re really with me. I’m thinking, Did you make this happen for me?
I gently close the door of Kathi Kannon’s bedroom, the light retreating slowly from the lump of celebrity, the bed, the nightstand, the elliptical handlebars, the pile of gowns, the lonely bra.
The door clicks shut, and I exhale not just air but my very life force, breathing it out, shoving it from my body as if my heart is so full there’s no room left to store anything in my lungs. My body heaves, my face turns red, not from the usual embarrassment or humiliation but, this time, from the physical need to refill my lungs. I left my physical form for a brief, heavenly second and now I’m forced back, that cruel twist of life, of living, that instinct to survive and even to thrive. I take a deep breath in and try to steady myself, my hero behind me, my future with her in front of me. I calm myself, surprised to feel on my face … that I’m smiling.