My phone buzzes again, and I nearly sideswipe a Beverly Hills traffic enforcement Prius as I realize it’s not Kathi calling but my dad again. I send the call to voicemail.
I’m thinking, Fuuuuuck.
Traffic.
Gate.
COCK.
Park.
Rush up the hill.
Moose.
Fireplace.
Bedroom.
“Hiiiii,” I sing as I enter. Kathi doesn’t look up at me. The room is full of shopping bags and takeout food containers. This must be Vegas: shopping and eating and spending Nova Quest residuals. The room is also full of tension.
“Cockring, you didn’t respond to my little texts,” she says.
“All those questions? Those were real questions?”
“Why wouldn’t they be?”
I search for answers like a clown in a courtroom, but none come.
Kathi continues, “I was with a friend and I had medical questions about that pill and stuff. And also, she had some socks she wanted to give me, but I don’t know my sock situation.”
“I think it’s funny you don’t know what medications you’re on,” I say.
“That’s why I have an assistant. Don’t you think?”
I nod yes.
“I mean, you’ve been here, what, two weeks? What do you do all day?” she asks.
Embarrassment washes over me. I honestly have no idea what I’m supposed to be doing, waiting every day for detailed instructions that never come. Do I tell her that?
Kathi is staring at me, waiting for answers, and my phone buzzes again in my pocket and I slap it through my jeans, clicking the side button to restore the status quo—tension.
“Do you need to get that?” Kathi asks.
“No, no. Sorry.”
I’m thinking, Dad!
I’m thinking, Rage!
I’m thinking, Someone kill me!
“So, what do you do all day?” Kathi asks again.
“Waiting—” I start.
“Waiting for what? For me?” Kathi asks, smiling kindly. “I’m not a leader. I’m a follower. It might look like I’m a leader because I’m in movies, but I’m just a follower who’s in movies and I happen to have other followers following me but we’re just all confused followers following followers following followers and it’s a clusterfuck of following. There’s a line of people following me and thinking I’m leading them and I’m just, like, trying to find somewhere to take a nap.”
“Oh,” I offer with hesitation, uncertain if follow-up questions are helpful or if they just contribute to the follower culture she’s telling me she wants to cull.
Kathi pulls back the covers beside her and reveals a new gray cardigan with shiny brown buttons—like they’ve been carved from polished wood. It’s folded neatly, like it just came out of a tissue-lined box. “I got you this gift. Feel it. Feeling is critical.”
“You got me a gift?” I take the cardigan in my two hands. It’s soft. It’s cashmere. It’s like squeezing a fistful of feathers. “Why?”
“I need you to step it up,” she says.
“Step it—”
“Up. I need you to take this job more seriously.”
“I thought it wasn’t a job, it was a lifestyle,” I say, an attempt at humor, unmitigated.
“Okay, I need you to take this lifestyle more seriously,” she says, swallowing my joke and taking the life out of it. “I’m a little crazy and there’s not a lot of space in my head for things and it would be helpful if you picked up more slack.”
“I’m not doing a good job?” I ask, reality feeling less like a punch to my gut and more like disembowelment.
“No.”
“Acting?” I ask playfully, tepidly.
“No.”
“Oh. Okay, yeah. I’m sorry. What should I be doing?”
“I don’t know. I told you I don’t like this kind of employee thing. I’m not a manager. I’m busy maintaining my image as a quirky person.”
“But I can’t help you if I don’t know how.”
“If you don’t know how to help me, Cockring, that’s no help to me,” she says, peering at me from over her glasses, making sure her point lands, looking at me as if she’s delivering this line in a Quentin Tarantino movie before the bloodshed begins.
I’m thinking, I’m in over my head.
I’m thinking, I can’t do this.
I’m thinking, I can’t go back to my old life.
“Got it,” I lie. “Sorry. I’ll dig deeper, and I’m looking forward to the chance to really show you how I can be there for you. I want to be an A-plus assistant for you.”
“Great,” she says.
“What grade would you give me right now if you had to?”
“I guess an F,” she says.
“An F!” I shout in horror.
“A D? I don’t know.”
“I’ll do so much better.”
“One more thing,” she says, pausing, choosing her words carefully. I’m nervous, I’m vulnerable, I’m dreading what might come next.
She says, “I’m going to need you to stop cutting your hair.”
Blank stare. “What?” I say, eyebrows raised, my hand reflexively going to my head, pressing at the curl perpetually unruly above my ear.
Kathi looks up at me, pulls the e-cigarette from her mouth, and says, “I’m going to need you to stop cutting your hair. I think this current way you’re cutting it isn’t doing you any favors.”
Cue blushing, cue confusion, cue challenge. Cue … comfort? I’ve always hated my hair. Always. Never is there a day where I look in the mirror and think I’m nailing it. I blame my shit Louisiana genes. I’ve asked people all my life what to do with it: No one is ever honest. No one ever has ideas. Every barber butchers it, makes it worse. And here, finally, someone has an opinion on it. Someone, finally, sees me, or at least sees my potential.
“You don’t necessarily look bad with the haircut you have now,” Kathi says, “but I have a plan for you and I need you to trust me and maybe occasionally hold me, and this is now part of your job, if you still want it.”
Her plan is to remake me in her image and likeness. In her style, her look, her crazy.
“Deal,” I say.
Maybe this is more of just what I need.
Kathi wiggles in the bed, weaving her legs deeper into the covers, takes off her glasses, lies down, her eyes fixed on the ceiling.
“Last night I dreamed I was feeding an eagle and I was a little bit afraid of it, but I kept feeding it anyway. It had very short feathers and was buzzard-like and sassy and reminded me of you in some strange but also beautiful way. It felt real. Was it real?”
My mind is racing, my adrenaline is pumping, or excreting, or whatever it does when I’m teetering on the edge of something important, something that feels important.
“It was absolutely real,” I say to her.
She smiles, takes a deep breath, some comfort washing over her. “Enjoy the sweater.”
“This seems like more of a bribe.”
“Enjoy the bribe,” she says, rolling over and back into her amazing mind. “And remember, if you cut your hair you’re fired.”