My job responsibilities include proving my worth, growing my hair, becoming what she wants of me. I look at Titanic’s clothes. I look at Bond 1 in her wheelchair and Bond 2 standing behind her, both of them happily following along the absurd game in which they’re immersed. I watch Jasmine relish her moment as the leader of these others, and I’m thinking, Time to get to work.
I savor my Truth and close my eyes and see myself in Kathi’s bedroom, in Kathi Kannon’s life.
I imagine her mess.
I imagine her chaos.
I imagine her crazy.
I’m thinking, From now on, this is my mess, my chaos, my crazy.
Hey, Siri, I want to clean it all up.
7
Today is my new first day. My real first day. I’m wearing my bribe—my gray cardigan, this cashmere costume, this buttoned-up bowing-down to my efforts to improve my failing assistant grade. Kathi Kannon doesn’t come with an owner’s manual—yet.
As I prepare to clean up her life, my thoughts naggingly remind me of my dad cleaning up his. I think about him tidying our old Perris house, making an empty home even more empty, fighting with the garbageman over just how much of my mother’s possessions he can have hauled away each week. Fighting with nature as he tries to burn whatever he can; his burn pile is a joke—Louisiana humidity keeps everything wet, so his trash pile never actually burns, just grows. Dad, finally trying to clean the house, burn the trash, cut the baggage, it’s all decades too late.
I’m purging, too. Purging the ideas I had about this job with Kathi Kannon. I’m trashing what I thought I knew about my role and getting ready for a new approach. I’m still mourning the losses no doubt piled at the front of that red-clay driveway—imagining Mom’s clothes in trash bags, her old melted spatula in a landfill, her memory crushed by garbage-truck hydraulics. But fuck Dad. I was helpless then and I’m helpless now. I have to let Mom go and orient to a new North Star. I have to look forward. I have to believe Mom would want it that way. I have to look to Kathi Kannon.
This is where my writing background comes in handy.
This is where certain policies become clear.
This is where the first of my celebrity-assistant rules are written in a Google doc I dutifully title “Assistant Bible.” This mansion has a tennis court and a pool house and groundskeeper’s quarters but no human-resources office. I’m going to write my own job description, my own duties, seize control of this operation for real, give this a real shot, no more waiting around. I’m doing … and being.
Assistant Bible Verse 1: Get information! I find answers to all her questions to date: “Yes, you could use more socks; e-cigarettes are not known to cause heart attacks, but I’ll make a cardiologist appointment anyway. Don’t do ecstasy. Or any drugs. You’re sober, right? I’ll schedule you a physical. The testicle-shaped pink pills are hormones for lady functions. A Google Images search shows that you and Gene Hackman met at least once, because you were photographed together at a party in Aspen. A chode is a fat penis. There’s cilantro in La Scala salads, which you eat, so I assume you’re tolerant. And I’ll search for the Jean Smart picture.”
Assistant Bible Verse 2: Merge. I add her iCloud account to my phone and input her contacts, calendar, Safari bookmarks. No more scraps of paper with appointments. I need her contacts and bookmarks synced with mine to get my job done, so I can answer Kathi’s questions: “What’s Dr. Miller’s cell number?” “When are we going out of town?” “What’s that website with those things I hate in that store I love?” Merging phones, merging lives.
With Kathi’s contacts at hand, I’m filled with power. I can reach out to any assortment of famous people—though sometimes, to get to Kathi, the stars call me. I speak casually with Shirley MacLaine, asking her about the weather, of all things, while stalling so Kathi can finish eating a scoop of Magnolia Bakery banana pudding. I take a call from Sean Hayes and make him hold while I explain to Kathi who he is. Beverly D’Angelo calls me frequently, though there isn’t much time to chat; before I say, “Hello,” she says, “Where is she?”
Assistant Bible Verse 3: The personal assistant should never give a celebrity drawers, nooks, crannies, crevices, folds. The personal assistant knows the celebrity will stuff everything into anything, and when they ask you for it later, you won’t be able to find it.
Tap, tap, tap. Fizz, fizz. Crackle.
Every inch of Kathi Kannon’s estate is filled with photos and memorabilia: Stacks of casual snaps from birthdays and literal Hollywood history, with living and dead actors alike captured forever in old Polaroids and black-and-white lithographs. Pictures of the pictures before they’re the pictures you see published. The no-makeup, no-wigs, bare-boned, and vulnerable snaps any tabloid would pay top dollar for. In one drawer, smashed together black-and-white images of a past generation. In another, crumpled images of another generation. Pictures of parties. Young Penny Marshall sitting on chairs where just hours ago I was sorting Kathi’s pills. Fresh-faced Robin Williams wearing a chicken costume in Kathi’s kitchen. Ageless Sally Field sitting at Kathi’s piano, tickling keys, with some quip that left bystanders laughing. The inventory of her life is staggering.
In her bathroom sit vintage magazines with Miss Gracie Gold on the cover, young and fresh and holding baby Kathi, the two of them posing for the cameras as naturally as the rest of us breathe. There are dozens of these magazines, marking the multitude of moments of attention Kathi and Miss Gracie have received their entire lives. I go on Amazon and order magazine protectors to keep each one preserved, safe, so they don’t accidentally get pee on them. I’m certain Miss Gracie would appreciate it more than Kathi, me preserving their picture-perfect legacy of mother-daughter devotion, though the reality is more complicated. Miss Gracie seems less a mother and more of a brand. I have yet to meet her. Kathi is keeping a little distance between us for reasons I have yet to discover. So many mysteries here, including why everyone, even Kathi, refers to her as “Miss Gracie.” When Kathi’s iPhone rings, the caller ID says “Miss Gracie,” because that’s how Kathi has entered it. It doesn’t say “Mom.”
Besides magazines with my boss on the cover, throughout the house are other less sentimental bits of clutter—gifts, swag, cell phones, designer scarves and gloves, dozens of pairs of eyeglasses: Prada, Gucci, Dolce & Gabbana—all unopened. Even the little towelettes for cleaning the lenses are still in their safe plastic packaging. She approves me donating them to Agnes and Benny and Goodwill.
I note Kathi’s favorite toiletries. The moisturizer, the makeup, the boring essentials: Q-tips, perfume, hairspray. I clear a cabinet under her bathroom sink of old makeup and unopened hand-soap samples and put labels like a mini-store so when she needs some cream, she can just go grab it, and every week I can check to see what needs to be restocked. She’ll never run out of anything again: her lotions from Le Labo; her toothpaste from Aēsop; her Tom Ford Amber Absolute perfume, which is discontinued and has to be purchased in various used quantities from strangers on eBay. If they only knew where their old toiletries were being misted: a Hollywood movie star’s neck, wrists, toilet bowl.