Did You Hear About Kitty Karr?, page 28
Kitty waited for the political talk to commence. Sit-ins would begin in North Carolina soon, to begin the process of desegregation in restaurants all over the South. It was all the group had talked about for weeks.
Kitty had even admitted a tiny bit of her Southern roots. I was accepted to college down there. Richard and her other classmates briefly came to mind.
I’m so glad you didn’t go, Elaine had said.
Only in private did Emma sneer that her father’s stores would eventually be affected. Holden’s was branded by a different name in the South, and each one had a lunch counter.
After an hour of casting talk that evening, Kitty realized that politics was being avoided with the inclusion of those Colored guests. The servers noticed too. Kitty watched the performers and the servers avoid each other, separated by class.
The knowing of the interworking of the room made Kitty miss Blair House. Even though she was with her unit, she felt stifled in public. There was always a writer around, ready to report her doings and sayings in the gossip columns. Maude combatted a lot of it in her own column, newly published in the Times, but Kitty was tired of having her picture in the paper. Even when she wasn’t trying, there she was.
For this reason, Kitty had started talking around Negro issues, like the creatives. They talked about the rise in student activism and the parallel anti-apartheid movement in South Africa instead of segregation in the South.
“You’re living in La-La Land, right along with Nathan.” Cora hoisted herself onto the wooden kitchen counter in Blair House. She worried that Kitty had grown lazy loving Nathan and had forgotten the real reason she was with him. It wasn’t entirely untrue. Kitty and Nathan worked hard but took many breaks, sometimes to make love or to clear their heads in Malibu, Kitty’s favorite place.
“But I don’t have anything to pitch.”
“How can that be?”
“Write something they have to hire a Negro actor for,” Cora said.
“Imitation of Life may win an award this year,” Lucy said.
“Not Best Picture.”
“But it’s the right time to push.”
“I have been!”
Lucy’s and Cora’s eyes rolled. They didn’t understand how hard it was to write in a Negro character of substance in a Telescope script. Most of the story lines would seem unrealistic, or would be altered altogether by having a Negro in a role other than that of a maid or driver. They also didn’t understand how little control she truly had. “I want to do more acting, but Nathan, I think, has a problem with me getting so much attention.”
“No man wants his woman to be a pin-up girl.”
* * *
Later that week, Kitty pushed for a scene to be added to a film called Highway. The lead actor, a hitchhiker, would take a ride from a Negro man, and they’d be pulled over by the police and experience the difference in their treatment.
“No one would believe they’d be stopped twice.”
“They would with a Negro in the car. That’s the point.”
“Honestly, beautiful”—Nathan, brushing his teeth, spit into the sink, then turned to her for a kiss—“I want to stay as far away from reality as possible.”
Kitty followed him into their bedroom. “The Negro problem is our problem. We can’t ignore what’s happening around the country—in our own city! Art is supposed to speak about the times, to mean something.”
“We could face a boycott over that.”
“Sidney Poitier was just nominated for an Oscar!”
“And he didn’t win.”
“So? He’s working; there are plenty of Negro actors who are working. No one is getting boycotted.”
“You don’t know how many sales those studios have lost because of it, do you? I assure you, if those films were popular, it wouldn’t be so hard to get one made.” He pulled on his pajama pants and began looking for his shirt.
“It’s only hard because of people like you, who can’t see the future.”
“I want to make money, not get involved in politics. People go to the movies to relax and have fun. It’s a family activity. I don’t want them leaving my movies frowning.”
“How are we supposed to advance as a society if we don’t talk about it?”
“It’s not your concern. You’re an actress; don’t make more of yourself than is necessary.”
“Last I checked, I’ve always been more than an actress. Especially to you.” She threw his nightshirt to him from the laundry basket of clothes he hadn’t put away, which was a quiet protest of her insistence that he not employ a maid.
“Yes, darling, but whether you write the script or not, I have no interest in producing a movie with Negro actors talking about Negro issues. Southerners are my best moviegoers.” He kissed her cheek, pulled back the bedcovers, and patted her side of the bed, inviting her in. “What happened to the Daisy Lawson character? Write that for yourself.”
Kitty’s heart sank at this suggested compromise, knowing his mind was already made up. Telling the story of a divorced White woman was, to him, progressive.
“Or write yourself a love story. Get more women into the theater.”
“Imitation of Life did well.”
“Entertaining but unrealistic.”
Kitty touched her lips like the secret was going to spurt through her lips and land all over his face. Sitting there in the bed in his blue silk pajamas and combed-over hair, he looked and sounded like a boy, naive about his luck.
“Besides,” he continued, “no one would need to pretend to be White in New York. They say Harlem is full of opportunity.”
Kitty sauntered back to the bathroom as he went on.
“Don’t forget our job is to make people feel good,” he yelled. “Not guilty about the things they can’t control.”
Kitty yelled back, “But they can control it! That’s the point.”
“Control that mess happening in the South? Hell no, they can’t. Not even the government knows what to do.”
Kitty brushed her teeth, thinking only of the way he called the degradation of the American Negro “a problem,” as though it was something they brought upon themselves. She stood before the mirror and for the first time understood why some of the women at Blair House had, like Nina, floated back over the color line, carrying on emotional, sometimes sexual relationships with the Negro men they met through the resistance. Kitty never did, knowing the grass wasn’t greener.
“Fine,” she said, spitting in the sink. “I’ll find myself the role of a lifetime.” Kitty might not have been able to control Nathan as Blair House hoped, but adopting Cora’s dream of winning an Oscar was second best.
“You do that, dear.”
* * *
So, Kitty started going out again, not just to work for Blair House but also for fun. She met some of the Telescope dancers at a club. Planning to use them for inspiration, she left with new friends. There were lunches with voice-over artists who also could draw. A couple of actresses met her for lunch. She had macaroons and tea with a group of poets from London. She played tennis with a French museum curator who gave her an open invitation to Paris. There was an Indian man she didn’t speak to but who, recognizing her, gave her a gold necklace. She was photographed so often without Nathan—and most noticeably with these male creatives of color—that people began to talk. These rumors reached Nathan and created questions in his mind about whether Kitty was his.
He was sitting in the dark when she came over after dinner with a Spanish director, who had written a film about the first conquistadors in America. She curled up on his lap to tell him about it. “He’s a genius; you have to meet him. I have a copy of the script for you to read.”
“Out until all hours of the night with a man you refer to as a ‘genius.’” Nathan shifted his body, causing her to fall on the cushion next to him. He put the bottom of his cold, wet glass on her bare thigh. “Why won’t you marry me?”
Kitty sighed. Being that he was a film executive, Kitty thought he would have appreciated her lack of interest in common milestones. “You know I’m focused on my career.”
“You can do whatever you want after the baby.”
“You’ve never mentioned wanting a family.”
He shrugged. “Did I need to? It’s the natural progression of things. I was waiting to meet the right woman, I did, and eventually I want a child. Maybe two or three.”
“Two or three?”
Now the palm of his right hand came down on her leg. It stung. “I want a son—or a daughter, someone to pass all of this on to.”
“I can’t get pregnant right now. What about Daisy Lawson?”
“It can wait.”
Kitty threw out more reasons—a fear of childbirth, no maternal instincts—and he dismissed every one. “We’ll get you help. Anything you need.”
Kitty, distressed to learn her career ambitions wouldn’t protect her from what was expected, started sleeping at her own home. She also increased her savings deposits and hid some cash in the attic of the house on Orange Drive. She had no plans to leave but, if necessary, could be ready in less than an hour.
Lucy thought all of it was tied to the rumors about her exploits in a mixed crowd. “Marry him,” she advised.
* * *
Kitty, sobering to the reality that her lifestyle was in danger, did as she was told. They married in a private ceremony at the Beverly Hills Hotel, with only Nathan’s family in attendance. Kitty sent clippings from the Los Angeles Times to her mother. Maude told her Nathan distributed their wedding photos. “Consider yourself lucky to have a man so proud to be a husband.”
She did, but she also felt guilty, especially after Nathan gifted her his mother’s favorite six-carat emerald and gold necklace. The woman had a collection fit for a fourteenth-century queen. Kitty touched her earlobes, admiring the way the gold balls from her mother matched the deep brilliance of the twenty-four-karat gold in the necklace. She had always thought the dark hue was a sign of age and perhaps poor care, when maybe it was indicative of quality. Noticing, Nathan handed her a small black box. “I thought you could use another pair of earrings.”
She moved her head when he reached for her lobes. “Thank you, but I like these.”
He pointed to the box. “Aren’t you going to at least look at them? They match the necklace.”
She shook her head. “But these were my mother’s, and I—”
Nathan bent to kiss her neck. “Don’t worry; they won’t go missing.” He went for her ears again, and she swatted his hand. He frowned, offended now. “You wear those plain old balls all the time.”
The characterization stung, and she wished she could defend their worth. Trading up felt disloyal, but she let him replace the earrings with the new jeweled clusters, as if she needed another reminder that the past was truly gone.
CHAPTER 30
Kitty
January 1964
Years passed without further talk of a baby. After three films, four years of matrimony, and nine years together, Kitty and Nathan were partners in life and business. Their intellectual and creative interests were their sustaining strength, and when one grew bored, it was the world’s admiration of the other that brought them back.
Riding home after a friend’s play one night, he couldn’t keep his hands off her. She’d received a standing ovation once the theater crowd learned she was in the audience, and Nathan had beamed at her side, marveling at all the people staring at his wife. Once they were inside their house, he unzipped the back of her sequined dress even before they made it upstairs.
Having sex with him was something Kitty always enjoyed. She never told him how much, and never initiated it, but also never turned him away—never. From some of the stories she’d heard, she gathered that she only knew great sex. Nathan seemed to be in awe of her when they made love, touching her as if it was the only task that mattered. He ran his hands through her hair, grabbing her head as he kissed her. His assertiveness was part of their dance, but that night, after a third time reaching for her diaphragm, she had to use her entire body to resist him.
“Just be here with me.” He pinned her arms above her head against the bed. Normally, he cared if sex was good for her, but that night he acted as if her body was only there for his pleasure. The nightmare only got worse when he released himself inside of her. In that moment, Kitty hated him. He already owned her career, and that night, he showed her he thought he owned her too. After it was over, he crawled over her onto his side of the bed and went to sleep.
Kitty wiped herself clean with a hot washcloth. She ran a bath, already sore between her legs, and sat there until it turned cold, unsure of what had just happened.
In the morning, he kissed her forehead just as normal. She flinched, but he didn’t seem to notice. He wanted sex again that evening, and his tenderness made her question what she remembered happening. Still, it hurt. She took another bath until the stinging stopped. She gave him the benefit of the doubt after talking to Lucy, who said that sometimes “they just need to do it like that.”
Weeks later, in February, nausea sent her running to the bathroom before daybreak. She knew instantly that she was pregnant. Their family doctor confirmed it with a jovial smile. “Maybe two months, very early.” His right hand went to his balding head, and he bowed almost, as if to say that being a father was the single most important job of his life. Kitty vomited all over his white coat.
* * *
Kitty started packing as soon as she got home, knowing her husband’s desire for a baby was stronger than his interest in her happiness.
She put her bags in the trunk of the old dark-blue Mercedes she used for errands. She had only the essentials: the leather pouch her mother sent her off with, her writing notebook, some cash, and photographs. For clothes she packed only the items Nathan wouldn’t notice were gone: the pairs of underwear reserved for her monthly, the trousers and shirts he hated, and her mother’s earrings.
She called Nathan at his office to report an Emma emergency. “I’ll probably have to stay a night or two.” By the time he called to check, she’d be in Kansas, almost home.
* * *
She never made it more than a mile. She never backed out of the driveway. Leaving her husband, giving up her career, it was too hasty a decision to make in an afternoon. She loved her husband and her life. And if the baby were born passable, she would have thrown away her mother’s sacrifice for nothing. Besides, she wasn’t due for another seven or eight months. Anything could happen before then. It could even slip away, as Lucy said all of hers had. Deciding to ignore any circumstance or outcome not in her favor, she reasoned that her cover was her good luck charm. Kitty Karr had given her a reality comprised of many people’s fantasies. With this thought came the delusion that everything was going to be fine.
After seeing what Emma had gone through to heal, convincing Kitty to get the operation was futile. Lucy returned with a potion from the old doctor who had done Emma’s operation. “It’ll be like having a bad monthly.”
Kitty wouldn’t drink it. Emma tried again, then Laurie, Maude, Billie and, finally, Cora. Kitty refused each time, and when morning sickness hit her badly one morning, she told Nathan and made her decision final. Her Blackness slid off easily, like a coat, but she couldn’t spare another slice, handle another loss, especially between mother and child. A part of her wanted to be able to send her momma a picture of her baby.
“Take this time off,” Nathan suggested. “We should keep your pregnancy private.”
“You think I’m going to look that bad?” Relieved, she played along.
“No, darling, but real life distracts from the fantasy. You’re a movie star. The world shouldn’t see you looking normal, and pregnancy is as normal as you can get.” Always thinking about how to leverage the press, he imagined her at his side in filmable condition, holding their baby, when he announced her new film.
Her days became occupied with the remodeling of their third floor, currently their attic, into a nursery. Weekends were spent combing through design books. Kitty’s job was to identify the pages she liked in the stacks of magazines.
Nathan held up a card of yellow paint swatches. “Which?”
Kitty picked the one closest to her skin tone. “Pale Butter works for a girl or boy.”
Nathan wanted to name the baby after his father’s parents: Solomon for a boy, or Sarah for a girl. A pro at feigning it, Kitty worked to match his excitement about their growing family, but when she was alone, she resented him for her being pregnant in the first place.
A nagging discomfort in her lower back came during her fourth month. The doctor said the baby was growing and pushing on a nerve, but Kitty convinced herself that the pain foreshadowed the suffering ahead. The baby’s color was going to give her away, and her bodily discomfort served as a constant reminder. Unable to get comfortable, she couldn’t sleep for longer than a few hours anymore. She became delirious and short-tempered, and Nathan’s efforts to care for her were met with contempt and verbal assaults. Helpless and dismayed by her moods, Nathan insisted on hiring help.
Kitty couldn’t stand the thought, especially being in pain as she was. She didn’t trust her ability to conceal her parts in such close quarters. Despite Kitty’s protests, Nathan hired a midwife to live in until the baby came.
Lucy told her to thank her lucky stars. “She’s your last chance for an ally.”
CHAPTER 31
Elise
Sunday night, October 29, 2017
After the auction, guests were ushered out with cookies for their rides home and the inner circle moved to the kitchen for more drinks. Elise used the transition to disappear into the jungle, across the dirt path, and through the hedges to her parents’ house. She predicted it would be hours before anyone went looking for her, especially since Aaron had also left. He couldn’t wait to leave and Elise couldn’t wait to see him go.
