Did You Hear About Kitty Karr?, page 6
“Does everything belong to me too?” Mary asked. The red-and-white Lakes Tobacco label was plastered everywhere—on buses, buildings, and billboards. The family rode through town on a street-wide float in the state-famous Fourth of July parade every year.
Hazel flung her arm around their two-room house. “Does it look like it?”
“But why do the other kids say I’m rich?”
“’Cause they don’t know any better.”
“But my daddy is.”
“Your father is, yes.”
“But why—”
“That’s just the way things are, you being a Negro girl. But we’ll never go hungry or be out in the cold.”
“Why hasn’t he come to see me?”
“He doesn’t live here anymore.”
“Well, where is he?”
“Last I heard, Virginia.”
“Won’t he visit?”
“Maybe, but not to see you.” Hazel pulled Mary onto her lap to deliver the most important sentence. “And should you ever see him on the street, you can’t speak to him.”
Mary’s face crumpled, and Hazel hushed her before a tear spilled. “There are some truths in life you better come around to accepting sooner than later. This is one.” With that, she slid her daughter to the floor and walked into the bedroom to retrieve her prized gold ball earrings from the drop board in the dresser.
Still seated on the floor, Mary looked up at her when she returned. “I hate this ugly place.”
Hazel knew she was more embarrassed than hurt; the Cottonwood kids knew more about her than she knew about herself. “You know, people like you—all mixed up with a little this and that—have been born since even before America was called America. They were the sons and daughters of important men in this country.”
Mary perked up a little.
“And trust me,” Hazel said, “they couldn’t call their daddies ‘Daddy’ either.”
“How do you know?”
Hazel opened her left hand to show Mary the shiny gold spheres in her palm. “These earrings have been in our family since slavery times. Your grandfather four times over gave them to his slave, Elizabeth. They had two children. He gave us our eyes.”
“Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why did he give them to her?”
“I suppose he loved her, and he was a rich man.”
“Well, did he give her her freedom too?”
“No.”
“Then what did she need earrings for?”
Hazel chuckled at her daughter’s logic. “They can serve as a reminder.”
“Of slavery?”
“No, of who you going to be. There are two types of people in this world, Mary: people with time to sit under the trees, looking up at the sky and pondering life”—she jostled the gold balls in her hand—“and those who end up hanging from those same trees, looking down on the life they might have had, had they been born different. You were born different, by the grace of God, so you get to choose. Choose the gold-earring life.”
Mary looked at her with big eyes, unable to process what she was saying. But Hazel knew she eventually would—she’d be sure of that, if it was the last thing she did.
Mary took one of the earrings. “Your momma gave these to you?”
“Something like that.”
“What was she like?”
Hazel smiled, realizing it was the first time Mary had asked. “She sang a lot.” Looking back, Hazel realized her mother had been happy, despite her days spent cleaning fish and caring for a household of thirteen. Even if it all hadn’t been her choice, she acted like it was. “She had a beautiful voice. She had our eyes, too, you know.”
Mary sighed. “You told me. But I still want dark brown eyes like everyone else’s.”
Hazel sucked her teeth. “Take it up with God. You look how you look, and it ain’t ever gon’ change.”
* * *
The next day, Hazel went up to the school to confront Mary’s teacher, Mabel Wish. Most of Mary’s troubles at school were attributable to things she couldn’t control, and Mabel’s hatred of Hazel was one of them. Mabel had been one of the self-appointed leaders of the teen group at church who had wanted nothing to do with the pregnant Hazel. Ostracizing her became an obsession when Mabel’s boyfriend carried Hazel’s groceries home one evening after seeing her struggling to calm an infant Mary. Mabel shared her speculations about Hazel and Teddy Lakes with anyone who would listen. Now, here was Hazel’s child in her class, smart as a whip, pretty as a doll, and as unfortunate as one could be in terms of circumstance. Hazel suspected that it had felt good to Mabel to put the child in her place.
When she arrived in the school building, Hazel looked so angry Mabel thought she might hit her. The woman blamed all of Mary’s problems on her high intelligence. Mary was writing stories during class and ignoring the lessons, all while the others were still struggling to read.
“You’re the teacher. It’s your problem if she’s doing other things in class.”
Hazel had taught Mary to read when she was four. She first made Mary memorize their bedtime poem, then taught her to read the words. Since then, they’d spent many afternoons at the park in Charlotte—and even more evenings, Mary with warm milk and Hazel with her spitting cup—immersed in a tale. As a result, Mary was emotionally and academically eons ahead of her age.
“I was going to suggest that Mary take her writing and reading lessons with the second graders.”
“And when she writes and reads better than the second graders, then what?”
“We’ll handle it then.”
“Just like you handled the little ones?” Hazel gestured in the direction of the woods. “Mary ran home alone, in tears. No one cared about her safety. You all watched her go.”
Mabel sighed. “It’s your fault she’s so different from everyone else.”
“Everyone’s different from everyone else, Mabel. My daughter can’t help how she was born.”
“She stands out like a sore thumb, like a spotlight—blinding to all of us.”
“Is that why you’re so mean? She’s a little girl. Knows nothing of the way she came into this world.”
“I didn’t do anything to your precious daughter.”
“You’re right; you did nothing—when it was your job to protect her. My child was scared and confused. Kids asking her about a White man she’d never met, calling her names. I didn’t want to have to tell her anything about him, but thanks to you, I did.”
Mabel didn’t look remorseful enough. Hazel heard herself hiss, “If you don’t make the assaults on my daughter stop, I’ll go door to door and tell everyone about you and the preacher.” Mabel’s back door could be seen from the slit in Hazel’s outhouse, and on more than one occasion, Hazel had seen the preacher—the same man who had once publicly scolded her morality—hitching up his pants and creeping out her door.
“No one would believe you.”
“The Bendses have seen it too.” It was a lie, but Adelaide and Lefred were elders in Cottonwood, and Mabel knew no one would refute their testimony.
“You and that daughter of yours just think you’re better than everyone else.”
Hazel stomped back across the room, one second from physical contact, but instead pointed a finger half an inch from Mabel Wish’s face. “Mary has to sit in the back of the bus, too, you know. She’s a pupil at this school, instead of the shiny White one, cause I’m her momma. She can’t help that. Shame on you.”
* * *
Hazel was washing potatoes later when Mary came skipping through the door. Two girls in her class had broken from the group to walk home with her. Typically, Mary trailed the others, who didn’t want to be seen with a “White girl” in the woods.
Hazel didn’t look up from the sink. “Don’t forget how they treated you before they had to be nice.”
“But they said sorry.”
Hazel picked up a knife and began peeling a potato as she felt the urge to tell her daughter the truth. “I went and talked to your teacher.” Hazel had seen Mary picking flowers during recess that afternoon, at the edge of the school grounds where the wild roses grew. She waited until her back was turned to cross the field to the building.
“Today?” Mary’s eyes sparkled and turned the Atlantic blue they did when she was happy. She wrapped her thin arms around Hazel’s waist. “I knew it! I didn’t see you but I could feel you!”
Hazel, whose hands were still occupied, bent to kiss the top of her head. “I hope you’ll always be able to feel me, baby.”
CHAPTER 6
Elise
Sunday morning, October 29, 2017
The rain started around 3:00 am. Still on the Perch, Elise watched her mother abandon her teacup on the tiny table in the labyrinth’s center in favor of her flat-ironed hair, which she covered with both hands to sprint through the path, up the porch steps, and inside the sliding glass kitchen doors. Elise climbed in then too.
When the rain began to beat and splatter against the windows, Elise changed into her workout clothes, expecting to be able to go to the gym that morning with some privacy. Moisture gave Los Angeles residents, even the celebrity stalkers, pause about commuting outside of necessity. A single accident—likely in a town where perpetual sunshine caused drivers to respond to any degree of rain as if it were hail—could deadlock the entire city. The loss of precious weekend hours to traffic could cause even the meekest Angeleno to lose it.
Beyond that, Elise had worked out at 6:00 am most mornings for years, so the market was oversaturated with pictures of her sweaty style exiting the Tracy Anderson Method studio. Scandal or not, no paparazzi would venture out so early, in the rain, for a photo they couldn’t sell.
And if they did, Elise didn’t care. For the past week, her bedroom had been her gym, and it was an inadequate substitute.
When her sisters woke up to join her, she reminded them about the photographers’ aggression, but they insisted. Relieved they weren’t followed when Andy turned onto the freeway, Elise suggested breakfast on Melrose afterward. “We’ll get there at seven-thirty—hours before the brunch rush.” They’d be fed and gone before the devoted foodies willing to brave the downpour arrived. It was a gamble, but it would make for a good memory, important in a time that felt so wistfully orchestrated.
* * *
Breakfast anywhere but at home was impossible after their workout; the paparazzi now crowding the alley behind the gym would follow them and obliterate everyone’s peace. Fame begot privilege, but you traded it for freedom. The St. John sisters preferred not to subject others to their inconveniences.
Elise stayed behind Andy. Always her first line of defense, the six-foot-six, 320-pound former pro football player was a fortress. He elbowed his way through, using his arms as a barricade against the photographers, but they slung their cameras into the sisters’ faces despite his girth and arm span. Cold air hit Elise’s sweaty back as Noele gripped the back of her T-shirt. Lens shutters snapped like the sound of an annoying toy as they began the twenty-five-foot walk to Andy’s nondescript black Range Rover, parked in the middle of the street. They maintained their composure: heads and eyes down, sunglasses on, unresponsive to the prying chorus desperate for answers:
What happened to Kitty?
How does it feel to be six hundred million dollars richer?
Why did Kitty Karr leave her money to you?
How did she die?
They crowded the car for shots through the windshield and side windows.
“Holy shit.” Noele covered her face with a towel and slid down into the second-row seat behind Elise.
“I told you.”
Giovanni waved to the cameras between the front seats, showcasing her D-cup breasts stuffed into Elise’s B-cup-sized sports bra.
Elise pulled the waistband of her sister’s stretch pants. “Can you not?”
“Dad’s right—everyone has to eat.” Giovanni climbed over the seats into the third row as Andy stuck his middle finger out of the driver’s window. He revved the gas. “Have some respect, assholes! They’re in mourning. All of Hollywood is.” The photographers scattered like ants to follow in their cars.
“You shouldn’t have said that.” Elise met Andy’s brown eyes.
“I’m sick of them,” he said, making a fast left. “Damned parasites. Profiting off others’ pain—it’s not right.”
“They didn’t conceptualize the industry, Andy.”
“It’s fine.” Giovanni spoke up from the back row. “He said ‘all of Hollywood.’”
Elise didn’t bother to turn around. “‘All of Hollywood’ hasn’t become a part of the narrative.”
Rebecca’s call to Elise’s phone sounded through the car’s Bluetooth speakers. Knowing she was calling to bitch about them being photographed, Elise silenced it and texted her: BUSY WITH THE FAM. CALL WHEN OTW.
“Is she coming tonight?” Noele asked.
“Of course.”
Her sisters whispered about this behind her back. Giovanni spoke for them both. “What does she think we should do about Kitty?”
“I don’t know,” Elise said. “I haven’t asked, and she hasn’t said.”
“She would know how to handle it,” Noele said.
“I doubt that. She hasn’t once mentioned the inheritance.” Elise knew Rebecca was avoiding talking about the racist invective that had erupted online—which, shamefully, she let her get away with.
“Are you guys still fighting?” Giovanni asked.
“We’re not fighting; we fundamentally disagreed.”
“I’m sure that for her, learning you had opinions about Black Lives Matter was shocking.”
“Sadly.”
Aaron’s call came through the speakers next; she silenced it too. A text illuminated her screen in the same second: WYD?
“Who said we’re not to comment on Kitty?” Giovanni said.
“Mom decided. Okay? Mom.” Elise tapped Andy to ask him to turn up the radio.
Giovanni’s voice rose above it. “I thought you didn’t talk to her about it?”
Elise hit Andy on the arm. “Louder, please.”
“Take it easy,” he mumbled, before passing a small joint and lighter over his shoulder to her. Elise tapped him twice to say thank you as he sped onto the freeway on-ramp.
She rolled down the window and lit the joint as they picked up speed for a few minutes before slowing again in traffic. Her exhalation matched the gray morning. Paparazzi were still trailing them, but driving slower than normal in the rain. She didn’t care if they got a picture. Aaron, of course, very much did; she scanned the paragraph he’d written about her selfishness in leaving her parents’ house. Elise hid his alerts and scanned her playlists.
Cloudy days made Elise imagine they were all caricatures in a snow globe, being overturned and peered at as the elements of their world settled. The thought of something bigger, of a greater plan, comforted her, and with it, some of her grief lifted. The whisking of tires down the slick freeway, the smacking of sheeted rain on car windows, and Tupac—“How Long Will They Mourn Me?” started the week’s playlist—created a symphony that put her into a meditative state.
The past year had made this practice—workouts, playlists, and weed—routine. Sanctioned by the two people she spent the most time with, Andy and Rebecca, it kept her sane despite fame’s accomplice, the paparazzi, on nearly twenty-four-hour surveillance that simultaneously isolated and exploited her.
Music was both a distraction and mood boost, and when she combined it with a workout, she was able to zone out. It was in that state, all sweaty and strong, that she had found the courage to share a real opinion on her public platform. She needed some of that courage now. Hearing her sisters’ whispers again, she turned. “What?”
“I didn’t know you smoked.” Noele was always ready for an interrogation.
“Why? You don’t?” Elise asked.
“I do. I just didn’t know you did.” Noele had to be the authority on everything.
“It’s too early to be high.” Giovanni’s voice peaked on the end of the sentence, and her freckled nose scrunched with disapproval.
“Why? I’m off until Friday.” Elise knew Giovanni hadn’t forgotten about her shoot. A Vogue cover was one of her dreams too.
“Nothing prior to?”
“No, I gave them exclusivity.”
“Before or after Kitty?” Giovanni sounded drier.
“Before,” Elise said. Not expecting congratulations, Elise relit the joint and put her feet up in the seat, leaning her body against the door. Her hair flew out of the open window, drying and growing in volume with each second. Andy hit the car’s door locks.
She passed the joint to Noele, who held it, ripping open a bag of trail mix with her teeth. “So you’re not going to talk about her?”
“No.”
“Have they asked?” Giovanni rubbed a wipe over her face before tossing the plastic package over the seat to Elise.
Elise lied. “I don’t know.”
Andy accelerated up the driveway to the estate. Midway to the house was a row of catering and party rental vans parked in the grass.
“How many people are coming to Kitty’s memorial?” Noele fought against a cough as she handed the joint back to Elise.
“Was supposed to be twenty-five,” Elise said.
“Mom said seventy-three. I’m surprised Kitty had twenty-five people to invite,” Giovanni said, in defense of their mother’s logic. She reached over Noele for the joint from Elise, who passed it, declining to remind her sister of how “early” it still was.
“Kitty knew half the world,” Elise said. “She just didn’t see them a lot.”
“So, old people.”
“It’s not a party,” Elise reasoned, suddenly worried that the vans weren’t for Kitty’s memorial.
“Isn’t the memorial at Kitty’s house? Why are the vans here?” Noele asked.
