Did You Hear About Kitty Karr?, page 8
“What happened down there today wasn’t your fault,” Mrs. Catherine said.
Mary hated that there had been two witnesses. “I should have been looking where I was going.”
Mrs. Catherine squeezed her hand. “It was an accident.” She led Mary to the railing, where the woman with the braid was scowling at a salesgirl who was being flirted with. “She’s sad-looking. She saw your momma with those eyes and cheekbones and wanted to spit. When people don’t like themselves, it makes them mean. You understand?”
When Mary smiled, Mrs. Catherine beamed at Hazel, as if she had the magic touch.
Mary left Charlotte that day with two dresses instead of her school clothes.
“You’ll be fine in your summer things for another few weeks. These dresses will serve you better than anything you have.”
CHAPTER 8
Elise
Sunday morning, October 29, 2017
“Have a good workout?” Sarah wiggled her fingers at her daughters from the gray marble island. Even first thing in the morning, with her hair bushy from the early-morning rain, she looked perfect.
“I enjoyed it,” Giovanni said.
“It was way too hot in there. I thought I was going to faint.” Noele opened the refrigerator.
“The more you do it, the stronger you’ll get,” Sarah said. Her hands went to her own taut waist. She had maintained a lithe figure into her midfifties through daily exercise, a habit only Elise adopted. They sometimes worked out together. Elise hoped to look as good as her mother did when she reached her age. At thirty-one, people said Elise looked twenty-two and glowed like she was made from fairy dust. She went for a glass of water and took her vitamins, watching Noele remove the cake stand topper.
“Cake after your workout?” Sarah exclaimed.
“My body’s already in calorie-burning mode; seems like the best time to me.” Noele chopped a thick slice and palmed the icing side.
Sarah’s eyes stretched, watching as Noele pranced to the counter.
“Why are all those vans outside? I thought Kitty’s memorial was at her house,” Elise said.
“It is,” Sarah said.
“How much food did you order?”
“Sushi can be light, so we’ll have teriyaki stations too.” Sarah winced at the screech of the barstool legs across the floor as Giovanni pulled herself in toward the counter and reached over Noele for a banana in the fruit bowl. Noele’s first bite of cake sent a waterfall of crumbles onto the gray marble countertop.
“People will never leave,” Noele said, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. Sarah handed her a paper towel.
“How many people confirmed?” Elise asked. “I didn’t sign up to make a videotaped speech.”
Sarah put her hands in the air, cracking at last under her daughters’ pressure. “They’re setting up for my party, okay?” She pointed to Noele. “I’ll make you some eggs with that. Anybody else?” She didn’t wait for answers before extracting the egg carton from the refrigerator.
Her daughters negotiated behind her back about who was going to confront her. They decided it was Elise. “With the news about the inheritance out, the party is going to be a circus.”
“How fitting! The theme is ‘Mystic Circus.’” Sarah started juggling three eggs.
Elise had little patience for her mother’s joking. Sarah was a masterful illusionist: she understood how it would look to have the party under the circumstances but didn’t care. She didn’t want anything to ruin her fun. “It’ll look like we’re celebrating Kitty’s death, or worse, the inheritance. Not to mention at the memorial tonight—all the tents going up on the other side of the hedges? Mom, come on.”
“I told her to cancel it.” Their father came from the hallway, rubbing his eyes. He was always the last to rise, having spent part of most nights in his studio. He shuffled barefoot to the stove, tightening the belt of the dark-blue bathrobe Sarah had made for one of their early anniversaries. He wore it for a few hours every morning, despite the holes in the chest area that put his sparse, graying sprout of chest hair and the thin gold chain he never removed on display. He stooped to rest his chin on his wife’s shoulder. “Can I have my eggs fried hard?”
“Celebrating my birthday looks bad?” Sarah kissed him before pointing at Elise. “You’re both still working. Everyone else took off.”
“I’ve been off for a week, but you know I can’t change my promotional obligations.”
“And somebody has to keep these bills paid,” James said. Everyone groaned. No matter how rich he’d become, James still had alerts set on his financial accounts for transactions over a hundred dollars and wore his gold Rolex every day, even with his sweats. Elise looked at his wrist then to see it there, knowing he’d slept in it.
Elise raised her voice to compete with her mother’s clanking an eggshell against the aluminum bowl. “And no one else took off. Giovanni’s show is on hiatus, and Noele doesn’t have a job.”
“I do too!”
“Maybe,” Elise said, referencing their conversation from the previous day.
“Noele should be in the studio with me.” James flicked her in the head. He was coming to his wife’s rescue, Elise knew, trying to change the subject.
“Dad, for real. Stop.” Noele jabbed their father’s side. “You and Mom are wearing me out.”
“How many people have RSVP’d?” Elise walked past her mother at the stove for another glass of water from the filtered spout.
“Everyone. The party is on, and that’s just that.”
“Well, I’m not going.” Elise leaned over the sink to open the window, gagging on the smell of her mother’s overcooked eggs. Sarah only cooked three things well: lasagna, spaghetti, and tacos. Being the busy working actress, Sarah had relied on first her mother and then Julia, their cook, to feed her family. “It’s just another opportunity for us to be questioned and gossiped about.”
Sarah shoveled the eggs onto Noele’s plate and, in another swoop, removed the last of the cake. “You know how to not answer.”
“Perhaps, but it’s hypocritical, don’t you think?” Feeling her mother’s glare on her back, Elise walked out of the kitchen and up twenty stairs to the south wing. Elise and her sisters had learned of the contents of their mother’s semirecent book in its New York Times review, which hailed it as “an honest testament to the perils of motherhood and marriage despite the celebrity slant.” Sarah had spent two years writing about her ambivalence toward marriage and motherhood—a feeling, she wrote, that never went away, even after three children. It had been a year since its release, but her words were impossible to forget.
* * *
Elise hurried past the family photographs lining the wall and into the den, collapsing at the arm of the couch, where the floor vent allowed for the best eavesdropping on the kitchen.
“I have a right to celebrate my birthday,” Sarah was saying. She sounded unsure.
“A less elaborate night would be more appropriate,” James replied. “Or a postponement.”
“I can’t cancel now; I’ll lose the money.”
“I’d like to see them try to keep my money.” Her father sounded like he had food in his mouth—probably also cake. “Just scale back.”
Her mother sighed. “I’d hoped it would do your sister some good.”
“Your birthday party is to cheer up Elise?” Noele asked with obvious uncertainty.
“She needs some fun. She’s taken Kitty’s death so hard, and she’s been so busy, I fear she’s going to exhaust herself.”
“She’s not eating,” Noele said. “You should see that class she does—I’m worried she’s developing some kind of eating disorder.”
“It’s nervous energy, and there are worse habits,” Sarah said. “I need you girls to help your sister. She never left Kitty’s side these last few weeks.”
“She slept there,” James said, cosigning his wife’s concern.
“You told us,” Giovanni said.
“Why do you think we went with her this morning?” Noele said.
It was nice to hear everyone rallying in solidarity on her behalf, but Elise resented her mother deflecting the attention onto her.
Sarah sucked her teeth. “I can’t believe Kitty would put all of this on her. Selfish to the core, until the end.” She began to detail Kitty’s cataloging system. “Dozens of audio recordings: instruction for how her belts should be folded, how to preserve clothes, her old letters and photographs, how to clean certain pieces of her jewelry—it’s insane.”
Giovanni laughed, so Sarah elaborated, happy someone else thought it was as ridiculous as she did. “And this auction, my God…” The coffee grinder came on, drowning out everything but her mother’s contempt for Kitty.
Elise pushed the rose window open and climbed onto the Perch. She’d expected her mother to display a greater degree of respect, considering all Kitty had done for their family.
Only some of the rumors about Kitty were true. She was an eccentric, recluse Virgo writer who hoarded her memories and accomplishments inside her home, but she didn’t lock herself inside, nor had she committed suicide. Kitty simply didn’t have much admiration for the human race, and with the exception of a handful of people, she wanted to be left alone to create the characters that continued to add to her assets. The St. Johns were among the lucky because the person closest to Kitty had been Sarah’s mother, Nellie.
Kitty, the White screen siren, and Nellie Shore, a Black single mother, had met at the peach bin in a grocery store in 1968, when Kitty invited a then-five-year-old Sarah to audition at Telescope Film Studios. After Sarah’s casting in The Daisy Lawson Show, Kitty and Nellie became close, with Nellie always on set with her young daughter.
Their friendship was kept a secret outside the studio walls. Even after years of the show’s success as television’s first interracial sitcom, Telescope worried fans and advertisers wouldn’t approve of interracial friendship behind the scenes. That was why, even today, people didn’t know Kitty and the St. Johns were neighbors, let alone how close the families were. Life before social media had made that possible.
Kitty was the reason Sarah became the little Black darling America loved. Eventually, Sarah had a dressing room to rival Kitty’s. Kitty had mentored her after the show ended, helping Sarah land roles not originally written for Black actresses. Kitty even introduced her to James, a union which sent Sarah skyrocketing emotionally, mentally, and professionally. After her husband died, Kitty moved next door to the St. Johns, where Nellie already lived as primary caregiver to Elise, Giovanni, and Noele.
When Nellie died, Elise was twelve, Giovanni was nine, and Noele was seven. Her care was replaced by a college-aged nanny, and Elise had started hiding out after school until dinner at Kitty’s house, where she could talk about her grandma. Kitty missed Nellie, maybe even more than Elise, who felt as though her death had taken her family’s heartbeat.
Hours would pass when Kitty started talking about the “golden years,” a ten-year period she cited as the happiest of her life. Kitty had been an It girl in the late fifties and early sixties and found joy reminiscing about the parties and the legends she’d rubbed elbows with. Elise never got tired of hearing about her adventures, but the things Kitty never talked about were what mattered now.
Her mother was right about one thing: Elise did need comfort and insulation. Everyone was trying to manage her. Even Kitty had managed her mourning, managed her pain, giving her the truth in small doses, like a slow medicinal drip.
Kitty’s Virgo efficiency was appreciated, but leaving the management of her afterlife in Elise’s hands had been thoughtless. Kitty knew how hard Elise would take her death and that the aftermath would affect her in ways she couldn’t have been prepared for.
She pulled half a joint from the old tin can Kitty had used as an outdoor ashtray and flicked the lighter: no flame. After four attempts and no light, she swore and hurled it off the Perch.
CHAPTER 9
Mary
August 1946
Lillian and Mrs. Catherine were waiting at the bus stop in Charlotte the next Sunday when Hazel and Mary arrived, and for years thereafter.
On that first Sunday, Catherine handed money to Lillian, with instructions to get their picture taken and have lunch. Mary pulled aside her mother, who had uncharacteristically deferred to Mrs. Catherine. “Where are you going?” They had never been apart in town for more than the few minutes it took Mary to change in the Whites-only dressing room of Ivey’s.
“Around here somewhere. Stay with Lillian, hear?”
Lillian pulled Mary’s arm. “We’ll be fine,” she called over her shoulder as they made their way down the street. “À tout à l’heure, Catherine et Hazel.”
“What did you say?” Mary asked.
“That I’d see them later, in French.”
“You speak French?”
“French, Italian, and German.” Lillian pulled her again, this time through the front doors of Ivey’s, where the first floor was bustling with customers. She parked Mary in the shoe section. “If anyone asks, your mother went to the bathroom.”
“Where are you going?”
Lillian sashayed away to the cosmetics counter and, while one of the salesladies was helping someone, took a perfume from among the testers. Mary froze as she watched Lillian then disappear behind the counter. She reemerged empty-handed.
“What did you do?”
“You’ll see. Come on, let’s go get our picture taken.”
There was a line, but Lillian wormed her way past the White children with their parents and maids to the front. “Hi, Jack!” she said to the photographer.
He stopped clearing the small set to look for the speaker. “Hiya, Lilly!”
Lillian walked up to him. “Our father dropped us off between meetings. He can’t be late to his next one.”
Somehow, they were seated next. They posed on a bench with white umbrellas in front of a park background. They left with two free copies of the picture and two lollipops. Lillian put her arm around Mary’s shoulder for them to look together. “Sisters,” she said, before taking off into a run.
Mary, loving the adventure, entered Ivey’s again breathless. Lillian left her to catch her breath and marched up to one of the salesladies. “I want to report a thief.”
The woman trotted off and returned with a White man wearing glasses. He took them off to talk to Lillian. Mary watched as Lillian pointed at that lady with the blond braid. She hadn’t seen her earlier.
“I saw her put a bottle of perfume in her purse,” Lillian was saying as she walked with the man over to the counter. The blond lady stood erect, seeing the man. Mary couldn’t hear the rest of the conversation, but watched the lady retrieve her purse with a puzzled look. The manager opened it and produced the perfume that Lillian had taken earlier from the counter. The woman’s mouth dropped open as she began to make her case.
Lillian pointed back at Mary, as if to say, We both saw her.
The man motioned for the woman to come with him. They ascended the escalator, and this time, the woman watched Mary as she went.
A sly look crossed Lillian’s face after they were outside. “Don’t be mad.”
“Thank you.” Mary hugged Lillian, who grasped her back as if she was starved for touch. They started toward the diner near the bus station. “I get scared a lot.”
Lillian nodded knowingly. “Because of mean people like her.”
“Mean people at home too.”
“White people?”
“And Colored.”
“No one like us there, huh?”
Mary shook her head as they sat down at a table. There were other sunny-colored girls in Cottonwood, but no one as fair as Mary. And no one as smart; she could have skipped grades but opted not to. Mary had started pretending she didn’t know something about whatever, to avoid becoming a target again.
“I get lonely too,” Lillian said. “I don’t have any friends.”
Mary was startled by Lillian’s honesty. “Me neither.”
Lillian reached across the table for Mary’s hand. “Now we have each other.”
For the first time in almost a decade of living, Mary experienced what friendship felt like. It was nice to meet someone who didn’t know her origins, and even rarer to meet someone White-but-not, like herself, who didn’t judge her for breathing.
Mary rode home giddy, fueled by Lillian’s revenge.
“What you giggling about?” Hazel asked. She looked pleased to see it.
“Nothing.”
She wanted to tell Hazel but didn’t, knowing she wouldn’t approve.
Hazel raised her brows. “Did you two have fun?”
“It was the best day.”
* * *
Charlotte was the only place Mary and Lillian’s friendship existed, and they bonded, each being the only other person either knew whose mother encouraged such a game of make-believe. But that was where their similarities stopped.
Lillian moved in the White world as if she belonged in it. Sometimes it felt as though she went out of her way to forget her manners. She interrupted adults, bumped into them, didn’t say please or thank you. She even called the waiters in the café by the first names on their uniforms. At first, Mary rebuked Lillian’s behavior, until she realized no one else admonished her. Maybe manners were just Colored rules.
“You only follow rules because someone told you to,” Lillian said as they walked into the park a few Sundays later. “So, pretend no one told you.”
Lillian never seemed to consider reality. “I don’t want to get in trouble,” Mary protested.
“You can’t. No one will know if they don’t find out.”
“What?” Mary rubbed her forehead. Lillian was always reasoning in circles around her. Even though she was three years older, she was the only friend close to being Mary’s intellectual match. Mary thought Lillian was smarter because she could read, write, and speak in three languages. But on this count, Lillian was wrong. She acted like it was her right not to be what the world said she was. “No, I mean trouble trouble.”
