“Hello?” I answer with a question because I don’t want him to know I know.
“Neevah,” he says. “It’s Canon.”
I know!
“Canon, hi.” I will my molecules to stop vibrating and sit on the couch, plunking my bag on the floor.
“I want to offer you a role in my upcoming movie,” he says without further greeting. The words slam into my chest and crater behind my breastbone, leaving no space for air.
Trembling, I offer a silent prayer of thanks to my patron saint Audra McDonald. This is a Canon Holt movie. This is a break. Even if it’s not a big role, I’ll do my best and make something of it.
“Neevah? You there?”
“Oh. Sorry. Yeah. I was just . . . wow. I guess I’m a little stunned. Thank you so much for this opportunity.”
“Don’t you want to know what the role is?” he asks, a tiny bit of humor sneaking into his usually sober voice.
Third cow from the left? Girl who walks in field? Skipping marionette?
I’m pretty sure any role he casts me in will be one I accept.
“Sure,” I answer like a more reasonable person.
“It’s Dessi Blue.”
Hold up. Wait a minute. Put a little crazy in it.
“Um . . . but when I auditioned . . . it seemed . . . wasn’t the main character named Dessi?” My lips have gone numb and my brain is firing molasses instead of synapses, but I do remember that much.
“It is. I’m offering you the lead.”
My butt slides right off the couch and I land on the floor.
“Holy shit,” I mutter.
A dark silk chuckle unfurls from the other line. “Is that a yes? The role is yours if you want it.”
If this moment were a hand, I’d never wash it again.
In an instant, I go from shell-shocked to completely, emotionally verklempt. I look around our shoe box of an apartment, remembering all the tuna I’ve eaten straight from the can when money was tight. All the past due notices I’ve stuffed to the back of my mind and the back of a drawer over the years, struggling to make art my living. Knowing this is what I was supposed to do, but sometimes unsure how to do it. Unsure of how this story, my story, would end. Only to find a beginning. After the last year of being Elise’s standby with only one week in the spotlight, the very week Canon was in town, it’s a miraculous new beginning.
“I-I, well . . .” Do not cry. Zip it up. Hold it in. Be professional. “Yes. I’ll do it.”
“Good.” Canon’s voice doesn’t hold surprise, because who would turn this down, but he sounds satisfied. “We’ll reach out to your agent to discuss the details. I hacked a script just to pitch and get it sold to a studio, but Verity Hill is writing it. What you read was our rush job. I promise it’ll be better by the time she’s done with it.”
“She’s incredible. I loved that last show she wrote for.”
“Agreed. And Monk’s doing the music.”
“Oh, wow. That’s so exciting. I have to thank him for dragging you to my show, I guess.”
“He’s really looking forward to working with you.”
“When do we start or . . . I just want to make sure I give plenty of notice to the team at Splendor.”
“It’ll be a while. I wanted to cast Dessi first because she’s the center of the whole thing. I need to build around her. Around you.”
I can’t even breathe right. This conversation is a high-speed car chase and I’m barely keeping up. I force myself to focus on his words despite the tires screeching in my head.
“Mallory’s working on casting everyone else. As soon as Verity delivers the script, we’ll start scouting locations in earnest. We’ve done some prelim work, but I want the script before we nail it down. I hope to shoot in New York since so much of the story takes place there.”
“I just realized I don’t know the story. I don’t know anything about Dessi other than what I read on page seventeen.”
“It’s fascinating. Dessi was an incredibly talented singer and dancer from the thirties and forties who led a remarkable life, but like so many Black performers back in the day, she’s gotten lost.”
“You love history, don’t you?” I don’t know what makes me ask that in the middle of this discussion about the project, but I don’t regret it.
“I’m interested in the stories lost in the crevices of history, yeah.”
“So many of your documentaries focus on historical figures, so that makes sense.”
“Winston Churchill said history is written by the victors, but I would amend that to say it’s often written by liars. History is fact. You can’t change what happened, but you can edit it. People lie and leave out the truth, bend it to suit their needs. I like to tell stories that excavate the facts and expose the truth.”