Percival Everett and Dali

Why read widely if you want to write?

Reading widely is essential for anyone who wants to write because it provides a range of benefits that can significantly improve writing skills. 

Expose yourself to different styles and genres. Reading across genres exposes you to various narrative techniques, structures, and stylistic approaches. This helps you develop a more versatile writing style.

Learn about creativity and innovation by seeing how different authors tackle similar themes in unique ways. You can mix and match techniques to create something original in your own writing.

Improve your vocabulary and language skills. Reading a wide range of books introduces you to new words and phrases, which can enrich your writing and help you express ideas more precisely. Exposure to different writing styles and tones allows you to understand the subtle nuances of language, enabling more sophisticated and varied expression in your writing.

Understanding of different perspectives fosters empathy and insight, and broadens your understanding of the world and human experiences. This empathy can translate into more authentic and relatable characters and narratives in your own work. Exposure to diverse viewpoints allows you to tackle complex themes and ideas in your writing, making your work more layered and thought-provoking.

Inspiration and idea generation is important. The more you read, the more ideas you encounter, which can spark your own creativity. Reading widely provides a well of inspiration that you can draw from in your writing. When facing a writing challenge, you might recall how other authors have navigated similar issues, giving you potential solutions or new directions to explore.

Most importantly, understand audience expectations. Reading within different genres helps you understand what readers expect from each, which can guide your writing. Staying aware of current trends and popular works, you can better understand what resonates with readers, helping you craft stories that appeal to a broader audience.

Reading widely allows you to critically analyze what works and what doesn’t in various texts, helping you to apply these insights to your own writing. By understanding the strengths and weaknesses of others' writing, you can more objectively assess your own work and make improvements.

Reading books from different time periods and cultures helps you understand the historical and cultural contexts that shape narratives. This awareness can enrich your writing by adding depth and accuracy, especially if your work involves historical or cultural elements.

Exposure to a wide array of ideas helps you recognize and avoid clichés, encouraging more original storytelling.

I’ve been on vacation and have really fallen in love with Percival Everett, known for his versatility, wit, and profound exploration of complex themes. So, I began thinking about how I could use my newfound infatuation to inform my writing. Here’s what I’ve gathered.

Percival Everett has written in a variety of genres, from literary fiction to satire, and even poetry. To truly understand his style, I am reading multiple works across his different genres.

I have paid close attention to how Everett constructs his sentences, his use of dialogue, and how he structures his narratives. Notice his pacing, use of irony, and how he blends humor with serious commentary. 

Everett often tackles themes of identity, race, and the absurdities of social constructs. His work frequently questions established norms and delves into the complexities of human experience. I have been thinking about how these themes resonate in his narratives and consider how I might explore themes in my writing. Specifically, how people behave differently depending on who they are speaking to. Everett’s work often employs satire to critique society and culture. Study how he uses irony and humor to convey deeper messages. I call this a spoonful of sugar technique. 

Everett’s writing is often sharp, witty, and layered with humor. Work on developing your sense of humor in writing by observing how he sets up jokes, uses wordplay, or employs dry humor to make serious points. He doesn’t shy away from the absurd. I’m vacationing in Dali’s birthplace, Figueres. I’m hoping some weirdness rubs off. 

And not the hard part is blending what I admire about his style with my unique perspective and experiences. Everett’s work is powerful because it feels authentic and deeply connected to his worldview. I need to remain true to my own experiences and insights, even as I can draw inspiration from his techniques.

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One Hit

By Liz Dubelman

Kat had been on a feline hunger strike for days. Robert figured she was holding out for more chopped liver, and he was torn. He wanted to give her everything she wanted. She was the closest relationship he’d had in his life, but he just couldn’t afford it on a produce manager’s salary. 

He strolled through his department, making sure the fruits and vegetables looked neat and moist. The vibrant colors and glossy surfaces suggested a come-hither attitude. Robert was proud and a little sad. If he had worked in the deli department Kat wouldn’t be deprived because of his limited earning potential, but he loved his job. Last time he had procured the last little bit of almost-turned chopped liver was from Hannah in prepared foods. Hannah knew Kat from the photos Robert had posted in the walk-in. She saw them every time she went looking for curly parsley. The drawback was that Hannah wanted tabloid fodder in exchange for liver.

“What was it like to work with Shel Friedberg? Were Michelle Pfeiffer’s lips real? Did Harrison Ford really smoke pot?” The best he had was that Jean Stapleton once gave him an acting tip. She said, “Try to forget the camera. Just react.” 

Robert wasn’t protecting anyone. He would have had no moral problem telling Hollywood tales if he’d had any, which he did not. He had done one movie thirty-odd years ago. He wasn’t old enough then to know who used fillers or even what fillers were. Everyone had been really nice to him, but he was just a kid. His life was different now and Robert liked it better. He liked having parameters. He loved Kat. That other life, the one with lights and make-up and all the soda he could drink was too loose, like when Dino didn’t stack the tomatoes tight enough or in the wrong pattern. Anyone could take a tomato out carelessly and the whole lot of them would bounce and roll and, inevitably, bruise. 

He thought about going to Enrique, the butcher. Normally, Enrique would give the chicken liver to Hannah for the deli’s prepared food, but surely there must be some extra, unless a Monsanto-like company started breeding chickens without livers. He liked getting favors from Hannah better. It was more engaging, even though he never met her gossip needs. 

Enrique was about 22 and from Medellin, Colombia, so chances were good he had never seen the Shel Friedberg 1988 opus, I Can Fly, featuring newcomer Robert St. James. Enrique didn’t like cats or, really, domesticated pets of any kind. Sometimes a customer would ask Enrique for a bone for their dog, and Enrique would lie and say he had no more today. Robert couldn’t appeal to Enrique’s love for animals or trade him for meaningless Hollywood tidbits, but he did have something. It was a long shot, and would require some coordination, but Robert’s downstairs neighbor was DJ Roomer, the most famous Hip Hop DJ in Poughkeepsie. Robert thought he might be able to get Enrique on the list at the club in exchange for liver. This might be tricky but he could probably make a deal with Roomer for some Red Bull he could get with his employee discount and it would still be less than buying the liver with his discount. 

Robert went to the back to check on how much Red Bull or Monster was on hand and which was cheaper. He hadn’t even located the cases when Sophie, the manager in charge of front caps and impulse buys found him. She was red-faced and out-of-breath – not that rosacea was uncommon for her, but just now her pallor was burgundy. She was one large curve like a planet or a plum. She huffed out, “Robert, have you seen this?”

She held out a tabloid with the headline, “Sequel To America’s Most Beloved Movie To Begin Filming.” Below the headline was the old I Can Fly movie poster, with the word “Too” stenciled over it.  Under the poster it said, “Story on page 3.” Sophie left Robert with the paper, adding, “You can read it but I better get it back in sellable condition or it’s coming out of your pay, not mine.”

“I can live with that,” he said, as she left him alone among the brown boxes. He took down a box of canned green beans to sit on.The article said that there was a script and deals were being made.The original cast would make cameos as the parents or grandparents of the new cast, which included one of the kids from Modern Family, a pretty Disney star, and one of Angelina’s and Brad’s kids. Robert felt cold and dark. 

Without a thought he made a determined trek to aisle 6: toothpaste, feminine hygiene, first aid, and cold remedies. He took a bottle each of Dayquil, Benadryl, Mucinex DM liquid and Excedrin migraine. He heard no real sounds. No oldies rock and roll that played through the speakers at the Shop-Rite. There was just a distinct muffled internal tinnitus. 

He walked robotically out to the loading dock, to the more or less hidden area where he had seen Juan and a few of the other workers smoking a joint from time to time. He ripped open all the child-proofed packaging and used two of the plastic measuring caps from the Dayquil and the Mucinex DM as mixing bowls. He crushed the Excedrin in one cap and poured the Dayquil over the powder. Then he opened the Benadryl capsule and poured Mucinex over the beads of Benadryl. He downed each one of the vile-tasting concoctions in rapid succession. He had to work hard not to throw up. He sat under the loading dock and waited for the altered state to begin. 

“Let’s see who can fly now, motherfucker,” he mumbled. 

Even in his low-rent haze, Robert knew he had to do the movie. It was a devils’ bargain, but it was an obvious solution to a very big looming problem. Robert’s sister June was the one who’d really wanted to act. She was scouted at the Children’s Theater in Paramus, New Jersey at the age of eleven, and was encouraged to move to Los Angeles with unfulfilled promises. But it was Robert who got the accidental break into, as the movie posters declared, “America’s Most Beloved Film.” 

It was a very hot summer in the mid-eighties. Robert had tagged along with June on an audition for General Hospital. They were casting for SORASing a character. SORAS stands for “soap opera rapid aging syndrome.” It’s when they take a child character away for a short period of time and recast them as older and often sexier because it’s no fun to watch a kid grow up in real time. June was fifteen and the girl next door sexy. These casting sessions took place in multi-use buildings and Robert was coming out just as Shel Friedberg, casting I Can Fly, was going in, and in that moment everything changed.

June never did become an actress. She worked for a while as a makeup artist, mostly on commercials and music videos. She met Tom when she was working on a Toad the Wet Sprocket video. He was a sound engineer on the album. In four months they were engaged, in six months she was pregnant. Tom got an offer to run Tony Bennett’s recording studio in New Jersey, and they moved back east. June didn’t remember making any decisions. June was now in the middle of a very sordid and painful divorce with two kids to support. Robert felt like he owed her. 

Soon the calls and emails would start flooding in. He had been through this once before when a producer from AUDIENCE contacted him to do a “Where Are They Now?” Robert knew everyone wanted to hear a tragic yet redeeming story about how he found sobriety. Or how his parents stole his money and he had been forced to live in New Zealand with distant relatives. Or how he overcame clinical depression and that he would be on Dancing WithThe Stars: Season 63.  

But Robert didn’t have any of those stories. He just didn’t like acting. He didn’t understand the heart of the craft. He could hit his mark and memorize lines, but he didn’t know where to find “the pain” or “the joy” or any other emotion, and he didn’t like being famous. 

When I Can Fly came out he was on vacation in Vermont with June. They were visiting Granny, and the movie was playing at the local multiplex, but they thought nothing of it. Of course he had no idea that it was going to be one of the highest grossing movies of all time. None of them had. The Vermont air was hot, humid and full of bugs when they all went into town for Hydrox cookies. Girls mobbed Robert. Some were crying and screaming and Robert was confused. Were they crying for the character? Were they screaming for joy? Or were they just hormonal? Robert hated that moment. It was all too big. 

He decided that his life needed boundaries, like Granny’s property. The plot was huge, but the fence that surrounded the house made it feel cozy. That’s what he wanted for the rest of his life.

Robert never went back to Los Angeles. He lived with Granny while his parents and sister stayed in L.A. Robert got a job right after graduation at a Bread and Circus, a predecessor to Whole Foods, and he stayed away from people, women in particular. He didn’t want to go deep into his life story, and to him it seemed that’s what relationships required.

He spent a lot of time observing his customers and the flow of the supermarket. He saw customers usually shop to the right first. Consumers want to feel healthy, so fresh produce was located in the front of the store. Baked goods take forty feet of space. Each department has its own design and color scheme. He was proud to know all this, proud of his ability to get into the heads of customers and make their shopping experience a little more pleasant. Proud to impress his colleagues and superiors with how seamlessly he could get consumers to spend a little more money than they had expected to without regret. He had worked in supermarkets his entire adult life, yet there was that blip on his teenage timeline, four or five months – half a year if you counted the press junket – that defined him. 

Robert knew it was more efficient to place the toothpaste next to the toothbrushes next to the mouthwash. It all looked good together. Proper. He liked the stock boys, the cashiers, and the other managers. He knew how to give criticism in the palatable form of advice. What Robert didn’t know was how to be someone else. 

Sometimes after work he and Kat would watch an old clip of I Can Fly in an effort to remember how to pretend.  He was playing pretend in front of lights and cameras and crew people who didn’t care what he did as long as he hit his mark, remembered his lines and found his light. 

Robert didn’t know if he could do that anymore. He wasn’t a boy. He was a manager who could keep delivery schedules in his head. He didn’t think he could find another person inside himself. He wasn’t even sure he could find himself. He had never been a father. He sat in his apartment trying to pretend to be a father to Kat. 

“How was school? Do you have any homework?” He added, “Bud,” to indicate affection. But Kat’s lack of response to Robert’s pretend dialogue made Robert feel insane. Not a feeling he was comfortable with at all. 

Robert motored past fields of tobacco and small broken down shacks. A kind of pastoral nostalgia came over him. He passed a field of kale, which only a produce manager could distinguish from the fields of tobacco. He saw the anonymous workers with white cotton squares of fabric tucked underneath their hats to protect their necks from the shadeless fields. He turned off the radio but left the air conditioner on at a respectable level, allowing himself this one luxury. He knew every one of those farm workers would have sold their souls to stand next to the flame of fame and this just made Robert feel scared and guilty. He wondered what was going on at the prepared foods counter. It was Tuesday so Hannah was making too much turkey salad with cranberries that no one ever bought. He made a mental note to tell her not to make so much when he got back. 

He drove up to a gate at the appointed address where he met Jo, who turned out to be a 20-something heavily tattooed production assistant. “Mr. St. James,” she said, “it’s such an honor to meet you.” Robert wondered if he’d had a small stroke. Did Jo greet all grocery store workers with such reverence?  

Robert settled into his rented condo on the beautifully manicured golf course. He didn’t play. The gated community was called The Heart of Wilson. His apartment was twice the size of his place in Poughkeepsie. It had hardwood floors, large windows, and white walls, but most of all it was clean. The sterility was frightening. Robert needed the comfort of a fur ball or a thin layer of dust as a protective covering on all surfaces. He missed Kat. Why hadn’t he tried harder to bring her?

Jo had left him with maps, contact lists and a call sheet. He looked at his watch – it was 4:12 in the afternoon. Normally around four o’clock on a Tuesday, he would be halfway through his shift at the Shop-Rite. Just about time for his break. Hannah would have found him, and they would have set up a makeshift table on a box of pineapples or other sturdy fruits or vegetables in the walk-in. Robert would bring an almost too-ripe avocado, or maybe an imperfect tomato. Hannah would bring the heels of some bread and the ends of turkey and salami.

Robert opened the fridge and found it stocked – exotic cheeses, prosciutto, beer, wine, pressed juices, and the most beautiful apples he had ever seen. Granny Smiths, Braeburns, Pink Ladies, and Honeycrisps. Honeycrisps were Robert’s favorite. They are the quintessential apple. It’s what folks call a “great hand apple.” Phenomenal. They have beauty, texture, taste, and they were a revolution to the apple-buying public. Apple sales went through the roof when they were introduced well over twenty years ago. And what a great name they had, too. Honeycrisp. Sweet and crunchy. 

Robert took a Honeycrisp, a knife, and a paper towel. He sat at the glass table which seated eight and called his sister June on speaker. (He needed both hands to really enjoy the apple.) “Hi, June, I just wanted to let you know I got in okay.”

“Kat’s fine,” June said.

“I figured. It’s only been about five hours. How are you?”

“You know. The same.”

But Robert didn’t know. He had never been in a serious relationship, let alone one that had gone bad after twenty years. He had never known disappointment or heartache.

“I know, I haven’t really been there for you.”

“But you are now and I just really appreciate it.”

Robert and June talked once a week, nine a.m. on Saturday, unless she and Tom took the kids to the shore. That was all before things got bad, before June found out. June had two kids, Robert’s niece and nephew, Judy, 14, and Bobby, 12. He wouldn’t have recognized either of them if he had passed them on the street. June emailed Robert pictures and videos of dance recitals and soccer games, which he dutifully watched, but they were strangers to him. He had no sense of who they were and how they fit into his life, but he knew that they were family and supposed that should hold some weight.

“What’s it like there?”

“I don’t know, clean, quiet, respectful.”

“That sounds like heaven. Here it’s …” June trailed off, as if she was searching for a feeling, or the word for a feeling.

Robert was loving this apple. He wondered if the production company had gotten it from a farm stand or supermarket. 

“Tense,” June said.

“How are the kids holding up?” Robert asked.

“Bobby’s fine. Getting really good on the guitar, because Tom told him that was the way to get girls. I mean, with all this stuff going on, how could he say such a thing to him?”

Robert could feel the mood changing to an uncomfortable place. “How’s …” He paused. “… Judy?” It was the first time he realized how close the names Judy and June were.

“Judy’s a little bitch. Her room is a mess, she never does a dish, and Tom never backs me up on anything even though I’m still standing by him. He thinks it’s cute for her to leave clothes all over the floor. He says it’s part of her process. She has this Instagram thing, ‘An Outfit a Day.’  Tom encourages her to be shallow.”

Robert scanned his brain to find another topic. He wanted to be there for June, but he hadn’t thought being there was going to be so intense. “I go in tomorrow for fittings and stuff.”

“I’m sorry,” June said. “I know you hate this and you know I appreciate everything you’re doing for me. I wish I could change places with you.” 

Robert needed to get off the phone. He wasn’t really good with emotions. “I’m happy I can help,” he said. “Take care of Kat. I have to go.”

“Okay, I love you,” June said, and they hung up.

Robert looked at the script Jo had left for him. It had multi-colored pages indicating many revisions. Robert wondered if it was any good. He honestly couldn’t tell. He didn’t see a lot of movies. He never thought I Can Fly would be successful. 

Before Robert had found Kat trying to leap inside the dumpster behind the Shop-Rite, before Robert had adopted Kat, before Robert felt the warm engulfing love of Kat, Robert was lonely. He wasn’t lonely all the time, he wasn’t lonely at work, he was only lonely when he was alone, which at that time, with his schedule and in his career, before he had moved up to manager, was from 9 a.m. to 12 noon. Twelve noon because he knew no one would object if he came in a few hours early to learn the ropes or to just help out. Robert had been working at the Shop-Rite for quite a while, so consequently he had been lonely for a long time. He tried many things to stave off loneliness, or at least lessen it. He tried sleeping in. He would stay in bed and try to hold on to the last remnants of a dream or sleepy feeling. He tried cooking elaborate breakfasts that would require eating in stages. A smoothie, then coffee, then perfectly poached eggs with carefully trimmed toast points buttered with softened butter that had to be brought to room temperature by taking it out of the refrigerator before he had commenced making the smoothie. He tried a complicated routine of ablutions, but like with any anesthetic, it left him with a kind of hangover. It was the opposite of his interpretation of love, deeply unsatisfying.

Robert didn’t date. He was then, and still was, a nice-looking guy. Back then he had curly blond hair and blue eyes. Now he was trim and fit, due to incidental exercise like moving crates of produce and shoveling snow. He rarely drank because the thought of drinking alone made him even more profoundly lonely. He did drink occasionally with Hannah, Enrique, Sophie, or other of his co-workers when their shifts ended at the same time and they were all going out. He missed that now. He wanted to have a drink with Hannah. She always made him laugh. 

Robert told himself he didn’t date because he never met anyone, but that wasn’t strictly true.  People scared him, or more precisely, women scared him. Even when a female customer would talk to him at the Shop-Rite, he felt judged, analyzed and oppressed. “Excuse me,” a woman might ask Robert as he stocked the garlic. “Can you tell me if the honeydew is ripe?” And Robert would hear in his head, “Your jeans don’t fit, that color is all wrong for your complexion, your shoes are scuffed. Didn’t anyone ever tell you that all this matters?” 

“Actually,” Robert’s mouth would move without input from his brain, “the cantaloupe is much sweeter.” He never felt this way about Hannah. She was a co-worker. 

Before Robert’s first day on the set, the producer sent him to a day spa. They had booked a whole day of treatment: massage, manicure, pedicure, salt scrub, mud bath. The nice lady at the desk, whose name plate read Sue Ellen, said in a captivating southern drawl, “I see here, Mr. St. James, that everything is taken care of. And there’s a special note not to have any facial treatment. You know, I find most of the men don’t like them anyway. Maybe it’s not manly, or, you know, those extractions can be a little uncomfortable. Anyway, a handsome guy like you wouldn’t need anything like that.”

What the hell is going on? Robert thought. He was having an out-of-body experience. He was on the ceiling and the pleasant couple below him were having an almost indecipherable conversation.

“Thank you,” he said, after noticing that some moments had passed. Sue Ellen gave him a locker key and pointed him to the men’s area.

The walls in the hallway were blue, with gilded frame pictures of horses. It occurred to Robert that this spa might once have been a plantation. He released that thought, and it floated out of his head, through his ear, just as two portly southern gentleman clad in white robes passed him. 

“I’m not foolin’,” one of them said. “I think marijuana’s a cash crop. Times are changin’, why shouldn’t we …”

Robert found his locker containing his white robe and rubber sandals. His brain had a hard time accepting that this was going to be his uniform for the day. He missed his parka and his apron. A very pretty young man in what looked like white scrubs introduced himself as Grant. “Mr. St. James, I’ll be your valet for the day. I’ll take you to your appointment and get you anything you need. Let’s start off with a shower.”

Robert had never realized there was an emotion past uncomfortable. It felt like he was weightless in a hurricane. He tried to focus on the familiar feeling of warm water pounding down on him. It was exceedingly good water pressure. “I have a nice warm towel for you, Mr. St. James,” Grant said.

He knew he would either have to speak to Grant or get out of the shower. Neither option was ideal. Fuck, Robert thought, this was exactly why … Why what? Why he didn’t do things like this, why he never thought of doing things like this, why he didn’t go to new places, why he didn’t get pampered, or why he didn’t meet new people. Robert got out of the shower with his back to Grant, who swaddled Robert in a huge bath sheet. Then Grant leaned in and turned off the pulsing water.

“Shall we go to the dry sauna?  It’s very relaxing.”

In the makeup trailer, Robert opened his eyes and looked at himself in the mirror. He looked old but good. His golden white hair, usually hidden under a knit hat in the winter or a baseball cap in the summer, was cut neatly. He had been blessed with a full head of hair. His blue-grey eyes were enhanced by the darkening of his eyelashes and eyebrows. He looked handsome, and that made him feel hopeful. Perhaps looking good could be enough. Maybe he didn’t need to find the hidden cache of burning emotion that he thought he needed to act. Maybe he could just reflect light well.

The hair and makeup artists had been quiet during the process, taking their cue from Robert. He supposed that they thought he was just preparing, and maybe in his own way he was preparing. He was concentrating on keeping his anxiety just under head-exploding. He went back to his trailer to review his lines for the day. There was a knock on the door. 

“Can I come in?” It was Joyce DiCaprio, his former co-star from I Can Fly. She was currently recurring on Days of Our Lives, where she had been for almost two decades.  Now she played the evil matriarch of the family. Over the years her part had gotten smaller and smaller as her weight had gotten heavier.  Robert noticed that she looked unhappy under her makeup.

“Joyce!” he said, and gave her a big hug. She felt pillowy.

“I guess it’s just the two of us now,” Joyce said.

The third and youngest child lead in I Can Fly, Joshua Jones, had died in a base-jumping accident in Argentina years ago. “How are you?” Joyce asked. “You look amazing. Someone told me you live in upstate New York and work in a supermarket?” Joyce left the question hanging in the air, like a soap bubble waiting to pop.

“Yes,” said Robert, not giving any more information but feeling a bit smaller. 

“Do you have a partner?” Joyce asked. Robert knew she was fishing around for his sexual label. The clue was the ambiguous word “partner.”

“No.”

“Well, of course, you know, I’m just untangling from my fifth marriage. I don’t think people are meant to mate for life. I’m sure you feel the same. It’s probably why you never married. You never did marry?”

“No,” he said. But Robert did believe people should stay married for life, and that’s why he never got married. He never thought he was up to the task, but he couldn’t explain that to Joyce, who had failed more times than Robert had tried.

“Joyce,” Robert said, “I haven’t acted since we did I Can Fly.” He felt a deep panic and shame, but he tried to think of Joyce as a priest, or a life coach. If he told her his fears, maybe she could absolve him or give him the tools to help him cope. 

“Oh, honey,” she said, “they’ll fix it in post. They didn’t hire us for our talents. It’s a publicity stunt.” Somehow this wasn’t comforting to Robert. He felt used. Why hadn’t he known? They were paying him for his name. Most people would have been thrilled.

It  had been five days. Five days of comfortable discomfort. Everyone was super nice and attentive, but that did nothing to assuage his anxiety. He had no idea how he was going to do his big scene, and what made him even more nervous was that he didn’t know precisely when it would happen.

It had been raining for a few days, so the whole company had moved to a cover set. That meant a complete rejiggering of the schedule. Joyce had done her best to soothe him by saying a protective “Honey, it’s only a movie,” but that wasn’t in the least calming. Somehow Robert’s life hadn’t followed him to North Carolina. It wasn’t packed in his bag and it didn’t travel. When he thought hard about where he was and what he was feeling, he could only draw one conclusion: he desperately needed Kat. This was a deep longing, unlike what one human could have for another human. He couldn’t call Kat or email Kat. June sometimes texted him a photo, but did Kat know how much Robert missed her? Did Kat know Robert would pick her up in a week or so? Or did Kat think the love of her life had abandoned her? Robert phoned his sister.

“Hi,” he said.

“I’m so glad you called,” June said.

“Is Kat okay?”

“Yeah, she’s around here somewhere. She usually spends the day under the bed.”

Kat never did that at Robert’s apartment. She liked the sun and would lounge in small patches with her eyes half-closed, as if in ecstasy. Kat must be depressed to hide under the dark canopy of the bed. 

“Robert, things have gotten really bad. It’s in the newspaper. They said that Tom had sex with her in the parking lot at school. Why did I ever marry him and have kids with him?”

“We’ll get through it,” Robert said, still thinking about Kat.

“I don’t know how I’m ever going to repay you, you know. I could have never afforded the legal fees.”

Robert wanted to say, “Just take care of Kat,” but he ran that thought through his head first and decided not to say it. Maybe this was a little like acting, he thought. He cared about June, of course, but he cared about Kat more. He substituted June for Kat and then went at it again. “June, sweetie, I’m going to take care of you. It’s going to be fine. We’ll get through this together. You know I will always love you.”

Robert had never said anything like this to his sister before. It was as if he was in a fitting room trying on a new life. Robert could hear June weeping a little bit. It was oddly moving to him. “Look, June, I have to go, but I’m sending a big hug and kisses.” They hung up.

Robert’s call time was six a.m. Time had taken on a color, or a feeling. Six a.m. didn’t mean just as the sun was rising, it meant a shade of black turning to blue.

He drove himself to set and was ushered in to hair and makeup. Jo brought him a café au lait and he smiled at her, but he couldn’t speak. He used his smile to replace a whole vocabulary: “Thank you, that’s nice, that looks good.” People seemed to find it charming. He didn’t think he could get away with just facial expressions at his real job. There was too much of a need for real communication. How would he tell Jose to push the mangos from Mexico before they became overripe? What would that facial contortion look like?

Robert moved from hair and makeup to wardrobe. He had been trying to think of nothing since four this morning. He found it the best defense against terror. When he couldn’t clear his mind he counted silently, one to ten, over and over again.

He was dressed for his big scene in what the wardrobe mistress called “folksy outfit number two.” It was comprised of work boots, a whitish t-shirt, jeans, and a brown flannel shirt. It was sort of like an outfit he might wear to work, only it was nicer somehow. The boots were a better shape. Someone had paid attention to the laces, which matched the cocoa color of the boots so precisely that Robert couldn’t even see them. The white t-shirt wasn’t bright white, it was a shade off, making it look softer, and the jeans were perfect, with no tightness anywhere, just a worn-in look.

Robert walked slowly back to his trailer. He had this odd desire to both slow down time and speed it up. He wanted this day over or postponed more than he wanted anything in his entire life. He found his pages in his trailer. Jo had placed a clean copy on the table near his phone for him while he was getting ready. He briefly looked it over, just to make sure no lines had changed. It was the climactic scene of the movie. Robert’s son comes to him for the last time ever, to explain he has to fly. It’s his destiny, and even though he loves Robert and he knows he will be lonely, it’s about something bigger, and Robert needs to let him go.

After Robert finished reading his scene, he noticed he had a voicemail. It was from June. “Hey,” she said. “I know this isn’t the best time, but we need to talk. Please.” June took a long, deep breath. “Call me.”

Robert called June. “Hi,” he said, finding his voice.

“Oh, Robert,” June said, “I don’t know how to tell you this.”

“It’s okay,” Robert said.

“Kat’s dead. We found her this morning under the bed. She was gone. The vet said sometimes they do that when they’re very sick. They find a place to be alone. I’m so sorry. The doctor said she must have been sick for a while.” There was a knock on the trailer door. It was Jo. “Time to walk to set, Mr. St. James.”

Robert didn’t know how he got to set. He had felt Jo by his side like a shadow, attached but ephemeral. He was placed in a chair that faced a television set that at some point would have a movie playing on it, as soon as they could clear the rights.

The now very old but still great (just ask him) Shel Friedberg explained that Robert’s fictional son, Ryker, would knock on the door and let himself in, turn off the TV and then start the dialogue. Shel said, “I know you got this,” and turned to walk away.

“Shel,” Robert said, “can we do my close-up first?”

The scene lasted two or three minutes. By the end, even the great Shel Friedberg was in tears. Robert had felt every word Ryker had spoken. “I love you … I need to fly … If you love me you’ll let me go … I need to do this … I know it hurts, but just love me enough to let me go.” Although they shot the rest of the scene – Ryker’s close-up and the wide shot – the entire scene played in one shot of just a close-up of Robert.

It was spring in upstate New York when Robert arrived back into his life. His neighbor had planted pansies, which looked like purple and yellow flowers painted with impressionistic faces. Robert knew that in April in Poughkeepsie there was still a good chance of a frost. 

Robert’s life had shifted in just a few weeks. He thought about how the seeds for the movement had been planted years earlier and how all the different seemingly unrelated encounters coalesced to bring him to where he was at this murky moment.

Daylight shined through a small sliver in the almost closed venetian blinds. He thought he’d closed those. He didn’t need to clean up Kat’s litter box or move her food bowl. He had left everything at June’s. Kat had given Robert a gift and he didn’t need anything else from her.

Robert showed up for his regular shift, one to ten. As he drove to work the radio played a soulful song that Robert didn’t know, but it sounded familiar. He parked by the loading dock. Juan and Enrique were having a smoke.

“Meet you inside,” Juan called out, then added, “movie star” instead of his customary “boss.”

Robert walked straight back to the walk-in and put on his apron. He couldn’t decide if he should take down the pictures of Kat. There was the one of her lounging in a triangle of sunlight, one of her asleep on her back looking vulnerable, and the selfie Robert took of the two of them. He decided he didn’t need to decide yet. 

He checked the orders and the stock. They had done a good job without him. He walked the floor taking note that the scallions and leeks looked a little disheveled. The onion stack wasn’t as tight as he would have liked and they were low on herbs.

He saw Hannah under the fluorescent lights helping a customer. She looked happy and beautiful. He made a motion to meet in the walk-in. 

“So, how was it?”

  He wanted to kiss her, a long never-ending unreal kiss, but he didn’t know how. He didn’t know if she wanted him and that, he reasoned, was the difference between passion and assault. He was starting to los body heat.

“You look great,” Hannah said.

He wanted more. He hugged her and whispered, “Kat died.” What he wanted to say was, “I love you.”