When Canon called a few weeks ago, I saved his cell in my phone under CH . . . just in case he ever called again. I’d know it was him and be less likely to run off a road, dismember myself somehow, or generally lose my shit once I answered and heard his rumbling voice on the other end.
So when CH appears on my screen on a Thursday afternoon while I’m preparing to leave for the theater, I know who it is.
“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.
“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.”
“I love that.”
There’s a loaded pause before I clear my throat and he does the same.
“Yeah, well, so,” he says. “About the movie.”
“Oh, sure. Sorry. You were telling me about Dessi Blue.”
“I’d rather you learn about Dessi for yourself. You up for a field trip?”
“A field trip? When? Where?”
“As soon as you can get some time off. Just a few days, but Dessi still has family in the small town where she grew up. Her parents moved to New York from Alabama during the Great Migration when she was sixteen, but some of their family stayed behind. Her daughter lives in Alabama and essentially oversees the estate—what there is of it. I’m optioning Dessi’s life story through her. I think it’d be great if you got to know Dessi through someone connected to her.”
“That would be super helpful.”
“Verity will come, too. Great opportunity for her to get as close as we can to source material.”
A road trip with Canon Holt, even chaperoned, sends a secret thrill through me, one I suppress immediately.
“This all sounds amazing,” I say. “It’s a true biopic.”
“Yes, and we don’t get enough of those about Black folks who did big things. It will be a demanding role with singing, dancing. You will act your ass off for me. I’ll do whatever it takes to get the best out of you. I’m not easy to work with. You might hate me by the time it’s over.”
“Why me?” I ask softly. “I mean, this is obviously a huge budget and a once-in-a-lifetime role. I’m . . . a standby.”
“No, you’re a star who was standing by waiting for me to find her.”
I let his low-voiced encouragement sink in before replying.
“That sounds very Svengali. Are you planning to mold me into exactly what you want?” I release a breathless chuckle. “Good luck with that.”
“I don’t want to change you. I think you’re fantastic exactly as you are.”
All humor fades to dust at the certainty in his rough-smooth voice. A man like Canon, a director like him saying I’m fantastic as I am—I need to savor this. Roll it around in my mouth like candy. Suck on it for a second and swallow all the affirmation hidden at the center.
“This role will change you, though,” he continues. “Inevitably and irreversibly. The learning curve will be steep, and I won’t go easy on you. You have no film experience.”
“I know,” I say, the enormity of this undertaking flattening my high.
“But what you do have is Dessi’s spirit. There’s not much left, but I’ve seen old photos and some rare footage of her performing. She had an inextinguishable light. Trying to cast this role the last six months, I’ve seen so many actresses. Many of them were great, a lot of them already famous, but I didn’t see that light until I saw you perform a few weeks ago. I want it. I want that light. I want that heart and that vulnerability and strength. There is so much inside of you, Neevah, and I’m warning you now that I want it all.”
And in this moment, sitting on the floor of my dingy apartment, on the cusp of the greatest opportunity of my life, I want to give it to him.
