“What does Standing Sisters signify?”
That the lethal casting process you subjected them to every year didn’t bring them to their knees. Production was notorious for toying with the women between seasons. They brought in new women, younger women, smarter women, richer women, put them on tape, and sent them to the network to consider. Potential “new hires,” all under the guise of keeping the cast fresh. But they also made sure the old women heard about it, that they knew no one was irreplaceable. If they wanted to come back, they had better dance for their dinner. And the old women would do anything to come back. No one ever left the show of her own accord, despite what previously axed Diggers have claimed in the press. You were fired or you died, and honestly, dying might be better. Once you were fired, it was over anyway.
It was a point of pride for Jen Greenberg, Stephanie Simmons, and my sister that they were original Goal Diggers who withstood every between-season casting gauntlet. They had these rings made to congratulate themselves and, let’s be real, to assert their authority over the newbies like me.
“The rings are our promises to each other that as women, we will raise each other up,” I revise.
“As women, we must make this commitment to one another,” Jesse says with the vigor of someone who believes herself, “especially when the world is designed to keep us down. And I have to give it to you, Kelly, because after what happened to Brett, I think most of us would understand if you wanted to back off, sell your share in the company, and hand over the reins. Instead, you’ve taken complete creative control and doubled your revenue, all while raising the most thoughtful, caring, and enterprising teenager I’ve ever met. You’re not just standing. You’re thriving.”
The mention of my daughter gets my heart going at a primal pace. Keep her out of this, I think, unfairly, since I’m the one who brought her into this in the first place.
“Kelly,” Jesse continues, “the network faced a great deal of flak when we announced that we were not only moving forward with airing season four as planned, but that we would be sharing the footage of that day uncensored. But as a show dedicated to the empowerment and advancement of women, we felt it was our responsibility to lay bare the truth of domestic violence. I know, as your friend, you agreed with Saluté. Would you talk to me a little bit about that?”
Even though I know we are not and never will be “friends,” the word sends a warm spike through my middle. To be a part of Jesse’s orbit is a fantastic thing. I’m sorry this is the way it had to happen—of course I am, I’m not a monster—but I shouldn’t have to feel guilty about it either. Everything Jesse just said about me is true. I have revitalized the company. I have doubled our revenue. I have raised an exceptional daughter. I deserve to be here, maybe even more than Brett ever did.
“I think of it like this, Jesse,” I answer. “That if what had happened to my sister had happened to me, I wouldn’t want the truth censored”—this verbal mirroring is met with an almost imperceptible nod of approval from Jesse—“just because it makes people uncomfortable. We should be made uncomfortable by domestic violence. We should be traumatized by it. It’s the only way we are ever going to be motivated to do anything about it.” The tenor of my voice has intensified, and Jesse reaches out and catches my hand in hers. The gesture produces a clapping sound, as though we have high-fived.
“Why don’t we start from the beginning?” she suggests, her pulse electric beneath my fingertips. She’s not nervous, I realize. She’s excited.
My mother always told me to make my own money so that a man could never tell me what to do. (Like my father ever told her what to do.) But here I am, doing that, or trying to at least, just to take orders from a woman who would not hesitate to hit me harder than any man ever could if I do not do as she says. I do not have independence. I do not have desirable options. What am I to do but to start from our version of the beginning?
PART I
* * *
Pre-Production???May 2017
CHAPTER 1
* * *
Brett
Would-be yoga instructor number four has punk blond hair and a bodybuilder’s tan. Her name is Maureen and she’s an ex-housewife who has spent the last seven years working on a documentary about the exodus of the Anlo-Ewe tribe from Notsé to the southeastern corner of the Republic of Ghana. If it were up to me, I’d say look no further.
“Thank you for coming all the way up here to see us,” Kelly says with a pleasant smile she doesn’t intend Maureen to ever see again. I know she decided against her the moment she took off her coat to reveal her pink sports bra and mommy gut. Kelly never got mommy gut after she had a baby, and so she believes mommy gut is not a result of biology but a choice. Wrong choice.
I’ve stayed mostly silent during the interview—this is Kelly’s thing—though not in writing—but Maureen turns to me, wringing her hands, shyly.
“At the risk of sounding like a total brownnoser,” she says, “I can’t leave here without saying how lucky this generation of young girls is to have someone like you on their TV screens. Maybe I would have come into my own sooner if I had someone like you to show me how great life can be when you embrace your authentic self. Would have saved my kids a lot of fucking grief.” She slaps a hand over her mouth. “Shit.” Her eyes go wide. “Shit!” Wider still. “Why can’t I stop? I’m so sorry.”
I glance at my twelve-year-old niece sitting in the corner, texting deafly. She wasn’t supposed to be here today, but the babysitter’s dog ate a grape. Toxic, apparently. I turn back to Maureen. “How. Dare. You.”
The silence stretches, uncomfortably. Only when it becomes unbearable do I flash her a grin and repeat, “How fucking dare you.”
“Oh, you’re kidding!” Maureen doubles over with relief, resting her hands on her knees. She releases a breath between her teeth; half whistle, half laugh.
“Easy,” my sister mutters, reminding me of our mother in two terrifying consonants. Our mother could silence a car alarm going off all night with the slow turn of her head.
“Your daughter is stunning, by the way,” Maureen addresses Kelly, changing tack in an attempt to placate my stern-lipped sister, but it is the exact worst thing she could have said about her daughter. Stunning. Striking. Exotic. That face That hair. All of it makes the green tendon in Kelly’s neck throb. My daughter is not some rarefied tropical fruit, she sometimes snaps at well-meaning strangers. She is a twelve-year-old girl. Just call her pretty.
Maureen sees the expression on Kelly’s face and laughs, nervously, turning to appeal to me one last time. “You should know that there’s already a wait list for your book at my local library. Only two people ahead of me, but still. You haven’t even published it yet.”
I offer her the plate of Grindstone artisanal doughnuts. What’s wrong with Dunkin’? I wanted to know. But Kelly had read about designer doughnuts on Grub Street and insisted we stop in Sag Harbor on the way. “You get the bacon maple for that.” I wink at Maureen and she blushes like a much younger woman who married a man despite all those fantasies, starring her best friend.
“Do you get that a lot?” the New York magazine reporter asks when Maureen is gone. Erin, I think she said her name was. “Women who credit their coming out to you?”
“All the time.”
“Why do you think that is?”
I lace my fingers behind my head and kick up my feet. Cocky, straight women often call me with a giggle. “Gay looks good on me, I guess.”
Kelly makes that face our mother warned would stick. I wish she were alive so that I could tell her she was right about something, at least.
“It’s working for you,” Erin agrees, blushing. “Whew!” She fans her cheeks. “Where’s the bathroom in here?”