Chapter 22 Verity #2
At those words, I turn toward the blond lady of medium height who’s approaching. She clicks to alarm a Mercedes wagon and stops beside me.
“You’re probably right.” I return the warm smile that lights her green eyes. “I was on my way in. I’m Verity.”
“Oh, I know.” She extends her hand for a firm handshake. “Jill Brigston, the cinematographer. I’ve been working with Canon a long time, and you’re probably the writer he’s been most excited about.”
“Really?” I fall in step with her to Canon’s front door.
“All I’ve heard is Verity this and Verity that.” She slides her hands into the back pockets of her perfectly broken-in jeans. “Well, when it wasn’t Neevah this, or Neevah that.”
“That part,” I agree with a laugh. “I’m truly honored to be on this team.”
“He’s the real deal.” She rings the doorbell and smiles. “But I’m sure you know that by now.”
The door swings open, and Graham, Canon’s assistant, welcomes us.
“Hi, Jill!” she greets the cinematographer, and then shifts hazel eyes to me. “And good to see you again, Verity.”
Graham leads us through the foyer with soaring ceilings and a chandelier that looks more like a satellite than a light fixture.
There are maybe ten people scattered across the living and dining rooms, which split the open floor plan. A few chat on a massive leather sectional, while others congregate at the long dining room table, solid and weathered like it’s made from repurposed driftwood.
“Hungry?” Graham keeps walking past the living room and heads for the table. “I need to point out that there’s shrimp in that pasta salad in case you’re allergic, but there’s chicken and veggie options, too.”
The prospect of seeing Monk again stole my appetite, so I haven’t eaten much, but the hunger comes roaring back at the first whiff of grilled chicken.
“Thanks.” I grab one of the small white square plates. “I’m actually starving.”
“Where’s our fearless leader?” Jill asks, spooning some of the pasta salad onto her plate.
“You rang?” Evan says, walking up beside Jill and giving her a hug.
“The other fearless leader.” Jill laughs and squeezes him back with her free arm. “But hello, Bancroft.”
“He’s downstairs in the theater with Monk.” He turns to me. “Verity, good to see you again. Canon was looking for you earlier.”
I tense, but make a conscious decision to relax and not give a fuck.
“Cool.” I set my plate down.
“No, go on and eat,” Evan insists. “I don’t think it’s urgent. He was just telling someone about all the cool historical context you added to the script.”
For another ten minutes or so, I nibble from my plate and meet more of the team. Evan introduces me to the production director, the set designer, the art director, and others.
“Let’s head down to the theater,” Evan suggests to the group. “Canon has some film he wants us to watch before he talks about the movie.”
My breath stutters and I breathe in and out a few times to settle my nerves. When I saw Monk in Harlem, I wasn’t prepared. Didn’t expect to be close to him at all. Knowing is worse. I take the last few steps down and brace myself for my first sight of him in years.
He looks much the same. Age seems to only be improving him.
Always handsome, his face is harder with sharper lines.
When I’ve seen him in interviews and in public appearances, his smile has come easily, more relaxed than when we were in college.
The Monk I knew was intense with undercurrents you could get caught in, drown in.
The ease with which he navigates fame feels deliberate to me; a piece of glass he’s placed between his most authentic self and the rest of the world.
I probably detect it more than most because I knew him before the hit albums, the Grammy and Emmy Awards, all the acclaim.
My perusal stutters at his chest. Finley College, Est. 1901 is emblazoned on the sweatshirt he wears with dark jeans.
I know he wore this on purpose, probably intended to disconcert me.
I hate that it’s working; that even though I was determined to ignore our past and treat him like everyone else I’m meeting for the first time, the sweatshirt immediately transports me back to the quad, to the yard, to the arboretum, where we shared our first kiss.
To his apartment, where I gave him pieces of my soul that I thought I’d never want back.
Damn him.
Monk hasn’t spotted me yet, and I take a moment to lock my inscrutable expression in place before I have to face him. I would love to slink down unnoticed in one of the overstuffed seats in Canon’s home theater, but no such luck.
“Verity!” Canon calls. “Over here.”
Over here is with him, a woman I don’t recognize, and Monk.
Of course it is.
I paste on a smile and approach.
“Hey.” I split a glance between Canon and the woman, not acknowledging Monk.
“This is Linh.” Canon nods to the petite woman standing with them. “She’s our costume designer.”
“Oh, you’re gonna have a good time with this one,” I tell her, smiling. “This period’s fashion is some of my favorite.”
“Yes,” she agrees in a voice deeper than I would have expected from such a tiny woman, slim and no taller than five-two. “It’ll be like a playground.”
She’s the kind of beautiful that makes people run into things because they can’t stop looking at her.
The lines of her face are delicate, molded in amber-glazed porcelain, eyes tilted and long-lashed, but her nose is so bold it should overpower the rest of her face.
It doesn’t and all her features seem to have reached an agreement that none of them would detract from her loveliness.
The dark hair falls in gently textured waves to her elbows.
“And I think you know Monk,” Canon says, a dry smile touching his lips as he looks between Monk and me like he just rang the bell for a boxing match.
“Yeah, we’ve met.”
“We actually dated in college.”
We speak at the same time, and my jaw falls when he just casually drops that we dated in front of Linh. My eyes slit into a glare, and the crease of a smile he flashes tells me the comment was as intentional as his attire.
How fucking dare he?
Linh, who carries an air so placid she could probably serve high tea in a hurricane, studies us with piqued interest.
“We should get started,” Canon says, the slightest bit of amusement threading his voice. He turns to the team scattered in the theater. “Everybody, find a seat.”
The air between Monk and me vibrates with animosity.
I want to crack that amicable mask he has donned for the world over the last decade, let him know he doesn’t fool me.
He’s still the same broody son of a bitch I used to have to tease and lure away from his piano.
It’s not worth it. I won’t give him the satisfaction of seeing how his comment about our shared past rattled me.
Monk has taken the seat on one side of Canon, and the seat on the other side is empty. Wordlessly and without looking Monk’s way, I take the empty seat.
“Thank you all for coming,” Canon says, standing and looking back over the small theater. “On a Saturday, no less. I especially appreciate you sacrificing this time since soon your whole life will belong to Dessi Blue.”
He’s only half joking. This film’s scale is massive, with elaborate set design, lavish costuming, difficult choreography, and challenging musical numbers.
Monk is not only overseeing the film’s score, but will also be intricately involved in the musical numbers and performances, even writing some original songs.
“I cannot overstate the privilege we have in this film,” Canon says.
“Historically, Black creatives have been mined for our gifts and not adequately rewarded, compensated, or acknowledged. Most of them never met their earning or career potential. How could they have in this country at that time? We’re making a biopic about Dessi Blue, but we’ll also be giving voice to many other lesser-known artists and historical figures. ”
He gestures to me.
“One of the huge advantages Verity brings to this story is her love of and background in African American history, which has added so many layers to the script. I’ve found some rare clips of Dessi from performances during that time for us to watch, which will tell you some things, but I also encourage you to use Verity as a resource.
We have drafted a script, but it’s a living document.
It’s like a coloring page with outlined images.
I fully expect you to help color in the most vivid parts through music, dance, costuming, set design.
Each of you brings something unique that will help this film meet its full potential. ”
Canon signals someone in the back, who lowers the lights.
“We’ve pulled the few existing clips from Dessi’s life and career to inspire you. We’re going to do her life justice.”
God, she was beautiful.
And radiant.
And monstrously talented.
That’s all I can think as, transfixed, we watch mere slivers of Dessi’s life.
Cal is there beside her in nearly every photo and grainy video clip.
I can’t help but wonder about Tilda. How, in another time, it could have been her and Dessi.
Based on the letters and journal entries we found in Alabama, Dessi would have been willing to brave public scorn and would have chosen Tilda, but while Dessi toured Europe with Cal’s band, Tilda married a nightclub owner named Hezekiah Moore.
Tilda made the safe choice. The conventional one.
She did her best with what she had in the time she lived.
How could I—someone who grew up with essentially two mother figures and knew she liked girls before she knew she liked boys, too, and was accepted unconditionally—judge Tilda?
A woman who was a prisoner of an age when living her life authentically would have cost her everything?
“Questions?” Canon asks when the footage concludes. “Comments? Ideas?”
“Just one comment,” Lucia, the choreographer, says.