Reel: A Forbidden Hollywood Romance

“How do I get tested?” Mama asks.

Her voice, the question, seems to come from much farther away than Clearview, North Carolina. After all these years making do without her, I need her now more than I ever have. I want one of those hugs only mothers can give that make you feel, even if only for a few moments, like everything will be okay. I’ve spent the last hour discussing lupus and the kidney transplant and the need for a donor, but what I want most right now is her.

“I’ll send you all the info.” I try to smile, hoping she’ll hear it in my voice.

“You should have told me as soon as this all happened.”

“I know. The meds they put me on actually made me feel a little better, though they warned it’s not a long-term solution. I guess I just dove right back into my routine and . . .”

The excuse probably sounds as lame in her ears as it does in mine.

“You’re right,” I say. “I was putting off asking. I’m sorry.”

Her sigh is weary and the slightest bit disapproving. “You still trying to do it all on your own, baby. I want to be there for you. You gonna let me?”

I clear my throat, not sure how to fix some of the things that remain broken between my family and me. Old habits die hard, but I need to try.

“Yes, ma’am,” I whisper, feeling like the little girl she used to chastise. “I’ll try.”

“Good, ’cause this is serious. Your Aunt Marian—”

“Aunt Marian was a long time ago. They know a lot more and can do a lot more now. I’m not saying this is easy. It’s not. It won’t be, and even the transplant won’t be an end-all solution, but it’s the next thing we do, and then we hope for the best.”

“A transplant sounds expensive. All of this does. You got insurance?”

“I do, yeah. Through the stage union.”

“How are you feeling?”

Exhausted. Depressed. Overwhelmed.

“I’m fine.”

She’s right. Even now, I find myself sheltering my mother from the full extent of what’s going on with me. Why do I do that? Why can’t I just unburden myself to her? All my life I’ve seen her shoulder other people’s troubles, help them when they needed it, but when I need her, I always hold back. Maybe on some level I still feel she chose Terry over me, and I’m not sure if when I really need her, she’ll be there.

“Have you talked to Terry yet?”

I knew she would ask, but something inside still startles at the mention of my sister. Most of the cast and crew are being tested, and I’ve only known them four months. Yet the hardest person to ask when it’s life or death is my own sister.

“I will. I’m just busy trying to wrap this movie.”

“You’re still working?” Mama’s volume rises with her disbelief. “Shouldn’t you be in the hospital or on dialysis or . . . something? You need a kidney, for God’s sake.”

“I’m on lots of medicine, Mama. The prednisone makes me feel like I can conquer the world, until it doesn’t. I’m actually really tired, like, can barely keep my eyes open.”

“You need to get some rest.”

“I will. We’ve been on location the last couple of weeks, but we’re back in LA now. I don’t have many scenes left to shoot, and believe me, Canon makes sure I do as little as possible.”

“How are things with your director?” Mama’s teasing makes this feel more like a normal conversation, and not one in which I ask for organs.

“Canon has been amazing and supportive.”

As much as I appreciate it, I keep asking myself if he really wants to be here? Still? We were just getting off the ground, just really started dating, and then this. These are higher stakes than he saw coming. What if he feels trapped?

“I want to meet him,” Mama says.

“You’ll love him. Everyone loves him even if they don’t want to.”

“He sounds like a real character, but then, he’d have to be to handle you,” Mama says, a note of pride in her voice I don’t think I’ve ever recognized before. She’s missed so much over the years that at times, it felt like she didn’t notice me pursuing my dreams.

“He’s . . .” I pause, unsure how to describe Canon in a way that would make Mama understand why he’s so special. “He’s one of a kind. Hopefully you’ll get to meet him soon.”

“Well, I’m glad he makes you rest.”

I set my small suitcase on the bed so I can finish packing. I’m waiting for Canon to pick me up. I’ve tried to subtly give him space, pleading fatigue every time he’s wanted to see me this week after we finished shooting. He insisted we spend this weekend together.

“Mama, I need to go.”

“Okay. I’ll look at the information to get tested. Promise me you’ll talk to Terry soon. It feels strange, me knowing all this and not saying anything.”

“I want to talk to her myself.” Want is the wrong word, but I don’t need Mama asking for me.

“Then talk to her, Neevah. This thing with the two of you has gone on long enough. I want my girls to be sisters again.”

“Well, I don’t think a kidney will fix all our problems, Mama.”

“No, but maybe it’ll make you face them.”

When your mama drops the mic . . .

“Okay. Give me until tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow. I love you, Neev.”

“Love you, too, Mama.”

Takira walks across the hall to my room, slipping something into the suitcase open at the end of my bed. “How’s your mom?”

“Worried. What did you put in my suitcase?”

“Lube,” she says with a grin. “You’re lucky I didn’t yell out, ‘I’m packing this lube for you’ while your mama was on the phone.”

“My mom has no clue about lube.”

Takira falls onto my bed and chuckles. “Girl, I bet your mama knows all about lube. Your daddy passed a long time ago. Now you know your mama got her some at some point in the last twenty years.”

“Ewwww, David!” I scream, pulling from our Schitt’s Creek vernacular.

“We need to binge the last season, and you will thank me for that lube later.”

“I’m taking your lube because I want to normalize women carrying their own lube,” I say, but give her a wicked glance. “But we’ve never needed it.”

“Ewww, David!” She pretends to gag. “You will refrain from telling me how wet you get. Ma’am, boundaries.”

We laugh and I fall onto the bed beside her, forgetting for a few moments that I’m sick and just enjoying being alive. It feels like a regular day with my best friend. Except my suitcase is not just packed with lube, but with a battalion of bottles, meds to stabilize me until I can get a kidney.

“You know, if we don’t find a kidney soon,” I say, staring up at the ceiling, “I may have to go on dialysis.”

“I know.” Takira reaches for my hand. “If that happens, we’ll get through it. Whatever. I got you, Neev.”

“I know you do.”

I’ve been holding it together. Going through the motions of my life. Distracting myself with the work I’ve always dreamt of doing, but as soon as it all stops, the life-altering reality comes crashing back in on me. I’m racing against the clock in some ways, but will manage this condition in some shape, form, or fashion, forever.

Tears prick my eyes and leak from the corners. I swipe at them quickly because if I start now, I won’t stop. I’m at my emotional tipping point. In a matter of four months, I’ve starred in my first movie, fallen in love, and been diagnosed with a chronic illness that requires an organ transplant. I’m reeling. It’s a lot for me to process. I can only imagine how Canon is actually doing.

“This isn’t what Canon signed on for,” I say. “It’s one thing if this happens to your long-time girlfriend or fiancée or wife, but we haven’t been together long. This has to be the last thing he wants to go through after what he saw with his mom.”

“Is that why you’ve been avoiding him this week?”

“I haven’t been avoiding him,” I lie. “We’ve both been busy.”

“Neevah.”

“I need to finish packing.” I slide off the bed and, I hope, out of the conversation.

“Imma let you get away with it for now, young lady, but you need to discuss this with Canon. I already know he doesn’t feel trapped or—”

“T, please.” I grab a dress from the closet and toss it into the suitcase. “Can we talk about something else?”

“You talked to your sister about getting tested?”

Not quite what I had in mind.

“Not yet. Tomorrow.”

“You have to. She may be your sister, but so am I. I can’t lose you.”

I stare at the rows of dresses in my closet, grasping for my composure. I can’t think of anything to say that doesn’t end up with me in a puddle Takira has to mop up before Canon comes.

The doorbell rings, and Takira says, “Your love has arrived.”

“Who said I love him?” I walk to the mirror to adjust my floral-patterned headscarf.

“Since when do you have to tell me something for me to know it?” she asks. “And leave that scarf alone. Your hair is fine.”

The cornucopia of meds has eased my nausea and helped with fatigue, though sometimes both return, but it hasn’t stopped the hair loss. Lately, if I’m not wearing one of Dessi’s wigs, I wear a head wrap to hide the gaps which, even with hair as thick as mine, are noticeable now. My stage makeup still camouflages the butterfly-shaped rash that has spread its wings over my nose and cheeks, but there’s no disguising how my face has started to swell. The hollows beneath my cheeks that used to sharpen my bone structure have filled into a puffiness no amount of dieting can reduce. This is one way the powerful steroid I’m taking is wreaking havoc on my physical appearance. I don’t want to think about the invisible toll the drugs may take on my body.

“I look okay?” I ask, meeting Takira’s compassion in the mirror.

“You look beautiful,” she assures me as the doorbell rings again. “He’ll think so, too. Now go get him before he busts that door down.”

I kiss her cheek, grab my suitcase, and answer the door. On the front porch, Canon wears the perma-frown he can only shake for so long until the movie wraps. It clears, though, as soon as he sees me.

“You ready?” he asks.

I miss my chance to answer when Takira screams from the back, “Don’t forget the lube!”

Canon and I lock eyes for half a second before we both laugh. It feels like forever since we laughed together. He pulls me into him, and I let myself go limp in his arms.

I let go.

For the space of a few heartbeats, I let go. The sound of his humor vibrates through his chest and reaches all the parts of me hungry for hope, for joy.

And yes, for love.

I haven’t even told him, and I’m not sure I should. If he does somehow feel he can’t walk away from the sick girl, won’t me telling him how I feel, how much I’ve come to love and need him in even just a few months, only make it worse? He’s always said he can read my every emotion. I’m glass, an open window.

For the first time since I’ve known him, I want to pull the shade.