Page 74 of Mazywood

Sharpe’s eyes and face were gentle to compensate for the slight irritation in his tone, another of his lessons left over from Li’l Gumshoes. “Ready?”

She gave him the dazzling smile that put him at ease. “One take and we go home.”

But Sharpe wasn’t at ease. “How’s your back?” he asked quietly.

“I’m unbreakable, darling.” They both pretended her answer meant Swell.

Sharpe’s eyes lingered so long that she could see him calculating his concerns for her back with his bigger concerns over production delays. When he’d asked her yesterday if she would need a day off after her fall, he couldn’t hide his relief when she insisted she didn’t. Her back throbbed worse now than it had then.

Sharpe squeezed her shoulder with gratitude. “You’re the pro of pros.”

“Tell me something I don’t know. But I’ll take it, thanks.”

Carl and Nancy resented her friendship with Sharpe, and she glanced up and saw them staring with the same frowns she remembered from the envious stage moms on Li’l Gumshoes, wondering why the little colored girl and her dog were stealing their child’s spotlight. White folks never would be satisfied to play second fiddle to Negroes. Mazelle thought it would take more than Hitler and Japan to force most white people to accept that Negroes were just as good as they were—and sometimes better. Shoot, being outshined was their biggest fear of all, no matter what they claimed about superiority.

“All right—places,” Sharpe said, and hopped from the stage to go behind the center camera and its open black lens flaps. The machinery of production flurried, the boom microphone swinging above her, Bill fitting a filter over one of his lights, and PAs in newsboy caps arranging the last sandbags on the camera legs to keep them steady. The two dozen white faces made Mazelle think, Look at all these white folks working and feeding their families off me, the same thought she’d had since she was a child. But these days she felt a wave of longing: If only these were Negroes, or at least a precious few. Even Oscar Micheaux’s race films employed mostly white crews he cobbled together, since Negroes weren’t allowed in the unions and had few ways to learn the trade.

Crew members stirred, turning around in a mini commotion. Lorenzo was on the set because they were running late, a sign of trouble. The silence grew so thick that Sharpe turned around too, sensing Lorenzo’s presence. Sharpe ran his fingers nervously across his shiny scalp. The shoot was running way long, and he would hear about it later.

“Quiet on the set,” Sharpe said.

The slate clacked as the clapper loader recited the scene number. From the wings, Lorenzo tipped his hat at Mazelle. Don’t fuck it up.

Mazelle flopped down into her pose, pretending to sleep at the kitchen table while one hand languidly stirred the mixing bowl. The consistency of the white slop inside was more like paint than batter, so she mimicked a slight drag on the spoon. Someone giggled at the sight gag.

“And… action!” Sharpe said.

Exaggerated footsteps as Carl and Nancy approached Mazelle, a walk that seemed endless. Were they ever going to say their damn lines?

“Why, Mazy—the guests will be here any moment!” Nancy said, feigning dismay.

“Lazy Mazy, you get up this instant!” Carl said, almost on top of Nancy’s line. (But it was late, so Sharpe let it go.)

The rest was instinct and illusion. The table falling over. The bowl flying into the air to appear like the table had thrown it free. Guiding the bowl to land precisely on top of her head as she stumbled to the floor, spilling the cold goo across her face. The orchestrated accident had so many moving parts, but Mazelle’s skill was to make it look both fluid and surprising, following Chaplin’s advice on transforming mundane chaos into comedy.

Carl and Nancy made the usual sounds of disapproval as they ran to their marks to stare down at her. The goo stung her eyes, but Mazelle fought her impulse to wipe it away. She contorted her face as if she were about to cry and used the darky voice Millie Sharpe had taught her so many years before, speaking directly to the crane camera above her for a close-up. “I’se sorry, mistuh and missus, but I’se so tired I dreamed I smelled them biscuits cookin’!”

Mazelle felt the crew stirring behind the lights, trying hard not to laugh.

“Oh, Mazy!” Carl and Nancy said in unison. As if scolding a toddler.

“You got it?” Sharpe called out to his camera operators. “Do we need to go again?”

If these fools missed that take, I’m going to—

“And… cut!” Sharpe said. He sounded delighted. Lorenzo might be wondering why they were shooting overtime, but at least he had witnessed them wrap for the day.

The withheld laughter broke out, amplified with applause. Mazelle stood and curtsied, but she didn’t mistake their pleasure for true admiration. Half of them were only glad to finally go home, and the other half treated her like a trained pony. When the laughter gained a second wave, Mazelle felt annoyed. Where was her goddamn towel? She must look ridiculous in whiteface. She was here to put on a show for the cameras, not the crew.

“Here, Mrs. Washington.” Lucille, the wardrobe assistant, pressed a towel into her hand.

Mazelle wiped her face until she felt sure much of the goo was gone, then she wrapped the towel around her head in a turban style to hide her hair, which must be a fright. Only a long shower would clean up this mess.

“You’re funnier than the Three Stooges,” Lucille said, lingering.

The Three Stooges were especially annoying, given that they used stand-ins for their most physical stunts, coasting to stardom on facial expressions and repetitive gags. She’d grown up seeing better acts scraping by on pennies on the Chitlin’ Circuit, most of them probably living in obscure poverty by now. Damn right she was funnier. But at least Lucille was sincere.

“Thank you,” Mazelle said, and smiled.