“Have you seen the script?” the showrunner asked me.
“I received it. I didn’t read it, though,” I said at the same time as I glanced towards the trash bin where I had thrown the script. She followed my eyes. Her facial reaction revealed that she saw it there.
“This is supposed to be a reality show. So, I’m gonna keep it natural,” I said calmly.
“Natural will only work for you, Winter, for several reasons. First of all, because you’re the star. Second of all, because your beauty, coupled with your mysterious life, will captivate the viewers and keep them from reaching for the remote. Lastly, because this is your first appearance during season one, and it’s the season finale at the same time,” she explained in a desperate tone.
“Exactly.” My one-word response.
“However, everybody else on the show needs to play off of you. So we need you to at least remain in the framework of the script,” she pleaded. I just looked at her. She knew that meant to get out. She was standing in my private V.I.P. greenroom, which was filled with welcome-back bouquets of red roses, congratulatory vases of white calla lilies, and clay-potted blue morning glories. No matter how stunning my surroundings are, inside of me my memory is demanding my attention and always reminding me. Right now, my memory was showing me images of the wisteria trees, the willow trees, the blue jacarandas. I had never heard of any of those trees before my death. Even if I had, it wouldn’t have mattered to me.
“Are you hearing me?” The showrunner politely interrupted my thoughts. She had pulled the script pages from the trash and placed them on the countertop in front of me. I didn’t acknowledge. She left.
I know that I have the top reality show being viewed by millions across the globe. I know that I broke all records by being the star of the top reality show and the star of the top show period. We had even outdistanced scripted shows and sitcoms in terms of the numbers of people viewing my show in America and all around the world. Moreover, we had done something unplanned, unexpected, completely original and unique. We claimed the top slot without the star, that’s me, ever saying even one word or making any live appearances on her own show. Elisha said even a genius could never have conceived such an idea. At that time, I wasn’t sure if he was bigging himself up, since he was the one who decided to move forward with the show even after my being shot dead. But later he clarified his statement saying that the whole show was a “Godsend.” That led me to asking him, “Since the show is already in the top slot, and there’s only the finale remaining, why should I appear? It might be more powerful to end the season without me. Let me debut on the first show of season two.”
“Trust me. This finale needs you. You have worked so hard to get back everything you almost completely lost. Winter, you will give the whole world hope. You look so unbelievably beautiful and healthy, no one would believe that you had ever experienced the tragedy that you experienced,” he said passionately. I was swooning over him saying out loud how beautiful I look. Then on the inside my memory reminded me not to swoon. Not to need and desire constant signs, words, and acknowledgment of my amazing outward appearance.
“Well, Elisha, since they saw my tragedy on camera, they will definitely believe it,” I said. I was low-grade stabbing him for showing such a gruesome event. He knew that back then for me it was all about my look. Of course he did. He was the one who had my wardrobe secured and delivered to me exactly as I had ordered for him to do. He was the one who threw in the diamond necklace and other powerful perks. Therefore he must have known that I would never agree to being filmed getting shot dead. But a dead person has no defense. I’m not mad at him, though. He has made me into what I always wanted to be, a rich bitch.
Someone knocked. “I’m Mika from wardrobe,” she said. She was a petite girl pushing a wheeled cart that held the bagged clothes I had ordered custom-designed two months ago, to be worn for my finale appearance. She left the cart and exited after saying only “Thank you” to me, as though I had delivered the clothes to myself. That’s the level I’m at now. People thank me out loud for even being able to work for me, with me, or to serve me. She closed the door.
I stood up, walked over, and locked it. Since my return, I spend a lot of time alone behind closed and locked doors. However, it is not like before. Nothing is the same as it was before. The closed and locked doors that I am behind are exquisite rooms, suites, apartments, houses, and spaces. I have locked the doors myself. I am not locked in or imprisoned. I can unlock anytime. I can walk out anytime. And I do, when I feel like it.
While I am dressing myself finely, I am thinking about my game face. It takes more effort for me to maintain it now. When I make my debut on the finale of my show, I need my game face, to face Simone, Natalie, and all of my girls for the first time since getting shot, flatlining and pronounced dead, revived and hooked up to life support, comatose for weeks and then returning to real life, breathing on my own, seeing and being seen. They would never know that I know who each of them really is and what they had actually done to me. How could they know? It was only me, out of my crew, who got murdered and traveled to the unknown. I now know that the unknown is called the unknown for a reason. The living have no knowledge of it. My girls will never know or possibly imagine that I saw them have that secret hood after-party conversation about me on the night of my death. Simone would never know that I heard her bold drunken confession. None of my girls would know that I know, that they had all agreed to remain silent about my murder. They sold me out, chasing the money bag. I ain’t mad at them, though. I’m no snitch. In the aftermath of the same circumstance, I might have done the same thing, easily. But even though I am not mad, I still don’t want to let on that I know what they did. I want to see how well they play it. I want to see how mean their game faces are now. I want to experience their reactions. Simone, after believing that she had successfully murdered me, had said, “Winter does the least and gets the most.” She must have been right. They got their little appearance fee crumbs for being the help, I mean for being the support cast on my show. While I laid in a coma, I collected more than a million dollars, after the original contracted sum of eight hundred thousand dollars. Plus, there were bonuses and perks direct deposited into my account. They’re probably still mad at that, if they had somehow gotten anyone to break the confidentiality agreement and run their mouths about my deal. What the fuck did they expect? I’m Winter Santiaga, bitches, bow down, I thought. Then my memory reminded me not to say or dare even think, or need or desire others to bow down to me and for me. It wasn’t an easy thing to erase from my core. Besides, the name of my reality show is Bow Down, Starring Winter Santiaga. I had asked Elisha to name it that before I was ever released or shot dead. I can change the show name now that I know better. Show execs would fight me the whole way though. Why would they want to change the biggest reality-show title moneymaker?
There was a knock at the door.
“Winter, it’s Porsche. It’s showtime,” she said softly. The whole show crew and staff knew that Porsche was the only one who could get me out of any room that I was in, behind closed doors, that I locked. I let her in. She immediately hugged me tightly as though she had not just seen me at home a few hours ago. Porsche is like that, to the extreme.
“You look so perfect,” she said, unlocking me from her hug. “What made you select the alligator couture?” she asked, smiling. Then she began circling around me, checking out my authentic green alligator stilettos, my alligator trench dress, and even my alligator handbag. “Your ponytails make you look as young as me,” she said. Since Porsche is only twenty-five years young (and at the top of her game), it was a real compliment she was giving me. And because she was the one saying it, I know that it’s true. She’s not Hollywood fake. She’s all the way at the opposite of that. “Your hair is so long and lovely. Look how it shines,” she said, stroking it. Then got excited when she saw my limited-edition alligator hair ties. “Oh, that’s dope!” She laughed approvingly.
Porsche was the one who had maintained my hair throughout my death. Others don’t call it my death. They call it a coma. But only I really know. It was my death and I experienced my afterlife. It was a whole life after death that I went through. I don’t tell nobody. Regular people would just write it off as a dream. That’s bullshit corny to me. That’s false. It was not a dream. Doctors even said that during a coma there is no brain activity, no dreaming. But fuck them on that point too. They don’t know. Only I know what happened. Only my soul knows. I refuse to explain or argue with any regular bitch or motherfucker about what happened to me. I refuse to argue with doctors. I don’t say shit back to them or ask them any questions about me.
Porsche hates doctors, hospitals, and medicine. I didn’t know that about her before. I found out after I came through. When I regained consciousness, she was the one who was beside me. Matter of fact, she was standing over me, her head pushed down too close in my face, her pretty eyes so widened at the shock of my eyes opening after having been so closed that they could’ve been mistaken as stitched shut. Before I could think anything, because my thoughts were moving very, very slow, she spilled tears onto my face. Then she withdrew her face and used her bare fingers to wipe away her tears from my skin. The nurses told me that it was Porsche who had washed my body daily. Porsche who insisted on keeping my hair washed and combed and clipped. She even did my finger- and toenails. Porsche massaged my legs regularly and turned my body position so that I wouldn’t get bedsores. She helped my blood to circulate. Porsche read me stories while I laid there comatose. One nurse told me that most of the time Porsche was actually talking to me as though I were alive, conscious, and could hear her. She seemed to even respond to me as though I had replied to her talk, which sounds a little crazy. More than reading and talking, Porsche was singing and humming and of course crying all in between. Porsche doesn’t like being in the limelight. She doesn’t want to be on camera. However, one thing anybody who knows Porsche knows is that she will do anything to please her husband, Elisha. The two of them have a love so deep and so active that anyone and everyone who sees them together can feel it. Some admire their love. Some find it annoying. Some hate how it highlights that they don’t have the same love in their own lives. I probably am in all three categories. I would only think that to myself, of course.
Elisha got Porsche to agree to allow him to install cameras for the show in the room where I was laid out. She agreed because it was Elisha asking. She had one condition, though. It was that she controlled the camera angle. She could only be filmed from behind, sitting in front of me, who was lying in the hospital bed. She was blocking anyone from seeing me close up or in any detail. They would see only the pretty sheets that she required me to have. What’s so crazy is that Porsche, who didn’t want to be a star, became the star. Not for her beautiful look, although she is flawless. She didn’t flaunt it. She didn’t allow them to put her face on camera. She became the star because no one had ever seen on a reality show a person or sister who had had so deep of a real love for her own sister, that’s me. On and off camera, Porsche had sacrificed her own time, focus, and attention to my recovery. She and I had never even watched one episode of my reality show up until this second. Porsche’s reason is that that’s not what she cared about. As for me, I was busy relearning how to talk right, stand up right, walk right, and think straight after the coma. Porsche would be right there looking over the shoulder of her handpicked personal healer as she performed acupuncture on me. I never heard of it till that lil’ lady started sticking me with these pins in weird places like the top middle of my scalp, the insides of my ankles, and even between my thumb and index finger. Porsche would oversee my various physical therapists, watching me crawl on the floor, stand upright shaking on my feet, take a few steps, collapse, get up and finally walk, then run on the treadmill. The illest thing was, Porsche would be doing whatever I was doing as if she needed to do it. She didn’t. She would be right across from me crawling, standing, walking, running while cheesing, smiling, beaming and cheering me on.
Even though the show viewers could not see Porsche faced forward, the audience of millions fell in love with her effort and her singing and humming to me as I lay there. Elisha, who never missed a valuable opportunity, recorded his wife’s impromptu performances over my dead-like body. Out of those recordings, he created a show soundtrack titled Bow Down that big banked. His wife refused to perform any of her original tracks or cover songs or hummings. The music still sold and hit like crazy. Meanwhile, my reality show, applauded for its unique cinematography—thanks to Elisha’s director’s eye—had become a combination of the investigation of my execution, the medical story of my flat lining and coming back, the cast of my bitches and their crazy-ass nigga boyfriends, kids, and lives. Since the start of reality shows, all reality shows have stupid bitches doing dumb shit and the weak niggas they know, and the crazy bastards they gave birth to. It was, however, when the cameras redirected to Porsche and what she was doing, and how passionately and honestly that she was doing it, that grabbed the viewers by the heart. That’s how Elisha described it. He said his wife “resonates.” I don’t know that word. I’m not a college bitch. All I know is with Porsche and her emotions everything is extreme. She was extreme in her care for me, in her love of me and of her love of everyone and everything that she loved. It was only a handful of people and handful of things. Once she claimed it and loved it though, she was loyal to the fullest extent. Wait a minute. My memory was reminding me. Porsche loves like Brooklyn Momma used to love.
“Time to go. I’ll walk you out, just you and me. The on-set cameras will be rolling so expect it. Winter, are you nervous?” Porsche asked me.
“I’m good,” was all I said. That’s how it was between me and my middle sister. I would always have something urgent that I wanted to say to her. But for some reason, I wouldn’t. I knew the words to say. I knew clearly what I wanted her to know. Sometimes I wanted to tell her what I had learned from living life, also from getting shot dead, my afterlife, and my return to life. But then, my tongue would feel heavy. The words that needed to be spoken, I never spoke. Even before I was murdered, it was like that between me and my sister Porsche. My mind was reminding me of how I wanted to say certain things to her at my mother’s funeral long ago. I had one opportunity and maybe even, only one minute to say some urgent things. I didn’t. Even now I know I should thank her, tremendously. I know what she gave up to get us to this point. I know that she didn’t have to do shit for me. She was already rich, married, chilling, a mother of three. She didn’t have to bother at all.
On my inside, I worried about Porsche’s deep love problem. I wanted to tell her what I had learned about the difference between loving, which is a good and powerful thing, and worshipping. I wanted to warn her to continue to love but not to worship her husband, Elisha, or even her children. Worship is reserved for only ONE.
“Action!” Elisha’s voice called out. I couldn’t see him, though. Porsche nudged me forward and dropped back from the camera’s view. The finale had a live audience. It was packed. There were so many blinding lights hanging from above. The cameras were very close to where I stood. I walked up, following the marked stage floor. I knew to hit my mark and then to let all else flow. When the audience saw me they jumped out of their seats and cheered. I wondered if I was supposed to interact with them. I should have checked the script. This didn’t seem like any of the reality shows I had seen before I got shot up and declared dead then brought back to life. Where is Simone and Natalie, Asia and Toshi, Reese and… Hold up. I hear music. Because of Brooklyn Momma, I can name that tune in three seconds. It’s the tinkle of the xylophone. For some reason, I am catching feelings. It’s an old joint, from when my parents were teens. The rough and soothing voice of Bill Withers. The song title is “Just the Two of Us”! Momma used to sing it, my mind reminded me. I began looking up and around the studio. Up high there was a green light glowing. It gave me the feeling of when I was trapped in the darkness of the Last Stop Before the Drop and suddenly a green glow emerged followed by a lavender sky and a diamond rain. But I am not dead or comatose anymore. My mind reminded me. I am alive. I am in the studio, on set, surrounded by a whole lot of people, more than a hundred.
I collapsed onto the floor. As Bill Withers sang, “We can make it if we try…” it was Santiaga. He walked on stage opposite me. He glided in smoothly on the words of the song. Just seeing him free. Just seeing him walking. Just seeing him so cool and so handsome. Just seeing him… He came to me. Face-to-face, he extended his hand. I placed my hand in his hand. He pulled me close. He hugged me and lifted me up. It was a spinning hug, my alligator stilettos swinging in the air. I am crying now uncontrollably. I am on camera crying uncontrollably but I don’t give a fuck. Millions of people around the world are seeing me weeping on camera.
“Baby girl,” was all he said. He was still calling me Baby Girl because I was his first born. His first baby, his first daughter. Even though he had three more after me, I am “Baby Girl.”
“Cut,” I heard Elisha say. But my father kept hugging and spinning me. The song switched to “Ribbons in the Sky” by Stevie Wonder. He put me down gently and held me until a little wave of dizziness drifted away. As I steadied, the set changed as the audience chattered loudly. My poppa and me was still just admiring one another. It was so hard for me not to be caught up into him. He was standing right there in front of me. He’s family. He’s familiar. He is the one I know. He must have just got out. No, he’s too well-suited. His scent is wonderful. His look is rough, sexy, and calm. They must have hid Poppa from me. He was the first person I asked for when I came through and out of my coma. He was still on lock, they told me. If I worked hard and recovered, I would be able to go visit him. Oh, Elisha… What a surprise, no prison wear, chains, cuffs, or dirty plastic dividers on a bullshit visitation separating us. No monitored over the old-school, old wall phone conversation. No corrections officers, police, guards, or escorts. Elisha, my brother-in-law, had kept his word. Poppa is here, free and fit, and beautiful.
A red light flashed. The audience grew quiet and took their seats. My father and I were left center stage. I was trying not to worship him. I was trying to keep it all in the love category. I was fighting myself on the inside. Love and worship war in my soul. I was trying but I could see my father. I could not see God. I know my father the most. I love him the most. He taught me most, almost everything I know.
My memory reminded me. It is a Mercy that I am alive. It is a Mercy that Poppa is free. It is a Mercy more than anything else. No matter how hard anyone fought to make this moment happen, without the Mercy it could never have happened. I know. It is a Mercy that I am receiving. No, it is a Mercy that the whole Santiaga family is receiving.
“Alhamdulillah” was the first word I spoke on camera. Probably no one understood what or why. But, I do.