Page 72 of Mazywood

Mazelle glanced at Sharpe again. He was staring at his hands on his knees. By contrast, Mr. Lorenzo was relaxed and jolly beside him, his leg crossed casually at the ankle near his shiny black patent leather shoe. Something felt wrong.

“… So read over the script, think about it,” Mr. Lorenzo said. “But if it’s all the same to you, I’d love to get Mazelle signed next week.”

“But take the time to really think about it,” Mr. Sharpe said directly to Mazelle. He communicated with his eyes the way Scout used to. His pointed gaze might as well have been a shout.

Mr. Lorenzo cut a glare at Sharpe. “Sure, but don’t take too long. We need to jump on this before someone else tries to tempt me to send it to that Dandridge kid.”

Mr. Lorenzo offered his gentle threat with a smile. Same old Lorenzo.

And yet…

Reaper was the best script Mazelle had ever read. Mr. Lorenzo had described the basics, but he had left out the tragic accident when Louvenia’s younger brother falls from a thresher in the cornfield, crippling him, and Louvenia’s sweeping romance with a bandleader, who even reminded her of Richard. The script had both epic outdoor scenes and intimate character exchanges. Each page astounded her more than the last. These parts were for Negroes?

After church on Sunday, Mazelle went to Hattie’s house to show her the Reaper script, and from the first ten pages Miss Hattie said she’d never read a better one either—including Gone with the Wind. Hattie made Mazelle swear she would ask Mr. Lorenzo not to offer the part of Mama Mae to anyone else, and they both giggled with the possibilities. Mazelle loved Reaper so much that she began dreaming that she was Louvenia standing in a cornfield with the furious orange-red sun setting behind her as she vowed to save her family like she was Scarlett O’Hara vowing never to go hungry again. When she dreamed of the story, she woke up in tears because Scout was always at her side in her dream. She had not dreamed about him in years.

Mazelle and her parents didn’t fully trust Mr. Lorenzo, of course, but they were willing to take a risk to give Mazelle the chance to play such a once-in-a-lifetime role. Even if he was exaggerating how quickly he could get Reaper financed, he had seemed to grasp the power of the story and recognize the value—and profitability!—of creating new Negro roles for new times. Wouldn’t that matter even more with the coming war, when Roosevelt would need to show Negro soldiers that their country was worth fighting for? Time seemed to be on their side.

That only left the contract.

Hattie paid for a lawyer to read it, and he and Mother went over the terms as best they could, but there wasn’t much to be done with a studio contract—they were powerful and binding. Bette Davis publicly had compared them to slavery, even if it was well paid. As before, it would be the sole discretion of Lorenzo Studios to lend her out for work, although the lawyer added language about strong consultation with Mazelle in several areas that Mother privately told Mazelle would not mean much.

In the end, Mazelle’s family decided signing the contract was the best thing.

The night after Mazelle signed the contract, the phone rang at midnight and Mazelle ran to answer it because she didn’t want her parents disturbed so late. No one spoke at first; she only heard heavy, ragged breathing. Was it a pervert on the line?

“Who is this?” Mazelle demanded, keeping her voice low.

“Did you sign it?” She recognized Sharpe’s voice, but it was distorted.

“Mr. Sharpe?” Mazelle’s voice rose, so she lowered it again. “Are you drunk?”

“Just tell me—did you sign it?”

“Yes, I signed this morning. We went to his office. Why are you calling me so late?”

“I’m sorry, Mazelle,” Sharpe said, his voice tremoring. “Sorry about this. I shouldn’t have called. Have a good night.” Then, as an afterthought, “Congratulations, sweetheart.”

His voice had been anything but congratulatory before it clicked away.

Be careful what you wish.

For the first three weeks of her contract, Mazelle got paid for doing no work at all. The first payment alone wiped away their property tax debt, just like in Reaper, and her savings account began growing in extraordinary ways just like it had when she was young.

How to describe it?

Each morning, instead of waking with a cramp and a threatening headache, her first thought was always We don’t have to worry today, and relief coursed through her entire body. Some mornings, the enormity of it made her wake up in tears—but not the sad tears in her dreams about Scout. She could pay for her parents’ doctor visits and medicines. She could pay for their groceries. She could finally buy new dresses. And she always made sure to keep at least twenty percent in her savings account so she would never have to worry about such things again. After the first month, Mazelle convinced Mother to quit her cooking job.

For a glorious time, Mazelle didn’t have any problems that money couldn’t fix.

Then Mr. Lorenzo sent Mazelle a script called Holiday High Jinx, obviously borrowed from the name of her last picture. But the lead character wasn’t Negro—she was white. Mr. Lorenzo explained that while he was setting up Reaper, he wanted Mazelle to play smaller parts in a couple of low-budget Lorenzo Studios comedies. In Holiday High Jinx, Mazelle played a “native” Caribbean waitress who served as comic relief, dropping a drink tray on the leads. The next script called for Mazelle to play a bumbling maid.

The new scripts were written by Buddy and Millie Sharpe.

Finally, Mazelle understood Sharpe’s late-night phone call when he was drunk. He and Millie probably had written those scripts already, and he had known that Mr. Lorenzo was only dangling Reaper in front of her to convince her to sign a long-term contract. In retrospect, she couldn’t believe she had been so foolish. Still, the money was lifesaving, and she refused to give up hope. What did it matter if she played a few smaller roles first, even if she was a maid?

In December, soon after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor and the war became real, Mr. Lorenzo called Mazelle and Mother into his office to tell them that the war had changed his plans, and he wouldn’t be likely to set up Reaper in the foreseeable future.

“This town’s upside down right now,” he said. “But I will make Reaper one day.”