CARLOS & KATRINA

A Novel by Charles Adrian Trevino
Copyright 2006, 2018
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Chapter 14

Katrina sat before the mirror in her dressing room, her mind wandering as she wiped the make–up from her face. She was at the location where they were filming the movie she was working on. "The Forgotten Ones," an eighteenth–century ghost story with an interesting political sub–plot, was shaping up to be a very enjoyable production. Katrina loved everything about the movie: the beautiful locations they filmed at, the costumes, the dialogue, the experienced skill of some of the big–name actors she was working with; the whole thing fascinated her. She had been working at an exhausting pace for several weeks now, often arriving before dawn to shoot sunrise scenes. It was a grueling schedule, but it was a rewarding endeavour that kept her mind off her worries. Still, she was grateful that it was Friday night and she had the weekend off; she needed some time to think.

Carlos had disappeared. She hadn't heard from him since the night of their first and only date, when he had confided in her about his strange troubles. She had tried reaching him many times at his home but his telephone had been continually busy for days; when she finally got a ringing tone, it went unanswered. Katrina had no idea what could have happened to him; she kept calling, trying in vain to reach him until one night his phone was answered by his mother. Surprised at the sudden unexpected confrontation, Katrina had asked her if Carlos was in.

"Is this Katrina?" the woman asked in a hostile, shrewish voice.

"Yes," she answered. "I've been trying to reach Carlos for weeks... I have something very important to talk to him about."

"He's out with his fiancee," the woman snapped sharply. Then she hung up.

Katrina was completely shocked by the news. Carlos had never said anything about being engaged; he had given the impression that he was completely unattached and uninvolved with anyone but her. Her first reaction had been anger, a sense of betrayal. She realized that she had come to feel possessive of Carlos and was perturbed that he hadn't called her for weeks, and his mother’s stinging words had been like a bombshell dropping. Then Katrina remembered the things Carlos had told her about his mother, how she always tried to ruin his opportunities and hamper him, and she had to laugh. She was sure the nutty woman was just trying to drive her away, the way she did with all his other friends; that had to be it. Katrina suddenly felt very grateful that she had such a helpful, supportive mother herself. What an obstacle Carlos had to surmount in his!

Still, it was very strange that he hadn't at least called her once. And David Slasher wasn't responding to the calls she left on his answering machine; that too was suspicious. Why would both Carlos and David suddenly disappear?

A knock on her door brought her back to reality. One of the extras named Candace poked her head in the door. She wanted to know if Katrina was going to the party at the producer's house later that night. “Miguel’s parties are always major events,” she said. “The food alone must cost him a fortune, and there’s always really good entertainment. He usually hires real good jazz bands, and a lot of major stars show up! And if you get too drunk to drive home he lets you stay over in one of his guest rooms, and they’re so beautiful! You’d love it, Katrina!”

Katrina was feeling dead–tired. The thought of going to a party and acting sociable and happy for another three or four hours was out of the question. "No Candace, I think I'm going to go straight home.  I'm really worn out," she replied with a smile.

"Well, what do you expect when you get here at five in the morning? I'll see you on Monday then," Candace chirped, as she danced out the door again. "Have a great weekend, Katrina!"

As she drove home that night Katrina was again feeling the same nagging guilt that had haunted her intermittently for weeks.  Carlos' mother had almost certainly lied to her about his being out with a fiancee; in fact, Katrina suspected that Carlos was not even staying at his mother's house anymore. Katrina knew that Carlos and David had formed a rock band they called The Cool Banditos and often practiced together at night, and that David had a childish fixation on becoming a famous singer; could David have gotten Carlos to go off on some wild escapade, playing his music before unappreciative audiences for little pay, throwing away his education? She didn't want to think that Carlos would be so foolish, but under the influence of the strong–willed Slasher he just might have gone off chasing after rainbows.  She worried that she could in some way have been the cause of Carlos' wayward flight; perhaps she had not been sympathetic enough, or had done something else to make him feel snubbed. Or could it be that he thought he could prove himself worthy by becoming a rich and famous rock star, like David did? There must have been thousands of people who had tried to pull off that stunt and failed dismally. It was all just too sad to contemplate.

When she got home her mother was away.  Katrina ate a quick dinner and washed the dishes, then retired to her room and immediately put her favorite record on her old–fashioned turntable, a compilation of soft love songs.  As she sat down on her bed a wave of melancholy swept over her.  The events of the past few weeks had all gone by so quickly that she hadn't even had time to think.  Now she looked down at the parquet patterns on the floor and began to sort things out.

Carlos probably wouldn't try to contact her; he was probably afraid to call her.  His angry outburst at the beach that night had seemed so out–of–character for him; she realized that he must be a very repressed person, and for him to have given in to her friendly persuasion and divulge his problems must have been a rare act of cathartic indulgence. Then to lose control the way he had, in front of someone he still didn't know very well and was trying to impress, must have had a traumatic effect on his psyche.  He probably thought she didn't like him anymore, when in fact the exact opposite was true. In a strange way, many of Carlos' problems paralleled her own; and Katrina was perceptive enough to see that he could probably evoke jealousy in others the same way she did, and had probably suffered the same vengeful repercussions. His words had struck a chord and inspired a rare feeling of kinship in her, something she rarely felt in any of her other relationships.

She thought of her former plan to lead Carlos on and then dump him. His initial indifference to her had obviously been because he feared just that. How could she have been so mean as to ever consider doing such a thing? Carlos wasn't insensitive; he had just been protecting his heart. He must have envisioned the inevitability of her dropping him after a while for a more opulent situation, like most girls in her position would. Most guys would have at least tried to get some quick gratification before being usurped, but Carlos had tried to tell her nicely to leave him alone from the very beginning. And she had pursued him like a hunter stalking its prey. He was just like her, she now realized; he had pride and self–respect, and wouldn't allow himself to indulge in foolish, hopeless notions. But she was beginning to see how they both possessed that quality to a fault; it had caused him to shy away from something that was inevitable, something very powerful that was demanding to run its course.

Platitudinous phrases she had heard years ago went drifting by in her mind; "opposites attract each other," she thought to herself. And "absence makes the heart grow fonder." These old expressions had a ring of truth to them now; that was probably why they had lasted so long. As the music on the turntable entered a slower, more poignant phase, Katrina began to cry. She had foolishly and capriciously attempted to do something very wrong, and now she was the one who had gotten hurt. She was just beginning to admit that she had been fooling herself all along, that her infatuation with Carlos had been so strong that she had simply not wanted to leave well enough alone, and so had contrived her superficial plan as an excuse to go on pursuing him. Now Carlos had probably dropped out of school because of her, out of some kind of repressed inadequacy complex, to go chasing some foolish dream like so many other young hopefuls did, a dream that would never come true. The tragedy was that Carlos was so intelligent; the thought of him throwing away his education and hitting the cold, uncaring road to play rock music for small audiences was just too much for her to bear. He needed to concentrate on his future, needed to establish a foundation from which he could grow and become stronger, especially when he had unknown enemies like Jacob Rosenberg lurking about in the background, obsessed with destroying him.

Thinking about Jacob brought Katrina back to her senses. She was guilty of a little obsession of her own: to transfer Jacob's money to Carlos' bank account. She absolutely loathed this sick, rich, high–tech peeping tom, and pretending to be his friend was turning her stomach. But now she had something to show for her pains.

Katrina got up and went to her large walk–in closet.  The big heavy safe she had recently bought was sitting there where she had had it bolted to the floor, with its valuable contents intact.  She spun the combination dial and opened it up, removing a large envelope that was inside, and went to sit at her desk.  She took out a stack of photographs from inside the envelope, spread them out before her and turned on the overhead lamp; then she got a large magnifying glass out of her desk drawer and began to closely study the pictures in front of her.

Katrina had been completely disgusted with Jacob when he had shown her pictures of Carlos masterbating in his own room.  The thought that someone would even plant hidden cameras in another person's home was repugnant enough, but for Jacob to pay some surveillance creep who invaded people's privacy to supply him with embarrassing pictures, just because he was jealous, was too much for her to stomach.  Jacob was an insect, a gossip–mongering character assassin with the mentality of a worm.  Nay, he was lower than that; he was like some kind of insensient, despicable virus that could gain entry into someone's cells by disguising itself as something that was friendly and non–threatening, and then proceed to do its evil damage from within, proliferating until its progress could no longer be stopped. Katrina despised Jacob now, and all people like him.

Some of the other pictures were more disturbing, though; lurid depictions of homosexuality and bestiality that made her wince as she looked at them.  They had shocked and frightened her, and she wanted desperately to believe that it was not true; this was not the Carlos she had come to know.  But even as she recoiled from the sight, she realized that she was already in too deep; the pictures had had the opposite effect from that which Jacob had intended.  Instead of turning her away, they had instead invoked a deep feeling of sympathy for this strange, creative person who had suddenly become so important to her.  Her only thought now was to protect Carlos.

Katrina had discussed sexual aberration before, with her then–boyfriend David Slasher. David was bisexual and believed people should have total sexual freedom. Even though his own "sins" were actually rather mild, he had defended sexual perverts who crossed the lines of so–called normalcy; his sympathy for castigated people revealed a higher sensitivity and intelligence than Katrina had originally given him credit for. She had listened intently to his views on the subject, and it had been an eye–opening, mind–expanding experience for her.

Although David appeared to be very friendly and sociable in company, he had privately admitted to Katrina that he actually detested most of the people he came across because of their groveling tractability, and their inherent tendency to punish oddballs and eccentrics.  In his opinion, the majority of people were mean, boring dullards, even if they got good grades at school or made a lot of money at their jobs.  He believed that with things like higher creative ability came greater complexity of mind, a complexity that sometimes drove people to behave in strange ways which they didn't understand or couldn't explain; they might want to experiment with unknown things, in the same way that a pioneer wanted to explore new ground that was foreign to him.  This wasn't something that afflicted the common "herd beasts" who licked the boots of conformity and took solace in fitting in with the crowd; and it was because these people subconsciously realized that they actually were cowards, David said, that they resented and punished the people who were bold or crazy enough to free themselves from the repressed social mores that bound them.

David had a dogmatic way of making people agree with his point of view, and Katrina had come to believe that he was right in his estimation of common and insensitive people.  Her own brief nervous breakdown had made her see the wisdom of some of the things he said; she by no means considered herself to be a crude, simple person.  She was complex, and subject to mental demons and flights of fancy herself, just like Carlos and David were. She was learning not to judge others so quickly, and was beginning to be more accepting of people's strange foibles.  Even though the photographs were shocking to look at, she had started to get used to the idea that even the nicest people could have very strange sexual obsessions.

But now as Katrina examined the photographs more closely, the suspicion she had initially felt about their authenticity began to grow stronger; something was not right with them.  On many photos of Carlos there appeared to be a line at the neck separating what appeared under the magnifying glass to be two different skin tones.  Katrina turned on another desk lamp and went over each photograph again, setting some of them aside from the others.  As she studied picture after picture, she began to convince herself that the more hard–core ones were fakes.  Given Jacob's undisguised fervor to destroy Carlos, it was not absurd to think that someone in Jacob's employ could be setting up and photographing fake sex scenes and superimposing Carlos's head on them.  Katrina felt a strange mixture of relief and anger as the possibility of this began to manifest itself more clearly, and her mind once again began to race with thoughts of turning the tables on Jacob; she only wanted to see the disgusting little imbecile pay for his sick gambit with all the money he possessed.

The sound of her mother calling her from downstairs caused Katrina to jump up; she had been so engrossed that she hadn’t heard her come in. She quickly gathered the photographs and put them back in the envelope, then hurried to her safe to lock them away again. The last thing she wanted was to have her mother see them. She wasn't certain at this point what to do; she felt compelled to tell Carlos what was happening, and to try to convince him that filing a lawsuit against Jacob was the right course for him to take. Her late father's partner in his law firm often came by her house to check up on her mother, and she could trust the experienced lawyer to keep things strictly confidential. But would Carlos want to go along with her plan? And where was he? How long would it be before she could reach him? The uncertainties were gnawing away at her and undermining her confidence more and more with each passing day.

“Katrina! Are you alright?” her mother called from the top of the stairs.

“Yes mom, I’ll be right there,” Katrina answered loudly.

She put her magnifying glass back in the desk drawer and went to unlock her door. As she descended the stairs, Katrina felt her spirits rising. Carlos represented a huge question mark to her -- he was an enigma within a mystery. But everything was going to turn out alright, she told herself. She was going to take care of things for her friend. He would eventually see the error of his ways and contact her, for they had grown too close in the past months for him to just fly away like a free bird. He would come back from his foolish rock star venture or wherever it was he had gone off to, apologizing for his transgressions. She had already decided that she would forgive him. Then they would sit down together like two adults and discuss their options, how they would deal with this reptile named Rosenberg.

As she walked into the kitchen, her mother looked at Katrina's smiling face and broke into a big smile herself, lifting Katrina's spirits enormously. She would have to be very careful explaining to her mother about Carlos, what he had become to her and the danger he was in. But she knew her mother would eventually understand, and help her; with good, smart people to assist her, Katrina would be able to straighten this strange, complicated matter out.

And after all, Katrina thought to herself, she really did love a good mystery.

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