I got her civilian name from a copy of Rolling Stone, though by the time I called the Manhattan operator and asked for Francis Pell’s number, I’d convinced myself that I’d hallucinated the whole thing. This meant when a pissed-off voice said, “Who’s this?” into the phone, I was totally unprepared. Samantha, I told her, even though I hadn’t spoken that name out loud in twelve years. Suddenly, I realized I didn’t know what time it was in L.A., not to mention New York, so when that same pissed-off voice growled, “Samantha who?” it wasn’t a question I felt prepared to answer.

When Under the Fence came out, Monica Kay was the name in the credits, finishing something I’d started the night I gave myself that name at the motel. I’d missed so many of my Holy Mount classes by then that I probably would have dropped out anyway. Even if I’d been willing to keep taking “Samantha Series” money to cover my tuition, it seemed stupid to shell out for an education when I was getting paid for one each time I got a part. Not that I was making much, but even before Under the Fence, it was usually enough to eat and pay rent. Then came Parkland and No Going Back and Fever Dream and a certain kind of independence.

People who like the kind of movies that got made in the ’70s know who I am, but since moving back to New York, I’ve stuck to plays. I don’t like the way movies are done in bits and pieces, with the only real meaning made afterward by the editor in postproduction. Also, I realized pretty quickly after I started in movies that performing for a camera inside a locked room felt too much like hiding, like I was building a relationship and then ducking out on its care and feeding, which felt too painfully familiar. That might not make sense to anyone besides me, but it doesn’t need to.

Though I think my grandmother would have enjoyed seeing me in a play, by the time I was performing back east, travel wasn’t an option for her. She never said anything about the movies. This means either she didn’t see them or she didn’t like them. If I had to guess, I’d say she chose not to see them in order to avoid not liking them. Grandma was a practical person, and by the last decade of her life, our relationship was already complicated enough.

114. Two young women walking and talking, Cleveland, 1976