Desire of the Soul

by Stephen Nielsen

her lawyer/agent all afternoon. She would probably need another couple of drinks after those meetings.

  Mark drove the two of them to his house in Jessica’s car. Jessica was astounded at the size of his house. As they walked in the modern interior matched the modern exterior of the house. Mark quickly swept a brown folder off the table and placed it under a stack of books. When Jessica asked about the house he told her that it was his parents’ house before they died.

  “I’m sorry,” Jessica said solemnly.

  “It’s alright. The bathroom is over there and you can take any cereal you want,” Mark replied and headed for what Jessica assumed was the way to his bedroom.

  Jessica quickly rinsed her mouth and tried to get most of the sand out of her hair and clothes. She was eager to look at the file that Mark discarded under a pile of books.

  Jessica looked around for any sign of Mark. She slowly lifted the books off the folder. It had the word “Confidential” stamped in red on it. She opened it and it had pages of typed letters or something. The first page was a letter addressed to Mark Rodriguez. It talked about an operation that included “eliminating a target”. Cool, Jessica thought, Mark works for some special military thing. I bet Jimmy would be jealous. The letter was signed “BC” with a signature that Jessica thought she recognized.

  She flipped the page, it listed the places, the deadline, and the target. Jessica was only able to glance at the name before she heard Mark coming back to the kitchen area. She closed the folder and piled the books back on. She ran to one of the drawers and pretended like she had been searching for a bowl.

  “What are you looking for?” Mark asked Jessica and moved to within inches of Jessica.

  “A bowl.”

  Mark pressed lightly against her as he reached for a cupboard above Jessica. He brought two bowls down and Jessica smiled him a thanks. The two ate in silence as Jessica continuously thought about the names in the folder. There was one name she pondered over. She didn’t see the full name, but she could only assume what it was. Jessica didn’t like the thought of it. She convinced herself that it was in the next category and wasn’t part of anything special.

  FOURTEEN

  Jimmy woke to faint bangs on the door and someone shouting his name. Groggy he stood up and pain seared in his left leg as it hit the table. He cried out in pain and instinctively held his leg. He made his way to the door, careful not to bend his leg too much. After painstaking steps he finally was able to open the door to an angry, but beautifully dressed Jessica.

  She stormed in through the door not even greeting him, “Where were you? I waited for an hour at my house for you! Why didn’t you show up? Did you forget? And now I have to go to a meeting in half an hour.” Jessica sat herself down obviously disgusted with Jimmy.

  “Take a seat,” Jimmy said quietly. “Sorry I missed our appointment; I must have fallen asleep at the computer last night because I didn’t hear an alarm. Shall we get to work? And is that why you are dressed so nicely.”

  “Glad you like it, but I’m still mad you didn’t come. Oh, you look so exhausted Jimmy. Have you eaten anything?” Jimmy was surprised at Jessica’s sudden change of tone.

  “I’m fine. Do you have the songs?”

  “Yeah right here.” Jessica dug in her black and white leather purse which matched her white button down and black blazer. She also wore a short white skirt. Her hair was straightened and had a glossy look to it, it also appeared to be darker than normal. She produced a USB stick and Jimmy plugged it into his computer. He opened the file and picked a song from one of the many he had to review.

  He listened once, twice, and then a third time through his head phones. “Alright, if you want something to eat there is stuff in the fridge or cupboard. I should be done with this in a few minutes. How much time do we have?”

  “It’s fine, I already ate. Uh, only twenty now.”

  “Oh my,” Jimmy said. His eyes darted back and forth across the screen. Loading new soundtracks and removing a few. He chose from hundreds of guitar and drum soundtracks. Mixing and matching for the perfect sound. After listening to the song after each addition his time was soon up.

  “I gotta go Jimmy, I’ll probably see you later.” Jessica slapped her thighs and stood up. Without acknowledging Jessica he saved his work and copied the rest of the soundtracks on to his computer to edit later if they needed it. He unplugged the audio jack from his headphones and inserted the jack to his two speakers above the computer.

  Jimmy played the song through once and it stunned Jessica. “What did you do?!” She gasped.

  “What, something wrong?”

  “No, it’s even better than before. And you know that it was my producer, Mr. Richardson, who first added the sound?”

  “Yeah, I know who he is. I’d like to be like him some day. I can’t do much to change your music because ultimately I can’t decide on what goes where.”

  “Like him? You’re way better!”

  “I’m not so sure, he knows a lot.”

  “Whatever. But what if I show him this? Do you think he will change his mind?”

  “Well, you can’t really, since you didn’t make it. However, he would be stupid not to use this; his other sound which I started with was, well let’s be honest, not that great.”

  “Yeah, well I’m definitely showing him this when we are meeting.”

  “Great, but are you guys really meeting for another album? I mean you just came out with one like two months ago. And you have many songs already.”

  “Yeah, but you know how it is, we only take like ten or twelve of them for the album. The rest is scrapped or we use it later. No, the meeting is about the tour and the final details like when I leave etc. Can you save that song onto my USB so I can go?”

  “Yeah sure.” Jimmy saved it then pulled it out of the port. He tried to hobble along with Jessica as she walked to her car. “When is the first day?”

  “Still in about a month, but it’s so cool to see all of the things coming together.”

  “So now you are finally happy then?” Jimmy asked as he opened the car door for her. Jessica slipped in and rolled down her window as the door closed.

  “You know that plan I had told you about the other day at the mall?”

  “Yeah, what? It backfired?”

  “Well, it worked perfectly, too perfect that my mom has dad sleeping on the couch and he leaves like two hours earlier for work and comes home extra late. It’s only been what? A day? But any chance they get they say something insulting.

  “I also just told them about me leaving. Made it so much worse. And to think it was all my fault; I ruined their lives. Their relationship and now probably my brothers’ lives as well, because when they get a divorce they will have to share the kids.” Jimmy could sense the thick emotion in her voice. He heard Jessica whisper to herself, “Don’t cry, you idiot.”

  Jimmy wanted to say, “You brought it on yourself.” But decided it would be better to not make the situation worse. “If you need me for anything let me know,” he tried.

  “Thanks, see you later, Jimmy.” Jessica carefully wiped her eyes and backed the car out of the driveway.

  ____________

  Jessica sat in the big conference room with two other people: her producer and agent. They were going over things that Jessica had no interest in. She couldn’t wait to move into her new house. She had been waiting for this day for a couple of months. The little house was right next to the beach and fully furnished.

  “What do you think, Jessica?” Mr. Richardson asked.

  “I think it’s a great idea!” Jessica didn’t know what he was referring to, but she knew it had something to do with her tour.

  “You don’t want a show in LA?” Her agent asked, surprised.

  “Did I say that? Sorry guys, I wasn’t listening; what’s happening?” Jessica asked.

  Her agent filled her in, “The show on the 6th is really complicated because it is two days after your show in New York. S
omething was messed up in the planning stages. The tickets for the LA show are already sold out. We can cancel it and you will still get the money. In addition, there will be no one to open for you. Therefore, Mr. Richardson has asked if you wanted to cancel it. Do you?”

  “Oh no! We are not canceling the LA show! You will make sure you can get all of the equipment to the place. I mean come on, you guys have a lot of money and Diamond Records is a huge company. If you cancel it, I will tell all of those reporters out there and you will have a whole lot of heat coming your way. Then I’ll go and sign with someone else,” Jessica threatened.

  “You can’t end the contract. When the contract time expires we will decide your fate if we want to keep you here or not. And you have nothing to worry about; your show will not be canceled,” Mr. Richardson said and whispered to his assistant. The assistant shuffled out of the room. “The only thing is you won’t have an opener for you.”

  “What if I find someone to open for me?” Jessica inquired. She looked at her agent and then at Mr. Richardson.

  “By all means, if you find someone you can send them to me and I’ll see what they are made of.” Mr. Richardson replied.

  “Cool, so now that the meeting is over can I show you something I changed in one of the songs? The meeting is over, right?”

  “Unless someone has something more to add I would love to take a look at what you have come up with.”

  FIFTEEN

  Jessica sat hunched over a drink, her head hanging. Across from her sat