Do You Feel It Too?

by Nicola Rendell

  It’d be a goddamned tragedy. All I had to do to prevent it was click my mouse.

  I put the call with Markowitz on speaker and opened the text conversation with Lily.

  Hey beautiful

  Your digital recorder in the dining room picked us up last night.

  Hi!

  OMG. Really?

  Thumps and groans.

  Aaaah!

  Listened 1.5 times already. Just want your permission to download.

  Or I can just listen off the recorder. Whatever you want.

  Yeah! Download for sure!

  Maybe we can listen together!

  Which she followed up with a kissy face. Well, shiiiiiit. She was hitting every kink I never knew I had. I found myself smiling like a goddamned idiot at my screen while I thought up a reply. Best to keep it simple, especially since I was getting exactly zero blood to my brain.

  So get over here

  Soon soon!

  Call you later, k?

  Can’t wait

  I moved the file off the digital recorder onto my desktop, and the progress ribbon went from 0 percent to 100 percent. Markowitz came back on the line a second later. “First things first. I’m thinking Brazil next. What do you think?”

  Well, shit yes, I wanted to go to Brazil, but the last goddamned thing I wanted to do right now was talk about the next place I was headed. I had an audio file to listen to. I had a woman to ravage. “Sounds great. Man, I gotta go.”

  “Powers!” he said as his breathing got less frenzied and the sound of his elliptical in the background slowed down. “Thought you said you had nothing from the haunted house. But I’m looking at an audio file!”

  I froze. I stared at my screen.

  Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit. The file had automatically downloaded to the folder I shared with Markowitz. Usually, that was fine—I didn’t give two shits if he saw my outtakes and rough cuts. But this, this . . . As fast as I could, I tried to drag it out of the shared folder.

  It was too late. On the other end of the line, I was almost sure I heard the file playing. I said, “It’s raw audio. Don’t listen yet. Let me clean it up.”

  Yet again, the son of a bitch ignored the thing he didn’t want to hear. I could just see him in my mind’s eye, skipping forward with manic pokes of his trackpad. I heard a thump and possibly a growl. “Whoa! Sounds spooky! Call you right back!”

  And click went the line.

  Fuck.

  15

  LILY

  My sister, Daisy, was the curator and only full-time employee of the Savannah Living History Museum. She often recruited me to help her with her special exhibitions, which started unpleasantly early on Sunday mornings. This morning was no exception. While Aunt Jennifer looked after Ivan, Daisy and I manned the museum. According to the calendar on the museum’s website, today was “A Demonstration of Textile Coloring Techniques of the Antebellum South.” In other words, beet juice tie-dye. Hooray.

  My sister loved her job, but I quietly filed the Living History Museum on the Bummer List, right alongside taxes and Pap smears—a bit of a drag, but what could a girl do? Like everything else on the Bummer List, living history didn’t give two shakes that I had wobbly thighs and dreamy thoughts, or that I was hiding a hickey for the first time since I was sixteen. Living history didn’t care that I would much rather have been in bed with Gabe, verifying that he had, in fact, not just a six-pack but an eight-pack. Oh no. All living history cared about was me, dressed up in my petticoats, smiling at confused tourists who wandered in thinking that we were part of the Starbucks next door.

  I was hiding in the butler’s pantry with my phone, which was class-A contraband for museum volunteers. I touched my ringlet curls, piled high in a style that was apparently all the rage when General Grant was still in diapers. Mercifully, my dress was from the same era and featured an uncomfortable—but hickey-hiding—lace collar. As I checked my curls and adjusted some bobby pins with one hand, I flipped through Gabe’s YouTube channel with the other. Thumbnail after glorious thumbnail of his smiling face flashed back at me. Borneo. South Africa. Myanmar. One hundred thousand views. Two hundred sixty-eight thousand views. One particularly astounding number whizzed past, and I flicked my thumb down to go back to the video. One million views. The title was “Cliff Diving in Mexico.” The thumbnail for that one was him, in midair, about to plunge into the water. Even looking at him through my cracked and smudgy phone screen, one thing was very clear: I now knew exactly where my loins were.

  Like a prisoner watching for the warden, I leaned out of the pantry to do a quick double check for Daisy, made sure my volume was all the way down, and hit play. He was up close to the camera at first, a tight shot that featured his chiseled jawline and his scratchy stubble. I ran my fingertip over my neck, over the lace frill above my hickey that was in the shape of that delicious mouth.

  He adjusted the focus, and his broad shoulder appeared in the corner of the frame. Then he stepped back, revealing a wide shot of a heavenly blue lagoon rimmed with palms, like a huge, sparkling sapphire set in emeralds. I imagined the tripod I’d seen him using last night nestled in between exotic jungle flowers to film the panorama behind him. He ripped off his shirt, and I squeaked out a close-lipped “Meep!” He extended his arms above him, drawing out the contrast between his waist and his sculpted back and shoulders. He looked back once to wink at the camera and dived into the water, his rippling body and glistening muscles catching the tropical light. He slipped into the blue depths with hardly a splash. A few seconds later, he resurfaced. He swung his head side to side like he was doing a cologne ad and swept his dark, dripping hair back from his tanned forehead. And then he smiled up at the camera.

  Mercy!

  I scrolled down to the comments. Top one, with one thousand up votes, said, “Kaboom go my ovaries.”

  “You said it, girl!” I whispered at my phone.

  “Lily,” my sister whisper-barked from around the corner. “Get your bustle over here and help me dye this tablecloth!”

  I stashed my phone into the pocket of my dress and trotted out into the kitchen area. A few people milled around, looking at the displays and period dishware. A lady in pink Crocs and pink cargo shorts said, “This isn’t Starbucks, is it?” to her husband.

  He came around the corner, wearing a complementary baby-blue Crocs-and-shorts ensemble, and replied, “I don’t think so. But come in here, Marge. This mattress is stuffed with horsehair! It smells like a farm!” And off they wandered, with their Crocs squelching.

  I took my place next to Daisy in the kitchen. Our shtick was that we were sisters; her husband had left her to raise her baby alone while he struck out for gold in California, never to be heard from again. I was a spinster with no prospects who was trying to learn to knit. Truth in advertising.

  With my sleeves rolled up, I plunged my hands into the basin of beet juice and warm water. I squeezed the sheet of linen in the basin and gazed down into the purply-red water, as well as my now purply-red hands and forearms. Beet juice was really gruesome if you didn’t know what it was. When the visitors ambled off into the dining room, set with period china and silverware we’d found at a flea market, I whispered to Daisy, “Why do we have to do this? All anybody wants is your peach preserves and my lemon curd. And that doesn’t make us look like ax murderers for four days either. Am I right?”

  In response, Daisy gave me the Glare. Oooh, she was good at the Glare. It was especially effective when she was in all black like she was now, complete with a cameo choker on a wide black velvet ribbon. Antebellum resting bitch face—the original. She pursed her lips into a ferocious line when she did it. She’d really gotten that expression down to a science. It was more than possible that the Glare was what had sent Boris scurrying back to Moscow. “It’s educational,” Daisy said as she squeezed the linen. “And sustainable!”

  I pulled my hand out of the beet water to push aside my bangs. A red droplet landed on my replica gown, which was off-
white with tiny cornflowers. It was one of three dresses I was allowed to wear at the museum; the fabric had come from Joann, but it wasn’t cheap to have a reproduction gown made by a seamstress—so many pleats!—and Daisy was very protective. Her eyes locked onto the splotch of red. Cut to Lady Macbeth saying, Out, damned spot! “Lily!”

  “Daisy!” I tried to fling the Glare back at her. I was a total amateur. I was pretty sure it just made me look like I was doing an advertisement for Excedrin, but still. Same general idea. Same squint and purse. She doubled down. I hissed and turned away. All hail the queen! She’d undoubtedly perfected it by side-eyeing Boris for all those miserable years when he’d graced us with his presence like an incurable rash. I, on the other hand, had never spent a sustained period of time staring at any one single man. Or really feeling much of anything for one single man. Except . . .

  The thought of last night plopped me back in the house on Abercorn. And the way Gabe had looked all sprawled out in bed when I’d left.

  But for as wonderful as it had been, it also made my heart ache. Like a combination of joy and sadness. Soy. Jadness. Something. As I squeezed and twisted and rubbed the linen to get the beet juice to soak into the fibers, I preworried my way through what might or might not happen next. I knew that he wouldn’t be around for long. And I knew that this feeling inside—this buzzing, electric excitement—was just temporary. I couldn’t float on butterflies forever. We were worlds apart: a million people had watched him cliff dive on YouTube—or ten thousand ladies, over and over again. But still! Ten thousand! Women looked at him and their ovaries went wa-whump; men looked at me and said, Awww. He had a television show; I had a one-employee business. His passport was probably stamped on every page; I didn’t even have one. He lived a jet-set life; I lived with a parrot. We were worlds apart. It really was that simple. The hometown girl and the television star?

  Pshaw, as we said in the museum. Impossible.

  He’d have to be like the last slice of peach pie. Wonderful while it lasted, but not something that I could have forever. And that was OK. At least, that’s what I kept telling myself as I squeezed the linen over and over again.

  One splotchy red tablecloth later, my phone began vibrating in my dress pocket. A lot. Like my skirt was full of bees.

  This time Daisy didn’t give me the Glare. Instead she let out an exasperated snort-sigh, and she shook her head at the water and at the napkins that now floated on the surface. She was hard-line about the museum, but she was even more hard-line about her coffee. “Go ahead. Get me a soy latte while you’re out.”

  “’Kay!” I pulled my hands out of the purple water. I grabbed our secret roll of paper towels from their hiding place underneath the counter, well out of view of the visitors, and dried my hands, leaving behind a clump of paper towels that would’ve fit right into any grisly murder scene. Then I trotted out the back door into the alley. Once I got myself and my puffy skirt out the door, I pulled out my phone again. The lock screen was covered in message alerts and phone calls from Gabe. At the bottom was a text message from early in the flurry.

  I accidentally shared the file.

  Oh boy.

  Before I could even start to reply, my phone started to ring again. But it wasn’t Gabe this time. It was the 323 area code from last night. His producer.

  It had to be a dreaded Shared File Disaster. I was no stranger to digital snafus myself; I was the queen of the Reply-All Catastrophe. Once, I’d been included on an email from my sister about how to make the Living History Museum “more authentic.” I’d meant to reply only to Daisy but had instead replied to the entire museum staff and board—including the mayor!—with the message:

  Hi,

  I’m all for authenticity, but can’t we get some two-ply toilet paper?

  Regards,

  My vagina

  Winner, winner, chicken dinner. And so, bracing for anything, I hit the answer button and said, “Sounds Good, this is Lily.”

  “Ms. Jameson?” he panted.

  “Yes, hello!” I said as my phone continued to buzz against my cheek with little staccato bursts of texts. I briefly pulled it away from my ear and saw more messages from Gabe streaming through.

  It’s just thumps. No names or anything. But here’s the thing . . .

  I pressed the phone back to my ear just in time to hear Markowitz say, “. . . the raw audio from last night, sent it along to the bigwigs.”

  Oopsies! It certainly explained why my phone was hot with all the buzzing. But what was done could not be undone. What was sent could not be unsent. So I rolled with it. “Oh! Very good!” I said in my most chipper voice, desperately trying not to let the surprise seep in. “Was it . . .” I searched for the word. Something neutral. Something G-rated. Something on-brand. “Does it sound good?”

  “Shit, yes! Sounds great! The Savannah episodes are a go!”

  I let out a hoot of laughter and tried to stifle the ensuing giggle. Our wild night of bed-shaking sex had been mistaken for a houseful of ghosts. Powers of Suggestion indeed! “We noticed quite a bit of . . .” I cleared my throat. “Action?” I was smiling so hard that my cheeks burned. “I’m not sure of the word.”

  “Me neither, but the suits upstairs loved it! I’m emailing through some employment documents for you. We’ll take care of all the tax forms and whatever. You’ll get a thank-you after each episode in the credits. Blah, blah, blah. There’s money for you in the budget already, and plenty of it. Should offset anything you might have to cancel. That all right?”

  There’s a budget? I’m in the budget? I’d spent the last five years feeling like I was playing some quasi-grown-up version of store, like my sister and I used to play when we were girls, selling each other stubby pencils and incomplete Barbie outfits. Sure, I had an LLC, but my logo was a microphone flower that I’d designed in PowerPoint! To be hired to work on a real live television show made me feel incredibly legit. I was also positively thrilled at the prospect of not having to say goodbye to Gabe so very soon. “That would be fantastic!”

  “Just sent the docs. Take a look real quick; make sure I spelled your name right. All that good stuff.”

  “OK!” I opened my email while Mr. Markowitz waited on the line. The document was very official looking and had my name and company placed in all the relevant blanks. I scrolled through with my heart pitter-pattering along. This wasn’t a contract with the Universalist church for Sunday bingo; this was the big time. The pay was generous. The requirements were reasonable. It was a huge break for me. And it meant that I’d get to work with Gabe on a steady, well-funded project. So it was all just Georgia-peachy keen . . .

  . . . until I got to the section labeled Conduct. In my head, I heard the scratchy squeak of a needle coming off a record.

  By signing this document, all parties agree that for the term of the dates listed under Section 2, Employment Terms, there shall be no sexual contact of any kind between employees. For the purposes of this document, “sexual contact” includes but is not limited to: comments of a sexual or flirtatious nature, “petting” (heavy or light), kissing, touching, “coitus,” intercourse of any type, so-called hanky-panky, so-called business time, and all other euphemisms not mentioned herein. Failure to adhere to the rules of conduct set forth in this section will result in immediate termination of this contract.

  I felt my face flush, and I broke out in a sweat that had nothing whatsoever to do with the sweltering July heat. I looked blankly down the alley. A tourist on the street stared at me and my beet-red hands. A small, plump little boy hung on to her leg and smashed his face into her thigh. But I wasn’t really there, in that moment, ensuring that some poor child was destined for talk therapy because he’d been scared half to death in Savannah. I was still very much in the Land of the Suggestive Fine Print.

  No touching. No kissing. No hanky or panky? It would be like getting the peanut butter away from the chocolate in a peanut butter cup. I pressed the speaker button on my phone. “Umm, Mr.
Markowitz? About this Conduct section . . .”

  “If you’re worried, don’t be! That’s got nothing to do with Powers! He’s as honest as they come. But we have to have it in there. It’s the Age of the Asshole, you know? Boilerplate stuff.”

  Reading over the document again, it didn’t feel particularly boilerplate. It felt like an overview of what we’d done last night. Minus the dirty talk. God, how I’d loved the dirty talk.

  “You on board, Ms. Jameson?” hollered Mr. Markowitz.

  Reality check: even if he was here to do a series, Gabe wasn’t here to stay. Maybe the conduct clause was just that little shot of common sense that I needed—a reminder that this was a job, just a job, and nothing more. And as for the job itself, I couldn’t say no. That would be crazy. That would be a huge mistake. I had to say yes. I just had to. And I could figure out what to do with Gabe when I saw him. Provided I seriously expanded my personal bubble. By twenty to thirty feet.

  “I’m on board.” I pressed my pink hand to my forehead. “Yep. Absolutely.” I shut my eyes and leaned against the warm brick wall of the museum. Oh God. What was I going to do? And where the heck were my manners? “Thank you so much!”

  “My pleasure!” panted Mr. Markowitz. “Welcome to The Powers of Suggestion!”

  I wandered into Starbucks, feeling totally dazed. The girl behind the counter was new; I didn’t recognize her, and she was understandably confused at what my deal was. She looked at my hair. At my outfit. And finally at my red arms and hands. And blinked.

  “Beet juice,” I explained.

  She cocked her head. “We don’t have that here, hon. This is Starbucks. Not Whole Foods.”

  I stared at her and then inhaled hard, trying to get myself to crash-land back in the real world. I dragged myself out of the finer points of hanky and panky and thudded down into grandes and ventis. “Sorry. A soy latte and an iced black tea, four sugars. Venti for both,” I said and ran my phone over the little payment cube. As I did, the Facebook app caught my attention, and I remembered he’d told me that he had a Facebook fan club in addition to the YouTube channel.