The Secret Life of Souls

by Jack Ketchum

  “Be reasonable, Pat,” says Roman. “I just spent two hours on the phone with legal and they say . . .”

  “I don’t care what legal has to say. I told you we don’t do this without final cut!”

  “And they’re giving it to you! Along with Pearl! Nobody’s ever gotten that before.”

  “What happens if Pearl and I disagree?”

  “It’s mutual approval, but she has the tiebreaker . . .”

  “Which means final cut!”

  “They’re not gonna budge, Pat. This is her show!”

  “Well, then tell all these guys they can all go home, then.”

  She raises her chin, turns away from him, folds her arms, and stares out the window. He knows that look. It meant you’re screwed. He guesses Roman does too. He pulls his phone out of his jacket pocket and stalks away, dialing as he goes.

  She takes a deep breath, turns, and finally notices Delia and Caity on the floor beside her not five feet away.

  “Damn, girl,” she says. “Where’d you come from?”

  “We’ve been here. Mom, have you eaten anything today?”

  “No kiddo, too busy. Why don’t you go get some rest. It’s going to be a couple hours yet before they start shooting.”

  “We’re not tired.”

  Roman leans in from the hall, still on the phone.

  “Pat! I’m getting some movement. Get out here!”

  Robbie and his sister exchange glances as she hurries away.

  “Mom,” he says.

  “Mom,” she says.

  She scratches Caity’s turned-up belly. Her front paws drift slowly up and down. If Caity were a cat, he thinks, she’d be purring.

  Delia leans in close and speaks into her dog’s ear.

  “Mom smells funny, doesn’t she. Like she’s excited and scared at the same time. She smells like . . . old apples. That’s it. Old apples.”

  Huh? he thinks.

  Caity blinks up at her. Delia strokes her belly.

  His sister is weird.

  We’re sitting on the roof and it’s very best place to be right now because behind us in our room there are people rushing around one another setting things up and moving and arranging things into this corner or that corner, our things and the stuff they’ve brought with them, lights and boxes and whole dollies full of stuff and down on the street there’s this whole big crowd of people some of them neighbors probably or just people attracted to all the activity going on and there are security guys moving the traffic along the street and one car stopped dead in front of the house honking its horn over and over like that’s going to do any good, and there are cameras there and people are still unloading the trucks and vans and not a single solitary soul has spotted us sitting up here on the roof it seems, and for all this commotion behind us and below it’s peaceful here in the scent of grass and trees on the breeze that ruffles our hair and glides soothing over our wounds, our hurts.

  Then somebody does see us. A woman. Standing alone on the sidewalk across the street. She looks familiar but we can’t place her. She’s wearing a nice simple dress. She gives us a little wave. Then turns and glances back at us once and smiles as she walks away.

  We’re sitting on the roof and it’s the very best place to be.

  Pat flushes the downstairs toilet for the fourth time today and checks herself in the mirror. Her digestive system has been playing hell with her all morning and she never gets this way, not for any of Delia’s shoots, not for the Choi show, never. Fuck it. She runs a brush through her hair. She looks good. So yeah, fuck it.

  The AD almost trips over her as she steps out into the hall.

  “We’re ready to shoot up there, Mrs. Cross. If you want to have a look.”

  “I’ll pass,” she says. “I trust you guys.”

  I need a break, she thinks. A cigarette and a break. I need to get out of here. On her way to the patio she notices the double—Daisy her name is—and her mother climbing the stairs.

  “Can Delia and Caity come to my ballet thingy?” the little girl is asking.

  “A dog at the ballet. You’d love that, wouldn’t you.”

  “She’s the most polite dog I ever met.”

  She is that, Pat thinks, unless you’re Roman. Where the hell is Roman, anyway?

  He’s on the patio. Great minds, she thinks. Only Roman’s working. He’s on the phone, pacing back and forth. She sits down on one of the loungers and listens.

  “I hear y’all clear as a cowbell. But it ain’t gonna wash with my client is all.”

  Roman’s Okie-isms really come out when he’s negotiating.

  I’m just a good ol’ boy.

  But you’d better not mistake him for a hick.

  He rolls his eyes at her. She digs out her Winstons and lights one and pulls the flask out of her pocket, unscrews the top, and takes a nice long hit. Roman, listening on the phone, waves to her to pass it over so she does. He takes a pull and hands it back.

  “Well, then we’ll just have to ask all these folks to go on home. No sir. That’s not a threat. It’s fact.”

  She likes how he’s hard-lining them. Exactly what she wants. She takes another hit and puts the flask back in her pocket.

  She hears cheering from the street. A production assistant, Kitty, pokes her head from behind the sliding glass door.

  “Pearl’s here,” she says.

  “Okay, thanks Kitty.”

  “I’ll get back to you,” Roman says. “Pearl’s here.”

  He hangs up the phone.

  “Got any Altoids?” she asks.

  “Sure, darlin’. Always prepared.”

  He fishes around in his jacket pocket.

  “I’ll take three,” she says.

  Damned if she’s not better-looking in person, Bart thinks. Big wide eyes, full lips, flawless café-mocha skin. A very young early fifties. And she’s smaller. Five-two or five-three maybe. Thinner too. But she’s really something.

  She’s like this wave of sheer confidence that’s come crashing through his front door, walking in like she owns the joint, star power and quiet authority all the way, surrounded by these six guys in black suits and ties who looked like their last gig’s been Obama at the G7 summit.

  He has a sudden deeper understanding of the word magnetism. Because the entire room is drawn to her instantly. You can’t take your eyes off her and you can’t help but step a little closer, into her sphere. He guesses everybody feels it, including his family. Because he turns around and there’s Patricia and Robbie standing right behind him, Delia and Caity appearing at his side.

  Kitty the PA is handing her a frothy coffee in a woolly mammoth mug. She accepts and smiles warmly.

  “Tell Humphry to break up that crowd out there, will you?” she says. “We want neighbors, we’ll get neighbors. Not now.”

  “Done,” says Kitty and rushes away.

  “Where’s the family?” she says.

  Howard, the director, is right by her side. Bart hadn’t even seen him arrive.

  Magnetism.

  “Right over here,” he says.

  They step forward and Howard introduces them and they shake hands. Pearl’s hand is warm and smooth. She squats down to eye level for Caity. Her expression and body language tell him the woman likes dogs. This is not going to be another John Latoya. Good.

  “Hey, pooch,” she says and shakes her paw.

  She straightens. “Okay, first of all it’s Pearl. Just Pearl. We’re going for informal and relaxed, right? We’re all friends. They tell me our boys and girls here will have us ready in about fifteen or twenty, but Patricia? I gotta ask you a favor first.”

  “Of course. Anything. What do you need?”

  “A powder room, sugar. My eyeballs are floatin’.”

  “Sure, absolutely, right this way.”

  He can’t help but notice the sway of her hips.

  Among other things, Pearl is hot.

  At the bathroom doorway Pearl grasps her wrist. A firm grip.
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  “Talk with me a sec, mom,” she says. “So many people out there, you could stir ’em with a stick.”

  She gives the wrist a gentle tug. Pat hesitates, confused. This is not the ladies’ room at the Hyatt where they’d maybe go to share some girl thing.

  “Oh, c’mon, Patricia. One of the perks of being a lady is we have a quiet office like this just ’bout anywhere we go.”

  She steps inside and shuts the door. Pearl pulls up her skirt and pulls down her panties and sits. Pat turns ninety degrees away and leans against the doorjamb.

  “Hotter than a two-dollar pistol out there. How y’all live like this I don’t know.”

  “You get used to it.”

  “I’ve heard that. You get used to it. People say the same thing about Detroit. I like the cold up there, though. I grew up in Sarasota. You want to talk about hot? August in Sarasota is one version of pure hell.”

  Mercifully the tinkling stops. Pearl sighs, flushes the toilet, adjusts her clothing and steps over to the sink. Squeezes out some soap and begins thoroughly washing her hands.

  “So what’s this I hear ’bout you telling everyone to go home?” she says.

  We’re having this conversation here? she thinks. She doesn’t know what she’s expected but surely not this.

  “I . . . I’m very concerned with the way Delia . . . how Delia’s story is presented to the public.”

  “As you should be, darlin’. As you should be. But this sounds like business to me, not story. My boys haven’t been accommodating enough for you? That it?”

  “They’ve been accommodating, but I don’t like the final-cut clause, to be quite honest.”

  “I hear you. Damn contracts always make you feel like you’re signin’ your life away, don’t they?”

  “Yes, but it’s not my life. It’s Delia’s and I’m her mother, so it’s my job to protect . . .”

  “. . . to protect her interests. ’Course it is.”

  She turns off the faucets and dries her hands on the towel and the southern accent mysteriously disappears.

  “The only issue I maybe have is with you, Patricia Cross. I’m wondering what kind of mother puts her injured daughter on display in front of millions of people in the first place, for money, right on the heels of a horrible experience like your little girl’s been through. How long’s it been? Three months? Four?”

  She starts to protest, because that’s totally unfair, it is! goddammit. But Pearl cuts her off.

  “All this money we’re paying you, is that all going into a trust fund for Delia?”

  “I . . . there’ve been bills . . .”

  “So the answer is no, it’s not. You need to pay the gardeners to keep that yard looking top notch, you need to hit the beauty parlor, and I’m betting your electric bill on this place is impressive as hell, with all these nice high ceilings and all.”

  Pearl’s eyes narrow. She takes one step toward her and the spacious bathroom suddenly feels like she’s standing in a closet, her back to the wall. This lady’s scary.

  “You’re trying to shake me down, aren’t you,” she says.

  “I’m not . . .”

  “Of course you are. Here’s how it is. You get no final cut. That’s mine. And you’re not nearly big enough to rate an exception. You get no bump in the money ‘to compensate’ either. You want to walk? You go ahead. Walk. I can spread these expenses on my fucking toast tomorrow morning. And if you do walk, here’s what you get. An instant rep as the hopped-up stage mom who was stupid enough to let Pearl slip right through her fingers.”

  She turns to check her makeup in the mirror.

  “Don’t get me wrong. Your daughter and her sweet ol’ dog are about the most precious thing I’ve seen all year and her story is going to inspire and maybe even help a helluva lot of people because helping people and giving them hope in a shit-ass world full of money-grubbing, power-tripping no-talent leeches like you is what I do. So I’m going to get her story out there. Despite your sorry ass. You following me on this? We clear?”

  When she faces Pat again her eyes are softer and the southern lilt is back.

  “Oh, lookit you. Squirmin’ like a worm on an anthill. Relax, girl. It ain’t gotta be this way, Patricia! Can you trust me to cut the show to your likin’?”

  She feels like she’s been hit by a hammer—no, mugged in an alley by six teenage boys and they’re finally letting her up again.

  “Y-yes, ma’am . . . ,” she says.

  “Well, see there? Problem solved. Alright . . .”

  She glances at her watch.

  “You get your boy to sign off on that piece o’ paper and the two of us can get out there and make hay while the sun shines. You ready? Good.”

  She moves on past her and out the door.

  Roman has ringside for this one, seated next to Bart, Delia, and Robbie in front of the monitor in the hall where he can see Pearl and Patricia together by the table in the living room.

  Not ten minutes ago they’d been in the kitchen, finally signing contracts. Pat had given him no explanation as to why final cut was no longer an issue and he hadn’t asked. The deal was going through. The shoot was going forward. She signed and Pearl signed and he signed and that was all that mattered. They’d talk later.

  Cameras are rolling. Pat and Pearl sit across from one another on the couch. Between them, on the coffee table, crackers and cheese, muffins and a carafe of lemonade. All very homey. The director points to Pearl and she leans in to address her audience, ever the gracious southern hostess.

  “I’m here with Patricia Cross, talkin’ about the sensation caused by her eleven-year-old daughter Delia on Manny Choi’s show last week. A sensation that’s sparked a national debate ’bout the importance of self-image among children and young teens. Welcome, Patricia.”

  “Thank you, Pearl.” She looks nervous, he thinks.

  He’d wondered aloud this morning why Bart wasn’t invited in on this particular shoot, it was such an important one. I get jittery in front of a camera, Bart said. I stammer. I get this ridiculous expression on my face. Pat had vigorously confirmed this. So be it.

  But now she’s the one looking nervous. Not like the Patricia he saw on the Choi show or any of the previous interviews. Glancing sideways or down into her lap. Don’t blow it, Patricia, he thinks. Pretty please.

  “Now the camera doesn’t lie,” Pearl says. “And when I watch this Choi clip very closely—watch you very closely—you want to know what I see?”

  Pat tenses. He can feel it from here.

  My god, she’s scared, he thinks. She’s actually scared. She’s smiling but . . .

  “I see shock,” Pearl says. “I see a woman caught completely off guard. Unprepared. What Delia said on the air wasn’t planned, was it.”

  “N-no. Not at all.”

  “So when Delia flat-out rejects the offer of free cosmetic surgery, tell us what’s going through your mind, Patricia?”

  Better now, he thinks. A bit better. Pearl is leaning in close, giving the impression that hey, they’re just a pair of girlfriends having a good ol’ down-home chat. It’s a talent she has and it’s working on her guest.

  For a moment there Pat had him worried, had looked like she felt she was under attack.

  “Well, it was a shock at first. I mean, since the beginning of all this, Delia’s handled everything in such an amazing way, she’s been so levelheaded, so strong. So at first I couldn’t fathom why she’d reject it. It was so very, very kind of Manny and Dr. Hamilton to make the offer. And I was sort of embarrassed, I guess . . .”

  “Wait. Hold right there for a sec. Now this seems important to me. You were embarrassed, Patricia?”

  “Because Delia didn’t . . . wasn’t playing along . . .”

  “Playing along.”

  Flat. Like an accusation. Pat bites at her lower lip. He can see beads of sweat forming at her temples.

  What the fuck is Pearl doing here?

  “Well, yes. I mean, someo
ne makes a generous offer in that sort of situation, you kind of have to . . .”

  “Have to?”

  “Yes, well, go with it. Say yes! Of course! Thank you! I mean, there are all these people watching. So I didn’t know what to do. Maybe I should have anticipated somehow . . .”

  She’s clearly flustered. He glances over at the family sitting beside him. They’re riveted. Delia’s brow is furrowed with concern, as is Bart’s.

  Pearl reaches over and gives Pat’s leg a squeeze.

  This was all about drama, he realizes. She was simply going for drama.

  “Oh, no no no, girl. I’m not judgin’ you. I think that’s the same reaction any one of us could have had. Go on.”

  The touch seems to help immensely.

  How does she do that? Roman wonders.

  Pat takes a deep breath.

  “Well, it’s clear to me now that Delia’s reaction was correct. There is nothing she needs to change about herself. I mean, we all have scars, don’t we? And what I’ve come to realize is that if Delia has that much confidence in herself, in her own self-image, then why couldn’t we put together a way for her to get out there and share that confidence with other kids. And even adults.”

  Pearl smiles into the camera. “Our brave veterans, anyone?”

  “Yes. Yes, exactly. I think what Delia was trying to say is that if she’s okay with herself and her scars, everyone else out there could be too. Our scars are what build our character, aren’t they? But a lot of people . . . I guess they didn’t understand. It obviously hit some of them, some of the viewers, really hard that Delia would turn down the chance to look . . .”

  “She turned down the chance to look normal again, right?”

  “Yes. And I guess I’m a little ashamed for . . . for not accepting the way she . . . for not backing her up right away.”

  And there’s Pearl’s hand again, giving Pat’s leg a motherly pat. Patricia nods and bows her head, takes the hand, and squeezes it. Pat is acting now. This is not genuine. To him that’s obvious. It wouldn’t be to most everyone. The camera’s reading it just fine. But he wonders how Delia’s taking it.