by Jack Ketchum
“You’ve got nothing to be ashamed of, pretty lady,” Pearl says. “We’re here to talk this out. All of it. Now there were a lot of mothers out there who were absolutely furious with you over this, weren’t there.”
“Quite a few.”
Pearl shuffles some papers on her lap. Correspondence? Notes? Or just props?
“That you wouldn’t insist on the surgery.”
“Yes.”
“I’ve got some words for these mothers here in a minute.”
Pat can’t seem to help but grin a little.
“After the break, we’re going to bring Delia out here so y’all can hear her for yourself. And you do not want to miss that. Thank you, Patricia. Folks, you stay where you are, we’ll be right back.”
She holds for a beat.
“Cut. Okay. Great. Let’s reset. Patricia? Excellent, darlin’. You’re a natural, aren’t you? Wanna come take a gander at the tape we’re gonna run before the next segment?”
“Sure, Pearl.”
“Roman? Family? You’re all invited.”
He gets up, as do Bart and Robbie. Delia stays where she is, petting Caity.
“You okay, Deal?” he says.
“We’re fine,” she says. “We might go outside for a while.”
“You go right on ahead. Say hello to the real world for me.”
“Okay,” she says.
Delia, he thinks, is a very literal-minded young girl.
There’s this scratching sound. Skritch, skritch, skritch. Like nails on a blackboard. No. Like nails on a door.
It’s coming from outside. She and Caity are sitting on the staircase. So how can it be coming from outside? But Delia’s sure. It is.
Her mom and dad, Robbie, Roman, and Pearl are all crowded around the dining room table, watching the editor, seated, pull up a video file from her hard drive—some “man on the street” interviews. She isn’t interested. She and Caity have fallen behind and they haven’t missed them. They get up off the stairs and walk right past them, unnoticed, to the sliding glass doors.
Behind her she hears some woman going on and on, her voice tinny on the monitor.
“. . . you ask me, it’s just not right. That girl is just a young girl, she doesn’t know what’s best for her. It’s her mother’s responsibility to . . .”
Over that Delia can hear the scratching.
She opens the doors and they step outside.
Into a kind of magic.
When she was little her favorite book was one her parents had actually bought for Robbie because it was a boy’s book they said, and the main character was a little boy. But she never thought of Where the Wild Things Are as a boy’s book or a girl’s book, it was just an adventure into a dreamworld on a little boat that took you to someplace inhabited by monsters. Big, bug-eyed, goofy monsters drawn so sharply that they seemed to jump right out of the page at you, crystal clear, in all that carefully drawn pen and ink detail. The colors were impossibly bright, like the sun was shining just for them and the little boy joining them off the boat.
Her lawn is like that now. Her own familiar backyard. Like her vision has become suddenly sharper. The tables and chairs on the patio, the flagstones beneath them, each leaf on the trees, each dandelion and blade of grass standing out in knife-edge clarity from one another, outlined as though in vivid black ink. The production assistant Kitty is outside smoking a cigarette. She can see every wrinkle in her jeans and T-shirt. Her face and forearms sparkle with sunlight. The smoke from her cigarette forms a distinct solemn trail into the still, warm air.
But what draws her is the back fence. And in front of that, the swing set and slide. They blaze stark with light.
Skritch. Skritch.
The sounds are coming from over there.
Caity leads the way.
“Can I get you ladies anything?” Kitty says as they pass. She stuffs her crew sheet into her back pocket and snuffs out her cigarette on the lawn. Bends to police her butt.
It takes Delia a moment to respond, distracted by the shimmering glint in Kitty’s pale blue eyes.
“Doggy bathroom break,” she says.
Kitty laughs. “Okay,” she says and turns to go inside.
Climb the slide, she hears herself say. You got to climb to see.
So she does. Climbs the ladder while Caity takes a running leap and bounds up the slippery slide. They meet up top and sit.
And it’s like she’s in that little boy’s boat, in the crow’s nest. She can see all around.
“What do you think, Caits?” She strokes her dog’s broad gleaming back. “Almost like the roof, isn’t it? This is us. This is where we live.”
Caity’s eyes blink at her once and then hold steady on her own.
Skritch.
She sees them before she sees them.
There in Caity’s brimming eyes.
“You play with them, don’t you!” she says. “I saw you. Caits! You were playing with them!”
She looks down below. Directly to the fence. To the pair of gray kits, young foxes rolling and wrestling with each other in the dirt and scratching at the corner fence post. Stopping to gaze up at them, a pair of potential playmates not so far away and wrestling some more. Tiny creatures filled with the sheer fun of living. Their monsters. Their wild things.
“Oh, Caits,” she says. “If you want to jump this damn old fence and run away I’d understand. I honestly, really would. There’s a whole world out there, isn’t there.”
But Caity’s Caity, and she’s going nowhere without her. Delia hugs her tight.
When she hears the silence below and looks down again the kits have vanished.
Pat has the distinct impression that her daughter isn’t taking this sufficiently seriously.
“Delia! Get down from there. Makeup!”
What the hell are she and the dog doing up the freakin’ slide, anyway?
“I don’t do makeup, remember?”
“You know what I mean. Get down.”
She moves like molasses but she climbs on down the ladder. Caity takes the express route.
In the living room the cameras have been reset and they’re ready to go. The director seats Delia next to her, hood turned down, burn scars there for all the world to see. Caity isn’t in this segment but sits off-camera next to the sound mixer. Fine with Pat.
This isn’t about some hero dog anymore. This is about the burning.
In the follow-up to the street interviews Pearl asks her about the negative responses and Pat tells her she understands where some of these parents are coming from but that they’re wrong, her daughter knows her own mind to an amazing degree, and that she’s convinced Pat that yes, she’s totally ready to face the world as is.
So now it’s Delia’s turn.
“You’ve had a lot of press over the past couple of weeks, Delia, and we’ve talked to your mom and know what her thoughts are, but what about you? How is Delia taking all this?”
“I’m fine.”
“Not overwhelmed by all the attention?”
“Nope.”
Short answers. The interviewer’s nightmare, thinks Pat. Again.
“So after some reflection, do you still feel good about rejecting that offer for cosmetic surgery?”
“I don’t think about it much anymore.”
“You don’t?”
If anybody knows how to crack a nut, she thinks, Pearl does.
“Okay. So what is on your mind these days?”
“Us, I guess. Mom and dad. Robbie. Caity.”
“Family. That’s the most important thing, isn’t it. But sweetie, don’t you ever think about the way you look? The way others might view you?”
“Why would I?”
If this is pissing Pearl off she isn’t showing it.
“Well, most people are very, very concerned about the way they appear to others. I guess that’s one reason we wanted to meet you. You have a very special outlook on life. One that your mom thinks you should shar
e with a lot of folks out there, who may not be as self-assured as you are.”
Delia seems to consider this.
“To tell the truth, I don’t get it,” she says. “Why me? Why should I? Isn’t that what you do? Reassure people? Isn’t that your job?”
“Well, yes. In a way, I suppose. But I’m not . . .”
“Real?”
Pat can’t stop herself. “Delia!”
It pulls Pearl up short too. For a second. For a second it’s pin-drop quiet. Then she laughs.
“It’s okay, mom. Girl, I’m afraid I’m ’bout as real as it gets! Just ask my director.”
“You know what I mean, Pearl. You’re an actor. Like I was.”
She doesn’t know which is more shocking—what she’s said or using Pearl’s first name, that grown-up intimacy. She realizes that right now, at right this moment, she barely knows this girl, her own daughter.
“Truthfully? I can’t act my way out of a paper bag, hon. But you, I’ve seen your work. And you were just about the most adorable thing . . .”
“Were, yes. Past tense. Thank you.”
“Are, little sister! Still are.”
“Really? Think I’ll be good for your ratings? Sell a lot of drugs for you?”
There is no way to know what the camera’s catching but Pat can feel the anger in Pearl settling in deep and she knows from recent experience that she’s perfectly capable of showing it.
But she can bury it too.
“Sell drugs. What do you mean, Delia?”
“That’s what your show does, right? You talk a while about, I don’t know, cooking or shoes or somebody’s divorce or that woman whose baby got its fingers eaten off by the family’s pet ferret—I saw that one—and then you go to a commercial for Zaebocam or Hannaxim and then you talk some more. Right?”
This is so far off point she can’t believe she’s hearing it. She almost opens her mouth again but Pearl gets there first.
“That’s an excellent observation, Delia. Talking’s what I do. But I don’t sell drugs. That’s our advertisers. They buy ad space from us and . . .”
“I know. I did lots of commercials.”
“And I understand you’ll be doing them again. This time for a very worthy cause. Your charity. Delia’s Mirror.”
Delia laughs. No. She giggles.
“My charity,” she says.
And Pat realizes this is never going to make it to the finished cut, never. She has to wonder how much of the rest of it will either. She is suddenly furious with Delia. Sick to death of her surprises, sick of her selfish games. Why the hell can’t she just stick to the fucking program like everybody else does? Who does she think she is?
“It is your charity, isn’t it?” Pearl’s voice is dry as sandpaper. The question is to Delia but she feels like it’s aimed at her.
Whose charity is this?
“Maybe we could take a break?” Pat offers.
Which is when Caity leaps into the shot. Straight to Delia’s feet.
“Whoa! Hold your biscuits. Here we go!” Pearl says. “A surprise guest! This is Caity! How you doin’, girl?”
Caity just pants, tongue lolling and tail wagging, blinking at her.
Pearl seems okay with the distraction but Pat isn’t.
“Deal, it’s not quite time for Caity yet,” she says. “Tell her to go lay down.”
She reaches over and squeezes her daughter’s shoulder. Maybe just a little harder than she intended. Delia flinches. Caity’s tail stops wagging. She looks slowly from Pearl over to Pat. Lowers her head.
She removes her hand from Delia’s shoulder.
“A little time to regroup, Pearl?” she says. “Do you mind?”
“In a sec, doll. I want to see if Caity here can shake. Can you give me a shake, Caiters?”
“She likes it when you call her wiggle-butt,” says Delia.
“Wiggle-butt? Hey, wiggle-butt. Can you give me a shake?”
Caity trots over, butt going. Sits down and gives Pearl’s outstretched hand a lick.
“Eeeuuuwwww, dog lips! Good girl! Just like my Soozie. Now how ’bout that shake?”
Caity raises a paw and complies and Pearl ruffles the fur on her head. Delia’s smiling, watching closely. Pat feels strangely left out of it, thrust out of the circle, ignored. It grates at her. None of this is going remotely the way she wants.
“Okay,” Pearl says. “Let’s take that break. Howard?”
The cameras cut. The lights dim. Everybody seems to relax but her. There’s no way she can relax. This is a mess. Delia is making a total mess of it, dammit.
She gets out of her chair and stalks alone into the kitchen.
His wife is crying and these aren’t stage tears, these are the real thing and Bart can feel the anger and frustration that’s causing them—hell, he’s feeling his share of frustration too—but right now she’s the one going back onstage, not him, and he and Roman are there to console her, that’s their job right now so they listen and try to reassure her but she isn’t having any of it, she’s pissed to the max and she’s saying, I just want to get this fucking thing over with when Pearl appears behind them and pulls her aside and Pearl is not happy either.
All they could do is watch. Pearl’s eyes narrow down to slits.
“Look, hon,” she says, “we’re in this now so yes, let’s get this fucking thing over with. But you get your shit together and do it like a professional, do you hear me? You don’t interrupt. You don’t make faces. You don’t . . .”
Roman raises a hand to stop her.
“Now hold on just a minute, Pearl,” he says.
She doesn’t even spare him a look.
“And if your swamp leech here raises a hand to me again he’s gonna pull back a bloody stump, understand?”
Jesus! He’s glad it’s Roman on the receiving end and not him. But even he feels humiliated. He can’t imagine how the agent’s feeling. Swamp leech? But Roman just seems to suck it up. Like she’s said nothing of any consequence at all.
His wife has gone all stoic too.
“Everything’s fine,” she says. “I just needed a breather.”
“Whatever blows your dress up, honey. You be ready in five, now.”
She turns and walks away and there’s Delia standing with Caity at the entrance to the kitchen so she stops and they’re talking and he has to wonder how the hell that’s going to go.
“Christ on a tricycle,” Pearl says. “You’re who I’m lookin’ for next and there you are waitin’ on me.”
“We’re gonna go play outside.”
“We’re starting back up here in five, kiddo. Hang tight.”
“We’re going outside for a bit.”
Pearl takes a deep breath and leans down. She can smell the mints on her breath.
“Hey, little girl,” she says. “I can see exactly what’s going on here. This is all a bunch of nonsense to you, isn’t it? Did anyone even ask you if you wanted all my razzmatazz in your house?”
“Nobody asked me. They told me. That’s the way it always is. Even before . . .”
“Sometimes people even have a way of asking that sounds a lot like telling, huh?”
“Sometimes.”
She looks steadily into Pearl’s eyes. Maybe this lady has a clue, she thinks. Maybe. She likes dogs, anyway. We know that. But it doesn’t pay to automatically trust strangers.
“We’re not going to be friends,” she tells her.
“Ouch! Roger that. And we don’t have to be, darlin’. Won’t hurt if it looks that way, though, right? Can we be friends in front of the camera, starting about now?”
“Will it make you all go home faster if I do?”
“You bet it will. It’ll make me happier than a pig in sunshine.”
She has to laugh. “I can do that,” she says.
“Shake on it?”
So they do.
We’re sitting on the roof under the evening stars. Our ears adjust. We’re listening.
They’re sitting at the kitchen table—mom, dad, Roman—all except for Robbie, who’s lying on the couch reading X-Men: Fall of the Mutants but Robbie’s listening too. The pages rarely turn.
“Pearl gets twenty-five percent ownership of the copyright as silent partner,” Roman says, “but the promotion from the show alone is worth more than that.”
“Then there’s your fifteen percent,” mom says.
“Well sure, I’m brokering the whole thing . . .”
“You didn’t broker shit. Pearl just told you how it’s going to be.”
They’re talking about a book. Our book.
“I’m on your side, Patricia.”
“Yeah, go easy, hon,” says dad.
“She’s a goddamn bully.”
“The interview went fine after the break. She seems pretty straight up to me,” he says.
“She’s straight up, all right. Thank you, Bart. We’ll take that under advisement.”
“Be nice. Have another drink.”
We hear the sliding chair. Pouring. Ice. Chair.
“I love it that we’re selling something that doesn’t exist,” says dad.
“The show doesn’t run for another three weeks,” says Roman. “Pearl’s got a ghost writer who can have it done in two.”
“A whole book?”
“Sure. Doesn’t have to be Game of Thrones. A few pictures, large typeface. Easy-breezy.”
Sliding chair. Bart’s heavy footsteps. Pouring. Ice.
Sliding chair. Mom’s.
“I’ve got to do Delia’s meds and cream,” she says. “Don’t make any important decisions without me, okay?”
Robbie in the doorway.
“I’ll do ’em,” he says.
“What?”
“Delia’s stuff. You guys can keep . . . doing whatever you’re doing.”
“Okay. Sure. Thanks, Robbie.”
“No problem.”
Robbie on the stairs. Robbie in the hallway. Robbie in our room. Leaning out our bedroom window.
“Hey, Deal. Time to do your creams and stuff.”
We look out at the stars. We hate to leave the stars.
“Guys?”
We get up. “Sure. Okay.”
Robbie unscrews the cap on the jar of skin cream and dips his fingers in. She tugs down her pajama top, baring her neck and shoulders. Beside them on the night table over a dozen bottles of pills and vitamins are arrayed according to whatever time of day or night they’re to be administered. By now he knows them all.