by Jane Heller
So Louise was just another shameless self-promoter! I was horrified! To think I’d trusted her, unburdened myself to her, told her things I hadn’t shared with anyone. And now she wanted to use the very stories I’d told her—in confidence—to entertain people! She wanted to exploit my traumas for some bullshit book!
I gave her a dirty look as she scribbled some more in her notepad. And then a thought came to me: could the devil be hiding in Louise Schaffran’s body? Dr. Louise Schaffran’s body? Was that why she had laughed when I’d told her about David having a tail? Was that why she hadn’t taken it seriously? Or was I becoming ridiculously paranoid, suspecting virtually everyone I knew of harboring Satan?
Yes, I decided. I was being overly suspicious and I had to stop it, had to get a grip. I couldn’t go around pointing a finger at everybody. I’d drive myself crazy wondering if it was the mechanic who serviced my car who was hiding the devil or the woman who worked behind the counter at the dry cleaner or the kid who was always trying to sell me Girl Scout cookies. No. I had to cut it out. But could I? Could I just sit back and wait for the devil to reveal himself to me, knowing that his grip on me, on my body, on my town, was getting stronger by the day? By the minute?
“I’m leaving,” I said suddenly as I rose from my chair.
Louise glanced at the clock on the wall and then went back to her writing. “Your fifty minutes aren’t over,” she said as she scribbled.
“My therapy with you is over,” I said, making my way toward the door. “I won’t be coming here again.”
“You’re angry at me,” said Louise, looking up.
“Yes.”
“Tell…me…about…the…anger.”
I shook my head. “I don’t want to tell you,” I said. “I’d…rather…show…you.”
“Show me?” she said.
“Yup. You know how you think I only imagine that I cause things to happen to people? So I can feel powerful?”
“Yes, Barbara. That’s what I’ve been—”
“Well, now I’m going to show you that you’re wrong,” I cut her off. I paused, crossed my arms over my chest and gave her a long, appraising look. And then I said, “I’ve decided to cause you to grow a mustache.”
“What did you say?” asked an incredulous Louise.
“I said I’ve decided to cause you to grow a mustache.”
Within seconds, Dr. Louise Schaffran, Banyan Beach’s answer to Sigmund Freud, sprouted not only a mustache, but a matching goatee.
“What on earth?” she sputtered as her hand flew to her chin.
“A going away present,” I said. “Bye-bye.”
The Hellhole turned out to be the black one-story building on Route 1 that used to house a strip joint called Titters, a dive whose parking lot was always jammed, even though no one in town ever admitted to going there.
“The flyer said the new owners have completely changed the atmosphere of the place,” Suzanne explained when she saw my look of disdain as we were about to enter the restaurant.
Actually, The Hellhole’s interior wasn’t that bad, particularly if you weren’t expecting much, which I wasn’t. The lighting was dim, the tables and chairs were your basic diner furniture, and the walls were decorated with generic devil paraphernalia—pitchforks, horns, tails, etc. I felt right at home.
The place was packed and we were lucky that Suzanne had reserved a table for us right beside the dance floor, near the stage. As we were being seated, I reached into my purse surreptitiously, opened the bottle of BreathAssure I’d been carrying around, and swallowed a couple of capsules. I’d gotten so paranoid about people smelling my Brussels sprouts breath that I didn’t go anywhere without my BreathAssure anymore. God, I was probably becoming a drug addict on top of everything else.
“I wonder which band is playing tonight,” I said, glancing up at the stage.
Suzanne didn’t answer. She was too busy surveying the room for men. And there were many—mostly young, badly dressed, and drunk. I doubted very much if either of us would find our Mr. Right from among them.
We ordered drinks and talked and perused the menu, which featured such themed entrées as Satanic Shrimp, Devilish Dolphin, and Hellish Hamburger with Fiendish French Fries. I had an urge to find the owners, grab them by the throats, and yell, “Okay! We get it!” Talk about beating people over the head with a gimmick.
“What are you having?” Suzanne asked.
“I’m going with the Tail,” I said. “I mean, the lobster tail. At $10.99 it sounds like a bargain.” This coming from someone who had recently become an expert on tails and bargains.
“I’m having that too,” she said.
Several minutes later, the waitress, who was dressed in a red devil’s costume, took our orders.
“Who’s playing here tonight?” Suzanne asked her.
“The Fire Ants,” said the waitress. “They’re an oldies group.”
I groaned.
“What’s the matter?” Suzanne asked when the waitress was gone.
“That’s Jeremy Cook’s band,” I said. “He’s their lead singer.”
“Who’s Jeremy Cook?”
I had forgotten that Suzanne was relatively new in town. She’d never had the pleasure of meeting Banyan Beach’s very own rebel without a cause.
“A friend of my brother’s,” I said. “He’s a charter boat captain by day and a really bad lounge act by night.”
“How do you know he’s really bad? Have you ever heard him sing?”
“Yes, when we were in high school. He used to sit next to me in math and the minute the teacher would leave the room, he’d lean over and sing that dopey oldies song: ‘Ba-ba-ba. Ba-ba-bra-ann.’ God, it was so annoying.”
“Maybe that was the point: he was trying to annoy you. Back in high school, boys always tried to annoy you—especially if they really liked you.”
“Please. Jeremy Cook didn’t like me then any more than he likes me now. We only tolerate each other because we both love my brother.”
“Is this Jeremy Cook single?”
“Yeah, but trust me, Suzanne. He’s not for you. He’s immature, irresponsible, and insensitive. Not husband material at all.”
“He’s never been married?”
“No, and he’s almost forty. Doesn’t that tell you something?”
“Yeah. It tells me he hasn’t found the right woman. I’m almost forty, and I don’t think I’m immature, irresponsible, or insensitive. In fact, the older I get and the closer to menopause I come, I—”
“Forget it, Suzanne. There’s no comparison between you and Jeremy Cook. You’re ready to make a lifetime commitment to a man. He treats women the same way he treats fish: He catches them and then throws them back. To him, the chase is everything. For years, my brother has been regaling me with stories of Jeremy’s conquests, not that Benjamin’s record with women is anything to write home about.”
“Men,” Suzanne sighed. “What is it with them anyway?”
“I’m the wrong person to ask,” I said. “I thought Mitchell was husband material and look how he turned out.”
Suzanne nodded and patted my hand. I wished I could tell her what was really going on in my life. I was sure she’d be more compassionate than Dr. Schaffran had been.
We were on our third round of The Hellhole’s “Diabolical Daiquiris” when one of the restaurant’s owners, a fifty-something with a bad hairpiece, walked onstage and spoke into the microphone.
“Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to The Hellhole!” he intoned. “To celebrate the opening of Banyan Beach’s hottest new club, we thought it only right that we book the area’s hottest oldies band! I hope you’ll join me in giving a big round of applause to…THE FIRE ANTS!”
The revelers at nearby tables virtually leapt to their feet at the mere mention of Jeremy’s band, then applauded wildly as the band members walked onstage. I shook my head in disbelief.
“What’s the matter with these people?” I muttered. “You’d think they
were at a Grateful Dead concert.”
“Maybe they know something we don’t,” said Suzanne. “Maybe Jeremy Cook’s a better singer than you remember. Which one is he anyway?”
I pointed at the stage. “You can’t miss him,” I said. “He’s the one who looks like an escapee from a Bud Lite commercial.”
“Come on. They all do. Which one’s Jeremy?”
I regarded him more closely. He obviously hadn’t dressed for the occasion. He was wearing his usual blue jeans, T-shirt, and sneakers, and his hair was as straggly and unkempt as ever. Still, he did have a certain authority as he strutted around on that stage.
“He’s the redhead,” I told Suzanne. “The one with the scruffy beard.”
She nodded. “I see him now,” she said. “He’s kind of cute, in a lowbrow sort of way.”
“Cute? You’d better ease up on the daiquiris, Suzanne. The guy’s—”
Before I had a chance to trash Jeremy further, he strode up to the microphone, gave his band a cue and launched into “Devil with a Blue Dress,” the old Mitch Ryder hit.
“The owners must have requested this song,” I said, rolling my eyes.
“What?” Suzanne yelled over the loud music.
“I said the owners of this place must have asked for the song. It goes with their goddamn theme.”
Suzanne didn’t answer. She kept her eyes glued to the stage and was tapping her fingers on the table and bobbing her head to the beat.
I glanced around the room and noticed that Suzanne wasn’t the only one who seemed entranced by Jeremy’s performance. Everybody in the place was singing and clapping and having a rousing good time, and several couples had taken to the dance floor.
Maybe I’m missing something, I thought, and started paying attention to what was happening up on stage.
What I heard and saw surprised me. For starters, Jeremy could sing. I mean, really sing. He had a rugged, raspy Rod Stewart–type voice that was both hard-edged and soulful. And then there was his body language…the way he moved his hips to every beat of the song…the way he shook his shaggy red hair to punctuate the lyrics…the way he held the microphone to his mouth, nearly caressing it. He had the crowd in the palm of his hand. Screeching young women waved their arms in the air, calling his name and blowing kisses. I had to keep reminding myself this was Jeremy who was causing such a scene—my brother’s crazy friend Jeremy Cook—and then it dawned on me: maybe he was harboring the devil!
Well, why not? It could just as easily be Jeremy as anybody else in town. My mother always said he had the devil in him. Maybe she knew what she was talking about. Maybe the devil picked Jeremy’s body to hide in because Jeremy always acted like such a hell-raiser. Maybe Satan figured he’d be less conspicuous that way. Maybe he knew a soul mate when he saw one.
“He’s sensational,” Suzanne exclaimed when the song was over. “Let’s invite him to join us for a drink when he finishes this set.”
“Who?” I said distractedly, thinking only of whether Jeremy could be the one who was taken over by the devil.
“Jeremy,” said Suzanne. “You said you knew him.”
“Maybe not as well as I thought,” I said.
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“Nothing.”
Was Jeremy really the person I was hoping to find? The one I needed to find if I was ever going to extricate myself from the supposed “deal” I made with the devil? Was he the key to helping me get my old life back? My mind raced as I watched him onstage, prancing, strutting, playing the rock star. The more I thought about it, the more obvious it seemed: Jeremy was the logical choice for Satan’s cover in town. He had the morals of an alley cat, didn’t go to church, didn’t care what anybody thought of him. And let’s not forget the name he’d christened his precious boat: the Devil-May-Care.
After he and The Fire Ants had performed a half a dozen more songs, they took a break. As they were stepping down from the stage en route to the bar, Suzanne called out to Jeremy.
“Over here!” she waved, then pointed at me. “Barbara wants you to stop by and say hello.”
“Why did you do that? I have no desire to talk to him yet.”
“Yet?”
I had hoped to gather my thoughts before confronting Jeremy, to figure out how I was going to deal with my suspicions. But it was too late. He saw me and headed right for our table.
“Now this is a surprise,” he smirked as he pulled up a chair and sat down. “You couldn’t resist coming here to catch my act, huh, BS?”
“Hardly,” I said. “I had no idea you were performing here, Jeremy. I came for the lobster.”
“Sure you did,” he grinned, wiping the sweat off his face with my napkin. Then he turned to Suzanne. “Who’s this?”
The man had impeccable manners. “This is my friend, Suzanne Munson,” I said. “We work together at Home Sweet Home.”
“How’re you doin’, Suzanne,” he said, and winked at her.
“Great. I’m really enjoying your music,” she said, gazing at him approvingly. Why, I couldn’t fathom. I suppose he did have a certain macho charm. Well, not charm exactly. It was more of an attitude, the sort of tough-guy pose that some women found irresistible but I found asinine.
“Well, that’s the point, right? You’re here to enjoy yourself,” he said to Suzanne. As the waitress passed by our table, he reached out and grabbed the woman around the waist and pulled her toward him. “How ’bout a cold Bud, huh, sweetheart?”
“You bet,” she said, kissing him on the cheek before hurrying off. Two minutes later she was back with his beer and kissed him again. It was sickening—but not nearly as sickening as what happened next. A very young woman, a redhead in tight blue jeans and an even tighter tank top, barged right over to our table, nearly knocking me onto the floor, and draped her arms around Jeremy’s neck, then sat on his lap. She couldn’t have been more than nineteen.
“Gee, Jeremy, I didn’t know you had a daughter,” I couldn’t resist saying.
He laughed. “Melanie’s an old friend,” he said, patting her on her ass. “Aren’t you, honey?”
Melanie wasn’t much of a talker, it turned out. Nodding and giggling and whispering in Jeremy’s ear was about the extent of her communication skills.
The two of them played kissy-face for several minutes, completely ignoring Suzanne and me. They were getting on my nerves. Big time. When I couldn’t take it anymore, I muttered to myself, “I wish Melanie would slap his face and tell him to fuck off.”
A scant two seconds after I’d uttered the words, Jeremy’s little playmate hauled off and smacked him hard across the face, picked herself up off his lap and said, “Go fuck yourself, you old letch.” And then she left the table without so much as a good-bye. Just like that.
Maybe David was right, I thought, squelching a smile as Jeremy massaged his aching cheek. Being a darksider did have its advantages.
“How do ya like that,” said Jeremy, looking more amused than angry. “The young babes are real spontaneous, huh? You never know what they’re gonna do.”
“If you say so,” I said. “I’m not the connoisseur of jail bait that you are.”
He laughed as he got up from his chair. “I’d love to stay and listen to you insult me, but my break’s over,” he said.
“Oh? So soon?” I said with unmistakable sarcasm.
“Yeah, and I’m heartbroken,” he said. “How ’bout you, BS?”
“Heartbroken,” I said.
He nodded. “Well, it was nice meetin’ you, Suzanne,” he said, shaking her hand. “Glad one of you is enjoyin’ the show.”
As he strode off to join his buddies onstage, I kept my eyes on him, assessing him, studying him, trying to catch even a hint of the devil’s presence in him. I had a strong feeling that he was Satan’s cover in Banyan Beach, but then I’d had the same feeling about a dozen other people. I needed a sign. Something concrete. Something that would provide me with evidence that Jeremy was the one I was l
ooking for.
When I got home from The Hellhole, I called David.
“Barbara. What a nice surprise,” he said.
“I haven’t changed my mind, if that’s what you’re thinking,” I said. “I’m not going to sleep with you and conceive the devil’s baby.”
“Maybe not now,” he said.
“Not ever.”
“All right, but why can’t we at least keep each other company? I’m lonely.”
“Then find another woman to keep you company. As I said on Saturday night, my guess is that there are plenty of women desperate enough to overlook the little matter of your tail.”
“The devil wants us to be together, Barbara, and we owe it to him. It’s part of the deal we made. If you don’t hold up your end of the bargain, I won’t be able to hold up mine, and who knows what will happen then? For all I know, the devil will turn me back into the nebbish I was before my transformation.”
“Would that really be so bad?”
“Yes.”
“I’m sorry you feel that way, David. Because I don’t. I want out of the deal, which is why I called. Remember when you said Satan was hiding in the body of someone I know?”
“I can’t answer any more questions. I already told you that.”
“Oh, come on, David. Just one more.”
“No.”
“You said you cared about me.”
“I do. You’re my only friend now.”
“Then prove it. Answer this one question. Please.”
Silence.
“Please.”
More silence. I was getting to him. I could tell.
“Pleeeeze.”
“All right,” he said. “One more. But only to prove how much I value our friendship.”
“Great. Now, here’s my question: Is Jeremy Cook the devil’s cover in Banyan Beach? Is he, David?”