Slick (40 page)

Authors: Daniel Price

BOOK: Slick

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“Still, I can understand why they’re all so panicked. Between you, me, and our lovely Miss Prince, we could do quite some damage.”

“But we won’t.”

“I wasn’t suggesting we should,” he stressed. “Quite the opposite. I think we—‘we’ meaning you—should throw Maxina some kind of bone. We don’t want her making secret moves against us.”

I couldn’t shake the feeling that she already was, but Alonso had a good point.

“Have your girl call Larry King’s people,” I said. “Tell them you’ll do Monday’s show. Assure them it’s still an exclusive, but they can’t announce it until noon that day.”

“Eastern?”

“Pacific. We’re only giving them six hours to plug her. Make them understand that if they jump the gun, even by a minute, you’re canceling the appearance and freezing out the whole network.”

He chuckled amicably. I cocked my head. “What?”

“Nothing,” he said. “I’m just not accustomed to having this much leverage.”

I smiled out the window. “Same here.”

“Will you be calling Maxina?”

I watched the street as a black SUV approached my building. I recognized the dented grille.

“No,” I said. “She’ll be calling me.”

By the time I got off the phone, Alonso had reached the top floor. Jean had reached my front curb. The sun was gone. The moon was hiding. There was nothing left but artificial light.

________________

On my way downstairs, I got another bird’s-eye view of Madison’s work. Once again, her news clippings were littered with orange words: pinprick stabs at Hunta that were tiny enough to preserve the illusion of objectivity. The supportive green words, by contrast, were as rare as four-leaf clovers. But there was encouragement to be found in the pink. The mentions of Annabelle Shane were a mere fraction of what they were yesterday. There would be even less tomorrow. By next week the Melrose demon would be all but vanquished. I wasn’t just a publicist anymore. I was an exorcist. And my elaborate ritual was working.

Madison looked up from her notepad. “Oh. I was just leaving you a message.”

“I’m here.”

“So’s my mom.”

“I saw.”

“Do you need me to stay late tomorrow? I can.”

“I don’t think there’s a need.”

She lowered her voice, as if her mother were somehow listening. “Or I could come early. I mean, my afternoon classes are a joke.”

I squeezed her shoulder. “As I much as I appreciate your willingness to sacrifice both school and family...”

She sneered at me. “Shut up. Look, I know how big this is. I just want to help.”

“You are,” I said earnestly. “You’re an amazing help. In fact, I’ve been meaning to give you something.”

I retrieved a small, dusty key ring from the counter and tossed it to her. “The smaller one’s for the apartment. The other one’s for the building, although you always seem to get past that door.”

From the look on Madison’s face, you’d think I was on my knees, proposing. “Oh, wow. Scott.”

“It’s no big deal. I just don’t want you waiting in the hallway anymore.”

“So then if you’re not here tomorrow—”

“Knock. If I don’t answer, come in. Log on to my laptop. Start printing articles. Easy, right?”

“Wow. I really appreciate this.”

“Listen, those keys only exist on weekday afternoons. You understand me? I don’t want to come home on a Saturday night to find you here, hiding out from your family.”

“You won’t!”

“This isn’t your new airport.”

She clenched her hands together, drowning me in the kind of life-or-death intensity that makes adults so scared of teenagers.

“Scott, I swear to God I won’t abuse your trust. You are—” She cut herself off, waving her open hands. “Whatever. I’ll do anything you say.”

Outside, Jean remained in her SUV, patient and silent. It really wasn’t fair, was it? She had carried Madison for nine months and thirteen years. She made every sacrifice. And yet I was the one with all the power and influence over her precious little girl. I had more power than I knew what to do with. A lesser woman would have hated me for it. A lesser man would have given her a reason.

________________

So I couldn’t help but notice
, Jean typed,
my daughter’s two new keys.

Yeah, that was me
, I typed back, less assuredly.
Did I screw up?

We were done with e-mail word games. We were even done with e-mail. On Thursday night Jean had introduced me to EyeTalk, a freeware messaging application that allowed Internet users to communicate one-on-one in real time. Just minutes after registering myself with a username and password, I had Jean at my virtual doorstep. It wasn’t long before she brought up the key thing.

[mrvl_girl] You didn’t screw up at all. I’m just glad to see things going well on both ends.

[pr_demon] What do you mean both ends?

[mrvl_girl] I mean I knew _she_ was happy with the arrangement...

[pr_demon] So am I. I told you everything was fine.

[mrvl_girl] Well of course you’d say that to me. I’m her mother.

[pr_demon] Ah. I get it now.

[mrvl_girl] Right. Keys don’t lie. Unless they’re somehow misengraved.

[pr_demon] She’s a great kid.

[mrvl_girl] I always thought so.

[pr_demon] She definitely has your smarts.

[mrvl_girl] No. Her father’s the one who passed down the brains. I gave her volatility.

[pr_demon] But she’s been doing okay recently, right?

[mrvl_girl] Yeah. For the most part.

[pr_demon] What do you mean?

Now that we were linked up live, I could see her pause. Her cursor blinked steadily for a few awkward moments.

[mrvl_girl] You know what? This is the exact reason why she doesn’t want me talking to you. She has a point too. After all, I’m her mom. You’re her boss.

[pr_demon] True.

[mrvl_girl] And she takes her job VERY seriously.

[pr_demon] I noticed.

[mrvl_girl] Nobody wants their mom dishing dirt to their boss.

[pr_demon] Forget I asked.

[mrvl_girl] Forget I hinted.

[pr_demon] Forgotten.

[mrvl_girl] Shit.

[pr_demon] What?

[mrvl_girl] Now I’m afraid that in the absence of information, you’ll assume the worst about what I was going to say.

[pr_demon] *blinks stupidly*

[mrvl_girl] She really is a great kid.

[pr_demon] I know!

[mrvl_girl] A lot less trouble than I was at her age.

[pr_demon] You were a problem child?

[mrvl_girl] I used to cut my arms and legs with razors.

[pr_demon] Eeuu.

[mrvl_girl] Yeah. I was the youngest in a mob of blue-blooded Virginia Catholics. They were all dumb as posts. I was just deaf as one. I might as well have turned Iranian.

[pr_demon] Nobody else in your family was deaf?

[mrvl_girl] Nobody else in my life was deaf.

[pr_demon] Yeesh.

[mrvl_girl] Yeah. My folks didn’t know what to do with me. They took me to otologists, audiologists, speech pathologists, child psychologists.

[pr_demon] Speech pathologists? As in talking?

[mrvl_girl] There was indeed a time when I, under strict duress, attempted to squeeze words out through my throat. It was about as easy as farting a sonnet. Gave it up real fast, I did.

[pr_demon] Your family never learned sign language?

[mrvl_girl] No. Neither did I. Not until I was 16. Not until the Great Professor came along.

[pr_demon] You met your husband when you were 16?

[mrvl_girl] Yeah. One of the frustrated psychologists called him in to help me. He worked with me every night.

[pr_demon] That was nice of him.

[mrvl_girl] Sure. He opened my mind. My heart. My legs.

[pr_demon] At 16?!

[mrvl_girl] Well, I wasn’t exactly passive in the process.

[pr_demon] Yeah but you were 16!

[mrvl_girl] You told me you once shacked up with an older woman.

[pr_demon] Not until I was 21.

[mrvl_girl] Well, I was a mature 16. And as much as I loathe the man now, he was my saving grace at the time. If it wasn’t for him, I would have killed myself.

[pr_demon] Wow.

[mrvl_girl] But instead I ran off with him to Gallaudet and never looked back. Best move of my life. By 21, I was a completely different person. I was married. I was signing like a pro. I had friends. I had pride. And to top it all, I had Madison. My sweet little angel. I carried her through the Gallaudet revolution.