One Loan Soul, page 8
part #1 of Loan Series
Overwhelmed, I let the woman with strong perfume yank my arms to my sides. The perfume actually helps ground me. No sharks. I snap my eyes closed. Just in time. A threatening rattle of a shaking can gives me only a second warning. The cascading sprinkle and sudden acrid scent of hair spray exacerbates my discomfort with an appropriately grumpy hissing sound. I also quickly hold my breath, cutting off the heaving pants of panic.
It’s shocking that hair spray isn’t part of Hell’s regular repertoire.
I feel several long nails flickering over my scalp as if they belong to chimps searching out lice and other tasty bugs. My head tips back slightly; the feathery touch and forced breathing control works well to soothe my panic. Just for a minute. Then I’ll think about the issues. A short break to —
“Away, away. I need to talk to her. Go. Shoo.” The man’s voice dismisses the chimps.
As the sticky shower halts and my head is left bereft of the massaging ministrations, I empty my lungs in a whoosh. I don’t want to face things. However, in this job, there are no breaks. Especially without paperwork time in Hell. I open my eyes and try not to jolt in sudden re-surging surprise as an unkempt and very intense face fills my vision.
He smiles a strained showing of crooked and yellowed teeth that pulls on his stubbled cheek muscles in an abnormal way. I want the hair and make-up ladies back, though they could learn a thing or two from Caliré. His gaze is unfocused and bloodshot yet penetrating, ensnaring me against my will. “Listen … you.” He doesn’t know my name. That makes two of us. “I love the drama. We definitely want to keep that flair in there. But this is no Jaws remake.” He frowns and glances aside. “I wish.” Visibly composing himself, he raises a clipboard and points to the thick script barely strapped in and covered in red-pen and pencil marks. “The line is ‘A luxury sedan for the whole family.’ You did well with the pause in the middle there — and the hair-toss and smoldering pout … but the last word is ‘family.’ Got it?”
The director wants pouty to advertise … a car? A family car? In the same strained manner that he employed, I display my teeth, hoping that after undoubted bleaching and orthodontia they’ll reflect the professional lighting into his eyeballs like lasers.
He marches away, grumbling about models and asking God to assist him in dealing with “brainless tarts”.
I could tell him that God isn’t involved in this deal, so he’s unlikely to find relief anytime soon. I’m also completely clueless.
My casing’s stomach grumbles. I could go for a tart … or two. I’m feeling particularly faint, and, I believe, it’s neither due to the TV-channel flipping soul-hopping I’m experiencing nor inhaling hair spray.
I take in my surroundings as the man yells to his film crew. “Okay, we’re going again. Ready on the set?”
‘Set’ is an interesting word for the rose garden that is — I check over my shoulder — at the end of a long park behind the Eiffel Tower. The director is clearly an import from LA based on his accent. The Devil knows if I am as well.
But He’s not telling.
The picturesque location boasts barely any room to maneuver, and that’s taking into account the evidence that I’m another skipped meal away from being as wispy as the gauzy black floor-length gown I’m wearing. It flits about my dark, creamy smooth, stilt-like legs. Did no one tell the costume designer that we’re in France and this is a Grecian style of dress? I daren’t move even if I had space. My heels are like wearing inverse Eiffel towers strapped to my feet with an electric cord. I opt for a very stationary pose for this scene regardless of Mr. Demanding’s desires. The setting and style are more appropriate for a photo shoot over a video.
“Comme ça?” I ask, switching to French, more as an excuse to use the language I minored in than to keep up the potential guise of my casing being a local.
“What?” the man barks, settling into his chair. His furrowed brow transfers to some assistant porting several more clipboards and donning a headset. “What did she say?” The assistant shrugs. “Just because we’re on location doesn’t mean you need to use the goddamn local dialect, sweetheart,” he critiques with a scowl. One country down. Only … hundreds more to guess.
“Quiet on the set,” he shouts. I take his advice and resort to keeping mute except for my line. What was it again?
“Quiet on the set,” someone in the crowd behind all the cameras and lighting stands echoes. A furry caterpillar of a boom hangs over the director’s head, jutting toward me.
“Rolling.”
“Rolling,” says the parrot.
“Cameras and …”
A lackey jumps out with one of those iconic clackers, crouches in front of me to smack it loudly, making me flinch. “Road Devil, Scene One, Take Seventeen.”
Road Devil? I’m taken aback. The clues are surely pointing toward the Devil being the one playing with my soul, flinging it around the globe with a casual flick of His finger.
I’m reluctant to embrace that reasoning. Because no way in … well ... No way is the Devil himself causing the disarray in the soul loans system. They’re literally, by name, part of the Devil’s Deals. He’s actively involved in recruiting and contracting all the jobs I fulfill. It’d be suicide to ruin His own soul-sucking tool. He could just end it if he’s no longer in favor of hosting the SOLE program.
An error perhaps? Nix is too much of a pedant to misalign his upcoming jobs or lose track of his subs. Maybe it’s higher than Nix? A fleeting spasm of the silhouette of the higher-up by whom I’d been reprimanded for my one mistake stabs into my mind with a sharp sting that I squelch faster than doing a shot of tequila. Definitely not that guy. He is too … militant to mess up any jobs. And it can’t be higher than him because his boss is the Big Guy. In that sense, it’s pretty understandable that that the guy between him and Nix is rule-abiding and austere in ensuring his underlings stay in line.
Is this just part of my eternal punishment? Is this additional punishment accrued during my afterlife from that tiny mistake? That one time I waved at an old college acquaintance really isn’t deserving of this level of chaos. Right? I mean, I’m the best sub he’s got. I got my warning and since then have been a model student.
“Let’s see what you can give me.” The director shoves a baseball cap over his greasy hair and points a finger at me, firing an imaginary gun. “Action!”
“Action!”
I scrounge my brain for the line he just told me, but my thoughts, though they lack all the usual information a file would thrust into my knowledge, are many and not easily sorted through. No sharks. Something about cars and family.
While I think, I plump my lips and lift up the corners in a sultry smirk, twisting my shoulders back and forth a bit. I remember the pout directions. It requires more effort on this thin face than Ginger’s. The wind picks up my skirt and flails it about.
Someone in the crowd beside the director is making exaggerated face contortions. I focus on him, slowly vocalizing the words he’s miming silently. “A luxury …” He’s mouthing a word. Sad dad? Sad dads aren’t a luxury. They’re pretty common.
The director drops his head into one hand. The guy waves his hand around on an imaginary steering wheel.
“Sedan …” I say slowly in a low, husky voice.
Thumbs up from the mime. The director peeks an eye between his fingers.
I stare right at him for the dramatic pause thing, running my tongue over the bottom lip then puckering and squinting in a come-hither kind of way. It doubles nicely as cover for me squinting at the guy’s mouth for the next bit, scrutinizing closely.
My partner in crime surrenders and starts scribbling frantically on a clipboard he snatches from a second production assistant nearby. He flips it around and holds aloft the drawing. It’s not the second half of a sentence. It’s a number and two cartoons. He’s sliding a pen along the paper, pointing to each in turn. A four. A donut. And two stick figures, one in a dress, next to two smaller stick figures. Artist, he is not.
“… for …”
I toss my hair, watching the director sit up in his seat ready to shut down the take, agitated that I’ve forgotten my line again.
The guy shoves the clipboard under an armpit to raise his hands, pinning thumbs and forefingers together to make a circle.
“… whole …” Idiot. Donut hole is a terrible clue. He’s off my future charades team. The stick figures suddenly make sense.
“Family!” I exclaim.
He gratefully stops his unhelpful motions over his stomach implying a pregnant belly.
To counter my disproportionate enthusiasm, I quickly pull back my excitement and add a sexy wink and blown kiss, directed at the guy who saved my delectable fake patootie. No problem. I mentally dust of my hands. Just like riding a bull.
The mime’s relief turns into a flush, and he focuses on ripping the paper off the clipboard and balling up the evidence. He pretends to eat it.
I give an unladylike snort and smother laughter, no longer able to keep my face demure. Hopefully, they got enough before that and can just clip the last few seconds.
“Cut.” The bustle as the director surges toward me and people do whatever they do on a movie set to save the perfect scene they were just bestowed blocks off my view of the guy who I’m planning to reward with a real, wet smackeroo of thanks. This guy may have saved me from being grounded in Hell’s harrowing realm. It’s the little things. I’ve grown so used to disappointment and relying on myself, it’s a real angelic breath of French air to be offered a helping hand. Hey, would you look at that. It’s actually French air this time.
“Perfect! That was perfect.”
“Je sais.” I use a spidery hand to flick some long dark tresses over my bony collarbone. “Je suis parfait.” My eyes search for my partner in crime to contradict the despair that sentence wrenches from my heart, upsetting the ashes that have been sitting quietly for a year.
The director glares at my continued insistence of the romance language. “Florence!”
I open my mouth to tell him I’m right in front of him — he can say it, not spray it — when a squat lady trots up to his side. It was a summons. She’s Florence, not me. I resist swiping away the spittle on my cheek simply so I don’t tick off the hard-working make-up artists.
“Deal with your agent,” he hisses at me. “I’m not paid enough to put up with your over-the-top antics off the clock. Study your lines tonight. We’re shooting again tomorrow, and we’ll only have a short window of twilight in which to get the shot; I’m not adding another day of expenses and time for a freaking thirty-second commercial, got it? We’re already overtime. They’d just dock it from my check. But I’m telling you now: you’d be the one to pay. Understand? You may have the supermodel industry fawning over you, but I reign in this market.” The … car commercial market? Some throne. “Got it?” he threatens with menace.
I display my chompers in a vengeful grimace, holding my fire for the sake of preserving my casing’s bridges. “Vous êtes un couchon,” I inform him sweetly, knowing he cannot interpret my insult. The woman behind him lays a hand over her mouth, eyes as wide as saucepans.
He takes a deep breath, his narrowed eyes flashing in warning. He should take acting lessons if he wants to get even close to scaring me. I’ve got the Devil to pay. “Florence,” he squeals, pig-like, and whirls, almost smacking into the older woman. She jumps. “Oh, there you are. See that she gets there on time and knows her damn lines,” he huffs.
“Oui —” She cuts off her natural response. “Yes. I will.” Though clipped, her strong French accent fuels the rage I was building in the director, and he actually snarls and stalks off.
I give the woman a sheepish grin. She harrumphs. Behind her, my guy is cracking up. I grin at him, waiting for him to approach.
“I’m not sure they’ll let you graduate mime school,” I tell him with melodramatic pity. “But still —” I lean forward and plant my lips on his cheek with a loud smack. “— merci.” I hope he understands how much thanks I’m trying to convey.
He clears his throat, and returns a frown so downturned it’s a flipped “c”. “But I’ve been practicing. Clearly longer than you’ve been practicing your lines.” He laughs at my playful scowl. “I came over to see if you want help going over the script before the next shoot?” His cheeks redden, and he averts his eyes. It’s not hard as I’m several inches taller than him. He extends an elbow.
My lips flip upward, and I put my hand on his forearm, accepting the assistance to finally move from my rooted spot.
At that moment, Florence inserts her arm into my other elbow and hustles me away and into a waiting car. My guy tucks me in reluctantly but kindly, and the door slams on his open mouth.
I’m taken to a lavish hotel not far from the Seine and tucked in without supper. This time, I’m not thrilled to have the entire bed to myself. I’d almost made a friend. My sleep is disrupted by dreams about slurping into skinnier and skinnier casings until they’re bare bone skeletons and I’m walking the Earth as the dead, Leland pushing me off a balcony into a grave, and Larkynn shoveling dirt atop my face. I startle awake many times, sweat cloying my dark skin, my empty stomach gurgling. When I finally do fall asleep, it’s almost daybreak. At least I have until twilight to try to rebuild my energy to face another day of being constantly a step behind.
I’m delighted to be allowed coffee when I get up in the afternoon, then am whisked to hair and make-up. The look is a skintight catsuit this time, my bones poking through the leather, with a race helmet tucked under one arm. Through the whole process, my head is a periscope, on radar for my mime guy.
As they’re lining me up for the take, I spy him among the crew. I beckon him over, and he comes with a grin under the guise of posing me. He puts my hands on the hood of the car next to my helmet and adjusts my stance, widening my legs with his foot.
I feel stirrings behind my navel I haven’t felt in … over a year. “What are you doing after we wrap?” I ask huskily.
Slurp.
CHAPTER EIGHT
The car suddenly lurches forward under my palms. Keys jangle as I stumble.
“Watch where you’re going, Clive!”
Oh no. No. Not again. I lift my head to see a snarl turned toward. My gnarled hands clench around the handle of a cleaning cart. On the other side, a nurse in scrubs squats, shuffling a stack of papers back together. A few more litter the floor.
Who am I now? I almost ask, because if curiosity killed the lab rat, maybe it can send me back. I have a definite headache. Soul-ache?
Hoping to redeem my current host, I crouch to give a helping hand. My thick calloused fingers, sprouting coarse black hair, fumble with the pages, and the nurse snatches them from me.
“Those are confidential.”
The sting of a paper cut is almost soothing. I stare at the welling blood and wish instead that it would instantly heal into a fresh slate, ready to be repeatedly wounded again. At this point, I think I’d rather my next surprise slurp dump me in actual Hell. At least there I’m me, and I can know relatively what to expect.
Who’d ’a thunk I’d rather be up there than down here where all the people are. I think back to the mermaid. I too regret my choice to venture onto land with a less than perfect choice at my appearance and abilities in that realm.
“Don’t forget to empty the sharps container in exam room two.” She pivots away, marching down an empty corridor with white sneakers squeaking on the spick and span floor. Goes to show I’m a great janitor. “And don’t stare at my ass. I’ll have to report you again.”
I attempt to stand and find that this casing is quite a bit older than the last couple when my knees protest the movement. Several joints crack and pop when I use the cleaning cart’s handle to pull myself up.
Investigating my new scene, I don’t learn much. The hallway is generic with a white tile floor, white walls, and a white ceiling. Boring. It stretches only about fifty feet with sharp turns at both ends so I’m on the middle line of a “Z” shape. Several cedar-wood doors are evenly spaced on both sides in both directions from my spot. Outside each door is a folder holster. Most are empty, but a few contain purple folders much like the one the nurse clutched as if it were a treasure map that she wanted to keep for herself.
I’m alone again. I could simply pluck up any one of those files and read all their delectable details. I don’t know why she was being so dramatically secretive. I bet they’re not that interesting anyway, full of yucky medical jargon. I left med school for a reason. No, thank you. I’m also not fond of learning what kinds of horrible conditions the patients behind their respective doors might have. They might be gross. The other reason why I left med school.
Barring secret-reading, I don’t really know what else to do, so I amble forward in the opposite direction of the evil nurse. Just to show her, I seek out exam room two. Six is vacant. Four occupied. Two has no folder. I can do it before she comes back this way, making it all vanish and proving I’m the best cleaner.
Finally, a task I can do without pomp and no one watching me. It’s something I can do without knowing what Clive knows. I got this. Darcie Rose is back!
With a smirk, I swing open the door, revealing one of those blue curtains with geometric patterns hanging on a track that blocks off the door while a patient is changing. It's partially closed, exposing a small desk attached to a wall bearing a computer monitor with a screen-saver bouncing around the black screen, and a small sink with soap dispenser and a few clear glass jars containing white cotton balls, cotton swabs, and … The third has a lot more color. Candy? No. Neon square packets. Okay then. Attached to the wall next to the cabinets that hover over the desk and above a white trash can is a container with purple gloves barfing out a hole in the middle and a pink box displaying an impressive array of hazardous materials warning stickers.
Abandoning my cart under the confidence that no one wants to steal a hoard of trash or poisonous cleaning products, I step into the room. If anyone is desperate enough to steal a bottle of bleach and down it right there in the doctor's office hallway, then I definitely don't want to know what their file says. I'd warn them about Hell being real, but … Rule number one.
