“Relax,” she said. “I used to do that before the first take every day. Is my chin clean?”
“Immaculate.”
“How’s my makeup?”
I looked closely. “It’s okay. Your mascara ran a little bit.”
“I always tear up when I vomit.” Her eyes dared me to contradict her. “Can you fix it for me?”
“Not one of my specialties, but I can try.” I put my left hand on her shoulder and used the tip of my right little finger to wipe away the errant black tracks. Beneath my hand, she was shuddering as though she was moments from freezing to death. “You’re okay,” I said.
“I doubt it,” she said. Her voice was steady. “But it should at least be interesting. I just heaved Doc’s pills, all the downers and smoothies, everything that was supposed to slow me down, and he gave me a second shot. Oh, and one of the makeup girls had some coke. So I’m going nowhere but up.” Her face was slick with sweat, and she mopped it with the back of her hand, then slipped her hands into the neck of her T-shirt and put them under her arms. She pulled her hands out and wiped them on her jeans. “I’m sopping,” she said. “Dead wet girls. I remember you talking about dead wet girls. Claudette Colbert and dead wet girls. What a frame of reference.”
I took my hand off her shoulder. “I’m telling you for the last time, don’t go out there.”
Her eyes came up to mine. “Why? You’re working for Trey, right? What do you care?”
“This sounds corny, but beautiful things shouldn’t be wrecked. It’s nothing to cheer about when trash gets wrecked, but you have something only one person in ten million has. You need to take care of it.”
“You still don’t understand,” she said. “I don’t have anything. That wasn’t me. I’m trash, and I need two hundred thousand dollars. Trash buys dope. Are you coming?”
“I said I would.”
“People say a lot of things.” She turned to face the stage, just in time to see Trey step into the light on the other side. “I didn’t mean that,” she said without turning back to me.
“What the hell are you going to tell them?”
“Trey said, tell them the truth,” she said in Trey’s voice. “So I will. Unless a lie works better.”
“You’re absolutely certain.”
“I’m waiting for the alternative.”
“Okay, I’m with you. Give me your right shoe.”
“Ladies and gentlemen,” Trey said. “I’m Trey Annunziato, the executive producer of Three Wishes. Thank you so much for coming.”
“My shoe? Why do you need-”
“I just need it. Right now. Hurry.”
She put a hand on my arm for balance, bent down, and pulled off her right sneaker. I took it and used the little penknife I always carry to worry a hole in the toe. “I’ll buy you a new pair,” I said. “Get this back on.”
“… one of the most talented actresses ever on American television, and the youngest Emmy winner ever,” Trey was saying. She looked across the stage and saw me standing over Thistle, who was on one knee pulling her shoe on. Trey raised both eyebrows at me, clearly in the imperative and meaning Get her ready right now.
“I think this is your cue,” I said.
“Wooo, that’s a lot of dope,” Thistle said, standing back up. “Going up. Wish I hadn’t heaved those Percocets. Listen, if I say too much, put your hand on my shoulder, okay? If I keep talking, squeeze. I might not notice if you don’t.”
“… my great pleasure,” Trey said, “to introduce you to Thistle Downing.”
“Fuck you and hello,” Thistle said, smiling at Trey.
She stepped out on the stage with me two paces behind her, and every light in the northern hemisphere flashed at us. A few people clapped, but it didn’t catch on. Cameras exploded all over the room, and the lights on half a dozen TV cameras did their electric supernovas. The light was so thick I felt like we were wading through it.
The director’s chair I’d seen on the monitors was dead center on the stage, positioned in front of the earliest of the photos of Thistle. This close to the picture, I revised my guess at her age downward to thirteen. Thistle hoisted herself up into the chair and the image was echoed on the monitors. I stood next to her, and the bulbs all went off again as I blinked against them. I caught a sudden whiff of something sharp and acidic and realized it was Thistle’s fear.
“Could you move away?” a photographer shouted at me. I started to step aside, but Thistle sunk nails into my wrist. I stayed where I was.
“Who is he?” someone else called out.
People were shouting questions, and Thistle didn’t respond, just sat perfectly still, her eyes floating somewhere above the crowd as though there were a ball of light drifting there, maybe bringing the Good Witch of the East to her rescue. Trey watched nervously. To her it may have seemed as though Thistle was in command of herself, waiting calmly for order, but her grip on my wrist actually hurt, and the knuckles of her other hand, clasping the arm of her chair, were about to burst through the skin. Eventually, the noise died away.
“That’s better,” Thistle said. Her voice was very small. People in the four rows of seats leaned forward to hear her and some of them held up small tape recorders. The film crews standing at the back of the room fiddled with their equipment. “Someone asked-” She cleared her throat and started over, louder this time. “Someone asked who this man is. He’s my personal burglar. Every girl needs a burglar, and he’s mine.” They started to shout again, and Thistle held up both hands. When it was relatively quiet again, she said, “I have very sensitive hearing. Especially right now. If you keep yelling, I’ll have to leave. Just put up a hand, and I’ll call on you one at a time.”
From her side of the stage Trey said, “I thought I might choose the questions.”
Without turning her head, Thistle said, “Did you really?” Trey gave her a smile that should have sliced her in half, and stepped back in retreat.
“What’s his name?” a photographer called. “For the captions.”
“My name is Pockets Mahoney,” I said.
“Pockets is a nickname,” Thistle said. “You should put it in quotation marks, those of you who bother to punctuate.” She pointed to a woman in the middle of the first row and said, “You. You get to shoot first.”
“Thistle,” the woman said, oozing empathy. “You were a big star. Why are you doing this?”
Thistle said, “I need money. Don’t you ever need money?”
“But you sold your residuals,” the woman said. “You got hundreds of millions of dollars for them. What happened to all that?”
“I made bad investments,” Thistle said.
Other people were waving their hands, but the woman persisted. “Investments in what?”
Thistle said, “Pharmaceuticals,” and pointed at a short man with a toupee so bad I could spot it past all the lights.
“You have a whole generation of new fans,” he began.
Thistle said, “If you say so.”
“Most of them are young girls. How do you think they’ll feel to know you’re making an adult film? Do you think that you’re a good role model for them?”
The girl who did Thistle’s hair had put some sort of guck on her bangs to make them look spiky, and she took one of the spikes and twirled it between her fingers, her hand hiding part of her face. “Do you want a serious answer?”
“Sure,” the reporter said.
“Okay. I don’t think young girls should need role models. I think they should grow up on their own. But if they do need role models, it’s dumb to use somebody who’s on television. They should use someone they know. A teacher, maybe, or an older sister. Maybe their mother. Not my mother, obviously, but their mother. My mother wouldn’t be a good role model for a serial killer, much less-” I squeezed her shoulder, and she broke off. “Look, nobody who saw me on television knows anything at all about me. I was never that little girl. Anyway, what kind of role model is a witch? How dumb is that? ‘My role model solves problems with magic.’ So what’s she going to do when she’s seventeen years old and she gets pregnant by some asshole with a stocking cap and a bolt through his lower lip? She going to wave a wand at her stomach? Suppose she marries some jerk who hits her. She’s going to dematerialize before he connects? Actually, if you don’t mind my saying so, that’s a stupid question.” She pointed at someone else. “Your turn.”