“You were the most famous little girl in America for seven years-”
“Eight,” Thistle said.
“Sorry. How has it felt to live in obscurity for the last eight or nine years?”
“Obscurity?” Thistle said, leaning on the word heavily enough to make it sag in the middle. “I guess that’s one way to put it. It took me a while to adjust to obscurity, to use your word, not to mention poverty and a closer relationship with the world of large insects living under sinks. As you can probably guess, it was very different. Not that it was all bad. You know, in my old life I’d gotten used to having vultures circling around all the time, waiting for me to pick my nose or smoke a cigarette in public so they could deliver it into people’s houses that night. So I didn’t have bugs, but I had vultures. I’d started to think it was normal to have cameras shoved in my face all the time and hear people shout rude questions at me and then, when I was tired of being worked to death or had a stomachache and didn’t answer, they’d say that I wasn’t grateful or something, like they’d made me famous, when all they were really trying to do was take a bite out of me so they could get their forty-five seconds of face time on some shitty cable channel.” She glanced up at me. “Coming because they smell blood and then spitting some of it up on camera. I’d gotten used to having these people live on me, sort of like mold on bread.” I put a hand on her shoulder, but she shrugged it off. “I can’t really say I missed being part of all that, where people like you make a big deal out of people like me just so you can turn around and start grinding us into sausage.” She stopped and drew a couple of quick breaths. “So, yeah, I had to adjust, but I can’t say I cried myself to sleep every night. Basically, I like the bugs better than I liked the vultures.”
“But here you are again,” the reporter said nastily.
“And so are you,” Thistle said. “And a few dozen exactly like you. At least there’s only one of me.”
I caught a glimpse of motion on the far side of the stage and saw Trey stepping back out of sight. She kept her eyes on Thistle as she pulled out a cell phone and started to dial.
Thistle pointed at someone else, a female I recognized from local news, where she did stories about how even regular people are interesting, and isn’t that great? “You,” Thistle said.
“You mentioned your mother a minute ago. Are you speaking to her?”
“I’m sorry,” Thistle said. “I didn’t hear you.” She started to point at someone else, but the reporter pushed on.
“Your mother,” she said. “I asked if you-”
“Can’t hear a word,” Thistle said. “Next.”
Trey was talking on the phone, saying something sharp if her expression was any indication. Her eyes were still on Thistle. It looked like Trey was reconsidering her resale value.
“Why are you so hostile?” was the question.
“Hostile?” Thistle said. “This isn’t hostile. This is just recess, we’re playing together nicely. I mean, come on, let’s at least be honest. You’ve all come here to make an omelet, and I’m the egg you have to break.”
Trey hung up the phone and came back into the light.
“Why do you say that?” the reporter asked. “Why do you assume we’re not on your side?”
“Okay.” Thistle held up two fingers in a V formation. “First, let’s forget personal experience, which I’ve had a lot of. But today, today there are two possible stories, right? Let’s not be hypocrites. You’re all going to leave with one or the other. The first one is, Look, everybody, that cute little kid grew up to be a slut. That’s like the moral high ground angle. Whoever delivers it will probably work up a righteous frown. The second one is, Gee, isn’t it tragic, that cute little kid grew up to be a slut. That’s the compassionate angle, accompanied by a sad shake of the head, and probably mostly from female reporters whose hair won’t move. Maybe one or two of you will take it further and go for a local Emmy, talk about the death of innocence in America or some puke like that. You know, The crooked road out of childhood. Any way you do it, I’m a slut, and probably a drug addict, and how much would you enjoy being up here while all of you pretend to be so fucking sympathetic?” She waved the question away. “Next,” she said, aiming a finger at someone.
“We’ve all heard rumors about your drug use,” said a reporter from some print outlet, armed with nothing but a little notebook.
“Is there a question there?” Thistle asked. “And when’s somebody going to ask whether my feet smell?”
“Well, is it true? There were stories that Hollywood Division had arrested you a couple of times and then let you go without pressing charges.”
“Mmmm-hmmmm.” Thistle gave him an exaggerated nod. “And why do you think they might have done that?”
“Well …” The man hesitated. “Because of who you were, was the way I heard it.”
“Don’t we live in interesting times?” Thistle asked. “Imagine. I’d rather be with a bunch of cops who are busting me than hanging around with the guardians of free speech. And you know why? Because cops need evidence. You guys, you guys can turn a whisper in the fucking woods, fourth-hand hearsay, into a minute of gospel truth that makes everybody go Oh my God, and then they miss it when you retract it three days later. Is it any wonder I prefer cops?”
“But about the drugs,” the reporter said.
“I never put anything harmful into my system,” Thistle said, “without a qualified medical opinion.” She pointed at a guy at the back of the room. “Over to you.”
“I have two questions,” said the woman with the orange makeup whom I’d pushed over in the parking lot.
“And you can keep them, pumpkin-face,” Thistle said. “I wasn’t pointing at-”
“The first question is how you’ll feel when I sue you because your thug punched me.”
“I’ll be proud of him,” Thistle said. “I wish I’d punched you.”
“Hang on,” I said. “You put your goddamn spike heel on her tennis shoe. She had to get through that crowd and you pinned her down. She may have a broken bone in her-”
“I did not,” the woman said. “I never-”
“Thistle,” I said. “Show the awful orange lady your shoe.”
Thistle yanked off the shoe and held it up. She slipped her hand into it, poked a finger through the hole I’d made, and wiggled it. Then she said, “By the way, ow.”
“I did not do that,” the woman from World Entertainment News said.
“You’d say that, of course,” Thistle said. “I did not do that,” and suddenly she sounded and looked exactly like the woman she was talking to. It was even more striking than the way she’d done Trey. She continued, in the woman’s voice: “It’s not much of a surprise, is it? I mean, since you wouldn’t recognize the truth if someone handed it to you on a chest x-ray.” A murmur ran around the room.
“How does it feel,” the woman said, between her teeth, “to be doing porn?”
“I haven’t done it yet,” Thistle said in precisely the same voice. Then she became Thistle again. “So you’d know as much about it as I do.” She gave the woman her sweetest smile and added, “Or maybe more.”
I leaned down and whispered in her ear. “Okay,” she said. She turned to Trey. “Just a couple more. Let’s see whether anybody can be more awful than her.”