Ed Gorman - Cold Blue Midnight

Hurt. Pain. Great crashing waves of self-doubt. Didn't this girl know who he was? Didn't she know about his powerful friends?

'Jesus, I can't believe this.'

'I really should be going, Mr Brooks.'

'You just came in here and very cynically had sex with me and You probably don't even like me much, do you?'

'I'm late, Mr Brooks. Sorry.' She opened the door.

'You know, that's just what you deserve. You know that, don't you? I mean, the way you're talking to me now, I should take that part right back from you, this minute, and there isn't a goddammed thing you could do about it.'

This time, the look was a glare. 'I did what you wanted me to, Mr Brooks. Now do I still have the part or not?'

'Bitch,' he muttered to himself.

'I'll call the casting director, then, and tell him that you decided to go with me.'

She started through the doorway, paused, and then said, 'I wasn't trying to hurt your feelings, Mr Brooks.' The quick sad smile again. 'I really wasn't.'

'Tappley residence.'

'Mrs Tappley, please,' said Rick Corday.

'May I say who's calling?'

'Mr Runyon.' That was the code name she knew him by.

'One moment, please.'

She came on at once. 'Good evening, Mr Runyon.'

'You asked us to keep you informed.'

'Yes.'

'We're just about to get the project underway.'

'I see. I hadn't heard from you or your partner for some time. I was getting concerned.'

'Everything is fine.'

'So it will besoon?'

'Very soon, Mrs Tappley. Very soon.'

'And you'll keep me informed?'

'Oh, you'll know about it, Mrs Tappley. I promise you that.'

'You're certain you've thought it through?' This was more like the Mrs Tappley Rick Corday had talked to before. He knew her attorney, Arthur K. Halliwell, who had set all this up. Rick had never met Mrs Tappley, but she was certainly formidable over the phone.

'We've thought it through carefully,' he told her now. 'We couldn't have asked for a better set-up.'

'I've waited a long time for this.'

'I know you have, Mrs Tappley.'

'I just want everything to go right.'

'It'll go fine, Mrs Tappley. I promise.'

This was one of the few times he'd heard both age and grief in her voice. Her son had been executed. She'd never recovered. All she had, as the lawyer had said, was her anger and her desire for vengeance. And those things could sap you of all reason and all strength.

'Good luck, then.'

'Thank you, Mrs Tappley. Talk to you soon.'

She went to Fat Camp six years in a row, Cini did, and each summer lost somewhere between fifteen and thirty pounds. Over the first two months of school, she put those pounds right back on. Between her junior and senior years in high school, her last year at Fat Camp, she actually gained twelve pounds over the course of the summer. She was five feet six and weighed nearly two hundred pounds. Whenever Cini was depressed about her weight, her mother always said the same thing: 'But you have such a pretty face, dear.' The frustrating thing in all this was that Cini's father was a heart specialist, a man who could tell you all about what excess weight could do to your health. His warnings, which her mother usually softened by sneaking in with a powdered donut or a Snickers when Dr Powell had gone, did not seem to have an undue effect on Cini. At school, there was kind of a Fat Girls group. It cut across all lines of race, socio-economic status and intelligence. The girls had three things in common. They were fat; they did not want to be fat; boys made fun of them. Some boys even referred to them collectively as 'The Whales,' thus disputing the myth that most boys start to grow up a little as they near graduation. Even in this group, Cini was an outsider. She felt that the others were brighter and cleverer than she was, and so she tended to be quiet whenever anything important was discussed, like what time to meet at the mall or who could get the van tonight or which night they were going to the grand opening of the Ample Lady, which was where girls of their size shopped.

The year she turned nineteen, Cini was hit by a car. She was crossing a street over near Northwestern, not really watching where she was going, just hurrying to get out of the chill March rain, and here this car suddenly appeared. Cini was too big to move with any skill. The car, a new Chevrolet, slammed into her and knocked her down. She was unconscious by the time her head collided with the wet pavement, and she would remain unconscious for more than three months. Later on, her parents told her about all the extraordinary steps they had taken to save her life, including Daddy's old friend Dr Weintraub flying up from Dallas and virtually babysitting Cini during the most critical two weeks of the entire process.

Cini woke up on a sunny May day and looked out the window. She was not sure who she was, where she was, or what had happened. Then she looked down at her body and realized she was dreaming. She weighed scarcely half of the real Cini. No more than 100 pounds. She screamed. This dream was too weird, too real. Nurses came running, shoes squeaking, diving for her bed to see what had gone wrong.

'Help me wake up, please. I'm scared,' Cini said to the first nurse who took her hand.

'You are awake, Cini. You've been unconscious for almost three months but now you're finally awake.'

'But my bodyMy weight'

The nurse smiled. 'I'll have the doctor come in. I'll also call your parents and have them come over right away.'

It was simple enough, explained the doctor who came in.

They'd decided to help rid her of her excess weight as they also slowly tried to woo her out of her coma. He told her about all the fractures she'd sustained, then about all the damage her cranium had suffered. She was lucky to be alive, he said.

On 3 August of that year, the first time Cini was permitted to leave the house by herself, she put on a blouse and a pair of jeans and looked at herself in the mirror and grinned her ass off. Her very shapely ass. She was not just a pretty face these days. She was a pretty body, too.

She spent three afternoons in a row at the mall. God, she loved it. All those young guys looking her over. Smiling. Nudging each other. Even whistling a few times. It was still like a dream. A few times she thought about calling some of her old friends but she was afraid they'd take one look at her and hate her. You know, as if she'd betrayed them in some way.

She enrolled in Northwestern. Her freshman year, four different boys asked her to the homecoming dance. Good-looking boys. Prominent boys. One of them was even a senior. She felt like an imposter, one of those aliens in sci-fi movies who can disguise themselves to look appealing to earthly eyes. Didn't they know that deep down inside she would always be a charter member of The Whales?

The phone calls, the party invitations, the movie dates never stopped. God, it was wonderful. So wonderful. Then she had to go and spoil it all by meeting Michael Laine, a guy who had so many good-looking girls that she was just one more…

And when he dumped her, she got this notion about making him jealous by getting herself cast in a TV commercial. Becoming a star… So she signed up with a talent agency and started going to castings. It was incredible. She must have gone to forty auditions over a month and a half and got not a single call back to read or test for the part.

Her old depression returned. She started eating excessively again. She became frantic about getting a part in a commercial. Getting a part would prove something to her. Prove that she really wasn't deep down still a Whale. That she was just as desirable as she had been feeling there for awhile. She had to get a part. She'd do anything to get a part…