Daniel Price - Slick

Don’t worry , I wrote back. I’m not the typical man.

I didn’t think so, but I had to be sure. You see in my book, a typical man is someone who’d rather surround himself with fawning, admiring young women (*cough cough* Madison) than take on someone his own age and cranial capacity.

Her teasing insinuation torqued me; only because it made me wonder. Clearly I did enjoy Madison’s fawning admiration. And not just hers (*cough cough* Harmony). So what did that make me? Insecure? Lecherous? Lewd? Libertine? I remembered the way Miranda had teased me when she detected my May-September crush on the voluptuous Deb Isham.

So what was it you liked about her? Besides her knockers. Is it that she’s young and naïve? That she could gaze upon you with a sense of awe and wonder?

No. Sorry. In hindsight, it was her knockers. And you, Miranda, were simply projecting your husband’s flaws onto me. Et tu, Jean? Are you doing the same with your own professor ex? Are you merely handing me one of your old issues? Because if so:

You should know that the two major relationships in my life were both with strong-willed, freethinking, devastatingly brilliant women. One was my age, the other was a good deal older. Not only did they educate and challenge me in every conceivable fashion, but they also made gobs more money than I did. Amazingly, none of this intimidated me.

Neither do you. I’ll be more than happy to continue playing these little word games, losing and learning, losing and learning. I just hope that when that ONE FATEFUL DAY comes, you won’t pout too much, like a typical woman (see how sexist it sounds when I say it?).

Toodles for now,

Scott Singer

PS — Since I know you’ll ask: I was dumped both times. Surely by now you can see why.

Once I sent the message, I reread it and winced. Damn. That was persnickety, Singer. You might as well have typed TOUCHED A NERVE seventy times and then sent it off. I never would have said it if I hadn’t been so obscenely tired.

And yet instead of going to bed, I waited for her response:

Surely I can’t.

That was it. No comeback jab. No witty puns. No clever little postscript. The note was suspiciously terse for a woman with her mastery of the written language. Three simple words. Stranger still, it took her eight minutes to write them.

________________

By Wednesday night I was ready to scream. I had been cooped up in my apartment all day, percolating with a nervous energy that I didn’t know how to vent or defuse. I felt like one of those old-fashioned dads-to-be, pacing back and forth outside the maternity ward. Believe me, I would have rather been there in the delivery room, telling Gail Steiner to push! Push, damn it! But I didn’t want to open myself up to any paternity claims. I just had to wait for the miracle to happen.

It happened at eight o’clock. At long last, my baby got to see the light of day. After five days of labor, Harmony Prince was finally born.

Maxina was the one to call with the good news. “Scott, I just got word from my sources at the L.A. Times . They just burned the plate for tomorrow’s front page. Gail Steiner’s piece is all over it.”

“Does she mention Harmony by name?”

“Many times.”

I deflated into my easy chair. “Oh, thank God…”

“You did it, Scott.”

I did it. The copyright to the Christmas-party rape claim was now officially ours. In a matter of hours, the Times would trumpet their coup all over the newswires, making Harmony the truest of overnight sensations.

“Thank God,” I breathed again. “Thank God.”

“I don’t know,” Maxina teased. “I have to say I’m a little disappointed. I hired you to get ruthless and mean with Lisa Glassman, and here you managed to stop her without touching a hair on her head.”

I loved her all over again. “Sorry. Next time I’ll do better.”

“This is next time,” she replied. “You got this plane off the ground. Now you have to land it.”

I suppressed a hysterical laugh. “I will. I will.”

“Not that I want to get into this tonight, but what’s your estimated flight time?”

“One week,” I told her.

“One whole week?”

“Look, I’m not just giving you the cure for Lisa Glassman here. I’m giving you the cure for Annabelle Shane.”

“In one week we’ll be needing the cure for Harmony Prince.”

“She comes with her own cure. That’s the great thing about this. Trust me. I know this can work.”

Maxina took a good long breath. “I’m too tired to argue. Let’s see how the press reacts tomorrow and we’ll go from there.”

“Fair enough.”

“I’ll let you call the starlet yourself.”

“Oh, you bet I will.”

“Tell her to rest up, Scott. She’s in for a quite a day.”

Maxina wasn’t as joyous as I was. It was easy to see why. To think of the power being put in Harmony’s hands. To think of the power I wielded with Harmony in my hands. My God. I’d be writing both sides of America’s latest and greatest drama. Forget “he said/she said.” Now it was all about what I said. No wonder I couldn’t fake an air of professional detachment. I was about to score with an entire nation.

I sat alone in my apartment, in absolute silence, gazing out at absolutely nothing. I didn’t move but I was very, very conscious of the phone in my lap. If I told Harmony she was about to wake up famous, would she even sleep? Would I? And if I assured her that from this point on, her fate was safe and snug in my loving hands, could she believe it? Could I?

Screw it. I’d just hand her the facts and let her sort them out. No more creative omissions. No more giving her the kid’s version of things. She was in for the crash course now. The Bitch was about take her places even I never went.

Her name came up with the sunrise. East to west, all across the nation, wherever there was sound or light, there was—

“—Harmony Prince,” said the talk-radio people in Tampa.

“—Harmony Prince,” said the morning TV anchors in St. Paul.

“—Harmony Prince,” said the newspapers in Reno.

“—Harmony Prince,” said the websites all over.

“—according to a story from this morning’s L.A. Times —”

“— Los Angeles Times , a woman by the name of Harmony Prince—”

“—Harmony Prince—”

“—nineteen-year-old Harmony Prince is filing a civil claim—”

“—civil suit against rapper Jeremy Sharpe—”

“—rapper Jeremy Sharpe—”

“—aka Hunta—”

“—the controversial rapper Hunta—”

“’I never hurt a woman in my life. I never forced a woman into sex.’”

“—Hunta, for purported sexual abuse—”

“—sexual abuse from an alleged—”

“—alleged rape incident stemming from a—”

“—claimed he never forced a woman into sex.”

“—incident at a record-label Christmas party.”

“—was a dancer at the Christmas party of—”

“—forced the woman into sex.”

“—forced her—”

“—raped her—”

“—raped the woman, for God’s sake—”

“—raped the dancer—”

“—the nineteen-year-old dancer—”

“—the nineteen-year-old woman—”

“—the nineteen-year-old victim named—”

“—victim by the name of—”

“—name of—”

“—Harmony Prince.”

“—Harmony Prince.”

“—the victim, Harmony Prince.”

“Holy shit!” yelled Harmony from her bathroom. “Scott! What do I do?”

I ran downstairs. “Okay. Step one: move away from the window.”