Daniel Price - Slick

“I’m not talking about the goddamn media, Scott. I’m talking about people. If I do what you want me to do, I’ll be a bad memory forever. Every time some woman’s raped now, people will say ‘Oh, that bitch is probably lying. Remember Harmony Prince?’ Every time a black woman accuses anyone of anything, people will say ‘Oh, that bitch is probably lying. Remember Harmony Prince?’ Wherever I go the rest of my life, I’m gonna be the bitch who lied! Who’s gonna trust anything I say? Who’s gonna read my books to their kids?”

Some neighbors began squabbling on the street. I closed the balcony doors.

“Harmony, I know it’s hard to get perspective when you’re inside the fishbowl, but take my word for it. You are just a tiny blip on the world’s radar. Out of the six and a half billion people out there, there are only a few thousand who actively give a shit about the things you say or do, and most of them are in the media. To them, you’re revenue. To everyone else, you’re entertainment. A fun distraction. A cheap way to avoid thinking. That’s why stories like this are so popular: because they require no thought. People aren’t thinking about you, they’re reacting. And they’re reacting the way the television tells them to.”

“And what if the television tells them to hate me?”

“It won’t. The television loves you. You’re still sympathetic. You’re still great to look at. And you still keep getting more and more interesting. That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you. This isn’t an ending. It’s a beginning. Once you clear Jeremy’s name, we’re going to rebuild you. And this time we’re going to get you right.”

She was silent, but I could feel her distance. I was holding out my hand, and she clearly wasn’t taking it.

“They’re just words, Scott. You’re just giving me words.”

I sat down on the stairwell, lowering my head. That was it. We were officially jammed. She didn’t want to see me. She didn’t want to hear me. She didn’t even want to smell me. To her I reeked of strategy. She could feel me coming from every direction, even though I was simply standing right in front of her, as honest as I’ve ever been.

From the wind static, I figured Harmony stepped onto her seafront balcony. She had been a clenched fist from the moment she picked up the phone, but I could feel her opening up.

“I didn’t really have that dream about you,” she admitted.

“I figured.”

“I was just making a point.”

“Yeah,” I replied with a grim chuckle. “I figured. But it was a good point.”

“I do have fantasies, though.”

“Really.”

“Yeah. Ever since you kissed me and promised me the world, I’ve had this fantasy where you and I are married. You’re my husband and my publicist. I’m like the world’s most famous woman, and I travel all around with you, talking to kids, signing my books, handing out words of wisdom. And folks in the media give us shit because we’re so different, you and me, but every time we leave a place, people always say ‘Damn. Now those two make a good couple. Those two made it work.’”

I kept my head down and my eyes shut.

“You believe me, Scott? Or do you think I’m still just making a point?”

“I believe you,” I said.

“You like that fantasy?”

“I think it’s beautiful.”

“Yeah? You don’t sound very touched.”

“I don’t sound very anything,” I sighed. “I don’t look very anything. I’ve got a poker face. A poker voice. A poker everything. It’s just the way I am. But I do have feelings, even if I don’t show them. And I do care for you, even though you think I’m lying.”

I heard the flick of a cigarette lighter. She spoke through one side of her mouth. “You want to convince me you’re for real, you find a clever way to get me out of this shit. One that saves your client without sinking me.”

“There’s no other way.”

“Or even one that doesn’t save your client. I don’t care. Quit the job. Tell them to keep their goddamn money. Just stay with me. Keep going with me.”

“Harmony, that’s not—”

“You do that, Scott, I’ll finally know you’re for real. I’ll know you weren’t just playing me. And then I swear to God I’ll be yours forever. Do you believe me?”

“It doesn’t matter what I—”

“It’s a simple question! Do you believe me? Yes or no?”

In my all-too-telling silence, she thrust a sharp laugh into my ear. “You’re a goddamn hypocrite, Scott.”

“Yes, I’m a hypocrite. Congratulations. You got me. That doesn’t change the fact that I’m doing what’s best for you.”

“We got nothing left to talk about.”

“Yes we do! Harmony—”

She hung up on me again. I muttered a curse, then dropped the phone.

The worst part was that I believed her. I believed she would love me as promised, but I could see the string attached. She’d be mine as long as I kept her pretty. It was frightening to realize how little that bothered me. I probably could have spent the rest of my days polishing her image and the rest of my nights basking in her fame, her love, her secondhand smoke. I could have even drowned an innocent man, just for a taste of the life she promised.

Ultimately, it wasn’t my conscience that saved me from treachery. It was a little crumpled sticky note in my bedroom wastebasket, a more tenuous hint of a less conditional union. In the end, it was Jean who saved me from Harmony. I didn’t take that as an encouraging sign, especially since I knew what was coming. I knew that by the end of our next conversation, I’d no longer have Harmony to save me from Jean.

________________

Before I left for Century City, I’d finally caught up with the news. The dark upshot of the L’Ermitage bomb threat was that it punctuated our cover story for Simba’s departure. At 9a.m., Doug faxed the official word to the media. For their own safety, Ms. Shange and child have left for an undisclosed location, while Mr. Sharpe remains in Los Angeles to battle these false allegations. Ms. Shange continues to support her husband wholeheartedly and hopes the family can be reunited soon under better circumstances.

Simba naturally earned a lot of coverage for her televised ambush but it was hard to vilify her, particularly since her attack was so remarkably civil. At best, it was a desperate plea from a loyal wife in denial. At worst it was a cheap PR stunt that backfired horribly. Fortunately for us, her vague insinuations of a conspiracy were either ignored or written off as paranoid rambling. But that was only a temporary relief. I knew her cryptic words would be revisited once Harmony confessed.

“ If she confesses,” Doug stressed, from the other side of the elevator.

“She’ll confess,” I assured him. “I’m not worried about that.”

He chuckled cynically. “You’re a step ahead of us, then.”

This was not a fun time to be working at Mean World Records. Ever since Melrose, the harassing phone calls had come so fast and so furious that the Judge was forced to abandon the landlines and assign brand new cell phones to his staff. On Thursday someone messengered a box with a dead rat in it, causing one poor assistant to pass out. On Friday a man charged in with a bucket of red paint and proceeded to splash it all over the reception area, plus the receptionist. The vandal was promptly arrested, but his belligerence cost the label twenty-four hundred dollars, plus the receptionist.