Dead Souls Read online

  A couple of guys stand, one putting the arm of the other over his shoulders. They head out the door. I pick up whatever number mojito is in front of me and give the glass a swirl. It catches the lingering light nicely.

  “Yup. Marketing is so very, very clever. All started with a very, very clever man. Do you know who coined the term public relations?”

  “I have a feeling you’re going to tell me.”

  “That I am,” I say, tipping my drink and it sloshes over unexpectedly, spilling on my thumb. “Edward Bernays. Freud’s nephew. Used his uncle’s research to create marketing that operated on subconscious desires.”

  “What does that have to do with public relations?”

  “He coined the term. After World War II, ‘propaganda’ got a bad name, so he just did the same shit but—poof—called it public relations.”

  “Seems a little deceptive.”

  Now I lean in to Scratch, or not lean so much as try to adjust for the fact that the bar seems to be listing, like a ship in high seas.

  “Oh, he was just getting warmed up. What’s really sneaky is how he used PR for crowd marketing. In 1929 Lucky Strike wanted to open up the market to women, but a woman caught smoking in public could get arrested. Not good for business.”

  “I’d imagine not.”

  “So. Bernays pays off models to light up during the Easter Parade in New York. Calls Lucky Strike ‘torches of freedom.’ What’s brilliant is it plays off women’s desire for equality and the subconsciously sexual act of women wrapping their lips around a phallic symbol. Makes such a big stir that the papers can’t avoid covering it like real news, and then suddenly a woman smoking is acceptable in public. Or not suddenly . . . it takes a few years to change perception. But it starts with that tap. If you really want to manipulate an individual, you start with a group. Seems counterintuitive, but it works.”

  “Interesting,” says Scratch. He pushes his glass of Guinness toward me. “How would you market this?”

  “Beer?” I say. “Oh please, give me something hard.”

  “Not just beer,” he says, a hint of something defensive. “Guinness. I don’t know why you Americans still drink crap like Pabst.”

  “Our culture is founded on crap.”

  He nudges the glass another inch toward me. This is fourth-grade marketing stuff.

  “Okay,” I say. “First you have to imagine me blond and two cup sizes bigger.”

  “Done.”

  “You don’t have to sound so eager.” With clumsy hands, I unbutton the top button of my shirt, give it a think, then unbutton one more. I cock my head at him, offer a grand smile, reach for the Guinness without looking at it.

  “Now I say something insipid, like . . . there’s only one reason to go for a guy with a Guinness.” I angle the glass slightly so I can reach in with my index finger, dip into a nice amount of foam. “Taste.”

  I take my finger out of the glass, touch my sternum with the foam, and then trace my finger up my chest, neck, and face until I reach my lips. I give a campy wink, open my mouth, and lick my finger. Hold a moment before bowing.

  Scratch leans back on the bar. “And people pay for that?”

  “Very well. Sex sells anything. Make it self-aware-slash-ironic, and you can catch all the people who think they’re immune to messaging, too.”

  “Doesn’t seem very viral.”

  “Internet’s a baser channel. For that you just throw in a debutante with a well-oiled ass and launch a meme generator.”

  “But you haven’t even tried the product. How can you sell something you don’t know anything about?”

  “Because you’re never selling product. You’re selling desire. You’re tapping misery, or creating it so your product can then fix that misery.”

  Persistent, he pushes the glass of Guinness another couple of inches toward me.

  “Truth is, I don’t even like beer,” I say. My nose wrinkles. No, I actually abhor it. Growing up, the rank stink of piss and beer was forever in the carpet.

  “I think you might like the bitter stuff. Unless, you know, it’s too masculine for you.”

  “Too masculine. That didn’t sound sexist at all.”

  “You just don’t strike me as a mojito kind of person.”

  “No?”

  “No.”

  There was something tasty about the foam, more like an exotic dessert than a beer. Oh, what the hell.

  My hand isn’t as steady as I’d like it to be, but I manage to lift the heavy glass, take a sip. Dark, and rich, and yes, bitter. Nothing girly about this draught.

  I do like it, and take another, longer sip. Warmth tingles through my esophagus, lands nicely in my stomach. I place the glass back on the counter, concentrating hard so I don’t drop it, like I’m playing Jenga. There.

  Scratch takes one of the bar napkins, scrunches the end of it, reaches toward me, and gently starts to wipe the foam from my upper lip. A strangely comforting, paternal act.

  “So you know what I do,” I say. “What do you do?”

  Scratch smiles, or I think he does. “I’m actually in a similar line of work. Maybe I should hire you.” He takes a moment to inspect my upper lip for any leftover traces of foam, then, apparently satisfied, tucks the napkin in his back pocket.

  “Are you in sales?”

  “No,” says Scratch. “I’m the devil.”

  Well, I think. Not only has he gotten me wasted but he’s fucking with me too. “Wow. What’s that like?”

  “Fun,” he says. “Depending on your idea of fun.”

  “There money in being the devil?”

  “There is,” he says, and when he says there it sounds like ter. That foreign lilt. “But that’s not the fun part.”

  “What’s the fun part?”

  “The trade.”

  Ah. An investment banker with a hand in the subprime crisis feeling a little angst.

  “Fortunately for you,” I say, leaning into the bar. “I’m an atheist.”

  He leans in too, and I catch a faint hint of something smoky, and damp. “Most are, until they meet me.”

  The conversation has gotten complicated in some strange way, off track. Either that or I’m just out of touch with flirting—it’s been a few years—or he’s going to try to sell me something. I sit a bit more upright, reach for my mojito for something to do. A queasy feeling builds in my stomach. Maybe the foie gras was a bad idea. Maybe this all was.

  “It doesn’t have to be like this,” he says. “You don’t have to be like this.”

  An insult. Even though I recognize the manipulation, my damned ego bristles.

  “I don’t have to be like what?”

  “Powerless. Helpless. Defeated.”

  Each word falls like a hammer. Yes, and yes, and yes. “Is that what you think?”

  “No,” says Scratch. “It’s what you think.”

  I drop my mojito glass on the bar. It rolls and then falls onto the tile floor, shattering into pieces. All eyes turn to me. The drunk barefoot girl.

  “Oh fuck,” I mutter. There are so many, many pieces.

  But Scratch doesn’t seem to notice, or care. “So, Fiona, what can we do to change that?”

  I told him my real name? Shit. I don’t remember that. A vein throbs near my temple—the precursor to the mother of all hangovers. I want to push myself up, say something about the ladies’ room, splash some water on my face and have a cogent moment, but I’m barefoot and surrounded by broken glass. I look hopefully in the direction of the bartender, but he must be in the back.

  “What do you want?” Scratch asks softly.

  What do I want? I want parents who don’t shoot up and call me for bail, I want to stop being so desperately afraid of life, I want to take that pink coat and tear it apart by the seams.

  But most of all
, I want that ghost-twin, so I can know. Beyond a shadow of a doubt and all that.

  “Maybe I want to be the invisible girl . . . sometimes,” I whisper.

  In the distance, there’s the wail of a siren.

  “What would you give up in exchange?” Scratch asks.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Would you give up your soul? How about it?”

  I shrug. Giving up something you don’t believe in doesn’t cost a thing.

  Or so one thinks in the moment.

  CHAPTER TWO

  THE SHEET IS COOL against my cheek, but my body feels hot, disturbed, feverish. Sound of traffic outside, the soft patter of rain, a floorboard heater that rattles and clinks. God, how many drinks did I have? Remnants of a nightmare linger—there was a dark shadow of a man with arms that grew, twisting down the block, wrapping around light poles and electric wires, fingers constantly searching, probing, until all the colors of the world bled to gray.

  My head throbs. My throat itches. My arm automatically reaches over to the left for Justin, but all it finds is a pillow. Right. Seattle. And then it comes back to me, at least some of it—Make Westing, mojitos, a guy called Scratch. A name that isn’t a name, not really.

  And I’m naked.

  Holy shit.

  Panic hits—what the hell happened last night? A flutter of a memory: the sensation of a man’s hands at the small of my back . . . no, I didn’t, I couldn’t. I risk opening my eyes and instantly regret it. The morning light feels like an attack, the room spins, and a rush of nausea overtakes me, but I see that at least I’m home, in my own apartment, not in a stranger’s bed. A small but tangible comfort.

  I’m in my apartment?

  Impossible—I was locked out. Unless I did call the super, or Scratch was able to find someone still awake and willing to buzz us in, or he had superior lock-picking skills.

  How did I get home from Make Westing? And more important, what did I do? There was broken glass around my feet, I remember that much, and the sense of being lifted from the barstool, but beyond that—nothing. A complete blackout. It takes me back to my early twenties, when I confused drunken promiscuity with worldly sophistication, when I smoked clove cigarettes and tried to be French. I listen carefully for the sound of someone else in the apartment—creak of floorboards, a toilet flush, a cabinet door opening or closing.

  Nothing. I breathe a nearly inaudible sigh of relief.

  But then my stomach heaves and I’m quickly reaching down by the side of my bed for the small, modern trash can—Italian, ninety dollars retail, twenty-five on eBay—and everything I ingested the night before returns in a much different form. I’m grateful for the can’s weighted polycarbonate white lid, which automatically closes, and sink back into my bed.

  An assessment is obviously required. Sleeping naked is something I avoid. It’s a first-date, one-night-stand kind of thing—the single days when you still shave the places that don’t like to be shaved, when you still think about what you last ate before a kiss.

  If I’d stumbled in drunk and alone, I’d have just passed out on the covers—not a good sign—but even if, theoretically, I’m in the worst-case scenario, ADULTERY DEFCON 1, I shouldn’t feel this dark, settling guilt, should I? Justin started it; Justin is the betrayer, him and the pink coat. That hair of his is ridiculous, ludicrous, trying to look like some kind of military recruit, and she’s probably the kind of whore who’s into that sort of thing, the rounded nape of her collar looked decidedly ­Republican.

  Of course, beneath that is the familiar, worrying thrum.

  Have I become boring? Staid? Dull? It’s true I’ve started to shelve personal grooming on the weekends, and now that I think about it, I can’t remember the last time we went on a real date instead of ordering Thai from the restaurant around the corner and watching something on Netflix. But the work has been insane lately, or not lately so much as always. There’s always a meeting that could have gone better, or the Web traffic is down, or I’m over budget, or under budget, or the vice president wants to know why sales aren’t meeting projections (although does the analyst ever consult me, ever, before forecasting?), and then there was the whole fracas from the casting call for our new ad campaign that specified white in the audition demographic. Had to outsource to a specialized PR agency to handle the Facebook comments alone. And Justin, his company might launch as an IPO, so he’s been putting in extra hours; I can’t even get a hold of him during the day.

  But isn’t this the life we’re supposed to lead? Two busy professionals taking their careers seriously? Separate apartments, separate IRAs, separate stock options; we each do our own laundry. Non-wedded bliss.

  Christ, maybe I should have taken those women’s magazine admonitions seriously. They were always good for a laugh, those headlines, and Justin and I would actually kill time standing in the Safeway checkout line and point out the best and worst ones to each other: “10 Things Guys Crave in Bed”; “The Jeans That Instantly Make You Look Slimmer”; “Hausfrau Fashion Finds.” But maybe secretly he longed for a partner with flawless skin and thigh gaps, or maybe all relationships are doomed to get comfortable, atrophy, and die.

  It’s strange how knowing you’re being fatalistic is no protection.

  Suddenly there’s a series of knocks at my front door, followed by two more, sharp, brisk, and cheery.

  BARELY ENOUGH TIME to pull on yoga pants from the floor, where I keep most clothes, and a ratty T-shirt that reads BUSH LIED—would it kill me to buy something new, form-fitting, with color?—two more staccato knocks, oddly persistent, especially because no one knocks on my door, ever. I maintain a strict regimen of urban solitude, avoiding eye contact and small pleasantries, and if someone says hello or even holds open the door, I pretend they don’t exist, check e-mail on my phone instead. East Coast habits die hard.

  Knock, knock—pause—knock.

  Hell. My apartment, like all the others in this circa 1920s building, is small, vintage, quaint. In other words, no room for storage and an absolute ban on stickpins or nails in the plaster walls, so floor space serves many purposes. As I reach for the knob of the front door, I’m keenly aware of the paper stacks that loom like miniature skyscrapers, made up of outdoor magazines, research about the spending habits of millennials and boomers, competitive analyses of other companies. My freestanding IKEA IVAR shelves can hold only so much.

  And then an unsettling thought hits—what if it’s Scratch? There’s no peephole in my solid, wood front door.

  Knock, knock, knock. An imperative.

  Nothing for it—I unlock the dead bolt, turn the doorknob, open the door just a crack, hope the chain holds.

  A middle-aged woman in a neatly pressed suit, an actual Gucci bag—she didn’t get the memo that toting such items can get you mugged these days—stands in the hallway. Her dark brown hair is coiffed and sprayed into something that looks as hard as a bird’s nest, small droplets of rain clinging to it like dew, and in her free arm she cradles a grocery bag.

  “Oh, you’re home,” she says as if we know each other, which we don’t. “Hi, I’m Gloria, your neighbor?”

  I say nothing. She does look vaguely familiar—I think I’ve passed her in the hall, giving little more than a nod of acknowledgment. Her accent is a touch Southern, which is inherently suspicious.

  “You are Fiona . . . ?” Not so sure now. She peeks behind me, as if she’s hoping that a more friendly Fiona will appear.

  “Yes.”

  She’s a boomer, part of the healthiest, wealthiest, and most-active generation of women in history, due for a double-­inheritance windfall when both her parents and her husband die. Expected to travel widely, so we’re working on a new pack, the Istanbul, lightweight with a slim, detachable waist belt to hold a passport, cell phone, cash, and credit cards. I make a mental note to add a small pocket for lipstick and a compact.


  She offers the paper bag. “I believe these are yours.”

  Curious now, I unlatch the chain, open the door a little wider, and take it. The bottom is wet, and soggy. I unroll the top of the bag and inside I find my damp clothes from the night before, neatly folded.

  “They were outside on the front stoop,” says Gloria. “Just lying there in a pile. I folded them for you. I hope you don’t mind.”

  My heart goes cold. The clothes I was wearing were left outside? So I walked, or was carried into my apartment, naked?

  “And I found this in the skirt pocket, so I thought . . . well you’re the only Fiona here, I’m pretty sure.”

  So helpful, and so proud of being helpful, she hands me a business-size card. It’s nice, good, thick stock that feels soft to the touch. Expensive.

  At the top, the words BILL OF SALE in ominous black print, followed by DATE, next to which is handwritten Friday, October 12. Only when I look more closely at the handwritten part, I see it’s not ink . . . more like the writing has been burned into the card, like a brand. Pyrography. Something my middle school art therapist thought would help direct my destructive tendencies, burning images of horses into square bits of leather.

  SOUL: Fiona Dunn

  TIME: 4:05 a.m.

  FAVOR:

  Nothing written here, a blank space that looms large, dark and oppressive. Is it just my imagination, or does the card carry a waft of sulfur?

  “Are you okay?” Gloria asks, and for good reason—I can imagine how pale my face has gone. “I thought maybe it was some kind of an invitation. And it had your name. That’s your name, right? I got it right?”

  “Yes,” I manage, tucking the bag under my arm, crumpling the card in my fist. “No. I mean . . . I’m fine. I must have left my laundry on the stoop when I buzzed in. Thank you.”

  With that I rudely close the door, lean against it. There’s a hesitant pause on the other side, as if Gloria’s about to knock again, but then she must think better of it, because I hear the click-click of heels against the hardwood floor, followed by the chime of the elevator.

  I slide onto the floor.