The third most famous industry scream was The Goofy Holler, but the less said about that the better.
A chime sounded. Her phone, sitting on the mixing console, it chimed again.
From the bed, the girl said, “You have a call.”
Mitzi lifted the phone and held it to show the photo of a man. “My boyfriend. Jimmy.”
“He’s cute,” said the girl, squinting.
Mitzi considered the photograph of a shaggy-haired greaser wearing an oil-stained bandanna knotted around his head. “You’re still delirious.” She waited for the call to go to voicemail. “He wants to hook up.” She lifted her chin and turned her head to display some fading purple bruises around her neck. Doing so, she watched the monitor. Watching and rewatching the short clip the production company had asked her to loop. The monitor positioned so the girl on the bed couldn’t see it. Mitzi knew she was droning on, but she needed the girl to be fully awake. There’d be no chance for a second take.
She lifted a FedEx mailer and felt the surprising weight inside it. Something so long and thin yet so heavy, it had to be metal. The shape of it obscured by layers of Bubble Wrap.
Healthy as the girl looked, hers wasn’t the body type casting agents kept on file. Her lips parted. As if praying, she continued to whisper, “English muffins…biscuits and gravy…”
Mitzi stretched a latex glove over one hand. Watching the meters pulse softly, she stretched on the second glove then began to bundle her hair under a cloth surgical cap.
Clear as the girl’s skin was, it hid nothing. Her face and neck flushed red while her hands and feet faded to a blue-white. Her breathing grew shallow. Beads of sweat pebbled her chest and belly.
On the mixing console a bottle of pinot gris sweated in a chrome bucket of ice. A cloisonné saucer held a few pills. Always the same saucer enameled with pink poppies, those flowers of forgetfulness. Always Ambien in the strongest dose available. Mitzi poured a glass of wine and took a few sips with a pill.
She wondered if Jack Mormons prayed. If they had prayers to recite when they found themselves naked and tied spread eagle in an acoustically perfect recording studio.
The Ambien seemed to push the blood through her veins a bit faster. The typical side effect had started, the mania. Before conking out, people on Ambien reportedly binged on ice cream. They went on internet or cable-television shopping sprees. Engaged in marathon sex with strangers. Even committed murder. Murders for which they’d later be acquitted because they had no memory of the event.
That was crucial, to have no memory of the event.
She poured her glass full again. With latex fingers she lifted a second pill from the saucer and drank it down.
On the video monitor the actors dressed as Confederate soldiers attacked the actress in the bed, the scene looping over and over again.
Mitzi reached up and pulled the shotgun mic a skosh closer to the girl’s mouth. At a keyboard she typed in the name of this new file. Using a felt-tipped pen, she wrote the same on an old-style DAT cartridge. She wrote: Praying Girl, Stabbed Brutally, Rapid Exsanguination. She asked, “Now, Shania, tell me what else you ate for breakfast, please.”
Pain never brought about the best results. No, severe pain only triggered shock. A doomed catatonia, silence as the last refuge of a mortally wounded animal playing possum. Only dread and terror brought out a marketable recording. A masterpiece.
Her voice reduced to a whisper, hushed as if she were praying, the girl said, “Two fried eggs…an English muffin…”
Mitzi tore open a small plastic package containing two foam rubber plugs. With latex fingers she twisted one until it would fit inside of her ear.
The girl stopped after “…orange juice.” Her eyes intent on Mitzi, she asked, “Will this be noisy?”
Mitzi nodded, twisting the second earplug into a small, tight cylinder. It wasn’t lost on her that this army of microphones would continue to record even as the sleeping pills short-circuited her own memory. She struggled to recall the girl’s name and how they’d met.
Before Mitzi could insert the second earplug, the girl asked, “Would you do me a favor?” Maybe she was still high, or it could’ve been denial, but the girl said, “I hate loud noise. Can I have earplugs, too?”
The monitors, their needles bounced softly with the request.
Mitzi was tearing open the express package, about to remove and unwrap the knife. But she considered the request. There was no reason the poor girl should have to listen. Mitzi drained her glass of wine. Swallowed another Ambien. She tore open a new package of foam plugs and twisted each before inserting it into the girl’s warm, soft ears.
The face, the girl’s blushing, teary-eyed face, mouthed the words, “Thank you.”
Mitzi answered, “You’re very welcome,” but neither woman could hear the other.
Only the huddled microphones heard, leaning in, ready to collect the sound of what would have to happen next.
Foster asked to be seated with his back to the door. So he could hear her before she came into sight. For that same reason he’d arrived early and chatted up the maître d. He’d drunk half his Scotch when a voice behind him said, “Hello.”
A young woman said, “My name is Lucinda, and I’m meeting my father for lunch.”
He didn’t turn, but waited.
“He’s very handsome. Very distinguished,” the voice added.
A man’s voice, the maître d’s, said, “Right this way, please.”
It was worth the wait when she came into sight. Her mother’s auburn hair, Lucinda wore it down on her shoulders the way he liked it best. His own blue eyes looked back at him as he stood to greet her. She was wearing the dress he’d bought for her in Singapore. The one she’d modeled on Instagram. They kissed cheeks. To the
