Warmed and Bound: A Velvet Anthology (15 page)

Cari, this is Joelle. Joelle, Cari.

JOELLE (formerly GIRL) sneers at Cari, then drapes herself over Sam’s lap. He struggles to avoid her lips and she settles for his cheek while eyeing Cari.

CARI

I’m guessing she’s not your niece.

JOELLE

Bitch, I was you a year ago. But without the stretch marks. Or a Valtrex commercial on her reel. And a helluva lot more to live for.

CARI

(embarrassed, to Sam)

I don’t have herpes.

Sam closes his eyes and shakes his head, imploring Cari not to provoke their intruder, who stands up and crosses to her.

JOELLE

You. Sit here, right across from him. Sammy, stay where you are.

Joelle pushes Cari backwards into the matching oversized chair and straddles her, measuring her. She clasps both of Cari’s hands, fingers intertwined and cycling them like an exercise machine, then leans close as if to kiss her, and headbutts her at the last second. 

Cari’s eyes flutter and water as she sucks air between her teeth. Sam winces but remains silent. 

Joelle holds up Cari’s limp left hand, examining the DIAMOND RING on her engaged finger in the flickering light. 

JOELLE (CONT’D)

(to Sam, disappointed)

Seriously? 

Her mouth slowly engulfs Cari’s digit from nail to knuckle, and the ring is gone when she resurfaces. She displays her tongue for Sam, the gold band ringing the barbell pierced through it like a carnival game. She spits the ring back into the dazed Cari’s face. It tumbles between her cleavage and Joelle reaches up underneath her camisole to retrieve it, throwing a seductive grin back over her shoulder.

WHIP TO:

Sam, stoic. Blinks. A deep breath. As if she’d vanish if he only stopped believing in her.

Cari flexes her eye sockets wide and rubs her head. Joelle climbs off and massages the length of Cari’s arm like a phlebotomist preparing to draw blood. Unable to break the skin, she trails the ring with her black fingernail, digging into the flesh until Cari yelps and blood surfaces. Joelle’s eyes light up like Christmas morning, teeth flashing. 

SAM

Enough! What do you want?

JOELLE

What’s my motivation, you mean? Aren’t I supposed to be asking
you
that?

CARI

(groggy)

I want a Band-Aid. 

(beat)

And a big wedding. 

JOELLE

Aww, of course you do, sweetie.

CARI

In a nice hotel. Bon Jovi tribute band...

SAM

Let’s just get this over with.

JOELLE

Oh, no no no. Doesn’t work like that, Sammy. There’s no little magical transition to Happily Ever After on the Jersey shore. 

(then)

Wait.

(she freezes, whispers)

You hear that?

SAM

What?

JOELLE

Is that a... SWAT team outside?

Sam’s eyes dart to the corners of the room as he listens. Cari perks up her head. Nothing but the TONE ARM COCKING as another LP drops onto the turntable and MUTED TRUMPETS begin. Joelle laughs it all off.

JOELLE

Course not, dumbass. But I do have an idea.

SMASH CUT TO:

Crime-scene slides project themselves onto the wall inside Sam’s skull, dust motes suspended in the lamplight arcing through his grey matter. Each advance of the carousel one potential scenario, all flattened to two dimensions by blue-tinged, overexposed flash. 

Ligature rings around a purple neck. Next.

River bloat. Next.

Bludgeoned face. Next.

Amateur vasectomy. 

In his business they call this
pre-viz
: crude video storyboards created for approval before animators rend their artwork in full detail. But Sam’s vision had been compromised from the beginning.

Joelle seemed such a sweet girl when they first met on
Transplanters
. It was only a few days. He’d hired the special effects company where she apprenticed, glueing on silicone prostheses, blending makeup, and mixing batches of gore. Despite being starstruck by the actresses whom she disfigured so intimately, her people skills outshined the mouth-breathers back at the shop. She fantasized about someday being the one in that makeup chair, though Sam encouraged her continued craft specialization. Later, Joelle would toe the waters of many trades, each but a stepping stone to the Walk of Fame.

For five months they both got what they wanted from each other. He charted the territories of her young skin, sowing seed, while her networking tree took root. She loved finishing his sentence whenever he told someone she’d stolen his heart . . . “but only to make a mold from it.” And last Thanksgiving they shared his candlelit table much like tonight, when her pregnancy scare trumped his bent-knee proposal.

Her scare, not his. 

Sam beamed at the news, pledging his eternal commitment while praying for a son to redeem the one he’d lost to depression and vomit inhalation two years prior. But Joelle only saw the career derailment that came with birthing a child at twenty-three. Their embryo was already spoken of in past tense before its father could object. She wouldn’t say where or how, and flashbacks of the animatronic latex and red-dyed corn syrup in her old creature shop gave Sam nightmares for weeks.

Though she didn’t want to marry, Joelle wasn’t ready to abort their relationship. Sam cut the cord. His assistant delivered a carload of her belongings to the wardrobe department in Burbank where she’d most recently been working.

When Sam found gashes in all four sidewalls of his 7-Series parked outside the studio bungalow, he didn’t file for an
ex parte
. He didn’t employ an investigator, didn’t even bring it up with his therapist. He did change his house alarm code, but never saw Joelle again until tonight.

———

“How about,” Joelle says, “we play a little game. Like a twenty questions type thing.” Crouched next to Cari’s chair, she remains fixated on the woman’s fingers, once again holding a handful up for inspection. “Actually, ten makes more sense. Ten questions. Yeah?”

Sweat trickles down Sam’s nose, clinging under the tip until accumulating enough mass to drop and stain his trousers. “Something you wanna know, Joelle, just ask it.” He wriggles out of his blazer and tosses it onto the couch. 

Joelle clocks his every motion, coiled, irises dilated like anime. “Oh I will. But we need to establish the stakes. I mean, what happens when someone gets one wrong? Or lies?” She draws the word out like an accusation.

He takes off his cufflinks and tables them. “When have I ever lied to you?”

“Not to me. To her.” She rubs Cari’s shoulders from behind. “Though, by extension, to me, yes.”

Cari remains silent, not wanting to stoke any pre-existing drama. None of this is her doing, yet she can’t say she didn’t sign up for it. Producers make enemies, and she’s known her complicit role from the start, fiancée or otherwise. 

Sam rolls up his sleeves.

“One finger per question,” Joelle suggests with all the levity of a roulette dealer. “Sounds fair, right?”