Catch 26 Read online

  This was real.

  Maybe.

  Frannie fought back.

  “You’re not really a ‘gatekeeper’, are you, Randi? That was a trick with the finger.”

  “Aren’t I?”

  “Well, okay.” Let’s be fair here, she thought. “Let’s say you are. But here’s the thing … I mean I believe in the soul, I think. I’m not sure, but I think I might. But I’ve never believed in Hell, really. So what I’m trying to say is …” Oh, God, Frannie thought, are we talking religion here? “I don’t think I believe in boiling pits of Hellfire or horned demons. I’ll be honest with you, I don’t think I ever have.’

  Her companion sat, mute and watchful. Just as she’d been this morning when Frannie had melted down.

  “I hope you’re not angry.”

  No response.

  “And although you may actually work for this … Mrs. Antos, was it?”

  “Andros.”

  “Who might be a devil, the Devil, even – I don’t think I’ll end up in Hell because, well … there isn’t one. And this thing that seems to be happening now probably isn’t real.”

  She took a deep, liberating, breath, quite surprised at herself, although also a little bit proud of her newly hatched point of view. Not to mention this unfamiliar and, evidently, opinionated side of herself. She’d been kind of … leaking … the strangest things all day.

  The voice beside her, friendly still, sounded darker, somehow, older.

  “You don’t believe in Hell, Frannie? After Man – magnificent Man – has spent all these centuries inventing it, creating it, fleshing it out, so to speak?” Randi grinned, obviously amused by herself.

  “Painting it in loving, sadomasochistic detail?” she went on. “Gleefully, gothically, enlarging upon its seductive torments? Sermonizing from altars and in the media about its imminence? Relishing it. Practically rolling in it. Selling the hell out of it.” Randi barked a laugh. “And Frannie Turner – Frannie-sad-little-housewife-Turner – isn’t convinced? Where’s your imagination? Your sense of sin?”

  It’s real, Frannie decided.

  “I don’t seem to have either, I suppose. Well, okay, sin, yes. I’ve sinned now and then. But not really, um … sinned, I don’t think. Not in your sense of the word.”

  Lighting another cigarette from the first, Randi turned conversational.

  “To tell you the truth, I understand your reservations. Our old Hell and those old sins haven’t actually been altogether satisfactory for the last few thousand years. We know that. After all, it’s an overheated concept, don’t you think? Not to mention all that inflammatory art!” She snorted delicately. “No. The thing is, we came to realize that people need to completely taste the reality of Hell, to feel its unbearable pain. That’s why Mrs. A has recently started offering these new, call them ‘designer’ Hells. Each one custom-tailored to the individual soul. She’s been tinkering with the idea for the last couple of centuries.”

  “What do you mean? Custom-tailored?” Frannie asked, curious despite herself.

  “Oh, you know. Take one, rather obvious, example. Your Facebook addicts. More than a thousand ‘friends’ and we condemn them to eternal solitude. And then there are all your lying politicians and on-the-spectrum engineers. They’ve both got to relive emotionally painful childhood events in perpetuity. A sort of reverse-PTSD. For English speakers under thirty, every ‘fuck’ has to be replaced by a three-syllable word, and right-wing newscasters have to interview gay soldiers and transsexuals for Eternity. (We’d teach them how first, of course. On-the-job training, as it were.) And then, of course, there are the super-rich.”

  Randi’s eyes were jade now, greenly aglow in the shadows and smoke. Her body gave off a palpable heat (and an odor?). She was genuinely loving this.

  “The super-rich are punished by a significant tax on each utterance of ‘my, me, or mine.’ And on every single reference to money. Don’t you love that? Or how about this? Pretentious film critics get strapped down in screening rooms where people text continuously and never turn off their phones. They’re also forced to view The Story of Mankind in endless loops. The screams! The shrieks! Such fun for Mrs. A.!”

  Randi folded her hands on the tabletop and grinned. “Although none of this applies to you, really, does it?

  She became serious.

  “So what do you say, Frannie Turner. Want to make a deal?”

  Frannie’s thoughts ricocheted from Stanley in his chair to her cozy house to her friends and to Arlene before racing on to the books she’d read, the movies she’d seen, all the men she’d loved to have loved. Her thoughts paused for a moment at Power, dollops of dissolute power. Elizabeth Taylor floated through her thoughts for a millisecond. So did Monty Hall. She considered the Hell that she didn’t believe in and her eternal soul, if she actually had one. It was a very big thing, evidently, but hers was unbearably empty just now.

  “What’s the deal?” She heard her own voice come from low in her throat.

  Randi hugged her. And it burned. “Great!”

  “But I’ll admit I’m surprised about that Hell thing you mentioned. I was sure you’d be a believer. But, hey, I’m only human.” She opened Frannie’s pocketbook, rummaged through it and pulled out a handkerchief with an elegant monogrammed .

  “Is it roasting in here or is it me?”

  Pinching one fine nostril at a time, Randi daintily blew her nose into the handkerchief and returned it to Frannie’s purse.

  “But if you don’t mind a badly disguised sales pitch and a little more advice, well … here’s the real deal. What I’m offering you is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. So just don’t do with me what you did with Stanley, Mrs. T.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, shop a little this time. You shouldn’t decide before you’ve explored your options.”

  Those cherry lips. Those chiclet teeth. They knew where Frannie lived.

  “Options?” Frannie almost choked on the word.

  “For example, I’ve been empowered to offer you youth and beauty if you want them. Those come standard. But there are extras, as well. Things like a government position, say? Secretary of State? The vice-presidency? I’m afraid I can’t offer you the presidency yet: might be a tad too soon for that. But if those don’t tempt you, or seem a little much, maybe a simple MD and a cure for one of the lesser cancers? Non-Hodgkins lymphoma, maybe? Thyroid?” She fixed her avid eyes on Frannie’s own and laid a scorching hand on her shoulder. Frannie made a concentrated effort not to squirm. “I suspect you don’t have the stomach for the occasional death, though. Am I right?”

  Frannie sat, spellbound. Her mouth felt painfully dry.

  “Okay, so I’m right. So then there’s ophthalmology and macular degeneration, possibly. Or what about a doctorate in physics? How do you feel about String Theory? Or money. Do you want money? Not really you, I suspect. Although we’re offering really big sums here. Racing-stables money. Gulfstream money.”

  Randi hiked up her skirt. There were scars all over her thighs.

  “You could decide to be a man, of course. Though I can’t say I’d care for that myself. Wait, wait, I know! Monets? Rembrandts?” Interlacing her fingers, she winked at her mesmerized prey. “I’m getting warmer now, aren’t I?”

  With one thumb, Frannie traced the veining in the marble tabletop. She had to force herself to look at the hairdresser/gatekeeper/fiend.

  “Okay, now we’ve hit paydirt – art,” Randi said. “You could own bibelots like rhinoceros-horn cups. They’re supposed to have aphrodisiac properties, did you know? So useful, now and then.” Randi raked long fingers through her fiery hair. “Or jewels? Or pink diamonds? Blue? Klimt? Praxiteles? Fabergé?

  “In addition, I’m guessing, just guessing now, that Frannie Turner loves movies.”

  Of course she’d know that.

  “Or what about your own film studio? You could be a director, Frannie Lean! Frannie Hitchcock. Plumper, but so incredibly cool.
Wait. Even better … a movie star! Worshiped! Adored! Having – what’s that line? – ‘A billion shop girls ape you, a billion farmhands rape you?’ ” Randi squinted at Frannie’s face and frowned. “Maybe not.”

  ‘Okay, then, want to write the next Ulysses? Be a painter, perhaps? Some kind of avant-garde sculptor who suspends dead CEOs in formaldehyde. Now, that’d be a leap! And wait. Then you could sell them to live CEOs and hedge-fund guys for millions.” Randi mused. “I don’t see you as a rock star, though. More like an opera star, I think. Or how about this? The first female quarterback!”

  Randi was so excited she lit a third cigarette, unwrapped a piece of gum and put both in her mouth at once.

  “You’re getting the idea now, right?”

  Beside her, Frannie, a dumpy old doe in the headlights, mutely nodded.

  “Is it sinking in now that I can give you anything you’ve ever desired, Frannie? Anything. You can have, be, or do anything you want in this world. As long as you’re ours in the next.”

  Frannie turned away from her probing gaze to watch a young couple strolling past their booth, the boy riffling a handful of crisp bills.

  “So, you know,” she heard him say, “I thought I’d buy myself a headband.”

  The girl seemed delighted.

  “You’d have to own it, though,” she said. “Like, you’d have to own the eighties-ness of it.”

  Her partner stopped moving, his eyes widening at Randi. The money spilled out of his hand.

  “What? I missed that,” he said to the girl, as he knelt to gather his cash.

  Randi waited silently until they’d passed.

  “See? That’s my thing. I can turn it off, turn it on – at will.”

  And if it weren’t for the confusion filling her mind and the really unpleasant smell filling her nostrils (was Randi passing gas?) Frannie thought she’d could probably sit here all night, enjoying her pleasant little buzz and this fabulous nut, who was trying to woo her with a fantasy. She could be whatever she wanted to be. Sure. Miss Make-Yourself-Over-right-now, she thought.

  Her sales pitch complete, Randi relaxed into the velvety booth, stretched one perfect arm along its top and flashed her phosphorescent teeth at nothing.

  That pungent odor again. Frannie grabbed at her handbag, felt around for tissues and finding none – nor a used handkerchief either – she snapped it shut. Surreptitiously pinching her nostrils, she sat back as well. To think about fame. About money. About this stench. And success. And her soul.

  Randi was promising her beauty and youth. But they weren’t what she’d really sell her soul for.

  Randi hadn’t even touched on it. Why?

  Abruptly, she picked up her glass and downed the dregs. They tasted, just faintly, of char.

  Well, Randi, she thought, there were occasional advantages to being a sixty-six-year-old movie buff. After all, she’d seen The Devil and Daniel Webster, plus a lot of old Vincent Price, and she knew – knew beyond doubt – that no one made this particular deal without having a major something in writing. And that was why, if she was going to play along at all – and she was more and more tempted to (Tempted! Ha!) – this would need to be a legitimate business deal. With a contract.

  So she’d do it, she decided. Why not? She’d ask for a formal contract. In writing. With a loophole, of course. Because deals with the Devil always had a loophole in them, didn’t they? And while she actually didn’t believe in Hell, or in devils, or, most of the time, in souls – what if this was really real and she was wrong?

  Randi had shut her eyes and was nibbling her thumb.

  “Randi, I need to know, I mean, okay, let’s say there really are these portals and let’s say – though I may be drunk right now, or at home in bed dreaming this – you’re an emissary, in fact, for Mrs. Anders …”

  “Andros,” Randi interrupted her, annoyed.

  “Anyway, if I decide to do this, this, um, deal, can I ask for anything I want? And can we put it on paper? I mean I know there’s no court on earth that could challenge a thing like this, but if there really are deals with the Devil, Randi, and if all this hasn’t bubbled up from the Hell of my non-early- Alzheimer’s brain, then well.… there could be a heaven, too, couldn’t there?”

  Her companion, truly irritated now, it seemed, looked up at the smoke-heavy ceiling and rolled her eyes. But Frannie plowed on. “Still, heaven does like to write things down, doesn’t it. I mean, take Moses and the tablets, right? So I’d like to do that, too.”

  All complacency and charm suddenly, Randi folded her hands on the tabletop again. No nail polish, Frannie saw, but lots of lipstick, still. All juicy and red, as well, and with hair unmussed and cheeks as peachy as a child’s.

  “Tablets? You want tablets, Frannie dear? What – exactly – do you have in mind?”

  “Okay.” Frannie was encouraged by that “dear.” She grew almost articulate for the first time tonight. Nothing remotely like a suburban St. Louis housewife or a frightened old woman with nothing to lose but nothing to live for either.

  “So,” she began, “I’m sixty-six and old, as both of us have pointed out, and recently, well, that’s been getting, shall I say, hard? And yet, in my long – granted, dull – life, I’ve experienced a few of the things that people think make most people happy, but have found that, in fact, they don’t. I’ve also learned that no matter what you have or who you are, everybody’s crazy, and everybody’s hurt. That’s just the way life and things are.

  “So here I am, crazy and hurt and not a saint and really unhappy, if I’m honest, and all those accomplishments you’ve been offering, they’re incredibly tempting. And I’m truly appreciative, Randi. I am.” (Would she ever get over being Miss Manners?) “But I think they’re too rich for me. Kind of like lobster, these days. Perhaps if I were younger; perhaps if I were a man. But I’m an elderly woman. And I know exactly what I’d sell myself for. You know it, too. You’ve known it all along.”

  No reaction from Randi, who seemed to be eyeing another waitress. Frannie began to feel she’d been talking to herself. Quite possibly, she had.

  “So. A child, Randi. That’s my price. And if I’m allowed to ask for two things,” still no acknowledgment, “well, then, I’d want the reciprocal love of a wonderful man. That’s all. Although I guess I’d probably have to be younger for both – and beautiful, too, because beautiful would make the man part easier, right?”

  She’d been trying to sound nonchalant, but couldn’t quite carry it off. Her voice broke slightly.

  “If you can offer me that, we have a deal,” she said very softly now. “A bargain. A pact. Whatever you care to call it.”

  Randi’s silence was unsettling. Her courage was leaking away.

  Frannie squared her shoulders and summoned up the rest of what backbone she had.

  ‘But here’s the thing.”

  “If I’m able to get those things, this agreement is dissolved. I get to go on with my new life: my husband, if I have a husband, my child.’

  ‘So if I succeed, then you don’t get my soul.” (If it’s true I have a soul, Frannie thought once more.) She watched the milling gamblers hustling by.

  ‘Everyone hedges their bets.”

  Randi’s eyes followed hers. She shook herself a little, then turned to blind Frannie with that smile.

  “Okay, my friend. Really nice try, especially the maturity part. But here’s the way it’s going to go.”

  The girlfriend was gone.

  “You can give it all you’ve got to get that baby and that ‘soulmate’,” an ill-concealed sneer distorted her mouth –“but if you can’t manage to do that, well … you’ll get old again. You’ll get old. Though you won’t necessarily die right away. It won’t be that easy. You’ll age a lot. Get sick. Suffer considerable pain. And you’ll reach the point where you’ll consider sleep to be the best part of your day. Then you’ll die.’

  ‘And there will be no going back to anything, Frannie. No undoing anything. You cer
tainly won’t revert to this life, my dear. You won’t return to St. Louis – as if anyone would want to return to St. Louis. You don’t pass go. And if you fail, when you do finally die, then you and Mrs. A” – Randi smiled affectionately and toyed for a moment with Frannie’s middle finger – “well, let’s just say, from that day on, you’ll absolutely remember her name.”

  Frannie shut her eyes.

  “And all right, you want a written contract? Fine. But if you want things in writing, we’re only giving you a year.”

  Her eyes popped open.

  “Wait. I didn’t say that.”

  “I did.”

  She turned it over in her mind. The Devil was in the details, but God was in the details, too. And if she wasn’t hallucinating this, then this impossible, ludicrous, crazy, nightmare thing could be a miraculous second chance.

  A baby, a soulmate and youth.

  All she had to do was beat the clock.

  (She was nothing but clichés tonight!)

  Though she could still back out.

  “Do I have to give birth within a year, or just get pregnant?”

  “Whichever you like, my friend,” Randi answered pleasantly, applying an emery board to the pinkly-new oval nail on her middle finger. “We’re easy to get along with.” She looked over at Frannie, filing all the while, “And just to sweeten the deal, within that one-year time period – because we know it isn’t long – whatever you decide to do, how you do it, and who you do it with will be completely up to you. We’re just here to make you young and beautiful and give you your fifteen minutes, so to speak. In all its variants, it’s worked for thousands of years.”

  The nail file vanished into the scarlet clutch as she slid one arm around Frannie’s shoulders and hugged her really tight. This time, it didn’t burn. They were girlfriends again. Frannie and the popular girl who could also be the mean girl.