UnSouled

The limo turns up the semicircular driveway of a plantation-style mansion that is either very old or very new but made to look old, like so many things are. Town cars and limos line the driveway. Valets scramble to park the cars of the nonchauffeured guests.

“You know you’re in the highest echelon of society,” Roberta remarks, “when having to valet park a car is an embarrassment.”

Their limo stops, and the door is opened for them.

“Shine, Cam,” Roberta tells him. “Shine like the star you are.”

She gives him a gentle kiss on the cheek. Only after they step out and her attention is on the path ahead of them, does he wipe off the remnants of the kiss with the back of his hand.

* * *

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* * *

“Is it true what they say about you?” the pretty girl asks.

She wears a dress that’s a little too short for an event filled with gowns and tuxedos. She’s one of the only people Cam’s age at the gala.

“That depends,” he tells her. “What do they say?”

They are in a den in the mansion, away from the hustle and bustle of the crowded party. There’s a wall of leather-bound legal books, a comfortable chair, and a desk too large to be of any practical use. Cam wandered in here to escape from “shining” for the various rich and powerful guests. The girl had followed him in.

“They say that everything you do, you do like no other.” She moves toward him from the door. “They say that every part of you was handpicked to be perfect in every way.”

“That’s not me,” he says slyly. “I believe it’s Mary Poppins who claims to be practically perfect in every way.”

She chuckles as she gets closer to him. “You’re funny, too.”

She is beautiful. Clearly she is also starstruck. She wants to bask in his light, and he wonders if he should let her.

“What’s your name?”

“Miranda,” she says gently. “Can I . . . touch your hair?”

“Only if I can touch yours . . .”

She reaches for him tentatively at first, patting his hair, then running her fingers through the varied textures and colors.

“You’re so . . . exotic. I thought I’d be frightened to see you in person, but I’m not.”

She smells of vanilla and wildflowers—a scent that pings his memories in several nonspecific places. It’s a popular perfume among popular girls.

“Risa Ward is a bitch,” she tells him. “The way she dumped you on national TV. The way she played you, then tossed you away. You deserve someone better. Someone who can appreciate you.”

“Lockdown!” Cam blurts.

She smiles and saunters to the door. “There’s no lock,” she says, “but I can certainly close it.”

She shuts the door and is back in his airspace in an instant. He can’t even remember her moving there; it’s like she dissolved from the door into his embrace. He’s not thinking clearly. There’s too much input to handle, but for once that’s a good feeling.

She undoes his bow tie. He knows he can’t tie it again, but he doesn’t really care. He holds her in his arms, and she leans forward, kissing him. When she pulls away from the kiss, it’s only for a moment to catch her breath. She looks at him with intense mischief in her gaze. She leans in for another kiss that is far more explorative than the first. Cam finds he’s no slouch when it comes to this. Muscle memory, he supposes, for the tongue is most definitely a muscle.

She pulls away again, even more breathless than before. Then she presses her cheek against his, with her lips by his ear, and she whispers so quietly he can barely hear her.

“I want to be your first,” she says. She presses closer to him, the fabric of her dress hissing on the fine weave of his tuxedo.

“You seem like a girl who gets what she wants.”

“Always,” she tells him.

Cam didn’t come here looking for this. He could turn her away, but why? Why refuse this when it’s offered to him so freely? Besides, he finds that the mention of Risa has made him defiant. It’s made him want even more to be here in the moment with this girl whose name he’s already forgotten.

He kisses her again, matching her building aggression.

That’s when the door swings open.

Cam freezes. The girl steps away from him, but it’s too late. Standing in the doorway is a distinguished man looking even more intimidating in his tuxedo than Cam looks in his.

“Get your hands off my daughter!”

As his hands are already off the man’s daughter, there’s not much more he can do but stand there and let this play out.

“Daddy, please! You’re embarrassing me!”

Now others arrive, curious at the building drama. The man’s glare never falters, as if he’s practiced it professionally. “Miranda, get your coat. We’re leaving.”

“Daddy, you’re overreacting. You always overreact!”

“You heard me.”

Now waterworks abound. “Why do you always have to ruin everything!” Miranda wails, then stomps out in tears, wearing her humiliation like a war wound.

Cam is not sure how to respond to all this, so he doesn’t. He slips his hands into his pockets, lest he still be accused of having them all over Miranda as she races down the hall, and he keeps a resolute poker face. The furious man looks like he might spontaneously combust.

Roberta arrives, hesitates, and asks, “What’s going on here?” She sounds uncharacteristically weak and powerless, which means this must be even worse than Cam thinks it is.

“I’ll tell you what’s going on,” growls the man. “Your . . . thing . . . was trying to have its way with my daughter.”

“Actually, she was trying to have her way with me,” Cam says. “And she was succeeding.”

That brings forth muted laughter from several in attendance.

“Do you expect me to believe that?” He stalks forward, and Cam pulls his hands out of his pockets, ready to defend himself if necessary.

Roberta tries to come between them. “Senator Marshall, if you’ll just—”

But he pushes her aside and wags a finger in Cam’s face. Part of Cam wants to reach up and break that finger. Part of him wants to bite it. Another part wants to turn and run, and yet another part wants to laugh. Cam reins in all those conflicting impulses and holds his ground without flinching as the senator says:

“If you come anywhere near my daughter, I will see to it that you are taken apart piece by bloody piece. Do I make myself clear?”

“Any clearer,” says Cam, “and you’d be invisible.”

The senator backs off and turns his rage to Roberta. “Don’t come looking for my support for your little ‘project,’ ” he hisses, “because you won’t get it.” Then he storms out, leaving an air of oppressive silence in his wake.

Roberta speechlessly looks to Cam with helpless disbelief. Why? Those eyes say. Why have you spat on all I’ve tried to give you? You’re ruined, Cam. We’re ruined. I’m ruined.

And then in the silence one man begins to applaud. He’s slightly older and larger around the middle than Senator Marshall. His heavy hands let loose a frightful peal as he brings them together. Clappers must envy him.

“Well done, son!” says the large man with a heavy Southern drawl. “I’ve been trying to get under Marshall’s skin for years, and you’ve managed to do it in a single evening. Kudos to you!” Then he lets loose a grand guffaw, and the tension bursts like a soap bubble.

One woman in a shimmering gold gown and a champagne glass in hand puts her arm around Cam and speaks with a slight alcoholic slur. “Trust me. You’re not the first boy Miranda Marshall has tried to devour whole. The girl is an anaconda!”

That makes Cam giggle. “Well, she did try to wrap herself around me.”

Laughter from all those gathered. The large man shakes his hand. “But we haven’t properly met, Mr. Comprix. I’m Barton Cobb, senior senator from Georgia.” Then he turns to Roberta, who looks as if she’s just stepped off a roller coaster. “You have my unconditional support for your project, Miss Griswold, and if Marshall doesn’t like it he can stick it where the sun don’t shine ’cept Tuesday.” He guffaws again, and as Cam looks around, it seems as if the entire party has moved into the library. Introductions are made—even people he’s already shaken hands with step forward to introduce themselves again.

Cam had arrived at the party as a novelty—a decorative mascot to add some flavor—but now he’s the very center of everyone’s attention. That’s a role he’s much more at home with, and so the more attention he gets, the more relaxed he becomes. The more spotlights, the fewer shadows.

Roberta is also at her best when he’s the center of attention. A tiger moth beating about his light. He wonders if she has the slightest clue how much he despises everything she stands for. And the odd thing of it is, he doesn’t even know what she really stands for, which makes him despise it even more.

“Cam,” she says, gently taking his elbow and manipulating him toward a man in uniform who clearly doesn’t move for anyone. “This, Cam, is General Edward Bodeker.”

Cam shakes the man’s hand and gives a polite obligatory bow. “An honor, sir.”

“Mutual,” says the general. “I was just asking Miss Griswold if you’ve considered a future in the military.”

“I don’t rule out anything, sir,” Cam tells him. It’s his favorite nonanswer.

“Good. We could put a young man like you to good use.”

“Well, sir, the only problem with that is that there are no ‘young men like me.’ ”

And the general laughs warmly, clapping a fatherly hand on his shoulder.

The tension from just a few minutes ago is completely forgotten. Apparently he’s made the right enemy, because now he has many, many friends.

4 • Night Manager

It’s a disease, plain and simple, rotting out the world from the inside out. Clappers! Goddamn clappers. Everywhere. A disease.

The night manager of the 7-Eleven on Palm Desert Drive has nothing much to do for most of his nights but mull over the state of his middle-aged life, the modern-age world, and the tabloids, which, aside from alien and dead celebrity sightings, just love to report on clapper carnage. Blood and gore at a fifth-grade reading level for your entertainment and pleasure. An office building taken out here, a restaurant blown sky-high. The latest clapper attack was at a freaking fitness club, for God’s sake. They just walked into the gym without as much as a hello-how’dya-do, and boom! Poor bastards working out didn’t stand a chance. Not much you can do to escape lead weights flying like shrapnel.