Lightning Strikes the Soul Chapter 4

Lightning Strikes the Soul

Chapter 4

The doorman swishes the door open with a grand gesture. “I'll ring her residence,” he says as the elevator doors slide open. It stops on the fourteenth floor  and double french doors greet me. Maybe Holly's looking though the peep hole, because the door opens immediately and perfumed air wafts around me. She leans forward and kisses the air on the right side of my face, then the left. Her eyes travel down and she spots Peerless in his cage.

“What is that?” She gasps and withdraws, covering her nose.

Peerless signs a rude gesture and I agree. “I’m sorry. I forgot to tell you he’s coming with me.” I hold out a bag of litter and his box.

“Oh, poo; I detest cats.” She waves her arm toward a door. “You can put him in the coat closet.”

Peerless signs “furious,” but relaxes when he sees the closet is about the size of my bedroom. I set up the litter box and Peerless stalks from his cage. I ease toward the door, pause, and twist my left palm. “It’s the only way, buddy.”

His tale stiffens. “How dare you lock me in here?” His communication skills are blossoming.

I lean against the closed door. This is the perfect place to begin my charade. Polished oak floors run in every direction. A waterfall—waterfall?— gushes between two glass walls. Windows stretch their six feet, and illuminate the interior. A fire burns over crystallized ice. “Let me guess. Hans designed this before he fell on the floor in church.”

“Yeah, and now all I see is he twitching body. I need to call in another interior designer, and change the energy flowing through here.” Taking my elbow, she guides me down two small steps into her living room.

"Want a cup of coffee? I just made some.”

I trail behind in my sneakers, watching her sash-say to the kitchen. She’s graceful and coordinated, like she’s walking down a runway. If I’m an automatic author, she’s an automatic diva. I’d kill for her body.

She notes my trembling hand. “Nervous?” she asks, raising one arched eyebrow.

“No, I drank six cups of coffee. Do you have any decaf?”

“Not a problem.” She pours the freshly brewed—apparently caffeinated—coffee down the drain. “Go relax in the living room while this brews.”

In a flash, she returns with a tray bearing two mugs of coffee. The coffee maker must run on a limited quantum computer.

“Cream or sugar?” Her voice sounds like a combination of the two, dreamy and sweet.

“No, black’s fine, thanks.”

We blow on the coffee; two women, one chic, the other, well, me. Holly’s watching me over the rim of the mug. I read the first impression, which takes about thirty seconds, makes the greatest impact. Women assess in two seconds.

She sips her coffee and looks out the window. I follow her gaze, and watch the noiseless morning traffic pass. It’s nothing like my place, where the train rattles my cupboards every hour as it trundles along the tracks by the Susquehanna River.  I feel her staring at me and realize she looked out the window to cover her despair when she checked me out. 

“Let’s start with what’s in that backpack.” One finger eases the zipper and she peers inside. “I suppose you saved these from high school?” She sniffs and pokes around. “Oh.” Handling it like toxic waste, she plops my backpack outside the door, either for the trash collector, or one may hope, the dry cleaning service.

“Oh, Kiska, just go with the moment. Live a little.” She grabs my arm and pulls me down an endless corridor. We wind up in a bedroom-closet.

“Holly!”

“What's wrong?” A single wrinkle almost forms near her mouth before the muscle relaxes. Apparently, everything's “botoxed-away,” or she has no emotions to texture her face.

She grabs a comb, or something, and whisks her hair atop her head fashioning a crown.  Looking like a queen, she towers over my five-foot-seven frame. I can’t resist studying her, and she knows it. She pirouettes.

“Like my Double-D’s? I just finished paying for them. They look so natural.”

“Um  —” they look like two bowling balls.

“Okay, come on, let Diva Holly reinvent you.” She guides my elbow farther into the dark recesses of her closet and hits the lights. The bulbs explode behind my retinas. I wince, and massage my eyes with the heels of my palm.

“Anything wrong?” she asks, moving closer, like she's breathing me in.

“No, just tired.” I arch my cramped shoulders. Her fingers press against my skin and massage in circular, slow motions. “Holly, that feels so good.”

“That’s because women know what other women like.” Her soothing strokes run down the front of my T-shirt and my nipples harden. Her fingers retreat to my shoulders and she urges me forward.

“Before my boob job, I looked about your size." She pulls my T-shirt over my head.

“Holly!”

You’d never make it as a model, Kiska. Embrace your body." She cups both breasts and thumbs the nipples.  You’re a 32B, right?” Holly walks away like she owns the world leaving my body tingling. Her cell phone chirps.

“Holly Hollister.” I listen to the void before she answers the caller. She drawls her words as if scanning her schedule drains her. “No,” she pouts. “I'm booked solid next week.”

She holds up one finger in my direction. “I'll only be a minute. Paris in February? That’s impossible, darling. I have April in Bosnia available.” She sighs and flicks her pen, on, off, on, off.

I wonder if the sigh and the clicks together convey some meaning.

My mind drifts to the mention of my sister, Jude. I think her name in my head; I don’t know what to expect.  I visualize Peerless signing “You’re unhinged, you know.” A response forms in my head. “That’s really helpful, Peerless, thanks.” Maybe I can teach him sign-imaging.

Holly's phone keeps chirping, and now it's the two finger gesture: “This will only take a few minutes.” Her pen clicks on and off, on and off, every few seconds. The “few minutes” gobble up sixty of them.

“I’m sorry, precious, I never anticipated those calls. These,” she gestures in a circular motion that encompasses the entire closet, “are all the dresses I bought when I had tiny boobs like yours. More than a handful’s a waste, right?”

Gown after gown dazzles me as she selects and rejects at least fifty, before settling on three. Just when I think she’s done torturing me, the shoes appear.

I pick up Holly's pen and now I'm the clicker. My on-off pattern triples hers.

“Kiska, give me that pen.” I hand it over, but start flicking my Bic. It’s been hours since I smoked and I’m ready to die. She tosses six pairs of shoes on the bed. Five-inch heels spike at various angles. All I see is my twisted foot imprisoned in one. I shake my head, the universal sign language for “no way.”

“Oh, shit, Kiska. Don’t you know anything about being a woman?” Her eyes narrow and creases form around them. “Practice in these.” She presses a pair of steeple-heeled sandals against my chest. “I have to do your make-up.” She gestures toward a mirrored room. Counters littered with hundreds of elegant bottles and jars display foreign labels. She opens one and smoothes lotion across her face where emotion flared.

“Holly, seriously?”

“Modeling has its perks. People ask me to try their products. Now, sit.” I endure her fussing for thirty minutes.

“Sweetheart, you look positively ravishing.” She hands me a mirror. A stripper or hooker looks back at me. When I blink, lashes sweep down nearly to my cheekbones; Holly thinks the fake ones she glued on look natural.

In short order, my Gucci luggage is packed with pinching, grasping and squeezing clothes and shoes. Holly says beauty hurts.  Bottles, exquisite and exotic, fill a separate cosmetic bag.

“Siska—“

“Kiska.”

“Yeah, sorry. Times up. I’m out the door. Veg-out on the couch. You need anything, ring the doorman. He’ll get it.”

She opens the closet door to retrieve her coat and purse. And screams. I’m guessing Peerless showed her his tail end. She slams the door and her sigh sounds more like swearing.

“Uh—sorry, Holly.”

“I’ll be back around three to get you dressed before your ride shows up.”

After waiting five minutes, I sneak over to the coat closet and retrieve Peerless. We cuddle together on the couch, and I play some x-rated DVD’s. When in Paris—

When Holly wakes me a DVD is still playing. I look up in time to see Cookie lower her body over Sweet Dick’s—dick.

“Siska,”

“Holly, please. My name is Kiska.”

“Maybe you should change it. No one can pronounce it.”

No one as in you?

“Follow me. I know exactly the outfit to wear for the trip.”  She lays a few garments over my arms. “Let me zip and button.”

“Holly, I can’t breathe.”

“Don’t be silly.” She throws her arms around me, hugging and rocking us together. “You look positively scrumptious. Yummy, I’d like to eat you up.”

Seriously?

She releases me from her embrace, settles her hand on my back—a little too low for comfort—and propels me toward a mirror. “Ta-da,” she exclaims.

The girl in the mirror is wearing a pink cashmere suit with mink fur at the collar and cuffs.  I gag. An animal died to adorn this sweater. Underneath the sweater, a tight blue bodice pushes up my breasts. The pink heels look ridiculous—it’s snowing outside. Holly is deranged.

“Really, darling, take a breath.” The diva fades and an impish face appears. “Be wild and crazy, party-down, girl. I want to hear all the smut and gossip.” The diva face returns.  She points to the closet. “And don’t forget that animal.”

I retrieve Peerless from his prison and he stares me down. “Next time, you go in the closet.” We cuddle until his rumbling purr signals forgiveness.

Fear is stalking behind all the glam, but Holly’s doorman rings before a panic attack consumes me.



Continue to "Lightning Strikes- Chapter Five"