Soul Survivor (a novel)

Soul Survivor, a novel by Susan Hopkins

Chapter 1: The Lead Players – Baby

Baby had been on television and in the news since she was, well, a baby. Now, as an adult woman in her mid-twenties, fame wasn’t something she consciously craved. It was as normal to her as drinking water is to you and me. And as necessary to her survival. Her image was a staple of trashy magazines, although a tarnished and fading one, recently chronicled by “then” and “now” photos. The “then” photos included a shot of Baby in a white and gold jump suit, make-up perfect, brown eyes sultry, from her Vegas headlining show of three years ago, one of a series of sold-out concerts across the country. Her pose in that shot was completely self-confident. She stood, legs apart, manicured hands posed just below her hips where her thighs began, chest thrust forward, mostly barred by the wide open zipper of the jumpsuit, lips shining wet, slightly parted. The “now” photos were strikingly unglamorous. Baby, dragging deeply on a cigarette, a baseball cap pulled low over her forehead, hair frizzy and over-bleached, wearing a flannel shirt and leggings or jeans. Baby, pushing a cart in the supermarket, hair covered by a kerchief, loading up on ice cream, potato chips, beer.

Marriage had been a mistake. Two children quickly followed. Her fans wondered, was she so dumb she didn’t know how to use birth control? The answer to that question wasn’t anything her publicist wanted in the press. She couldn’t take the pill because of the combination of smoking and migraines. Her physician was concerned about potential side effects. An aunt of hers had a stroke on the pill. Baby didn’t want to take the risk. She couldn’t deal with a diaphragm (yuck!) and a friend of hers had gotten pregnant using one anyway. And condoms, as far as she was concerned, didn’t just get in the way of getting pregnant and transmitting sexual diseases. They got in the way period. So she let herself be swept away and got pregnant. Twice. In less than two years. By the same man, a man she didn’t even like anymore. No matter how good he was in bed. And she had both babies. She was proud of herself for that.

Baby liked being pregnant. She liked indulging her appetites after so many years of being told what not to eat by her mother/manager. She liked her own weightiness, and she especially liked the new, natural fullness of her breasts. She liked nursing although not in a particularly maternal way.

Her husband grew more and more distant from her, as she became less tolerant of him. She hired a body guard to accompany him when he went to the clubs, something she no longer had any desire to do. Not that the body guard did any good. She read, in a tabloid, stories of her husband and the body guard partying and womanizing together, complete with photos. So she fired the body guard. She didn’t need to pay a man a salary to participate in those goings on (for which she also paid, in more ways than just money).

She fantasized about firing her husband. He was more like a bad employee than a life partner. She thought about giving him two weeks notice and a severance package to clear out. By then, though, she knew that what she’d initially mistaken for adoration and desire for her was greed, a thirst not likely to be quenched by a short term payout. And there were the children. He could make her life hell by putting up a fight for custody, and threatened exactly that when they fought. Baby didn’t think of herself as a great mother, but she wasn’t letting go of the two creatures she’d given up so much for to bring into the world.

At least she could still look good when she wanted to. She’d made it a point to get back in shape in the last several months. She dropped the extra weight from the second pregnancy quickly with the help of a trainer. Her publicist spread the word that she was “dancing the weight off,” preparing for a return to Las Vegas.

Baby put a poster of herself up in her in-home gym and workout room. It was the one of her wearing the white Elvis-referencing sequined jumpsuit she’d worn in that last stage show, before she was married, before she got pregnant. That jumpsuit had been skin tight and hot as hell to dance in, but it sure photographed well. Her goal was not to look like that again, but even better. She’d been a girl then. Now she was a woman. She figured that should count for something.

Marty Taylor, her agent, however, said he was having a hard time finding production financing for a Las Vegas comeback. Marty became Baby’s agent when she fired her mother/manager and the staff of her mother’s friends who had run Baby’s career since prepuberty. Marty had gotten Baby the Vegas booking and concert tour right before she got married and pregnant.

“Producers are afraid people don’t want to see Baby, mother of two, vamping it up the way you used to,” said Marty. Baby raged back, “So find other producers! Celine Dion has a child! She’s performing in Vegas! Who’s producing her shows?”

“Her husband. And he isn’t taking on other acts. Besides, Celine has a very different image than you do, Baby. Motherhood enhances her image. And she’s got great pipes.”

“When did you become President of her fan club?” Baby threw back at him. Marty winced.

“You’ve made a fortune playing the tart, Baby. People want tarts to stay tarts and mothers to be mothers.”

“What about Madonna? She plays both!” shouted Baby.

“Fair point,” said Marty, raising his hands in the air, palms up. “I’ll make some more calls. But I’m telling you, Baby, there’s only so much I can do.”

Baby shouted back a string of words so foul that, were anyone to overhear, they would have no doubt about which came more naturally to her, motherhood or tawdry sexpot. Marty, having heard it all before, was not impressed.

“Swearing at me isn’t going to get you a headline in Vegas,” he said. “Although it may get you quoted in one of those supermarket magazines you have such a knack for getting your picture in lately. It doesn’t help when you’re photographed looking like trailer trash, Baby. Get your picture taken looking like you look right now. Give me something to work with!”

Baby considered tears, but decided it wasn’t worth the effort. She’d try flirting instead. If nothing else, it would be good practice.

“I’m sorry, Marty. I’m frustrated! I’ve made some mistakes. I’m working hard to put them behind me. You know I have complete faith in you,” she said, with a slow smile. “What I’d really like to do is put on a good show and raise enough money to leave Keith,” she said, playing with the open collar of her shirt. Marty’s eyes followed her fingers as they splayed on her chest, just above her left breast, then moved to the flat spot in-between the pair.

“Are things really that bad?” he said.

“You were right, Marty. I should have gotten him to sign a prenup. Next time I’ll listen to you.”

“I’m sorry to hear that, Baby,” he said, getting up from his chair behind his desk and coming around to sit next to her on the couch.

She stood up, started to walk away from him, then, recalling she’d left her purse on the couch, turned around and walked back. With a pretty, “Excuse me,” she leaned over him to retrieve it. His hands were drawn towards her hips as if by magnets. He made contact, pulling slightly, testing the idea of bringing her down to him. She hesitated, just as slightly, as if not noticing his intent.

“Marty, I’ve had the biggest crush on you since I don’t know when. But…” she drew the word out like it was long and hard to say. Her face became a little flushed, her blood warming at his touch.

“I’m not even separated yet.”

“Baby,” he pleaded.

“I’ll tell you what,” she said. “You help me get that booking, I’ll talk to an attorney and then…” she said with a sigh. “I bet you know a good divorce attorney, Marty, don’t you?’

He let go of her. She stood up and stepped back.

“Sure I do,” he said. “I’ll call you with the number.”

“Call me with some good news, alright?” she said, walking out of the office. She paused in the doorway and turned around to give him a full view of her newly toned body and another slow smile, like a gift before leaving. “Give us something to celebrate.”

Read this latest chapter of my novel, or start reading at Chapter 1.

Chapter 2: The Lead Players – Jack

Jack didn’t want to live this way anymore. That’s what he said at the press conference the morning after he’d gotten out of bed, into his car and been pulled over by the police for driving through an intersection with a stop sign without stopping, side-swiping two cars and coming to rest half-way inside a neighbor’s house, having gone clear through the closed garage door. The car that had been parked inside the garage was pushed through a wall into the house and now took up most of the kitchen.

“Thank God no one was hurt,” Jack said. “Including me,” he thought. At least physically. Although detox would be painful, he knew, having been through it twice before. He also knew this latest event would cost him plenty in the next election. Jack kept imagining the conversation he’d yet to have with Andy, his full-time aid, campaign manager and “handler” about that. He replayed it in his mind over and over, as if it had already happened, perhaps because he had no recollection of the car wreck at all.

His father the congressman stood by Jack at the press conference, defending his prodigal son, who was, after all, following in the footsteps of a father who had also once been the prodigal son, even more so. “I am proud of my son,” said his father, “for taking responsibility for his actions and doing what he needs to do to break free from the problem of addiction, a problem he shares with millions of people in this country.” Later that night, in the privacy of his own home, Jack’s father drank whiskey neat, sucked on a cigar and asked Jack’s mother, “What the hell is he doing? If Jack wants to kills himself, I wish he’d just get it over with and quit shaming the family in the process. I’m still in office, damn it. He’s not the only one who has to worry about impacting the voters. It’s not just his own career he’s flushing down the toilet!”

Jack’s fledgling political career, in this day and age, would survive this hiccup, he thought and his father said, publicly. “Just tell them how sorry you are,” his father said to him, privately. “Be courageous in your public confession, if nothing else. Tell them you know how sacred life is, how you value their trust in you, how deeply you regret disappointing them, and us, your family. That you know what you must do and you won’t shirk from it. They’ll eat that shit up,” his father said.

“You should know,” Jack said back. His father swung at him, aiming in the direction of Jack’s jaw, then caught himself, staggering back, whiskey spilling out of his glass. Jack shook his head, a low laugh escaping him, more a spasm than a sign of real mirth. He never thought to strike back at his father. Jack had learned how to anticipate, dodge and avoid being hit years ago.

Jack said all those things, exactly as his father advised him to. Television cameras simultaneously transmitted and recorded his humility, to be broadcast again and again over the next forty-eight hours until the next news event happened to replace him, to be archived for reference by future competitors the next time he ran for public office. A physician who had not treated Jack provided commentary on Jack’s medical history: a previous back injury for which pain killers had been prescribed; insomnia treated with sleeping pills. News commentators commented on Jack’s ongoing problem with alcohol, public information since Jack had been expelled from a private high school years ago. One station ran a feature on the dangers of mixing prescription medications and alcohol. The Associated Press issued a release on one of Jack’s ex-girlfriends who disclosed the reason for their break-up, a combination of pills, alcohol and back-injury which had put a strain on the relationship and rendered him incompetent in bed. Jack’s father laughed out loud when he read that over his breakfast of scrambled eggs and ketchup.

“Well, well,” he said to his wife, “if Jack can’t get back into politics when he gets out, at least he’ll be able to advertise pharmaceuticals!”

Back at his parent’s house after the press conference, Jack took off the suit and tie and put on sweatpants and a t-shirt. He thought he might as well get used to what he thought of as his rehabilitation uniform. “You’ll put a suit on before you leave this house,” his mother said. “You don’t want to do any more damage to your image and this family than you’ve already done.” That comment from his mother confirmed what Jack assumed was being said the last few nights when he had been lying in his old bedroom listening to the rumble of his father’s voice down the hall late into the night, although words were indistinguishable.

The next day he had to walk a gauntlet of reporters to get from his parents’ house to the car waiting to take him to the rehabilitation center. He paused and spoke with conviction about his “leave of absence” from his role as state senator for a small, northeastern state, optimism about his return to office after rehabilitation, and confidence in his ability to win the battle before him. “I know a lot of people are counting on me to beat this,” he said, “and I will.”

He looked into the eyes of the cameras with as much sincerity and courage as he could muster, thinking, at that moment, that he hoped his request for a different room at the rehabilitation center than the one he’d been in the last time he was there would be accomodated. He really did want to make a fresh start.

Marc Ryan made Vice President ten months before his fortieth birthday.  It was an achievement with many benefits, only fitting given the sacrifices he’d made to get it.  On the plus side, things like helicoptering to Whistler in the winter for conferences with afternoon ski breaks, a generous expense account that wasn’t monitored closely enough to catch his billing occasional use of an escort service to the company.  On the minus side, an estranged wife and two children who were growing up without him, like he had grown up without his own father.  His father has abandoned Marc and his mother when he was five years old.  Marc abandoned his children in a more subtle way than by actually leaving.  He traveled often on business, and was on e:mail and teleconferences when at home or on vacation.

Marc was comfortable telling other people what to do, and used to them doing it.  That’s what had gotten him where he was.  So he was taken by surprise when Sheila, his wife of nine years, told him she’d decided to leave him and take the children with her.  “We’re moving to Hawaii,” she said.  They’d had a vacation home on the island of Kaui for years.  It didn’t seem a likely place for a single mother to raise two children.  But Sheila was good at making the unlikely seem logical after the fact, by sheer force of will and openness to opportunity.

Kaui was a five hour flight from San Francisco, a world apart, but not completely  inaccessible.  Marc tried to imagine Sheila living full time away from the idyllic suburban setting they’d lived in for the last two years in Burlingame, California, a village forty-five minutes south of San Francisco.  They lived in a house that looked like a Chateau but was on a tree-lined street closely flanked by other houses, within walking distance of restaurants,  beauty salons and the children’s school.  The townhouse in Kaui was at the end of a two lane road, overlooking the ocean, a twenty minute drive from the nearest supermarket.

Within a month, Sheila and the kids had moved.  Marc worked even longer hours.  His direct reports were at first surprised to turn on their computers in the morning and find e:mails from Marc sent at 3:00 and 4:00 a.m.  He got the question he dreaded from Frank Drucker, his Associate Director. “Hey Marc, did you have a fight with Sheila?” and found he was able to deflect it by simply not answering.  After a few weeks his team grew accustomed to the e:mails at odd hours, adjusting to handle the additional volume of work Marc generated in his extra waking hours.

Marc did what he’d done before, channeling his energy into laser-like focus on the next promotion.  When he realized that promotion would take years at the company he was at, assuming it would happen at all, he started looking at other companies.  He found reasons to make trips to New York, and used the leads he gained in conversation with industry analysts to identify a start-up that needed a charismatic CEO with a background that fit his qualifications.  Things fell into place.  He was able to tender his resignation, a complete surprise to all, and moved into the role of President and CEO at Houston Electronics.  He was able to bring Frank over as Vice President of Marketing, Frank’s fourth company move following Marc.

Just shy of his forty-first birthday, Marc had almost everything he wanted.  He was running a company with his favorite, proven reliable right hand man at his side.  He had two beautiful children he saw a couple of times a year, when he went to Kaui on vacation.  He had female companionship when he wanted it, and didn’t mind paying for it as long as it was high quality.  Yet, even with all that, Marc felt vaguely dissatisfied.  It wasn’t that something was missing, he realized.  It was having everything he always thought he’d wanted just wasn’t enough.