Rayne & Delilah's Midnite Matinee(67)

“And what about my more recent work?”

“Um.” I gulp.

“Love it,” Josie says. “Of course.”

He’s all too happy to not call her bluff. His face glows with pleasure. “Well, well, I think we’ll get along fine. Oh! Where are my manners? This is Yuri.” He gestures at the Gray Hulk. Yuri grunts. “Yuri is my…associate?” He looks to Yuri for approval.

Yuri nods. “Associate,” he says in a heavy Russian accent. “And financial planner.”

Jack Divine giggles strangely.

We all murmur hello to Yuri.

I have no idea how this sort of meeting works. I guess we might as well get to the point. “So, we were hoping to—to talk to you about our show. We’re—we’re horror hosts,” I stammer.

“Are you, now? I certainly haven’t heard of you,” Divine says.

“No. That’s why we wanted to meet with you,” Josie says.

“Where did you say you were out of? New York? LA?”

“Jackson. Tennessee,” Josie says.

Divine gasps. “Jackson, Tennessee? Where on earth is that? Wherever it is, Jack’s-a-not going there! Get it?”

“Yeah, that’s fun,” Josie says, forcing a laugh. “Wordplay.”

Divine puts his hands on his hips and affects a broadly stereotypical Southern accent, the worst I’ve ever heard. “I do declayah, Miss Scahlett, these-uh young ladies have-a come all the way from the Land uh Dixie and Deliverance to become stahs! TV stahs! They want ol’ city slicker Jack Divine to make them-a famous!” He looks to Yuri for approval.

Yuri grunts and smiles (?). (It’s clear he’s not terrific at smiling.) “Kenny Rogers,” he says, like he’s challenging us to fight. We wait for him to finish the sentence or connect it to some larger idea, but no. Just “Kenny Rogers.”

Josie and I shoot each other an oh boy, this could be really bad, but maybe he’s just an eccentric Hollywood type…those Hollywood types can be really eccentric, right? look that Lawson joins.

I figure this is probably as good a time as any to make my exit. The adrenaline over meeting Jack Divine has been replaced with adrenaline over seeing my dad. Divine seems like something of a kook, but the sort Josie and Lawson can handle without me. “Anyway, Mr. Divine, I have to go to another engagement, but Josie and Lawson are going to talk with you about our show. It really was a pleasure to meet you.” I hand him a DVD from my tote bag. I’ve been handing them out all day. I saved two. One for Jack Divine.

“Do yuh have tuh go and slop the hogs now?” Divine says in his grotesque Southern accent.

Wow, is that ever not my favorite. But I humor him with a polite laugh and step away. Josie follows.

She hands me her keys and hugs me. “I hope it goes great,” she whispers.

I feel myself teetering. “Get us a TV deal, okay?” I whisper, although I probably didn’t even need to. Divine seems to be scanning the crowd for people who recognize him.

I can’t believe I’m really doing this.

“Hey, good luck,” Lawson says.

“Who needs luck, am I right?” I say. I try to sound jaunty and confident, but I miss the mark by a wide margin.

Maybe it’s the stifling heat and humidity that feels like trying to breathe through a wool sock soaked in hot tea, or maybe I’m so preoccupied I’m forgetting to breathe. Whichever it is, I’m thoroughly breathless and panting by the time I get to Josie’s car and start it. My hands quake, and I drop my phone twice while I’m pulling up the email with my dad’s address. I finally get a grip and punch his address into my phone. A little under three hours’ drive.

I take a deep breath and ask the universe—this once, just this one time—for a little bit of good fortune, and I drive off.





We stand there for a moment, staring at each other awkwardly after Delia leaves. I really wish she were here too. At least I have Lawson.

Divine claps twice to break the silence. “Let’s not talk business on an empty stomach. I’m famished.” Then, in his Southern accent (which is not getting at all tired and grating), “What say you we get some victuals, missy?”

“Sure, that sounds good.”

“Okay, why don’t you call us a car?”

“Uh…we actually had a car, but Delia took it, so…” I’m feeling like a naive kid, out of my depth. I guess I need to get up to speed with how TV types are.

“We’ll drive, then.” Divine starts striding away, snapping for Yuri to follow. We hurry to keep up.

We pass a girl with blue hair, a Linda Blair tattoo covering her whole upper arm, and several facial piercings, wearing knee-high black leather boots and a black vinyl dress and carrying a rolled-up poster under one arm and texting with the other hand. She makes the briefest eye contact with Divine and smiles politely before looking back at her phone.

He stops, sighs, and rolls his eyes. “Yes, I’m him.”

The girl responds with a stunned expression and glances behind her, as if to say, Me? “Sorry, I don’t—”

“You needn’t apologize, dear heart, but I am in a bit of a haste, as I’m sure you’ve figured. Have to talk some business. So let’s get to it, shall we? What am I signing here? No body parts. I jest, of course. Body parts on a case-by-case basis. All right, then. This?” He snatches her poster from under her arm with one hand and reaches out to Yuri with the other hand. Yuri slaps a Sharpie into it like a surgeon’s assistant with a scalpel. Divine unrolls the poster and smooths it on Yuri’s back.