The Savage Girl - Alex Shakar [63]
He is almost whispering now, his voice intimate and sly, close enough for her to feel the warmth of his breath on her cheek. He backs away, just a little, to study her face.
“You see it now,” he says. “You see the logic of it.”
“No,” she insists. “You’re wrong, Chas. You haven’t seen Ivy lately. She can’t do it like you think she can. She’s different now. She looks different. Her eyes are weird. Her face twitches. Her teeth are yellow from chain-smoking. Her hands are all gnarled up like bird claws. She’s schizophrenic, Chas. People will see how General Foods is exploiting her and it’ll make their stomachs turn. They’ll be disgusted.”
Head still tilted back, he dissects her coolly with his gaze. “You’d kinda like that anyway, I’ll bet. You’d kinda like them to see how we marketers exploit all manner of human weakness. You’d like to see this whole thing blow up in my face.”
She knows exactly what he’s doing. He’s provoking her, testing her vulnerabilities, feeling around for just the right sales tactic. But he also happens to be right. Maybe she would like to see Ivy disgust the world and Chas fall on his face. She says nothing, but he’s reading her thoughts.
“Let it happen, then,” he says calmly, folding his arms. “We’ll see which of us is right.”
Let it happen. Now he’s laid his cards on the table. That’s what this is all about: they want her consent. Maybe they think she could talk Ivy out of it. She could certainly try. And even if she failed, there are undoubtedly other ways she could make it difficult for them. She could go to the press. She could talk to Cabaj’s superiors at General Foods, who probably wouldn’t want the controversy.
“To think,” she says, staring him down, “Javier almost even had me thinking you loved Ivy.”
This pricks him. He rubs the back of his neck, his face heating up.
“Look,” he says, a low threat of rage edging into his voice. “I’m giving Ivy what she wants. What she needs. What she’s demanding in that loony bin day in and day out, in case you stopped listening. Ivy wants to be a model. What else’s she gonna do? Go back and live with your nutso mother and watch soap operas all day? Go see a therapist? A therapist?” he repeats, the syllables twisting his lips into a sneer. “Is that what you want for her? You want her to hand her power over to some faith-healing quack who’s gonna sit there in his big fat chair patting her on the butt and telling her that all she is inside is a hungry, lonely little baby? Strapping her onto his big fat man-tit and telling her to go goo-goo and ga-ga? You think that’s what Ivy needs? You think that’s what anyone needs? To have some therapist turn them into a whiny, wheedling little infant? Your sister can be self-reliant, Ursula. Your sister can be powerful in her own right. Your sister can be a fire-eating, ass-kicking urban savage. That’s what I propose to do for her. That’s my kind of therapy.”
His eyes burn. Behind him the rising steam from the crater looks as though it could be coming from his head. She knows what he’s doing, knows he’s simply justifying his own selfishness, but once again she can’t help wondering whether he may not have a point. She can see how role-playing a savage girl could be therapeutic for Ivy, how it could help her feel more powerful, more in control of her destiny. And maybe if her modeling career really was to take off she’d have less motivation to live in her delusions.
Chas watches her think it over.
“You see it,” he says. “You see I’m right.”
“Don’t flatter yourself.”
“You see what my kind of therapy can do for Ivy,” he says. “Now let’s talk about what it can do for you.”
“Chas, no offense, but you’re not really my ideal therapist.”
“Why the hell did you come to me for a job, Ursula? You led me to believe you wanted to make a new start, wanted to get