Chapter 18
Eighteen
A few days later, Soulmail turned one month old, and brought with it a surprise.
opened their emails to find their golden ticket. Natalie’s cousin Aili, whose following had quintupled in the last month,
opened hers live on TikTok. She covered her mouth and burst into tears, then cut the video. omg you guys, she captioned it. The comments raged, begging for a part two, wondering if the tears were happy or sad.
“This is our society now,” I said into the mic pinned to the underside of my high-necked shift dress, my eyes on the correct
camera. Samantha had punted my Du Jour segment up the chain to report on the breaking news, and by the excited looks of the
stage crew, I could tell our ratings were high. But beneath the excitement, my insides roiled with the panic that had arrived
that morning in the form of an upcoming From Yes to I Do Action Plan calendar invite with Yvonne.
Off-screen, Phoebe and Josef stood by the camera bay, waiting to be cued on. Phoebe’s arms were crossed, her mouth set in
a straight line; Josef was on his phone, as usual. His contract was in renegotiation for one more year.
I lifted my chin. “We’ve been given the choice to know our fates, and now, just one month after that change, every legal adult
worldwide can join us.”
[.>
.>]
After my tag, I de-miked and thanked the camera people. “Debrief in an hour on tomorrow’s Du Jour,” the production assistant
said to me.
Debrief prep used to be my specialty. “Right. Can you remind me which story is tomorrow?”
The PA checked a list. “This one is the, uh, proposed rearrangement of arranged marriage systems in parts of India. Something
about cataloguing Soulmails and ranking them.” Phoebe swished by us then, the embodiment of a walking scoff.
“Thanks,” I said. I waved to Josef.
“Don’t mind her,” Josef said, thumbing in Phoebe’s direction. “You’re a natural.”
The waist of my shift was damp, and my lips felt cakey. “I’m not sure. Are naturals supposed to be this sweaty?”
He gave a low laugh. Up close, he looked the same as he did on camera. He was at least fifty, but his skin was smooth as glass,
and I was fairly confident he didn’t have pores. “You were a story writer here first,” he said. “Yes?”
I nodded. “Guilty.”
He crossed his arms, rocked on his heels. His shirt was tucked in, crisp and tight. “So you know already.”
I flipped through my mental index to figure out what he meant. “I know?”
“You completed the first two branches of story. You gathered information, and you used it to share experience, share emotion.”
I tilted my head. “And?”
He shrugged. “Now you’re the teller. You entertain. You’re on the third branch, and three is the most magic of numbers.”
“Every writing teacher I’ve ever had said that.
” I shifted into my left hip to take the weight off my right knee and lifted my heel from the back of my stiletto, where a blister was forming.
My hip pinched from the strain of putting my full weight to it, but it was better than risking a flare of knee pain.
This was my body’s forever struggle, sacrificing the uninjured for the injured.
“Keep it up. My agent said to thank you,” Josef said.
I frowned. “Why?”
“You pumped this network up,” Josef said. “Unpredictable, but understandable in retrospect, that audiences wouldn’t have trusted
this info if it came from a recognizable face. TODAY and GMA are too big to put a stranger on, and we weren’t set up for success that day. This was like . . . ”
“Lightning in a bottle,” I supplied. Ben Franklin’s famous experiment, catching electricity in a glass jar. A circumstance
of chance, one I couldn’t believe I was embroiled in.
Josef raised a single brow. “I see why you scare Phoebe.”
The knot in my gut loosened one notch. For years, I’d watched him go from bubbles on camera to quiet off-screen. He’d never
been anything but polite to me, but we weren’t exactly breaking bread at a Thanksgiving table. “Me?”
“You’re just like me,” he said. “Lucky.”
“Well, goodie.” Samantha jabbed a button on the Nespresso machine on her desk, a network exec-level holiday gift from two
years ago. “This makes my job easier.”
My phone vibrated. I checked my text, my stomach darting to my toes when I read my ex’s name. Can we talk?
Everyone knew that ignoring problems made them go away, so I left the text unanswered. I tilted my head. “Pardon?”
She gestured toward the PTO printout I’d brought in. “I’ll grant this on one condition.”
I put my hand on my hip. “Despite the fact that, as HR reminds me annually, PTO is not conditional?”
“Oh, honey.” Samantha snorted. “You gonna report me?”
I narrowed my eyes. The machine spluttered and hissed, the scent of coffee curling into the room. My mouth watered.
“Our research team has found that people are really, really into the . . .” Samantha hesitated. “Spiritual aspect of the soulmate situation.”
“Well, sure. That’s reasonable.” I dragged my teeth over my lower lip, thinking. “You’re basically proof of the fact that
this is bigger than we are.”
“Exactly.” Samantha whipped the espresso pod into her trash can. “Anyway, there are a ton of people inspired by that guy Michael
Newton—”
I rifled through my memory looking for the name, but nothing matched up. “Who?”
Samantha shifted my paperwork to the side, revealing a giant yellow notepad. “He’s labeled a ‘spiritual regressionist.’ Which
is some kinda bull, but people are eating it up as usual.”
“And what exactly does a spiritual regressionist do?”
“You know. Stuff like NDEs.”
“Endies?”
“No. Sorry. The letters N-D-E. Near death experiences.” She held up her palms at the look on my face. “I know. I know. It’s
new age crap.” She read again. “He ‘enabled people to access the wisdom of the spirit world and become informed on their past
lives,’ while living their own lives.”
“Absolutely not,” I said. “I believe in facts. Facts are not beliefs. I’m not interviewing him.”
“Correct. You are not. Because he’s not among the living. But he has followers who we’ve lined up.”
My eyebrows knit together. “Followers?”
“Not social ones. The believer kind.”
I sighed. “It’s too . . . orchestrated, Sam. It’s constructed, not tangible. You know I don’t mess with that stuff.”
“But people believe in you,” Samantha said. “Besides, Soulmail is kind of New Age bullshit in and of itself.”
“But—” I faltered. The trio of framed Matisse prints above Samantha’s desk were bright and poppy in the gray-and-steel office
space.
“Look.” Samantha’s voice hollowed. “When I think about the baby I lost? Reading that Soulmail was the first time I’ve felt
totally complete in years. It feels like she mattered.”
My heart went heavy. “I can see why.”
“Think of it as you interviewing some kind of religious leader. It’s not all that different. It’s just a belief system about
the spirit world, accessing information about what happens in the beyond.” Samantha flicked her hand to punctuate the last
word.
“You’ve gone New Age on me,” I murmured.
Samantha shrugged. “Call me whatever the hell you want, doll. I’ll go woo-woo all the way if it woos you to do this for me.”
“What do I have to do?”
“We’ll pre-tape an interview and announcement clips . . .” She scrolled through her calendar. “On Monday, you have a block
of time before your meeting with Yvonne.”
My eye twitched.
“I’ll kick off lead-up promos now. We’ll give you Friday off to air the teaser clip during your usual Du Jour time, which
buys you a day, and then air the special Friday night.”
“Uh-huh. And?”
“You’ll have your merry Cape Cod weekend—don’t forget to wear a life jacket if you go on a boat, though, insurance will have
a field day with us if you don’t—then fly back Sunday in time for work that week.”
“You’ve thought this through,” I said, crossing my arms.
Samantha beamed. “Don’t I always?”
“I knew your green glasses were a bad omen.”
Samantha tossed me the yellow legal pad. “See? Omens! You’re already thinking bigger.”
I swallowed, slightly bolstered. “One more idea, now that I’m starting to build a brand.” I punched the last word with air-quotes.
“What do you think about maybe working through some of the projects I’d been putting together before Soulmail?”
She cocked her head. “Remind me?”
“I have plenty of ideas, but the one on addiction . . .” I trailed off when I took in her expression. “What is it?”
“Tough subject,” she said. Matter-of-fact. “We’ve moved past awareness, we’ve worked on destigmatizing, and we know that people
can recover. That one on opioids on the Cape has been done, like the one on meth in Montana. How’re you going to add to that
in an expert way?”
It took me a second to recognize what I was feeling. Defensiveness. Mostly because after two years of trying to find the right
angle, I knew she wasn’t wrong. I’d love to focus on rebuilding families who had been impacted by addiction so kids like me
didn’t have to bend over backward to repair their parents, sure. But the idea of dragging Sabrina—who was powerless to speak
for herself—through public mud felt borderline exploitative.
Before I could answer, Samantha tapped her chin. “Is there a Soulmail angle?”
“Maybe? I’m sure there is. We already couldn’t help who we love before Soulmail. But addiction . . .” I hesitated. I wasn’t
ready to share anything about Sabrina. “It’s important to me.”
“It is to almost everyone, I’ve learned.” She tipped her head back. “Tell you what. Hone the precise angle you want. Workshop
pitches on Soulmail and addiction. And then once you nail that executive producer cred, you’ll be able to convince loads of
higher-ups for funding.”
“The EP cred.” Heat clenched my scalp. “Right.”