Dead Famous - part three.

by bitingmylip

(Read part two here: Dead Famous - part two and part one here: Dead Famous - part three)

“I’m sorry Marissa,” she said, looking back at the see-through star. “Well, thank you so very much for granting us this interview. I’m sure you have been very busy in the past few months.

“Thank you,” Marissa said graciously. “Yes, rather a lot has gone on recently, as you know!”

“Of course,” Kate agreed. “And how are you feeling now?”

“Oh, I am feeling as well as can be expected,” Marissa answered. “There has been rather a lot to get used to, as I am sure your readers can imagine. But I have come to terms with my situation now and I feel ready to set the record straight.”

“You do?”

“Oh yes. After the unfortunate reports in other areas of the press. I want people to know that my current situation is most definitely not a publicity stunt of any kind.” Marissa frowned, her eyebrows suddenly starkly visible. “I would not choose to be like this. It is most inconvenient, and I am going to have to have rather a significant career change as I can obviously no longer pursue with my film career. So for people to suggest I have deliberately set this up is very upsetting.”

“I understand,” Kate said, with another glance at Marissa’s floating form. Marissa caught her eye.

“You can see, of course, you can vouch for the fact… the fact that I am here, and yet somehow not here.” Marissa’s voice had taken on a fierce edge and Kate caught the beginning of movement from Katerina’s corner, but Marissa composed herself quickly. “It is just rather upsetting, of course,” she said. Kate nodded and cleared her throat.

“So, how have you been taking care of yourself in recent months, Marissa?” Kate asked, hoping her phrasing wasn’t about to set off the PR.

“Oh, I have been looked after well whilst I have been recuperating, of course. There are so many fabulous doctors and nurses who worked with me to help me come to terms with things, and of course I have been subject to many examinations now that I am being termed a ‘medical miracle.’ But I have found time to sneak off to my own favourite spa, where the dear people there spent hours sourcing treatments that are suitable for me. Everyone has been very kind. I would not be here without the support of my wonderful family and friends, and the fans who have written to me and emailed with their messages of support – I have had a terrible few months, but in many ways I feel truly blessed.”

Marissa’s gushing would go down well with Alright!’s senior editorial team but Kate’s mind kept returning to the question she was unable to ask. Had Marissa – as some of the more salacious tabloids were suggesting – done some sort of deal with the devil to keep her on earth? And if so, what on earth did the devil look like?

“What treatments did you have?” she asked instead, and Marissa smiled her blood-red smile before explaining how she was now unable to have her favourite massage, as she could not be touched, but that she had been shown how to massage her own feet and given lots of products that were very good for her newly translucent skin. “They’re much like the treatments they give to Albino people,” Marissa said. “Of course, I have to apply them myself, but I am getting used to it.” She smiled bravely.

As the interview progressed, Kate learnt that Marissa had been sent “lots of lovely clothes from some lovely people” that were “just marvellous” with her skin tone and that her new look didn’t seem to have put off her male admirers. “I thought it would be difficult with men, as I can’t be touched,” she said, as if admitting a great sin. “But I have had several men propose to me recently. They seem willing to admire me from afar.”

“Have you taken any of them up on their offers?” Kate asked. Marissa gave her peal of laughter again.

“Oh no,” she said. “I need to get used to myself before I allow a man to become used to me!”

After half an hour, Katerina gave a significant cough and Marissa turned her head to look at her. She was still elegant in profile, Kate thought, although her earrings did not match her outfit. Kate wondered if they were the ones she had been wearing when she had…

“It seems I am out of time,” Marissa said, rising – literally – from her perch. “So unless there is anything else…”

“I am sorry Marissa, of course you must go,” Kate said, clearing her throat. “But I must just ask” – a quick glance at Katerina, who looked ready to sprint – “how did it feel? What happened afterwards? Did you go anywhere when you died? Did you really die? Did you see anyone? Why have you come back when so many other people die and don’t come back, not even as ghosts? Is that what you are, a ghost?”

The questions were pouring from Kate’s mouth. She could not stop them. Katerina was trying, though, at the first “How…” she had been standing in front of Kate with a look of sheer ferocity.

“Did you do a deal with the devil? Or with God maybe?”

“MISS PEARSON! WE INSIST YOU STOP AT ONCE!” Katerina was shouting. Kate could hear doors slamming somewhere behind or beneath her but behind Katerina, Marissa’s translucent face had a wild look that made Kate bold enough to keep shouting her questions.

“Are you dead? Are you dead? Why are you here, if you’re dead?”

Security guards were entering the room. Kate was aware of two burly men beside her, but she didn’t stop looking at Marissa. Marissa was looking straight back at Kate, a sneer on her otherwise pearly perfect face.

As Kate felt herself being led, quite gently, from the room, the air seemed to grow icy still as Marissa gave her last publically recorded words.

“You’re right,” she said. “If I was dead, I wouldn’t be here. But I am.”

Then she turned fully and walked through the wall behind her.

In the lift, one of the security guards looked at Kate sternly.

“You shouldn’t have asked her all those questions,” he said.

“I know. But I couldn’t help it. Why her?”

“Cos she did some deal. With the devil. Got to be. And it must be a bloody harsh one, cos don’t think many people can have done it before.”

“Maybe,” Kate said, weakly. She was thinking about how to explain this to her boss.

“Not maybe,” the other security guard said quietly. Kate looked at him.

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“It’s her,” he said.

“Her?”

“That other one. Bit foreign. Spends all her time with the ghost woman. Harasses the receptionists. Feeds her. Everything.”

“That’s not the devil,” Kate sighed. “That’s just her PR.”

“No,” the security guard said. The lift pinged as it reached the ground floor. He and his colleague walked her to the front door. Opened it. Looked around the seemingly deserted lobby before leaning down to whisper in Kate’s ear…

“She ate her soul,” he said, and his voice was so hot that Kate jumped and rubbed her ear. He smiled, looking slightly manic. Kate looked at the other security guard, trying to make sense of her current situation, but the other one was staring vacantly at the receptionist who appeared to be lying prostrate on the desk. Kate shook her head.

“I’d get out if I were you,” the receptionist shouted, and Kate noticed that her head was hanging over the side of the desk nearest to the doors whilst her feet danced on the smooth wooden desk, seemingly independent from her body. Kate gaped at the scene, looked back at the security guards, rubbed her ear again and gasped in pain as she felt the blister that had formed on her earlobe. The security guard who had hissed in her ear smiled as wisps of smoke escaped from his lips.

Kate didn’t need telling twice. Pushing the door further open she ran down the polished hotel steps, tripping and slipping as she tried not to hear the high pitched squealing from somewhere behind her. As she ran down the street she called Alright!’s Art Director, scrambling frantically through her phone book for the right number with trembling fingers. Answerphone.

“Damn,” Kate said, slowing to a walk as she reached the main road. The message tone beeped.

“Listen, Anton, DON’T GO to the photoshoot with Marissa tomorrow. It’s not worth it. She really is dead. A ghost. Devil. She’s with the devil. No no…”

Kate gasped for breath and tried to arrange her thoughts.

“…plus she won’t photograph well at all, she’s translucent. She looks orange but translucent. At the same time. It’s not classy enough for us. Call me back…”

Only when her heart had stopped hammering and her breathing slowed did Kate realise she could still hear the high pitched squealing.

Dead Famous: part two.

by bitingmylip

(Read part one here: http://taleswecouldtell.blogspot.com/2008/02/dead-famous.html )

Six days and only one further rearrangement later, Kate was waiting in The Grand Hotel’s lobby for the ghostly Marissa. She had been told by the front desk that Marissa’s senior PR Officer Katerina Vishky would be with her “imminently.” Kate was anxious. The word “imminently” sounded particularly ominous.

By the time Katerina eventually scurried into the lobby, all clip-clopping heels and efficiently swishing ponytail, Kate had sunk herself into a green chair so large with cushions that she struggled to get back up in order to shake Katerina’s hand. Flustered, she had to haul herself out of the large chair with a hand that scrabbled uselessly along the velvet-covered armrest. Katerina had perfectly plucked eyebrows and looked mildly irritated by Kate’s presence.

“Kate Pearson?” she asked. Her tones were clipped, her accent impossible to place.
“Yes, that’s right,” Kate said, regaining her composure to match Katerina’s tone.
“Marissa is almost ready for you in her suite upstairs. I’d just like to run through a few things, if I may.”
“Of course.”

“There are one or two things Marissa would prefer not to discuss. I am sure you will appreciate this is a difficult time and there a few sensitive issues surrounding the months since her accident.” Katerina spoke as if she was delivering a monologue. “Please do not ask Marissa for specific details of her accident, her injuries, or her subsequent resurrection,” she said.

Kate had not met Katerina before but she was familiar with this process. She had wondered if Marissa’s PR specifications would have changed since her resurrection, as it seemed she must call it. But the key conceit behind Marissa’s rules remained the same. Do not ask questions that may elicit interesting answers.

Satisfied Kate had been fully briefed, Katerina treated Kate to a curt smile. “Thank you for your understanding. Alright! has shown such sympathy to Marissa. It is much appreciated.”

Kate smiled graciously. “Well, we thank Marissa for granting us this interview. Our readers are always so interested in hearing what she has to say.”

“Yes indeed.” Katerina smiled her tight smile again. “Now, I am sure you are aware, the photoshoot is to take place tomorrow, at the studio of our choice.”

“I think so,” Kate said, pleasantly. “I understand that with the, uh, special circumstances Marissa requires, our Art Director should have been in touch with you directly…?”

Katerina nodded curtly. “Yes, that’s correct. We elected to have it tomorrow to allow Marissa plenty of rest between these appointments.”

With that, she turned towards the ornate staircase, indicating that Kate should follow. Katerina did not say anything further as they made their way towards Marissa’s suite. Only when she reached the door did she fix Kate with a look. “Thank you for bearing in mind this is a sensitive time for Marissa,” she said, quietly, before turning into the room with an impressive flick of the ponytail. Kate followed her into a large and beautifully furnished room, sitting on the hard-backed chair with green-and-gold cushioning that Katerina indicated.

“Please wait there while I see if Marissa is ready,” Katerina said in her clipped voice, before making her way across the room and knocking quietly on an adjoining door. Kate made herself comfortable.

And then, there she was. Kate had read previous interviewer’s effusive ramblings about how she ‘glided’ across the floor; well, if that had been a result of her elegance, it was more difficult to tell now, being as Marissa now glided in a very literal sense. Kate couldn’t tell if she had any feet. She seemed to be propelled forwards by something other than her own legs. Maybe angels were holding her up. Kate scribbled this thought in her own ineligible version of shorthand.

Marissa avoided the large, squashy, comfortable sofa and instead perched herself on a wooden stall that had been conveniently placed away from the window. This meant no light or background colour interfered with her skin tone because, as Kate noted, where before she had been golden-skinned, she was now almost translucent. This seemed to be the only visible difference: Marissa’s clothes were still luxurious and clearly designer. Kate recorded said clothing faithfully, in the manner of women’s magazine writers everywhere: “Wearing dark jeans and a black figure-hugging Prada wrap-around top, even in death, Marissa looked the picture of sophistication…” Kate wondered if ‘wearing’ was the right verb – was it possible for a ghost to wear clothes? She had a sneaking suspicion that if Marissa stood in direct sunlight, the paleness of her skin would make her almost invisible and her clothes would look as if they were floating. Perhaps this was why she had avoided the dark green sofa. Looking at her now, Kate noticed she wasn’t really sitting on the stool – she was sort of assuming the position of sitting but appeared to be holding herself in a manner that looked distinctly uncomfortable although, Kate assumed, there was probably no such thing as uncomfortable for a ghost. As her flesh and blood PA whispered something in Marissa’s almost see-through ear, Kate saw her lose her position for a moment, and she seemed to dip lower onto the stool – no, through the stool, it looked like. But being a consummate professional, Marissa regained her composure immediately and righted herself at once. She turned to Kate with a smile, her lips devil-red and quite off-putting.

“Now, a proper hello,” she said in a deeply calm voice. “I do apologise for not shaking your hand. It’s rather difficult… well, let’s just say it’s hard to keep a grip on things.”

“Erm, that’s OK,” said Kate. “Would you like a glass of water or something?”

Immediately Kate new she had said something amiss. Katerina frowned from her corner of the room, but the lady herself just gave off a peal of laughter – it was literally a peal, Kate thought, it sounded like a hundred of your highest pitched church bells ringing at once – and shook her head. “No, thank you,” she said. “Well, at least I don’t need sustenance now. That’s one of the benefits of being dead. You definitely retain your figure!”

Kate smiled back, weakly, feeling clumsy and far too alive to be in the same room as such a vision of pale, ghostly elegance. She shut her eyes briefly in a bid to gather her thoughts. When she opened them Marissa was looking at her, a beatific smile upon her face. Kate glanced down at her notepad as she gathered her thoughts.

Dead Famous

By bitingmylip

Kate Jackson hung up the phone with a sigh, the relentless rattle of Marissa Malfunction’s senior PR officer still ringing in her ears. A colleague nearby glanced over and cocked her head sympathetically. “That sounded like a difficult one,” she said. Kate nodded. “Bloody PRs. God, never try and interview a dead celebrity. They’re even more difficult to pin down than the live ones.” The colleague laughed as Kate shook her head ruefully and went to change the date for her meeting with Marissa (plus PR) for the sixth time that week.

Marissa Malfunction, formerly the beautiful blonde star of such films as Jack-Of-All-Trades and Can’t You See I’m Dancing?, now a ghost but still a class A celeb, was proving as elusive as befits the recently departed. Kate had only managed to get an interview in the first place because Marissa’s ex-fiance had ‘revealed’ to Who Cares! Magazine that Marissa’s ghostly reappearance following the tragic skiing accident that had supposedly killed her was nothing more than a publicity stunt. “Marissa thinks she’s so invincible she can even cheat death,” Jackson Aeroplane had been quoted as saying. “But the only thing Marissa’s ever cheated is the entire male population of the UK!”

In retaliation, Marissa had released a statement telling of her “supreme sadness” at Jackson’s inability to accept her amazing new look. Magazines across the globe had scrambled to secure an exclusive, offering Marissa disgusting sums of money to share the gruesome details of her accident and the incredible story of her resurrection. Having offered the most disgusting sum, Kate’s employers at Alright! Magazine had secured this most impressive of tell-all tales and as Showbiz Editor the story fell to Kate to organise.

Her editors seemed to think Kate would be incredibly grateful for this opportunity. Instead, she was rather irritated by it. Any excitement she had felt at the thought of interviewing a dead person had vanished when her questions had been vetoed by her editor (“you can’t ask her what it felt like to die! And please don’t ask anything about the afterlife. Stick to the usual. Fashion, sex, money and addictions.” This was Kate’s brief.) And then, of course, she had been given the runaround by Marissa and her super-efficient, super-evasive PR team. This was not unusual in the world of glossy celeb magazines but even in life Marissa had been one of Alright!’s more problematic interviewees. In death she was proving even more difficult.

Still, she had another date – and a location this time, which was promising. As she typed the name of the hotel lounge Marissa’s PR had suggested as a meeting place into her Outlook diary, Kate allowed herself to think ahead to the interview. After so much toing and froing, the thought that she might actually have to meet this woman – this ghost – hadn’t really entered Kate’s mind. But as she considered the fact that she was less than a week away (hopefully) from meeting a proper dead person, she shuddered. Difficult starlets, sly PRs, drug-addled rock stars who seemed to think all female journalists were only journalists because they wanted to shag drug-addled rock stars – these were the sorts of people Kate was used to dealing with. Ghosts and zombies had never been her thing.

She just hoped Marissa would still photograph well, being a ghost and all.

To be continued...