Cut to the Quick by Dianne Emley Page B

waggled his foot, clad in a well-worn, rough-hewn boot.
    When the crowd quieted, Hale began. “Those photos, Bowie …”
    “Yeah, those photos …” He retracted a corner of his mouth and diffidently shook his head.
    “I hear they’re making one of them into a poster.”
    He hiked his shoulders. “It’s been talked about, but the only posters I’ve approved are to promote the book.”
    Crowley drew his hand through wavy light brown hair that reached his shoulders. His handlers had begged him to cut it. He had conceded to having it professionally styled after years of trimming it himself in prison. They also wanted him to wax his eyebrows, straighten and whiten his teeth, and wear something more contemporary than Levi’s 401 boot-cut shrink-to-fits and ragged motorcycle boots. He could have his choice of the hottest designer clothes for nothing. He said no thanks.
    He insisted, “That photographer can make anybody look good.”
    “And he’s modest too,” Hale pronounced.
    He blushed.
    Realizing she’d embarrassed him, that he really was modest, Hale felt bad.
    “Let’s talk about your book. Razored Soul is a coming-of-age novel about a young man with a troubled childhood. A high-school dropout who hangs with a bad crowd. Drugs, booze, and the rest of it. He’s a classic ne’er-do-well, and his life is going nowhere. One day, in a drug-and-liquor-induced haze, he murders a man, a buddy of his. But that horrible event is the catalyst by which he turns his life around. This is a thinly disguised fictionalization of your life, Bowie.”
    He nodded, pulling at his lower lip with his fingers.
    “Why write a novel instead of an autobiography?”
    “Because I like telling stories. Fiction gave me the freedom to tell this particular story in the best way possible. I felt the book would be more compelling and inspirational as a work of fiction.”
    “Writing this must have been therapeutic for you.”
    “It was. Worked out a lot of demons writing that book.”
    “I know what it means to do something stupid and bad, something that you think is the worst thing that could happen to you, and it ends up being a blessing in disguise. When I had my drunken car crash, I thought my career in television was over. I thought my husband would leave. There was talk of my kids being taken from me.”
    While Crowley listened, his restless hand moved from his face to his lap, and he slid his foot to the floor, the better to lean toward her. He took in every word as if they were the only two people in the room, not moving his deep-set, hazel eyes from hers.
    Hale was impressed by the vulnerability in his face, which belied his powerful physique. She knew part of the reason the public found him compelling was the dissonance of trying to make the image of the sensitive artiste jibe with that of a cold-blooded killer.
    “The worst night of my life ended up turning my life around,” she said.
    Hale grimaced. The tears had begun their ascent and would shortly spill from her eyes. There was no turning back. She was known for crying on camera. Her detractors claimed the tears were calculated. If crying pretty worked for Oprah … But for Hale, not only were the tears never planned, she couldn’t always predict what would set them off. When thinking about the interview with Crowley, she’d decided to talk about how alcohol had nearly destroyed her life as a way to get him to open up about his experiences. The saga of her car crash was no secret, and she was usually able to speak of it with detachment. Yet here she was—blubbering.
    She was tired and stressed, and fatigue and stress were triggers, but they weren’t the only things that had tipped her over. It had been a long time since anyone had listened to her with such sincerity, had really cared about what she was saying.
    Crowley reached across the short space that separated them and laid his hand upon hers.
    One could have heard a pin drop in the crowded studio, but what one