by Dyan Sheldon
“The Max Factor Building, Beth?” Professor Gryck sounds as if she suggested that Superman comics are literary masterpieces. “You consider that a cultural landmark?”
“Yes. Yes, I do.” Gabriela’s policy has always been to let a smile be her parachute out of any possible unpleasantness, and so she smiles now. “It is where make-up was invented, Professor Gryck.”
The other contestants have been listening to this exchange as though they weren’t, but now they all react, giggling in a surprisingly childish way for tomorrow’s great writers.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” says Professor Gryck when the merriment dies down. “They’ve found make-up in Egyptian tombs.”
“But it was Maximilian Faktorowicz who was largely responsible for developing the modern cosmetics industry.” Even without the benefit of Mr Faktorowicz’s products, Gabriela’s smile is radiant. “And he did make the term ‘make-up’ popular, Professor Gryck, which is a very significant part of our cultural vocabulary. So I think that counts.”
Professor Gryck might well wonder where Beth suddenly acquired all this poise and confidence – and specialist knowledge – but she doesn’t. She’s too surprised. Last night she would have bet that the only time Beth Beeby ever used the word “make-up” was in relation to an exam, yet here she is with an encyclopedic knowledge of the history of the cosmetics industry. “I really don’t think—”
“A very large part of the culture of this country has to do with what American business created in the twentieth century,” continues Gabriela. “Mass production. The industrialization of everything. Fast food. Where would we be without McDonald’s or Henry Ford, Professor Gryck? Ask yourself that.”
Professor Gryck is now annoyed as well as surprised. “Ms Beeby, if you don’t mind, I really don’t thin—”
“They changed the whole world, Professor Gryck. And Max Factor is part of that. I mean, we drove past that old church—”
“Nuestra Señora Reina de los Angeles.” Professor Gryck’s voice sounds like something being chopped. “The historic site of the original pueblo.”
Remedios grunts to herself. That’s exactly what she means about inaccurate and blind. There were people here before the Europeans, you know, thinks Remedios with a certain amount of darkness. Luckless Lucifer but this woman is irritating as well as dull.
Gabriela is shaking her head. Sadly. “You’re not telling me that’s more culturally important than creating a billion-dollar indust—
“Oh, look!” cries the professor with unconcealed relief. “Here we are! This is one of the greatest museums in the country!” She pops to her feet like a Jack-in-the-box. “Don’t anyone leave his or her seat until the bus comes to a complete stop.”
“Somebody email Dante and tell him we’ve found a new circle of Hell,” mutters Delila.
Professor Gryck, who considers herself as knowledgeable about the art world as about Norse sagas, leads the way once again. The twenty contestants, one angel and Mr Solman follow. Most of the contestants surreptitiously play on their phones or send each other texts, but as they did at the first two museums they visited, Esmeralda, Jayne and Aricely cluster around Professor Gryck as if she’s the mother hen and they’re the baby chicks. They talk in clear, serious voices, giving their opinions as though when they’re not committing the whole of world literature to memory they’re boning up on world art.
The group stops in front of a painting of two men and a dog standing under a tree.
“Look at that brushwork,” says Aricely.
“It’s his palette that’s so special,” says Esmeralda.
“What an interesting use of shadows,” says Jayne.
“I have data-overload. I need a break,” Delila whispers to Gabriela. “I’m going to the ladies. Pay attention so you can tell me if I miss anything really interesting.”
Gabriela stands behind the others, feeling as though she may fall asleep on her feet, and thinking about how much she hates museums. She might as well have spent the morning looking at blank walls. She felt nothing for the combs and clips that once styled some long-ago woman’s hair. Nothing for the jewellery that was once worn by girls not all that dissimilar to her. She didn’t look at the statues or pictures and think, That person was once alive just like I am – and had hopes and dreams and disappointments and problems just like I do. (Though probably not the problem she has today.) Now, as she listens to the background gabble of Professor Gryck, the Bad, the Boring and the Real Pain in the Neck, and waits for Delila to come back, it’s all she can do not to sob out loud. Surely there is more even to Beth’s life than this.
“I couldn’t agree more,” says a voice Gabriela has never heard before. “I mean, museums are like zoos for objects, aren’t they? There’s no blood. There’s no life. There’s no context.” Remedios snaps her fingers. “They’re worse than zoos; they’re more like mausoleums where the bodies have been buried alive.”
Gabriela turns around, about to ask how a stranger can know what she’s thinking, but the sight of this stranger shoves the question from her mind. Behind her is a blue-haired girl – possibly her age, possibly a little older, even possibly a lot older, it’s kind of hard to tell – wearing rolled-hem tweed shorts, a linen shirt and multi-belted vintage motorcycle boots with a strip of red down the back. She carries a saddlebag instead of a pocketbook. Her only jewellery is a heart-shaped moonstone in a silver setting on a silver chain. Gabriela can tell that the girl mixes her own make-up – not even her eye shadow is a commercial shade. And those have to be contacts; nobody has violet eyes like that. But the clothes and the eyes aren’t what really catch Gabriela’s interest. There’s something about this girl – something indefinable, but so strong you can almost smell it – that surrounds her like an aura. Though that isn’t how Gabriela puts it to herself, of course. What Gabriela thinks is, Wow! This girl is really awesome. If you could bottle her, she’d make the most amazing perfume!
“I mean, just think about it.” The girl smiles; the air around her seems almost to glow. Those can’t be her teeth, either. And God knows what she uses on her skin. “An artist or a craftsman pours heart and soul and passion into creating something unique and beautiful—”
Thinking of the futility of life as represented by the pickled pig, Gabriela clears her throat.
“I’m not talking about the pig,” says Remedios, who has more than one complaint about this morning. “I’m talking about something unique and beautiful. Something that speaks through time like the voice of Life itself, saying – shouting – ‘I am here!’ and ‘We are here!’ and ‘Let the songs of our souls be heard in Heaven!’ And then what happens? It gets stuck on a wall or in a cabinet, and all these people trudge past like they’re looking at postage stamps, while they think about how their feet hurt or where they’re going next.”
“Are you a tour guide?” asks Gabriela. Though it does seem unlikely – she’s never heard a tour guide talk about singing souls or the voice of Life.
“Do I look like a tour guide?”
“No. You look like a model. Or a designer.”
“Oh. Really?” Remedios tilts her head to one side, as though a new and sudden thought has just occurred to her. “Are you interested in clothes?”
Gabriela looks around to make sure Professor Gryck isn’t looming behind her, and lowers her voice. “Well, yeah. As a matter of fact I am.”
Remedios grabs her arm. “Come on. You have to take a look at this.”
In a separate alcove off the room where Professor Gryck is reeling off dates and lifeless details is the portrait of a young woman. The light, though subtle, makes her look alive, as if her eyes might blink; as if her skin is warm. There’s a window behind her, looking out on a churning sea. The young woman’s blonde hair is intricately twisted and braided, held up by finely carved pins. She wears a shawl loosely draped over her shoulders and a finely patterned burgundy-coloured dress – whatever hangs from the silver chain round her neck is lost in its bodice. Her
hands are folded in front of her and her eyes are looking straight at you, missing nothing; her smile suggests that she knows something you don’t. She is almost hypnotically serene. Gabriela steps closer. All morning she’s been looking at pictures and sculptures and busts, but it is only now that she actually sees what she’s looking at – and suddenly understands what her new friend means about the voice of Life and being heard in Heaven.
And for the first time she thinks: This girl was real – is real. Really walked down streets; laughed and cried; saw the same sky and moon and stars that Gabriela sees; watched leaves drift to the ground and spring petals fall like snow; had things she longed for and things she feared. Just like Gabriela. Who also now realizes how alone she often feels. She stares at the face staring back at her. She can imagine her getting up in the morning and deciding what to wear. Imagine her washing. Fixing her hair. Smoothing out her skirt. Choosing a pair of shoes. She wonders what she’s thinking. Where she’s going next. What she and the painter talk about as she sits there, looking at Gabriela across the centuries. And for an instant, Gabriela has the sensation that if she tried just a little harder she could hear what the young woman has to say.
“Those were awful times,” says Remedios. “He would’ve been burnt alive for heresy if it hadn’t been for her.”
Gabriela doesn’t move her eyes from the picture. “Who?”
“Ra— the artist.” Remedios sighs. “He fell in love with her, of course.” She sighs again. “It was a love that could never be, and he knew it. He was lucky to be alive – to be able to fall in love. You can see that in the intensity of the colours and in the details – the ring… the flower… the cat asleep at her feet. And the dress. He had the dress made especially for her. Designed it himself.”
“It’s beautiful.” Gabriela moves a little nearer. The style is as dated as the pyramids, but the material… What an evening gown that material would make. What a showstopper. What a masterpiece. “Is that brocade?”
“No, it’s embroidered.”
“That’s impossible.” Gabriela gives a little laugh. “It can’t be.”
“Oh, but it is. Look. That’s not a weave. Look at how delicate the work is. And the colour’s slightly off. The thread’s silk. It was dyed to match but there’s the tiniest difference…”
It’s exquisite. Remarkable. Gabriela’s never seen anything like it; never even imagined anything like it. And it looks so real. Not a painting, but warp and weft and delicate, tiny flowers of silk. She is overwhelmed with the sense that if she touches that canvas – touches that fabric, that girl – she’ll know what it means to be really alive. She reaches out her hand.
And sets off every alarm in the room.
The assumption Beth made about Gabriela Menz (that she would collapse from the strain if she had to so much as lift her little finger) has undergone a certain amount of revision this morning. Although Gabriela has never been seen to take notes, hand anything in on time or carry anything heavier than a pocketbook if there’s some boy around to do it for her, she can’t possibly be as lazy as she seems. Not if she’s made the finals in the design competition; not if she wants to make this her life’s work. Even if fashion were more necessary to life than a gold toothpick; even if it were a useful industry that contributed more to the world than back problems; even if you weren’t spending your time making the same things over and over but in different colours and fabrics – even then, Beth still wouldn’t do it. The girl has to be clinically insane. Being a commando would be a softer option.
Beth is exhausted. She feels as if she’s been up for days, doing oral exams in a foreign language that she’s never studied while balancing on her toes. The finalists have been frantically rushed and herded from one department to the next – from the pattern makers and cutters to the machinists and embroiderers – and seen dozens of items of clothing in various stages of production, and dozens of workers in various states of stress. If Beth were to close her eyes (and not instantly fall asleep) she would see people waving things at her – pieces of fabric and lengths of trim, belts and bows and handfuls of buttons, skirts and bras and shimmery tops – and hear them screaming: What do you think? Take a tuck in the shoulder? Put shirring on the bodice? Trim the neckline with lace? Lower the skirt? Shorten the skirt? Sequins? Rhinestones? Ethnic embroidery? Appliqúe? That dress with these shoes? This jacket with that hat? Leggings or footless tights? Expecting immediate answers. Shouting even more loudly when they don’t get them. Acting as if the fate of the world depends on six millimetres of trim.
At the moment, Taffeta Mackenzie is marching into the main room of the Madagascar studio, much like a small tornado in high-heeled boots. The six finalists follow in her wake, not like shadows, but slaves. The staff all look up, greeting them affably but nervously – they know what to expect. Taffeta goes from station to station – introducing people, explaining things, looking at samples – her heels clicking, her smile solid. She stops to examine the dress on a body form.
Beth and Lucinda exchange a look. By now they know what to expect, too. No one shouts louder than Taffeta Mackenzie.
It’s been the same everywhere they’ve gone. Taffeta Mackenzie may be sweet as corn syrup when she’s socializing, but when she’s in work mode she’s more like lemon juice laced with strychnine. You call that a pattern? I don’t call that a pattern. I call that where the cat was sick… Are you blind? A gazelle could sew a straighter seam than that… When I tell you to get me something, I mean now, not tomorrow! Not next week… You call this finished? What are you, working for the competition…?
Now Taffeta stands beside the body form, holding the dress between the tips of two fingers as if it’s a blanket infected with smallpox. “Would someone please tell me what this is supposed to be?”
“Uh oh,” whispers Lucinda. “Here we go.”
Eyes are downcast, heads bent. Everyone’s trying not to breathe.
“No one?” Taffeta Mackenzie’s melt-that-ice-cap eyes turn to Beth. “Miss Menz? You’ve had some very interesting opinions today.” Downcast eyes or not, glances are exchanged. They all know that this isn’t a compliment. “Maybe you could help me out here.”
Beth gazes back at her blankly, but her heart sinks down ever closer to the centre of the earth. Merciful Minerva! Is this day going to do nothing but get worse?
It’s a trap, of course. Taffeta Mackenzie is a driven, tireless and remorselessly efficient woman with a very low tolerance of anyone she thinks is slow, dull or a fool. Which is unfortunate for Beth, because another opinion that has had some overhauling this morning is Taffeta’s opinion of Gabriela Menz. Last night, Gabriela was the brightest star in Taffeta’s sky, but in only a few hours Beth has managed to bring that star crashing down to Earth where it ended up at the bottom of the ocean. For Beth, crippled, uncomfortable and caring less about ruching, double darts and kick pleats than most of us care about leaf mould, has found it hard to pay attention or act as if she’s really interested in the studio’s activities. Which means that every time Taffeta has asked her a question, Beth has looked startled and said, “I’m sorry?” At first Taffeta just laughed as though Beth were a pet that had done something amusing like get its head stuck in a paper bag. “Don’t be sorry, Gabby. Just tell me what you think.” But soon the small amount of patience that trims her personality began to unravel.
“Oh, really?” she smiled when Beth gave her opinion of the black tunic with the crochet detail. “Old-fashioned?”
“That’s very interesting,” she murmured when Beth answered her question on trouser lengths. “You certainly do have an original POV. One would almost think you come from a planet where everyone wears skirts.”
“Do tell…” she simpered when Beth picked the sample blouse she liked best. “I would have thought from what you said last night, Gabby, that your taste would be a little less Wisconsin mall.”
“You may be more of an original than I thought,” she commented as she marched them through the mac
hine room. It was difficult to tell from her smile whether this was a good thing or not.
Which is why the question, “Would someone please tell me what this is supposed to be?” is obviously a trap.
What is Beth supposed to say? That it’s a copy? That it’s the wrong colour? That the sequins look like a slug trail? Lucinda reaches over and squeezes Beth’s hand. “Don’t say anything,” she whispers. “Just faint.”
If only she could. Beth has fainted on numerous occasions but she is not in her own body today, and Gabriela’s refuses to faint on demand. Beth clears her throat. And for perhaps the very first time in her life, Beth thinks: What the heck? She’s already annoyed with me. The only person looking at her is Taffeta Mackenzie. “It’s a dress.” She nods. “Yes, it’s definitely a dress.”
Everyone stops breathing, even Taffeta, who for nearly two entire seconds is so enraged by Beth’s answer that she can’t even speak. But then, just as she opens her mouth to show how good she is at shoot-to-kill sarcasm, the security alarm goes off.
Saved by the high-pitched whine.
High in the hills over Hollywood, Otto sits in the flash red convertible, keeping an eye on the house into which Beth and the others disappeared, and enjoying the stillness and calm of the neighbourhood. This is more like it. It may not have the immaculate beauty of a primordial forest or an untouched mountaintop – of the Earth when it was young and humans younger – but it’s close enough for now. No traffic-clogged roads. No clamour and din. No frenzied activity. No Remedios Cienfuegos y Mendoza. This part of the city still remembers what the world was once like. The sky is blue, the grass is green, the sun is warm and the smog settles down in the valley. If he keeps his eyes on the shimmery trees, he can imagine himself somewhere else – some other hills, some other perfect day, some other link in the chain of time.