by Dyan Sheldon
Gabriela kneels down beside him. “It’s swelling fast.”
He winces as the accidental movement of his foot causes another jolt of pain. “I’m not blind. I can see that.”
“You’re not exactly Prince Charming, either,” says Delila, as she kneels on his other side. “We’re only trying to help you, you know.”
He does know that; he just wishes he didn’t need any help. “I’m sorry. I’m just—” He’s never in a very good mood lately. He holds out a hand. “I’m Joe.”
“Ga— Beth.”
“Delila.” She starts untying his laces. “It doesn’t look broken.” Delila has three male cousins who live next door to her grandparents and is, therefore, something of an expert on limb injuries. “It probably is just a sprain. But we should get this sneaker off.”
“It could be a fracture.” Gabriela and her friends have sustained any number of clothing-induced injuries, so she is something of an expert, too. She forages through her bag and pulls out the scarf Beth carries in the event of sudden drafts or dust storms. “We can bandage it with this. But you’d better not try to walk on it.”
“No fear of that.” His smile comes out more as a grimace. “I couldn’t walk on it if I wanted to.” He looks from one to the other. “I left my phone at home, but maybe if one of you could call my housekeeper—”
“My phone’s kaput,” explains Delila. “And Beth left hers at the hotel.”
Gabriela smiles as if she’s used to life without a cell phone. “How far away do you live? We can help you get there.”
“Just a couple of blocks, but I don’t think two young—”
Gabriela waves this away, too. “It’s not a big deal. I’ve done this dozens of times. Really. It’s all about balance.”
“Besides,” says Delila, “you’re not that much taller than I am. And my granddad, Johnson? He sells old bottles. I’m used to lugging heavy things around.”
“We had to do this one time when my friend Hedda sprained her ankle because she got her heel caught in a crack in the sidewalk,” Gabriela informs him as she and Delila position themselves on either side of Joe. “It was really thin? The heel, I mean. It just wedged itself in. She went down like a bowling pin. You should’ve seen it. It was worse than yours. It looked like she was morphing into an elephant.”
“One … two … three…” counts Delila, and they heave him to his feet.
“You see?” says Gabriela. “And you’re not crying the way Hedda was. It makes it a lot easier.”
“Give me a few minutes,” he grunts. “I may be crying by the time we get to my house.”
He lives close by compared to, say, Las Vegas, but it’s still a good distance to be hauling a grown man, especially quite a large one, under the afternoon sun. Free to talk about things other than books, paintings and foreign films, Gabriela and Delila tell him what they’re doing in LA and keep up a constant stream of chatter to try to distract him from the pain. Delila talks about Brooklyn and her grandparents and recites a poem she wrote about the New York subway called World Soup with Music. Gabriela talks about her unfair and largely undeserved problems with Professor Gryck and the gruesomeness of the morning and how they were nearly arrested.
By the time they get to Joe’s house, they’re all laughing.
His housekeeper is out. He forgot she was going to the market.
“Damn woman,” says Joe. “When you don’t need her, she’s always underfoot; when you do, she’s miles away.”
They drop him on the couch, and Delila props up the bad leg with pillows while Gabriela goes to the kitchen for ice. She comes back with a bag of frozen peas.
“This is what we used on Hedda,” she tells him, not mentioning that what the hospital used on Hedda was traction. “And it really works. Plus you don’t have ice melting all over and you can just stick it back in the freezer and have it for supper.”
He leans against the cushions with a sigh of relief. “Today, this really is the City of Angels. I can’t thank you two enough.” He manages to smile without wincing. “My saviours.”
Gabriela adjusts the bag of peas. “The only thanks we want is directions back to Sunset. You know, before the Gryck calls out the National Guard.”
“The short cut would be good,” adds Delila.
“I’d take you myself if I could drive. Explain to your professor that you’re so late because you were being good Samaritans.”
“I don’t know why,” says Delila, “but I don’t think the Gryck’s really going to care.”
“You should see the shoes she wears,” says Gabriela. “They’re the shoes of a person with very little flexibility.”
“And what about my shoes?” Joe waggles his good foot. “What do they say about me?”
Gabriela gazes at his feet for a few seconds, considering. “They say you’re younger than you look.”
The shortcut, as it turns out, is to leave by the back door and go straight down through the jogger’s property, where they’ll be able to slip out through the bordering shrubs.
On the hill that overlooks Joe’s home is a mansion that was built to look like an old Spanish mission, complete with a bell tower – which, in fact, has never housed a bell but is a bedroom. The hacienda, as it is known in the neighbourhood, belongs to a very famous director who at the moment is in France. It’s from the window of the bell tower that Remedios has been watching Gabriela and Delila. She saw them stride up the road in the wrong direction. She saw them pass the jogger. She most certainly saw him stumble and fall. She saw them go to his aid. And now she sees Gabriela and Delila making their way past the swimming pool and the gardens and the koi pond. But she turns away before they emerge onto the road, straight into the arms of the waiting police – though she does allow herself a very small smile.
Beth, Gabriela and the LAPD
Interestingly enough, Gabriela and Delila aren’t the only ones having an unexpected meeting with members of the Los Angeles Police Department this afternoon.
“So let me get this straight.” Officer Wynlot looks from his notebook to Beth. “You and your friend got on the bus because you saw some guy in a red sports car.”
“The stalker,” says Beth. “He’s been following us all morning. He even got onto the property of the Madagascar studio and set off the alarms.”
“In his car?” Officer Medina is Officer Wynlot’s partner.
Beth shakes her head. “No, he wasn’t in the car then. He was on foot. He was in the car when we were waiting for a cab. That’s why I got on the bus.”
Officer Wynlot nods, almost as though this is making more sense to him than anything else he’s heard in the last half hour since they stopped the runaway bus. “Right. Because you thought he was following you.”
“I didn’t think he was following us.” Not only is Beth not blushing, she seems to have forgotten how to stammer and whisper as well. “He was following us. He was everywhere we went at Sunset Plaza.”
“In his car?” asks Officer Medina.
“Of course not,” snaps Beth. Among the many fears Beth seems to be overcoming this weekend is her fear of figures of authority. “On foot.”
“Wait a minute.” Officer Wynlot is looking at his notes again. “You said this guy was on the bus? When did he get on the bus?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t see him until the snake got loose. He must’ve changed his clothes.”
“He changed his clothes?” Many people think that Officer Medina has a lovely, melt-your-heart smile, but Beth is not one of those people. “First you see him in his car, so you get on the bus. And then he somehow ditches the car, changes his clothes and gets on a couple of stops after you?”
“I don’t know how he did it,” says Beth, “but he was definitely on the bus.”
Officer Medina moves his mouth as though he’s impersonating a fish. “Well, he wasn’t on it when we searched it.” This is an accusation, not a statement. “And we talked to every passenger that came off your bus and there
was no one like the guy you described.”
Officer Wynlot sighs. “What about you?” He turns to Lucinda. “Did you see this ‘weird’ guy on the bus?”
“Well…” Slowly and reluctantly, Lucinda shakes her head. “No, I didn’t see him on the bus. But—”
“Now that’s kind of interesting.” Officer Wynlot looks thoughtful as well as interested. “Because Miss Menz here says that he was sitting next to the tattooed man, but the tattooed man didn’t see this guy either. He says nobody was sitting next to him. How do you figure that?”
“I didn’t see him because I was busy trying to get my phone to work.”
“Of course. So that explains why the guy sitting next to him didn’t see him either.” He taps his pencil against his notebook. “But you saw him when you were shopping?”
“Well…” Lucinda’s eyes dart towards Beth. “Not exactly.”
Officer Medina takes his turn to sigh. “Not exactly ‘yes’ or not exactly ‘no’?”
“Well…”
“And when he broke into the back yard of the studio?” persists Officer Wynlot. “You must’ve seen him then.”
“Well…” Lucinda shrugs. “I was looking at something else then.”
“I thought he set off the alarms.”
She shifts from one foot to the other. “Well … they did go off…”
“So what you’re saying,” recaps Officer Wynlot, “is that you never saw this man who your friend says was following you around all day.”
Lucinda does some more foot shifting. “Well…”
“What the heck is going on here?” Shaking his head, Officer Medina directs this question to his partner. “Are we in the Twilight Zone or something? The bus driver went in the wrong direction on a route that doesn’t exist, but he never noticed. And nobody on the bus noticed either. They just rolled along like they were on their way home.” He turns his attention to Beth. “And now you’re reporting a stalker that seemingly can be in two places at once, change clothes in a matter of minutes, and who’s invisible to everyone but you.”
“You know what they say,” says Beth. “Truth is stranger than fiction.”
“It is today,” says Officer Medina.
Either out of kindness, or because they think Beth is delusional and poses a threat to both herself and public order, the policemen take her and Lucinda the few blocks to The City of Angels College of Fashion and Design. Up until now, there was never any possibility that Beth would ever be brought home in the back of a cop car, but if she had Lillian Beeby would have fainted on the spot. Taffeta Mackenzie, however, is not the sort of woman to get upset just because someone in her care turns up with a police escort.
“How very kind of you to return our lost sheep,” purrs Taffeta, smiling at Officers Wynlot and Medina as if they were fantastically wealthy fashion gurus and not poorly paid public servants. “Are you sure you wouldn’t like a cup of coffee or tea?”
But showing up in a police car and showing up with bare, filthy feet and your clothes dishevelled because you were wrangling snakes and dogs on a bus filled with hysterical people are two different things. The smile vanishes the minute the officers leave.
“Good grief, girl!” Taffeta points one dagger-like nail, midnight blue and flecked with gold, at Beth’s heart. “Your hair! Your clothes!” Her delicate nose twitches. “God help us, you smell like drugstore aftershave and cheap perfume. What in the name of Christian Dior is that on your blouse?” She peers closer. “Is that excrement?” It’s a good guess. In fact, the tiny smudge on Beth’s blouse is snake poo. “And your feet! What the hell happened to your shoes?” She puts a hand where her heart can be presumed to be. “You look like you’ve been herding cows. Barefoot.” Taffeta puts a hand to her cheek, but although she is careful not to disturb her make-up, this is a sign that she couldn’t be more upset if someone had dumped a case of red wine on the entire Spring collection. “I think, Lucinda, that you should go to the tea. I want to speak to Gabriela alone.” She sits down at her desk as Lucinda, with a last, worried look at her roommate, closes the door behind her. “All right, I want the whole story,” says Taffeta. “And let me tell you, it had better be really, really good.”
It is, as we know, a really, really good story. But, good as it is, Beth can tell that Taffeta Mackenzie doesn’t believe her any more than Officers Wynlot and Medina did.
As Beth’s tale of menace and mayhem comes to an end, Taffeta purses her mouth, risking smudging her lipstick, and sits back in her chair. “It’s not that I’m not sympathetic,” she says after a few seconds’ pause. “I’ve been there myself, honey. When I was a top model and had my face on every magazine in the solar system, there was this madman who became obsessed with me. And let me tell you, it scared the bejabers out of me. It got so bad I wouldn’t go anywhere by myself. Even to buy a pair of shoes.” She taps her fingertips on the edge of her desk. “But there is one big difference between my guy and your guy…” Taptaptap. “The guy who was stalking me wasn’t invisible, Gabriela. His name was Sam and he installed air conditioners.”
“But my guy’s not invisible. I saw him. I—”
“You didn’t even take a picture of him. Why didn’t you take a picture of him if he’s real?”
“I didn’t think…”
“And nobody else saw him, did they? You admit that none of the other girls saw him, even though you say he followed you all the time you were shopping. I was right there when the alarm went at Madagascar, and I didn’t see him.” Taffeta smiles. “How do you explain that, Gabriela?”
“Well I guess I can’t, but—”
“Even Lucinda never saw him, and she’s been with you all day.”
“But that doesn’t mean he wasn’t there,” argues Beth. “It just means nobody else saw him.”
“Or maybe she didn’t see him because there was nothing to see. Just some guy being a little admiring.”
“A little admiring?” Following her around like he was a balloon on a string that was tied to her finger?
“Honey, Lucinda knows and you know, too – men are going to follow you around. That’s why you look like you do. Well, not like you look now–” Taffeta gives a delicate shudder. “But like you usually look. That’s the point of all the make-up and clothes and the diets and everything. That’s the price of beauty.”
“Being stalked by some psycho is the price of beauty?” What kind of a world is this?
Taffeta leans forward, eyeing Beth as if she were a piece of flawed fabric. “Look, honey, you haven’t been yourself all day. Don’t think I didn’t notice. As soon as I saw you this morning I said to myself, Taffeta, we have a little situation starting here. This is not the young goddess you met last night. This is not the girl who sent that awesome portfolio. Not the girl who designed the angel dress. Something’s gone horribly wrong…”
Beth stares back at her, wavering between horror and hope. Is it possible that there is some explanation for what’s happened to her, and that Taffeta Mackenzie knows what it is? Has this kind of thing happened before? Is it part of the magic of Hollywood? The part no one ever talks about? “I haven’t been myself?”
“No. Definitely not. You are not the real Gabriela Menz. And that is not a good thing.” Taffeta shakes her head. Mournfully. “Your outfit didn’t come together at all today; it was like you dressed on a boat in a storm in the dark… You’re not wearing any make-up and you’ve been hobbling around like you have beans in your shoes and never wore heels before… But when you wanted to put that tailored shirt with those cropped beachcomber trousers—” Though it happens rarely, for almost a full half-second Taffeta Mackenzie is at a loss for words. “Well, I just couldn’t believe it. I would’ve been less shocked if my favourite model had put on a hundred pounds and started shopping in charity shops.” She smiles as if the fabric she’s been considering is worse than she’d feared. “It was only then I figured out what was happening.”
She knows? She really knows? Maybe it’s some
kind of rare natural phenomenon like the Bermuda Triangle or a shower of frogs. But peculiar to Los Angeles. The Los Angeles Syndrome. It’s all Beth can do not to fling herself on Taffeta’s desk begging, Well, tell me! Tell me what it is!
“You did?”
“Uh, huh. It’s obvious.”
“Really?”
“Sure,” says Taffeta. “It’s nerves. Nerves are a killer. This is a big deal for you. Maybe you’re a little overexcited. Wound up. I’ve been there, too, honey. When I first started out, I was a bundle – an enormous, jiggy bundle of nerves – and they were all being jabbed with needles. I shook. I puked. I even sweat.” Her expression darkens with the horror of it all. “But you’ll get over it. Trust me. It’s like actors get stage fright.” She stands up. “So I’ll tell you what we’re going to do.” She comes round to where Beth is sitting and eases her out of the chair. “You’re going to go back to the hotel and get ready for tonight. You’ll miss the tour of the school, but that can’t be helped. We can’t have the staff seeing you like this. I’ll tell them you have a migraine. Tonight’s when you girls meet the major players. I want you to look like you were beamed down from Heaven. You’re going to take your place at the party and show them all what you’ve got. Because that’s what this town and this business is about. The show must go on!”
I’m not even in real life any more, thinks Beth. I’m in a movie. Any minute now this woman’s going to start singing and dancing.
“Well, I—”
“Let’s get something straight, OK? You’ve been messing up all day, Gabriela. And I can’t put my patronage behind someone who messes up like that. Think jungle. You either eat or you’re eaten.” She gives Beth a look that says she’s on the verge of being someone’s dinner. “So this is your chance to prove I wasn’t wrong about you. That you have what it takes.”
Suddenly Beth feels cold, as though someone has opened a window behind her that looks out on winter in Iceland. What she’s messing up are Gabriela’s hopes and dreams – and in a rather spectacular way. And if she’s doing that, then there’s a very good chance that Gabriela is doing the same for her. Every god there ever was can’t help her now. Even if she somehow manages to get back in her own body, her life has been ruined forever.