Chase felt uncertain. “Let me see that diagram again.”
“You have a photographic memory. It’s all in your head,” Bud said.
“You’re right. I’m ready.” She put her shoulders back and nodded as if to say to the Universe, “Bring on what you may, I am a child of fortune and today is my day.”
Onstage, two large cubicles were set up—one for each contestant. A wrapping cart of supplies and a square clock, the kind Chase had seen chess players use, were set up. Boxes of all sizes, cardboard tubes and rolls of wrapping paper were set up in racks. It looked like the inside of Santa’s gift-wrapping center: all precision and organization and ready for an army of elves to march in and tackle the mammoth task of gift-wrapping Christmas.
Mrs. Valponne instructed them to stand next to her onstage. “We’re going to open the curtain, and you’re to smile, wave at the audience and go backstage and await further instructions. Do you understand?”
“Yes,” Chase said.
Kim Lee nodded, with that stoic Eastern I-have-this-all-under-control attitude she had.
The curtain opened, and Chase stared out at the audience, thinking about them in their underwear as all those self-help books suggested you should do when forced to perform in front of a crowd. “Ladies and gentlemen, we are going to begin the final round of the competition. The contestants will have two and a half hours to complete their task. I ask that you remain quiet during this period. Judging will be announced in time for everyone to resume their seats. Now, let’s give our contestants a big round of applause.”
The curtain closed, and Mrs. Valponne stared hard at them. “Ms. Banter, you won the coin toss so you get first choice of assignments. As you both are most likely aware each year we choose a landmark that serves as the outside armature for the gift inside. This year we have chosen the Eiffel Tower with mini horse or the Statue of Liberty with a Smart Car. Ms. Banter, your choice will be?”
“The Eiffel Tower,” Chase said. She watched to see how Kim Lee was going to take it. Once again Kim Lee’s face was inscrutable.
“All right then, ladies, let the games begin,” Mrs. Valponne said.
Chase went to her work space and scrutinized her supplies. She rolled out two gigantic rolls of shiny brown wrapping paper like she was unrolling the red carpet at the Golden Globes. Next, she duct-taped cardboard tubes together and envisioned a child’s erector set. She would build the Eiffel Tower using the tubes as the armature—four legs, cross beams, and tiered layers, supporting cardboard platforms that would help with the bracing. Then, she’d wrap it in the shiny brown paper, making a perfect cardboard replica. As the levels came together, Chase thought, I am fucking doing this. She faced Kim Lee’s cordoned off cubical and said, “Bring it,” gesturing palms up and pulling her fingers back and forth.
She looked at the clock. She had fifty-five minutes left to wrap the horse. Having decided that the tower was finished, she glanced over at the mini horse. Chase didn’t know shit about horses. She approached her slowly—one thing she did know was they spooked easily—but this little horse looked up at Chase with sweet brown eyes filled with utter trust. Chase petted her forehead, and the horse nuzzled her.
Chase decided to be upfront with the horse. If she were a horse about to be gift wrapped, she’d want to know what was going on. It was only common courtesy. “Winnie, I’m going to wrap you up all pretty and then put you in that box over there just for ten minutes and then you get to have an apple and lots of petting. How does that sound?”
She watched for Winnie’s response. The horse seemed nonplussed.
“Okay,” Chase said. She wheeled over the trolley that contained her wrapping supplies and studied the horse. “Let’s start with your tail.”
Chase proceeded to make tubes of wrapping paper that covered Winnie’s tail, legs and neck. She resembled the Tin Man. “So far so good,” she said.
Chase cooed words of encouragement as she took a tape measure and looped it around Winnie’s belly. She taped together a strip long enough and wide enough to cover the horse’s mid-section. Winnie looked like the Tin Man’s horse.
“Now, let’s hope you’re not claustrophobic.” Chase imagined Winnie freaking and bursting out of the Eiffel Tower and destroying everything. Not that Chase would hold it against her. It was perfectly understandable. If she were a horse she might do the same thing.
It occurred to Chase that Winnie rode in a horse trailer. The Eiffel Tower box was not so different. She cut slats in the side of the box so Winnie could see out. “There, that should work,” Chase told the horse.
There were ten minutes left. “Okay, Winnie, what do you say we try the box?” Chase stroked Winnie and looked into her big brown eyes. “If you do this for me I will be eternally grateful.”
Winnie nuzzled her, and Chase handed her the apple slice that her handler had given them to use as a reward for good behavior. Winnie eagerly took it. “Okay, so we’re going to walk into this box, I mean trailer, and go for a little imaginary ride.” Chase took her bridle and led her to the box in the center of the Eiffel Tower. The horse seemed to know exactly what to do. Winnie walked right in and stood like she was ready to go. And then she shit.
Chase froze. Shit, horse shit! What the fuck was she going to do?
This was not a What Would Jesus Do? moment, but Chase called on him anyway. She looked down at the pile of shit. At least it was in neat clumps. Chase grabbed a cardboard tube. She poked the pile of shit. It wasn’t gooey like dog shit. Pooper scooper, that’s what she needed. She frantically looked around. A cardboard box, a piece of cardboard and she could scoop it up. She scooped, looking up periodically to make sure Winnie didn’t drop another load. The shit was in the box. But what the hell was she going to do with it now? She decided she’d do what she did best. She wrapped it, stuck a bow on top and set it next to the other boxes. She pulled out her antibacterial gel and cleaned up.
The big buzzer rang. “Well, here it is, the moment we’ve been waiting for,” Mrs. Valponne said from the front of the curtain.
Chase wasn’t so sure. She tried the audience-in-underwear thing again, but then got distracted by types of underwear—thongs, tighty-whities, grandma panties and holiday briefs. The curtain opened and there was a collective gasp from the audience. Oh, God, Chase thought. Kim Lee’s was going to be so much better and everyone was going to snicker at her banal attempt at a magnum opus. How could she possibly think she would pull this off?
The audience applauded. Mrs. Valponne allowed a few minutes of adoration. She called for quiet. The audience obeyed.
The judges stood with their clipboards ready. The crew removed the partition so the contenders could see each other’s works. They studied each other.
Okay, Kim Lee’s was good—damn good. The Statue of Liberty was definitely a Cubist rendition—Picasso would have been proud. It was an ingenious use of cardboard. Chase would give her that. Then she’d wrapped the cardboard with a patina-tinted wrapping paper.
Chase wondered if the Smart Car was wrapped inside. Kim Lee opened the front of the Statue of Liberty and her coach drove the car out. It wasn’t wrapped. It had an oversized bow on the roof, though, and both bumpers had ribbons wound around them and the mirrors had pom-poms. It was really rather ingenious, Chase thought. She looked over at Mrs. Meadowbrook-Parks as she watched the judges tally up the points. Kim Lee came in at nine points out of ten.
Fuck, Chase thought. She’d have to get a perfect ten to beat her. What were the chances of that? Wrapped horse or no.
Stella stood up and started a standing ovation. Her mother was a traitor. Chase scowled at her. Then the judges came around to Chase. They milled around her magnum opus with their clipboards, and Chase wished she could vaporize and find the portal back to her house where it was safe and noncompetitive. What had she been thinking to assume that the new Fearless Chase stood a chance in the world at large? One of the paisley twins indicated for her to open the doors to reveal the present insi
de. Chase opened the doors, patted Winnie on the forehead and led her out.
The horse was a natural. She pranced out as if showing herself off. It was like she was trained for dressage. There was another collective gasp, which Chase hoped wasn’t dismay, from the crowd. The judges carefully examined the horse. Winnie was a performer. She pranced. She lifted her tail. Chase watched with trepidation. She’d built slack into the wrapping so Winnie could move about but not so much that the horse could do the can-can. Winnie must have sensed Chase’s concern. She came up beside her and nuzzled Chase.
The paisley twins clasped their hands and smiled. They were animal lovers. That was a good sign, Chase thought. The Poirot-looking guy walked around the horse and minutely studied her design. He gave her a curt nod.
“Inventive,” he said.
They went back to their table, conferred and then each one put up their card. It seemed the whole auditorium held its breath. Mrs. Meadowbrook-Parks held Chase’s hand, something Chase normally would not have allowed, being squeamish about physical contact, but the circumstances warranted it.
She got the ten points. She was the winner! Mrs. Meadowbrook-Parks picked her up and swung her around. The auditorium exploded with applause, and Chase saw the sardonic grin on her mother’s face, like Stella knew all along that Chase would win. She’d done the standing ovation thing as a consolation prize for Kim Lee.
“Ladies and gentlemen, the Golden Gift-Wrapping Award goes to Chase Banter,” Mrs. Valponne said. She indicated that Chase should come forward. Poirot handed her the gold box and shook her hand.
“You’re very talented, Ms. Banter, and I commend you,” Poirot said.
“Thank you. This means a lot to me,” Chase said, and she meant it.
She and Winnie and Mrs. Meadowbrook-Parks were surrounded by her family. Bud jumped up and down and squealed. “You did it! You did it!”
Chase laughed. She would give Bud a good ribbing over this jump-squeal moment. It was so not her. Of course, Bud’s design prep had been instrumental. Maybe she wouldn’t tease her about behaving like an overexcited six-year-old.
“Well done, now we can have the party,” Stella said, dialing her cell phone.
“What party?” Chase said. She’d been adamant about having only a few people know about her wrapping gig. She wanted to get over her performance anxiety in a private way, which was, of course, antithetical to her cause, but Dr. Robicheck had told her that psychological incrementalism was a better method than plate tectonics when it came to modifying behavior.
“Your victory party,” Stella said.
“I made tamales and Frito pie,” Jacinda said.
“Everyone is waiting at Stella’s house, and you’re invited too, Mrs. Meadowbrook-Parks,” Bud said, handing her the MapQuest directions that she had fished from her backpack.
“Wait just a minute, you all planned a victory party?” Chase said.
Gitana avoided her gaze.
“What if I hadn’t won?” Chase said.
“Then we would have a celebration party for giving it your all and overcoming your fear. It’s a win-win,” Bud said. She hugged Chase’s thigh. “But I am glad you won. It’s so much more fun. We invited everyone. Donna and Isabel are at the house setting it all up with banners and balloons and a big cake.”
“I’m glad I won, or it would have been a big to-do for a not winning,” Chase said.
“Exactly,” Bud said, stroking the gold trophy, which was shaped like a wrapped box. She would add it to her wall of Chase’s accomplishments.
“Are you going to put it next to my Golden Vulva plaque and the Labia Majora statue for my book award?” Chase said.
“You know me so well it’s scary,” Bud said. “But I thought I’d put it between them so it appears that the gold-plated gift box is a metaphor for unwrapping one’s true self—free of fear.”
“What does that have to do with plaques that have vaginal parts on them?” Chase asked.
“A better question would be why do you have awards with that on them? I want to put the gold box there to distract the viewer,” Bud replied.
“I know, right. This trophy makes sense at least,” Chase said, looking down at it and feeling truly proud.
“Now, let’s go party,” Bud said.
Chapter Eighteen—The Marriage
“Where the hell have you two been?” Chase said. She was in the writing studio dusting her trophies.
Divine Vulva and Commercial Endeavor were holding hands and bumping each other’s hips. “You tell her,” Divine Vulva said.
“No, you do it,” Commercial Endeavor said.
“Really?” Divine Vulva said.
“Will someone just fucking tell me?” Chase said, shaking her feather duster at them.
Divine Vulva pointed a finger at Chase. “You have a filthy potty mouth.” She looked at Commercial Endeavor. “I hadn’t noticed her dirty mouth before. Has she always been like that?”
Commercial Endeavor nodded and shot Chase an apologetic look.
“You should fucking talk,” Chase said, pointing at Divine Vulva.
“Tsk, tsk,” Divine Vulva clucked, putting her hand on her hip and waggling a finger in a gesture of shame-on-you.
“Tell me where you’ve been. The suspense is killing me,” Chase said sarcastically.
“Well, since you put it that way, all right. We went to Buffalo,” Divine Vulva said.
“Buffalo? As in New York? Why?”
Divine Vulva stuck out her left hand and smiled coyly. Chase scrutinized her hand. “What’s wrong with it? It looks fine to me.”
“We got married, you stupid fuck,” Divine Vulva said.
“Vulva!” Commercial Endeavor said.
“Oh, sorry, honey.” Divine Vulva gave her a penitent look.
“Why Buffalo?” Chase said.
“New York State now recognizes gay marriage. We wanted to partake in the newness of ceremony,” Commercial Endeavor said.
“Did you have her sign a prenup?” Chase asked Commercial Endeavor.
“What?” Divine Vulva said.
“She makes a lot more money than you do,” Chase said.
“I realize that,” Commercial Endeavor said.
“Our union is one of the soul, not of the God Mammon,” Divine Vulva said.
“Don’t get a joint checking account,” Chase said. “But congratulations and I desperately hope this works out because it’s a little late in the game for me to be finding new muses.”
Divine Vulva and Commercial Endeavor both winced.
Chase was secretly ecstatic they were back, but she didn’t want them to know that.
“Now, I hope you’re both well-rested because I’d like to get back to work, and we’ve got a deadline. So let’s chop-chop.” It was a good thing the gift-wrapping gig had come along or Chase would’ve been a basket case worrying about them and how their absence would affect her writing career.
The three of them got back to work. Chase was deep in concentration, thinking about Act Three of her mystery novel. Her publisher, Eliza P. Newman, divided books into three acts—the first act was “climb the tree,” Act Two was “shake the tree,” and Act Three was “getting out of the tree.” Commercial Endeavor was going over the plot outline. It was Divine Vulva’s job to come up with the last of the red herrings. Her brow was furrowed with the effort, and she was scribbling on a yellow legal pad. It wasn’t easy to get Divine Vulva to work, but when she worked she worked.
Chase saw movement out of the corner of her eye and looked up to see Lacey standing with her forehead pressed against the glass pane of the door. And if this wasn’t disconcerting enough, she used her head to knock. Chase leapt up and unlocked the door before Lacey gave herself a concussion or shattered the glass.
“What’s wrong?” Chase asked. Lacey trudged past her and dove onto the couch face-first, bursting into tears. Evidently something was really wrong. “Did someone die? Is Jasmine all right? She didn’t break up with you?”<
br />
That question sent Lacey howling. “No, thank the Goddess, but I need her so much and she’s gone,” she blubbered, snuffling and rubbing her eyes.
“She’s on a book tour, and you insisted she go, and she is under contract to do so,” Chase pointed out.
The wailing continued. “Shit,” Chase said. She rummaged around for a box of tissues in the bathroom. She found an unopened box under the vanity.
She handed the box to Lacey. She sat up, took a tissue and blew her nose. “Fank you,” she said with a stuffed nose.
“Do you want me to call Dr. Robicheck?”
This started a fresh torrent of tears.
“Or not.”
“No, she did her best. It can’t be fixed. They can’t behave or bond. It’s hopeless.”
“Who are ‘they’?” Chase asked.
“The fucking lesbians, that’s who. Chase, it was a mass exodus and all over a seminar in comedy. I thought it would help. Bud’s film and Dr. Robicheck’s session worked wonders for a while, and then I don’t know what happened. We all seemed fine, I thought. I had Chino and Dixon check things out and the thermometer seemed to read high.”
“Thermometer?”
“We call it the Cultural Thermometer—it’s the way I measure how the general population is feeling about the way things are being run at the Institute. You should check it out some time. It’s a marvel of charting—takes up one whole panel in the boardroom.”
“How come I haven’t seen it?”
“It’s a secret.” She dabbed at her eyes and brushed her hair back from her face.
“You know your clandestine world is gonna bite you in the ass one of these days,” Chase said. She heard Divine Vulva sigh heavily. Ah, life was back to normal—her muse was disgusted with her banal use of language.
“Do you think I should fire Dixon and Chino?” Lacey asked, shredding the snot-filled Kleenex.
Chase put the wastebasket beside her. She didn’t want any biohazard material on her floor. She thought about the question. She didn’t like Lacey’s henchmen, but they did what they were told. “They’re not my favorites, but you are the one in charge. Maybe they’d behave better if you didn’t instruct them to behave in a totalitarian way.”
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