The Truth about My Success

by Dyan Sheldon

  And so the days and weeks have passed – and Paloma’s sense of desperation has passed with them. The routines of the ranch have given her a new rhythm to her life. She doesn’t eat by herself, or spend hours on her computer by herself, or have no one to talk to but herself any more. Rather than crossing off the days, she puts stars in the boxes that are special – Pilar’s birthday… the talent show… the summer dance.

  Indeed, it is about the summer dance that Paloma and Tallulah are talking as they leave the dining hall after supper on this pleasant summer evening. Paloma was elected head of the dance committee, a job she is taking very seriously.

  “But it isn’t like it’s a debutante’s ball,” Tallulah is saying. “It’s just a dance on a ranch.”

  “So? It’s a big deal for us. We have a real DJ.”

  “I don’t know how real Calvin Meiser is,” says Tallulah. “You weren’t here when the goat trapped him on the roof of the chicken coop.” Life at Old Ways, though dull as swamp water, is not without incident. “It didn’t enlarge anybody’s opinion of him.”

  “The goat won’t be at the dance.”

  “OK, so we have a DJ. But it’s still not exactly the prom. We’re not all wearing fancy clothes and having our hair done. We’re just putting on clean jeans and T-shirts.”

  “That doesn’t mean we can’t decorate the common room and make it look special.” Paloma, of course, has never so much as decorated an Easter egg (Leone always buys a dozen from a local artist, and pays a designer to provide a different themed tree each Christmas). But over the seasons Faith Cross has decorated a desert dugout, a cave, an abandoned airplane hangar, a mud hut, a trailer and a giant Sequoia, so Paloma feels that she knows what to do. And she’s seen enough movies and TV shows to know what a dance should look like.

  “You mean balloons?”

  “Yeah, balloons. And streamers and coloured lights. Maybe we can make some paper flowers or something like that. Or doves.” Faith Cross once decorated a Christmas tree with origami doves. “Make it look like a garden.”

  Tallulah laughs. “You really are too much.” Unlike previous occasions when Paloma has heard these or similar words, this is not a criticism. “What were the chances?”

  “Meaning?”

  “Meaning look at you. All heated up about the Old Ways summer dance. If anybody had told me when you first got here that you’d change so much, I’d’ve laughed in their face and called them stupid.”

  Paloma gives her a friendly poke. “You’re the one who told me to get with the programme.” Though no one told her that she has to look forward to the dance.

  “Well yeah, of course I did.” Tallulah pokes her back. “But I didn’t expect you to do it.”

  Paloma shrugs in the new way she has mastered since she accepted that tantrums and meltdowns no longer get her what she wants, like a duck letting water roll off its back. “Well, you know what they say about Rome.”

  Tallulah doesn’t know.

  The adage Paloma is thinking of is: When in Rome, do as the Romans do, but she doesn’t really know it either.

  “It’s, like, When in Rome, do something – you know, like eat spaghetti or speak Italian. Something like that.”

  “Yeah, but you’ve done more than eat spaghetti. You even did the Oregon Trail. I mean, that is really massive.” Tallulah winks. “I guess you’re even a better actor than you say you are.”

  Paloma doesn’t quite hear that last sentence. Ms McGraw, aka the McNugget, is standing outside the office block, yakking to Ethan Lovejoy. “I’ll meet you in the common room later for that Scrabble game,” she says. “I have to go, Ms McGraw’s waiting for me.”

  Next to talking to Ms McGraw, the Oregon Trail is a walk in the park.

  Kara McGraw is a serious and earnest kind of person who totally believes the words of wisdom that decorate the walls of Old Ways. She always starts the day with a positive thought, and always ends the day promising herself to do even better tomorrow – a goal she often achieves. She and Paloma talk together for forty-five minutes three times a week, discussing everything from the food and the weather, to difficulties with other residents and livestock, to the anxieties and problems that have brought Paloma to this oasis of peace and security in a turbulent world. One of Kara McGraw’s many mottos is: No trouble too big or too small. And, as she never tires of telling Paloma, besides these sessions her door is always open – morning, noon or night – even if all Paloma wants is to shoot the breeze.

  The breeze is not what Paloma would like to shoot.

  Ms McGraw is a very nice woman, not even Paloma would argue with that, but she is also the human equivalent of a Hallmark card. A platitude for every occasion, that’s the McNugget. Forty-five minutes with her is like forty-five minutes wading through corn syrup in one of those old-fashioned dresses with the full skirt and ruffles. In the McNugget’s opinion the glass is not only always half full, it’s always half full of the purest, crystal-clear spring water (in which no fish, bird or mammal has peed or pooed). There isn’t a cloud that isn’t lined with gold. There isn’t a deluge that doesn’t produce acres of flowers. The darker the night, the brighter the dawn. Another of her many mottos is: God gives us problems so we can solve them. How considerate of Him, thought Paloma sourly the first time she heard this, but aloud what she said was, “You know, Ms McGraw, that’s really very true.”

  Now, as she sits down and Ms McGraw asks her how she is today, Paloma says, “I’m good, Ms McGraw. I’m really, really good.”

  “I can’t tell you how happy it makes me to hear you say that, Susie.” Ms McGraw looks happy. “I was just saying to Ethan how well you’re doing. You’re practically the poster girl for our philosophy and methods.”

  Paloma, who still thinks of herself more as the poster girl for victimhood and parental cruelty, smiles her new at-peace-with-the-world smile. “Thanks. That’s really nice of you to say.”

  “We get what we earn,” says Ms McGraw. “And look what you got.” She hands Paloma a postcard. It’s a picture of the sun going down over the Hollywood hills. “It came this afternoon.”

  Paloma takes the card. On the back Leone has scrawled: The sunset misses you, too. Hope you’re having a great time. Everyone sends their love. Hugs and kisses from me and Dad. Love, Mom. Paloma slips the card into her pocket.

  “What would you like to talk about today?”

  “Well, you know, I was working on some ideas for the dance today and, I guess this is going to sound really weird, but it made me think about my mother.”

  Paloma usually makes things up to tell Ms McGraw. Things she thinks the McNugget wants to hear. Or rather, she borrows shamelessly from TV shows and movies she’s seen. Tragic accidents. Horrible deaths. An extended family so dysfunctional they make the Borgias look like paradigms of human behaviour. In one memorable session that had tears in the counsellor’s eyes, Paloma even had herself separated from her twin at birth.

  But there is one thing that Paloma has told the truth about in her talks with Ms McGraw, and that is her relationship with her mother. It seemed pointless to make it up. Ms McGraw says it’s not at all unusual for teenage girls not to get along with their mothers. In fact, it’s pretty much normal. The nagging. The arguments. The physical fights. The trying to control her heart and soul. The constant criticism. Ms McGraw didn’t even think that the time Leone threw Paloma’s clothes into the backyard was anything special. It seems that, all over the world, mothers are hurling their daughter’s belongings out of windows every hour of the day.

  “And what were you thinking about her?” Ms McGraw always sounds as if she was born understanding everything; as if she never has a bad mood or an unkind thought.

  For the first time since she was a small child, Paloma’s thoughts of Leone weren’t unkind. It suddenly struck her that when Leone was a teenager she must have gotten excited about going to a dance. Paloma’s smile is shy and almost wistful. She isn’t really used to the idea that her mother is human. �
��I was thinking about what you said about trying to understand how she’s scared because she’s getting old. You know, how she’s jealous because I have my whole life in front of me and her best years are behind her?”

  “I also said I’m sure she loves you very much,” says Ms McGraw. “And that while subconsciously she sees you as a rival who’s taking her place, she doesn’t want to lose you so she doesn’t want you to grow up.”

  “Yeah right. That’s what I mean.” Paloma’s shrug is shy and wistful, too. “And anyway, all of a sudden I, like, really missed her.”

  Ms McGraw nods. Earnestly and sincerely. “I know she misses you, too.”

  The common room is a large space, divided in two by a folding door. On one side are the tables where games are played – board games, cards, dominoes, ping-pong and pool; on the other are sofas and chairs and an enormous flat screen TV with enough channels to keep an army of problem teenagers happy. Several people nod or wave to Paloma. Meg points Paloma to a far corner where Tallulah is deep in a fierce paddle battle.

  “Five minutes!” she grunts, whopping the ball over the net.

  Paloma watches for a while, but, as in many things, her interest in ping-pong is limited and she soon wanders off. She admires the progress on the jigsaw Albie and his bunkmate have been doing for the last three weeks. She stands for a few minutes watching Pilar playing a game of chess with all the intensity of a brain surgeon performing an especially delicate operation. Everybody’s immersed in whatever game they’re playing and too busy to hang out for a while and just talk.

  Paloma has avoided the TV section of the common room for all these weeks because it’s too painful a reminder of where she should be and what she should be doing (in Hollywood, entertaining millions; not on the back acres of hell pushing livestock around), but now, with nothing else to do but hang around like an uninvited guest, she pushes the folding door open enough to step through.

  Almost every seat is occupied. In the middle of the sofa Raul sits with the remote gripped in his hands, flicking through the channels, blipblipblipblipblip. Around him, the rest of the audience calls out commands that he ignores. Blipblipblipblipblip.

  An image flashes past that catches Paloma’s eye. It’s a very familiar image.

  “Stop!” she orders. “Go back to that girl. The blonde.”

  “Oh come on, Suze,” groans Raul. “Nobody wants to see that.” Blipblipblipbliblip.

  Paloma leans over the back of the sofa and snatches the remote from him so quickly that it’s gone before he knows it. “Just for one minute,” she promises.

  It’s the end of the opening credits for Angel in the House – she’d recognize them in her sleep. It must be a rerun. Because they couldn’t start the new season. So they must be showing old shows.

  A chorus of moans erupts. “For God’s sake, turn this crap off.”

  “Just a second,” she repeats. There’s Audrey Hepplewhite, getting out of her car and walking towards a sign that says St Anthony’s Care Home. And there’s Paloma, getting out of the passenger seat. “I just want to see something.”

  “No, not in a second – now!” screams someone else. “We don’t want to watch this diddlydoop.”

  But Paloma pays no attention to the protests and rude remarks. She recognizes the scene. Faith and her mother are visiting a relative in a nursing home. Paloma frowns. But they haven’t filmed that episode yet; that episode is in the new season. She stares at the screen, feeling as if cement has been poured into her blood. Very cold cement. How is it possible? How can they be showing an episode that hasn’t been filmed yet? How has Audrey Hepplewhite made such a complete and miraculous recovery and no one told her? How can Paloma be slipping down the hallway in the nursing home set in LA when she’s been living at Old Ways all this time?

  The answers to these questions, of course, are: it isn’t, they can’t, she couldn’t, and she isn’t. Up until this moment, Paloma thought her mother had simply taken advantage of the postponement in shooting the series to get rid of her for a while. How naïve can you be? Now she sees that just as there was no luxury hotel, there was no car crash and no coma and no cancelled season. And the perky blonde marching into the home may look like Paloma if you need glasses, but she isn’t – even from here Paloma can see that her earlobes are all wrong, her nose is slightly larger and she almost has an overbite. Now Paloma understands just how devious and treacherous Leone really is. The wicked stepmother in Snow White is practically a saint next to her. Miss Leone? That would be like missing a headache. A headache that you’d had for seventeen long and agonizing years.

  Someone makes a lunge for her and yanks the remote from her hand. There are cheers from the rest of the audience.

  But Paloma still stares at the screen. Her hand reaches for the postcard in her pocket. The sunset misses you, too. Hope you’re having a great time. Everyone sends their love. Hugs and kisses from me and Dad. Love, Mom. Everything she knows about lying she learned from Leone.

  Little pitchers have big ears

  Leone Minnick and Jack Silk are happy. Happy? Happy doesn’t begin to describe how they feel. If Leone Minnick and Jack Silk were bells and not people they’d be making such a racket that you’d think every church on the planet was having a wedding at exactly the same time on the same day. And the reason for all this dingdonging and clanging? The reason is that things were going well, but suddenly took a turn for the better. The much, much better. Far better than they could ever have dreamed. To quote Jack Silk’s comment to Leone when he heard the news, “I was hoping she’d save our bacon, but it looks like she saved the whole damn hog and stuck an apple in its mouth.”

  Because she never saw Oona crawling away under the table during lunch, it wasn’t until Leone realized that she could only hear one voice and not dozens – and that she knew whose voice it was – that she looked up from her phone to see what was going on. What she saw didn’t exactly put a smile on her face. Oh my Lord, thought Leone. She’s doing it again! Why can’t this girl ever keep her big trap shut? Paloma was always taught that you never confront an annoying photographer or reporter. You don’t break cameras, throw phones, food or drinks at them, or hit anyone with your bag. You walk away, or, possibly, run, but you don’t make things worse by actually having a conversation.

  Leone got to her feet, planning to step in and cut the lecture short, but then she noticed the rest of Oona’s audience. They were mesmerized. Transfixed. Nodding and gesturing. Taking videos and pictures. And when Oona was finished and they started to applaud, Leone clapped, too. But even then she wasn’t expecting Oona and Harriet to become an Internet sensation. The YouTube clips and the Tweets went viral. The news stations picked up the story. After so many months when you couldn’t pay to get Paloma Rose on a talk show, suddenly everyone wanted her on. And then, like the perfect rainbow after months of dark clouds and rain, The Call came: Lucinda Chance – the doyenne of daytime television – wants an hour interview with Paloma Rose and her dog in their own home; wants to hear Paloma’s story from her own lips. It’s the American equivalent of having an audience with the Queen. The hog not only had an apple in its mouth, it was covered with pineapple rings and cherries. Things couldn’t get any better than that.

  Though it might have occurred to at least one of them that they could get worse.

  Leone’s been so nice to her since the scene at the food court that Oona wonders if she misjudged her a little. Maybe there’s more to Leone than ambition, name-dropping, expensive restaurants and gold; maybe she has hidden depths.

  She no longer corrects Oona constantly, or hovers over her as if she’s a three-year-old who’s going to dump her juice all over the carpet. Her criticisms are gentle and good-humoured. She’s been known to pay Oona the occasional small compliment. She’s been seen giving Harriet a pat on the head.

  This evening, after a long and stressful day of publicity visits, they stop on the way home to get a take-out since Maria has the night off to see her cousin’s ne
w baby. Leone even lets Oona pick the restaurant. They eat together on the patio, discussing the upcoming interview with Lucinda. Since the invitation came through, Leone talks about little else. She has said several dozen times that she wants Oona to be herself, since that’s the girl who was given the invite. Leone worries about what they should wear. Slouching-around-the-house-clothes, or a little more formal and dressed-up?

  “I thought you said I should be myself,” says Oona.

  Leone says, “Within reason, sweetie. Within reason.” Maybe they should have the house redecorated or at least spruced up. Oona points out that the interview’s only a week away. Spruced up, decides Leone. But what about food? Should they have refreshments for Lucinda and her staff? Will she want to have the whole family on the air? Is there any chance that Harriet could go to that place where everybody takes their dogs and have a professional shampoo, cut and manicure?

  “I thought this was supposed to be laid-back and casual,” says Oona. “You know, like she was in the neighbourhood and decided to drop in?”

  “Darling, please. Even around here no one just drops in with a camera crew in tow.”

  “No,” says Oona, “but they do pretend.”

  After supper, Oona takes Harriet for her nightly walk. When they get back to the house Leone is stretched out on the couch in the family living room, making to-do lists for next Sunday. Oona goes up to Paloma’s room. Her room. She and Harriet make themselves comfortable in the big armchair; Oona reads while Harriet sleeps. It’s taken a while, but Oona’s starting to relax. The things that used to drive her crazy about the Minnicks don’t bother her as much; the things that seemed so bizarre may not seem natural but they’ve become normal. Possibly because she’s gotten used to being Paloma Rose, or possibly because Leone is being more pleasant, it isn’t as bad as she used to think. It’s bearable. If her father and mother were down the hall it would actually be good.