national parks? All those old-growth trees and majestic mountains…”
Otto sips his coffee. “Does this mean you’re planning to leave me in the wilderness?”
“Well, pardon me for trying to do something nice to make up for the plane.” Remedios wipes syrup from her chin. “I thought you’d enjoy it.” She watches him cut a slice from his bagel – yet another thing about him that annoys her. “And who knows, Otto. Maybe you’ll be able to save somebody who’s about to throw themselves into a canyon. That should cheer you up.”
So she’s not going to leave him in the wilderness; she’s going to leave him up a mountain.
Otto chews the piece of bagel slowly and thoroughly, gazing past her head as though the best movie in the world is being shown on a screen behind it. “Um…” It isn’t a movie that he’s watching, of course, but Beth. She’s seated at a table near the door with several other Tomorrow’s Writers Today finalists. Beth looks as she always looks – plain and earnest in her grey slacks and prim white blouse, and as if she’s decided to jump from childhood straight into middle age. There’s a bowl of fruit salad (barely touched) and one of those foamy coffees (her second) in front of her. The others are all eating and talking, but Beth just pokes at her food and sits there as if she died smiling. Otto cuts another slice of bagel. Like a man a few seconds before discovering that there are sharks in the water, he senses that something’s wrong, but he doesn’t know what.
Remedios, meanwhile, is shovelling pancakes into her mouth and continuing to talk, her lips stained with berry juice and syrup dribbling towards her chin. “We might have to go a little out of our way, but I really think it’d be worth it.” Hundreds of miles in each direction out their way. Anything to lure him out of the hotel and away from LA. “We can see those, what do they call them? You know the ones I mean – those really big, old trees. You like trees.”
“Sequoias…” Otto wipes crumbs from his mouth with his napkin.
Across the room, Beth suddenly realizes that one of the girls at her table is calling her name.
“Look! Look at these trees.” Remedios shoves something in front of Otto’s face. There are sticky fingerprints on the casing. “They don’t grow trees like this any more.”
She’s finally got his attention. “What is that?” Otto stares down at the screen being held under his nose. On it is a picture of a redwood forest; excepting the smudges of maple syrup, the image is so vivid and sharp you can almost see the leaves rustling and hear the branches groan. “Is that one of those pad things?”
“Isn’t it fantastic?”
“Where in the name of the starry firmament did this come from?”
“A store in the lobby.”
She does it on purpose, he knows that – pretending to misunderstand him. She wants to confuse him, to get him to look in one direction while she does something he won’t approve of in the other. “That’s not what I meant and you know it. I meant
“Because we need it.” Remedios dips the fingers of her free hand in her water glass and dries them on the tablecloth. “You saw how useless the SatNav in the car was just trying to get here from the airport. But with this we can’t possibly get lost. And that’s not all. Wait till you see what else it can do.” She starts tapping the printed keyboard. “Internet … email … maps … directions … limitless in—”
“Remedios!” Otto shoves her hand away. “Heavenly hosts, you’re an angel not a teenager.”
“Not right now, Otto. Right now I’m more or less a teenager.” Remedios slips the pad into her bag. “And anyway, I was just trying to make things pleasant.”
“No, you weren’t. You were trying to bamboozle me. But it’s not going to work.” He pushes back his chair, so irked by her that he’s forgotten he vowed not to leave until he knows what she’s done. “I don’t know what you’re up to, but we’re not going to waste days looking at trees. We’re going back to Jeremiah. Now.” That seems to be what she doesn’t want, so that’s what they’ll do. Otto tosses his napkin onto his plate and stands up. “Now. I’ll clear out the room. You take care of the bill.”
“Whatever you say, Otto.” Remedios looks down at the table so that he doesn’t see the look on her face. “You’re the boss.” Her smile is so bright that if her plate weren’t covered with blueberry-pancake debris, he would see it reflected up at him.
Remedios finishes her coffee, and then gets up to go. She is feeling pretty pleased with herself. She has accomplished what she came to do, and she has pulled it off right under the nose of Mr Holier-than-thou. If anything should go wrong, which it won’t, she will be safely back in Jeremiah when it does. But pride, as we know, is often one step ahead of a really big fall – a saying that Remedios is about to prove.
She is so full of self-congratulation that as she reaches the door, she almost walks into Otto. He is standing just outside the restaurant, watching a group of girls near the hotel entrance. There are six of them, and each one is more attractive than the next. Make-up flawless. Hair perfect. Clothes to die for (assuming you’re a teenage girl). As they peer through the window for a sign of their car, which has been delayed by traffic, they look like a patch of highly cultivated flowers turned towards the sun. They could be models or pop stars. Only one of them isn’t smiling as though she’s looking at a camera; she’s smiling as though she’s waiting to be arrested.
“Otto! What are you doing?” Remedios gives him a friendly push. “I thought you were going to get our stuff from the room. You know, so we can check out?”
“Just wait a minute,” says Otto.
A very large Cadillac is pulling up in front of the building. Shimmering with excitement, the girls start towards the doors, all of them striding forward as if they’re on a runway. All, that is, but one. She moves unsteadily, as if she isn’t used to heels. And now he can see that she isn’t quite as perfectly turned out as the others. Her face is bare of make-up. Her hair is wriggling out of its pins. She gives the impression that she’s uncomfortable in her clothes.
“Otto.” Remedios gives him another, less friendly, shove. “Let’s go.”
He holds up one hand. “Not yet.”
For the love of Lazarus! She doesn’t think he’s quite figured it out yet, but he will if the girl who’s never walked in four-inch heels before stumbles before she gets into the car.
“Otto!” Remedios jerks him around to face her. “Let’s—”
There is a sudden and audible gasp behind her – of horror, or surprise, or both – and then a girl’s voice screams, “Wait!”
Remedios doesn’t bother turning round. She knows what she’ll see as well as Otto does; she’ll see Beth Beeby, as she’s never been before, probably with a look of anguish on her face.
“Remedios.” Otto clamps a hand over her wrist. “I believe you have some explaining to do.”
And so the day begins
“This is the first chance I’ve had. It’s been like a sled dog race since we got here – all go-go-go,” Lucinda is saying into her phone as she steps into the hall. “We’re on our way downstairs. The car’s picking us up— Of course it’s a limo… This is Hollywood, remember?” Her laughter bounces down the corridor of identical doors. “Oh, it’s awesome. Totally awesome. I wish you were here. You would die! Really. You can’t even imagine. It makes Maine look like it’s on another planet. You know, the poor-cousin planet…” Lucinda is talking to her best friend back home. “I know… I know, but I really lucked out. My room-mate’s the best. She’s like a fashion genius. It’s awesome. I’d be more nervous than a moose in hunting season if I didn’t have her… I mean, you should see the other contestants. Man, they are sooo scary…”
Lucinda sashays down the hall in a polka-dot skirt that, to the eyes of some, is little more than a ruffle.
Normally, Lucinda’s comments about the other contestants would strike as much terror in Beth’s heart as a madman with a chainsaw, but she has more to worry about than them at the moment. She’s learning how to walk. Teetering on heels like chopsticks, Beth grasps the door frame and looks both ways before following. She wanted to wear the trainers she found at the bottom of Gabriela’s bag of shoes (brought in case they played tennis), but Lucinda wouldn’t let her. Lucinda said that she gets how edgy and original Gabriela is, but, to be really honest?, even she would look like a hick in them. Apparently, it’s better to risk permanent spinal damage than look like a hick.
Beth shuts the door behind her and takes a few tentative steps. Every time she moves, something swings or
