Away for the Weekend

so much cover her breasts as hang off them like an epiphyte from a cliff. She turns slightly, trying to shift them from his field of vision.

She wishes the limo would come. Lucinda keeps giving her what’s-wrong-with-you? frowns and Paulette keeps looking over, scrutinizing her, as if there’s something different about Gabriela’s appearance but she can’t put her finger on what. Nicki, Hattie and Isla have all stopped talking long enough to comment on how quiet she is. You weren’t like this last night. Besides wanting to get away from Mr Peculiar, Beth really would like to sit down. Her muscles are beginning to ache. And her back. She can see the reflection of the man in the hat and the white suit, ghost-like in the window. But she doesn’t see the car.

“What I’m really looking forward to is Madagascar,” says Hattie. “I can’t wait to go there.”

The others agree. Cool… Mega… Awesome… Fabulous…

Madagascar. Unlike famous designers, models, celebrities and terms belonging exclusively to the industry of fashion, Madagascar is actually something with which Beth is familiar. “Wow, Madagascar,” she says, grateful to be distracted from the man in the suit. “I’d love to go there. Did you know that they have six different species of baobab? And there are ninety-nine species of lemur that are only found there. It’s like a lost world.”

If Beth were paying attention, which she isn’t, she might at this moment fully understand the expression “the silence is deafening”. Her five companions stare at her with varying degrees of incomprehension. Paulette, Hattie, Isla and Nicki’s mouths all form Os of surprise. Surprise and sudden understanding. Something has changed; they see weakness where they saw none before. Last night, Gabriela was the obvious leader; today she’s not. Today she’s barely part of the group. Lucinda’s incomprehension is tinged with fear. She doesn’t doubt Gabriela for a second – geniuses can be really weird, everybody knows that – but she sees the sharks circling in the water. If Gabriela goes down, Lucinda goes with her. Beth, however, notices none of this.

Nicki takes it upon herself to speak for the group. “You what?”

“Madagascar,” Beth repeats. “It’s—”

“A joke,” Lucinda cuts in. “Isn’t it, Gab?” She turns to the others. “You know… Madagascar, the country…? Madagascar, Taffeta’s fashion house…?”

“Another joke?” says Paulette. “Maybe you should be a stand-up comic and not a designer.”

“Look!” yells Lucinda. “There’s the car.”

Thanking God for the Industrial Revolution and Henry Ford, Beth follows the others outside, and so doesn’t see who comes out of the restaurant just then.

Gabriela tried to get away from Delila so she could talk to Beth – oh, how she tried – but Delila, it seems, combines the physique of a quarterback with the dogged determination of one.

As soon as they got to the elevator, Gabriela remembered something she needed that she’d left in the room.

“Silly old me,” she said to Delila. “You go ahead and I’ll catch up.”

Delila refused. “You’re not leaving me alone with the weird sisters, not even for five minutes,” said Delila. “I’m coming with you.”

When they were almost at the entrance to the restaurant, Gabriela decided that she had to use the ladies’ room.

“I’ll only be a minute. You go on in.”

Although Delila’s arms weren’t folded in front of her and she wasn’t making her there-are-no-stupid-children- in-my-family face, she sounded as if she were. “I thought you used the facilities before we left the room.”

“I did. But I have to use them again. You know, it’s nerves.”

“I’ll go with you,” said Delila. “I have nerves, too.”

When they finally made it into the restaurant, Gabriela just wanted to pop into the store in the lobby to get a bottle of water for what promised to be a gruelling morning ahead. “You order for me,” said Gabriela. “Fruit cup and the largest cappuccino they have. I’ll be right back.”

“What’s the big rush?” Delila thinks that Beth may be having a mini-breakdown. She’s definitely the type. When the woman next door (who is also definitely the type) had her breakdown, she was just going out for a loaf of bread one minute and naked in Rite Aid the next. Nothing like that’s happening on her watch. “You can get it on the way out.”

Gabriela sips her coffee with a sigh. She has only been Beth Beeby for an hour or so, but she’s already really tired of it. It’s like being a frog or a spider. Or dust. Something no one notices unless it gets in their way or lands on their lunch. Gabriela isn’t used to being ignored. She’s used to being noticed and admired. If she drops something, someone else picks it up. If she’s lugging a lot of stuff down the street, someone will offer to carry it for her. Today she could stagger through the lobby carrying three small children and a German shepherd and no one would so much as step out of her way.

And not only is she stuck behind the invisible shield that is Beth Beeby’s body, she is stuck with the geeks. On what should be the most exciting weekend of her life, she’s stuck with girls who eat like wolverines and talk like teachers. She takes another sip and lets loose another sigh. If this is the way the rest of her life is going to be, Gabriela will never see eighteen. It isn’t worth it.

Delila calls Jayne, Esmeralda and Aricely “the weird sisters”, but Gabriela has already started to think of them as the Bad, the Boring and the Major Pain in the Neck. Which makes Delila the Good.

Jayne is controlling. I sit there… Put that in the middle… Wouldn’t it make more sense to order a pot of tea for all of us…? Aricely assumes that everyone enjoys the sound of her voice as much as she does. Did you know that Mozart…? I read this article about Wordsworth… When we went to Paris… Esmeralda is always right. No, that was Martha Gellhorn… No, it wasn’t in Philadelphia… That’s not blue, it’s aquamarine… All three of them have more opinions than the Supreme Court. If they weren’t so irritating, they could put a hyperactive insomniac to sleep.

And that’s the other thing. They don’t talk about normal, real-life things like clothes and boys; they talk about school things like books and plays. They don’t see movies; they watch films. They don’t listen to bands; they listen to orchestras. They go to plays, not pop concerts or basketball games.

Gabriela has nothing to say. She thought she did, but she was wrong.

“When you say musical,” Jayne said to Gabriela when she tried to get into their conversation on Broadway theatre, “can I assume that you don’t mean opera?”

“I’m talking about the classic existential novel of self-delusion and subjectivity,” Esmeralda informed her with a smile as thin as tulle when she mistakenly thought they were discussing something she knew. “Not a TV ad for underwear.”

And now, her eyes on Gabriela’s fruit salad, Aricely says, “I can’t help it, but that reminds me of the time we went to Costa Rica. Costa Rica is just so amazing. You should see the flora and fauna – I wrote six poems just about the birds. But what I was saying was that while we were there, we visited this pineapple plantation. And ohmygod… You haven’t tasted pineapple till you’ve tasted that. And fresh? We had it straight from the field. It was like eating dew.”

Gabriela picks up her fork and stabs at a chunk of pineapple in her bowl. Of course you did. It was probably reciting a poem while you ate it.

Jayne’s voice, always pitched for command, saves Gabriela from having to reply. “Are you serious?” she demands. Mercifully, this question is to Delila. “You’ve never seen Jules et Jim?

“I don’t really watch movies with subtitles.” Delila says this loudly. “And it’s not because I can’t read fast enough to catch what they say,” she adds. Also loudly.

“But it’s a classic,” says Esmeralda.

Delila breaks a piece of toast in half. “Coke’s a classic, too, but I don’t drink that either.”

Aricely, distracted from fresh pineapple, joins in. “I would’ve thought that as a poet…”

“As a poet,” says Delila, “I like language. The words are important to me. I don’t want to be the prisoner of some bad translation.”

Gabriela allows herself a small smile as she stabs a chunk of banana. You should think twice before you take on the warrior princess. Say what you will about Delila – her size, her shape, her hair, her stubbornness, her obvious fondness for bold prints and primary colours – she doesn’t let anybody push her around. No matter how hard they may try.