Gabriela carefully balances a cherry on top of the stack of pineapple, while Esmeralda, Aricely and Jayne begin a discussion of world literature. Their voices buzz in the background. She’s never been so bored in her life. Not ever. Not even the time she broke her ankle in two places and sat in emergency for four hours with absolutely nothing to do because she’d also totalled her phone when she fell. But at least then the anguish was physical and not mental.
And that’s when – unplanned and certainly unprovoked – Gabriela picks up the cherry from on top of the pineapple, and throws it across the table at Jayne.
Jayne hasn’t thrown a piece of food since she ate in a highchair, but nature does sometimes override nurture. She automatically hurls her last piece of bagel across the table, hitting Delila. With one hand, Delila wipes cream cheese from the shoulder of her kaftan; with the other she lobs a teabag and gets Aricely right between the eyes.
Professor Gryck can move remarkably quickly for a woman built like a silo, and descends on them like the Day of Judgement. She is horrified and shocked. In all her years of teaching, she has never had anything like this happen. Not ever. Not even close.
“She started it!” Esmeralda points at Gabriela.
“Well?” Professor Gryck glares down at Gabriela. Last night, when they bonded over tension headaches and Beth apologized for everything from knocking her fork to the floor to choking on air, Professor Gryck had assumed that she was going to be the easiest of the group to handle. Shy. Nervous. Afraid not just of her own shadow but everybody else’s as well. But now she isn’t so sure. This certainly isn’t behaviour she expected. “What do you have to say for yourself?”
“I guess it just kind of slipped,” says Gabriela. “Or maybe it’s all the excitement.”
Professor Gryck’s sigh could rock an ocean liner. “Beth Beeby.” She holds a napkin to her heart as if staunching the flow of disappointment. “I swear, if I hadn’t seen you with my own eyes, I wouldn’t believe it. What happened to the lovely, polite, courteous, well-mannered girl I had supper with last night?”
As they leave the restaurant, Gabriela suddenly sees Lucinda, looking as if she’s just stepped out of an ad for body spray, sashaying out of the doors to where a gleaming black limousine is parked. It’s true that one Cadillac Escalade looks pretty much like another, but though Beth’s eyesight isn’t any better than her taste in clothes, Gabriela recognizes the driver who picked them up from the airport yesterday – 6′1″, 17″ neck, at least a 45″ chest, 36–37″ sleeve. And then she sees the others – Hattie, Nicki, Isla, Paulette. Her heart stumbles like someone whose stiletto gets caught in a grate. And there – wearing pyjamas and walking with all the grace of a horse in mud – is what looks to be her parents’ only child.
“Wait!” she calls, knowing no one will hear her. It’s all she can do not to weep.
As he leaves the restaurant, Otto’s attention is caught by the flock of fashionistas by the windows. He slows to a stop, unable to take his eyes off them. Off Gabriela. The feeling that something isn’t quite right that he had as he watched Beth mauling her food returns. The longer he watches, the stronger the feeling. Eventually, Remedios comes up behind him, but he ignores her. Suddenly, the girls start to move towards the door, all of them flowing as effortlessly as a river – except, of course, for the one who wobbles as if her ankles are made of rubber, holding on to every wall, door and post she passes like a bewitched mermaid trying to accustom herself to having legs.
“Otto! Let’s go!”
But Otto is still watching Gabriela as her fall is broken by a man walking in the opposite direction who opens his arms to catch her even before she topples towards him.
“Otto!” Remedios finally grabs his shoulder to yank him around. “Let’s—”
“Wait!”
It is, of course, not Remedios who cries, “Wait!” It is Beth Beeby, looking as if the last rescue ship just pulled out without her.
And that is when Otto realizes what Remedios has done. What she’d undoubtedly been planning all along. How could he have believed for even one minute that she intended to fix the contests? Fix the contests? Remedios Cienfuegos y Mendoza? The angel whose specialty is chaos? It would be like the most famous tenor in the world giving up opera to sing at birthday parties.
“Remedios, I believe you have some explaining to do,” says Otto, as he shoves her hand away and turns back to the finalists in the design competition. “But not now.” The driver of the limo helps the girl Otto now knows to be Beth inside and Otto starts across the room, moving like air. “Now what I want is the car.”
Although he wasn’t actually speaking to her, Remedios answers as she rushes after him. “The car? But we haven’t checked out yet. We—”
“We’re not going anywhere.” As he reaches the doors, the red sports car appears at the start of the driveway. “We’re staying here until you put everything back the way it was.” He gazes over his shoulder at her, giving her a look that would send the Devil back to bed. “Or should I say
Remedios grimaces with exasperation. This is exactly why she wanted to leave first thing in the morning. She knew he’d be unreasonable if he found out what she’d done. If they’d left when she wanted, they’d be well on their way to the redwood forest by now – and well away from Gabriela and Beth, and Otto standing on his principles like a goat on a mountain ledge, ruining everything. “You’re overreacting.”
“Am I?”
“Yes, you are. Just like in—”
“Baghdad was a special case.”
“I wasn’t thinking about Baghdad. I was going to say Egypt. Or Rome. Or Jerusalem. Or—”
“For the love of Peter, Remedios. That’s all ancient history.”
She knows more about him than he thought.
“All I’m saying is that you could at least give me a chance to explain why I did it before you get righteous and indignant.”
“All right.” And he stops so abruptly that she passes him and has to turn round. His arms are folded and his face looks like the silence of a stone wall. “I’m listening like a thousand ears. Explain.”
“I got tired of hearing Beth weeping and worrying, and tired of watching Gabriela act like the most important thing in the world is what she wears. That’s not embracing life; that’s hiding from it. I thought it was time they both put things in perspective. Lost their props and crutches, and had the chance to see things differently. They’ll be better for it, Otto. It’ll bring out the best in them.”
“Or destroy them completely.” He starts striding forward again. “Do you have any idea what could happen to Beth out there in Gabriela’s body? Do you? The girl gets a headache if there’s too much traffic on the road or she gets 99 out of 100 in a quiz, and now you’ve sent her out into this— this—” Although among other gifts he has one for words, at the moment Otto is having trouble finding ones to describe Los Angeles. “City of Angels” are three that are definitely out. “—this circus with a freeway running through it.”
“Heavenly host! She’s a girl, Otto. She’ll be fine. You just have to relax.” She follows him outside. Their car is at the kerb. “That’s your problem, you know. You take things too seriously. You never relax. Not ever.”
“A corpse couldn’t relax with you around, Remedios.” He slips something into the valet’s hand and climbs into the car. “The only thing to be thankful for is the fact that, despite all appearances, you’re on our team.” Though she might do them more good if she went over to the other side.
“What are you going to do?”
“As if there’s anything I can do. You’re the one who did it. You’re the one who has to undo it.”
“So why are you in the car? Where are we going?”
Otto starts the engine. “
“And what am I supposed to do while you’re cruising all over LA, having a good time?”
“Isn’t that obvious? You’re going to keep an eye on Gabriela.”
And how atrociously unfair is that? He gets to swan around the most glamorous city ever created in a sports car and she has to sit on a bus? “But her group’s just going on one of those dull tours. Museums, Otto. I don’t want to go to museums.”
“Maybe you’ll learn something.” Unlikely though that seems. “Maybe it’ll bring out the best in you.”
