thread’s silk. It was dyed to match but there’s the tiniest difference…”
It’s exquisite. Remarkable. Gabriela’s never seen anything like it; never even imagined anything like it. And it looks so real. Not a painting, but warp and weft and delicate, tiny flowers of silk. She is overwhelmed with the sense that if she touches that canvas – touches that fabric, that girl – she’ll know what it means to be really alive. She reaches out her hand.
And sets off every alarm in the room.
The assumption Beth made about Gabriela Menz (that she would collapse from the strain if she had to so much as lift her little finger) has undergone a certain amount of revision this morning. Although Gabriela has never been seen to take notes, hand anything in on time or carry anything heavier than a pocketbook if there’s some boy around to do it for her, she can’t possibly be as lazy as she seems. Not if she’s made the finals in the design competition; not if she wants to make this her life’s work. Even if fashion were more necessary to life than a gold toothpick; even if it were a useful industry that contributed more to the world than back problems; even if you weren’t spending your time making the same things over and over but in different colours and fabrics – even then, Beth
Beth is exhausted. She feels as if she’s been up for days, doing oral exams in a foreign language that she’s never studied while balancing on her toes. The finalists have been frantically rushed and herded from one department to the next – from the pattern makers and cutters to the machinists and embroiderers – and seen dozens of items of clothing in various stages of production, and dozens of workers in various states of stress. If Beth were to close her eyes (and not instantly fall asleep) she would see people waving things at her – pieces of fabric and lengths of trim, belts and bows and handfuls of buttons, skirts and bras and shimmery tops – and hear them screaming:
At the moment, Taffeta Mackenzie is marching into the main room of the Madagascar studio, much like a small tornado in high-heeled boots. The six finalists follow in her wake, not like shadows, but slaves. The staff all look up, greeting them affably but nervously – they know what to expect. Taffeta goes from station to station – introducing people, explaining things, looking at samples – her heels clicking, her smile solid. She stops to examine the dress on a body form.
Beth and Lucinda exchange a look. By now they know what to expect, too. No one shouts louder than Taffeta Mackenzie.
It’s been the same everywhere they’ve gone. Taffeta Mackenzie may be sweet as corn syrup when she’s socializing, but when she’s in work mode she’s more like lemon juice laced with strychnine.
Now Taffeta stands beside the body form, holding the dress between the tips of two fingers as if it’s a blanket infected with smallpox. “Would someone please tell me what this is supposed to be?”
“Uh oh,” whispers Lucinda. “Here we go.”
Eyes are downcast, heads bent. Everyone’s trying not to breathe.
“No one?” Taffeta Mackenzie’s melt-that-ice-cap eyes turn to Beth. “Miss Menz? You’ve had some very interesting opinions today.” Downcast eyes or not, glances are exchanged. They all know that this isn’t a compliment. “Maybe you could help me out here.”
Beth gazes back at her blankly, but her heart sinks down ever closer to the centre of the earth.
It’s a trap, of course. Taffeta Mackenzie is a driven, tireless and remorselessly efficient woman with a very low tolerance of anyone she thinks is slow, dull or a fool. Which is unfortunate for Beth, because another opinion that has had some overhauling this morning is Taffeta’s opinion of Gabriela Menz. Last night, Gabriela was the brightest star in Taffeta’s sky, but in only a few hours Beth has managed to bring that star crashing down to Earth where it ended up at the bottom of the ocean. For Beth, crippled, uncomfortable and caring less about ruching, double darts and kick pleats than most of us care about leaf mould, has found it hard to pay attention or act as if she’s really interested in the studio’s activities. Which means that every time Taffeta has asked her a question, Beth has looked startled and said, “I’m sorry?” At first Taffeta just laughed as though Beth were a pet that had done something amusing like get its head stuck in a paper bag. “Don’t be sorry, Gabby. Just tell me what you think.” But soon the small amount of patience that trims her personality began to unravel.
“Oh, really?” she smiled when Beth gave her opinion of the black tunic with the crochet detail. “Old- fashioned?”
“That’s very interesting,” she murmured when Beth answered her question on trouser lengths. “You certainly do have an original POV. One would almost think you come from a planet where everyone wears skirts.”
“Do tell…” she simpered when Beth picked the sample blouse she liked best. “I would have thought from what you said last night, Gabby, that your taste would be a little less Wisconsin mall.”
“You may be more of an original than I thought,” she commented as she marched them through the machine room. It was difficult to tell from her smile whether this was a good thing or not.
Which is why the question, “Would someone please tell me what this is supposed to be?” is obviously a trap.
What is Beth supposed to say? That it’s a copy? That it’s the wrong colour? That the sequins look like a slug trail? Lucinda reaches over and squeezes Beth’s hand. “Don’t say anything,” she whispers. “Just faint.”
If only she could. Beth has fainted on numerous occasions but she is not in her own body today, and Gabriela’s refuses to faint on demand. Beth clears her throat. And for perhaps the very first time in her life, Beth thinks:
Everyone stops breathing, even Taffeta, who for nearly two entire seconds is so enraged by Beth’s answer that she can’t even speak. But then, just as she opens her mouth to show how good she is at shoot-to-kill sarcasm, the security alarm goes off.
Saved by the high-pitched whine.
High in the hills over Hollywood, Otto sits in the flash red convertible, keeping an eye on the house into which Beth and the others disappeared, and enjoying the stillness and calm of the neighbourhood. This is more like it. It may not have the immaculate beauty of a primordial forest or an untouched mountaintop – of the Earth when it was young and humans younger – but it’s close enough for now. No traffic-clogged roads. No clamour and din. No frenzied activity. No Remedios Cienfuegos y Mendoza. This part of the city still remembers what the world was once like. The sky is blue, the grass is green, the sun is warm and the smog settles down in the valley. If he keeps his eyes on the shimmery trees, he can imagine himself somewhere else – some other hills, some other perfect day, some other link in the chain of time.
Nevertheless, the morning moves slowly, every minute taking its own sweet time. It’s so quiet up here that even the birds whisper. The only people Otto sees are in cars, glancing over to give him suspicious looks, or the occasional runner in designer shorts and matching sweatbands, worried about her or his heart. But as much as Otto enjoys the calm, he is impatient to get things moving; to return Beth and Gabriela to their own bodies; to get back to Jeremiah where much less can go wrong. His gaze wanders up and down the road, and his thoughts wander with it. It isn’t just the Devil who finds things for idle minds to do. Where, Otto wonders, do the people who live in these houses walk their dogs? They will have dogs; he knows that from the magazines he’s seen. They’ll be small dogs with big names that have their nails manicured and wear diamond collars; the descendents of wolves bred into toys. They must have to do their business like any other animal. Otto frowns. Where are the dogs? In most places he has been – and that, of course, is most places – no matter what century, no matter if there was a war on or a hard winter, you always saw dogs. Otto likes dogs. He peers over the car door. There’s no evidence anywhere that a dog has ever walked down this road. Or that anyone else has, really.
