Away for the Weekend

her and Lucinda, or even why they’re walking when they have a chauffeured limousine to take them everywhere. She thinks she knows what’s going on. They must have changed the venue for the tea, moved it from the college to Madagascar’s studio. Given what the traffic’s like in Los Angeles, it’s probably quicker to walk.

Gabriela is not an overly cautious girl, and now she doesn’t hesitate long enough to flick a piece of lint from her sleeve. Beth finally seems to be within reach – within reach and virtually alone. Talking to her may not solve their problem, but it has to be a step in the right direction. It’s definitely a lot better than spending the rest of the afternoon in another museum. Marvelling at how quickly she can walk in sensible, if unattractive, shoes, she follows the bright and carefree girls as they effortlessly climb into the hills, going further and further away from Sunset Boulevard. But no matter how fast she walks, Beth and Lucinda are always ahead of her, turning a corner or darting down an unexpected path, almost shimmering and just out of reach.

Above the frantic activity of the valley, the thickly wooded streets twist and wind up these famous hills where holly has never been known to grow, crossed by dozens of narrow lanes that end suddenly, as if they’ve forgotten where they were going.

They aren’t the only ones.

Coming to a stop at last, Gabriela looks around the cul-de-sac at the opulent houses half-hidden behind small jungles or high walls, puzzled. There is no one around. No one sitting on a porch. No children playing; no dogs barking; no cat sitting statue-like in a patch of sunlight. It might be a movie set and not a real neighbourhood at all if it weren’t that they can hear the low, electronic hum that hovers in the air, the swish-swishes of a sprinkler somewhere near, the muffled sound of a mower, the thwack-thwack of a tennis ball being hit back and forth on someone’s private court. Where are Beth and Lucinda? It’s as if they vanished into the air.

Delila comes up beside her. Staggers. She’s out of breath and breaking a sweat; it’s been a longer walk than Gabriela thinks.

“You don’t mind if I ask you a personal question, do you?” Delila huffs. Just as Lucinda followed Beth onto the bus like a lemming pitching straight over a cliff, Delila unquestioningly trotted after Gabriela, somehow assuming that they both knew what Gabriela was doing. Only now, finding herself high in the hills with a view worth millions, and, somewhere in that view, Professor Gryck and the other contestants annoyed and wondering what happened to them, Delila finally realizes that she has no idea what that was. “Would you mind telling me what the hell we’re doing up here in Never-Never Land?”

Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem that Gabriela knows either.

“I… I saw somebody I know.” Her sigh is no less heartfelt for being silent. “At least, I thought I did.”

Her arms folded across her chest, Delila eyes her room-mate in what can only be described as a suspicious manner. “You saw somebody you know? Here?” She glances at the nearest house, the top of it rising grandly from behind a screen of trees. This is not a neighbourhood of low-income housing. “You know somebody who lives in a house with eight bathrooms and a swimming pool?” She tilts her head to one side as if trying to get a better view. “Who’s that? Somebody you met the last time you bought make-up on Sunset Boulevard?”

Gabriela gives her a don’t-be-silly smile. “No, of course not. I never—”

“Well, who then? I didn’t think you knew anybody in LA.”

Gabriela doesn’t know anyone in LA. But Beth Beeby does. And suddenly Gabriela hears Lillian on the phone this morning saying in her hand-wringing voice: You know Aunt Joyce would be happy to run over with anything you need, honey…

“Well, you’re wrong. It just so happens that I have an aunt who lives here.” She’s pretty pleased with herself for remembering this. “Aunt Joyce.”

“Your auntie?” Delila’s entire face seems to narrow. “Your auntie lives in LA?”

“That’s right.”

Delila’s eyebrows come together, as if holding her thoughts in place. “Up here? Your aunt lives in one of these mansions?”

Gabriela shakes her head. “No. No, she lives in—” Gabriela searches her memory for a name in the area that isn’t Hollywood. “In Santa Monica. In a bungalow. But I thought it was her.” Her smile is as thin as organza. “I figured she was taking a walk.”

“From Santa Monica? You thought she walked here from there?”

Gabriela laughs. “Well, obviously it wasn’t her, was it?”

“Hold on. Obviously who wasn’t her?” Delila’s expression of scepticism takes on an edge of concern as she remembers a small but significant fact. “Since you decided to take me mountain climbing, the only person I’ve seen who wasn’t in a car was that dude with the umbrella selling maps. Way back when.”

Gabriela opens her mouth and shuts it again. She was going to say that Delila must have seen them – they were as clear as the stitching on a pair of jeans – but, of course, this is not a day that plays by any of the usual rules. “You didn’t see those girls— those two women up ahead of us?”

Delila looks as if she’s planning to suck the truth out of Gabriela’s words through a straw. “Do I look like I did?”

No. No, she definitely doesn’t look like that. She looks as though the only person she’s seen was the lonely map seller under his beach umbrella.

Delila stares into Gabriela’s eyes. “Leaving aside the tiny fact that I never saw these women of yours up ahead of us, where would you say they are now? You know, just a rough guess.”

“Well…” Unless Beth and Lucinda went – very silently and very quickly – into a house or managed to get into someone’s yard, they couldn’t have got back to the through road without passing Gabriela and Delila. “I don’t know. I guess they must’ve gone into one of these houses.”

“How? By osmosis? Because I, for one, didn’t see anybody walking up a driveway or hear any doors opening or shutting, either.”

Gabriela laughs the way she used to when she knew what she was doing. Yesterday. “Maybe they were beamed up.”

Hahaha.

Delila’s look of concern deepens. “Why is it that I get the feeling you’re not being exactly a hundred percent honest with me? Why would that be?”

Gabriela makes an I-give-up face. “Because you’re right, Del. I haven’t been completely honest.” Gabriela is in a very interesting position. Since Delila won’t believe the truth, she has no recourse but to come up with a lie that she will believe. “I should have levelled with you, but you know…” She shrugs. “I guess I just feel kind of dumb. I mean, I don’t want you to think I’m not as serious and into culture and everything as the rest of you…” Her voice trails off.

“I’m still listening,” says Delila.

Gabriela rocks back and forth. “Well, it’s just that …it’s just that I really couldn’t face looking at any more old pictures. I mean, my God, we can do that any time. You don’t even have to leave home to look at old pictures. You can do it online. But we’re in Los Angeles! We’re here! Really here! Even people living on ice floes dream about coming here. So, I don’t know, when I saw the hills up there like a magical kingdom, I thought, Hey, let’s be spontaneous—”

Delila’s mouth looks the way vinegar tastes. “You thought we should be spontaneous?”

“Uh-huh.” Gabriela’s smile couldn’t be more enthusiastic if it were waving pompoms. “I figured we could have an adventure.”

“An adventure?” repeats Delila. “You wanted to have an adventure? I thought having an adventure for you was drinking water that doesn’t come out of a bottle.”

Gabriela laughs. “I guess LA must be working its spell on me.”

“Or maybe you’re over-medicating.”

Gabriela laughs again. “No, really. I feel like a new woman.” She could even tell her which one.

“Yeah? Well, you’re going to have to excuse me, but I come from Brooklyn, the Capital City of Doubt.”

“What does that mean? That you don’t believe me?”

“You could put it that way,” says Delila. “Don’t get me wrong, Beth. I’m not saying museums aren’t like wheatgrass juice – a little goes a real long way if you ask me. And the Good Lord knows I was starting to lose the will to live cooped up with the smarter-than-thou brigade all morning. Personally, I’d just as soon be up here seeing