Away for the Weekend (13 page)

“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. “
We’re
not going anywhere.
I’m
going to keep an eye on Beth. For the love of Lazarus, Remedios, she can’t even walk in those shoes.”

“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.”

One girl’s heaven is another girl’s hell (and the same is true for angels)

Gabriela’s
head rests against the window as she stares blankly at the passing streets, Professor Gryck’s voice winding itself through her thoughts. Like twine being woven through ribbons of silk. What is the real Beth Beeby doing right now, Gabriela wonders. Is she leaning against a worktable at the studio, giving her opinion on a new design? Is she pinning material onto a body form? Maybe she’s having a private moment with Taffeta in her office, discussing Gabriela’s future over coffee, Taffeta purring, “You know, honey, I see great things for you. I’d love for you to work with me…” That seems unlikely. Even a girl with Gabriela’s creativity finds it hard to picture Beth suggesting adding a pleat or taking a tuck or talking loud enough to impress Taffeta. But she has no trouble imagining Beth and the others slipping through the luscious hills of Hollywood in the back of the limo, on the lookout for celebrities. Maybe they’re already on The Strip, having the shopping spree that makes all others look like buying a pair of shorts for gym. The shopping spree Gabriela’s been dreaming of.

She sighs. For sure, the real Beth Beeby isn’t having as miserable a time as she is. Oh, how Gabriela wishes that she’d made a break for the front door when she saw the car outside the hotel. That’s what she should have done. There would have been a big drama with screaming and crying and everything, and nothing would have been solved, but it wouldn’t have made things any worse. There’s no way things
could
be worse. If she’d made a major scene like that, all they’d probably have done is send her home. And then she remembers that home isn’t where her clothes and jewellery and all her other stuff are but where Beth’s mother, the talking clock of doom, is. So things
can
get worse. Possibly even much worse. God and all the saints in Heaven help her, if some miracle doesn’t get her back into her own body, she’s going to be living with Mrs Beeby. She only just manages not to groan out loud. As sure as Prada makes bags, she, Gabriela Menz, is in Hell.
I don’t know what I did to deserve this
, thinks Gabriela,
but whatever it is, I promise, if I ever do it again, even totally by mistake or because I’m being blackmailed or something, I won’t shop anywhere but Walmart for the rest of my life. Just pleasepleaseplease get me out of here.

But the being who might get her out of here – the being who got her into this mess – is curled up in a window seat at the back of the bus, thinking about the small, bronze figure from Mesopotamia on display in the last museum, which brought back a host of memories. Remedios is visible, but although her fellow passengers see her, they don’t actually notice her, and if they did – if she happened to speak to any of them, for example – as soon as that person turned away she would immediately be forgotten. Professor Gryck, a woman who prides herself on her eye for detail, counts heads every time they return to the bus, and always comes up with the right number. Indeed, the only person who could notice as well as see Remedios (since she is, in theory, under angelic guidance) is Gabriela, but Gabriela is so consumed by self-pity at the moment that she probably wouldn’t notice if a scouting party of aliens boarded the bus.

Nor is Gabriela the only one feeling sorry for herself. The small, bronze figure, which once adorned a box in which Remedios kept incense, is not the only thing to bring back memories. There were images of places and people Remedios knew. There were bracelets and necklaces like ones she’s worn. Cups like ones she’s drunk from. Books she saw written. Canvases she saw being painted. Even part of a wall she once leaned against on a hot July day. The visitors moved around her, listening to their tour tapes or reading from their books and leaflets. Talking. Chewing gum. Checking their phones. Thinking about lunch. They might say, “Isn’t that beautiful…?” or “Isn’t that moving…?” or “Wow, what a cool ring…!” But whatever it was would be forgotten before they left the room.

The more Remedios had seen, the less delight she’d felt. That knife, that leather shoe, those coins, that painting of sunset over a field that is now blocks of apartment buildings – these weren’t even memories, they were remains. Empty shells – to be crushed underfoot or swept away by the tides. And then there’s Professor Gryck herself. She may be an expert on the Norse sagas, but her grasp of the rest of the world’s history leaves a lot to be desired. How endlessly dull and boring the woman is. How inaccurate. How easily she believes half-truths and lies. Gabriela is not the only one who suspects this may be Hell.

Gabriela sighs again as the small blue bus navigates the traffic, its passengers sitting in orderly rows like guests at a wedding.
No
, thinks Gabriela.
Not a wedding. A funeral.
For this is the day joy died.

While the other tour buses – big and shiny, with some fast talker at the front pointing out the sights and dishing the dirt – go from movie studio to movie studio and famous restaurant to homes of the stars, their bus (no more than a big van) goes from museum to museum with Professor Gryck reading from her notes on the cultural highlights of Los Angeles. Monotonously. If there is anything in these cultural highlights that is more interesting than a pair of white socks, Professor Gryck has managed to overlook it. So far this morning, they’ve seen paintings of kings, paintings of bowls of fruit, paintings of squares of colour, and paintings of jagged lines. They’ve seen statues of sun gods, Greek gods, Roman gods, Egyptian gods, demons with human bodies and animal heads, monsters with hooves, tails and pointed beaks, a couple of horses, an Aztec dog, dancers made out of coat hangers and a pickled pig (which, according to Aricely, represents the futility of life). They’ve seen bowls and pots and cups and tiny clay figures and jewellery from across time and around the world. They’ve seen an installation of light bulbs and a table made from cereal boxes. Even Delila’s beginning to feel like she might have died but doesn’t know it yet.

As if reading Gabriela’s thoughts, Professor Gryck, in an unexpected display of democracy, suddenly says, “If there’s anything we’ve left out that you feel should be included, I’m happy to entertain suggestions.”

Gabriela answers automatically. “I do!” She waves her hand like a flag of truce. “I have a suggestion.”

But if she hoped the flag would save her from being shot at, she was wrong. Professor Gryck doesn’t like her suggestion.

“I’m not saying we have to go in or anything. We can just drive by it,” argues Gabriela.

Professor Gryck heaves a haven’t-I-had-enough-from-you-already? sigh. “I thought we settled this matter, Beth.” Students don’t argue with Professor Gryck – especially ones who are still in high school.

Though not everyone seems to understand that.

“No, we settled the other matter.” Unlike many people, Gabriela doesn’t flinch from meeting Professor Gryck’s gimlet gaze. She can tell that Professor Gryck is an unhappy, frustrated woman. Just look at the outfit she’s wearing: the shoulders are too wide, the sleeves are too short, the pattern isn’t matched up and it makes her legs look stumpy. It practically screams misery. No wonder she’s such a bossy old cow. “You decided that it isn’t important for us, as writers, to experience the living, breathing city of Los Angeles. I get that. This is something totally different.”

“As I said before, Los Angeles is not all bright lights and glamour.” Professor Gryck is certainly proof of that. “What we’re here to experience is its culture. Not its razzamatazz.”

“Yeah, but that’s what I mean, isn’t it?” Although patience, resilience and fortitude aren’t necessarily the first words that come to mind when thinking of Gabriela Menz, it is a testament to those qualities that she doesn’t shriek with exasperation. Professor Gryck may have a string of letters after her name, but none of them seem to spell out l-o-g-i-c. “If we’re doing the super culture tour, then what’s a bigger cultural landmark than that?”

“The Max Factor Building, Beth?” Professor Gryck sounds as if she suggested that Superman comics are literary masterpieces. “You consider that a cultural landmark?”

“Yes. Yes, I do.” Gabriela’s policy has always been to let a smile be her parachute out of any possible unpleasantness, and so she smiles now. “It is where make-up was invented, Professor Gryck.”

The other contestants have been listening to this exchange as though they weren’t, but now they all react, giggling in a surprisingly childish way for tomorrow’s great writers.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” says Professor Gryck when the merriment dies down. “They’ve found make-up in Egyptian tombs.”

“But it was Maximilian Faktorowicz who was largely responsible for developing the modern cosmetics industry.” Even without the benefit of Mr Faktorowicz’s products, Gabriela’s smile is radiant. “And he did make the term ‘make-up’ popular, Professor Gryck, which is a very significant part of our cultural vocabulary. So I think that counts.”

Professor Gryck might well wonder where Beth suddenly acquired all this poise and confidence – and specialist knowledge – but she doesn’t. She’s too surprised. Last night she would have bet that the only time Beth Beeby ever used the word “make-up” was in relation to an exam, yet here she is with an encyclopedic knowledge of the history of the cosmetics industry. “I really don’t think—”

“A very large part of the culture of this country has to do with what American business created in the twentieth century,” continues Gabriela. “Mass production. The industrialization of everything. Fast food. Where would we be without McDonald’s or Henry Ford, Professor Gryck? Ask yourself that.”

Professor Gryck is now annoyed as well as surprised. “Ms Beeby, if you don’t mind, I really don’t thin—”

“They changed the whole world, Professor Gryck. And Max Factor is part of that. I mean, we drove past that old church—”

“Nuestra Señora Reina de los Angeles.” Professor Gryck’s voice sounds like something being chopped. “The historic site of the original pueblo.”

Remedios grunts to herself. That’s exactly what she means about inaccurate and blind.
There were people here before the Europeans, you know
, thinks Remedios with a certain amount of darkness. Luckless Lucifer but this woman is irritating as well as dull.

Gabriela is shaking her head. Sadly. “You’re not telling me that’s more culturally important than creating a billion-dollar indust—

“Oh, look!” cries the professor with unconcealed relief. “Here we are! This is one of the greatest museums in the country!” She pops to her feet like a Jack-in-the-box. “Don’t anyone leave his or her seat until the bus comes to a complete stop.”

“Somebody email Dante and tell him we’ve found a new circle of Hell,” mutters Delila.

Professor Gryck, who considers herself as knowledgeable about the art world as about Norse sagas, leads the way once again. The twenty contestants, one angel and Mr Solman follow. Most of the contestants surreptitiously play on their phones or send each other texts, but as they did at the first two museums they visited, Esmeralda, Jayne and Aricely cluster around Professor Gryck as if she’s the mother hen and they’re the baby chicks. They talk in clear, serious voices, giving their opinions as though when they’re not committing the whole of world literature to memory they’re boning up on world art.