The Truth about My Success (20 page)

And then all of a sudden she thinks she really does see something. To the left of the trail they’re on, near the base of a broken mesa, folded into a clutch of stunted trees. She stops Sweetie, and peers into the distance. It’s still there. She rubs her eyes, and peers some more. Paloma turns to call the others, but the only other she sees is Raul Riley, taking a picture of a formation of rocks that looks like an ornate candelabra – around which, she assumes, the others have all disappeared.

“Raul!” calls Paloma. “Wait a minute! I think I see something.”

Raul turns around. “What?”

“Over there!” She points to the base of the broken mesa. “Do you see it?”

Raul doesn’t see it.

“It’s right over there.” Paloma keeps pointing. “It could be a man. See how it’s all sort of crumpled?”

Raul, who has backtracked only a few yards, comes no closer. “It’s probably a dead tree or something like that. Forget it. Let’s catch up with the gang.”

“I don’t think so.” Paloma shakes her head. “It looks like a person to me. And I think I see a backpack. Don’t you see it? That dark thing on his left?”

“What I think is that you’re seeing things,” says Raul. “Ethan said that can happen. Because of the sun and everything.”

“Ethan also said there are a lot of hikers and climbers around here,” argues Paloma. “What if he’s had an accident and he’s badly hurt? He could die out here.” Seth told her that if someone you were climbing with fell you had to try to help him, no matter how dangerous it might be, if you thought there was any chance he was alive. She has a vague memory that something like that happened to Seth once – he saved someone, or someone saved him. It’s definitely what Faith Cross would do.

“So we’ll tell Ethan you think you saw somebody lying on the ground,” says Raul, making it clear that he doesn’t think that’s what she sees. “He’ll know what to do. It’s better if him or one of the other counsellors checks it out anyway.”

But right at this moment it seems important to Paloma to be the kind of person who wouldn’t abandon someone who needs her help.

“You go on,” says Paloma. “I’m just going to see.”

“You’re crazy. You can’t go off the trail. What if your horse steps in a gopher hole or something?”

It doesn’t even occur to Paloma that she’s finally found someone as nervous of Nature as she is. Or was. “I don’t think they have gophers out here.” Not that she’s really sure what a gopher is.

“OK, but they have other things that dig holes.”

“Go catch up with everybody,” she orders. “I mean, it’s not like it’s miles away. It’s not going to take me that long. Just tell them to wait for me.”

“Ethan’s not going to like this,” says Raul. “We’re not supposed to leave the group.”

Paloma, however, is no beginner when it comes to wriggling out from under the burden of blame. “I think the group left us,” she says.

Raul looks behind him, as if he wants to make sure. When he turns back, Paloma is already riding away.

The broken mesa is farther away than she thought, and riding off the trail isn’t as easy as it looks in cowboy movies when the good guy is chasing the bad guy. By the time she reaches her destination she wishes she’d listened to Raul. Especially when it turns out that it isn’t an injured hiker after all. It isn’t a dead tree, either, which makes her feel a little better. It’s the remains of a wolf. The backpack is just a large rock. Now everyone’s going to laugh at her. Ethan won’t yell, because he doesn’t, but he’s going to think she’s a dope. A disobedient dope. And everything she’s done in the last weeks will be undone.

Ethan is waiting for her when she gets back to the trail. The first thing he asks is if she’s all right. The second is, “So what is it?”

“It’s a dead wolf.” Paloma gives him an embarrassed and wary smile. “Am I in trouble?”

“You should’ve come and got me. For everybody’s safety. That’s the rules.” He smiles back. “But heck, Susie. You followed your instincts. You thought somebody might need help. It’s probably what I would’ve done.” He claps a hand on her shoulder. “Don’t tell the others, but I’m kind of proud of you.”

“Thank you,” says Paloma.

And for some reason actually means it.

That night they cook on the campfire and sing songs and tell stories, just like in the TV shows – though not, of course, any Paloma’s been in. When she gets into her sleeping bag, since there’s nothing else to look at, Paloma stares up at the sky. Which is another thing she’s never done before. As she falls asleep, the thought runs through her mind that Ethan Lovejoy is wrong: there are a lot more than ten million stars.

Even
nineteenth-century factory workers occasionally got a day off, but as far as Oona can tell, the iconic TV star gets considerably less down time. Someone else does Paloma Rose’s Twitter and blog, but aside from those two things (which, really, you could do lying on the couch while eating a bag of tortilla chips) everything else falls to Oona. Interviews – whether they’re online, down the phone or over a latte in a trendy café – store openings, mall visits, charity events, appearances at homeless shelters, hospitals, hospices and nursing homes (Faith Cross is extremely popular with people who are down on their luck or waiting to die). It really is like being a princess, only without the tiara and with the good news that, so far, Oona hasn’t had to christen any boats.

These days are always a strain. Last week, after visiting a nursing home, a hospital, and a youth shelter, Leone got on her case as soon as they were on their way home.

“I don’t believe you did that,” she fumed. “Who told you to have an opinion about health care or education or job schemes or anything else? Who are you, Angelina Jolie?”

Asked to say a few words at the nursing home, Oona picked the few words that concerned a better service available to everyone. Asked to say a few words at the hospital she chose “no one should have to die because they can’t afford the medical bills”. Asked to say a few words at the youth centre she used the phrase “those who have, get”.

“I thought that’s what they wanted, my opinion,” argued Oona. “That’s what they asked for.”

“Well, it wasn’t what they wanted. All they wanted was for you to say how damn happy you were to be there.” Leone said that Oona’s problem is that she takes it all too seriously. “Doing this kind of thing is just part of the job,” said Leone. “Garbage men collect garbage. Doctors give you pills.
You
entertain people, whether you’re on TV or in a video or doing a public appearance. You go in, you smile, you have your picture taken – and that’s it. You’re not the Ambassador from the Land of Hope. You’re like Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny.” Minus the sack of toys and the basket of eggs, of course. “You cheer them up for a few minutes, and then everything goes back the way it is. There’s nothing you can do to change their lives.”

But Oona doesn’t think it’s fair that some people – people like Paloma Rose – should have so much and other people so little.

“Fair, schmair,” said Leone. “You’re idealistic. And I guess that’s a nice thing. You’re a kid. You don’t get how things work.” No matter how many times she has tried to tell her. “But let’s face it, sweetie. Fair is a skin tone or part of the weather report. It doesn’t mean bupkis out in the real world.” In the real world, according to Leone, some people have really good lives for whatever reason – birth or talent or luck – and most people don’t. And, just as the peasants of old wanted to touch the hem of the king’s robe or watch the royal procession go by because it made them feel better about their own miserable lives, ordinary people today like to shake the hand of a celebrity or watch her walk up a red carpet in five-thousand-dollar shoes. “Your job is to be beautiful and glamorous, not lead the revolution.”

“You wouldn’t say that if you were most people,” snapped Oona.

“But I’m not,” Leone snapped back.

She’s been watching Oona as if she’s a suspicious package left at an airport ever since.

When they come out of St Eugenia’s Hospice today, a troop of staff and residents already outside to wave them goodbye, the limousine is waiting to take them to lunch.

“I really don’t know why you brought that creature with you,” says Leone as she climbs in last and shuts the door. “She smells like a dog.”

“She is a dog.” Oona sits next to the window, the offending creature on her lap. “And her name’s Harriet.” This is one of the things she never gets tired of saying, and Leone never tires of not knowing. “And you know why I brought her.” Oona’s schedule has been so hectic over the last few days that she overslept, so there was no time to give Harriet her long morning walk. “Besides, it’s Maria’s day off. Harriet doesn’t like being alone all day.”

Behind her gold-rimmed sunglasses, Leone rolls her eyes. “And when did she tell you that? When the two of you were having one of your philosophical conversations?”

“You don’t have to be able to talk to communicate,” says Oona. “Some people talk all the time and don’t communicate at all.”

Leone clicks her seatbelt in place. “Maria could’ve taken her.”

“I’d rather have her with me.” Oona makes what Leone calls her knock-that-chip-off-my-shoulder face – head up, chin out, mouth like a knot. “Anyway, everybody likes her. She’s an asset.”

The only good thing Leone has to say about Harriet is that at least she’s not one of those bug-eyed chihuahuas, so “asset” isn’t how Leone thinks of her. But she occupies herself with checking the time and says nothing, mainly because there is nothing to say. Except for her, everybody does like Harriet. This is not the first time Oona’s insisted on including her in their little entourage, and she’s always treated like she’s the star. Oona’s actually brought Harriet to the studio a couple of times as well, and even Audrey Hepplewhite volunteered to take her for a walk. Never has so much of a fuss been made over an animal that looks like an experiment that went wrong. St Eugenia’s was their third stop today, and at all three everyone was all over the mutt – getting her water, sneaking her treats, begging to hold her, asking for stories about her, as if Paloma Rose is taking time from her incredibly busy schedule to talk about her dog. No one has so much as offered Leone a cup of coffee all day.

“You’re supposed to be promoting Paloma Rose and the show, not animal welfare.”

“That’s what I’m doing. Mother.” The smile Oona gives her makes sugar seem sour. “Most people think you’re a much nicer person if you like animals.”

Leone isn’t going to win this argument, and she knows it. There’s been much more interest in Paloma Rose since she started showing up with Harriet – interest and goodwill. Over the past year or so, Paloma Rose managed to create just the opposite. Her public appearances had been dwindling to the point where if they were a river you could barely float a leaf in it. This was partly because Paloma was often late, absent, in a bad mood, or arguing with her mother – which tends to put people off – and partly because, when she did show up smiling, she wouldn’t know where she was, or she’d get names wrong, or yawn when someone was saying how happy they all were that she’d come, giving the impression that she’d rather be somewhere else. But now Paloma Rose is in demand, and Harriet can take some of the credit for that. So, although as Leone understood the deal it didn’t include making Paloma a much nicer person, she doesn’t have the legs of a coin to stand on when it comes to the benefits of liking animals. Leone, however, is a very resourceful woman whose ability to criticize is apparently limitless. She finds one thing. “I believe Hitler was very fond of dogs,” says Leone.

“Only if they were Aryan,” says Oona.

They have lunch at a restaurant so far away from the tourists and the glitter and glamour of Hollywood that they might as well be in the Ozarks. Asked for a place where Paloma could eat in privacy and peace, the driver recommended it. It is, in fact, less a restaurant than a parking lot overlooking the ocean, crammed with tables and catered to by three vintage airstreams selling, respectively, Mexican, Greek and Thai food. It’s packed.

“Remind me not to ask him to recommend a hotel,” says Leone as they take their seats at a cheap plastic table.

Oona thinks it’s cool. She grins happily. “And the best part is we don’t have to leave Harriet in the car.”

“It’s the answer to my prayers,” says Leone. This, of course, is far from true. At this particular moment, the answer to Leone’s prayers would be for the day to be over, and for her to be relaxing in a real restaurant (with a real roof over it, real air conditioning, real plates and tablecloths, real waiters, a strict dress code and a no-dogs except seeing-eye dogs rule), far, far away from Oona Ginness and her mongrel. But they have one more visit this afternoon before that can happen. “Now if I could just find the Fountain of Youth my life would be complete.”

Much to Leone’s surprise, however, the food isn’t bad, and, although the other diners aren’t people with whom she’d want to have her picture taken, no one looks twice at them. They’re all too busy eating and talking. Leone sends emails and texts while she picks at her lunch, and Oona takes off her sunglasses and her hat, and sits back and enjoys being able to gaze at the ocean without anyone looking or pointing at her.

It isn’t until she’s finished her lunch and decides to give Harriet a run along the beach before they get back in the car that Oona realizes that Harriet isn’t sleeping in the shade of the table any more. She stands up, scanning the tables, and the parking lot, and the shorefront, but there isn’t any sign of her. Oona gets down on her knees.

Leone is so engrossed in the email she’s writing that she doesn’t notice; or, if she notices, she doesn’t bother to remind Oona how much the clothes she’s wearing cost, or to tell her that only drunks and vagrants crawl on the ground, or to list the many diseases she’s liable to catch.

If Oona ever wondered what a dog sees most of the time, the answer is: legs. From her position half under the table, that’s all Oona sees for yards and yards. Legs and more legs. It must make things pretty confusing for them; it could explain why so many dogs like to chew shoes. She peers through the legs, like a fish peering through a forest of reeds. And suddenly sees that familiar furry face and floppy ears, not half a dozen tables away. “Harriet!” she calls. “Harriet! Come here!”