The Truth about My Success (24 page)

So she’s also mad at Tallulah for not leaving her alone.

Paloma has learned a lot more at Old Ways than how to use a broom, but the one thing she hasn’t quite mastered yet is Ethan Lovejoy’s philosophy of forgiveness and understanding. Paloma wants revenge. Ms McGraw says Leone is finding ageing difficult and frightening? Well, Paloma’s going to make her wish she’d never been born. Better than that. She’s going to fire her. Her and Arthur. Leone’s supposed to be her personal manager and Arthur’s supposed to be her business manager but what do they do, really? Suck Paloma dry, that’s what they do. They’re barnacles on the ship of her talent and fame. All they do is take take take. She’s almost seventeen, which is almost eighteen; she can manage herself and her money. She can’t wait to see Leone’s face when she tells her she’ll have to look for another job! She’ll take a picture: The Day My Monster Mother Joined the Unemployed. She’ll put it on her website and on Facebook. Maybe she’ll even make a video of Leone running out of the house in tears and put it on YouTube. She’ll tell all her followers on Twitter. The whole world will laugh itself dizzy over Leone Minnick’s shame and humiliation. Paloma’s going to make her really glad she’s old and doesn’t have that long to live.

Unfortunately, in order to get even with Leone, Paloma needs to be home – not tramping around the desert scraping horse manure off her shoes. The question is: when will that be? In a week? Two weeks? A month? Six months? A year? Any time she’s asked the McNugget or Ethan Lovejoy all they’ve ever said is, “When you’re ready.” As if she’s a chicken in the oven. Before the Revelation in the TV Room, Paloma figured she’d be here till Audrey recovered or died and they started filming again. Which couldn’t be more than a month or two. But now? She doesn’t have much hope of that any more, not with that impostor in her place. What if she’s here so long that there’s nothing to go back to? What if Leone never had any intention of bringing her home at all?

And then on Sunday morning the minister arrives. This, of course, is not an extraordinary event. The minister comes every Sunday to give an ecumenical service in the ranch chapel, and then he joins them in the dining hall for lunch. What is unusual is that he normally drives an appropriately sombre-looking black minivan with a “In God I Trust” bumper sticker, but on this Sunday he is driving a pick-up with a Cardinals decal in the window. The pick-up was loaned to him by the man repairing the church roof because the minivan wouldn’t start (which could be an example of one of Ethan Lovejoy’s favourite sayings about God working in mysterious ways).

As soon as Paloma sees the truck, she sees her escape. The Reverend Candle, who has saved so many souls in his career, is about to save her. It’s such an obvious, such a simple, and such a perfect plan that you’d think that not only is she in a movie, but that she’s writing the script herself. The flatbed of the truck is filled with an assortment of what Paloma calls junk but Mr Sandysman, its owner, calls work stuff. All she has to do is hide away in the back, and she’ll be driven off the ranch – not in style, perhaps, but with relative speed and ease. No staggering over miles and miles of burning sand. No worrying about dying of thirst or hunger or heat stroke; or about being attacked by wolves, buzzards, spiders as big as chihuahuas or killer snakes. No being caught by Ethan Lovejoy, leaning out of the driver’s window with that we-are-all-God’s-children look on his face, saying, “The Devil makes work for idle hands, Susie Minnick. We haven’t been keeping you busy enough.”

The minister lives in a town. It may not be a major city, but it’s bound to have a police department or at least a sheriff. Paloma will go to the law and tell them who she is. She doesn’t want to be taken home. She’s given this a lot of thought since Thursday night, and the last thing she wants is to be back in Leone’s clutches. That would be like escaping from jail only to turn right around, walk back in your cell and lock the door yourself. No, Paloma is never setting foot in that house again unless it’s with the police when they go to arrest her mother. What she wants is to call a press conference so that she can tell the world what her mother has done to her, and expose Leone Minnick for what she is: a corrupt and scheming criminal.
Her own daughter
, people will say.
She did a horrible thing like that to her only child
. Leone will be dumped by every friend she has, receive death threats and hate mail, and possibly go to prison. She’ll be as popular in the business as a writers’ strike. She’ll have to move somewhere where no one knows her – somewhere in Wisconsin or South Dakota – and shop at Walmart for the rest of her life. Paloma, however, the victim of a twisted mind, will be the darling of Hollywood. All the mistakes Paloma made in the past will be forgiven and forgotten and she’ll be asked on every talk show in the world. Her story will sell for millions. She’ll have so many offers of work that she’ll have to hire a second agent just to turn them down. Jack Silk can be her guardian until she comes of age, and she’ll live by herself in some super-modern apartment (with Maria to cook and clean and do all that kind of thing), and she’ll never be bossed around again. She might send Leone and Arthur a Christmas card every year, just to annoy them, but then again she might not.

After the service Paloma, looking pale and fragile, goes to Ms McGraw and tells her she feels ill.

“I’m really, really sorry but I’m, like, all achy and hot and cold, and I think I’m going to throw up.” Paloma’s voice is soft and halting with the effort of trying to speak and not be a nuisance despite how ill she obviously is.

Ms McGraw puts a hand to her forehead. “You do feel a little warm,” she says. “You go straight to bed, and I’ll tell Ethan you’re not well. I’ll check on you after dinner.”

“Oh you don’t have to do that. It’s your day off. I just want to lie down,” gasps Paloma. “I think if I can sleep I’ll be OK… Maybe if you could just make sure I’m not disturbed for a while?”

“Will do,” says Ms McGraw. “You just get some rest.”

As soon as she gets to her room, Paloma closes the curtains and stuffs some of her dirty laundry in her bed to look like a body (Season One; Episode Three). Most of her things are locked away in the storage area – including her phone – so she takes only what she doesn’t want to leave behind: a change of clothes, her credit card and the money she brought with her because she thought she was going to be shopping not camping. Then, while everyone else at the ranch is eating fried chicken and potato salad, Paloma darts across the yard like a cartoon character, and climbs into the back of the truck. It’s as if all the junk in the back had been arranged just for her. She hunkers down in a nest of boxes covered with a tarpaulin. God may be working mysteriously, but he’s also working overtime today.

Paloma makes herself as comfortable as possible with a satisfied smile. She’s practically on the “Tonight Show”.

Really, it couldn’t be any easier if she had written the script.

“You want a soda pop or something?” asks the sheriff.

Paloma isn’t sure what happened to the show she thought she was in, but the script is no longer the one she could have written. She couldn’t have written this in the darkest hour of her darkest day. She wouldn’t.

“No, thank you.”

Things stopped being easy approximately three minutes after she heard the door of the pick-up open and shut and Ethan Lovejoy saying, “Thanks for coming, Charley, we’ll see you next week. You be careful on that road.” It was as they started bouncing over the series of ruts that join Old Ways to the rest of nowhere that Paloma knew she’d made a really big mistake. Riding
inside
a pick-up, she’s discovered, is like riding in a Cadillac next to riding in the flatbed. Especially with Mr Sandysman’s work stuff falling on you and bumping into you every few seconds. It was hot under the tarpaulin, hotter than the sauna at the spa – though if the amount of desert that managed to get under the tarp and onto and into Paloma is anything to go by, not hot enough to melt sand. The minister couldn’t have hit more bumps, holes, or debris if he’d been deliberately aiming for them – and once he almost hit some animal and braked so hard Paloma nearly flew out of the truck.

“I told you what I want. I want to call a press conference,” says Paloma, using the new patience she has acquired dealing with malicious animals. “I have some important things to say.”

The sheriff – who herself has accumulated vaults of patience in her years of dealing with people at their very worst – looks around with a bemused smile. “I think you may be a little confused Miss—”

“Rose,” sighs Paloma. She has already told the sheriff this, too. “Paloma Rose. The TV star?” Her smile is the patient smile of an angel.

“Only I can’t call your family to verify that, am I right?”

“I told you, they’re in India. With my agent. On one of those ash things.”

“Ashram.”

“Yeah, that’s it. Ashram. It’s a religious retreat. They’re not allowed to communicate with the outside world. That’s why I need to call a press conference.”

“I don’t call press conferences, Miss Rose. This isn’t Hollywood.”

Really? How can she tell? Because there aren’t any palm trees? Or because the town’s only one block long?

“It doesn’t matter. If you tell them who I am they’ll come. I mean, surely you must have heard of me—”

“I’ve heard of Paloma Rose. And I know she’s on TV…”

“That’s right. And I’m her.”

The sheriff nods, but not in a way that suggests agreement. “I’m afraid this is where the horse leaves the trail, Miss Rose. Because, much as I hate to break this news to you, you aren’t her.”

Paloma’s patience thins to shrill. “Then who am I?”

“Well, that’s the million-dollar question, isn’t it?” The sheriff’s brow is furrowed with the curiosity of a professional investigator. “Who are you?”

“I’m Paloma Rose! Really! I really am! Why would I lie about something like that?”

“I have no idea. Maybe we just live in that kind of world. People do all kinds of crazy things that don’t make any sense.”

“But I’m telling you—”

The sheriff leans forward, her elbows on her desk. Now more earnest than curious. “Look, you may think that Dry River is a no-account, hick town where people don’t know the difference between mud and chocolate. And you may think that you can tell me any cockamamie story and I’ll believe you. But you’re very mistaken about both those things. We do have electricity. And I happen to get very good TV reception so I do know what Paloma Rose the TV star looks like. And you—” she points at Paloma – dark-haired, dirty, dusty, dressed like a ranch hand and with a bruise on her cheek from hitting the side of the truck, “—you look nothing like her.”

“But that’s because I’ve been through an ordeal. I bet you’d look different if you’d been through an ordeal like I have.”

“It turned your hair brown? Isn’t trauma supposed to make you grey?”

“No the hair has nothing to do with it. It’s everything else.”

“The calluses and scabs?” The sheriff raises an eyebrow, her gaze on Paloma’s scratched hands. “I can’t say I’ve met many TV stars right up face-to-face, but I’m willing to bet a month’s salary that they don’t have calloused fingers or hands that look like they’ve been putting wet cats in a bag. What’s that all from? Turning the pages of a script?”

Paloma sighs and tries again. “You have to believe me. I was kidnapped—”

“By a person or persons you can’t identify.”

“I’m not saying I wouldn’t recognize them. Like, in a line-up, or mug shots, or something. But they were, you know, kind of not describable really. They looked like anybody.” She can’t tell the truth, of course, that she’s run away from Old Ways Ranch; they’d be on the phone to Ethan Lovejoy before you could say “saddle my horse”. The kidnapping is a plotline from Season Two. “I was just getting into my car. In LA. And somebody grabbed me from behind and they kept me blindfolded and put me on a plane and took me here and I was lucky to escape with my life.”

Although she isn’t even holding a pencil, the sheriff nods as if she’s taking notes. “Was this before or after they dyed your hair and changed the colour of your eyes from electric blue to grey?”

“After. I—”

“But you can’t remember from where you escaped. Is that right? It’s just one big blur of sky and desert.”

“I told you. I—”

“And you have no ID?”

“Of course not. I mean, kidnappers don’t let you keep your wallet.” The only identification she has is her credit card, and that’s in the name of Susan Minnick. If there’s one thing Paloma doesn’t want, it’s to get the Minnicks involved before she tells the world what they’ve done to her. Not only would that be the second quickest way of getting her back at Old Ways Ranch, but her plan depends rather heavily on the element of surprise.

The sheriff holds up one hand, looking over as the deputy comes back. The deputy shakes his head. The sheriff turns back to Paloma. “Only, apparently, no one’s reported you missing, Miss Rose. How do you account for that?”

The deputy perches on the edge of the sheriff’s desk. “I talked to Paloma Rose’s publicist. She says you’re in the middle of shooting the new season. And that today you’ve been all over LA promoting the show.”

“She must’ve misunderstood you. She must’ve thought you meant last week. Last week I—”

“Don’t think so.” The deputy is shaking his head again. “Your publicist definitely said today.”

“Why don’t you tell us what’s really going on here?” asks the sheriff. “You know, before we have to arrest you for wasting police time.”

Paloma can see her mistake now. She should never have said she was a TV star. She should have said she was a nobody, an orphan who’d been kidnapped and held prisoner for the last two or three years. That they’d believe. Then she’d get her press conference; they’d be falling over themselves to get her on the evening news. But they refuse to believe the truth – at least not the part of the truth that she’s been trying to tell them.

“OK. You’re right.” Paloma, thinking of the time when she was six and had to miss Lula Hirschbaum’s birthday party because she was shooting an ad for potato chips, sighs. It is a heartfelt, heavy sigh that brings back all the pain and disappointment of that time. Her lips tremble and her eyes fill with tears. Lula Hirschbaum never invited her to anything again. “I mean… the thing is… see, I had this fight with my boyfriend, it was really horrible, and I was so mad, and…” Season Three, Episode Eight.