Away for the Weekend

Not everyone likes to shop

Otto couldn’t believe how quickly the peaceful neighbourhood transformed itself into a war zone. All that shrill, siren-like shrieking. And the screaming and shouting. And the guard suddenly charging across the lawn. At least he found the dog. It was a great brute of a creature, with too many teeth and too much gum and a madness in its eyes. Otto got out of the backyard of the studio a lot faster than he got into it, and collapsed in the car, consoling himself with the thought that the day could only improve.

Unfortunately he was wrong.

When the girls finally emerged and got into the limousine, he assumed they were going to lunch. He imagined white linen tablecloths and polished floors and a soothing violin concerto playing in the background. Perhaps not an establishment as elegant as the restaurants of old Vienna, but somewhere sophisticated and calm where he could relax and keep an eye on Beth at the same time.

Instead, they went shopping.

Otto has never been involved in any serious, twenty-first century shopping before, and he has no intention of ever being involved in it again. The pushing. The shoving. The grabbing. The frenzied emotions. The arguments. The snarling and snapping. The remorseless determination. Poor Otto hasn’t seen such single-mindedness outside of a war.

Angels, however, are very resilient, and now here he sits at a sidewalk café, an iced lemon-sorbet tea with mint and a plate of chocolate macaroons in front of him, recovering from the traumas of the morning. He watches the street – the cars moving along the road like conveyor-belt ducks at a shooting gallery; the people almost dancing. So this is Los Angeles. Laidback. Mellow. City of Angels. City of Dreams. There is an almost liquid quality to the light – possibly to the air itself – that makes everything seem not quite there. As if it’s only a mirage. An image on a screen. An enchanted place that appears and disappears like a ghost (or an angel).

Otto leans back in his chair. What with driving in traffic that either moves like a stampede or suddenly stops dead for no apparent reason, the hours spent just waiting for Beth to come out of the studio, the burglar alarms and the stress of shopping, it’s been a hellish morning – but now he finally feels himself starting to relax.

He sips his tea, suffused with a new sense of peace. Or possibly relief. At least Remedios isn’t with him. And nothing bad has happened to Beth. Her face – Gabriela’s face – is pinched with strain and she’s hobbled by her shoes, but she hasn’t been rushed off to a hospital or thrown herself in front of a bus (two of the tragic fates he has imagined for her). Otto has no reason to think that anything more will go wrong. Everything’s going to be all right. All he has to do is see Beth safely back to the hotel this evening, meet up with Remedios and Gabriela, and make sure that the girls’ paths cross.

But the mellow image of Los Angeles is only an illusion. It has always been a city of violence and greed. And Otto’s feeling of well-being is only an illusion, too.

As he reaches for another macaroon, Otto notices heads turning to look at something behind him. Probably a movie star, he thinks. Otto lost interest in the cinema when colour was introduced, but nonetheless, because he always took quite literally the admonition to do as the Romans when in Rome, he, too, turns to see who it is.

The woman coming towards him is tall and willowy with a billowing mane of blonde hair, and she’s wearing a hot-pink jumpsuit, high-heeled sandals and aviator sunglasses. It takes him a few seconds to realize that he not only recognizes her; he knows her. It is, of course, Remedios Cienfuegos y Mendoza. What a coincidence. He puts his glass down so hard that he knocks the spoon off the table.

Because the aviator glasses, though stylish, are very dark – and because her mind is on things that don’t include Otto Wasserbach – Remedios is more or less on top of him before she sees him scowling at her from the other side of a low railing. Fire and brimstone! If only she’d seen him first, she could have made a run for it. But, as Caesar’s army crossed the Rubicon, Remedios crosses Santa Monica Boulevard. She comes to a stop beside him. “Why, Otto! What a surprise! I never expected to see you sitting on the street eating cookies.” She smiles as though she’s happy to see him. “I guess LA is working its magic even on you!”

There is no return smile. Indeed, his thin lips have almost disappeared in disapproval. “And you are doing what here exactly?” The cacophony of sounds that surrounds them – horns and engines, sirens and beeps, voices and music and ringtones – is so loud that, although she’s only a few inches away, Otto almost has to shout.

“I’m talking to you, Otto.” She lowers her shades so he can see her wink. “What do you think I’m doing?”

“I’ll try again. What are you doing here, Remedios?” he repeats, but they both know that what he means is: Going back on our agreement? Looking to interfere some more?

“I’m not doing anything. A little shopping… A little sightseeing…” She gives him a smile that has gladdened the heart of more than one repentant sinner. “We can’t help people if we don’t understand them. And we can’t understand them if we don’t do what they do. Can we?”

He takes a gentlemanly sip of tea. “But you’re not supposed to be ‘sightseeing’ or ‘shopping’. You’re supposed to be with Gabriela.”

“And what about you?” Remedios leans against the railing, shaking her head so that the curls move around it like wings. “What are you doing grooving on the LA scene? I thought you were keeping an eye on Beth.”

“I am keeping an eye on Beth. She’s limping a little, but otherwise she’s fine.” He slaps her hand away as she reaches for a cookie. “They’ve been shopping for what seems like an eternity, but their car will be picking them up in less than an hour. I thought I’d take a break.” Otto finally manages a smile, but it’s a wan one. “Unlike you, I find shopping to be just another name for Hell.” His sigh would disabuse anyone of the notion that angels don’t suffer. “So much effort for so appallingly little.”

“Does that mean you don’t like the outfit?” Remedios spins around, causing traffic to slow and horns to honk. “I found this fantabulous vintage shop down one of those alleys. It’s really incredible what you can get in this town.”

“I hardly recognized you at first. That hair!”

She gives her head a shake. “It’s a wig! You can get a wig to look like anybody you want.”

“You look like you’ve stepped out of a seventies’ detective series.”

She makes that face she does when she thinks she has something on him – half sugar, half acid. “I thought you didn’t watch TV, Otto. I thought it was beneath you. How would you know what they wore in seventies’ detective series?”

“Somebody had to turn the set off.” He looks up at her, still unsmiling. “So now that we’ve dispensed with the chitchat, let’s go back to where we started. What are you doing here, Remedios? You’re supposed to be watching over Gabriela.”

Remedios slips over the railing and into the chair across from him as though she is made of air. “Don’t get yourself all agitated, Otto. Gabriela’s not going anywhere. She’s either on the bus or in a museum.”

While he was watching the traffic, Otto absent-mindedly made a small bird from his straw wrapper, but now he absent-mindedly starts to undo it, smiling for the first time since he saw Remedios bearing down on him like a bad omen. “You’re certain of that?”

“Of course I’m certain. You’d love the woman who’s running things. She has them on the timetable of a high-security prison. She doesn’t even let them out to feed.”

Otto nods towards the other side of the street. “Who’s that then?”

Stoke up the fires of Hell! Why is she so trusting? Remedios knows you can’t rely on humans. The minute you turn your back, they’re picking apples and sneaking out of museums. She doesn’t bother to look round. “How many guesses do I get?”

“If I had the tiniest smidgen of faith in you, I’d almost be willing to believe that you arranged this so we’d be able to switch them back sooner rather than later.” Otto pushes his cup away. “But it’s far more likely that it’s just a coincidence.” He smiles. “On the other hand, it is a lucky one.” The powers that be, he thinks, are clearly on his side.

She makes another grab for the last cookie on his plate. “I take it you already have a plan.” She takes a bite.

“As a matter of fact, I do.” Otto pushes back his chair. “I’ll fetch the car. You stay with Gabriela. The limo’s meant to be picking Beth and the others up near The Hyatt soon. I’ll make certain it never arrives and get her out to the boulevard. All you have to do is make sure your girl is on that same pavement and—”

“Boom, Shiva!” says Remedios through a mouthful of macaroon.

“Amen,” says Otto. He gestures to the empty plate and cup and the crumbs scattered over her jumpsuit. “I’ll leave you to take care of the bill.”

But he hasn’t noticed Beth behind him. Remedios sees Beth’s eyes fall on Otto just before he vanishes, and the look that comes over her face. Well, bless my stars, she thinks. Beth not only sees Otto and remembers that she sees him, she’s also afraid of him. How ironic! Afraid of Otto Wasserbach. It’s like being afraid of a feather. But from Remedios’ point of view, of course, it’s a very useful thing to know.

And with that, she, too, disappears.

Sunset Plaza, shopping centre to the stars. It has everything a girl who believes in the Three Cs – Cosmetics, Clothes and Celebrity – could possibly want: the up-market stores, the chic cafes, the luxury cars cruising past, the tourists taking pictures from the windows of buses and rental cars. And today, it not only has all of that, it has the finalists of Taffeta Mackenzie’s fashion competition as well. Though some are here more than others.

Beth is present in body only, and it isn’t even her body, of course. She trails behind her companions like a wheeled toy on a string. Paulette, Nicki, Hattie, Isla and Lucinda all bubble with excitement, but Beth’s face is flat with worry and pain. What does she have to be excited about? She can’t see any way out of the nightmare she’s in. Not today. Not tomorrow. Not ever. Paulette, Nicki, Hattie, Isla and Lucinda laugh and chat as they try on shoes and dresses, tops and trousers, studying themselves critically in mirror after mirror, one eye always on the lookout for someone famous so they can tell their friends back home. Beth props up walls and thinks about Gabriela, having the time of Beth’s life while Beth limps through this torturous day, one eye always out for the man in the Panama hat. As if things aren’t bad enough. Oh, how she wants to go home. More than that, oh, how she wants to be back in her own body; back in her own body and home.

Every few minutes, Lucinda glances over her shoulder to make sure she’s still with them, but the others don’t care. If they’re not complaining because she’s so slow or so unhelpful, they’re ignoring her completely. After the humiliations of the morning, they no longer feel they have to be nice to her or pretend that they like her. She is no longer the person they want to be; she’s the person they’re glad they aren’t. If it were up to them, they would have lost her an hour ago.

Nicki, Hattie, Paulette and Isla all sail through yet another glass door; and Lucinda looks back and beckons. Beth watches Lucinda disappear, and then looks left, right and behind her before she follows them inside. She positions herself near the door, where she can easily see the entire floor and anyone who leaves or enters, and then she sinks back into her reveries of doom, gloom and whether or not an exorcist could help her.

“OK, I give up.”

Beth blinks, aware because something the colour of plums is swinging dangerously close to her face, that someone is talking to her. “I’m sorry?”

“I’ve had enough.” Paulette still holds the shoe she was examining, but her eyes, narrowed to slits as if she’s judging the finest hand-stitching, are on Beth. “What exactly is wrong with you, Gab? It’s like we’re shopping with a malfunctioning robot.”

Where to start? Leaving aside Problem A: there’s the pain in her feet; the ache in her back; the ice cubes her toes have become and the feeling that she’s being refrigerated; her general fatigue at having spent so many hours in the sweatshop of glamour; and her low morale after a morning of being yelled at. And, finally, there’s the fact that he’s following them. Following her. That’s what’s wrong.

Beth was facing the wall of glass overlooking the back yard of the studio when the alarm went off. She automatically shifted her eyes from Taffeta Mackenzie to the windows behind her, and there he was – the man from the hotel. He was standing near the west side of the yard, looking up at the house. Then everyone started talking and running to the doors, and the security guard and his dog were charging across the lawn, and even though Beth couldn’t have done more than blink, he was gone.

It can’t be him, she told herself. You have him on your mind, that’s all. It wasn’t anybody. A natural illusion. It’s the kind of thing that happens all the time. People think they see a ghost (or a man in a Panama hat), but really it’s only a reflection, the light beams bent into something else. The guard searched all over, but he didn’t find any trace of an intruder. It was probably just a glitch in the system, or a very large cat. The guard said it was impossible to get over that wall without a ladder. (“Unless he’s a circus performer,” said the guard. “Or Spiderman.”). And even if someone did manage to get into the yard, there was no way he could get back out without being seen. And if he didn’t go over the wall, how did he leave? Fly?

But then, as they were getting into the limo to come shopping – Beth hobbling behind the others with Taffeta shouting after her, “For God’s sake, Gabby, buy yourself a pair of shoes that fit!” – a glint of red caught her eye and she glanced over to see a red sports car parked further up the road, out of sight of the studio. You’d think he’d have the sense to ditch that stupid hat.

“Well?” demands Paulette. “I asked you a question, Gabriela. What is up with you?”

“Me?” Beth’s smile is as delicate – and as temporary – as the flowers glued to the shoe in Paulette’s hand.

“No, your cousin in Michigan.” Paulette points the shoe at her. “Yes, you. What’s going on? I asked you three times if you thought this would be better in another colour, and when you finally bothered to answer you said, ‘Yeah, it’s nice’.”

“Well, that’s what I meant.” Beth may not be able to walk in Gabriela’s shoes, but she has no trouble lying in them. “That they’d be nice in another colour.”

Paulette eyes her as if her mascara has run. “No, you didn’t. You’ve been on automatic since we got here.”

“I may be a little distracted…”

She didn’t see him following the limo. Which she thought must mean that he really was a figment of her imagination or that he’d given up. No to both. She’s seen him since. Strolling past a window. Going into the store next to the one they’re in. Standing in a doorway on the other side of the street. Disappearing up a flight of stairs. Vanishing around a display of scarves. It’s always just a glimpse, an image at the corner of her eye; and when she looks again he isn’t there. But she knows he is.

“A little?” Isla comes up beside Paulette. With her long red hair and liking for lace, Isla may look like the heroine of a romantic novel, but she snorts like a truffle hog. “I bet you don’t even know what stores we’ve been in.”

Beth wouldn’t know these stores on a normal day – a day when the face looking back at her from the mirror behind Paulette is hers and no one would think of asking her opinion about a pair of shoes. She doesn’t have a clue.

“Of course I know.”

“No looking at our bags,” warns Nicki, shifting hers out of sight. “Go on, name them.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” says Beth. “We don’t have time for games. We still have a lot of shopping to do.”

“And that’s another thing.” Hattie, who only a minute ago was at the other end of the room trying on her sixth pair of boots, has somehow materialized beside Isla. “You haven’t bought anything. Not one single thing.”

Beth smiles sweetly. “I haven’t seen anything I like.”

“We’ve been here over three hours,” says Hattie. “That’s like going to a supermarket and not seeing any food.”

“And what about the guy in Transcendental? What was up with that?”

Beth doesn’t recognize the name, but she knows exactly which store Isla means. She was going through the motions of looking at tops in the boutique where some actor whose name she can’t remember apparently shops all the time, when she knew for certain that the man from the lobby was right behind her. She could feel his eyes on her. “Just what is it you think you’re doing?” she shrieked as she swung round. “Why don’t you leave me alone?” Only it wasn’t the young man in the white suit; it was an older man in jeans, a cowboy shirt and a cowboy hat (in her defence, his hat was white) looking for a present for his granddaughter. Beth apologized eight times.

“I told you, it was a mistake. I thought he was someone else.”

“Who?” asks Nicki. “I didn’t think you knew anybody in LA.”

“Or maybe you do,” says Paulette. “You keep looking over your shoulder.”

“Hey, that’s right!” Hattie snaps her fingers. “Even in the car you kept looking back all the time.”

“Maybe she’s pretending she’s in one of those old movies she likes so much where everybody’s a spy,” says Isla.

Beth fidgets. She should have known that, with whatever grudging respect they’d had for Gabriela now gone, it was only a matter of time before they jumped on her like a pack of hyenas on the carcass of an antelope. “You’re all making a big deal out of nothing.”

“What’s going on?” Lucinda strolls up to them, a new shopping bag swinging from her arm, looking wary. “You guys look really serious.”

“We’re trying to figure out why Gab’s acting so weird,” says Nicki. “And don’t say you haven’t noticed.”

Oh, Lucinda’s noticed. From the minute she woke up to the sound of sobbing, Lucinda’s noticed. The clothes, the make-up, the apologizing, the clinical amnesia when it comes to anything to do with fashion, the fact that Gabriela, who last night was as graceful as a gazelle, can barely walk. It’s like she’s a different person to the one Lucinda met yesterday. But she was hoping the others hadn’t noticed. “Well…” She smiles without any conviction. “Define weird.”

“Weird like she’s not really here,” says Isla.

“Weird like she didn’t know what Madagascar was,” says Nicki.

“Weird like she’s wearing pyjamas and no make-up,” says Hattie.

“I’ll go for weird like paranoid,” says Paulette.

“I don’t think that’s being weird,” lies Lucinda. “It’s just nerves and stress and excitement and everything.”

“Sure,” says Paulette. “I can’t walk right when I’m feeling nervous either.”

“I can hardly leave the house,” says Isla.

“OK,” Beth sighs. “OK, I’ll tell you. I guess I should have told you straight away, but I didn’t want to worry you or scare you or anything…”

“That’s very kind of you,” says Paulette, “but we don’t scare that easily.”

“This had better be good.” Hattie looks as if she’s trying to swallow her mouth.

“Well, you see, there’s this guy. I noticed him first in the hotel.” Beth explains about the young man in the lobby in the white suit and the Panama hat. How he was watching them while they were waiting for the car. How she saw him in the garden at the studio. How she saw him parked up the road when they were getting back in the limo. How she’s seen him while they’ve been shopping. Someone, not Lillian Beeby, has said that a trouble shared is a trouble halved, and as she talks Beth really feels that that is true. After all her anxiety, this is a trouble that can be understood. She should have told them from the start, instead of keeping it to herself. United we stand, divided we fall. Strength in numbers. You don’t have to walk alone.

When Beth finishes her story, there is silence for a few seconds. But only a few – and it definitely isn’t the silence of fear.

“Some guy’s been following us,” repeats Paulette, with as much conviction as if Beth had said that the bustle is coming back into fashion. “You mean, like a stalker? Is that what you mean?”

“Well, yeah, I guess you could call him that.” Beth makes a scrunched-up face. “There’s something really strange about him.”

Nicki, peering at herself in a compact mirror, says, “I didn’t see anybody strange in the hotel this morning.”

“Me, neither,” says Isla. “I mean, everybody who stays at The Xanadu has money, don’t they?”

“So what if he has money?” Beth snaps. “That doesn’t make it OK to follow us around.”

“I’m just saying that it’s not like he’s some kind of LA lowlife, is it? He has to be respectable,” argues Isla. “Guys with money don’t do stuff like that.”

“Why not?” asks Beth.

No one hears her.

“Well, personally, I don’t understand how you noticed anyone.” Hattie’s lips form a narrow, unbending line. “You were pretty much out of it even then. You hardly said five words while we were waiting, and, if you ask me, they were the only thing that was strange.”

Paulette turns on, rather than to, Lucinda. “What about you? Did you see this mysterious stalker?”

“Well… I—” Lucinda’s eyes ping-pong from Paulette to Gabriela and back again. “I don’t— I’m not really sure. There were a lot of people in the lobby this morning.” Her shopping shrugs. “I can’t remember everybody I saw.”

“Well, I know I didn’t see him,” proclaims Nicki, “and I always notice hats because they’re, like, my specialty. There’s no way I’d’ve missed a Panama.”

“I still don’t see why you’re all wound up because some guy was looking at us in the hotel.” Hattie continues to study her as if she’s not sure of the decoration or the colour. “Let’s face it, guys always look at us. You’d think you’d be used to it by now.”

“Besides,” says Isla, “if there really was some guy watching us, then he was probably a director or a producer. They’re always looking for new faces.”

If he is a director or producer, then he’s one who spends his time riding around town and climbing into people’s gardens.

Paulette’s smile is full of ill will. “Nobody but you saw him in the garden, did they?”

“I can’t explain that, but he was definitely there!” Beth’s voice is, for her, unusually loud and firm. There’s nothing like chronic frustration to make a person forget her shyness. “I saw him as clearly as I see you. He was right there in the back yard. If he wasn’t there, why did the alarm go off like that?”

“The guard said it was a malfunction,” says Paulette.

“It happens at our house all the time,” adds Isla.

“And we were all right there,” says Hattie. “Right next to you. So if you saw him so clearly why didn’t we see him, too?”

Nicki laughs without a stitch of humour. “Maybe he really did fly away.”

Blessed are the peacemakers, a group that can now count Lucinda among their number. “Look, it’s been a long morning. Why don’t we get some lunch or at least a drink,” she says. “There’s a café a couple of doors down.”

Beth, who, met with so much resistance, is starting to doubt herself, jumps at the suggestion. “That’s a great idea!” Lunch, that’s what she needs. She hasn’t had anything to eat all day. Maybe that’s all that’s wrong with her – hunger. That and being in someone else’s body. She’s hungry. Hunger makes you hallucinate. Everybody knows that.

They come out of the shoe store and turn towards the café. Beth freezes.

Sitting at one of the tables, talking to a man with his back to Beth, is one of those LA types that Beth’s mother warned her about. Several times. There are undoubtedly quite a few things that she might be discussing with the man at the table, most of them illegal, but the improbable blonde isn’t the reason Beth has stopped like a phone whose battery has suddenly died. It’s the man. He may be facing the opposite way, but she knows him instantly.

“Luce, look!” Beth turns and grabs Lucinda’s arm. “That’s him! That’s him! Right over there.”

Not just Lucinda, but Hattie, Isla, Nicki and Paulette all look at her.

“Now what?”

“That’s him! Over there with the blonde with all the hair!”

Paulette groans. “Oh, for God’s sake. How long are you going to keep this up?”

“No, really. Right over there! At the café! I swear, it’s him.”

Hattie is the first to look round. “Where?”

Beth turns back to the couple at the table.

There’s no one there.

Nothing like this has ever happened to Professor Gryck before (nor to anyone else involved, come to that). The entire Tomorrow’s Writers Today group was frogmarched out of the exhibition area by the armed guards of this most prestigious of museums. The head of security (an ex-policeman who thought he’d seen everything, but obviously hadn’t) wanted to know what the heck Professor Gryck thought she was doing.

“I thought I was educating these upstanding and talented young students,” said Professor Gryck in the voice of an expert. “That’s what I thought I was doing.”

The head of security said it was more like she was training a gang of art thieves. “They were all over the place. Ignoring the signs. Touching everything. Going over markers. How do you explain that, Professor?”

Professor Gryck couldn’t. It never happened; none of her students touched anything; nor did they wander around like straying cattle. “These are responsible, highly intelligent and gifted young adults, not riff raff,” she informed him. “They would never do anything like you’re suggesting.”

The head of security pointed to the bank of monitors. “Well, it’s all on there. In black and white.” Apparently, they were trying to steal the special exhibit, loaned from the Louvre for the first time, Unnamed Lady at Window. The others were causing distractions while that plain, innocuous-looking girl made the lift.

“We weren’t trying to steal anything.” Professor Gryck’s voice was brittle with exasperation. “It was an accident, you dolt.”

Calling him a dolt was probably a mistake. They were supposed to have lunch in the beautiful courtyard restaurant of the museum. She’d been planning it for weeks: tables were reserved on the elevated terrace overlooking the fountain and Professor Gryck had gone over the menu, making sure that there was nothing that would cause any of her charges to break out, throw up or go into toxic shock. (Beth isn’t the only one who suffers from allergies.) Professor Gryck was looking forward to this lunch. Civilized. Sophisticated. Elegant. The perfect ending to what was meant to have been a perfect morning. You certainly wouldn’t want to have a day of art and culture and then eat in some fast-food joint with plastic forks and styrofoam plates.

But even if their reservation hadn’t long expired by the time they were released, “the incident” (as Professor Gryck has come to think of it) ended any chance of them dining at round, marble-topped tables overlooked by priceless sculptures and modern fountains. Though it was ultimately established that she and her group were who they said they were, and that something had gone horribly wrong with the surveillance system, there was no question of them being allowed to remain. Or wanting to. In a civilized, sophisticated and elegant manner – but in no uncertain terms – she and her group were told to leave. And with a dignity amplified by righteous indignation, they left.

And so, in an unprecedented move that broke all of her own rules, Professor Gryck gave the contestants free time for a quick lunch.

“You’re to stay on this block.” She waved her arm back and forth so they’d know which block she meant. “We’ll meet back here in exactly one hour.” She looked directly into Beth Beeby’s glasses. She knows whom she blames. There was only one person in that alcove; one person myopically close to that precious portrait. “Don’t any of you be late. Do you understand?” Professor Gryck needed a drink. “Promise me that.”

Everyone promised. Or almost everyone.

“But we’re not supposed to leave the block,” Aricely is saying now.

They’ve finished their quick lunch and have half an hour to spare. Esmeralda, Jayne and Aricely want dessert. Gabriela wants to do some shopping.

“It depends how you define block.” In so many ways it has been a demoralizing, not to say deadening, morning. The only bright spot was that painting – that painting whose life and passion was just within her reach. Until the alarms went off and she was rudely hauled away. If she really were Beth Beeby, Gabriela would still be crying and apologizing. Since she isn’t, what she wants is to give herself a treat. Some foundation and a little blusher, for example. And maybe a scarf – filmy, flimsy and glinting with colour. Something to cheer her up. Surely she deserves that little crumb of happiness? Gabriela thinks so. “We’re not leaving the area; we’re just going to a different section.” The Sunset Plaza section. “It’s, like, two minutes away.”

“I don’t see why you have to go shopping,” says Esmeralda. “As I say in my essay, unbridled consumerism is destroying our nation’s—”

“Yeah, I know,” interrupts Gabriela. This has been mentioned before. “It’s destroying our nation’s soul. Only I’m not emptying the nearest mall, Esmeralda. I’m just getting a couple of things I forgot. I must’ve left my make-up bag at home. I don’t have anything with me.”

“Maybe if you call Professor Gryck—” begins Aricely, but Gabriela cuts her off, too.

“What’s wrong with you guys? So far we’ve been in a bus and a museum, and a museum and a bus. Don’t you want to just walk around a little? See the city without a piece of glass in front of your face?”

Jayne frowns. “But Professor Gryck—”

“Isn’t going to know we went anywhere, because we’re going to be right where she left us when the bus comes back.” If they ever get out of here, that is.

“But what if something happens to us?”

“What could possibly happen to us in half an hour? We’re not rafting across the Pacific. We’re just going into a couple of stores.”

“I still say Professor Gryck’s not going to like it,” says Esmeralda.

“Geez, Louise…” groans Gabriela. No wonder Beth chews her nails, if this is what her friends back home are like. “Trust me. She’s not going to know.”

Delila has been silent throughout this exchange, looking as if she’s watching a play and is trying to follow the plot, but now she says, “Well, you can count me in.” She missed a lot of the excitement in the museum because she was in the toilet; she isn’t about to miss any more.

“What about the rest of you?” Gabriela smiles encouragingly. As much as she’d like to leave them behind, if Professor Gryck does catch them disobeying her orders, she wants the others to be with her. Safety in numbers. Divided we fall.

Aricely looks at Jayne. Jayne looks at Esmeralda. Esmeralda looks at Gabriela.

“What are we going to tell Professor Gryck if she finds out we disobeyed her?”

“We’ll tell her we had to help Beth get a special non-allergic, organic kind of sanitary pad,” says Delila. “She’s met the girl. She’ll believe that.”

Gabriela’s spirits are almost immediately restored by being out on the street. This is more like it. The energy of so many people going somewhere, and going there in a hurry, hums through bone and steel; cellulose and concrete. Even on so short an acquaintance (and most of it from behind glass) she knows that Los Angeles is so much more than any other place she’s ever been. There is nothing ordinary or dull here. Nothing humdrum. Everything sounds louder; looks brighter; smells stronger; moves with a shimmer or a bounce. She feels as if her blood is foaming with excitement. Why would anyone want to live anywhere else? She loves LA! And LA, of course, should love Gabriela. She should fit right in; she should look like she belongs. Wearing her faux snakeskin zip-back heels and the ivory-coloured shift with the beadwork. Heads should be swivelling, elbows nudging. Look at her! Who’s that? She is, like, sooo cool! But LA doesn’t love her; it doesn’t even know she’s here. She’s not a goddess; she’s a geek – a lot more invisible than the air. The only advantage this gives her is that she’s wearing shoes that allow her to walk easily and quickly. Half an hour is a long time when you can stride.

“Wow, will you look at those two over there?” whispers Aricely; as if there is any chance that she can be heard on the other side of all that traffic. “They look like they’re out of a movie.”

Gabriela glances over. Not a movie she’d watch. “Good God, retro seventies.” She shudders with distaste. “Bell-bottom jumpsuits weren’t a good idea then, and they’re really not a good idea now. And look at her hair! She looks like she’s got a dog on her head.”

Jayne and Esmeralda aren’t interested enough to look, but Delila is trying to remember if she saw the man in the white suit at breakfast. He seems kind of familiar. And he’s good-looking, in an old-fashioned, European way. And it’s not just the hat he’s holding in his hand, or the James Joyce sunglasses. He looks as if he speaks several languages; as if he’s spent a lot of time sitting in cafés, but not here – where there’s a man at the bus stop holding an iguana and a woman who looks like Marilyn Monroe skating through the traffic – in much older cities of narrow streets and buildings that were built long before any white man put his foot down here. But though it’s only been a second or two, when Delila turns back for another look, there’s no one there.