Away for the Weekend

Things go back to normal – more or less

There have been several historic firsts in the lives of Beth Beeby and Gabriela Menz in the last few days, and now here is another one. On Monday morning, they walk to school together. There’s nothing like shaving someone else’s legs and dressing someone else’s body to forge a bond.

“It still seems like some kind of dream, doesn’t it?” says Gabriela as they mooch along.

“I know what you mean,” says Beth. “I was sitting on the couch with my mother last night and it was so normal I thought I must’ve hallucinated the whole weekend.”

“Me, too.” Gabriela laughs. “Even this morning. There were a couple of seconds when I woke up when I really thought I had been dreaming.” Till she checked in the mirror and saw that her hair was still short and brown.

“But it did happen.” Beth sighs. “And we’ll never know why.” They’ve been over the events of the weekend several times – at the airport, on the plane and over the phone late into the night – but there is, of course, no reasonable explanation. Not in this world. “I guess we should just be grateful that everything turned out OK.”

“Better than OK.” Despite the fact that she looked as if she belonged to some weird religious cult, Gabriela and her angel dress received a standing ovation at the fashion show. They loved her design. And they loved her. She was different; unique; a breath of extraordinarily fresh air. As one journalist put it: “If you think fashion is a dog that chases its own tail, you haven’t met Gabriela Menz”. “It was like a miracle. Taffeta was really going to kick me out, but that guy sitting next to us just looked at her and she totally backed down. It was awesome. Like he had magic powers. And now she thinks I’m the best thing since the electric sewing machine.”

“The miracle was that you and Delila rescued JC Ferryman when he hurt his ankle,” says Beth. “That was the miracle.” Who knows what would have happened if they hadn’t. It’s certainly unlikely that Professor Gryck would have had a change of heart about Beth if it hadn’t been for him. “He only came because of you two.” It seems that Mr Ferryman, who in spite of twisting his ankle had had a more enjoyable afternoon than usual, didn’t feel he could leave two such spirited young writers to the ponderous care of his sister-in-law, Professor Gryck. “And then there’s that woman who snuck me back in. I don’t think I would’ve had the nerve without her.”

Gabriela looks over at her. “You don’t think that our guy and your woman could’ve had something to do with the—” Somehow, in the bright light of a spring morning, on a familiar road in their quiet town, it’s hard for Gabriela to actually say the words body swap. “You know.”

“A hotel clerk and a fashion hound?” Beth shakes her head. “No way. It was just a lucky coincidence.”

Still mulling over the last two days, they turn into the school grounds.

“Gabriela!” Mr Sturgess, in his usual unironed corduroys and throwback tweed jacket, his old beat-up briefcase in one hand and a thermal cup in the other, lopes towards them across the parking lot.

“Hi, Mr Sturgess!” In another break with tradition, Gabriela doesn’t think how much she’d like to take him shopping, but that she’d probably find his class really interesting if she tried a little harder. Which she just might do.

He catches up with them with a smile. “How was your weekend?”

“It was cool,” says Gabriela as he falls into step beside them. “I won the contest. Isn’t that awesome? And guess what else?”

“You met a movie star?”

Gabriela laughs. “Not a movie star.”

“I give up.” He wouldn’t guess this if he had a million years.

“I met this really famous writer.”

Mr Sturgess half smiles. “At the fashion show?”

“No…. in the Hills. Me and my friend got lost in the Hollywood Hills? And we met JC Ferryman. You’ve heard of him, right?”

Edward Sturgess nods. Slowly. The wonder is that Gabriela’s heard of him. “Yeah. Yeah, of course. I’m more than familiar with his work.”

“He’s supposed to be a really good writer.”

The teacher nods again. “He is. He’s very good. One of the best.”

“Right. So I was thinking… You know our big book report for the term? I figure maybe I’ll do one of his novels for it.”

“Really? One of his?” He tries not to sound discouraging. “They’re pretty com—they’re pretty long, you know.”

“Oh, I know,” says Gabriela breezily. “They had a couple at the airport.”

It is only now, as they approach the main entrance, that Mr Sturgess realizes that the girl walking with them is Beth Beeby. Gabriela’s always doing things to change her looks, but Beth always looks exactly the same. Until today. “I’m so sorry, Beth. I didn’t recognize you.” He gives her a bemused smile. “You seem different.”

“My hair’s lighter.”

He shakes his head. “No… No… It’s something else.” He’s often felt that Beth is never completely present; but she’s very present today. Taller. Straighter. Unworried. “So did you have a good weekend, too?”

“It was great. I had a lot of fun.” And though she usually keeps her sentences short and infrequent, Beth goes on, “Plus, I came third in the competition.”

He glances over at her. Third and she’s smiling? “I hope you weren’t too disappointed.”

Beth shakes her head. “No. I think third place is really good. Besides, what’s important is that I enjoyed writing that story. That’s what really matters, isn’t it?”

“Yeah.” He nods. “Yeah, I’d say so.”

“And I met JC Ferryman, too, which is something I never dreamed would happen. He was amazing, Mr Sturgess. Not like you’d think a famous writer would be. He said next time I go to LA I should call him. My mother and I are going to have dinner with him and his wife.”

“Well, well…” says Edward Sturgess. Beth Beeby and her mother sitting down to dinner with JC Ferryman. Apparently he missed the blue moon on the weekend. “What do you know about that.”

He watches the girls walk off to their lockers, their heads together in earnest conversation.

That must have been one hell of a weekend.

Otto is glad to be back in Jeremiah. The weekend wasn’t all bad – he’s definitely developed a taste for both black-bean burritos and convertible sports cars – but it was draining. He can’t help thinking that it would be a lot less stressful to guard Heaven’s Gate with a flaming sword than face down Taffeta Mackenzie (though he did it well, and with considerable panache). At the moment, he and Remedios are sitting on the south lawn of the high school, covered in sunshine and surrounded by students on their lunch breaks. Some of the students are talking excitedly; some are texting; some are playing games; a few have their heads bent over a book. Remedios and Otto are bickering.

“Did I say that we weren’t successful?” He shakes his head. Very firmly. “No, I never said that, Remedios.” He didn’t. Even Otto has had to admit that, despite the problems and complications and difficult personalities of Ms Mackenzie and Professor Gryck, he and Remedios did a very good job. Not only did Beth and Gabriela do well in their respective contests, but there’s no doubt that they both changed for the better. Beth has started thinking of life as an adventure rather than a competition, and Gabriela is knocking down the walls of the closet that is her mind and putting much more in it than she did before. “What I said is that next time we might not be so lucky. That’s what I said.”

“Luck, schmuck,” says Remedios. “I knew what I was doing. I never doubted for a second that everything would turn out fine. I planned the whole thing.”

“Of course you did,” says Otto. “And where were you when that dragon — what’s her name? Organza…”

“Taffeta.”

“When she tried to throw Gabriela out of the show and do her out of first prize? Was that also part of your plan?”

“I was taking care of the other dragon, the one with the doctorate, that’s where I was.” Remedios pulls a blade of grass from the lawn. “And besides, I knew you could handle the situation.”

“And what if I hadn’t?” Otto persists. “You would’ve ruined poor Gabriela’s life for nothing.”

“But you did handle it.” She slips the leaf of grass between her thumbs. “I never had any doubts about that, either.”

“Remedios…” He’s getting that earnest, schoolmaster tone in his voice. Her eyes wander across the quad. “I know things turned out well, but what I’m saying is that they might not have. The risks were more than equal to the rewards.”

This isn’t true, and he knows it.

“What are you saying, Otto? That people should just spend their lives sitting in one place? That they should look at the world through a pinhole in a wall and not experience life? What are they, prisoners?”

“That’s not what I’m saying. You’re always twisting my words. I’m just trying to get you to admit that you went over the top this time. And to promise that you won’t do it again.”

She looks from one group of students to another, picking up snatches of conversation, snatches of thought, shadows of dreams.

“Remedios? Did you hear me?”

Seeing things that aren’t there.

“Yes,” she says, “I heard you.”

“And you promise? You won’t get me involved in another hare-brained scheme like that again?”

“Of course not,” says Remedios. And she raises her hands to her mouth and blows on the grass as if it’s a very small trumpet.

This time Otto definitely catches a shimmer.