Away for the Weekend

There are some things for which you just can’t plan

When Gabriela first opens her eyes, she has a moment of not knowing where she is. This is something that happens to most of us when we sleep away from home. This isn’t my room. The window’s in the wrong place. There shouldn’t be a door over there. But then, as the fog of sleep clears, Gabriela remembers where she is. She’s in LA. In the hotel. About to have one of the best weekends of her life. And – if last night is anything to go by – about to take the first step in her career as a fashion designer to the stars. If she were in a musical and not in the bed next to Lucinda Abbot, she’d probably start singing.

And then, slowly coming fully awake, Gabriela notices something odd. She sniffs. The room doesn’t smell. That is it smells, faintly, of soap, cleaners and detergent and The Xanadu’s air freshener of choice, California Dreaming – but it doesn’t smell of her. The innocent but alluring scent of her perfume. The wildflowers fragrance of her hair. The slightly sweet aroma of her night cream. She sniffs again. It doesn’t smell like Lucinda, who favours something sharper and more avant-garde, either.

This is when Gabriela finally looks over at the figure in the next bed. It isn’t Lucinda Abbot. Even with the curtains drawn she can see that. It is someone so completely different from Lucinda that she might be from another species. Someone much larger. Someone whose hair just happens, like a tangle of string. Someone who probably thinks Dolce & Gabbana is a brand of ice cream and who wouldn’t know a Dior suit if it had a sign on it. Someone who sleeps in a New York Giants jersey.

This, of course, is not something that happens to most of us when we sleep away from home, and Gabriela refuses to believe that it’s happening to her. She closes her eyes, counts very slowly to ten, and then, even more slowly, opens them again. The next bed still contains a lump of a girl, her mouth open and drool dripping down her chin. It is an interesting fact of human behaviour that if a person really doesn’t want to believe something, she won’t. You go back to where you left the car and it isn’t there, so you spend the next hour walking around, looking for it in case it decided to park itself somewhere else. Your boyfriend says he doesn’t want to see you any more and you ask him what he wants to do on Saturday night. You find yourself in a hotel room with someone you never saw before and you decide you must have forgotten something fairly crucial about the night before.

Gabriela closes her eyes again, trying to remember everything that happened last night. She and Lucinda went downstairs. They sat with Taffeta Mackenzie. They had a great time. Better than great. It was like Heaven, if Heaven were located on the ground floor of The Hotel Xanadu. She was feeling really wiped out by the time they got back to the room, but she figured that was because of all the excitement and the travel and everything. In fact, she was so tired that she actually skipped her beauty routine, and was under the covers in a matter of minutes. She fell asleep as soon as her head touched the pillow. That’s the whole ensemble. They had dinner; Taffeta said the car would pick them up at nine o’clock sharp; they came back to the room; she was feeling so totally exhausted she almost nodded off while brushing her teeth; she went to bed. Which means that when she opens her eyes the next bed will be occupied by Lucinda Abbot, not some girl who looks as if she plays professional ice hockey.

Because it is not Lucinda that she sees when she opens her eyes again, Gabriela sits up with her heart pounding. And for the first time notices that she isn’t wearing her good ivory-silk pyjamas with the maroon piping and the mother-of-pearl buttons (copied from another old movie), which is what she should be wearing. Not a pair of cheap flannel pants in a fake tartan and a T-shirt advertising some museum – the kind of outfit guaranteed to raise her from the dead should anyone be demented enough to bury her in it. It’s as she’s looking at the T-shirt that Gabriela notices her hands. They’re not tanned. Not only are they not tanned, the nails are unpolished and chewed so far down that her fingertips look like the tops of very thin sausages. She pulls one foot out from under the blanket. Most of us would agree that the foot is not the most beautiful part of the human body, but this, without a doubt, is the ugliest foot she’s ever seen. Bony. Calloused. The nails like something you’d find on a rhino. There’s no tiny rose tattooed on the ankle; no gold chain encircling it; just – God help me, she thinks, and, holding her breath, slowly raises the hem of the flannels. She has the hairy leg of a boy. Or a spider. The only reason she doesn’t scream is because she doesn’t want to wake the Incredible Hulk in the next bed.

Gabriela’s eyes move slowly around the room. There’s nothing piled on the furniture. There’s nothing to stop you from crossing the floor without having to jump from bed to bed. The closet door is open. Two small suitcases (generic) and two backpacks (old) sit on the shelf. A few items of gauche clothing hang at one end of the rail, and a few items that haven’t been fashionable outside of Eastern Europe for at least sixty years at the other. Four pairs of shoes (cheap and boring) have been arranged on the floor, separated by two laptops in plain black cases (also generic). Everything that she’d expect from someone who sleeps in flannel pants and someone who shares a room with her.

Don’t panic, she tells herself. There’s got to be some explanation.

Gabriela takes long, deep breaths to calm herself. This is like the dream she had where she found herself at this major holiday party in Hollywood and everybody who was anybody was there – it was A-list all the way – and she suddenly realized that she was wearing corduroys. Corduroys! At this totally to-die-for party. Corduroys, those gross-looking rubber shoes people wear on boats and a sweater decorated with a Christmas tree. The Christmas tree lit up. And not only did it light up, the tiny bulbs twinkled too. Her earrings were plastic reindeer. Everybody thought she’d come with the caterers. That she was someone’s hick niece they were afraid to leave home alone. One of the guests came over and kindly guided her towards the kitchen. Honey, I think you’re in the wrong room. The major difference between that dream and now, of course, is that she woke up from the dream.

Well, that’s it! It has to be! She hasn’t woken up. She’s still asleep. That’s all this is – a bad dream.

She pinches herself. Hard. She presses her palm into the corner of the bedside table.

This is ridiculous. She has to wake up. Water. She’ll splash cold water in her face. Even though she’s doing it in a dream, her body may think it’s real and wake her up.

Very quietly, Gabriela slips out of bed, carefully stepping over the grubby pair of bunny slippers waiting for someone who isn’t here, and tiptoes over the clear, open space of carpet to the bathroom. She turns on the light and steps up to the sink.

Looking back at her from the mirror is a face that is not her face. It is a familiar face. Kind of. Vaguely. She’s definitely seen it before – but not on her, of course.

This is when Gabriela finally panics. Still staring at her reflection in disbelief and horror, Gabriela lets out a scream that could curdle steel.

Beth has been having one of her anxiety dreams. Over the years, Beth has created an impressive catalogue of these dreams, covering every possible personal and global disaster and combination of disasters – from being asked in front of the whole school what Shakespeare’s first name was and answering “George” to being on a ship sinking in a horrific storm and missing the last lifeboat because she couldn’t find her inhaler.

In tonight’s dream, Beth has won the writing competition and is standing on a stage, reading her short story to an audience of hundreds of published writers, distinguished academics and famous intellectuals. Somehow, the fact that this is an audience that values brains over beauty doesn’t make her feel any better that her hair is dull and limp, her nose is running, she has a cold sore starting on her bottom lip and the dress she’s wearing looks as if she borrowed it from Jane Austen. She knows, in her heart, that even if the audience admires her intelligence, when they look at her what they are thinking is: dog … no-go zone … about as attractive as foot fungus. In the publicity material written by the organizers, Beth’s story is described as “a sensitive, unsentimental exploration of the realities of teenage life – the confusion and uncertainty, the pressure to conform and the search for personal identity – written with maturity, grace and style.”

In her dream, however, Beth’s story is about a sea turtle that is dragged onto the shore and flipped on its back by a fisherman, and only manages to save itself because it cries so much it floats back out to sea – and is written in doggerel. Every time Beth finishes a sentence, a fresh salvo of laughter rolls across the auditorium. The published writers, distinguished academics and famous intellectuals in the audience all know it’s doggerel and are doubled over and clutching each other, gasping for air and wiping the tears from their eyes. And yet, though she stammers and whispers and can barely hear herself speak, they hear her. They hear her as if she’s shouting in their ears. And even though all she wants to do is run from the podium, she can’t seem to stop reading. Professor Gryck is sitting right in front of her in the dream, grimacing and making “cut it short” gestures, but still Beth reads on. The Nobel-prize-winning poet is laughing so hard he falls off his chair. The country’s greatest living novelist has to run from the room. But still Beth keeps going like a runaway horse. And then, out of the corner of her eye, she sees Mr Solman, the head of PR for the major sponsor, coming towards her. He’s smiling, but he doesn’t look happy. She steps away from the podium. Mr Solman keeps coming. Beth steps away again. Mr Solman moves closer. Move. Step. Move. Step. And then Mr Solman makes a lunge for her. Beth flies through the air like a cartoon character, landing with her face in Professor Gryck’s bosom.

Beth wakes up with her stomach clenched, her palms sweating and her face in her pillow. She knows in her head that her dream is only a manifestation of her fears, but in her heart it feels like a premonition. This weekend is going to be a disaster. Even if she wins the competition and the four-year scholarship, she is doomed to be mocked and humiliated.

Oh ye gods of the ancients, she thinks. Where the heck are you when you’re really needed? Mercury to fly her away… Venus to make her beautiful so nobody even listens to what she’s saying… Pluto to make her invisible…

Stop it! she orders herself. Remember what Delila said! Think positive!

Beth can see that Delila has a point about her mother. Sometimes Lillian drives Beth crazy. But that, in turn, makes her feel guilty. Which is how she is feeling now. Maybe she had such a horrible dream because she didn’t so much as check her phone once during the entire meal. When she finally did call her mother, Lillian was beside herself with worry. That’s all that dream was, thinks Beth. Guilt. For being such an ungrateful daughter. Promising she’ll call her mother right away, Beth lifts her head from her pillow and sits up, ready to face all the day has to offer.

She’s wearing somebody else’s pyjamas. She touches the fabric. It’s silk. Even if Beth owned a pair of real pyjamas with a matching top and bottom and pearl buttons, they wouldn’t be made of silk. Silk is so impractical. Not to mention the pupae being boiled alive to make it. She looks around for her own, practical pyjamas – as if, somehow, she changed them in her sleep – but they aren’t here. And then something bright pink and shiny catches her eye. It actually takes a few seconds before Beth realizes that the sizzling pink something is on the end of her hands. Impossibly long, perfectly shaped and polished nails. But that isn’t possible; it’s even less possible than silk pyjamas. And then she notices her hands themselves: long, slender, the colour of café au lait. She’s wearing rings. Beth’s hands are short, pudgy and pale – and she doesn’t wear rings; even gold or silver gives her a rash. She doesn’t look any further. Doesn’t peer down the front of her pyjamas or examine her feet; she’s seen enough. Indeed, Beth is so shocked by what she has seen that for once she acts without thinking – and falls out of bed. She looks over to see if the sound of her hitting the floor woke up Delila. But Delila isn’t there. In the bed where Delila should be, a girl who could be described as the anti-Delila (thin, blonde and wearing boxer shorts and a camisole, a sleep mask and earplugs) lies curled up on her side, smiling.

Which makes one of them.

Beth’s eyes move from the sleeping stranger to the room itself. From what she can see of the furniture (which isn’t a lot) it’s the same as in the room where she fell asleep; the door, closet and bathroom are all in the same place, too. But the room in which she fell asleep was orderly and neat – and was obviously a temporary lodging. This one looks as if it’s the permanent residence of at least half a dozen girls who are always in a hurry. There are things everywhere – more clothes than Beth owns, magazines, bags, shoes, tights, jewellery, scarves, hats and a veritable storeful of small appliances.

Up until this moment, Beth believed that there were no calamities that could befall a person for which she wasn’t prepared: disease; accident; random but unkind acts of God and nature; that piano falling from a clear blue sky. But now here is a calamity she never thought of. She stares at the room, her mouth open and a peculiar feeling taking hold of her. Her nerves are numb. How could something like this happen? She has a very clear memory of coming back from dinner with Delila last night. She wasn’t feeling well when they got to the room, but she put that down to overexcitement and guilt about ignoring her mother. She was so tired suddenly that she felt as if she had cement in her arteries and veins instead of blood. She said goodnight to her mother, put on her night clothes and got into bed. Delila put on a movie for them to chill out to. Beth was asleep while the titles were still rolling.

Beth goes over the evening again. They went down to dinner; they ate dinner; they came back upstairs; she ended her call to her mother; she got into bed; Delila put a movie on; Beth fell asleep. She must be leaving something out. But what? What is the missing part – the part that explains why she is now standing in a strange room redolent with artificial chemical aromas and not just in some other girl’s pyjamas, but, apparently, in someone else’s body?

Maybe she’s still asleep. She pinches herself hard, but it changes nothing except to bruise her skin.

And then she sees the three-sided, portable mirror on the desk.

Very, very slowly, stepping carefully over the minefield of things strewn over the floor, Beth tiptoes across the room. Even in the grudging light she knows that although the face looking back at her is familiar, it isn’t as familiar as it should be. It’s the face of that girl in her English class. Gabriela Look-at-me Menz. It’s as if she’s in that Kafka story Metamorphosis. Only instead of being transformed from an unhappy clerk into a grotesque insect, she’s been transformed from an anxious overachiever into a prom queen.

This is when Beth starts to cry.

Remedios wakes up smiling. She knows exactly where she is – she is on the sofa of the El Dorado Suite of The Hotel Xanadu. Sunlight melts through the sliding glass doors of the terrace and into the sitting room, so that the debris on the coffee table – the used plates and glasses and uneaten food – is almost illuminated. (Just to keep the record straight, there’s also a small bowl and plate on one of the end tables, but those are Otto’s and have nothing to do with Remedios.) She is in a very good mood. Never been better. Things may not be turning out the way Gabriela and Beth expected, but they are going exactly as Remedios planned. She gives herself a congratulatory hug. Six days to create the world, and a hundredth of a second to switch Beth into Gabriela’s body, and Gabriela into Beth’s. And all without Beth, Gabriela or Otto Wasserbach suspecting a thing.

The thought of Otto causes her smile to fade slightly.

She sits up, and realizes that, although she definitely fell asleep watching an old television series that she thought was about angels but was actually about three women detectives, the TV is off, the remote has been neatly placed on top of the programme guide and someone has covered her with a blanket and put a pillow under her head. Mr Orderly–and–conscientious strikes again. He went to his room as soon as he’d eaten his holier-than-thou meal of vegetable broth and a wholewheat roll. Heaven forbid Otto should have nachos. Perish the thought that he should eat banana cake with chocolate icing. You’d think there was something satanic about peanut sauce the way he carried on. Remedios squinches her eyes together and makes the face of someone with a coffee bean stuck up her nose. “I may have a human body right now, but I don’t have to indulge it.” Anyone who has ever met Otto Wasserbach – in any time, in any place – would know exactly whom she’s impersonating. He must have come out of his room again to turn off the TV and cover her. Remedios pushes back the blanket with an irritability that might surprise some, but it’s helpful to remember that it is saints, not angels, who are known for their patience. Angels are known for avengement and their flaming swords.

Remedios rises slowly, unused to the weight and friction of a body, and as she does she notices the time. She’s overslept! What is she, a teenager? By the oracles of Habakkuk, it’s almost seven-thirty! She wanted to be on the road by seven, safely out of the way before Gabriela and Beth woke up and discovered the swap, and before there could be any chance of Otto seeing either of them. Not with his eye for detail and his suspicious mind. It could ruin everything. What she wants is to get him out of here and to leave Beth and Gabriela to their own devices. She can switch them back at school on Monday.

But where is Otto? They were going to get up at six. What if he did? He always does everything exactly as and when he’s supposed to. What if he went downstairs for breakfast? What if, right at this very moment, he’s sitting at a table in the restaurant, cutting the crust from his toast and looking at the door as Beth walks in?

Remedios leaps over the coffee table and, her feet barely touching the floor, sprints across the room.

He’s lying flat on his back, still as a statue, sound asleep.

“Otto! Otto! Get up!” calls Remedios. “We have to go!”

He doesn’t move or mumble.

“Otto!” she shouts. “Otto, get out of that bed!” She knows he can’t be dead, but you’d be forgiven for wondering. “Otto!” She goes over and yanks off the covers, shaking him by the shoulder. “Otto! Wake up!”

“What?” He opens his eyes. He was, in fact, having a very pleasant dream. Needless to say, Remedios wasn’t in it. “What’s wrong? What have you done now?”

Even though he’s no longer asleep, she gives him another shake. “I haven’t done anything. You overslept! We have to get going.”

He glances over at the old-fashioned travel clock on the bedside table. “It’s not that late. What’s the hurry?”

“I thought you wanted to get out of here.” Remedios looks and sounds indignantly reasonable. “I thought you didn’t want to spend one more nanosecond in Los Angeles than you had to.”

This was true yesterday, of course; but it is less true now. Comfort is a powerful force. Otto had a very good night’s sleep on the orthopedic mattress. The Hotel Xanadu is not so bad. Their suite is cosy and attractive. The wide-screen TV is in the living room, but there is a smaller one in each of the bedrooms on which, he discovered, it is possible to watch nature programmes all night long (which explains why Otto overslept). If you don’t look out of the window or sit on the terrace, you can forget that you’re right smack in the middle of a sprawling, twenty-first-century city; belching and bleating and complicating life.

“Well, we’re here now, aren’t we?” asks Otto. Inertia being another powerful force. “So why hurry? We don’t have to check out till noon.” His stomach growls. And that’s the other thing. Apparently, he underestimated just how much food a human body needs. More than a cup of broth and a roll. Or even the remains of Remedios’ deluxe nachos. He can smell fried potatoes and toasted bagels and strawberry jam. “I’m going to take a shower, and then I’m going to the restaurant for breakfast.”

Oh, that’s terrific. That’s great. That’s just what she wanted to hear.

“But we can be back in Jeremiah in no time,” argues Remedios. “You can have breakfast there.”

“You have breakfast there.” He is on his feet now, easing her towards the door. “I’m eating downstairs.”

“Why don’t I just call room service?” Remedios suggests, walking backwards. “Tell me what you want and it’ll be here as soon as you’re finished with your shower. Then we won’t waste so much time.”

And why, wonders Otto, would Remedios Cienfuegos y Mendoza worry about wasting my time? Otto stops so short that if he were a car there would be at least three others piled up behind him. “You have done something.” Last night when she was being so sympathetic to him he was too exhausted to be wary. But now he’s had a good night’s sleep and is thinking clearly. “What did you do?”

Like many of us, Remedios’ first reaction when caught out is to lie. “Nothing. We’ve been together since we got here. How could I do anything?”

This is true. Except for the few minutes it took her to join him in their suite, she hasn’t left his side. Nonetheless…

“I don’t know,” says Otto. “But I’m not leaving till I find out what it is.”