Away for the Weekend (16 page)

“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.