My Perfect Life (13 page)

“And she wears glasses.”

“So will you,” Lola assured me. “Sam’s going to stop by my house and get my stage glasses.”

“Well, what about the food?” I had a really bad feeling about how this evening was going to turn out. “We don’t have enough food.”

Lola’s sigh made mine sound like the breath of a butterfly. “Well that’s why Sam’s bringing the chips, isn’t it, Ella? So we’ll have plenty to eat.”

“Pretzels and potato chips aren’t exactly part of an international buffet,” I argued.

“Oh, for God’s sake, El. Your mother’s the only person on the planet who doesn’t think snack food is fit for human consumption. The rest of the country lives on it. As long as they’ve got something to stuff in their faces they’re not going to notice whether it’s Indonesian egg rolls or chilli-flavoured tortilla chips.”

“But you just can’t—”

I was going to say you just can’t go around impersonating people, but Lola didn’t give me a chance to finish.

“Can’t… Can’t… Can’t…” she chanted. “That should be your middle name: Ella You-Just-Can’t-Do-That Gerard. That’s your first reaction to everything.”

“Well in this case it’s true!” I wailed. “You just can’t pretend to be somebody else.”

“Maybe you should become a cloistered nun,” said Lola. “Then you really couldn’t do anything but obey orders.”

I may be a coward, but I’m a stubborn one. “But what about my mother? What if she wakes up while we’re gone?”

Lola raised her arms to implore the heavens, dumping all the garbage she’d taken from the counters onto the floor.

“For Pete’s sake, El. What do you think I called Sam for?”

“To pick up the chips and the glasses?”

“That, too.” Lola smiled as though she’d just invented the wheel. “Sam’s going to mommy-sit while we’re out.”

I practically dropped my broom. “And does Sam know this?”

“Not yet,” said Lola.

Lola was finishing off the kitchen and I was finishing off lying to Mrs Wallace when Sam arrived with the stage glasses and a hundred bags of chips and pretzels.

“I said a lot, not everything they had,” said Lola.

Sam said, “So what’s going on?”

We told him what was going on while we changed into our costumes. I explained about my mother; and Lola explained Plan A. Sam didn’t bother to argue. I think he was probably so gobsmacked by the news that my mother was “sleeping it off” upstairs that he would have said yes to cutting his hair.

All he said when we were through was, “You know, Lola, I never knew how dull my life was until I met you.”

But Sam’s easy acquiescence didn’t mean that he thought any more of Plan A than I did. As far as that went, Sam agreed with me.

“You’re nuts,” he shouted through my bathroom door. “You can’t do this, Lola. It isn’t going to work.”

Lola rolled her eyes in my direction. “Good God,” she muttered, “he sounds like
you
.”

I, however, was too busy staring at my reflection in the mirror to pay much attention to what Lola was doing. My reflection was pretty gripping.

“I’m not going,” I whispered. “I can’t be seen in public like this.”

For my mother, the elite caterer, Carla had chosen an elaborate Geisha outfit from the upper end of the costume market. For Mrs Wallace, the hired help, she’d selected the cheapest thing she could find, which as far as I could tell was meant to be Hawaiian. It featured a plastic grass skirt, half a dozen plastic leis, a pink body suit, and a black wig made from the hair of a horse that had died a terrible death. All that was missing was a bra made out of coconut shells.

Lola didn’t let my declaration disturb her conversation with Sam for a nanosecond.

“Oh, ye of little faith!” she cried, raising her eyes to the ceiling light. “Why am I given only doubters?”

“This is reality speaking, not doubt!” Sam shouted back. “Unless there’s a blackout, you’re not going to fool anyone for more than a minute.”

Lola stepped away from the sink, scrutinizing herself in the mirror. She looked incredible. Even her own mother wouldn’t have recognized her. I half expected Lola to start pouring tea.

“That’s what you think.” She smiled. “Come on,” she said to me. “Let’s show Sam how wrong he is.”

I didn’t budge, which was pretty easy since the sight of myself had more or less turned me to stone. “I told you. I’m not going out there. Not like this.”

Lola groaned. “Oh for heaven’s sake, Ella. What does it matter? Nobody’s going to know it’s you, are they? That wig practically obliterates your face.” She grabbed hold of my elbow and started tugging me towards the door. “And, anyway, you look great. I can practically hear the ukuleles playing.”

I dug in my flip-flops.

“I don’t look great. I look like a guy in drag pretending to be a hula dancer.”

“Put on the glasses,” ordered Lola. “I want Sam to get the full effect.”

It took Sam a few seconds to recover from the full effect.

“Christ!” He sat up, wiping his eyes. If my mother had seen the state of my bed after Sam collapsed on it he would really have had something to cry about. “I thought you were going to be the Swedish Chef and his assistant or something like that.”

Lola kicked his foot. “Come on,” she urged. “Admit it. You would never have known it was us in a million years.”

“Two million.” Sam winked. “But I would have noticed you. Especially Ella. She looks like an Easter basket with legs.”

“Well no one at the party’s going to notice us,” said Lola. “The Santinis will be too busy, and as far as anyone else is concerned we’re just the servants. No one ever looks at the servants.”

“Maybe,” Sam conceded. “I mean, the disguises are pretty good, but I still don’t like it. And just for the record, I’m not really all that happy about staying here to babysit your mom. What am I supposed to do if she wakes up while you’re gone?”

“She won’t wake up,” Lola promised. Altogether, Lola and I found three empty wine bottles. It was amazing my mother had been able to stand for as long as she had. “She’s out for the count.”

“And anyway,” I added. “If she does wake up, the sight of you will make her pass out again.”

“Great,” said Sam. “That makes me feel a whole lot better.”

“Look,”
said Lola as we flew through the gates with the legend Casa Santini woven into the metalwork, “even the house is wearing a costume. It looks like the gym when it’s decorated for a dance.”

This wasn’t really accurate: it looked like the White House decorated for a dance.

There were blue and white lights across the Santinis’ roof and all along the circular drive, and blue and white balloons floating above the mailbox and the wrought-iron fence that keeps the riffraff out. Hanging from the porch was a large silk banner that said CARLA SANTINI – YOU KNOW SHE’S THE BEST.

“The sign’s a nice touch,” I said as we bucked to a stop. “At least no one will have any trouble finding the house.”

Lola took the keys from the ignition and dropped them into the shoulder bag she’d borrowed from my mother. Then she pulled off her sneakers and put on the heels she’d also borrowed from my mother, which didn’t fit well enough to drive in. Then she looked at her watch. “Seven on the dot. All systems go.”

Lola figured that it was better to be late than on time. If we’d arrived at six, as promised, Carla and her mother would have wanted to talk to us. But by now, reasoned Lola, they’d both be too busy getting ready to come sniffing around.

Lola opened the driver’s door and carefully lowered herself to the ground, the chopsticks she’d stuck in her wig tilting dangerously. “Come on. You and I are about to give the performance of a lifetime.”

Gathering my portable lawn around me, I climbed out of the passenger seat. “Is that before we get caught, or after?”

“Scoff all you want,” said Lola. “But I have a feeling about tonight. I think it’s going to be one to remember.”

“Isn’t that what they said about the night the
Titanic
went down?”

Lola headed towards the rear of the car. She was wobbling in a pretty alarming way. Plastic grass swaying, I trotted after her.

“Are you supposed to be impersonating my mother, or are you about to kill yourself on those shoes?” I hissed.

She opened the back. “I just haven’t quite got the hang of them yet.”

“Well try not to fall over. Here comes Maria Jesus.”

Maria Jesus, the Santinis’ maid, must have been waiting for us. She came scuttling down the front path, calling, “Mrs Gerard! Mrs Gerard! I’ll help you with the food!” Maria Jesus was dressed as a maid.

“It might have been more appropriate if she were dressed as a person,” muttered Lola.

Mrs Santini and Carla, said Maria Jesus, were putting on clothes.

“Well, thank God for that,” mumbled Lola.

We went in through the back. Tradesmen’s entrance.

“You see?” whispered Lola. “Didn’t I tell you? We’re just the hired help.”

Lola caught her breath as we came around the side of the house and stumbled into a bush. “Look at this, will you? You’d think she was running for President of the country, not President of Dellwood High.”

Even I, who had been to enough Carla Santini parties in my time to know what they were like, was impressed.

What the Santinis call their “backyard” most other people would call a park. It was divided into two sections. The section nearest the house held the patio, the swimming pool, the tennis court, and Mrs Santini’s Japanese rock garden, complete with pond, wooden bridge, and a small shed for the man who actually did the work, Maria Jesus’ husband, Joachim. Behind that – separated by a high hedge with an archway cut in it – was the garden proper (flowers, a lawn that put the golf course to shame, and a free-standing deck with a roof). Both sections were strung with dozens more blue and white lights and balloons. Inflatable globes bobbed in the pool and the pond. Two enormous buffet tables – one for the food and one for the drinks – stood against the kitchen wall. The band was setting up on the deck at the back of the garden, where there was enough room for the whole town of Dellwood to dance.

“Maybe we should’ve poisoned the food after all,” I whispered. “Nobody’s going to vote for us after this.”

Maria Jesus was already at the patio doors. “Come, come!” she begged. “Miss Carla has been worried.”

“You see?” said Lola. “There’s always some good news.”

Maria Jesus showed us where everything was – the oven, the microwave, and the box of tiny flags of all nations to be stuck into the platters of crab cakes and samosas – and then she bustled off to finish laying the buffet table.

“What’d I tell you?” Lola whispered as the glass doors closed on Maria Jesus. “This is going to be easier than filling a taco shell. All we have to do is get this stuff onto serving dishes and we’re home free.”

But any child of Aeschylus would ask you, “What is home? What is free?” And that child would be right.

On cue as ever, Carla Santini burst through the kitchen door. She looked the same as always, except that she was wearing a little more make-up than usual and a bathrobe.

“Mrs Gerard!” Carla’s voice was shrill with relief. “I’ve been sooo worried about you. I thought something must have happened.”

I bent over one of our boxes and started removing containers.

Lola pulled a fan out of the sleeve of her kimono and ducked behind it. “Oh, Carla, honey. I’m terribly sorry we’re so late.” I assumed from the way she was speaking that Geishas have childish, lilting voices. “I’m afraid we had a little disaster with the satay.”

“Oh, that doesn’t matter.” Carla had crossed the kitchen by now, and was near enough to Lola to melt her make-up with her breath. “As long as
you’re
all right…”

Lola’s fan was moving between them as fast as a humming-bird’s wings. “I’m fine … just fine…”

“Are you sure you don’t have a headache?” Carla peered as closely as she could without getting poked in the eye. “Your face looks a little puffy.”

Lola slapped her playfully on the head with the fan. “Heeheehee…” she tittered. “That’s from sampling too much of my own cooking, that’s what that is.”

Carla had withstood the playful slap all right, but she jumped back as Lola’s fan grazed her nose.

Lola spun around to face the sink, and started washing her hands.

“You look great as a Geisha,” said Carla. Now she was staring at Lola’s backside, probably wondering if it was the cummerbund that made it look larger than she remembered, or if my mother really had put on weight in the last few days.

I tried to distract Carla as best I could without actually drawing attention to myself. “Microwave?” I croaked.

Carla didn’t even glance my way. She waved one hand towards the microwave and said to Lola, “How about a glass of wine, Mrs Gerard? My parents are having a few people over, too, you know, so there’s plenty of Chardonnay in the fridge.”

I dropped the samosas.

“Heeheehee,” giggled the Geisha at the sink. “I never drink while I’m working.”

“Really?” I couldn’t see Carla’s face, but her voice was smiling slyly. “I’m sure you were having a glass of wine the other day when I stopped by.”

The water kept running. Lola was washing her hands so thoroughly you’d have thought she was going to operate on the food, not just heat it up. “That was at home. This is professional.”

“Oh,” Carla purred. “I understand…” She leaned a little closer and sniffed. “Is that a new perfume, Mrs Gerard?”

Perfume! We’d forgotten about the perfume. My mother always wore Opium.

“Heeheehee,” tittered the humble Geisha. “I thought it was time for a change.”

“I see,” murmured Carla. The way she was staring at Lola, I was afraid she did see; straight through the heavy make-up to the youthful skin underneath. I was about to drop the samosas again – this time on Carla – when another character in our little drama entered, stage right.

Mrs Santini thundered through the door. Mrs Santini’s idea of looking French was Marie Antoinette.

“What are you doing now, Carla?” She sounded as though she was always finding Carla in unlikely places, doing dumb things. “Look at you. The guests will be arriving any minute, and you’re not even dressed.”