The Truth about My Success (13 page)

It’d be easier to be a Godzilla bug.

Besides the hands-on life coaching from Leone, Oona spends what feels like the equivalent of at least twenty years in solitary watching DVDs and home videos of Paloma, learning not just the timbres and inflections of her voice – from the little-girl wheedling tone, to the sweet and helpless one, to the contemptuous drawl, to the sour snarl in which she usually speaks to her mother – but the gestures and expressions that go with them. The face Paloma makes when she’s being praised; the one she makes when she wants something; the way she looks when she’s about to throw a fried egg. Her habit of fiddling with her earring when she’s nervous, pulling at her hair when she’s thinking, tapping her fingertips together when she’s in a really bad mood, lighting matches when she’s bored.

Maria and Jack Silk act as special advisers.

“Paloma can’t fix herself a bowl of cereal,” says Maria. She’s never used the washing machine, cleared her or anyone else’s dishes from the table, or picked up after herself, or made herself a sandwich. She might recognize an iron but she wouldn’t know how to use it. Very often she doesn’t wear things more than once. Oona thinks she means that Paloma wears things once and then puts them in the wash. Maria means that Paloma wears things once and never wears them again. Which may explain why her only real hobby is shopping. The only person she listens to is Mister Silk.

“Paloma’s not a bad kid,” says Jack Silk. “It’s just that she hasn’t been formally introduced to reality yet.” She’s a C student at best, and that’s when she’s making an effort. Which makes it a rarity. She uses her phone to add anything more complicated than 2+2 and hasn’t finished a book since she was three and had to have
Goodnight Moon
read to her every bedtime. She could give master classes in tantrums, sulks and mood swings. “She can be sweeter than Tupelo honey, of course,” says Jack, “but not on a normal day.”

Oona spends another twenty-year stretch practising Paloma’s voice with a CD Jack had made, repeating each sentence into a recorder and then playing it back, as if she’s learning a foreign language. Leaving the restaurants and cafés of Hollywood lonely, Leone spends more time at home than she has in the last year, hanging over Oona’s shoulder, eyes half-closed in concentration, handing out judgments like a kangaroo court.
Too fast. Too slow. Too loud. Too nasal. For the love of Hosanna, darling, think of your words as glass balls that you’re gently setting down on the ground, not bullets you’re using to shoot cans off a fence
.

“I feel like I’m being brainwashed,” Oona grumbles. “I bet when I’m sleeping I’m still saying over and over in that silly simper, ‘Oh, but miracles happen every day’.” “Miracles happen every day” is Faith Cross’s catchphrase and, of course, is said sweetly and angelically – as well as very often.

“I sincerely hope so,” says Leone. “That is the object of the exercise, you know. To make it all automatic.”

And here she was thinking that Leone’s purpose is merely to kill her will to live.

“And it’s not a silly simper. It’s inspirational.”

Oona rolls her eyes at the floor. As inspirational as a greeting card.

“Maybe what you really need is an android,” suggests Oona. “Then you could programme it to be exactly how you want.”

If only…
As far as Leone’s concerned, an android would solve every problem she has. The surly, rebellious, never-know-what-she’s-going-to-do-next Paloma problem; and the contrary, arguing-about-how-long-a-piece-of-string-is Oona problem and her dog. Who at this very minute is gazing at Leone the way it does, as if it’s waiting for her to die so it can eat her and gnaw on her bones.

“An android wouldn’t be all that terrific,” says Leone. “Because then I’d have to worry about its battery running out in the middle of a shoot.”

But although the walking and talking present difficulties, it’s when it comes to thinking like Paloma that the real trouble starts. Except for the remarkable physical resemblance, Oona and Paloma have nothing in common. They don’t like the same clothes, the same food, the same music, the same movies, the same colours, the same actors, the same flowers – the same anything. If they had a choice they probably wouldn’t breathe the same air. Oona couldn’t show less enthusiasm for her new life if she were a princess forced to live in a down-at-heel trailer camp, and not a guttersnipe given the incredible chance to live like a princess. She sits through Leone’s lessons on applying make-up and styling her hair as if she’s being taught how to butcher a cow. She turned all the stuffed toys in Paloma’s room to face the wall because she can’t stand them staring at her. She has to be forced into a decent pair of shoes or an attractive dress. She doesn’t know who half the people Leone talks about are, and when she does recognize a name it’s the way Leone might recognize a term she learned in biology in high school –
Amoeba, oh yeah, that sounds familiar
. She has fallen asleep watching
Angel in the House
at least half a dozen times.

How is Leone supposed to relate to her? She hasn’t been raised by Leone, and so she is a total mystery – an alien being. The fact that she does look so much like Paloma doesn’t make it any better. It’s like having a wax likeness of her daughter that can walk and talk. Leone isn’t a squeamish woman, but if she were it would give her the creeps.

“Chocolate or vanilla?” demands Leone.

“Chocolate,” says Oona. Hopefully she’ll never have to eat any. Chocolate makes her break out.

“Dress or pants?”

“Dress.” The last time she voluntarily wore a dress was to her mother’s funeral.

“If you had to choose between going to Hawaii and going to France?”

“Hawaii.”

Leone marches back and forth like a drill sergeant. One wearing a linen sundress and open-toed shoes. “Why?”

“Because they speak English.” Which, says Leone, is more than can be said for a lot of California. “And I love the ukulele.” She wouldn’t know a ukulele unless it came labelled.

“Favourite colour?”

“Pink. Because it’s feminine and warm.” It makes her think of bubblegum stuck under a desk.

“Movie?”

“
The Wizard of Oz
. Because it’s a classic and full of positivism and love.” It gives her a headache. Oona’s favourite movie is
Blade Runner
.

“Food?”

“My mom’s fried chicken and mashed potatoes. Because it always makes me feel better even if I’m really blue.” She has yet to see Leone so much as open a tin or microwave a muffin.

“Book?”

“
Little Women
. Because it’s a classic and says so much about family values.” She hasn’t seen a book since she got here.

Leone comes to a stop, swivelling on her heels to face Oona. Here comes the million-dollar question. “And if you’re asked what you owe your success to?”

“You mean besides my loving parents, hard work and faith in myself?” Oona ad-libs. Not without a touch of malice.

“Those things go without saying, sweetie.” Leone’s mouth looks as if it’s been pulled through a very small hole. “Just stick to the script.”

“I owe everything to my fans,” Oona parrots, sweeter than a tanker full of kittens and sounding sincere enough to fool the Pope.

“That’s very good, darling. You’re really improving.” A satisfied smile falls across Leone’s face like a stray ray of sunshine on a muddy pool.

Oona’s return smile is not as cheerful.
Big deal
.

Compared to all of this, learning Faith Cross’s lines is less difficult than remembering who ordered the BLT without mayo and who ordered it without tomato during a busy lunch hour. Maria helps her rehearse in the evenings when Leone goes out to recuperate from a day spent doing more than eating lunch. If only being Paloma were as easy. “It isn’t easy for her, either,” says Maria.

And then, just when Oona’s starting to feel that death isn’t the only thing that’s endless, Leone declares her ready for her first public appearance. Jack Silk is taking them to lunch at Paloma’s favourite restaurant.

Which puts Leone into uber-nag mode. She hovers around Oona like an especially stubborn wasp all morning.
Are you wearing
that?
Why don’t you wear this? You want me to do your make-up? You want me to do your hair? You want me to pick out your jewellery? You want me to go over the menu with you? You want to go over what you’ve been doing with your summer again? Remember, you’re not Bill Clinton. Nobody’s expecting you to give any big speeches. Just smile and nod and answer in monosyllables
.

“Now you remember what I taught you about what cutlery to use?” Leone is saying as they walk to the front door together, graceful as a pair of gazelles.

“I remember.” Three different knives. Five different forks. Three different spoons. Up until now, Oona has never used more than a fork and a knife – and when they lived in the truck they didn’t even have that, they ate everything out of Styrofoam boxes with their hands. She can only hope that she does remember.

“And the glasses.” Leone opens the door.

These people don’t use one of anything for some reason.

“And the glasses. And the plates, too,” says Oona. God forbid your bread or your salad shouldn’t have a dish of its own.

“And you remember the difference between the server and the maître d’?”

Jack Silk is waiting in the driveway in his ivory Jaguar. He waves.

Oona waves back. “Yes.” One makes more money and is better dressed.

“And don’t slouch. Or put your elbows on the table. Or drink like a camel. Or pick your nose.”

As if Oona slouches through the house, spitting like a grumpy camel, picking her nose and banging her elbows down on every table in the place.

The passenger door opens, causing not so much as a nanosecond’s pause in Leone’s list of disasters to be avoided. “And for God’s sake—” Leone’s heels sound like the blows of tiny hammers against the concrete drive, “—if someone stops to talk to us don’t say anything about riding on the Metro or knowing what a food stamp looks like.”

“So I guess I shouldn’t mention about living in the truck, then,” says Oona.

Leone’s smile looks as if it might snap. “I’m going to assume that’s a joke.”

Jack leans across the seat. “Leone,” says Jack, “why don’t you sit in the back?”

Leone sits in the back, silent and still as a photograph of a woman who’s had days in her life when she was much happier, while in the front seat Jack talks to Oona about dogs. Although this is news to Leone, Jack Silk apparently loves dogs.

Leone, whose interest in dogs is approximately minus a hundred on a scale of one to ten, isn’t listening, but thinking of all the things that could go wrong. She hasn’t been this nervous since Paloma’s audition for
Angel in the House
. Oona, who, of course, is very interested in dogs, isn’t listening either. She’s nervous, too. Not as nervous as she was the last time her mom said she had something to tell her, but nervous nonetheless. Every night Oona falls asleep imagining her and her dad in a little house with a pick-up in the driveway; in a new life. It won’t be the same as their old life, but that doesn’t mean it won’t be good. Oona really wants that money. She’s worked too hard to blow it now.

Jack finally interrupts his monologue on Australian cattle dogs to say, “Well, here we are,” and he turns right.

“It looks like a warehouse,” says Oona.

“The only warehouse in LA that charges ten bucks for a bread roll,” says Jack.

In fact, Paloma’s favourite restaurant is on the first floor not of a warehouse but of what was once a shirt factory. But the building wasn’t pink or its windows tinted sea-green back then – and the people who sat inside couldn’t afford ten dollars for a bread roll, either.

The parking attendant is delighted to see them. “Afternoon, Mr Silk.” He opens the back door for Leone. “Afternoon, Mrs Minnick.” He runs around the car to open the door for Oona. “Miss Rose.”

Somehow, Oona must have slept through Leone’s lesson on interacting with parking attendants – a group of people she has never had to deal with before since they don’t usually park flatbeds. Should she say good afternoon in a familiar, pally way, as Jack does? Should she nod silently but regally, as Leone does? She smiles. It is a warm and friendly smile, the smile that Faith Cross wears at the beginning and end of every episode of
Angel in the House
, which she’s practised so much it seems to be automatic. And so warm and friendly that the attendant hits himself with the door.

“Don’t overdo it, darling,” Leone hisses in her ear. “He’s unskilled labour, not a pop star in disguise.”

The maître d’ is also delighted to see them. “Mr Silk, Mrs Minnick, Miss Rose,” the maître d’s voice oozes around them like quicksand. “What a pleasure to see you all. You’ve been missed.” Jack calls him Bernard, Leone murmurs that it’s been far too long – and Oona smiles. The maître d’ wonders if Miss Rose has done something to her hair; she looks a little different. Leone says yes. Oona says she’s been out in the sun. He comments on how well she’s looking. Oona thanks him. She also thanks him for showing them to their seats and for pulling out her chair.

Leone kicks her under the table. “These people are servants,” she says through her teeth. “You only have to be polite.”

Their waiter is glad to see them, too. “Mrs Minnick… Mr Silk… Miss Rose…”

Mrs Minnick smiles, Mr Silk says, “Agosto. And what do you recommend today?” Oona, who can’t seem to stop smiling no matter how hard she tries, thanks him for giving her a menu.

“They’re going to think you’ve been medicated,” whispers Leone from behind her own menu. Paloma Rose has never been known to overuse the “magic” words.

But Oona doesn’t hear her. She’s thanking the busboy for pouring their water and bringing them the bread basket.

Jack unfurls his napkin. “So far so good.”

Leone starts to name all the people they know, bestowing nods and slivers of smiles around the room.

Oona stares down at the offerings of the day. Needless to say, she’s never been in a restaurant like this before. Nothing looks familiar on the menu. Which is to say that there is nothing that even remotely resembles a hamburger or pizza.