by Dyan Sheldon
“Forget it.” He winks. “I won’t tell, if you don’t tell.” He waves them on and closes the door.
The bus lurches back into the traffic, which is now moving like a river in flood.
Beth stops abruptly only a few steps down the aisle. She has never been on a city bus before, and, like a desert nomad seeing snow for the first time, she is both intrigued and a little alarmed. She stares down the aisle. Narrow seats filled with weary-looking people, dingy windows and a floor that’s been trodden on by hundreds of filthy feet. There are probably enough germs on this bus to bring down the entire west coast. Music leaks from iPods and MP3 players; someone shouts – to whom exactly isn’t clear – “Yeah, well I care more about what my parrot thinks than your opinion!” The air conditioning isn’t working, and the heat combines with the smells of sweat, pollution, chemical fragrances and things that probably shouldn’t be named to create an aroma that is fairly unique to the public transport system of LA. Many of the passengers have their heads bent over newspapers, books or phones, but, with the exception of the blind man with the dog, the ones who aren’t absorbed in some activity stare back at her. Unblinking. Many of them give the impression of being fairly unstable. The guy with the beaded necklace and the tattoos. The old lady with a bag of light bulbs on her lap. The man in the tuxedo. The woman in the shower cap who’s talking to herself. The woman all in black saying the rosary. The youngish man rocking back and forth in his seat at the back.
And yet Beth realizes that for once in her life she isn’t afraid. Now that she’s over her initial surprise, she feels almost excited. She, Beth Beeby, is on an LA bus, without her mother, and the world hasn’t come to a horrible end. The spectre of Lillian Beeby in rubber gloves with a bottle of disinfectant under her arm, muttering about epidemics, may not be far away, but the actual flesh-and-blood person is. It’s as if she’s been released from a cage.
Lucinda, however, is nervous. “Gab?” she hisses in Beth’s ear. “Gab? What the hell are we doing here?” Lucinda followed Beth onto the bus without thinking, indeed without actually being aware of what she was doing, pulled along by some strange compulsion. And now she finds herself on a crowded city bus without being able to say how she got here or why. She’s never been on a city bus before, either. Indeed, the only city she’s ever visited is Portland, Maine, and Portland, Maine is not LA. Up until this point, that fact has been in Los Angeles’ favour; but now she’s not so sure. LA’s supposed to be all about glamour and glitz – beautiful people wearing fabulous clothes – but all that stopped dead at the door of the Metro. In here it’s just regular people with the glamour and glitz of dollar-store flip-flops. It is safe to say that had Lucinda heard Lillian Beeby’s warnings about public transport, she wouldn’t have ignored them the way some people have.
Beth turns around. Lucinda looks the way Beth has always felt until now. Insecure. Anxious. “We’re just taking a bus, Lucinda. Like millions of people do every day all over the world. It’s no big deal.”
“Yeah, but why?” The way Lucinda remembers it, one minute they were standing on a street frequented by celebrities, and the next here they are in a place where no celebrity would be caught dead – unless they were making a movie.
There’s no point Beth mentioning the stalker again; even Lucinda thinks she’s making him up – making him up or losing her mind. She’ll have to lie. “Because I got tired of waiting for a cab, Luce, that’s all. We don’t want to be late for the reception, do we?”
“But what about the others?” Though Hattie, Paulette, Nicki and Isla are now far behind them, Lucinda looks towards the rear window as though they might still be in sight. “I mean, they’re getting a cab. If we’d waited—”
“They could’ve come with us. Nobody stopped them.”
“Well, yeah, but—”
“Trust me, we’re better off on a bus. Look at the traffic. Even if Moses is their cab driver, it’s going to take them ages to get through this. It’s more like a parking lot than a road. I guarantee you we’ll get there before they do.”
“You mean, if we’re on the right bus,” says Lucinda.
If they’re on the right bus? Beth blinks. Until this moment, it hadn’t occurred to her that there was a right bus and a wrong bus; she just wanted to be off the street. But perhaps it should have occurred to her. Perhaps then she might have realized before the driver shut the door behind them that a bus going west is unlikely to take you to a college on the east side of the city. The miracle is that Lucinda hasn’t figured this out for herself.
And yet, this realization doesn’t upset Beth any more than the bus itself. Yesterday it would have been so traumatic that by now she’d be nauseous, weeping and probably breaking out in a rash. Today it doesn’t really seem like much of a problem. They’ll just stay on here till she’s certain they’ve lost the guy in the red sports car – and then they’ll take a cab.
“Come on,” says Beth, in her new role as the voice of reason and calm. “Let’s sit down. If it is the wrong bus we can get off.”
They find two seats near the middle, behind the woman in the white kimono and the old lady carrying every light bulb from her apartment in a 7-Eleven bag.
“I think you should call Taffeta and tell her what happened,” says Lucinda. Sitting down has not made her feel any less nervous.
But Gabriela’s phone is no longer working. “There’s something wrong,” says Beth, giving it a shake. It’s lit up like a Christmas tree, but less use in transmitting sound than a tin can. “I can’t get a signal. We’ll have to use yours.”
The frown Lucinda has been wearing since they got on the Metro deepens. “But I thought Taffeta said mine wasn’t working.”
“Well, maybe it is now. It’s worth a try.”
Lucinda can’t remember where she put her phone, and while she searches through all her bags, Beth leans back against the seat – and is so relieved to be sitting down at last that she slips off her shoes and closes her eyes.
Several people get on at the next stop. Two women with small children. An elderly Rasta. A young white guy wearing jeans, a plain T-shirt, a Dodgers’ baseball cap and cheap sunglasses, like thousands of other ordinary Californians. But he is not an ordinary Californian; he is the Divine Emissary Otto Wasserbach, who has had to abandon his car to follow Beth. This is against all of his own rules, of course; his being here is proof (if proof were needed) of how seriously he takes his job (and of how much he wants to do well so he can go back to working on his own again). He would rather be just about anywhere else. Being on this bus is a little closer to suffering humanity than Otto cares to get. Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses… may be the motto of the Statue of Liberty, but it is not his. He’d much rather keep the huddled masses at a safe distance. He can feel the tiredness; sense the anxieties; smell not only the perfumes and aftershaves, but the disappointments and disasters; hear, below the rumble of the engine and the leaking music and the cell-phone conversations, the sad stories of bad luck and betrayal. What if they all start crying at once? What if they all start praying?
Otto moves cautiously up the aisle, his gaze darting from person to person, trying to find a place to sit where he can keep an eye on Beth and get her safely to where she’s meant to be, without finding himself embroiled in someone else’s problems.
He finally takes a seat across the aisle from where Beth thinks sleepily about foot binding and Lucinda discovers her phone in a shoebox, next to the man with the tattoos and the beaded necklace, who seems to be sleeping peacefully. Otto blocks out every sound around him, focusing on the job he’s here to do. He closes his eyes, concentrating, and can see LA before him as if it’s a toy city; see every building and road; see where the bus is and the route it’s meant to take – and see where he wants it to go instead. Turn left, thinks Otto, and left the Metro turns, arcing gracefully in the direction it’s not supposed to go and down a road it was never meant to be on. Otto, it seems, can meddle just as well as Reme
dios when pushed.
The driver doesn’t seem to notice that he’s heading south by a circuitous route that will eventually take the bus to the eastern end of Pico Boulevard. The passengers – who know that the way to travel on public transport is to act as if you’re somewhere else – are so lost in their thoughts, or their music, or their cell phones that they don’t notice either. The bus rolls on, hurtling past stops where people stand open-mouthed and waving, down streets that have never actually seen a bus before.
And then someone rings the bell.
It is, in fact, the woman wearing the shower cap who rings the bell. She has suddenly looked up from her book and realized that she has no idea where they are. She thinks that she must have passed her stop. This has happened to her before.
The bus doesn’t so much as slow down, sailing past another group of disgruntled would-be passengers.
This time the bell rings a little more urgently.
Others look up from their books, papers, phones or iPads and realize that they have no idea where they are, either.
Someone shouts out, “Oy! Where are we going?”
Someone yells, “Hey! This isn’t the right way!”
Someone screams, “What’s wrong with you? Stop the bus! We wanna get off!”
It’s this shouting, yelling and screaming that wake up both Beth and the tattooed man. Beth blinks. The tattooed man also blinks, but then he clasps his neck and bellows, “My snake! What the hell’s happened to my snake? George? Where’d you go?”
Snake? Otto’s eyes snap open, and in that instant he realizes his mistake. The man beside him wasn’t wearing beads, as Otto supposed; he was wearing a small snake – apparently named George. Snakes and angels have a history, and it’s not a particularly good one – certainly not from the snake’s point of view (which is mainly flames in your face and feet coming down on your head). Unlike everyone else on the bus, George knows an angel when he smells one, and silently and speedily unwound himself from round his owner’s neck almost as soon as Otto sat down.
Now more people are screaming. Some are screaming to stop the bus. Some are just screaming because the thought of a snake loose on a bus has that effect on them. The ringing of the bell has become constant. Lucinda lets out a concrete-cracking screech and jumps onto her seat.
“What’s going on?” frets the blind man, tapping his cane. “What’s going on?”
Otto remains calm. He has no more love for serpents than they have for angels, but he has to stay in control. If he doesn’t, there’s no telling what will happen. And then not only will he really be in trouble, but it will be trouble for which he can’t blame Remedios.
The bus steams on as though no one is shouting or ringing the bell. As a certain atmosphere of panic takes over, attempts are made to phone for help, but no one can get a connection now. Oblivious to the ringing bells and the shrieks and screams and shouts for him to stop, the driver keeps going, humming a song he heard on the radio this morning.
“George! George!” calls the tattooed man. And, though George has never been known to speak, pleads, “George! Where are you? Come to Daddy! Please!”
Interestingly enough, Beth, though terrified of microbes and the possibility of being struck by a piano, is not afraid of snakes. In fact, she was very fond of the garter snake her sixth-grade class kept as a pet. So when she sees a flash of colour under the seat across the aisle, heedless of the dirty floor and danger of being kicked in the head by someone more squeamish, she drops to her knees and scoops it up.
“It’s OK!” Beth yells. She cradles the snake gently, cooing, “There, there, George, it’s all right. It’s all right now.” But the general panic doesn’t abate. “It’s OK! I have him!” she yells again, and this time holds the snake aloft.
The flailing snake makes the woman in the kimono jump, and the small dog that was up her sleeve leap to the ground, barking hysterically.
The guide dog – a calm and responsible animal who has been trained not to get agitated, even when people are shouting and snakes are swinging in the air – forgets all his training when he sees the other dog scampering around like an electronic toy with a short circuit, and charges down the aisle.
Things are now seriously chaotic in a way that not even the biggest critic of Los Angeles’ Public Transport System could have predicted.
Beth, as we know, is not a girl to assert authority. Not only would she not normally say “boo” to a goose, she wouldn’t say “boo” to the picture of a goose. This, however, has been a difficult and trying day, and she is standing in the middle of a Metro bus, barefoot, wearing pyjama bottoms and holding a snake named George that looks like a beaded necklace when it isn’t flicking its tail and darting its tongue in and out of its mouth in terror.
“Everybody calm down! Do you hear me?”
Heads turn. Everybody hears her. Indeed, many people who know Beth, including Mr Sturgess, would be surprised at how loudly she can speak if she really needs to.
“Get a grip on yourselves! There’s no reason to panic!” Her eyes go from one end of the bus to the other, glancing over the young man in the Dodgers’ cap and almost catching for a wing beat but moving right on. “Just calm down!”
It’s as if Jehovah has leaned over a cloud and given a command. The bus stops suddenly, and everybody on it stops, too. An almost preternatural stillness descends. Though this, as it happens, has less to do with Beth’s exertion of authority than it does with the police cars – sirens whooping and lights flashing – that are blocking the road.
As the police officers get out of their cars and approach the bus, Beth suddenly realizes why the young man in the Dodgers’ cap seemed vaguely familiar, and turns back for another look.
There’s no one there.
Gabriela doesn’t see Beth and Lucinda get on the bus, of course. Remedios has seen to that. Indeed, as she reaches the other side of the Strip, Gabriela is sure that she sees Beth – sees herself – striding up into the hills of Hollywood with Lucinda, bright boutique bags bouncing against their hips and sunlight shining off their hair. California girls; smiling and happy, without a care in the world. Gabriela doesn’t wonder by what miracle she managed to cross through traffic that a gnat would have had trouble navigating, or why the other girls aren’t with her and Lucinda, or even why they’re walking when they have a chauffeured limousine to take them everywhere. She thinks she knows what’s going on. They must have changed the venue for the tea, moved it from the college to Madagascar’s studio. Given what the traffic’s like in Los Angeles, it’s probably quicker to walk.
Gabriela is not an overly cautious girl, and now she doesn’t hesitate long enough to flick a piece of lint from her sleeve. Beth finally seems to be within reach – within reach and virtually alone. Talking to her may not solve their problem, but it has to be a step in the right direction. It’s definitely a lot better than spending the rest of the afternoon in another museum. Marvelling at how quickly she can walk in sensible, if unattractive, shoes, she follows the bright and carefree girls as they effortlessly climb into the hills, going further and further away from Sunset Boulevard. But no matter how fast she walks, Beth and Lucinda are always ahead of her, turning a corner or darting down an unexpected path, almost shimmering and just out of reach.
Above the frantic activity of the valley, the thickly wooded streets twist and wind up these famous hills where holly has never been known to grow, crossed by dozens of narrow lanes that end suddenly, as if they’ve forgotten where they were going.
They aren’t the only ones.
Coming to a stop at last, Gabriela looks around the cul-de-sac at the opulent houses half-hidden behind small jungles or high walls, puzzled. There is no one around. No one sitting on a porch. No children playing; no dogs barking; no cat sitting statue-like in a patch of sunlight. It might be a movie set and not a real neighbourhood at all if it weren’t that they can hear the low, electronic hum that hovers in the air, the swish-swishes of a sprinkler somewhere near,
the muffled sound of a mower, the thwack-thwack of a tennis ball being hit back and forth on someone’s private court. Where are Beth and Lucinda? It’s as if they vanished into the air.
Delila comes up beside her. Staggers. She’s out of breath and breaking a sweat; it’s been a longer walk than Gabriela thinks.
“You don’t mind if I ask you a personal question, do you?” Delila huffs. Just as Lucinda followed Beth onto the bus like a lemming pitching straight over a cliff, Delila unquestioningly trotted after Gabriela, somehow assuming that they both knew what Gabriela was doing. Only now, finding herself high in the hills with a view worth millions, and, somewhere in that view, Professor Gryck and the other contestants annoyed and wondering what happened to them, Delila finally realizes that she has no idea what that was. “Would you mind telling me what the hell we’re doing up here in Never-Never Land?”
Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem that Gabriela knows either.
“I… I saw somebody I know.” Her sigh is no less heartfelt for being silent. “At least, I thought I did.”
Her arms folded across her chest, Delila eyes her room-mate in what can only be described as a suspicious manner. “You saw somebody you know? Here?” She glances at the nearest house, the top of it rising grandly from behind a screen of trees. This is not a neighbourhood of low-income housing. “You know somebody who lives in a house with eight bathrooms and a swimming pool?” She tilts her head to one side as if trying to get a better view. “Who’s that? Somebody you met the last time you bought make-up on Sunset Boulevard?”
Gabriela gives her a don’t-be-silly smile. “No, of course not. I never—”
“Well, who then? I didn’t think you knew anybody in LA.”
Gabriela doesn’t know anyone in LA. But Beth Beeby does. And suddenly Gabriela hears Lillian on the phone this morning saying in her hand-wringing voice: You know Aunt Joyce would be happy to run over with anything you need, honey…
