My Perfect Life

by Dyan Sheldon

  Lola and I stopped in town on the way home to pick up the badges she’d ordered.

  She talked all the way. Blahblahblah the election … the election blahblahblah. She didn’t notice that I was quiet and pensive. I was waiting for the right moment to give her a shot of reality.

  The badges were kind of black and a shade of yellow I associate with the flu. The writing was fuzzy.

  “They’re the cheapest I could get,” said Lola. “We don’t exactly have a big budget.”

  We had a total budget of one hundred and fifty dollars from the school fund. Each of the candidates got that.

  “We’ll need some money to buy paper for more posters and stuff like that,” said Lola as we pedalled to her house. “But we won’t need any money for the actual production.” Besides the cash, on Monday each candidate would be given an empty room to use after classes as his or her headquarters, a key to the photocopy machine in the office, and use of a computer. “The graphics program the art department has is excellent.”

  I said, “Um,” which was basically what I’d been saying since we left the campus.

  “We’ll have to have a rally, of course, so you can give your major speech. But we can use the gym, so that won’t cost anything.”

  This really cheered me up; incredible as it may seem, I’d forgotten about the speech-giving.

  “Great,” I said. Major as in “big” was bad enough; major as in “more than one” was my worst nightmare come true. The one time we had to give a speech in English, I was so nervous that I threw up my breakfast. I had to run out of homeroom with my hand over my mouth. When I actually got up to speak, I was shaking so much it sounded like I was playing maracas, not discussing the symbolism of William Blake. “Terrific.”

  “So that puts us way ahead,” continued Lola. “We can use the money for something really spectacular…” She gazed at the road ahead for a few minutes with the glazed eyes of someone having a vision, and then glanced at me. “How much do you think a hot air balloon would cost?”

  “More than a hundred and fifty.”

  “I wonder…” said Lola.

  All the way to her house she tried to think of something spectacular we could do for less than a hundred and fifty dollars. What about skywriting? What about hiring a marching band? What about mimes? What about a short film? What about Sam and me jumping from a plane with a banner that said MAKE THE LEAP?

  “Will you get a grip on yourself?” I asked, as we finally shut the door of her room behind us. “I know I speak for Sam when I say that nobody is jumping out of a plane. Not even a small one. Not even one you’ve talked some poor chump into letting us use for free.”

  Lola looked at me as if I were being unreasonable. “You know, you could show a little more enthusiasm, El.” She put the snack tray on the bed and sat down beside it. “Enthusiasm is a very important factor in any campaign. Especially among the candidates.”

  I picked up a grape, but I didn’t feel like eating it; I felt like throwing it at her. And that’s when I told her.

  “You know,” I said, “you really are too much. Not only do you get me and Sam into this without so much as a word, but you then expect us to be enthusiastic.” I squashed the grape between my fingers. “Well, we’re not enthusiastic, Lola. We’ll run because we can’t get out of running, but that’s as far as it goes. Enthusiasm is not included.”

  “You mean that you’ll walk, but not run,” said Lola. She popped a grape into her mouth. “You’ll go through the motions, but really you’re just handing the election to Carla Santini on a silver platter. Neither of you cares what happens.”

  “Exactly,” I said. “You finally understand. You can drag a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink.”

  Lola popped another grape into her mouth. “I’m surprised at you, Ella.” She chewed slowly. “Really surprised. I thought you enjoyed a good fight.”

  “No you didn’t.” Lola’s voice was calm and quiet, but mine was loud and shrill. “You enjoy a good fight. I never fight with anyone, and you know it.”

  “You fight with me all the time,” said Lola. “You’re fighting with me now.”

  “That’s beside the point. You don’t understand what it’s like to be me, Lola.” Against my will, my voice started shaking. “I really am shy and retiring. I’ve always been shy and retiring. The only thing I could run for President of would be a club of one.”

  She swung a tiny bunch of grapes in the air. “Oh, please … you’re getting yourself all worked up over nothing as usual. You’re one of the most logical, intelligent and competent teenagers I know. You’re going to be brilliant. This is going to be your golden hour.”

  “No it isn’t,” I snapped. “If you have your way, it’s going to be one of those black and humiliating hours. You’re overestimating me. I can’t do it. I’ll pretend that I’m doing it, but that’s all. You can’t expect more than that.”

  Lola dropped her grapes and grabbed my shoulders. “But you can do it, Ella. I have faith in you. I know you can rise to the occasion.”

  “No, I can’t.” My voice screeched, more or less imploring. “Lola, I can’t go around smiling and shaking hands with people I don’t even know. I can’t meet Carla and Morty in a debate. I can’t stand up in front of the student body and give a speech.”

  “Why not?”

  My voice screeched some more. “Because I’m shy and retiring.”

  “No you’re not,” said Lola. “What you are is a victim of your own dubious self-image.” She gave me a look. I know she blames my parents for this. She thinks they’ve tried to smother me. “You think you’re shy and retiring, therefore you are. All you’ve got to do is change the way you think.”

  “No, you have to change the way you think.” I threw the grape I’d been holding back in the bowl. “Sam and I are agreed: we keep our names in the race, but we do no more than the barest minimum.”

  “And that’s your final word?” asked Lola.

  “Yes,” I said. “That’s my final word.”

  My mother was in the kitchen when I got home. There were several opened cookbooks, a notebook, and a glass of wine on the table in front of her.

  She looked up as I came through the door. “There you are! Where have you been? I was getting worried.”

  “Didn’t you get my message?” I gave her a kiss on the cheek. “I left one on your cell phone.”

  My mother blinked. “Oh your message … yes … of course…” Even her smile seemed to be blinking.

  “Have a good day?”

  “Yes,” said my mother. “Well…” She continued to blink and smile. It was really eerie. “Mrs Mopper passed away this morning.” Mrs Mopper was my mother’s favourite old lady in the nursing home. They both went to Sarah Lawrence, and they both married lawyers, and they both had one child and liked golf and bridge and gourmet cooking.

  “Gee …” I stammered “… I’m sorry. I—”

  “I know… I know…” chanted my mother. “But she was very old…” I could hear her take a deep breath. “Anyway, when I got home I got so involved with the menu for the arthritis lunch that I forgot all about your message.”

  I didn’t know what to say now. I hadn’t gotten past Mrs Mopper yet. I said, “Oh.”

  My mother was still blinking and smiling. “I just didn’t think you’d be so late.” She laughed. It sounded as if she were gargling. “It’s your father who’s always late. Not you. Your father’s always late.”

  “Dad’s not home yet?” I kept my voice light and casual; as if I thought my father might be home, or that it wasn’t unusual that he wasn’t.

  “Work, of course.” She picked up her glass and downed it in one. “Work, work, work, work, work. You’d think he was one of the Seven Dwarfs.”

  It didn’t seem like a good time to tell her about the election. It would only set her off. Most of the time my mother was totally normal, but sometimes instead of a couple of glasses of wine in the evening she had a couple of bott
les. And when she did, instead of getting all happy and dancing around with a lampshade on her head like you’re supposed to, she got depressed. The mention of my father always working was a sign that the lampshades were safe.

  “Have you eaten?” I asked. “You want me to stick something in the microwave for you?”

  My mother’s eyes widened in mock horror. “But what about your father? You don’t want him to eat alone, do you?”

  “What about a snack?” I suggested. “I could fix you a bagel with grilled cheese.” My mother can cook any food from French to Thai, but I stop pretty much at radiated cheese.

  She was already getting up, however, holding her glass the way the Statue of Liberty holds her torch, only not as steadily.

  “What I want is more wine,” she announced. “That’s what I want.”

  I watched her go over to the refrigerator. She was starting to wobble. “Cheese goes well with wine,” I said.

  My mother wasn’t listening. She was yanking a bottle out of the fridge.

  “I want you to promise me something, honey,” said my mother. “Don’t you become a workaholic like your father. It’s important to have some fun, as well.”

  “I know,” I said. “I do.”

  She shook the corkscrew at me. “Fun is very important. You cannot live by bread alone.”

  I watched the corkscrew. Or by white wine.

  “You don’t know how fast your life slips away,” my mother went on. “You think you have forever … you think there’s always more time…”

  I sort of stopped listening. I’d heard this all before – and I didn’t really want to hear it again. It was one of my mother’s monologues that could end in tears.

  I was trying to ease my way out of the kitchen when I was literally saved by the bell. The phone rang.

  “I’ll get it!” I shouted.

  I’d just lifted the receiver when my mother, suddenly happy, said, “That’ll be Carla. She’s been ringing you all night. I think she wants to invite you to a party.”

  “Hi, Ella.” Carla’s voice bubbled through the phone like a chemistry experiment that requires a mask and gloves. “How’s it going?”

  She sounded as though calling me for a chat on a Friday night was a regular occurrence. About as regular as a blue moon.

  The cork popped. “Is that Carla?” asked my mother.

  I nodded. “Fine,” I said into the receiver. “And you?”

  Carla’s laugh was as delicate as a surgical knife. “I can’t complain. I’m really looking forward to the summer. My mother’s taking me to Europe. Daddy feels a Continental experience will help me get into Harvard.”

  As though she needed help. Mr Santini was rich enough to be one of Harvard’s favourite alumni.

  “Wow,” I said. “That sounds terrific.”

  My mother’s voice shot across the kitchen. “Is it a party, Ella? Is she inviting you to a party?” I clapped my hand over the mouthpiece.

  Carla gushed on, explaining just how terrific a Continental experience was going to be. I stared at the clock on the microwave and waited for her to finish and tell me why she’d rung. It took four and a half minutes.

  Carla finished off Spain and all it had to offer, and then she said, “Gloriana!” as though she’d been goosed or something. She giggled. “Listen to me talk about me…”

  Now that was unusual.

  “…when the reason I called was to talk about you!”

  I swear the earth stood still.

  “Me?”

  “Of course, you!” Carla giggled some more.

  From behind me and well into her second bottle of Chardonnay, my mother hissed, “Tell her you’ll go, Ella. Have some fun.”

  I was holding the mouthpiece so tightly that my hand hurt.

  “You know how much I’ve always liked and admired you,” Carla was saying. “I’ve always considered you a very solid person, Ella. Reliable … trustworthy…”

  Like a Girl Scout.

  I braced myself.

  “And we have been friends practically from birth…”

  She was definitely about to go for a major artery.

  “That’s why I was thinking how perfect it would be if you ran as my Vice Presidential candidate. Santini and Gerard – together again.”

  Here, ladies and gentlemen, is a girl who absolutely never gives up. You can see why Carla and Lola are mortal enemies. The State of New Jersey isn’t really big enough for the both of them.

  “Excuse me?”

  “It just seems so silly for you to run against me, when we’d make such a dynamite team. You know, glamour and ordi— normality, all on one ticket.”

  No points for guessing which I was.

  “Tell her yes!” my mother called again. The bottle clinked against her glass. “You don’t go out enough.”

  I was practically pressing myself into the wall. “What happened to Alma? I thought she was running with you.”

  “Oh, Alma!” Carla sighed. “You know what Alma’s like. She’s a little frivolous for something as serious as this.”

  “But she’s already been nominated.”

  “That’s just a technicality. It can be changed.”

  Thus spoke a natural politician. In Carla’s world, there is nothing that can’t be changed if she wants it changed.

  I cleared my throat. “Well,” I said, “I don’t know what to say. You’ve taken me by surprise.”

  “Say yes!” cried my mother. “Say you’ll go.”

  “Is that a yes?” asked Carla.

  One of the things I never missed after Carla Santini and I went our separate ways was being her trusty sidekick, the original yes-girl.

  “Well, no,” I said, lowering my voice. “I’m really sorry, Carla, but I can’t change my mind about running for President now. Dr Alsop—”

  “Dr Alsop?” Carla’s shriek turned into laughter. “Still the same old Ella, always worried about what other people will say…”

  I said, “But—”

  Carla said, “Never mind Dr Alsop. He’s just a technicality, too.”

  Harvard wasn’t the only school that benefited from Mr Santini’s generosity.

  My mother’s voice was still humming in the background: We could go shopping … get something special … have lunch somewhere nice … wouldn’t it be fun…

  I lowered my own voice even more. “I’m sorry, Carla, but I really can’t.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Yes, I’m sure.”

  There was a moment in which all I could hear was my mother saying, “Oh, don’t say no, darling… Have some fun…” – and the Santini artillery clunking into place.

  And then Carla said, “I hope you realize what you’re doing, Ella. I really don’t advise this. It would be better for everybody if you came over to me.”

  I stared at the receiver. Her voice had lost its girlish warmth.

  “All I’m doing is keeping my word.”

  “No,” corrected Carla. “You’re doing more than that.”

  “Is this another death threat?”

  Carla laughed. “I’m not trying to kill you, Ella. I’m trying to save you from public suicide. This is going to be a no-holds barred campaign. And, personally, I don’t think you’re up to it. I think this could demolish you.”

  I was still staring at the phone. I don’t usually get really angry, but I was getting really angry now. I wasn’t even friends with Carla any more, and she thought that I’d do exactly what she wanted.

  “Come on, honey,” crooned my mother. “Tell Carla you’ll go…”

  “I’m your friend, Ella. I’m trying to do you a favour,” Carla was saying. I was amazed she even knew what a favour was. “You should be smart enough to take it.”

  It was as if all the times in the last sixteen years when I should have gotten mad and stood up for myself – and not just with Carla Santini – had stuffed themselves into this moment. What happened to all my potential? What happened to all the light I was
hiding under a bushel? What happened to Lola’s sincere belief that I could rise to the occasion? In the world of Carla Santini none of these things existed. Yet.

  “Well, here’s a first,” I said. “For once in your life you’re wrong. I’m not smart enough to take it.”

  “You used to be smart – before you started hanging out with riff-raff.” I could hear Carla smile. “Or does Lola have such power over you that you can’t even say no to her when it’s in your best interests?”

  “Here’s another first,” I said.

  I hung up the phone.

  I tell my parents my

  big news

  Nothing happened after I hung up the phone on Carla. The oak beams of the kitchen floor didn’t open and swallow me whole; a bolt of lightning didn’t hit the house; the world didn’t come to an untimely end. I stood there for a couple of seconds – waiting – but aside from my mother knocking over the wine bottle nothing moved. I couldn’t believe it.

  I’d never hung up the phone on anyone before. It wasn’t the way I was raised. If my mother had realized what I’d done she would have blamed the bad influence of Lola Cep and made me call Carla back to apologize. But I didn’t feel the tiniest desire to apologize. I didn’t feel guilty at all. I felt like those people you see on TV who take a three-day course in self-assertiveness and change their lives. And all I did was hang up the phone. I should have done it in first grade. I felt great.

  I’m not saying that slamming the receiver down on Carla Santini made me think I could win the election; but it definitely made me feel like fighting. I mean, looking at it objectively, I had nothing to lose. At the very least I could have some fun annoying Carla. That wouldn’t exactly make my mother happy, but it would cheer up everyone else.

  I woke up on Saturday morning intending to tell my parents about the election at breakfast. Since my father isn’t Mela Santini’s best friend, I figured if I did it when he and my mother were together he would be a balancing influence on her. Stop her from going into cardiac arrest.

  My mother was in the kitchen when I went down. She was in a good mood. She moved around the room like a skater, gliding from the stove to the counter and the counter to the table, whisking the eggs and stirring the potatoes and sniffing the air to see if her rolls were done, singing to herself all the while. If she could remember anything about being so drunk the night before, she’d decided not to mention it. All she talked about was Mrs Mopper. My mother was going to help Mrs Mopper’s daughter sort out her things that afternoon.