My Perfect Life

by Dyan Sheldon

  While my mother talked, I thought about what I was going to say when my father joined us. Hey, guess what? I’ve got great news… Oh, did I tell you? I’m running for School President… Stuff like that.

  I think my mother must have forgotten about my father, because she jumped when he finally burst into the room calling, “Good morning, darling! How are my girls?”

  “Darling!” My mother laughed. “You gave me a fright. I didn’t hear you coming down the hall.”

  My parents always called each other darling. When I was little I thought that was their names: Darling Gerard and Darling Gerard. Lola called them The Darlings.

  He winked at me and gave her a peck on the cheek. “Something smells good,” said my father.

  My mother beamed. “Sautéed potatoes and home-made rolls.” She pushed back her chair. “What kind of omelette do you want?”

  “No time.” He hurled himself towards the coffee-maker. “Tony just called. He’s already at the club.”

  Tony is Anthony P. Santini, golf aficionado and father of Carla – and a man who, if you ask me, has a lot to answer for.

  My mother kept smiling. “But, darling… It’ll only take a few min—”

  “Really.” My father snapped the lid on the insulated cup he uses in the car. “I’ve got a hell of a day. Not a minute to breathe.”

  My mother said, “Oh.”

  “Tell you what, though,” he went on. “Tomorrow we’ll all do something together. How does that sound? Take a drive. Have lunch somewhere nice…”

  “What about tonight?” My mother was still smiling, but only with her mouth.

  My father didn’t know what time he’d get home. He had an afternoon meeting; he was having dinner with a client in New York. He gave her another peck on the cheek, winked in my direction again, and left.

  My mother watched the doorway for a few seconds, and then she turned back to me. “Well,” she said. She picked up her coffee cup. “And what are your plans for today?”

  My plans for today were to go over to Lola’s. Sam’s father lets him off work at four on Saturdays so we were having our first campaign meeting then. All I had to tell my mother, of course, was that I was going to Lola’s, but instead I told her the whole thing. I figured the election would be over if I waited for my father.

  Much to my surprise, my mother’s first reaction was to clap. “But, sweetheart… That’s wonderful. I’m so happy – you decided to run with Carla after all.”

  I should have known.

  “No,” I said quickly, “you’ve misunderstood me.” I scooped the last of my omelette onto some toast. “I’m not running with Carla – I’m running against her.”

  This information noticeably decreased her happiness. “You’re doing what?”

  I ducked behind my juice glass. “I’m running against Carla. For President.”

  “But sweetheart,” said my mother. “Carla’s … Carla’s so popular… Do you really think you can win?”

  “Well…” I smiled in what I hoped was a positive way. “One can but try, right?”

  “I must say,” said my mother, her eyes on the coffee in her cup, “that I’m a little surprised Lola is willing to accept Vice President. That isn’t like her at all.” My mother’s Lola smile was thin and wry. “You know … bride at the wedding … corpse at the funeral…”

  “Campaign manager at the election,” I filled in. “It’s Sam who’s running with me, not Lola.”

  “Who?”

  “Sam – Sam Creek. You remember. The boy who sat with us at the school play?”

  Her eyelids trembled. She did remember. She’d just found someone that she liked even less than Lola Cep.

  “Oh, Ella! Honey… Think what you’re doing… Who’s going to vote for a boy like that?”

  I pushed my plate away. It was a good question. And I had a good answer. “Hopefully the same people who vote for me.”

  Viva la revolución

  Lola couldn’t have been happier about Carla’s call and my new mood of commitment to the fight. Despite Marilyn Gerard’s misgivings about my chances, Lola said that Carla calling me like that proved I was a real threat to her. I was an immovable force. I was an unsurpassable obstacle. I had her on the run.

  “Now all we have to do is secure our advantage,” said Lola.

  “You mean like have Carla kidnapped?” asked Sam. He’d arrived straight from work with grease under his nails and a significant amount of attitude.

  “It would only backfire,” said Lola. “She’d win on the sympathy vote. No, we need something that won’t get us arrested.”

  “Yeah right,” said Sam. “But there is one little problem with that.”

  Lola frowned. “Which is…?”

  “Which is that anything we can do, Carla can do bigger and better. Carla’s got more money than El Salvador, and the crowd-appeal of potato chips. If we spent every dime we had on a billboard in the middle of the courtyard, Carla would put her name up in neon lights.”

  I kept remembering what my mother said: Carla’s so popular… Carla’s so popular… Popularity was something I knew all about. Hard though it may be to believe, I used to be popular, too. When I was friends with Carla Santini. But as soon as she dumped me I automatically became less popular than tooth decay. Popularity, it seemed to me, is both fickle and pointless.

  “You know what I think?” I said. “I think we need to make sure that the election isn’t about popularity. Unless we do that, we don’t have even the smallest chance.”

  Lola looked back at me like a proud parent. “Didn’t I tell you you’d rise to the occasion? That’s absolutely brilliant, El. I think you’ve found the key.”

  I wasn’t so sure about it being brilliant. It seemed to me that I was reaching for the thinnest straw more than I was rising, but at least it was a start.

  Though possibly not much of one.

  “And how are we going to do that?” Sam stretched out on the floor, leaning back on his elbows. “It may have escaped your notice, ladies, but as far as Carla’s concerned, the only issues in this election are whether or not the cheerleaders are getting new uniforms or if the school trip’s going to be to Williamsburg or Greece.”

  “But that’s what Ella’s saying,” argued Lola. “Our platform has to represent emotional and spiritual growth for the student body of Dellwood High. We have to offer a new present and a brighter tomorrow!”

  “You mean like Morty Slinger campaigning for more vegetarian food in the cafeteria?” asked Sam.

  Lola slowly shook her head. “I don’t consider that a vote getter. If it were, you could bet your last tube of lipgloss that Carla would be using it. No…” She raised her arms and spread them in the air. “We need something bigger. Something that transcends the ordinary and petty concerns of high-school life.”

  I’m more a lineal than a lateral thinker. “You mean like organic food versus genetically modified food? Stuff like that?”

  Lola gazed back at me unblinking. “What?”

  “What I mean is instead of just coming out for more vegetarian options in the cafeteria like Morty, we take a stand on genetic engineering. You know, the large issue that transcends the ordinary and petty concerns of high-school life.”

  “I like it.” Lola sat up straight. “I think you’re heading in the right direction. If we’re going to make this a contest that’s about more than skirt lengths and how much money we spend on the Homecoming dance, then that’s the kind of thing we’re talking about.” She raised her chin, her Joan of Arc at the stake look in her eyes. “A vote has to mean more than being invited to Carla’s next party.”

  Sam was shaking his head. “Yeah, yeah… That’s just dandy. But you still haven’t said how you plan to do that.”

  She gave him a pitying look; Saint Joan being forced to explain the voices.

  “By making the students of Dellwood High realize that they’re part of a larger world – that there are things that really matter.”

 
; Sam laughed. “Our platform’s going to be to involve the school in world affairs? What are we going to do?”

  Lola was scowling. “Ella just told you what we’re going to do – we’re going to do things like support non-genetically modified food—”

  “And recycling,” I added. “And the environment.”

  Lola nodded. “And homelessness and literacy—” She sat up, her arms raised in the air. “I can see it! It’s just like John Kennedy.”

  “It sounds more like Ché Guevara,” said Sam.

  She gave him one of the scornful looks she usually reserves for people who don’t like Shakespeare.

  “Oh, how quickly they forget,” said Lola. She got to her feet, her hands on an imaginary dais. “‘Ask not what your country can do for you…’” Lola intoned. “‘Ask what you can do for your country!’”

  Sam yawned. “Well, that should cause a revolution.”

  Lola scowled. “Stop being so negative,” she ordered. “Everything Carla does is no more than a cheap attempt to buy votes. She’s shallow and frivolous, and everything she stands for is shallow and frivolous, too. We don’t want to be like her. We’re the party of serious choice. We offer meaningful debate, not glamour and popularity.”

  “Which would be great if the students of Dellwood High preferred meaningful debate to glamour and popularity,” said Sam.

  Dellwood High joins

  the Third World

  Sam gave us a lift to school on Monday morning, more because Lola made him than because he wanted to.

  Lola and I spent most of Sunday designing a new poster and trying to come up with appropriate slogans for the campaign, but Sam had refused another meeting. Sunday was his one day off, and he wasn’t going to spend it trying to start a car without an engine, as he put it. Lola had looked like she wanted to remove his engine when he told her, but this morning she was being more philosophical. In fact, we were both in a pretty positive mood. Sam, however, was not.

  “‘Be a Part of Your World, Not a Part of Its Problems’?” He laughed. “Isn’t that a little too much like that line from the sixties: ‘If you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem’?”

  Lola grabbed hold of the door as we took the turn into the school drive a little sharply, but her eyes were on Sam. This was the third of our slogans he’d rejected.

  “Well, what about this one, then? This one’s Ella’s: ‘It’s time to give instead of receive’.”

  Sam glanced back at me in the rear-view mirror. “No offence, Ella, but it sounds like a greeting card. If you want to put them to sleep you might as well hypnotize them. Then at least we’d have a chance of getting them to vote for us.”

  “You’re absolutely determined to be a thorn in our side rather than a spur on our boot, aren’t you?” snapped Lola.

  “I’m just saying what I think,” said Sam.

  “Well, I think you’re wrong,” said Lola. “I like it. It’s simple but dramatic.”

  “You’re simple but dramatic.” We lurched to a stop in front of the school. “You guys get out here. I’ll catch up with you after I’ve parked.”

  Lola and I were still talking about giving as opposed to receiving by the time we reached the school grounds. It was immediately pretty clear just who was giving what and who was receiving it.

  In front of us was the yard. There were a lot of students in the yard, but there was a lot of something else, too: posters. All the posters that Carla had up on Friday had been taken down, and replaced with new ones. They were on the walls; they were on the trees; they were on the trash cans; there were even two on the bike rack. The new posters featured the same professional photograph of Carla as their predecessors, but with two attention-grabbing additions. Each poster was framed in blue and silver stars, and each contained the message

  Vote for Santini – Don’t Let It Be Said

  That Just ANYBODY Can Be

  President of Dellwood High.

  “Ye Gods!” cried Lola. “The Santini elves certainly have been busy.”

  “Busy? She must be giving them drugs.”

  It didn’t look to me like Carla was working to budget. Not our budget. The Pentagon’s maybe, but definitely not ours.

  I scanned the courtyard from left to right. “I only see a couple of Slinger posters.”

  “That’s a couple more than I see of Gerard–Creek,” said Lola.

  I could feel my heart miss a beat. “Oh, she couldn’t have.” My eyes darted from wall to tree to trash can, looking for our names in the forest of the Smiling Santini. “Not even Carla – I mean, I don’t know much about politics, but surely there must be a couple of rules.”

  “Only one,” said Lola tersely. “Don’t get caught.” Her book bag thumped over her shoulder. “Come on,” she ordered. “We’re not standing for this!”

  “Where are we going?”

  “Where do you think? We’re going to confront the lion in her den.” She pointed to the windows of the student common room. “Or, in this case, the weasel.”

  The common room was packed and noisy. We had no trouble finding Carla in the mob, though. As usual, she was sitting in the middle of the largest group (if Carla were a celestial body and not a teenage girl, she’d be the sun), flanked by Alma Vitters, Tina Cherry and Marcia Conroy, but it was the cloud of blue and silver balloons over her head that really gave her away.

  Carla was busy smiling like a salesman on commission and telling people to vote for her, but she looked up the second Lola and I stepped through the door. You might almost have thought she’d been waiting for us.

  Lola marched across the room as though the words “determined” and “grimly” were in her stage directions.

  “Why Lola… Ella…” The only things I’ve ever heard that purr like Carla Santini are Rolls Royce engines and very big cats, although the way the group in front of her immediately parted hers might have been the voice of the Lord. “Have you come to wish me luck?” She picked up a badge from the box in front of her and held it towards us. “Or did you want one of these?”

  Carla’s badges were a very attractive silver and blue, and besides being in focus her name actually lit up and blinked.

  The sight of the badge distracted Lola from her mission. She stared at the flashing name for a couple of seconds, and then looked back at Carla. “What is that? You’re not going to try to convince us that you’re paying for this stuff with the money from the school?”

  Carla is good at looking innocent, too. “There’s nothing in the rules that says you can’t use private funds as well.”

  Lola and I said, “But it’s not fair,” together.

  “Fair?” tittered Carla. “Of course it’s fair. This is a democracy, remember? You two do believe in democracy, don’t you?”

  She was going to be telling everyone we were fascists next.

  “Of course we do,” I answered loudly. “But it doesn’t seem very democratic to me that a person can win an election just because she has more money than her opponents.”

  “And where does stealing the other side’s posters fit into this democracy of yours?” enquired Lola.

  Carla didn’t blink. “Excuse me? Are you trying to make a point?”

  Personally, I would have liked to take the badge Carla was still holding and make a point in her head.

  Lola said, “Yes, I am. We came in here because we want to know what happened to Ella and Sam’s posters. What have you and your zombie army done with them?”

  “Posters? Me?” Carla sounded as if candy floss wouldn’t melt in her mouth, never mind butter. “I don’t have the slightest idea what you’re talking about.”

  Lola arched one eyebrow. Her voice arched as well. “Don’t you? It’s probably because you’ve been so busy having your photograph taken and blowing up balloons. Let me refresh your memory then. The Gerard–Creek posters mysteriously vanished over the weekend.”

  Carla held her smile like a gun. “And you’re accusing me of taking them
?”

  “You bet your last badge I’m accusing you,” answered Lola. “Who else do you know would do a thing like that?”

  Carla knew someone.

  “Quite frankly, I wouldn’t be surprised if you took down your posters yourself.” Her voice was clear and loud. “It’s the kind of cheap trick you’re known for.”

  Lola stood straight for better projection. “No, it isn’t. It’s the kind of cheap trick you’re known for.”

  Carla went on as though Lola had kept her mouth shut for once. “And there is another candidate – in case you’ve forgotten.” Carla’s smile was the smile of a cat with several feathers sticking out of its mouth. “One who’s a lot more desperate for votes than I am.”

  “Morty?” I think I may have gasped.

  “Morty didn’t do it,” snapped Lola. “Morty’s a man of honour.”

  “And you are what?” drawled Carla. “A woman of your word? Because it does come down to that, doesn’t it Lola? Your word against mine.”

  The common room had stopped being noisy. The silence solidified around us.

  Lola opened her mouth and shut it again.

  “And how’s your friend Stu Wolff these days, Lola?” asked Carla. Stu Wolff was the lead singer of Sidartha. Lola and I had not only met him and been invited by him to Sidartha’s farewell party, the three of us were picked up by the police together. But such was the duplicitous genius of Carla Santini no one believed us, of course. “Been to any more of his parties?”

  Sam has a Carla

  Santini experience

  of the third kind

  Carla’s campaign went off with a bang. Her posters were everywhere and multiplying faster than amoeba. I was afraid to stand still for more than a second in case someone stuck one on me. They were in the hallways; they were on the windows and the doors; they were on the trees, vending machines and water fountains. They were even in the toilets. You shut the door to your cubicle and there she was, sweetness and light in Kodachrome, suggesting that you vote for her.