My Perfect Life

by Dyan Sheldon

  Besides the posters, of course, there were the badges. The tiny blue lights flashed like fireflies in the crowd as you walked to your classes.

  There were a few Morty Slinger posters around, but next to Carla’s they might as well have been drawn with markers. You only noticed them because they looked so pathetic. Sam said there was still a Gerard–Creek poster in the boys’ changing room in the gym – which brought the grand total left on campus to one.

  It was like an election in Stalin’s Russia. A visiting alien would have thought that there was only one person running for President.

  It wasn’t until lunch, however, that I realized that it wasn’t just aliens who might think that.

  Morty Slinger ran up to me and Lola outside the cafeteria. He was wearing one of his badges. Morty’s badges were pretty unique in the history of political gimcracks. Instead of having his name on them, they said SMILE in neon green on a neon pink background. They cost even less than ours.

  “What happened?” demanded Morty. “Why did you and Sam drop out of the race?”

  I guess you could say that our campaign, in contrast to Carla’s, had gone off with a squelch. Morty had to be at least the tenth person that morning to ask me why I’d decided not to run.

  “We didn’t drop out.” I pulled off a few blue and white stars from the poster behind me that were caught in my sweater.

  Lola amplified. “Carla just thought Ella and Sam needed more of a challenge so she disappeared all trace of them.”

  “Thank God for that,” said Morty with a surge of emotion not usually associated with the scientific mind. “I was really worried when I saw all your posters were gone.” He looked down at his feet. “I was afraid it might have something to do with Sam.”

  Lola gave me a look.

  “Sam?” I laughed. “What are you talking about?”

  “You know … because of the pressure and everything…” He kicked a fallen Carla badge against the wall. “Because of his record.”

  The image of an old-fashioned gramophone record appeared in my mind. I wasn’t sure what was on it.

  “His record?” Confusion made me almost giggle. “What record?”

  Morty shuffled. “I’m not trying to find out what it was Sam did – I really don’t care. I mean, from the little I’ve heard it’s pretty bad, but—”

  There was a flurry of shawl and rattling jewellery beside me. “What’s pretty bad?” cut in Lola. “What in the cosmos are you talking about?”

  The many interesting features of the corridor floor finally lost their hold on Morty’s attention. He looked up at us. He blinked.

  “Sam’s record,” said Morty. And then, seeing that this wasn’t making us exactly nod with understanding, he added, “You know, his criminal record. Everybody’s talking about it.”

  Now he had me blinking. “They are?”

  “And exactly what are they saying?” asked Lola.

  Morty gawped. “You mean you don’t know about it?”

  “Of course we don’t know about it.” Lola’s head went up and her voice rose. Bangles beat against each other in rage. “How could we know about it? It doesn’t exist.”

  Morty licked his lips. “That’s not what I heard.”

  “So we gather,” said Lola.

  Morty’s eyes darted back and forth behind his broken glasses; he was ready to run.

  “Well?” Lola persisted. “What have you heard, Morty?” She looked like she wanted to shake him.

  Farley Brewbaker told Morty that Sam had been arrested and only just managed to stay out of jail. Farley said it could have been a couple of years ago, or it could have been recently. Or it could have been both. Ben Talbot said he’d heard it was something to do with drugs, but Elizabeth Mistle said a reliable source had told her that it was robbery, she thought armed. Somebody else said there had definitely been more than one incident, and a boy in Morty’s computer class said he heard that Sam would definitely have been sent away if his mother hadn’t been so ill at the time and that the judge was lenient.

  “Boy,” I said when Morty was through, “that’s some story.”

  “It makes you wonder why we bother reading Aeschylus when there’s so much imaginative drama being created right here in Deadwood, doesn’t it?” asked Lola.

  Morty said, “You mean it’s not true?”

  Lola groaned. “Of course it’s not true. Sam has never committed a criminal act in his life.”

  She obviously didn’t consider stealing Eliza Doolittle’s dress a criminal act.

  “Well…” Morty rocked from one foot to the other. “You haven’t known him all that long … maybe he forgot to tell you.”

  “He didn’t forget to tell us anything,” I said. “These are just rumours, Morty.” And malicious ones at that. “They aren’t true.”

  Morty hummed.

  Lola put an arm around my shoulder. “Ella and I are Sam’s best friends. I think we’d know if he had a murky past, don’t you?”

  It seemed possible to me that Morty was going to swallow his tongue. Either that or fall over.

  “Well…” Morty mumbled. “I mean, you’re not necessarily the most reliable witness yourself, are you?”

  He was looking over my head, but we both knew which of us he was talking to: Lola. Lying Lola.

  “Oh, my God!” Lola pulled away from me. She looked as though she’d actually just caught a glimpse of God, possibly peering out from behind a poster. “Carla Santini! Don’t you see? This is all Carla Santini’s doing!”

  Morty slapped his forehead. “Of course!” He looked really relieved. “How could I be so dense? Carla’s already started slinging the mud.”

  “And now she’s going to stop.” Lola grabbed my elbow and tugged me towards the door of the cafeteria. “Come on, El.”

  “But I thought we were going to the computer room to work on our posters.”

  “We can do that later. First I want a word with your unworthy opponent.”

  “I’m coming, too,” said Morty. “I wouldn’t miss this for Stephen Hawkins.”

  Naturally, we had no trouble locating Carla Santini in the crowded lunchroom: she was the one under the cloud of balloons.

  Carla was sitting with Alma, Tina and Marcia as usual. They were in the middle of a pretty animated conversation, but Carla, with her witch’s instincts, looked up as we neared their table. She didn’t so much as blink, even though Lola looked like Lady Macbeth in a really bad mood.

  “Well, speak of the devil!” cried Carla, her eyes on me. “I was just saying how much I admire you, Ella – you know, with all these rumours about Sam going around…” If she smiled any harder her teeth would fall out. “A lot of people with less character would have dumped him from their ticket by now.”

  “How fortuitous that you should mention the rumours,” said Lola. “That’s exactly what we wanted to talk to you about.”

  Shock froze the lovely face of Carla Santini for at least half a nanosecond. And then she shrieked a laugh. “Oh, don’t tell me … you’re not blaming me for them, too?” She looked to her fan club, horror in her big blue eyes. “Can you believe it? First they blame me for taking down their posters, and now they’re blaming me because Sam Creek’s a criminal.”

  The Santini contingent spluttered with indignation. They’d never heard of such a stupendous outrage. It was a miracle their hair didn’t go straight from the shock.

  “You deceitful, duplicitous—” Lola hesitated, obviously searching for the right word.

  “Viper?” suggested Morty.

  “Viper!” boomed Lola.

  “Name-calling?” Carla tutted. “I thought even you were a little more mature than that.”

  But Lola didn’t slow down. “You know perfectly well that you started those stupid rumours.” She was speaking very clearly for someone whose teeth were clenched. “Talk about name-calling. The difference between me and you is that you do it behind people’s backs.”

  “No it’s not,” said Car
la – sweetly but loudly enough to be heard in the hot meal queue. “The difference between me and you is that I’m not a liar.”

  “You’re lying now!” howled Lola. I thought she was going for lift-off. “You started those rumours just to discredit Sam.”

  Carla kept smiling in a serene, almost regal, way. “Says you,” said Carla.

  “Oh, God…” moaned Alma. “Like anyone would believe Lola, right?”

  Someone sitting behind them laughed and said, “Lying Lola.”

  Carla shrugged helplessly. “You see? Nobody believes a word you say, Lola. Not a single word. They all know better.”

  And then, from behind us, a sour male voice said, “But they’d believe me.”

  Lola and I both turned around. It wasn’t Morty. It was Sam, smiling his legendary I-don’t-give-a-dead-sparkplug smile at Carla Santini.

  “Why don’t you just tell everybody what they want to know, and we can end this little drama now?” Sam asked her. “Then we won’t have all these conflicting rumours. We’ll just have the simple truth.”

  Carla opened her mouth and shut it again. It was a historic moment in Dellwood High history. Carla Santini didn’t have an answer.

  Sam squeezed in between me and Lola, resting his hands on Carla’s table. “What’s the matter?” he goaded. “You forget what it was I did? You can’t remember what the Dellwood, New Jersey crime of the century is?”

  Carla gave a soft and girlish laugh. “They’re just rumours, Sam. They—”

  “No they’re not,” snapped Sam. “They’re totally true.” He leaned his face a little closer. “Let me help you out, Carla. Refresh your memory.” He really has an amazing smile. “I got into trouble for cutting off all the hair of a cheerleader in my old school. Shaved her bald.” By now his face was right in hers. “You better watch out, princess. The mood you’ve put me in, it could just happen again.”

  “Bingo!” Lola whispered in my ear. Sam had joined the fray.

  Desperate times

  call for desperate

  measures

  Mrs Baggoli made Carla leave her balloons out in the hall during English on the grounds that we were reading Oedipus, not Dumbo, but aside from that brief period in the day the cloud of silver and blue balloons followed Carla wherever she went. They bobbed above her as she walked through the corridors; they floated over her as she sat in classes; they made it easy for students to find her in the cafeteria – or anywhere else. Which at least meant that we always knew where she was – so she couldn’t sneak up and stab us in the back.

  “Makes you wish you had a slingshot, doesn’t it?” said Sam. He was staring through the door of our headquarters at the room across the hall where the Santini forces were stuffing their faces with free cookies and soda. There were enough balloons outside it to lift a heavy clown.

  “David and Goliath,” said Lola.

  “More like Goliath and Humpty Dumpty,” muttered Sam. “Since we don’t have a slingshot.”

  “But that’s where you’re wrong! We do have a slingshot.” Lola pulled a sheet of paper from her bag and held it high. “Behold! Here is our primary weapon of destruction and doom.”

  “It doesn’t look like a slingshot to me,” grumbled Sam. “It looks like a poster.”

  It was a poster. It was straightforward and unassuming, like Sam and me. The background was purple and the lettering was black:

  GERARD AND CREEK – MAKE YOUR VOTE COUNT.

  “What’s wrong with it?” I thought it was pretty good, myself. Better than our first six ideas.

  “It’s meaningless,” said Sam. “If the poster’s our slingshot, that slogan’s a piece of gravel. What we need is a really big rock.”

  Carla Santini’s laughter rippled down the hallway like marbles.

  “What happened to our issues?” asked Sam. “What happened to ‘It’s Time to Give as Well as Receive’?”

  Lola tore her eyes from the door. “That’s all right for speeches and stuff,” she explained. “But we need something catchier for the posters.”

  This wasn’t the total reason. The total reason was that Mrs Turo, who ran the computer room, said it sounded more like a threat than a campaign promise.

  Sam stabbed at the poster. “Well, that’s not it.” Sam has zero tolerance for playing games – which probably isn’t a really useful quality in politics – but this time it had worked to our advantage. He was so angry at Carla for starting the rumours about him that every trace of negativity was gone. He wouldn’t stop now until Carla was stopped. “It’s too vague. Carla’s doing everything she can to make this campaign as personal as possible, and I think we should do the same.”

  I wasn’t sure I liked the sound of that.

  “Well,” I said, “I don’t think the fact that Carla’s making it a personal fight means it’s OK for us, too.”

  I wasn’t even sure if either of them had heard me. Lola already had that look in her eyes.

  “You mean roll up our sleeves and get down in the mud?” cried Lola, responding to Sam and not to me. “Pull out her hair? Gouge out her eyes?”

  “Smack down!” cried Sam gleefully. “Straight to the mat.”

  Lola started pacing. “You’re right, of course, Sam. We have to fight fire with fire. We have to make an attack.”

  I didn’t like the idea of attack, either. In my opinion, you don’t fight fire with fire, you fight it with water. I raised my voice. “I don’t see what’s wrong with ‘Make Your Vote Count’. I think it’s catchy. And true. And I’m not really comfortable with attacking Carla personally. I mean, two wrongs don’t make a right, do they?”

  Lola’s voice was louder. “We have to hit her where it hurts. We have to crack through that ginormous ego and make the worm within squirm and beg for mercy.”

  A blue balloon drifted down the hallway. “Kill it before it multiplies!” shouted someone in Morty’s room next door. There was a gratifying pop.

  “But what about rules, and principles, and stuff like that?” I asked.

  Sam put a hand on the back of my chair and leaned towards me. “What is it with you, Ella?” He sounded genuinely curious. “What does Carla have to do to get you mad enough to fight her? She uses your mother, she threatens your life, she takes down our posters – and she besmirches my good name – and you don’t want to hit her back. Are you a saint, or are you just stupid?”

  “Ella’s shy and retiring,” answered Lola. “She doesn’t like too much confrontation. It’s not the way she was raised.”

  Sam shook his head. He looked more baffled than curious now. “How the hell did you wind up with Lola as your best friend if you’re so shy and retiring and don’t like confrontation?”

  I assumed he was making a joke. I laughed. “Don’t think it’s a question I haven’t asked myself.”

  “You’re being unreasonable, Ella,” said Lola. “We’re not going to do anything despicable and underhand like Carla would. We’re just going to show a little spirit.” She climbed on a chair and shook her fist in the air. “We’re going to make issues an issue, that’s what we’re going to do.” She grinned at Sam. “After we pull out her hair.”

  “Issues not image,” said Sam.

  For a minute there, I almost thought Lola was going to kiss him. I think Sam did, too, because he actually blushed.

  “Sam, you’re a genius!” Lola was jubilant; triumphant. “Issues not image! That’s our slogan! That’s what we’ll do!”

  I could tell that she was a few steps ahead of me again. “What’s what we’ll do?”

  Lola didn’t even look over at me. “This is so incredibly perfect… I can’t imagine why I didn’t think of this before.” She jumped down from her chair, crackling with excitement. “We’re totally changing our tactics. We’re going to contrast our issues with Carla Santini herself.

  I said, “Oh, Lola … I don’t think Sam meant—”

  Sam said, “You what?”

  Lola was practically glowing. “For instance…�
� She ran her hand over an imaginary sign. “We say something like: ‘What Have You Done for the World Today?’ – and under it we have a photo of Carla putting on make-up.”

  Sam nodded thoughtfully. “It’s good,” he decided. “It’s clever, and it’s funny. It could work.”

  “Of course it’ll work,” declared Lola. “It’s perfect.”

  But now Sam was shaking his head. “Back up the truck just a second,” said Sam. “How are we going to get a photo of Carla putting on her war paint?”

  But there is no problem too great or too small for Lola Cep.

  “You’ve got a camera, haven’t you?” she asked.

  Sam gave her a wary look. “Yeah…”

  “And you do your own developing, right? So you could print them out the same night.”

  “Yeah, but…”

  “And your dad’s got a photocopier at the garage, right? So you could run off the posters there.”

  Sam held up his hand. “Take your foot off the gas, Lola. If you think I’m hiding in the girls’ toilets to catch Carla gluing her eyelashes together you’d better think again.”

  “Oh, no, not you,” said Lola. “You can get the outdoor shots, since you have a car. Ella will get her putting on her make-up.”

  “What do you mean Ella will do it?” Lola really is too much sometimes. “I’m the Presidential candidate, remember? Presidential candidates do not do things like that.”

  “Oh, really?” said Lola. “What about Watergate? What about Irangate? What about—”

  “What about just saying yes, Ella, so we get out of here today,” said Sam.

  Jane Bond and the

  incident at the

  dripping sink

  Sam spent Tuesday afternoon following Carla and the coven around Dellwood while Lola and I finished putting up some temporary Gerard–Creek posters.