The Master of Ceremonies tapped the mike and introduced herself as Mrs. Eleanor Valponne. “Tonight, we are making history. This is the arena where our wrapping gladiators will do battle.”
Mrs. Valponne was a Yankee—no doubt about it. Gloria had taught Chase about Yankees. People from Oklahoma had Southern manners and social mores. They found Yankees loud, bossy and aggressive. Mrs. Valponne with her tight velvet dress and piled high hair was all Yank. Gladiators, Chase thought, pish.
“There are four categories that are judged—appearance, speed, technical craft and creativity,” Mrs. Valponne said. “At the end of the first three rounds the contestants’ points will be tallied by the judges and the two highest scoring competitors will face off for the final round.” She glared at the audience. “You will refrain from clapping or any outbursts until the end of the round. Is that understood?”
The audience murmured their assent.
Kim Lee leaned back in her chair and caught Chase’s eye. They stared at each other. How did she know? Chase thought. Was there a smell that contenders had that only they could smell? Did Chase really care whether she won or not? Actually, she did. She was sick of having people think she was a performance wreck. So what if she had her therapist on the premises to deal with her anxiety? It didn’t mean she couldn’t handle it.
Mrs. Meadowbrook-Parks whispered behind her, “The creativity part scores the most points and that is right up your alley.”
Chase nodded absentmindedly. She wondered where that clichéd phrase came from. Was it a bowling reference? Or did it refer to alleys as transportation devices to allow for waste disposal?
“First round is appearance,” Mrs. Valponne announced. “No bows and ribbons. In this round, we are checking for craft only. We will do a sixty-five-inch box and a ninety-five-inch box as well as a jewelry-size box. The three boxes will be scored separately and those points put toward each contestant’s overall point total which will determine the two finalists. I am setting the clock at nine minutes. Ladies, ready, set, go.”
Chase wrapped quickly but with care. She did the first box in two and a half minutes. The next two each took two minutes and forty-five seconds. She knew this because Mrs. Valponne called out the time in fifteen-second intervals. She had chosen simple wedding white paper with a lacy silver filigree. It was smooth but with just enough texture to wrap quickly and neatly. She would use the same for the next round.
Chase wiped her hands on a hand towel provided by Mrs. Meadowbrook-Parks, who was well aware of the detrimental effect of sweaty palms on wrapping paper. Chase thought of a bowling competition where men in tight polyester pants and striped shirts wiped their hands before picking up their bowling balls. The “right up your alley” phrase applied to bowling, Chase decided. She searched the audience for her family. Bud waved.
“Next is the speed competition. You will be timed start to finish. You will begin when I say go,” Mrs. Valponne said.
“For shit’s sake, we got that part already,” Chase muttered under her breath. She looked up to find one of the judges staring at her. She tried to pass off her smart-ass muttering as a prayer, “Hail Mary, full of grace...” Chase smiled. The judge smiled back.
“Go,” Mrs. Valponne called out.
Chase wrapped as if her life depended on it. She heard rustling from the other cubicles long after she finished and until time was called. Never had the sound of swishing paper brought her such delight. She did notice, however, that there was no rustling in her neighbor Kim Lee’s cubicle. She looked down at her perfectly wrapped wedding white packages. They were solid testimonies to her skill. She wouldn’t start worrying yet.
“Ladies and gentlemen, the next event is about decorative technique—the craft part of our competition,” Mrs. Valponne said, pausing for emphasis. “This is where our wrapping gladiators get to show off their stuff. This is where the bells and whistles come in and I know,” she stared hard at the contestants as if commanding them to be stunning, “our contestants will give us their all and surprise and delight us.” She allowed for applause.
Chase wanted to roll her eyes really bad but was afraid one of the judges would see. Yankees were also showy, she thought. She could hardly wait to re-create this tableau for Gloria. They’d have a good laugh. Chase looked out at her family. Bud and Gitana waved madly. Stella gave her the thumbs-up sign, which about floored her. Stella using a common gesture was downright weird, but Chase waved back. Jacinda was fingering her rosary beads and muttering. If God was in the vicinity, Jacinda’s prayers couldn’t help but reach him.
“Are you ready? Get set and go,” Mrs. Valponne said.
Chase quickly wrapped the box and then went for what Mrs. Meadowbrook-Parks referred to as the “Crosstown Stick-Up,” which was a combination of ribbon wrapped around the box and bows placed at one corner. Chase decided because of the available surface space remaining on the box to add the “Box Car Bow-Regard,” which was a succession of bows across the diagonal ribbon run. It was simple, yet tastefully interesting. Chase wondered what Kim Lee was up to in her cubicle.
“Time! We will allow the contestants to see each other’s works while the judges make their decisions,” Mrs. Valponne said, excitedly rubbing her hands together.
Chase casually strolled to the end of the lineup so not to appear too eager to see Kim Lee’s work. There was definitely some good stuff, most of it simple, but then three minutes didn’t give one a lot of time to work with the accoutrements. She came to Kim Lee’s package. She had decided on the ambitious three-tiered “Fountain of Fluff,” which was a series of string bows, one on top of the other in succession from large to small. It was good, Chase admitted, although on a ninety-six-inch box it got lost. Chase suspected that given more time the scale would have been much larger.
“Now, the contestants will be seated and the judges will examine the work and determine their totals,” Mrs. Valponne said.
Chase sat and scrutinized the judges—two women and one man. The women looked like judges of a gift-wrapping competition with their well-tailored tasteful paisley dresses—one in crimson and blue and the other in burnt orange and brown. Chase stared. Well, for fuck’s sake, they were identical twins. What were the chances of that? A better consideration would be, how did that affect their judging abilities? They had similar clothes and the same slightly dowdy football helmet hair Sallie Fields had had in Steel Magnolias. Would they be capable of making different decisions?
The man was odd as well. He was dressed like Agatha Christie’s Poirot minus the spats. He was gray at the temples of his combed-over hair. Examining the packages minutely side by side, he looked up, scowled at the contestant and made hash marks on his clipboard. When he came to Chase, he must have run out of scowls. He ran his finger along her creases and the corners of his mouth turned up a little. It could have been a grin. Chase hoped this was a good sign.
The judges finished their markups and resumed their seats. Mrs. Valponne got on the microphone.
“Now, I know how emotional moments like this can be. However, I will tolerate no scenes of tears, cries of disappointment or argumentative statements. We are professionals here and I expect decorum. Is that understood?” She whirled on the audience. “That goes for you too,” she pointed a finger at them. There was a visible drawing back of the crowd.
Damn, this woman was really a bitch. Chase knew she wouldn’t cry, but she felt like stepping on Mrs. Valponne’s toes for being such a mean person.
“I will read the names of the two final contestants. They will remain onstage until the others have left and then will be granted a half-hour break before the final competition begins.
There was absolute silence in the room as Mrs. Valponne opened the envelope one of the twin ladies handed her. “And the two finalists will be…” Mrs. Valponne made a big show of pulling the piece of paper out. “Kim Lee and…Chase Banter.”
The audience erupted in applause. Chase looked out to find her people and she saw with her
own eyes, she wouldn’t have believed it otherwise, her mother jumping up and down. Stella was jumping up and down like a contestant on The Price is Right. “Holy fucking shit,” Chase said.
“I knew you could do it!” Mrs. Meadowbrook-Parks said as she squeezed Chase around the shoulders and ushered her back to the green room where everyone was waiting. They all clapped when she came in.
“Mija, I lit a candle for you,” Jacinda said.
“Thank you, Jacinda,” Chase said, giving her a hug.
“I could not find a Patron Saint for gift wrapping, but Saint Nicholas was blessed in gift giving, si?”
“Exactly.”
Stella patted her shoulder. “I thought you would cave. You surprised me,” she said, with evident pride.
“It’s the new me,” Chase replied.
Gitana hugged her and so did Bud. “I made a video on my phone for Addison. She was really disappointed she couldn’t come, but her debate team was scheduled for an out-of-town meet. They wouldn’t let me film,” Bud said, cocking her head in the direction of Mrs. Valponne.
“Commie bastards,” Chase said. “But they let you use your phone?”
Bud smiled. “Not exactly. Cameras and phones were also forbidden.”
“Then how?”
Bud pulled out a teddy bear. “I had to belittle myself and pretend to be a toddler. I modified the bear so that his eyeball is really a camera lens. I wish I could have fit the movie camera, but I didn’t want to draw attention to myself.”
“Something about rights to reproduce,” Stella said and rolled her eyes.
Dr. Robicheck smiled at her sardonically—another facial gesture not covered by the Asberger cards. She was leaning back in a chair with her legs crossed and looking a bit like the Cheshire cat, Chase thought.
“What?” Chase said.
“Impressive. You’ve learned to be a competitor who has conquered performance anxiety because you want to win.” She looked at Chase as if to say, “My work here is done.”
“I still think I’m a work in progress,” Chase said, getting antsy at the prospect of losing her therapist.
“Oh, you shouldn’t worry. I’ve got a lot of work to do at the Institute. In fact, I will be having office hours on site for a while. Lacey has it all set up.”
“Do I get a referral fee?” Chase asked.
Dr. Robicheck chuckled. A chuckling therapist seemed as incongruous as her mother giving her the thumbs-up sign and jumping around. Would wonders never cease? She blanched—another cliché. She had to deprogram herself when she finished her mystery novel. In the future, she would consider her characters’ proclivities with care, lest they prove contagious and affect their creator. She wondered if the cliché monster wasn’t some kind of voodoo placed on her by Divine Vulva—that seemed right up her alley. Oh, my god, Chase thought. There it is again.
“Chase?” Gitana said, breaking in. “Do you want a bottle of water or some Gatorade?”
“Sure,” Chase said, still feeling rattled.
Dr. Robicheck and Mrs. Meadowbrook-Parks glanced at each other, worried. Chase caught it. “I’m fine. I didn’t come this far to crumple at the end. Kim Lee is going to get her money’s worth, don’t you worry.” She ignored the cliché monster. Clichés could be construed as verbal sign language—a quick way to get your point across. Besides, it seemed Divine Vulva and Commercial Endeavor had forsaken her. She could cliché all she wanted. She took the bottle of Gatorade and the bottle of water from Gitana.
“You didn’t specify so I decided some of each would be best in order to keep your electrolytes balanced,” Gitana said.
Damn, they were all starting to sound like Bud, Chase thought. She gulped half of each bottle.
“Let’s do a final manifestation. With the power of our combined energy, we manifest what it will look like when Chase wins,” Dr. Robicheck said.
“This is like a prayer circle—very powerful,” Jacinda said. “There is this woman at church, Veronica de Santos, who writes in the prayer book what she thinks people need most, and she prays over it and the help she prays for always comes, always except for the Cadillac. She prays one day Oprah will bring it.”
Chase wondered if this wasn’t more voodoo shit, but doubting the power of the Universe right now was not a good idea. She closed her eyes and gripped Gitana’s and Bud’s hands.
“I want you to envision the stage, the wrapping paper, the audience—set the scene in your mind,” Dr. Robicheck said.
Chase did this and then she saw the pony and the Eiffel Tower. She knew what the final competition would be. A better question would be, how had Bud known?
“Now, imagine Chase wrapping her magnum opus and the judges giving her all the points. See the audience clapping,” Dr. Robicheck said.
Chase broke in and questioned Bud, “How did you know about the pony and the Eiffel Tower?”
“It’s a mini horse actually,” Bud said.
The group opened their collective eyes and stared at Chase and Bud.
“What are you talking about?” Gitana said.
“Or you can pick the Smart Car wrapped in the Statue of Liberty, seeing as you won the coin toss. Personally, I’d go for the mini horse since you know how to wrap a dog, which has a skeletal system similar to a horse, including the tail aspect,” Bud said.
“How do you know that?” Mrs. Meadowbrook-Parks said.
“It’s on the website. Well, not exactly what the final wrapping will be, but I was standing by Kim Lee’s wrapping coach when she asked,” Bud said. “On the website they have archives and the last event is always something inside of something. Last year it was an ATV inside the Taj Mahal. They always pick a landmark.”
“Did you know this?” Chase said.
Mrs. Meadowbrook-Parks didn’t meet her eye. “Chase, I’ve never had anyone who wrapped well enough to compete.”
“Are you telling me we’re both newbies?” Chase said, her voice getting high and squeaky.
“Chase, relax. If anything, this is a good thing. If Mrs. Meadowbrook-Parks had been aware of this, she would have emanated bad vibes, which you are very in tune with,” Dr. Robicheck said.
Chase wondered if having a New Age therapist instead of an old-school Freudian was such a good idea. Of course, a Freudian wouldn’t be as versatile as Dr. Robicheck, and with a Freudian there was always a lot of hair involved—hairy face, hairy neck and most likely hairy knuckles and she’d have to talk about her mother’s hair a lot. Perhaps Dr. Robicheck was a better choice despite the manifestation, vibe and hand-holding things.
“I told you not to practice on the dogs by wrapping them,” Gitana said.
“I don’t think now is a good time for scolding,” Bud said. “Besides, it’ll come in handy.”
“They didn’t mind really,” Chase said.
“We rolled it all up into a ball when we were done, and they played soccer with it,” Bud added.
“This could truly be a boon,” Stella said. She was scrolling madly on her phone.
“What?” Chase asked.
“Wrapping the animal—within reason, of course. We don’t want PETA coming down on us,” Stella said. “It appears from the website that the animal, whether it be puppy, bunny, horse—by the way this is a first for the horse, you might make history—has never been wrapped, only the outside box. If you could manage to wrap the horse…now that would be something,” Stella said, crossing her long legs.
“Oh, and creating the Eiffel Tower out of God-knows-what is just a cakewalk?” Chase said, her voice getting high and squeaky again.
Bud rummaged around in her backpack and pulled out a sketchbook. “I don’t think this is cheating, rather more like advanced planning,” she said as she thumbed through the book until she found what she was looking for.
“What’s that?” Chase said, leaning over her shoulder.
“I’ve done preliminary sketches of most of the landmarks that are possible to use in a wrapping competition—I don’t care
how good you are, no one can create Mount Rushmore in two hours. I designed the pieces using the materials I thought for sure would be available.” She handed the book over to Chase.
Mrs. Meadowbrook-Parks stared at Bud. Stella patted her arm. “Bud is a genius, literally.”
Mrs. Meadowbrook-Parks nodded and then studied the sketchbook with Chase.
“Is this stuff available? Can I do this?” Chase inquired.
“Yes, you can. We’ll collect all the discarded tubes from the wrapping paper and the cardboard boxes which you can break down to provide the inside armature. This really is a good design, Bud. I’m impressed,” Mrs. Meadowbrook-Parks said.
“But where does the horse fit?” Chase said, studying the design.
“Right here,” Bud said, pointing. “On the real Eiffel Tower this would be the elevator shaft. The horse is only about four feet tall.”
“Only four feet tall?” Chase said sardonically.
“The dogs are twenty-two inches tall,” Bud said. “So essentially you’ve already wrapped half a horse.”
“Somehow I don’t find that as comforting as I should,” Chase said.
“I brought the Holy Water,” Jacinda said, pulling the spray bottle from her purse.
Mrs. Meadowbrook-Parks stared at Jacinda. Chase wondered what her retinue looked like to an outsider. A Hispanic woman dressed like a Peruvian, all skirts and colors; a cosmopolitan woman straight out of Town and Country magazine; a genius child; and Gitana, whose only real oddity was loving Chase. Okay, well it didn’t look all that bad, she decided. Oh, and then there was her therapist. Okay, that was weird.
The buzzer rang outside, indicating to the audience and the last two contestants that the games were about to begin again.
“Let’s do it,” Chase said, her arms outstretched. Jacinda doused her with Holy Water and Chase crossed herself.
Bud crossed herself three times. Mrs. Meadowbrook-Parks looked at a loss, like she couldn’t decide on grace or prostration. She sort of genuflected and touched her forehead.
“Well, we best take our seats. Chase, you know what to do,” Stella said.
In the Unlikely Event... Page 23
