The Truth about My Success

by Dyan Sheldon

  Moving like a robot in need of oil, Oona manages to follow Maria into the room. “Actually, it’s Oona.”

  Leone’s smile deepens, so that it could almost be described as shallow. “Actually, it’s Paloma.”

  “Yeah, right, Paloma,” says Oona. “And we did kind of meet.”

  But listening isn’t one of Leone’s greatest skills. Especially not when she’s playing a part, and right now she’s playing the part of a mother driven to despair with worry and concern for her only child, and she’s playing it for all she’s worth.

  “I can’t tell you how grateful we are for your help.” She waves Oona to a seat. “Sit down. Sit down. Maria, maybe our guest would like a drink. Tea? Coffee? Something cold?”

  Oona stays standing. “Thank you, but I—”

  “You’re a lifesaver,” Leone gushes. “Really. A complete lifesaver. What would we have done if you hadn’t agreed to help us out?” A worried mother, and a grateful one, as well. “Naturally, poor, dear Paloma wanted nothing more than to be here to thank you in person, but that just wasn’t possible.” She puts on a brave smile. “I’m sure Jack must have told you how they persecute my little girl.”

  Not in exactly those words. What Jack Silk said was that Paloma’s hounded by the press.

  “Yes, he—”

  “Well of course he did, that’s why you’re here, isn’t it?” If Leone’s smile gets any braver it’ll win a medal. “So the poor child can have a few precious weeks of quiet and peace. A little normality. It’s always been bad, but this last year has been truly horrible.” Tiny points of light glint off Leone’s earrings as she sadly shakes her head. “Truly, truly horrible.” And Leone starts to list the horribleness. The hacked phone. The outrageous lies in the press. The Internet pictures of Paloma crashing into fences and throwing up on sidewalks and posing in her underwear. “Her underwear!” Leone gasps with indignation. “Can you imagine? God knows where the camera was. Attached to some low-flying bird.” Leone holds up her empty cup to catch Maria’s eye.

  “I heard all about it,” says Oona. Including the incidents Leone hasn’t mentioned; the YouTube video of Paloma throwing a glass of water at the famous talk-show host and the T-shirt in a teacup. 989,447,821 and 653,253,010 hits respectively, and still counting. “Jack—”

  “But I’m sure no matter how sympathetic you are, and, obviously, you are sympathetic…”

  Oona couldn’t care less.

  “… you can’t really imagine how she’s suffered through it all,” insists Leone. “It’s one of those things that you have to experience yourself.”

  And it looks like I’m going to have my chance, thinks Oona.

  Satisfied that Maria knows she needs a refill, Leone sets her cup back in its saucer. “It’s no exaggeration to say that my poor baby knows what it’s like to be crucified. Not with nails, of course,” she explains, mistaking the look on Oona’s face for dimness. “They crucify her with words. If the child so much as jaywalks they carry on like she robbed a bank. If she trips they say that she’s staggering drunk.” Leone sighs as the Earth would sigh if only it could. “Trust me, it’s not all glitter and gold up here, sweetie, no matter what people in your world think. There’s a very heavy price to pay for celebrity.”

  “‘Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown’,” murmurs Oona.

  “Tell me about it,” says Leone. “You don’t know the half of it. If they got one tiny whiff of this—this arrangement, they’ll be on her like a mob of vultures on a fresh corpse and they won’t leave so much as a bone or a tuft of hair behind.”

  “I know.” Maria bustles past Oona with the coffee pot. “Jack ex—”

  “What is that?” Leone’s eyes have finally noticed something close to the ground. “Is that a dog?”

  “Her name’s Harriet,” says Oona.

  Leone’s smile could only be more watery if she were a lake. “But what is she doing here?”

  She’s collecting for the ASPCA, what do you think she’s doing?

  “She’s going to live here,” says Oona. “With me.”

  Leone sighs. “I don’t remember anyone mentioning a dog.”

  Careful not to spill a drop, Maria finishes filling Leone’s cup. Maria has always felt sorry for Paloma, but not as sorry as she’s feeling for Oona at the moment. “Mister Jack said it is all right,” says Maria. “She is part of the deal.”

  “Did he?” This is less a question than an accusation. “Well, then I guess we have a dog,” she says as someone might say, Well I guess we have to hang off that bridge for an hour or two. Leone picks up her cup. “Maria will get you settled today, and then tomorrow we’ll get to work on you. Maria will take you to see to the basics right after breakfast. Hair… eyes… nails… height—”

  “I know. Jack—”

  “I’d do it myself, naturally, but I think it’s important that you and I aren’t seen together until you’re complete.”

  Oona keeps her expression impassive. And how will we know? she wonders. Will a bell ring?

  “We don’t want to rouse any suspicions,” Leone glides on. “Believe me, honey, the only people who can keep a secret in this town are dead. And I wouldn’t even trust them.”

  Jack Silk put it slightly differently. Jack Silk said you’re safer in the jungle with a herd of lame and bleeding baby goats than in Hollywood with a secret.

  “I know,” says Oona. “Jack—”

  “Of course, I’m sure dear Jack has explained everything to you. He’s very thorough. It’s what makes him such a good agent.” That and his moral flexibility. “But we have a lot more to do than just cosmetics.” She pulls her bottom lip in, really looking at Oona for the first time, giving the impression that she can see through clothes if not actual walls. “We’re going to have our hands full here.”

  Oona wraps her arms around herself for protection from the X-ray eyes. “I know. The voice and—”

  “Oh, much more than that. Look at the way you stand. Like someone who’s always been in the audience. And then there’s the way you walk. It’s all wrong. Paloma is very graceful and poised. You have to move like you’re on a catwalk, not like you’re trampling frogs in a field.”

  “Right, Mrs—”

  “Mother,” Leone corrects her. “Right, Mother.”

  Oona pries a smile onto her face. “I know I have to call you that when we’re in public, but I don’t see why I have to call you Mother when we’re alone.”

  “Then call me Mom,” says Leone. “Either will do.”

  “But I don’t see what difference it makes if there’s nobody around.” She wants to call Leone “Mother” as seldom as possible. “It doesn’t make any sense.”

  “Practice, darling,” coos Leone. “If you don’t do it all the time you might forget when it really counts.” Her smile could freeze lead. “This project of ours is as tricky as defusing a bomb. We can’t afford any mistakes. Can we?”

  “Of course not, Mother,” says Oona. “And I’ll try not to walk like I’m squashing amphibians.”

  “That’s better.” Leone glances at her watch. “God give me strength, will you look at the time?” She picks up her phone and pushes back her chair. “I’m going to have to shake a couple of legs.” She gets to her feet. “You make yourself at home.” The foyer of Paradise Lodge is nearly as big as their whole apartment at El Paraíso. If Oona’s going to make herself at home she should probably have stayed on the stoop. “And, Maria, make sure Oo— make sure Paloma has everything she needs.”

  “Of course, Mrs Minnick.”

  “And you, Paloma darling, you make sure you rest up today, because you’ll need all your strength from now on.” With which advice she leaves the room like a robber leaving a bank.

  Oona and Maria both watch her walk sharply down the drive, her car keys in one hand and her gold phone in the other.

  “Is she always like that?” asks Oona.

  “Más o menos,” says Maria.

  Oona sighs. “That’s
what I thought.”

  In elementary school, Oona’s class went to a museum that was once the home of a railroad baron. The railroad baron had had a very large family – twelve children, several unmarried sisters, an assortment of parents, grandparents, uncles and aunts belonging to him and his wife – and over a dozen live-in servants. Besides that, like many fantastically wealthy men, he liked to show off the fact that he had so much money he could have flushed half of it down the toilet and still have far more than most people earn in a lifetime. The railroad baron’s home was enormous. There was nothing you could ever think of doing that didn’t have its own room. Even some of the rooms had rooms. Which makes Paradise Lodge the second biggest house Oona has ever been in, and it isn’t a museum – it’s home to a family of three and their housekeeper. They didn’t even have a dog until now. She may never be able to find her way around without a map.

  Oona and Harriet follow Maria from room to room, all of which look like the pictures in the interior decorating magazines Oona used to flick through in the hospital when she was waiting for her mother – everything colour-coordinated and the furniture all in the same style. Most of the rooms look like they are seldom, if ever, used.

  At last they come to Paloma’s room; to Oona’s.

  “Does everything match in here, too?” asks Oona.

  “In a way,” says Maria, and she opens the door.

  Unlike Oona’s room at El Paraíso, which is behind the kitchen and overlooks a patch of rubble and a major road, Paloma’s is on the second floor, at the back of the house, and overlooks the garden and the pool. Also unlike Oona’s room, which has just enough space for her bed, her desk, a folding chair and a wastebasket, Paloma’s is larger than the average living room, has its own balcony and bathroom, and takes up half a floor.

  Another dissimilarity between Oona’s room and Paloma’s is that Oona’s is kept extremely neat, and Paloma’s defines the concept of chaos in a way that no words ever could. There are things everywhere. Not just clothes, but magazines, bags, shoes, bottles, jars, stuffed toys, empty boxes and wrappers, used plates and glasses, half-eaten food, and a store’s worth of gadgets. There isn’t a clear inch of space anywhere on the floor.

  “This is the way Miss Paloma likes it,” says Maria. Maria hasn’t touched this room since Paloma accused her of stealing a pair of sapphire earrings, which were eventually found under half a doughnut and a bra. “I would have cleaned for you, but Mr Jack say to leave it so you understand more Miss Paloma.”

  There are limits to how far Oona is willing to go to understand Paloma, and not being able to see the carpet is one of them. It is early evening before the bedroom is finally in order. Jack Silk has called several times to see how things are going. Neither Mrs nor Mr Minnick is back yet. Maria goes to the kitchen to start fixing supper while Oona takes Harriet for a walk around their new neighbourhood. “Watch out for coyotes,” warns Maria. “They like to eat little dogs.”

  Oona talks to her father while they walk. She tells him about the house and Paloma’s room and Maria and Mrs Minnick’s gold phone (“like whoever she calls is going to know it’s not plastic like everybody else’s”), but doesn’t mention coyotes. He’s worried that the house may be too cold. Too much air conditioning isn’t good for you. And what about the food? Are they feeding her enough? And the Minnicks? What are they like? Oona says she hasn’t met Mr Minnick yet.

  “So you’re settling in OK there,” says Abbot.

  Oona says she’s fine. “And how about you, Dad? You all right?”

  Abbot says that he’s fine, too.

  They’re both lying.

  When the Minnicks still haven’t returned by eight, Oona, Maria and Harriet eat supper on the terrace.

  “This is all pretty weird, isn’t it?” asks Oona as the night slowly gathers around them. “You know, me pretending to be Paloma Rose.”

  Maria has survived so long with the Minnicks because she sees nothing, hears nothing, thinks nothing and says nothing. But now she nods. “Yes,” she agrees. “It is very weird.”

  “I don’t think I’ll ever get used to having somebody else’s name,” says Oona.

  “You will,” says Maria. She did. “I don’t think that’s your biggest problem.”

  “You think I’m not going to be able to do it, right? You think I’ll break my neck trying to walk in heels or something.”

  This, in fact, is not what Maria thinks. It’s her opinion that Oona’s biggest problem is called Leone Minnick. “No, it’s not that.” She shrugs noncommittally. “I think there are things here that are more difficult than shoes.”

  They clean up the dishes, and then watch the first of what will be far too many episodes of Angel in the House, Maria explaining who everyone in the cast is but not mentioning how they all dislike Paloma and how she dislikes them. At eleven, it having been a long day for everyone, Harriet takes a last run in the back yard, and then Oona helps Maria lock up the house for the night. The Minnicks have not yet returned.

  We all know how hard it can be to fall asleep in a strange place. You toss and turn, and turn and toss. The pillows aren’t right, the mattress isn’t right, the night sounds are all wrong. This is especially true, of course, if you’re taking over someone else’s life. Or you’re homesick. Or you think that you’ve made an atomic-bomb kind of mistake. Or you’re worried about your father. Or because every time you close your eyes you see your dead mother’s face. Mom… Mom… Mom… Because as much as Oona misses her father tonight – the sight of him anchored in front of the TV, fearful and unhappy, the one certain thing in an uncertain world – she misses her mother more. Oona can see her so clearly she can smell her, feel her hair against her cheek as she tucks her into bed. She was nothing like Leone Minnick.

  To keep away the anxiety monsters that come out in the night, Oona sits in the dark, watching another episode of Angel in the House on Paloma’s iPad with the headset on, Harriet snoring gently beside her. She is so completely absorbed – not in the show but in watching Paloma and trying to commit her to memory – that it isn’t until the credits start to roll that she looks up from the screen. A face is pressed against the window that leads onto the balcony.

  Oona screams and jumps up, brandishing the iPad like a weapon. Her sudden movement wakes Harriet, who sees the face immediately, and, barking as ferociously as a German shepherd, launches herself at the window. Oona’s scream summons Maria, who comes charging down from the top floor, a revolver in one hand. Oona’s sudden movement and scream so surprises the intruder that he throws himself off the balcony.

  When Maria bursts into the room, Harriet is still barking and Oona is standing by the foot of the bed, holding the iPad shield-like against her. “There was someone there,” says Oona, pointing. “I think he jumped.”

  Perhaps because this kind of thing has happened before, Maria marches calmly over to the window, and peers out.

  “Stay here,” she orders. “I’ll be right back.”

  She’s gone only a few minutes – just long enough to turn off the alarm system – and when she returns she snaps on the track of spotlights that spans the ceiling and goes back to the window and opens it wide. “He didn’t jump,” she says as she reaches out and starts heaving a body over the sill. “He passed out.”

  Oona and Harriet stand beside Maria, looking down at the man on the floor. He looks as if he was once handsome, before he put on a little too much weight and lost a little too much hair and drank a little too much gin. His once-white suit is stained with quite a variety of things, his chartreuse silk tie is tied around his head and he isn’t wearing shoes.

  “Should we call the cops?” asks Oona.

  “No, no, no police. He must have lost his keys again.”

  Oona looks at her, almost afraid to ask the next question. “You know who that is?”

  “Si.” Maria nods. “That is Mr Minnick.”

  Daddy.

  Meanwhile, far from the glitz and glamour of Hollywood, Paloma Ros
e also considers the possibility that she has made a mistake

  It was Jack Silk’s idea that Paloma travel incognito.

  “In what?” asked Paloma. “Is that some kind of plane?”

  “No, no, sweetheart.” Barely touching her, he gave her a quick hug. And explained that incognito meant in disguise. So no one would be able to trace where she went. So she can have the stress-free, press-free vacation she so deserves. “It’s bad enough they seem to be camped outside your door right now. We don’t want those newspaper vultures finding you, do we?” laughed Jack. “Frighten the horses.”

  Leone dyed Paloma’s hair back to its natural colour – a shade of brown usually associated with small rodents. Jack took away the contacts that make her eyes that remarkable shade of blue so that they are now a colour associated with the sky over a large city. Normally, of course, Paloma would dress up to get the mail out of the box at the bottom of the driveway (should some unforeseen catastrophe happen that forced her to do that), but Jack persuaded her to wear ordinary jeans, an ordinary T-shirt, ordinary sandals, drugstore sunglasses, a generic handbag and an imitation Panama hat (all of them, like her new luggage, bought by him in a popular chain store) so that she looks like every other ordinary kid in the country. He swapped her phone for a lesser, pay-as-you-go model so that if it falls into the wrong hands no one will know that it’s hers. He booked her an economy fare ticket under her real name, Susan Minnick. He had her ride in the trunk until they were safely past the photographers and reporters waiting outside the driveway like a pack of hunting wolves waiting for a stray sheep to wander into view. It isn’t until she is checking in that Paloma realizes she somehow left her iPad behind. “You can buy a new one when you get there,” says Jack. “I told you, they’ll have everything you could possibly want or need.”

  And so it is that Paloma, looking like an extremely ordinary teenager going on vacation, sits towards the rear of the plane, sandwiched between a middle-aged woman with dry skin and the dress sense of a leopard and a sweaty young man with terminal dandruff and large pores. Paloma has never flown anything but First Class before, and within five minutes knows that she never plans to travel anything but First Class again. Why would anyone choose not to? The seats in Economy are so cramped and narrow it’s like sitting in a box. Except that, if she were sitting in a box, she wouldn’t touch her fellow travellers every time she breathes, or feel the person in front of her pressed against her knees.