The Truth about My Success

by Dyan Sheldon

  Ethan is waiting for her when she gets back to the trail. The first thing he asks is if she’s all right. The second is, “So what is it?”

  “It’s a dead wolf.” Paloma gives him an embarrassed and wary smile. “Am I in trouble?”

  “You should’ve come and got me. For everybody’s safety. That’s the rules.” He smiles back. “But heck, Susie. You followed your instincts. You thought somebody might need help. It’s probably what I would’ve done.” He claps a hand on her shoulder. “Don’t tell the others, but I’m kind of proud of you.”

  “Thank you,” says Paloma.

  And for some reason actually means it.

  That night they cook on the campfire and sing songs and tell stories, just like in the TV shows – though not, of course, any Paloma’s been in. When she gets into her sleeping bag, since there’s nothing else to look at, Paloma stares up at the sky. Which is another thing she’s never done before. As she falls asleep, the thought runs through her mind that Ethan Lovejoy is wrong: there are a lot more than ten million stars.

  A man may work from sun to sun, but a princess’s work is never done

  Even nineteenth-century factory workers occasionally got a day off, but as far as Oona can tell, the iconic TV star gets considerably less down time. Someone else does Paloma Rose’s Twitter and blog, but aside from those two things (which, really, you could do lying on the couch while eating a bag of tortilla chips) everything else falls to Oona. Interviews – whether they’re online, down the phone or over a latte in a trendy café – store openings, mall visits, charity events, appearances at homeless shelters, hospitals, hospices and nursing homes (Faith Cross is extremely popular with people who are down on their luck or waiting to die). It really is like being a princess, only without the tiara and with the good news that, so far, Oona hasn’t had to christen any boats.

  These days are always a strain. Last week, after visiting a nursing home, a hospital, and a youth shelter, Leone got on her case as soon as they were on their way home.

  “I don’t believe you did that,” she fumed. “Who told you to have an opinion about health care or education or job schemes or anything else? Who are you, Angelina Jolie?”

  Asked to say a few words at the nursing home, Oona picked the few words that concerned a better service available to everyone. Asked to say a few words at the hospital she chose “no one should have to die because they can’t afford the medical bills”. Asked to say a few words at the youth centre she used the phrase “those who have, get”.

  “I thought that’s what they wanted, my opinion,” argued Oona. “That’s what they asked for.”

  “Well, it wasn’t what they wanted. All they wanted was for you to say how damn happy you were to be there.” Leone said that Oona’s problem is that she takes it all too seriously. “Doing this kind of thing is just part of the job,” said Leone. “Garbage men collect garbage. Doctors give you pills. You entertain people, whether you’re on TV or in a video or doing a public appearance. You go in, you smile, you have your picture taken – and that’s it. You’re not the Ambassador from the Land of Hope. You’re like Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny.” Minus the sack of toys and the basket of eggs, of course. “You cheer them up for a few minutes, and then everything goes back the way it is. There’s nothing you can do to change their lives.”

  But Oona doesn’t think it’s fair that some people – people like Paloma Rose – should have so much and other people so little.

  “Fair, schmair,” said Leone. “You’re idealistic. And I guess that’s a nice thing. You’re a kid. You don’t get how things work.” No matter how many times she has tried to tell her. “But let’s face it, sweetie. Fair is a skin tone or part of the weather report. It doesn’t mean bupkis out in the real world.” In the real world, according to Leone, some people have really good lives for whatever reason – birth or talent or luck – and most people don’t. And, just as the peasants of old wanted to touch the hem of the king’s robe or watch the royal procession go by because it made them feel better about their own miserable lives, ordinary people today like to shake the hand of a celebrity or watch her walk up a red carpet in five-thousand-dollar shoes. “Your job is to be beautiful and glamorous, not lead the revolution.”

  “You wouldn’t say that if you were most people,” snapped Oona.

  “But I’m not,” Leone snapped back.

  She’s been watching Oona as if she’s a suspicious package left at an airport ever since.

  When they come out of St Eugenia’s Hospice today, a troop of staff and residents already outside to wave them goodbye, the limousine is waiting to take them to lunch.

  “I really don’t know why you brought that creature with you,” says Leone as she climbs in last and shuts the door. “She smells like a dog.”

  “She is a dog.” Oona sits next to the window, the offending creature on her lap. “And her name’s Harriet.” This is one of the things she never gets tired of saying, and Leone never tires of not knowing. “And you know why I brought her.” Oona’s schedule has been so hectic over the last few days that she overslept, so there was no time to give Harriet her long morning walk. “Besides, it’s Maria’s day off. Harriet doesn’t like being alone all day.”

  Behind her gold-rimmed sunglasses, Leone rolls her eyes. “And when did she tell you that? When the two of you were having one of your philosophical conversations?”

  “You don’t have to be able to talk to communicate,” says Oona. “Some people talk all the time and don’t communicate at all.”

  Leone clicks her seatbelt in place. “Maria could’ve taken her.”

  “I’d rather have her with me.” Oona makes what Leone calls her knock-that-chip-off-my-shoulder face – head up, chin out, mouth like a knot. “Anyway, everybody likes her. She’s an asset.”

  The only good thing Leone has to say about Harriet is that at least she’s not one of those bug-eyed chihuahuas, so “asset” isn’t how Leone thinks of her. But she occupies herself with checking the time and says nothing, mainly because there is nothing to say. Except for her, everybody does like Harriet. This is not the first time Oona’s insisted on including her in their little entourage, and she’s always treated like she’s the star. Oona’s actually brought Harriet to the studio a couple of times as well, and even Audrey Hepplewhite volunteered to take her for a walk. Never has so much of a fuss been made over an animal that looks like an experiment that went wrong. St Eugenia’s was their third stop today, and at all three everyone was all over the mutt – getting her water, sneaking her treats, begging to hold her, asking for stories about her, as if Paloma Rose is taking time from her incredibly busy schedule to talk about her dog. No one has so much as offered Leone a cup of coffee all day.

  “You’re supposed to be promoting Paloma Rose and the show, not animal welfare.”

  “That’s what I’m doing. Mother.” The smile Oona gives her makes sugar seem sour. “Most people think you’re a much nicer person if you like animals.”

  Leone isn’t going to win this argument, and she knows it. There’s been much more interest in Paloma Rose since she started showing up with Harriet – interest and goodwill. Over the past year or so, Paloma Rose managed to create just the opposite. Her public appearances had been dwindling to the point where if they were a river you could barely float a leaf in it. This was partly because Paloma was often late, absent, in a bad mood, or arguing with her mother – which tends to put people off – and partly because, when she did show up smiling, she wouldn’t know where she was, or she’d get names wrong, or yawn when someone was saying how happy they all were that she’d come, giving the impression that she’d rather be somewhere else. But now Paloma Rose is in demand, and Harriet can take some of the credit for that. So, although as Leone understood the deal it didn’t include making Paloma a much nicer person, she doesn’t have the legs of a coin to stand on when it comes to the benefits of liking animals. Leone, however, is a very resourceful woman whose ability to cr
iticize is apparently limitless. She finds one thing. “I believe Hitler was very fond of dogs,” says Leone.

  “Only if they were Aryan,” says Oona.

  They have lunch at a restaurant so far away from the tourists and the glitter and glamour of Hollywood that they might as well be in the Ozarks. Asked for a place where Paloma could eat in privacy and peace, the driver recommended it. It is, in fact, less a restaurant than a parking lot overlooking the ocean, crammed with tables and catered to by three vintage airstreams selling, respectively, Mexican, Greek and Thai food. It’s packed.

  “Remind me not to ask him to recommend a hotel,” says Leone as they take their seats at a cheap plastic table.

  Oona thinks it’s cool. She grins happily. “And the best part is we don’t have to leave Harriet in the car.”

  “It’s the answer to my prayers,” says Leone. This, of course, is far from true. At this particular moment, the answer to Leone’s prayers would be for the day to be over, and for her to be relaxing in a real restaurant (with a real roof over it, real air conditioning, real plates and tablecloths, real waiters, a strict dress code and a no-dogs except seeing-eye dogs rule), far, far away from Oona Ginness and her mongrel. But they have one more visit this afternoon before that can happen. “Now if I could just find the Fountain of Youth my life would be complete.”

  Much to Leone’s surprise, however, the food isn’t bad, and, although the other diners aren’t people with whom she’d want to have her picture taken, no one looks twice at them. They’re all too busy eating and talking. Leone sends emails and texts while she picks at her lunch, and Oona takes off her sunglasses and her hat, and sits back and enjoys being able to gaze at the ocean without anyone looking or pointing at her.

  It isn’t until she’s finished her lunch and decides to give Harriet a run along the beach before they get back in the car that Oona realizes that Harriet isn’t sleeping in the shade of the table any more. She stands up, scanning the tables, and the parking lot, and the shorefront, but there isn’t any sign of her. Oona gets down on her knees.

  Leone is so engrossed in the email she’s writing that she doesn’t notice; or, if she notices, she doesn’t bother to remind Oona how much the clothes she’s wearing cost, or to tell her that only drunks and vagrants crawl on the ground, or to list the many diseases she’s liable to catch.

  If Oona ever wondered what a dog sees most of the time, the answer is: legs. From her position half under the table, that’s all Oona sees for yards and yards. Legs and more legs. It must make things pretty confusing for them; it could explain why so many dogs like to chew shoes. She peers through the legs, like a fish peering through a forest of reeds. And suddenly sees that familiar furry face and floppy ears, not half a dozen tables away. “Harriet!” she calls. “Harriet! Come here!”

  Harriet waggles in place, but doesn’t come. Oona crawls forwards. Now she can see why Harriet stays where she is; she’s tied to the table leg by a short rope.

  There’s a flash, and then another. Oona’s not looking at legs any more; she’s looking into the lens of a camera.

  “Thanks, sweetheart! That’s great!”

  And now she’s looking at a face that isn’t as familiar as Harriet’s, but isn’t unknown to her either. She’s seen it on the street. Outside the studio. Looking in at her when she and Leone and Jack are out for dinner. Pressed against the window of a boutique or store. Sitting behind the wheel of a compact grey car that looks like thousands of others – but isn’t. It’s the car that follows her. And there, with the grin of a man who just won the lottery, is the man who drives that car. His name, though Oona doesn’t know this yet, is Ludlow Spantini.

  Oona is on her feet as quickly as he is, but he has his back to her as he squeezes his way between tables and chairs and is unaware that she’s coming after him. She stops only long enough to untie poor Harriet and scoop her up into her arms.

  Because there are so many tables and so many people sitting at them, and because Mr Spantini isn’t expecting to be followed by an irate teen TV star and her dog, he moves slowly, still smiling to himself and thinking about captions: Fallen Angel… So Far from Heaven… Paradise Lost…

  But suddenly there she is, blocking his way. Avenging Angel. He automatically puts his camera behind his back.

  “Don’t worry, I’m not going to touch your stupid camera.” Oona has learned a lot about enunciation and projection since she moved in with the Minnicks. Her voice is loud and clear and certain. The way God might sound if He were a teenage American girl. “I just want to talk to you.”

  “Honey…” Ludlow Spantini is still smiling. “I really don’t have ti—”

  “Oh yes you do. Time is something you do have. You sure as sunrise have enough to follow me around like you’re some kind of spy. I see you every day. Everywhere I go.”

  He takes a step forward, but she moves no more than a brick wall would. “Look, honey, I think you—”

  “No you don’t think. That’s one of your big problems. You just go around doing what you want without any kind of thought in your head, unless it’s how much money you think you’re going to make.”

  Mr Spantini holds up his hands as if calming a restless crowd. “If you don’t mind—”

  “I do mind.” Oona seems to be getting taller by the second. “I mind very much. I told you I want to talk to you, and I meant it. You’re so totally fascinated with me, I’d think you’d be happy to talk to me. I’ve seen you standing around with your camera when all I was doing was buying a bottle of water. A bottle of water! How fascinated must you be by me? Well I’m pretty fascinated by you, too. Because I don’t get you. I can’t figure out what kind of life you have, tailing people who are just going about their business. Trying to catch them doing something stupid or embarrassing or – better yet – something that could ruin their lives.”

  Mr Spantini now tries to move backwards, but there seems to be someone blocking that way, too. “I really have to get going.”

  “Now? You attach yourself to me like you’re a tick and now, when you can actually talk to me face to face, you want to leave? You’re hurting my feelings Mr— I’m sorry, what’d you say your name is?”

  There’s no way he can go left or right, either. “Look, honey, I—”

  “Stop calling me honey.”

  “Look, Pa—”

  “You know what I really wonder about, Mr Lots-of-Nerve-but-Nameless? I wonder if when you were a little kid, you used to lie in your bed at night dreaming of being a sleazy star-snapper when you grew up. Did you think, wow, wouldn’t it be cool to hound and harass people? Maybe even destroy their careers or break up their families? And how totally phenomenally great would it be to torment and terrify an innocent little dog just to make somebody look like a fool?”

  At the mention of her, Harriet, who could probably have her own film career, whimpers gently and looks very sad. The air around them almost sighs.

  Ludlow Spantini is aware, in a vague but uneasy way, that no one around them is eating or talking or even bent over their phones any more. They’re all listening to Oona. This is not the way his day was supposed to go. He shifts both his eyes and his body, looking for a way out. “I didn’t hurt—”

  “Do you know what I did this morning?” Oona laughs. “But of course you know! You’ve been tracking me since I left my house. So you know that I went to a homeless shelter, and a hospital, and a hospice this morning. And I met some really great people. Decent people who don’t just want to take from the world, but want to give, too. People who are trying to help other people because they don’t just care about themselves. They work really hard, and they see a lot of suffering and unhappiness. The ones who get paid don’t make much, but a lot of them are volunteers. And then there are the people who’ve had some bad luck or made some bad choices, but they want to make their lives better. That’s how I spent my morning. And what do you do? You demean the art of photography, that’s what you do. And you don’t do much for being
human, either. You make something happen just to get a picture. You have no principles and you have no shame.”

  There are a few seconds of silence when Oona finishes. And then the crowd starts to clap. If Oona were on the stage and not at an outdoor eatery it would be a standing ovation.

  Just when things are going so well…

  People used to rely on their calendars. Calendars that would sit on the desk or hang on the wall or the back of the door to the kitchen with messages scrawled in the boxes of the days: Joylene’s party… Shopping with Annie… Pizza night… Dentist 3.45. Now most of us rely on our phones and computers to remind us when we have a card to send or something to do. But not, of course, at Old Ways. Because the ranch insists on living in the labour-intensive past, when the residents’ phones and computers are taken from them they’re given a calendar to replace them. The calendar has been specially made, each month decorated with an appropriate picture of the ranch at that time of year (next year’s will feature the work of Raul Riley). The ranch in summer. The ranch in autumn. The ranch at night. Teenagers smiling from the back of a pick-up. Teenagers with horses. Teenagers with cows. The barns under fountains of fireworks. Two girls leaning against a wooden fence holding chickens. A Christmas tree in the common room. A posse of kids sitting around a campfire with big grins on their faces as if they’d all been born under a clump of sagebrush.

  Since things like the birthdays of aunts and visits to the dentist don’t really impinge on ranch life, most of the residents use these calendars to keep track of their chore schedules (Tuesday, kitchen duty; Wednesday, mop hall), therapy sessions (Monday, private; Friday, group), and special occasions (Saturday, camping; Sunday, barbecue). Since Paloma didn’t think of herself as a resident but as an inmate, she also used hers to tick off the days like a prisoner scratching off the days of her sentence on the wall. Every evening when she put another X through another box she’d think: Another day down, not long now…