Highlight: Student, age 5, remarks to Minister, “You smell.”
Result of Highlight: Minister grabs handbag and applies even more expensive cologne in staff washroom.
Lowlight: Whale child cited previously rediscovers arms and legs, snatches Ministerial handbag from chair beside Libby, and runs off with it. Lib pursues. Ruckus is sufficient to provoke Minister to whisper savagely, “Lily, I would appreciate your attention during my remarks. You need to set an example for the students.” Libby glares menacingly at purse-snatcher at snack time, noting nonetheless that Margo stashes two butter tarts in briefcase.
4:00 p.m.: Departure to Town Hall for glad-handing of boring local politicians. MPP, age 70, holds Lib’s hand too gladly and too long. Margo, generally so quick to interrupt, is nowhere to be seen.
6:00 p.m.: Arrival at Lakeside Inn, located not by a lake but a major highway. Margo promptly disappears. Lib skulks to Laurie’s room to make plans for dinner.
6:20 p.m.: Margo arrives at Laurie’s door, shifty-eyed with paranoia. Could Lib and Laurie be plotting mutiny? Lib blurts out that she is simply borrowing curling iron from Laurie, who promptly produces one. Returns to room to add fake ringlets to hair under Margo’s watchful eye.
6:30 p.m.: Margo decides that the Minister needs contact lens solution and sends Lib to town to buy it. Lib picks up submarine sandwich en route, dazzling “sandwich technicians” with curls.
9:00 p.m.: E-mail to Rox, bitching and whining.
10:30 p.m.: To bed, too exhausted to read.
11:00 p.m.: Margo crashes into room, turns on all lights. Consumes butter tarts with snuffling noises. Prepares for bed as loudly as possible.
12:00 a.m.: Lib lies awake listening to Margo snore.
Another day, another town, another school visit. It’s 7:00 p.m., and we’ve just checked into the Downtown Motor Lodge, which (surprise) is a twenty-five-minute drive from downtown anywhere. I feel at home immediately, because the rust, orange and brown decor is reminiscent of my parents’ basement. Having gained a small head start on Margo, I switch on the swag lamp and throw my things on the bed closest to the washroom. I’m stretched proprietarily across it when Margo crashes into the room and I smile innocently in response to her glare. There was a candy machine in the lobby; maybe I’ll curl up with a bag of pretzels and watch mindless sitcoms on TV. That’s about all I feel up to tonight. I hide the remote while Margo unloads her beauty aids in the washroom, then start digging through my wallet for change.
“So, Libby.” Damn. It speaks. “I’ve made some revisions to tomorrow’s speeches. I want you to input the changes and have them printed.”
I look at my watch pointedly before responding. “And where do you propose I do that, Margo? It’s almost 7:30 and we aren’t in the heart of a thriving metropolis.”
“It isn’t my job to help you figure out how to do yours. I’m sure you’ll find a way. I’ll be in Mrs. Cleary’s room if anyone needs me.”
I throw my shoe at the door as she closes it behind her. Okay, I wait a few beats first so she can’t hear the thud, but the act of defiance still makes me feel better. I input her changes, which, in my humble opinion as speechwriter/lady-in-waiting/flunky, were completely unnecessary, and head over to the motel office, computer disk in hand. My faint hope that someone there can help with the printing flickers when I find Dwayne, the night manager, hunched over the front desk crafting a Gents sign with a wood-burning kit. But he surprises me.
“Sure, we have a printer, honey. Come on in.”
At this rate, I may even be able to catch the second half of Will and Grace. My heart sinks when I see the primitive piece of junk they call a printer. I explain politely that my disk is not compatible with their printer and Dwayne directs me to a place in town that can do the job. I collect the keys to the government “limo” from Bill, who’s ensconced in his room with a detective novel and a large pizza. He offers to come along for the ride, but fraternizing with Laurie is what set Margo off in the first place, so I decline.
During the drive, I imagine all the ways I could tell Margo to shove it. If the copy shop is closed when I arrive, I’ll head right back to the motel and compose a snotty resignation letter, I decide. Oh, right, no way to print it. Fortunately, the shop is open and I am soon on the road again, having surmounted another of Margo’s obstacles. Hard not to feel good about that! I perk up even more when the Golden Arches appear on the horizon— I do deserve a break today. And how nice to discover a new talent on my drive back to the motel… Like my father before me, I am able to eat a Big Mac with one hand and steer with the other. Since I’m starting to feel quite good about myself, I chant my affirmations between bites: “I am an accomplished speechwriter. I embrace my challenges with grace. I accept all the blessings the universe offers me.”
Then I wipe my mouth on my sleeve and burp. What the hell?
The extra duties Margo assigns me are obviously part of her scheme to isolate me and break my spirit. She wants me out, of that much I am sure, and if she sees me as a threat she must sense my potential. Well, bring it on, baby. I am not going anywhere because I embrace my challenges with grace.
Full of renewed enthusiasm, I burst into our room, only to find it empty. Well, if these speech revisions are so damned important, I’ll deliver them personally into the Minister’s hands. Maybe I’ll even convince her to rehearse them for a change.
When I knock at the Minister’s door, Margo’s dulcet tones ring out.
“Who is it?”
Ignoring the fact that it’s Margo, I carol out, “It’s me, Minister. I brought your revised speeches for tomorrow!”
“Is that you, Lily? For heaven’s sake, Margo, get up and get the door.”
“No problem, I’ve got it,” I call, pushing the door open and freezing at the sight of Margo on her hands and knees in front of the Minister.
“Well, come in, Lily,” says the Minister. “Don’t be shy.”
Flustered, Margo scrambles to her feet, dropping a bottle of black-cherry red nail polish in a cloud of cotton balls. I’ve interrupted a pedicure. The Minister, quite oblivious to Margo’s dismay, leans back in her chair, smoothing the feather trim of her diaphanous lounge outfit.
“Be careful,” she says as Margo stumbles over a pair of feathered mules. “Do you realize how much those shoes cost? Lily, what was wrong with the speeches?”
“Margo made a few changes and sent me into town to—”
“Some minor but critical edits, Minister,” Margo interrupts smoothly. “Libby was good enough to see they were made.”
“Thank you, Lily. I hope you got dinner?” Mrs. Cleary masterfully hoists a California roll to her mouth with chopsticks.
My jaw drops even further. Is she warming up to me? Or just warming up to the open bottle of wine on the table? And where the hell did they get that fine spread of sushi in this backwoods town?
“I did, yes, thanks.”
“Well, we have enough to spare if you’d like to—”
“Libby can’t stay. She has work back in our room,” Margo says, pushing me out the door.
“This little piggy stills needs polish, Margo,” the Minister says as the door closes behind me.
Speeches still in hand, I head back to our room, retrieve the remote from under the mattress and flick on the television. Only one channel is clear enough to watch and at the moment it’s running Dukes of Hazzard. I turn down the volume and call my answering machine. It would be nice to hear the voices of family and friends just now.
“You have no new messages.”
And the sun sets on another fine day.
Everything looks better in the morning—or so says my mother, the incurable optimist, who has never met Margo. Still, it is going a little better today. First, I was victorious in the shower wars, thanks to my proximity to the bathroom. I raced in the moment I heard her stirring, and then deliberately took twice as long as usual to style my hair. By the time Margo got her turn, Laurie was knocking
on our door to warn us about checkout in ten minutes. Margo chose to spend the ten minutes shovelling scrambled eggs into her mouth and has therefore been running around without makeup, her wet hair drying in pleasing strings. We’re on the plane before she gets a chance to pull her cosmetic bag out of her briefcase.
Mrs. Cleary, who has been idly flipping through a decorating magazine during the flight instead of reading her speech, wrinkles her perfect little nose and exclaims, “Good Lord, what is that smell?”
At first, all I smell is her own cloying perfume, but then I detect an acrid odor. The Minister’s gaze is fixed on Margo, who is shrinking behind a green Clinique hand mirror, as she applies her eye makeup.
“Margo? Answer me, please.”
“I have no idea, Minister,” my roomie replies, looking guilty as she casually snaps the lid of her briefcase closed with her elbow.
“Open it,” the Minister commands.
“My briefcase? Why? There’s nothing in it but notes.”
“Let me see for myself,” says the Minister, more bemused than harsh.
“Why don’t I ask the pilot? It smells like chemicals.”
“Margo, open your briefcase.”
Margo clicks it open reluctantly to reveal a few date squares from Monday’s school visit, half a tuna sandwich of relatively recent origin and an ancient orange, molded almost beyond recognition.
“Eeeew!” the Minister and I exclaim in unison. “Get rid of that immediately,” the Minister adds.
Sheepish, yet defiant, Margo stashes her treasures in the plastic bag I hand her. The Minister turns to me and rolls her eyes dramatically and we both laugh. We are actually having “a moment.” I laugh even harder when I notice that Margo has only applied her makeup to one eye and is looking like a “before and after” picture. Unfortunately, the Minister notices too.
“Fix your makeup, Margo, we’ll be landing soon.”
I must look too happy, because she turns to me and says, “As for you, Lily, your eyebrows are unruly. Margo has her waxing kit with her and I recommend letting her help you with them.”
Margo pauses in the middle of her application of mascara to raise one penciled-in eyebrow at me over the edge of her mirror. How will I sleep tonight?
Today was the lightest day of the tour circuit and we move into Fort Everest’s Have-a-Nap Hotel by 4:30 p.m. I have rest and relaxation on my agenda, but thankfully, Margo is here to rescue me from that.
“What we really need, Libby, is a scrapbook of our trip and this would be a great project for you, since you’re so creative. I want you to get started tonight, while it’s all fresh in your mind.”
And there you have it, folks, the spirit-busting task of the day. I knew she’d punish me somehow for my beautiful moment with the Minister, but this is an inspired move. I lack the “craft” gene and Margo knows it. Time to put my foot down, I decide. Skill with scissors and glue is not required of a speechwriter. I practice the words in my head: “Margo, I’ve worked some long days lately and I really need to take it easy tonight.” But when I open my mouth, waffle-talk trickles out.
“Well, Margo, I’m not sure if I’m the right person for a job like that. I wouldn’t know where to begin.”
Where’s my father’s legacy now? This is the man who once asked his boss, “Would you like me to shove a broom up my ass and sweep as I go?” Wait, he got fired from that job. Which explains why I soon find myself wandering the aisles of a local dollar store, filling my basket with art supplies from Margo’s list.
Back at the Have-a-Nap, I begin pasting photos, speeches and programs into the scrapbook. Running my glue stick across the pages is actually quite soothing and I don’t even mind when Margo pops her head in the door to let me know that she and the Minister are heading into town to see a late movie. Eventually, I become so relaxed that I’m forced to call it a night lest Margo return to find me glued to the table by my own bushy eyebrows.
8
I am sound asleep when Margo comes into the room. In fact, I’m having an amazing dream about Tim in which we’re having dinner together at Lavish, the trendy new restaurant I can’t afford in my waking life.
Tim looks gorgeous; I look thin (dreams take off ten pounds). He’s entranced by my conversation, and no wonder: every word that falls from my lips is a perfect gem. When the waiter brings the dessert menu, Tim orders chocolate mousse and tries to tempt me with it. He’s describing how he’s wanted to rip my clothes off since the night we met. Soon we tumble into a cab, where we grope each other like sex-starved teenagers. Buttons and bras are springing open seemingly of their own accord. Suddenly a cell phone rings—one of those annoying musical rings, like the William Tell overture. Tim lets go of me to lunge for his phone and my head hits the backrest with a thud. Confused, I hear Margo’s voice squawking away in the distance. I can’t make out what she’s saying at first, but her voice gets louder and clearer and I hear my name.
“Libby! Libby, wake up!
The lights are on and my eyes are open but I’m groggy enough to wonder what Margo is doing in the back of our cab. Then she reaches out to shake my shoulder and I remember where I am. Squeezing my eyes shut, I struggle to hang on to the feeling of Tim’s lips on the back of my neck, of his hands in my hair and—
“What are you grinning at?” Margo asks.
“Grinning? I’m not grinning, I’m grimacing because you’re standing over me in the middle of the night for no apparent reason.”
“The Minister is upset! We’re leaving!”
“Leaving?” I glance at the clock on the bedside table. “For God’s sake, Margo, it’s 2:30 in the morning. What’s going on?”
If it were anyone other than Margo, I’d be on my feet already, certain that tragedy had struck. Because it is Margo, I can only guess that the Minister has broken a nail and I am about to be dispatched for an emergency repair kit.
“Never mind, just get Bill to find us another motel right away.” Maybe it’s resentment over being torn from my dream, but I find the nerve to stare back at her without flinching. I will wait for an explanation. “All right,” she yields, “if you must know, the Minister found something in her bed and refuses to stay here.”
“What? A cockroach?”
Silence. I hold my ground. I will stage a bed-in until I get a response.
“It was a condom—a used condom.” I throw back the covers and pull on my jeans, all thoughts of sex extinguished. “When you’ve taken care of the arrangements, come and get me,” Margo says, rushing out.
Bill finds us new digs and pulls the car around. Laurie emerges from her room and stands, dazed, beside the car.
“You and the Minister can leave now,” I tell Margo when she opens the Minister’s door. “Bill will come back for Laurie and me later.”
The Minister sweeps out in a gorgeous yellow silk kimono, matching head scarf and dark sunglasses. Somehow I manage not to laugh as she clatters toward the car in those feathered mules and slides into the back seat. While she’s pulling her leg in, there’s a flash, as if someone has taken a picture. We all spin to see a man running around the corner of the motel. Bill slams the car door and races to the driver’s side, while Margo hurls herself into the passenger seat. “Libby,” she calls out the window as they squeal off, “go after him! Get the film! Then grab our things.”
I look at Laurie questioningly and she shakes her head; we’ve sacrificed enough for our province. Instead, we return to our rooms to pack. Handling Margo’s belongings is plenty heroic for me, since it means disposing of the garlic bread she lifted at dinner. By the time Bill returns, we’re ready to roll and the three of us laugh ourselves sick all the way to the new fleabag motel.
“Remember the last time we had a crisis on the road?” Bill asks Laurie. “Cleary canceled the rest of the trip. Maybe we’ll get lucky again.”
Bill invites Laurie and me to his room, where he produces a bottle of premium bourbon. Turns out these two can play as hard as they work. In fact, by
the time I finally weave my way back to my room and fall into bed, the sky is beginning to brighten.
I feel as though I’ve only been asleep for minutes when I awaken, sensing an evil presence. I struggle to open my puffy eyes, only to see someone standing by my bed, silhouetted by the light streaming through the window. She’s staring at me intently. Waiting. I swallow a scream and croak, “What are you doing?”
“Waiting for you to wake up.”
“If you’re thinking about waxing my eyebrows, forget it.”
“This is no time for your jokes. We have a crisis.”
“I haven’t recovered from the last one yet.”
Margo is still wearing her suit from yesterday and it’s looking decidedly worse for wear. Craning to see the clock, I realize that I have only been asleep for an hour. I also realize that I’m still tipsy. Keeping my face averted to prevent premium bourbon vapors from enveloping her, I raise both eyebrows in a question. She holds up a newspaper, forcing me to lift my pounding head for a closer look. It’s the Fort Everest Chronicle-Times, and there on the front page is Minister Cleary, just as she appeared during last night’s exodus. It is just a black-and-white, so regrettably, the impact of the yellow silk robe is lost. The photographer caught her with mouth agape, one bare leg and a feathered mule dangling out the car door.
“Good thing you did that pedicure,” I say.
“I’m surprised you see any humor in this situation.”
“Sorry. Read me the headline.” I ease my head back onto the pillow.
“Minister Storms Out of Have-a-Nap At Midnight— Motel Staff Mystified.”
Margo tosses the paper at me and sits on her bed, which hasn’t been slept in. The story quotes motel staff speculating on the Minister’s hasty departure: “Her husband is very rich, you know. Maybe our beds aren’t good enough for her.”
Speechless Page 7
