Chapters 9 & 10

Chapter 9

You know, lying is a complicated business.

Actors make their living out of lying. Sure, you can dress it up and call acting an art, if you like, but the fact remains that they get out there and pretend to be something that they are not. And what do they get? They get the applause and the fat paychecks.

But like so much else in life there is one rule for actors and another for us lesser mortals.

The fact was that I was lying to Marnie. And that wasn’t something that I was proud of. But, you know, lying has a sort of a snowball effect. That’s how it goes. You know, you start off using your middle name and wanting a little privacy and before you know it you’re in way over your head. One lie always leads to another.

So why didn’t I just tell Marnie the truth? Well, for one thing I was too selfish. The time that I spent with her was the most fun and the closest to normal that I had ever experienced in my life.

I couldn’t risk losing all of that.

Plus, you know, I had painted Marnie a pretty detailed picture of my life in London. What was I supposed to do? Tell her that none of it was true? Tell her that my cover story of a wealthy step-dad (who was paranoid and would allow no visitors), my lawyer Mom, and my manny Andre was a complete crock? Nobody would stick around when they had been fed some a complete pack of lies. Nobody. And the truth was that whenever I was with Marnie I felt more authentically like me than I had ever felt before. So I lied about the details. So what?

The fact was that Marnie Bradshaw was the only person on the planet who knew the truth about what was most important to me.

I had finally told her about my search for my Dad after a particularly ugly French lesson. The stress of the late nights did not exactly put me in a particularly positive frame of mind to face the terrors of a class with Madame Le Maistre. Our French teacher seemed to be intent on using my pathetic accent and grammar as some sort of cautionary tale to the other girls in the class.

Now I know that most Europeans think that Americans are just lazy when it comes to learning foreign languages. But the fact is that most Americans – at least most Californians – do speak a second language. I have been taking Spanish lessons since the age of five. The whole Hispanic thing is so cool.

But St Saviour’s had no Spanish stream. A language course was mandatory but the choice was strictly limited to Latin or French. (Tell me, please, why would any girl waste her time learning to speak a dead language???) So the choice of French was a no-brainer.

Big mistake. Huge mistake. For a start Madame le Maistre refused to speak anything but French. (Was I supposed to learn through some sort of osmosis or something??). And for another thing my accent sucked. It was a complete embarrassment. At best I sounded like I was afflicted with severe nasal congestion and a serious speech impediment. And Madame le Maistre’s insistence that I read in front of the class didn’t exactly help me to improve. In fact, my stuttering and blushing did nothing but entertain Christine Smythe and her bunch of lame-brains.

My confession to Marnie came in the post-traumatic afterglow that always followed one of those torture sessions. I guess I was pretty quiet as we made through the maze of corridors, on our way to the science laboratory for our next class.

‘You know you mustn’t let Christine get to you,’ said Marnie.

‘What?’ I said distractedly, ‘what do you mean about Christine?’

‘She was totally out of order,’ said Marnie. ‘Honestly, if her family wasn’t practically funding this school you can be sure that she would have had her arse kicked in the direction of Mrs Butler-Masterson’s office. Everybody heard her snorting and sniggering while you were trying to read that passage. It must have been very off-putting for you. But I really wouldn’t let her get you down, you know.’

I stopped dead in my tracks and turned to Marnie.

‘Listen,’ I said, ‘Christine Smythe could paint herself in the French Flag and sing their national anthem for all I care. She’s just another pathetic little spoilt brat who needs to be taught a lesson, and one day, believe me I will teach her a lesson that she will never forget. Christine Smythe does not have the power to make me feel bad.’

‘So what’s up?’ asked Marnie.

I started walking again as I figured out my reply.

‘Remember when I told you that I wasn’t sure if I had a Dad or not?’ I said.

‘It’s not the sort of answer that you forget in a hurry,’ said Marnie.

‘Well, I’ve been digging around, you know. Nobody knows about this. It’s a complete and total secret. But I’ve come up with a list of three names and I know for a fact that one of them is my Dad.’

It was Marnie’s turn to come to a halt.

‘Bloody hell,’ she said, ‘bloody hell ! This is enormous.. in a fab way..! What are you going to do?’

‘Well I can’t do anything until I get my hands on some phone numbers or some addresses you know. But I might need some help.’

‘Anything,’ she said as she beamed a gap-toothed smile, ‘anything.’

My anxiety level lowered a significant notch or two. At least it did until I noticed the enormous exam schedule that had been posted on our notice board.

Exams had never rattled me back home. I mean, I knew that I was smart and I could always nail pretty much any paper. Plus, of course, in my old school it had practically been a federal offence to do anything that might injure the self-esteem of the already hugely-confident and rich students. So Little Johnny could never really fail a class, even if he tried. Just showing up pretty well guaranteed that he might ‘look forward to reaching a higher potential.’

But Mrs Butler-Masterson ran a much tighter ship. Exams were regular and public rites of cruelty. All exam results were published on school noticeboards and the shame of failure in any subject was made all the more public by the additional listing of all girls who would be required to sit repeat exams in the next term.

There was no way that I was going to be branded a failure. I knew that I needed to squeeze in some serious French revision before the holidays. Although something told me that only the intervention of a miracle would save me from a wipeout in my least favourite subject.

But Marnie wasn’t looking at the schedule of exams.

She was staring at another new addition to the notice board. It was the poster that invited applicants for the annual debating championship and it had only one signature; Christine Smythe. Marnie didn’t have to say anything. I knew what she was thinking. This was my perfect opportunity to teach Christine a lesson; it was definitely payback time.

I signed my name onto the poster with a dramatic flourish.

Honestly, you’d think that I would have learnt something from my experience with Bo Hoppermann and all of my subsequent sessions with Dr Banks, but when the opportunity arose to publicly humiliate Christine Smythe with the full blessing of the school, I could not let it pass. So what if debating had never been my thing? My talent for arguing was well-recognised at home.

I knew that Andre wasn’t exactly paying me a compliment on the days that he swore that I would make a great lawyer. But the fact remained that I knew how to argue my corner.

And Christine Smythe needed to be taught a very public lesson.



Three Other Notorious Mistakes That I Have Made When I Have Acted on Impulse
(besides signing up for the debate contest and the infamous Bo Hoppermann incident)

1 Well there was that time that I locked my nanny in the poolhouse, although in my defence, the woman was a witch and anyway, what is a six year old girl supposed to do when their care-giver fails to understand that she has no interest in going to any stupid ballet lessons?
2 And who could forget the unfortunate incident of the photographer who got a little more than he bargained for when he turned his lens on me and my Mom on our last ever outing to a fast-food restaurant…Who knew that the cost of repairing that sort of high-tech snooping equipment when it’s had just a little milk shake damage?
3 This one is strictly between you and me…but Martina may have another little surprise coming her way courtesy of the Web.


Chapter 10

The fact that I was actually looking forward to a little retail therapy should have been a huge signal to me that I was not myself. If people hadn’t been so excited about our exclusive visit to London’s biggest department store then they might have even checked to see if I was running a fever. It was totally out of character for me to tag alone to one of these celebrity expeditions without putting up some sort of fight.

But somehow I hadn’t got the energy to fight anymore. It occurred to me that I had bitten off more than I could chew. Things were not going well. I wasn’t getting any further in my search for the contact details of my possible dads. Marnie didn’t even know who I really was. There was every chance that I was going to fail the French test and I had been dumb enough to volunteer to make a fool of myself in front of the whole school. Everything that I touched seemed to get all messed up. And the worst thing was that I couldn’t even tell anyone the whole story.

Lying could be a lonely business.

So even though Mom didn’t know what I was thinking, I was grateful for the chance to be with her for a mindless evening of shopping. I listened to her tales of the terrors involved in making an English period drama without complaint, as we travelled though the streets of London in a limo that was roughly the size of a bus. I didn’t even tell her to drop the phoney English accent that she had adopted since we had arrived in London.

Normally I couldn’t stand the fawning shop assistants that were an inevitable part of these private evenings. But the store was the size of an impressive shopping mall, and the only staff present seemed to consist of two matronly personal shoppers who did not look as though they would be reaching for their autograph books anytime soon.

Mom made her usual ‘surprise’ gesture of announcing that every member of the team had exactly one hour to choose three Christmas gifts each – no expense spared. Once Andre and the others had disappeared, I was glad to have a little time alone with my Mom. I didn’t even try to escape when she gave me one of her embarrassing hugs.

‘Are you happy honey?’ she asked.

I nodded yes immediately, because in that precise moment I knew that I was; I finally had Mom all to myself.

‘Tell me,’ she said as she held me just far enough away from her so that she could look into my eyes. ‘Tell me what you want.’

Suddenly I could feel the truth welling up in me like a huge eruption that was just below the surface. Maybe I could be honest with my Mom? Maybe I could tell her that I really had to know where I came from and that I really had to know my whole family?

But before I could speak excitement had gotten the better of Mom.

‘I’ll bet you want a neat little MP3 player!’ she said.

Probably that was the point where I really should have thrown some sort of a hissy fit. Biting my tongue then probably left me with no option but to go skulking around behind my Mom’s back, lying to everyone.

Who knows what she would have done if I had spoken the words that I had really wanted to say?

I want to know my Dad.
I want a family.
I want to be normal.

But as usual the truth didn’t even come a close second to the promise of a little retail therapy.