My Perfect Life by Dyan Sheldon Page A

they’re doing. They’re like stalkers. It’s some kind of sick and twisted vendetta.” I could be mistaken of course, but it sounded like her make-up bag hit the sink at a rate of knots. “It’s jealousy, that’s what it is. Pure, chew-at-your-entrails jealousy.”
    I checked that the camera was cocked and made a silent prayer.
Please let this work
… My hands were shaking. It didn’t seem possible that no one else could hear the racket my heart was making. All I could think of was how bad I was going to feel if Carla caught me.
    Alma Vitters finally managed to squeeze a few words in. “We should talk to Dr Alsop,” she said indignantly. “This kind of thing has to be against the rules. I mean, we do live in a democracy after all.”
    “They can’t get away with this,” agreed Tina Cherry. “They have to be made to pay.”
    Marcia Conroy said, “If Dr Alsop wasn’t such a pushover they’d be thrown out of the election for a stunt like this.”
    “I mean, just what are they trying to insinuate?” shrieked Carla. “That all I care about is shopping? Like none of them ever shop, right? Like the Pope doesn’t shop. And what’s wrong with shopping anyway? How can you have a strong economy and a successful nation if people don’t shop? If you ask me, shopping is a symptom of a truly democratic system. Nobody goes shopping in Cuba, do they? And why not? Because there isn’t anything to shop for!”
    All the while this acute political analysis was going on I was trying to get myself in a position where I could rise just enough above the door and go “snap” the way Lola had instructed. Only it wasn’t as easy as it sounded.
    When my mother took yoga classes she could balance her whole weight on her hands for minutes at a time, but I was having a lot of trouble balancing my weight on my feet. Of course, my mother hadn’t been balancing on the rim of a toilet bowl with a camera. I grabbed for the coat hook, and that’s when things totally stopped going according to plan. The coat hook moved. I banged into the door.
    One of the advantages of Carla Santini is that when she’s going full tilt in the centre of the stage the marines could be landing in the wings and no one would notice. No one heard me hit the door.
    “I know whose idea this was,” Carla was saying. “It was Lola’s.”
    I’ve always thought Lola was a pretty name, but on Carla’s lips it sounded like something that didn’t have legs and oozed slime.
    “Sam Creek’s a Neanderthal. God knows he could never think of anything like this,” continued Carla.
    A voice that didn’t belong to either Alma, Tina, or Marcia, said, “I don’t think Sam’s a Neanderthal. I think he’s kind of cute.”
    There were a couple of sympathetic giggles, but not from Carla. Carla had dealt with Sam and dismissed him; she had already moved on.
    “And as for Ella! Ella practically has to ask permission to breathe. There’s no way she could engineer something like this.”
    I’d been breathing all right without permission up until then, but I nearly stopped completely when I heard my name.
    “And Lola has her wrapped around her little finger,” chipped in Alma.
    “Like a puppet on a string,” seconded Tina.
    “I wouldn’t be surprised if it was more than that,” said Carla. She said it as if she knew something; something interesting.
    I’d gone back to squatting on the rim, my mission forgotten, but I sat up a little taller at that. I didn’t want to miss Carla’s next sentence.
    I wasn’t the only one who was curious.
    “What do you mean?” asked Tina, Marcia and Alma.
    Carla hesitated. “Well… I’m not saying I know anything for sure … It’s just – you know…”
    When Carla Santini says she doesn’t know anything for sure it means that she doesn’t know anything at all.
    “Oh, come on,” begged Tina, Alma and Marcia, as though Carla ever kept a secret from them.
    “Well… I have heard some suspicions…” Carla paused