Tales Of A Drama Queen

I used to think it was the Wal-Mart of home furnishing stores. But there are endless rows of lovely things I always knew could be made at a reasonable price. And everything has these lovely foreign names like Hemnes and Beddinge. Four hours, and Maya had to bribe me away with Swedish meatballs at the cafeteria.

Best part: Their computers were down, so it was a snap to get an IKEA card with a fifteen-hundred-dollar limit, using my other (useless) credit cards to secure it. I was slightly over though, and had to put back assorted lamps, an IKEA teddy bear and one of the welcome mats. And the Persian-rug mouse-pad. Maya reminded me that I don’t even own a computer. Well, I’ll never own one at this rate, will I? Still, I returned the mouse-pad.

“The toilet is in the kitchen,” Maya mentions helpfully, as if I hadn’t noticed. I couldn’t convince her not to come in. So I’m putting away purchases, and she’s giggling at the trolley. “That takes ‘efficiency unit’ to a whole new level!”

I scowl and tell her to go away (but remember to pick me up tomorrow before she goes to work, so I can have the car, and to change her message to mention my new phone number, and to tell Perfect Brad that I’ll need help carrying the new IKEA chair inside when they deliver it).

I can’t tell if she’s listening, because she’s busy being fascinated by my three-utility stove/fridge/kitchen sink unit.

“Does it work?” she asks.

“Of course,” I say, though I’ve never actually turned it on. I open the refrigerator door. Feels cold. Turn on the tap—water runs out. Click on a burner. Smoke issues forth.

“Well,” she says. “That should keep the mosquitoes away.”

“A fourth utility to the thing,” I say. “It’s like magic.”

We finish unpacking, and Maya, who hasn’t quite stopped giggling, has to go to work. I stop her on the way out. “Tell me the truth. Do you think it’s like living in a trailer?”

“No, not at all.” She closes the door behind her, and calls out: “A trailer would be nicer!”

I think of something to yell back two minutes later, but by then I’m alone. I bustle around the trolley, making it mine and trying to ignore the growing sense of isolation and the encroaching dusk. I assemble my new bureau, and then disassemble the bits that don’t fit, then reassemble it and it’s perfect! I glow with satisfaction at being so handy and self-sufficient, and I look up and it’s pitch-black outside.

I meekly open the door, and the lovely tea-garden has been transformed into a horrible, brackish swamp. I lock the door. Close the curtains. Grab one of my IKEA knives, just in case. And curl up in my new comforter, pretending to leaf through Marie Claire.

The wind scratches tree limbs against the trolley, and I manage not to shriek. I often feel I’m in a movie; tonight, it’s Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Santa Barbara Years. I turn on all the lights, then realize this just makes the trolley a beacon in the darkness. Moths and rapists will be swarming around shortly. I turn the lights off. It’s worse.

I watch a rerun of Bewitched on the little TV Maya loaned me. Turn the sound up all the way. Not loud enough, as a gust of wind sends the branches into a terrifying crescendo, and something slams against the trolley.

I think it was a slam. It definitely wasn’t a tree branch. It could have been a knock. Schoolmarm Petrie seems the sort who’d make one sharp rap on the door, like the smack of a ruler down on an errant pupil’s knuckles.

I crack the door and peek out. Nothing but menacing swampland. And something brown at the bottom of the steps.

It’s a dead squirrel.

I clutch my throat in horror, like some prim Victorian lady who accidentally wandered into the Vagina Monologues, and debate the various merits of fainting and screaming.

A motion sensor light illuminates the Schoolmarm’s gate, and I see the shadowy form of a pudgy boy recede into the darkness. Eddie Munster.

“Hey!” I yell. “You little creep!”

I’d track him down and kill him, but that would mean leaving the relative safety of my trailer. Trolley. My trolley.

“Squirrelly, aren’t you?” he yells.

I respond with a well-reasoned string of curses, and slam the door. On TV, Samantha has black lines painted on her face. I wonder what happened to her. I wonder what’s happened to me.

Chapter 11

The telephone rings at 9:12, waking me from a Swamp Thing nightmare.

It’s Bob from the VW dealership. And when you think about it, being a car salesman isn’t so bad. Plus, he’s actually seen my credit report, and still he calls.

“Bob,” I say. Bob. Bobbing for apples. “Robert. Robbie. Rob. That’s a lot of possible nicknames.”

Silence on the phone.

I think of saying Bobby?

“Well, I just go by Bob,” he finally says. “I’ve been thinking about you since last week.”

“Oh, have you?” The New Elle plays hard-to-get.

“Yeah, I got this…borderline trade-in. My boss doesn’t want me to put it on the lot. And I know you’re looking for something affordable.”

“Borderline?”

“It’s a BMW, though. A Beemer. 1974. It’s virtually a classic luxury automobile. Plus, it’s not worth sending it down to L.A. for auction.”

“So you’ve got a car you can’t sell, and thought of me?”

“Yeah, you interested?”

This is insulting. “How much?”

“I’ll let it go cheap. Fifteen-hundred.”

Fifteen-hundred! That’s a huge chunk out of my monster stack. But I do need a car. “Can I come see it this morning?”

“This morning isn’t good. I’ve got real clients coming in. How about two this afternoon?”

Real clients. “Two is fine.”

“Actually, three would be better.”

I sigh. “Three, then.”

I hang up, and immediately check my voice mail to see if anyone called while I was on the phone…and I have a message! It’s not even Maya. It’s a smooth, masculine voice.

“Eleanor Medina,” the smooth, masculine says. “You’re a hard one to find. This is Carlos Neruda. We haven’t met…yet. But I’ve heard all about you, and I really want to talk. My number is—” he pauses, and I realize he has Antonio Banderas’s voice and I’ll coolly wait ten or eleven seconds before returning his call “—no, on second thought, I’ll call you back. Take care, Eleanor Medina.”

Ha! Take that, Bobby! You’re not the only car on the lot.

IKEA furniture delivered precisely on time. Perfect Brad, too, precisely on time. Perhaps Brad is Swedish. Perhaps he is Bräd.

I bought a white linen chair. Am very pleased with the mature, adult decision to choose white. I was worried it would be like a white T-shirt: a magnet for chocolate ice cream, tomato sauce, coffee, mystery stains. I’d stared at it drooling, like a dog at a barbecue, until Maya found me. To prove her wrong, I decided the New Elle was adult enough to take care of white linen. Am pleased with the decision—it’s pretty against the chipped carnival-red of the trolley walls.

“You’re sure that’s where you want it?” Brad says, after relocating it several times. If he weren’t perfect, he’d be exasperated. But he is, so I don’t worry.