High Grounds - Reality (Chapter 2)

 

 

Two

 

 

 

Ashlee Simpson’s ‘Shadow’

does make some sense after all …

 

 

 

“I can’t stand her! She is driving me completely insane!” Vanessa screamed melodramatically to her friends as she waited for Homer, her chauffeur, to pick her up. Her friends practically lived in her house, but today, her mother had told her not to bring them over. Vanessa had wondered why, but whatever.

She could hardly think straight from all the fury clouding her mind. Who did that miserable little Rebecca think she was, anyway?

“We know, babe, she’s disgusting,” Sherry empathised. She was lounging on the couch in the air-conditioned foyer (which resembled more like a hotel lobby than an actual school foyer), taking up half of it.

“Well, she’s poor,” Elizabeth, with her chin in her hand, chipped in conversationally.

“So?” Amber asked.

“Well, duh, poor people have this attitude thing, don’t they?” Liz explained, exasperated. “They try to stick up for themselves so people won’t look down on them and treat them like horse manure.”

The girls laughed and Vanessa felt loads better. It was true: Rebecca was a minority. Why should she risk dying earlier because of a minority, really?

And besides, the project was due a long way ahead, so there was nothing to fret about. At least, she would not have to be working with Rebecca too soon.

 

*

 

Back at home in Number 4, Eldecott Heights, the finest mansion in the quiet and extremely private drive, Vanessa was let in by Hanna, the main domestic help.

“Look who’s back, Miss Vanessa,” Hanna said excitedly. She motioned towards a slim figure on the genuine white-leather couch (“Specially shipped in from Milan!” as her mother liked to inform everyone she invited over), surrounded by fawning maids and her parents, Judy and Albert. She was decked out in a pale-orange spaghetti top, which complemented her tan, and her hair was shoddily held up in a messy bun, still sexy-looking nonetheless. Vanessa only knew one person who could look so good without even trying to, even in a plain spaghetti top with no other embellishments whatsoever.

“Valerie?” Vanessa guessed. What was her sister doing home? Shouldn’t she be in UCLA right now, attending lectures, or in the recording studio in Hollywood.

Her twenty-year-old sister turned around upon hearing her name. She squealed in an atypical manner and Vanessa laughed as the two of them squeezed each other tight.

“Vannie! Omigod, I am so glad to see you!” Valerie exclaimed, jumping about animatedly.

Vanessa could not help but notice how fake she sounded. She knew her sister was really happy to see her, but she sounded like she was on a talk show and had to be nice for the cameras. Granted, she was not all that genuine herself, Vanessa thought, but never mind. The point was she was pleasantly surprised that Val was back; she had missed her terribly.

“Gawd, baby sister, I’ve missed you!” Val said, grinning, seeming to have heard her thoughts. She squeezed her arm.

“Me too! I mean, I’ve missed you!” Vanessa squealed back. “What are you doing back here?” she asked as they pulled apart.

“I’m taking a break from Hollywood, baby sister. It’s just so tiring it’s draining me of the blood in my face. See how sallow I look?” Val tugged at her cheeks to emphasise her point.

Vanessa looked at her sister. Sallow? That was the last word she would employ on her. She was Valerie Law and Valerie Law never had sallow complexion. Very much on the contrary, Val looked like she had been invited to the Grammy’s, minus the pomp and pageantry. And, Vanessa noticed, her sister had only applied a thin coat of foundation to further smoothen her already-smooth skin.

“I tried Rosy Blush, but even that didn’t work!” Val went on, words spewing out of her mouth in a tumbled jumble.  “School’s fine there, but recording is homicidal on its own. And they’re even thinking of giving me a role in some teenage rom-com that stars Lindsay Lohan and me playing her bestie! It’s unbelievably crazy, I’m telling you.”

“So you’re not going to school anymore?” Vanessa stated.

“Of course she is, Vanessa,” Judy Law, a tall woman with a prim and proper air around her, answered her daughter’s question quite exasperatedly.

At forty-five, she could still pull off for thirty-six if she chose to. And all she did was exfoliation! With her youthful beauty and wealth, she was the envy of every member in the exclusive Wives Club and she knew it. Also, she had collected a rather extensive number of faithful readers of her column in the country’s fastest-selling female magazine for her ‘subjective-objective’ (whatever that meant) views on the million and one problems faced by females of this day and age.

Judy was quite an idol. With her imposing air of confidence and poise, it was hard not to feel somewhat intimidated by her sometimes. However, Vanessa felt no fear for her mother, just intense dislike at times.

“She’s applied for the National University. She sat for the entrance test this morning,” Judy went on politely, as though giving an exclusive interview instead of talking to her daughter.

“But the reporters and the kids at school.…” Vanessa stated in concern. “I mean, won’t they recognise you?”

“Yes, well, daddy’s getting me another bodyguard, in addition to Carl,” Valerie said, shrugging none too comfortably. “I’ll only be staying till this year ends, or maybe even just till second term ends. I just want a break from all that Hollywood stuff. And some of the girls in my dorm in UCLA … they’re incredibly catty. I need to get away from there.” Vanessa finally noticed, when she said that, how worn-out she looked.

“I mean, hey, I’m a small-town girl after all,” Val added with a grin pulling up her tired face. Vanessa smiled. Confessions of a Small-Town Girl was her number one smash on the US Charts. It was of the mellowed-pop genre, and became an instant hit. Apart from being a talented songwriter, it also helped that Val was an incredibly good-looker too.

“Can’t you just get a private tutor or something? Wouldn’t that save you a lot of trouble?” Vanessa asked.

“You know your sister thrives upon competition, Vanessa. A private one-to-one tutor will not benefit or challenge her intellectual very much,” Judy scoffed disapprovingly.

Vanessa rolled her eyes inwardly. Sometimes, she felt that her mother was such a snob.

Choosing not to reply her mother, Vanessa told Val, “You didn’t tell me you were arriving today.” The sisters headed up to Val’s room, their arms linked. “I would have skipped school to pick you up.”

“That’s okay. It’s better not to have a huge party anyway. It draws attention, you see. This is to be absolutely low-key, hush-hush, under wraps – so don’t let anyone know I’m back, okay?” Valerie’s stern gaze bore into Vanessa’s as she held Vanessa at arm’s length.

Vanessa nodded, wondering why her sister was being so uptight about this. Privacy must be a real rarity over there, she supposed.

“So how have you been doing?” Valerie asked, relaxing. They entered her room and Vanessa saw that her sister had a lot of packing to do – a lot being the operative word.

“Same old, yada. I’m totally jaded,” Vanessa replied with a yawn as she flopped onto her sister’s bed.

Val was a classic girl. She adored Dior’s style. Her room was entirely white, clean and pure, everything placed at a painfully exact angle, nothing ruffled or out of place.

Valerie was trying hard to be a minimalist too now, keeping everything she owned to the barest minimum. Unlike her younger sister, whose room was so clogged up with … stuff … that it was a wonder how she was even able to navigate her way across it. Even in her walk-in closet, which everyone knew was just about the messiest domain of a girl’s room, was freakishly neat. There were no stray clothes littered about on the floor or clothes not hung properly. Val even colour-coordinated her closet. If she didn’t know better, Vanessa would have called her sister anal-retentive.

Vanessa now stared at her older sister, marvelling. She was still the same old Val, she knew, but somehow, she had changed. It was not that she looked even more beautiful now (if that was even possible); neither was it because she had a desirable body that every girl would die having, all sinewy, tanned and toned (Val had bared her midriff, tying her top in a knot above her stomach).

No. Vanessa realised that her sister truly looked tired. As much as Val tried not to show it, Vanessa could tell she was bored and drained – and not to mention a little more tense than she had been before the whole fame package arrived in the mailbox.

“So what did you get? It’s going to take you ages to unpack,” Vanessa said as she sat up on the bed, propping her chin on an arm, careful not to crease the bed sheets too much.

“I know,” Val said, lines of distress forming on her forehead. “It’s such an eyesore. I’ve gotta get rid of this ASAP, before I develop a sore eye.”

“You develop sore eyes from eyesores?” Vanessa giggled, shaking her head. “What have you picked up there?” She got up to help her sister unpack.

“So tell me: how does anyone decide that they’ve had enough of the Hollywood scene?” Vanessa asked, and went on to cry out in unbridled passion over a sizzling black top studded with jewels on the sleeve- and neck-line.

“That one’s for you, baby sister,” Val said. “I don’t know, I’m just sick of it, I suppose,” she shrugged in reply to her sister’s question, “I’ve never been much of an LA girl. I just love to sing and pen songs, and I suppose mom and dad took that as a sign to ship me off to pursue my career. You know I never really liked all that sort of scene. I only went for the experience.” She shrugged. “Who knew I’d emerge something like that?”

“Well, at least you’re free to choose when you want to come back and all that,” Vanessa said, tearing through another wrapper from Marc Jacobs. “At least you get to choose.”

“And what is that supposed to mean. Is mom still on your back to ‘take a leaf out of my book’?” Val asked as she hung a purple and gold-threaded Bohemian-styled skirt up in her wardrobe. She had gotten it from a flea market one free Sunday, but no-one guessed; all the fashion magazines complimented her on her casual-chic style when she wore it to a boutique opening.

“Wouldn’t you like to know,” Vanessa said sarcastically.

Her mother pressing her to be like her sister was old news, almost routine. She had been persuading her younger daughter to do so ever since she turned fourteen. They had gotten into frequent heated arguments over this issue and Val always had to play peacemaker, via email and long-distance phonecalls.

The truth was, Vanessa did not want to be like her sister. Oh, don’t get her wrong. Sure, she thought it would be fun to be one of the famous and esteemed in Hollywood. But her interests laid more in the fashion designing department. She wanted to be a fashion designer and set up her own clothesline, like Nikki Hilton or Gwen Stefani (Vanessa thought LAMB was pretty darn chic). She was, deep down, an artistic soul who loved old-school glamour, and had even cried when Valentino announced his retirement.

But Judy … Judy always argued that Gwen was a singer too, and Vanessa would retort that that was not the point. It was always rather like viewing a tennis match, watching the two of them bicker.

Sending her off to Hollywood at such a young age would just hinder Vanessa in her progression towards a fashion education, and she had been trying mightily hard to explain that to her mother … Apparently, those efforts were futile, to say the least.

“Baby girl, just tell them you don’t want to; tell them about your plans to study fashion,” Val told her sister.

Vanessa snorted. “Like I haven’t tried that already. They just refuse to listen. It’s driving me crazy! Why do I always have to do what they tell me to? Why do I always have to go according to their plans? I want to be something else, to do something else, for crying out loud!” She ripped up a Manolo Blahnik bag in exasperation.

“Then show them. Prove it to them that you can make it, in your own way!”

“I –”

“Okay, tell me honestly, baby sister,” Val said, propping her hand on her hip and cocking her hip in an appraising way. “Have you ever done anything other than talk, to persuade mom to let you pursue what you really want?”

Vanessa fell into a resentful silence. Val was right again, of course. She always was. What she said always hit the nail right on the head. What had she done, indeed, to show her mother that she loved fashion designing? Sure, she had so far sketched a whole gallery of drawings and Photoshop-ed them and occasionally even hung her best works proudly on her bedroom walls.

But maybe that wasn’t enough. Maybe to show her mother, she would have to do something more.

Vanessa grunted in frustration and continued ripping up the Manolo bag.

A knock came at the door.

“Come in.”

“Val, sweetie,” Judy said with a saccharine smile at the doorway. “I just got Nori to bake you some scones. Come down and get them while they’re still hot.”

She turned to look at her youngest daughter reprovingly. “If you had torn that paper bag out of frustration, Vanessa, I suggest you arrange an appointment with Doctor Kung soon.”

And with that, she left the room.

Vanessa grunted in vexation. “I hate her,” she said decisively, aiming a bunch of expletives at her mother inwardly.

“Oh, baby sister, you don’t mean that,” Val said in that melted-chocolate way that Vanessa disliked. How was it that she always ended up being the angel? As much as she loved her sister, sometimes she would just like her to disappear.

“I hate that she’s controlling my life; I hate that she’s being completely unfair to me; I hate that she’s trying to make me do something I don’t want to – how is that for ‘yes, I do mean that’?” Vanessa said and exited the room, leaving Valerie staring at her back in stunned silence.

 

*

 

Dinner had always been a silent affair in Number 4 Eldecott Drive ever since Valerie had left. No sound was to be made whilst anyone was still working his or her way through the meal, apart from the soft chink of cutlery.

This time, however, proved to be an exception. Val was doing most of the talking at the dinner table in the hall, illustrating her life in LA with utmost vigour.

“I’m sick of anorexic girls trying to vie for a spot in the drama production and plastic smiles and poisonous words disguised to pepper up to you. Did you know that they actually compete to see who weighs the least? It’s a mealtime – if you even call it mealtime – topic! I know, that’s just so screwed, isn’t it? It’s sick. But the place! Omigod, it’s amazing. Their nightlife is more existent than here. Jamie got fake IDs for me to get into the hottest nightclubs at first, but then now that I’m twenty-two, I don’t need them anymore. And you know, some of them are so exclusive even the IDs can’t get you in. But seeing who I am, I suppose they figured it’d do their names bad if they didn’t let me in.…”

Yabber, yabber, yabber. Vanessa had just about had enough of her sister’s voice to last her for a lifetime. Val was, on the surface, classy and poised, but inside of her was still just a regular teenage girl struggling to break free.

And the thing that frustrated Vanessa no end was that her parents were soaking up every bit of Val they could, staring and gaping at her as if she were the Duchess of Eldecott Drive instead of just their daughter, whom they could admonish and ground for life anytime they wanted to (but that would probably break their hearts, wouldn’t it?).

Val had always been the apple of their eyes, their baby girl, if one would kindly pardon the cliché. Her becoming a star did their reputations a huge lot of good, and her meteoric rise to stardom whisked the name of the family along with it too.

Whereas, in the meantime, Vanessa was stuck here, feeling like some little nobody, trying hard to make her parents understand that she was not like her sister, trying to break free of the expectations they had set on her to be her sister, and trying to get them to accept that.

She did not want to sing and dance and act her way through life. She wanted something else more than that. If only she could get her parents to go along with her well-thought out pathway to the world of fashion-designing.…

Vanessa stifled a yawn.

Her mother fixed a hard glare upon her. “If you are not interested in what your sister has to share, you should retire and have an early night. I, for one, haven’t heard you mention anything as remotely interesting as your sister’s account of LA.”

When has anything I say ever made her day? Vanessa thought sorely. “Sorry,” she mumbled instead. “I’m just worn out, I suppose.”

“Of course you are,” Judy returned sarcastically. “When are you ever not worn out whenever we’re on the subject of Hollywood? If you could just take out some of your precious time to see how your sister is rocketing her way up the charts there, you would unquestionably abandon all thoughts of getting into Fashion School.”

“Mom, are we fighting about this again?” Vanessa sighed.

“No-one is fighting with you, Vanessa. I am not as barbaric as you are these days. I’ve heard you stomping your way around the house like you’re worried no-one might hear you.…”

“And what has that got to do with me becoming the next Valerie Law?” Vanessa said, setting down her fork and pushing her plate away. Conversations like this always made her lose her appetite.

“You’re not behaving the way you should, Vanessa,” Judy said sternly. “That’s my bottom-line.”

Vanessa snorted. Oh, I’ve heard that line before, she thought derisively.

When was she ever behaving the way she should? When was her mother even proud of something she had done? Granted, her academic achievements were none too outstanding from the other girls she knew (a mere record of straight A’s was apparently still not good enough) and she had no high co-curricular posts to brag of. But there was no need to rub it in, honestly.

Sometimes, if that was even possible, Vanessa was sick of the status she had. All that stuff about behaving properly drove her round the bend! She didn’t mind the cash, but the ‘keeping up with appearances’ thing seriously wore her down sometimes.

“What is that … noise supposed to mean? Are you dissatisfied with what I have just said? Are you implying that I’m wrong?” Judy’s lips were pursed into a single thin thread of disapproval and anger.

Val cut in, “Mom, really, Vanessa’s just –” 

“No, Valerie. I’m tired of this argument. Since day one, I have been persuading her to be like you, but she just refuses to listen.…”

“Judy, let’s just drop this for now, okay? We’ll talk about this some other time,” Albert butt in.

Everyone around the dinner table finally returned to characteristic silence after that, finishing up their meal. No-one had any wish to speak anymore.

Vanessa fumed in her seat, too pissed off to say anything else. She hated her mother. She really did.

 

*

 

A knock came at her door.

“Hey, baby girl. Can I come in?”

“No.”

Valerie entered her sister’s room anyway, pretending not to have heard her reply. She found her flopped on bed, which was drowned in copies – old and latest – of Seventeen, Elle, Lime and Cosmo Girl (Val sent those to her every month when she was in LA), as usual.

Vanessa had her hands behind her head and was staring disconsolately up at the ceiling.

“Hey, Vannie,” Val said softly, pushing away some of her junk to sit on her bed too. Vanessa ignored her.

Val’s hands creeped to her sister’s waist and her fingers started tickling her, jabbing her waist. Vanessa, despite herself, giggled and squealed like a little girl and swatted her sister’s hands away.

“Come on, baby sister, crack me a smile,” Val pleaded, stopping her tickling.

“I already have.”

“Are you still mad at mom?”

“Am I ever not?” Vanessa said sarcastically.

“She means well,” her sister said in a placatory tone.

“They always do. But they don’t understand what we want. We’re just part of their perfect plan, aren’t we? We’re just doorways to their soaring reputation. Everything’s all about them. What is so wrong about Fashion School? A singing career is so short-term. And it’s not as if I can sing.”

“Actually, as long as you look good, nobody gives a blink whether or not you can sing,” Val interjected irrelevantly.

“Whatevs, Val, I don’t even like singing. And have you realised that all they’ve ever done since you came back was to fawn over you and bake you scones? I’m practically invisible to them unless they feel like picking on me.”

Valerie fell silent and studied her sister quietly. She wondered how her sister had become so hateful towards their innocuously – or so she thought – well-meaning mother. She settled on the notion that she was probably just going through a phase.

As though on cue, Judy entered the room without knocking. Vanessa and Val shot up from the bed. Idling on beds was not what Judy approved of.

“Vanessa –” Judy began tersely, as though she could not spare more than a minute. She then caught sight of Valerie flopped on her bed beside her. “Oh Val, I didn’t know you were here too.” She beamed, all syrupy, and her muscles loosened.

Vanessa noticed bitterly how radically her mother’s tone changed when she spoke to Val. When would she ever receive the same amount of love and affection she gave Val? But she knew only falling into her plans would grant her that.

“Well, just as well,” Judy continued, in a more pleasant tone now. “I was meaning to remind you two about the Annual Awareness Ball next Saturday.”

“Come again?” Vanessa said, looking clueless. Her mother was a typical career woman who spoke too briskly.

“The ball, Vanessa, the one which the Wives Club has organised,” Judy said, gesturing impatiently at the slowness of her younger daughter. “The one which I’m chairing, of course,” she added, with an undisguised hint of smugness. “This year’s topic of awareness is on bulimia and other kinds of pressures young girls face in order to fit into the society they’re living in now.

“The ball starts at seven-thirty – but we’ll arrive at six, of course, since I’ve got to head down much earlier to overlook the preparations. I’m telling you, those helpers are more of a hindrance than a help, sometimes,” she rambled on verbatim, sounding as though she was reciting from her PDA.

“Sure, we’ll be there,” Valerie promised agreeably.

Judy beamed twinkly. “Fantastic,” she said swiftly. “And you might want to shop for some new gowns. And some escorts too.” With that, she left the room without even looking at Vanessa.

“Did I say yes to it? Did she even ask me?” Vanessa sulked as soon as Judy left. She threw a throw-pillow (thereby allowing it to serve its purpose, as suggested by its name) at the closed door.

Val gasped a little at her blunt display of agitation. “You know she won’t take no for an answer,” she replied. “She wants to show us off, that’s how she is. That’s how everyone we know is. Just – well, live with it, I suppose.”

“May I point out that we’re neither freak shows nor jewellery in display cases?” Vanessa retorted. After a moment had passed, she looked at her well-meaning sister, realising that she had been rather sour towards her this entire day. She gave Val a grateful and apologetic hug. “I’m sorry, Val. I’m not mad at you. I’m just pissed off at mom and you’re caught in the crossfire, as usual.”

“No problem, baby sister. I love you too.” And then she left Vanessa to her own solitude.

Vanessa sighed hard and flopped back onto her bed. Who said rich kids did not have problems of their own too?