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.”
“The Minister refuses to do today’s events.”
“That’s just going to make things worse.”
She ignores me and continues: “The Minister wants to know how the reporter found out about it. She thought you might know.”
“How would I know?” When she doesn’t reply, I sit up so that I am eye-to-bloodshot-eye with her. “I hope you’re not implying I called the local paper and leaked this in the five minutes before Bill found us another motel.”
“Not at all, Libby, but we do want you to drive over to the Have-a-Nap and apologize for the Minister’s abrupt departure. See what you can find out.”
“Just let it go. The more we react, the more coverage we’ll get.”
“The Minister wants action, so get out of bed and get going.” She hands me the car keys and walks out.
The definition of “speechwriter” just gets broader every day. I consider telling her I’m too drunk to drive, but she’d only run to Bill, then Laurie, and discover they’re worse off than I am. Instead, I swallow headache pills and head for the car. I can’t believe they think I alerted a paper I didn’t know existed to the newsflash that the Minister would be appearing out-of-doors without makeup for the first time in her life.
At the Have-a-Nap, I chat up the clerk and apologize for our hasty exit. There’s a stack of newspapers on the counter and the unflattering photo is already on display in a cheap plastic frame by the cash register. Gesturing toward it casually, I say, “I can’t imagine how the paper knew we’d be leaving just then.”
“The editor was leaving Millie’s Roadhouse next door as your driver pulled around,” the clerk offers. “Between you and me, he’s thrilled, because there’s so little real news around here. Apparently they’ve picked up the story in Toronto, too.” I must look shocked because she adds quickly, “The Minister’s not upset about all this, is she?”
“Not at all! She has a great sense of humor,” I lie. “I’ll let her know that the folks back home will see her in the news.”
I knock at the Minister’s door and when Margo opens it, I can see the Minister lying on the bed, forearm over her eyes, overcome by the drama of it all. The table is strewn with hair-brushes, makeup and nail polish. Clearly, Margo has been trying to soothe some shattered nerves.
“You’d better step outside,” I tell Margo. She is so shaken by my news that I actually have to restrain her from heading to our room to write a huffy rebuttal to the local paper—and all three Toronto papers, just in case. “Don’t. You’ll inflame the situation. Leave it alone, and it’ll die out.”
“And where did you get your degree in Political Science, the University of Kentucky?” I guess she’s onto the bourbon.
She’s blocking entry to the Minister’s room, but realizing I can turn my personal hygiene issue to my advantage, I lean in nice and close and let the fumes wash over her: “I may not have the degree, Margo, but I know something about public relations.”
My breath has the desired effect and Margo backs away, allowing me to slip past her. “Minister?”
“Who’s there?” comes her weak reply.
“It’s me… Libby. I have something I need to tell you.”
Margo attempts a body slam in the doorway and we stumble into the room together.
“Stop it, you two, my head is killing me. What is it, Lily?”
“I think you should do this morning’s event.”
“I am not leaving this room.”
“The children have been preparing for weeks. They’ll be so disappointed.”
“Can’t you see I’m ill?”
“Surely you could stand for an hour, Minister… Remember, children don’t read the newspaper.”
She lifts her head to glare at me. My imagination must have been working overtime when I thought she was warming up to me.
“I’ll send regrets saying that you’re unwell, Minister,” Margo says.
“If we don’t generate a fresh story, the paper might do a follow-up piece about last night’s hasty retreat and what they make up will be worse than the reality.” Sensing that I’m getting through to her, I continue. “You could put on your new Dolce & Gabbana suit—it’s stunning—and say something funny and self-deprecating to the teachers and parents before your speech. How about I write up a funny line or two to defuse the situation? What do you say? The show must go on, Minister.”
“All right, I’ll do it,” she mutters.
Margo is livid, especially later, when I am proven right. The Minister rises to the occasion, striding onto the school stage looking like a million bucks.
“Hello, everyone,” she begins, “I do hope I’m looking a little better in person than I did on the front page of your paper this morning?”
When everyone laughs, she relaxes and delivers the rest of the speech with ease. Afterward, people surge over to offer support; no one mentions the motel incident. My rare moment of satisfaction is enhanced by the fact that Margo isn’t speaking to me. Later, as we drive to the airport, Margo breaks the news to the Minister about the Toronto paper picking up the photograph. I expect tempers to flare, but much to my surprise, Mrs. Cleary takes it all in stride.
“Well, Margo, we’ll just face this the same way we did today. I managed to maintain public affection quite effectively.”
I won’t hear any praise from them, but I know I earned my pay today. And I did it all with a hangover. I am good.