Stanford sadistically scheduled its exams after the winter vacation, stealing Christmas and New Year in one fell swoop. Even the Grinch stopped after Christmas. Elle parked the Range Rover in the driveway of her Bel Air home, then dragged heavy casebooks and Emanuel study guides to the doorstep.
Underdog had jumped from the passenger seat, overjoyed to be home. “Well, it’s good to be back, even if I have to study over vacation,” Elle said, the yipping dog lifting her spirits.
Elle’s mother, Eva, was a holiday fanatic. She always went to extra lengths during the Christmas season, spoiling Elle wonderfully. The year that Tori Spelling’s “White Christmas” was the talk of the town, Eva became irritated every time she heard it mentioned. She should have thought of flying in enough snow to blanket their yard, she rebuked herself. The truth was that Eva, a native Angeleno, associated snow with skiing and not Christmas.
Elle didn’t have to wonder for long what gimmick her mother would think up this year. As soon as she entered the front hallway she was greeted by a preposterous “Elle Tree” that dwarfed the diminutive Eva and even Elle’s lanky father, Wyatt. He beamed at Elle in his place beside his wife. His bland club-tennis-pro-blonde good looks and agreeable ways were a perfect counterpoint to Eva’s wacky and vivacious personality.
A twenty-five-foot fir tree, twinkling with elaborate five-by-seven ornaments, stood in the foyer. Elle gasped as Eva led her excitedly to the tree.
“Oh, Mother,” Elle said, and laughed. She hugged her giggling mother and gazed dumbfounded at the unique tree trimmings. Each was a reproduction of a famous painting, copied by artists from Eva’s gallery. Each featured Elle’s own face in the most unlikely of settings.
“Look, look, darling,” Eva said, reaching out to one of the images. “My favorite is the Birth of Elle!”
“Mother.” Elle blushed, mortified to see her face on the plump, naked body of Botticelli’s Venus. “Oh my God! That’s me, and she’s so fat!”
The Mona Elsa wasn’t so bad, since only the shoulders gave away the grande dame of da Vinci, and the artist had been nice enough to leave Elle’s hair blonde on the reproduction. Elle’s sky blue eyes replaced the art-book gazes of women from the imaginations of painters of centuries. She smiled flawlessly from Matisse to Modigliani, Rubens to Renoir, Gainsborough to Gauguin to Goya. “Mother,” Elle said as she embraced Eva warmly, “you are without doubt the craziest Santa on the block.”
“Never boring!” Eva exclaimed.
“Never boring,” Wyatt said, winking at Eva. “Here, Elle, my favorite is the American Gothic. I think it suits you.”
Grant Wood’s famous pitchfork-wielding couple had been transformed, with Elle’s face atop the matronly dress of the midwesterness, and a simple question mark on the blank face of the man standing beside her.
“You answer the question mark any way you want.”
“Daddy, you know whose face I’d like to see there!” Elle hugged her father gleefully.
She retired to her room, leaving word with her parents that she wasn’t taking calls, not even from Serena or Margot. “They’ll just report the party schedule. I don’t even want to be tempted. Tell them I’m sick or something, okay?”
Eva sighed and glanced worriedly at Wyatt.
“Please, Mom. I don’t want to fail my exams.”
“All right, honey,” Eva said. “I’ll call you for dinner.”
Stress meters were running high the week of final exams, the library packed to capacity with students trying to make sense of a four-month blur of rules and procedures in a not-English not-Latin vocabulary called legalese. The Secret Angel had kept Elle, and through her Eugenia, supplied with accurate outlines, but the wear of living in a pressure cooker made exams almost welcome.
Reading furiously through byzantine Civil Procedure cases, Elle actually happened upon a useful bit of information. When creditors sue a debtor, they cannot take things that are “essential to everyday life.” So Elle was consoled that if she ever hit rock bottom, she would be spared her wardrobe, make-up, telephone, and standing manicure appointment.