“Hop into my chariot!” Suddenly Brooke vaulted into the driver’s seat of her sparkling gold convertible as if she were mounting a charger.
Elle giggled, opening the passenger door. Vaulting would have been impossible given the narrow dimensions of her white piqué halter dress.
Brooke looked somewhat disappointed by Elle’s conventional entrance, but that didn’t slow her down as she merged into the freeway traffic, heading north toward the airport.
“The color of your car really complements our hair,” Elle said, thoughtfully examining a strand of her own hair as she pulled it back into a ponytail.
Brooke nodded silently.
“I’m dying to know where these anonymous meetings are held,” Elle said.
“The meetings aren’t anonymous at all, Elle. It’s the members’ identities that must be kept anonymous.”
“Right. Sorry,” Elle said. She realized once again how seriously Brooke took these meetings and the group members.
“Sometimes I feel like even you make fun of my addiction, Elle.”
Elle looked away from Brooke, pretending to check her makeup in the side mirror of the car. “I’m so sorry, Brooke,” Elle said. “I’m not making fun of your addiction. It’s just hard to imagine anyone, especially you, with your sense of style and elegance, ordering something like porcelain commemorative dolls of the nation’s first ladies.”
“Those were pretty scary,” Brooke admitted as she screeched the convertible to a halt in front of the airport Hilton.
The Hilton. Elle wondered if one of the members rented a suite under a false name.
Brooke and Elle pulled out hairbrushes to fix their windblown hair and then entered the hotel. Elle followed Brooke to a second-floor suite called the Archibald Room. The only furnishings were cheap plastic chairs placed around a long Formica table and oddly mismatched paintings and prints.
Several people, the most eclectic mix Elle had ever seen, were sitting around the table. They seemed to be at ease with one another and were conversing in a casual manner. A few others were gathered around an enormous coffee machine or had taken seats in extra chairs around the edges of the room. From their wide range of looks, they seemed to be everything from housewives, to mechanics, to doctors, to CEOs.
When Brooke and Elle entered, Brooke announced that Elle was there as a guest and not a member. This had the effect of quieting the nervous murmurs and stares of the nine or ten people present. Brooke suggested that they introduce themselves to Elle, and when nobody volunteered, Elle gave a wave of her hand generally around the smoke-filled room.
“My name is Elle Woods. I’m a friend of Brooke’s from college, and I wanted to meet the people who have helped her so much,” she said with a smile.
“I’m Miranda,” said a tiny dark-haired woman. “Welcome.”
Brooke tapped Elle’s arm. “She’s the life leader,” she whispered into Elle’s ear.
Miranda stood up and closed the door behind Elle. “We’re all here,” she said, returning to her seat. “Yves, why don’t you begin by introducing yourself to our guest.”
A wrinkled man sitting closest to the door, wearing a starched, collarless denim shirt, squinted through wire-rimmed glasses, then removed them from his small face. “My name is Yves Muir,” he said.
Elle, having taken a seat next to Brooke at the other end of the table, waved from her chair. “Hi, Yves.”
“I’m from Citrus Heights, California,” the little man continued. “Last month I was rolling my shopping debt over on five credit cards, three in my wife’s name, and she’s been deceased for several years.” He nervously reached for a cigarette and lit it.
Elle heard a sympathetic murmur from several people in the room.
“Yves is our most recent member,” Miranda said. She then turned to the woman seated by the wall next to Yves who was loudly crunching her way through a bag of Cheetos. “Veronica, why don’t you introduce yourself next?”
“My name is Veronica,” said the garish woman, who wore a lemon yellow bouffant. Her cheeks and lips were streaked with the same bloodred color, giving her white face the appearance of a checkered gingham cloth. She was dressed in a prune-colored sweater that exposed one shoulder like Jennifer Beals in Flashdance. Elle wondered if her penchant was for high-volume cosmetic purchases.
“I’m a florist, originally from Bentonville, Arkansas,” she said. “That’s where the original Wal-Mart store is located, you know. I always did love a bargain!” She smiled engagingly and revealed that she had ordered enough scented soaps and oils to take baths every hour for twenty years. Elle giggled, but drew a scowl from Yves and Veronica together. She straightened her face into a more appropriate look of concern.
“Nice to meet you, Veronica,” she said, and was relieved when the woman returned her smile.
Without prompting from the life leader, a scruffy-haired man in a black T-shirt who was seated at the table introduced himself. “I’m Jeff,” he said in a deep baritone that sounded incongruous with his youthful grin. “I play bass for the Funeral Pyre. We’ve got a gig tonight in the city at the Cat House. I can put you on the guest list if you want.”
Brooke laughed out loud. “Jeff, you’re out of luck. She’s hopelessly in love!”
Elle blushed. “Brooke!”
“No secrets here,” Brooke said, poking Elle in the shoulder.
The rest of the people seated around the table introduced themselves to Elle one by one. There was Walter, a CEO; Gloria, a dental hygienist; Anne, an interior designer; Carolyn, a school principal; Jean, a legal secretary; and Nicolette, whom Elle recognized as the evening anchorwoman on Channel 4.
Brooke thanked the group for allowing Elle to be there. “You all know how hard it is to find someone to understand our addiction, and even though Elle never even watched Home Shopping before she met me, she’s been my greatest support outside of the group. I wanted to bring her today so that she can fully understand the importance of these meetings and what the meetings and the members mean to me.”
Suddenly Miranda jumped up from her chair and called the meeting to order.
Elle pulled a compact out of her purse to make sure that her mascara hadn’t been smudged from her watering eyes. The room was dense with cigarette smoke. At least ten people in the room had replaced one addiction with another. Satisfied with her mascara, she looked doubtfully at Miranda.
“For those of you who don’t know me, I’m Miranda,” she began. “I’m a recovering home shopper. As your life leader, I’ve spent a lot of time telling you how I overcame Home Shopping and what Shopper Stoppers has done for me, but today I’d like to tell you something more important.”
“Hi, Miranda. Tell us your story!” the group said warmly in a loud, unified chorus.
“I used to be lonely. Now I’m not lonely, but I know that if I do get lonely, shopping won’t fill that aching void. I have to turn to you…my friends. That is what recovery is all about. It’s about friendship, support, and anonymity. It’s about coming to people whom I can share my worst fears and secrets with and know that they’ll never, under any circumstances, be revealed. That is friendship to me, and it’s why I’ve been Home Shopping-free for one year, two months, and three days!”
Elle looked at Brooke’s tear-splotched face and knew that she would never, under any circumstances, reveal the identity of her group members in L.A.