Suddenly I realize the Camberly show is starting. The familiar titles are zooming over the screen, and shots of Camberly in evening dress and running along the beach with her dog are flash-cutting with shots of her famous white house, where it’s “filmed.” (It’s really filmed in L.A., on a studio set. Everyone knows that.) Normally there are several sections in the show. There’s an interview and a song and a cooking slot, and often a competition. But today is a “special.” It’s all about Lois and Sage. As soon as the music dies away, the camera focuses on Camberly, looking somber, and a backdrop of Sage’s and Lois’s faces blown up, glaring at each other. It all looks very dramatic.
“Welcome to my home,” Camberly says in serious tones. “And to a unique and momentous hour-long special. Sage Seymour. Lois Kellerton. Meeting for the first time since their infamous encounter at the ASAs. We’ll be back after this.” Music plays again, and the titles swoosh around the screen. I stare at it in slight outrage. An ad break already? I will never get used to American telly. Yesterday I started watching an advert and it went on for twenty minutes. Twenty whole minutes!
(It was quite good, though. It was all about this brilliant barbecue grill thing, which gives you a “restaurant quality finish” with none of the calories. I wrote the number down, actually.)
I sit impatiently through a zillion ads for pain relievers and then watch as Sage appears on the screen, sitting on the sofa with a rapt Camberly. At first it’s very boring, because she gets Sage to tell her exactly what happened at the awards ceremony, in every detail, and shows the video clip about ten times, and asks Sage over and over, “And how did that make you feel?”
Sage is acting devastated. She keeps using phrases like “I felt so betrayed” and “I just don’t understand Lois” and “Why me?” in a broken voice. I think she’s overdoing it myself.
Then it’s another ad break—and then it’s time for Lois’s appearance. And even though I know they’ve cooked all this up, my heart is beating faster at the thought of them together on the sofa. God knows what the American public is feeling. This really is a TV event.
Suddenly we’re back in the studio, and Lois walks onto the set, wearing skinny cigarette pants and a billowy white silk shirt and … holding the clutch bag! I can’t help gasping, and Jeff looks in the rearview mirror.
“Sorry,” I say. “Just watching the telly.”
Sage and Lois are staring at each other like two hostile cats, with a kind of crackling, unsmiling tension. The cameras keep switching from close-up to close-up. Camberly is watching silently, her hands to her mouth.
“Have your clutch bag.” Lois throws the bag down on the floor. Camberly jumps in shock and I make a squeak of protest. She’ll damage the diamanté!
“You think I want it?” says Sage. “You can keep it.”
Hang on. I’m a bit offended here. That’s a really nice clutch bag. Which, by the way, no one has ever paid me for.
“You two girls haven’t seen each other since the awards ceremony,” says Camberly, leaning forward.
“No,” says Sage, not taking her eyes off Lois.
“Why would I want to see her?” chimes in Lois.
And suddenly I lose patience with the whole thing. It’s so unreal. They’re going to fight and be mean and then they’ll probably hug each other and cry at the end.
“We’re here,” says Jeff, pulling the car over. “You wanna keep watching?”
“No, thanks,” I say, and switch off the TV. I look out of the window, trying to get my bearings. There are the galvanized gates. There are the rows of mobile homes. OK. Let’s hope I find some answers here.
“This is really the address?” says Jeff, who is peering out of the window dubiously. “You sure about that?”
“Yes, this is it.”
“Well, I think it’s advisable I come along with you,” he says firmly, and gets out of the car.
“Thanks, Jeff,” I say, as he opens my car door.
I’m going to miss Jeff.
This time I walk straight to trailer 431, without looking right or left. The eviction notice is still on the door, and the trailer opposite is shut up. I can see my card still stuck in the window frame. Great. Clearly that woman didn’t pass it on.
I walk past an old man sitting outside a trailer about three along, but I don’t feel like approaching him. Partly because he keeps giving me funny looks, and partly because he has a massive dog on a chain. I can’t see any neighbors other than him. So what do I do now? I sit down on a plastic chair, which seems to be randomly in the middle of the path, and heave a big sigh.
“Are you visiting with someone?” says Jeff, who has followed me without comment.
“No. I mean, yes, but he’s been evicted.” I gesture at the notice on the door. “I want to find out where he’s gone.”
“Uh-huh.” Jeff digests this for a few moments.
“I was hoping to speak to a neighbor,” I explain. “I thought I could get a forwarding address or something.…”
“Uh-huh,” says Jeff again, then nods at the trailer. “He might be in there. Back door’s open.”
What? That hadn’t even occurred to me. Maybe he’s come back. Maybe Dad’s in there with him! In excitement, I hurry to the trailer door and bang on it.
“Hello?” I call. “Brent? Are you there?”
There’s a pause, then the door swings open. But it’s not Brent. It’s a girl. She’s a little older than me, I’d say, with wavy sandy hair and a freckled, weather-beaten face. She has pale-blue eyes and a nose ring and an unfriendly expression. I can smell toast and hear Michael Jackson’s “Beat It” playing faintly in the background.