Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen (4 page)

The rest of her sentence hung silently in the miles between us:
and now we never will…

“I don’t know how I can face another day,” I said softly, trying to hold back the volcano of tears welling inside me. “I just don’t know.”

My mother was passing on her way back to the living room with a cup of tea. She glanced over at me.

“If you don’t get off that phone soon you won’t have to face another day,” she informed me.

“Five minutes,” I begged. “Just five more minutes.”

Ella and I got as far as agreeing to dress in mourning for the rest of the week when my mother came out and did her talking-clock impersonation (“Do you know what
time
it is? It’s eleven forty-eight.”) and forced me to get off the phone. I went back to my room and put on the new Sidartha CD. I cried for a while. Then I rubbed off the purple polish and painted my nails jet black. I looked through my music magazines, re-reading every Sidartha article and interview. I cried some more. I tossed and turned for hours, listening to the wind rip through the trees like monsters clawing out the hearts of babies in their cribs.
Sidartha is no more!
I silently wailed into the darkness.
Sidartha is no more!

I don’t know how I ever managed to sleep that night, but I must have dozed, no matter how fitfully, because I knew the instant I was awake: the pain began again.

A BRIEF ASIDE

I can’t go on with my story until I’ve explained a little more about Carla Santini. But in order to explain about Carla, I first have to explain about the social structure of Deadwood High. Life is like that, I find. Complicated.

I think of Deadwood High as an eco-system. It has its groups, and each of them feeds off the others. There are, of course, small grouplettes on the fringe – dopeheads, a couple of retro-hippies, a few biker types (but largely without bikes), metal heads, the total untouchables – but basically there are three main groups.

The first group is what I call the BTWs: Born to Wins. These are the kids who think of school as a social event. They’re popular, attractive, very busy and usually get a monthly allowance that would support a family of five for a year in Cuba. Their grades may not be the greatest, but they’re good enough. The boys are usually all-round athletes and the girls are usually on every committee. Parents and teachers wish these kids would buckle down a little more and treat maths and English as though they were as important as the Homecoming Dance, but otherwise they don’t mind them. They know they’re not going to be astrophysicists or anything like that, but they also know that they’re unlikely to wind up collecting bottles to get the deposit back so they can buy cheap wine.

The second group I call BTRs: Born to Run Everythings. They’re the brains and very goal-oriented. They either dress like the professionals they plan to be, or they’re super-cool with artistic and intellectual pretensions. They’re always seen reading the “right” book or listening to the “right” music. Parents and teachers love these kids.

The BTWs and the BTRs don’t interact at all with any of the fringe groups unless it’s to torment them, but they’re usually civil with each other.

The third group are the Independents. Unlike the kids on the fringe, who are either closet wannabes, or just resigned to the fact that they will never be accepted by any of the “in” groups in this lifetime, the Independents don’t care. Because they don’t care, they don’t get hassled or bullied and are more or less accepted by everyone, if only superficially. Achieving Independent status isn’t easy, so there aren’t many of them. Maybe eight or ten in the whole of Deadwood High.

I’m an Independent. It’s easier for me because I didn’t grow up with these kids. Ella should have been a BTR – she’s at the top of our class and she lives in the right neighbourhood – and she would have been if she were a little more like her parents, but Ella was not only very shy and repressed before we met, she was also uncompetitive and unpretentious and found the BTRs boring. Nobody really paid her that much attention before I moved to Deadwood. She wasn’t an Independent, she was just Ella. Now she’s an Independent by default, because I’m her best friend.

And then, standing alone like a princess on a tower of diamonds, there’s Carla Santini.

Carla Santini isn’t an Independent, she’s a BTW
and
a BTR. She could be anything else she wanted to be, but she wouldn’t want to be anything else, unless it were God.

Carla Santini is beautiful, rich, intelligent and revoltingly sophisticated for someone who was born and raised in the depths of New Jersey. She does what she wants; she dresses like a model. If Carla Santini wears something new on Monday, half the girls in the school will be wearing something like it by Friday. And then Carla will never wear hers again. Carla Santini is also one of those people who sees this enormous planet as a single-person dwelling. It baffles me how someone as materialistic, self-centred and shallow as Carla Santini can be the most popular teenager in Dellwood, but young as I am, I have already learned that there’s a lot in this life that doesn’t make sense.

After that first conversation in the homeroom Carla Santini didn’t come near me for a while. But she watched. I could see her sizing me up as she passed in the hall, tossing her hair and laughing with her friends as though she didn’t know I existed. But I made sure that she did. Whether I was in a black phase or a phase of vibrant colours, I stood out: Morticia Addams one day; Carmen the next. And I made sure that I took part in all my classes; especially English. Carla Santini and her brood of admirers monopolized the middle rows in English, forcing everyone else either to the front (where they’d always be picked on), or to the back (where they fell asleep).

My second day at Dellwood, I dragged Ella to English early and sat dead centre. Ella didn’t want to; she liked to sit to the side at the back, but I pointed out that since there weren’t assigned seats we could sit where we wanted. We live in a democracy, don’t we? Ella can always be reasoned with. Unlike some of us she comes from a very reasonable family.

Even Ella admitted that it was worth it, just to see the expression on Carla Santini’s face when she strode through the door and saw us sitting in her seats. It only lasted a nanosecond, but it was a beauty: pure, primal rage. Scarlett O’Hara couldn’t have done it better. Then, without any hesitation, she screamed out, “I’m bored with sitting in the same place all the time, let’s sit at the back for a change,” and she sailed past us, her entourage shuffling after her.

At the end of my first week at Deadwood High, Carla Santini came up to me on the lunch line. She was smiling like a salesman on commission. She has an incredible number of teeth – at least twice as many as the rest of us – each of them perfect and white.

“Hi,” she said. “I’m Carla Santini.”

As if I didn’t know that. It was like Cher coming up to you on the lunch line and saying. “Hi, I’m Cher.”

I smiled back. “I know.”

Carla’s smile became a little less bright but no less toothy. The salesman was about to tell me a price I didn’t want to hear. “I know you’re new here, Lola,” purred Carla Santini, “and you don’t understand how things work yet.” Her smile solidified. “I’ve been making allowances for that.”

My own smile dimmed slightly. Even though I hadn’t heard it yet, I could tell I wasn’t going to like the price.

“So are you going to tell me how things work?” I purred back.

Carla Santini said, “Yes,” and stopped smiling. Then she told me. I was sitting in her seat in English. I was attracting too much attention. I was committing social suicide by hanging out with Ella-Never-Had-a-Fella.

“I thought you and Ella were friends.” I still had a smile on my face.

“Of course we’re friends.” She held up her hand, the first and second fingers crossed. “We were like that when we were little. But she doesn’t have your potential, does she?” She openly turned and flicked her head to where Ella was sitting with her lunch in front of her, waiting for me. “I mean, look at her. She dresses like a politician’s wife. I know she’s very sweet, but, let’s face it, she’s about as exciting as lettuce.” The curls shuddered and she looked back to me. “But you … you’re different. You could really be somebody at Dellwood.”

I could hear her adding silently,
If I let you…
That’s how Carla Santini works: you don’t do anything or get anything unless she says so. It’s like dealing with the Godfather.

“Wow…” I said. “Then I could die happy.”

If it could be bottled, the Santini smile could be used as a chemical weapon.

“It’s a lot better than dying
unhappy
,” cooed Carla.

I picked up my tray.

“Thanks for the advice,” I said. “Now, if you’ll excuse me…” I nodded to where Ella was staring at us, her mouth open and a forkful of food hovering in the air beside it, like a politician’s wife whose lunch has been disturbed by the arrival of Martians. “My friend is waiting for me.”

Those were the first shots fired in what turned out to be a pretty ugly war.

I TRY TO LIVE WITH DISASTER

My mother was still sitting at the table, reading the newspaper, when I finally staggered into the kitchen the morning after the end of the world, but the twins had already left for school. Thank the gods for their small mercies. I could face my mother – she, at least, usually tries to act like an adult – but I couldn’t have faced her other progeny on that black, black morn. To have to sit with them while they shrieked at each other, babbled about nothing, and spat half-chewed cereal everywhere while my heart was being devoured by the worms of death would have killed me on the spot.

My mother gave me a glance when I came in.

“I called you twice,” she said, her eyes already back on the article she was reading. “What happened? Did you fall asleep again?”

I took a dragon mug from the shelf, but I was almost too weak to lift it. I leaned against the counter for support.

“I wasn’t sleeping,” I said in a voice that had lost all trace of joy. Probably forever. “I had a very fraught night.” Which was a phenomenal understatement.

My parent responded to this shocking announcement with her usual lack of concern for anyone else, especially me. “I had a very difficult night, too. Someone was playing one of her audio-migraines for hours.”

My mother doesn’t call what Sidartha plays “music”. My mother calls improvisational jazz “music”. Sidartha’s music she calls “audio-migraine”.

I poured some coffee into the mug. Very slowly, watching it flow into the cup like blood. “I’m sorry if my music disturbed you.” I sighed again. “But I’m afraid it’s the only comfort I have right now.”

“Well comfort yourself a little more quietly next time,” said my mother.

I picked up my mug and collapsed in the chair across from her.

She finally looked up and noticed that I was all in black, including my lips and eyelids. “So what’s it today? You in an Addams Family mood, or have you and Ella had a fight?”

I stared into the blackness that filled my cup. “It’s nothing,” I whispered, the words strained with pain. “You wouldn’t understand.”

“That’s not all you’re having for breakfast, is it?” demanded my mother. “You can’t go to school on a cup of coffee.”

I looked at her as a ghost might look at an old friend who is still alive. “I can’t eat anything,” I informed her patiently. “It would turn to ashes as it touched my lips.”

My mother made a face of exaggerated concentration. “Bette Davis?” she guessed. “Joan Crawford?” She shook her head. “It can’t be Glenn Close.”

“This isn’t an act,” I said hollowly. “This happens to be a day of great unhappiness for me.”

“You’ll be a lot more than unhappy if you don’t at least eat a piece of fruit.” She raised her paper. “And you’ll wash all that junk off your face before you leave this house, as well. You look like the living dead.”

My mother’s a potter. Potters aren’t like painters or musicians or actors; they’re much more pedestrian. It was unusual for her to be so perceptive. This unexpected sensitivity on her part surprised me so much that, even though I must have cried about ten million tears since I heard about the break-up, fresh ones flooded my eyes.

“That’s exactly what I am,” I sobbed. “I’m the living dead.”

“Pretend you’re the walking wounded instead,” said my mother. “And get yourself something to eat.”

*     *    *

“I wonder what really made them break up,” Ella was musing as we neared the sprawl of gleaming modern buildings that is Dellwood High. “I mean, ‘solo careers’ doesn’t really tell you much, does it? It’s what they always say. It’s like when politicians start talking about freedom and liberty; it could mean anything.”

“Artistic differences,” I decided. “I’m sure I read somewhere that Stu feels stifled by the rest of the group.” Stu Wolff was the lead singer and song-writer of Sidartha and, in my humble opinion, one of the greatest geniuses who has ever lived. Maybe even greater than the Bard himself.

“I bet Stu’s hard to get along with,” said Ella. “You can sort of tell that he’s moody.”

“Haunted,” I corrected her. “All true geniuses are haunted. It’s part of what they have to suffer for their art.”

“I’m happy I’m so normal,” said Ella. “I don’t think I could stand the stress of being artistically gifted.” She readjusted her book bag on her shoulder and stifled a smile. “Or the pain.”

“It isn’t easy,” I assured her. “It’s a great deal to—”

I stopped, paralyzed by the shocking sight in front of my eyes.

“Ye gods!” I wailed. “We really do live in a cultural wasteland. Look at this place, will you? Just look at it!” If my heart weren’t already as dead and dry as a bone in the desert, this would have destroyed it for sure.

Ella looked at the rambling brick edifices spread out before us.

“It looks the same as always to me,” said Ella.

Ella’s the very best friend I’ve ever had, but if I were being totally honest I’d have to admit that she doesn’t always have much imagination. She’s intelligent, but not really creative. It comes from growing up with a woman who arranges the spices and canned goods in alphabetical order and has the sheets ironed. That’s why she’s lucky to have me around. I open her horizons. And I benefit from Ella’s down-to-earthness, of course. Extremely sensitive and imaginative people need someone steady to balance them.

“That’s exactly what I mean!” I strode towards the main building. “One of the most catastrophic events in the history of the universe has just occurred, and everyone here acts as though nothing has happened. You can bet if the President died they’d have the flag at half-mast. And probably a special assembly where everybody has to bend their heads in silence for a minute.”

Ella nodded. “Oh, I get what you mean. National mourning.”

I steered her into the girls’ room so I could put my lipstick and eye shadow back on.

I flung my make-up bag on the sink. “After all, the death of a President isn’t half as devastating as the death of a band like Sidartha. If the President dies, the Vice President takes over for a while, and then they elect a new President. Big deal.” I stared at myself in the mirror. The black eye shadow made me look like a tragic Greek queen who’d just discovered that she’d married her son or eaten her own baby or something like that. “But there’ll never be another Sidartha!” I cried. “It’s like the death of the last whale!”

“It’s too bad we’re not putting on
Moby Dick
this year, isn’t it?” said a honeyed voice right behind us. “That would have been perfect for you.”

Ella and I looked in the mirror to see one of the stall doors open and Carla Santini waft out. As always, she looked as though at least a dozen photographers were waiting to take her picture, cameras poised. She was wearing DK leggings, a silk Armani top, and spit-polished black boots. Elegant and expensive, but understated. Everything about her said,
This is the person you should want to be.

I smiled my most understated smile. “Only if you played the whale.”

Normally I enjoy school. My mother says it’s because I like an audience, and what better audience is there than two dozen students and a teacher who can’t leave the room for fifty-five minutes?

But that black morning when no birds sang, I couldn’t concentrate on anything except the fact that I now lived in a Sidarthaless world.

In history I stared blindly at Mr Stiple while he droned on about some war, but all I heard was Stu Wolff singing,
I don’t want to hear you say ‘never again’, tell me tomorrow, tell me a lie, but please never tell me ‘never again’.

In maths I gazed raptly at Ms Pollard while she put equations on the board, but all I saw was Stu Wolff sliding across the stage with his guitar on his knee, smiling that endearing lopsided grin of his.

It was the same in all my other classes. I was so self-absorbed in gym that I got whacked with a hockey stick and had to sit out most of the period. Ms Purdue, my gym teacher, said I should try to concentrate on hitting the puck, not being it.

It wasn’t until lunch that I began to revive.

Carla Santini and her disciples usually sat anywhere that Ella and I weren’t, but that day they sat right behind us.

Because Carla Santini thinks she’s Dellwood’s answer to Julia Roberts, and because she thinks everybody in the universe is interested in every little thing she does, there is no way you can help overhearing her conversation. Carla will never be a great actor – artistic suffering is as alien to her as wearing perfume is to a swamp rat – but she sure can project.

Ella and I sat in communal silence, thinking about Sidartha and ignoring Carla, but then something she said caught my attention.

“I had a long talk with Mrs Baggoli after school yesterday,” said Carla. “You know, about
Pygmalion
?”

Pygmalion!
I’d been so depressed about Sidartha that I’d actually let the auditions slip to the back of my mind until then.

There was a gentle murmur of interest from the entourage. Once it had died down, Carla continued. There was nothing in her tone to suggest that modesty was one of her strongest virtues.

“I told her how I thought it was very rigid to stick to the original accents,” said Carla. “I mean, we’re not English and it’s not the nineteenth century any more…”

And Carla Santini couldn’t do a cockney accent to save her life – or even her wardrobe.

“We need to adapt classics to reflect our own times, to make them more immediate and relevant…”

“It’s hard to relate to characters you can’t really understand,” agreed Alma. She giggled. “And those clothes…”

Tina Cherry, Carla’s second-best friend, tittered. “And a flower girl! I mean, really, what’s that supposed to be? I mean, she doesn’t even work in a florist’s, does she?”

Carla squealed with triumph. “That’s exactly what I told her. And I pointed out all the successful, meaningful modernizations that have been done in the last twenty years. You know, like
Romeo and Juliet
.”

“Good for you,” said Marcia Conroy, the third disciple. “It’s about time Mrs Baggoli woke up and smelled the coffee.”

The true significance of what Carla was saying was, of course, not lost on me. I was dumbfounded, truly dumbfounded. Carla Santini, knowing she didn’t stand a chance against me when it came to playing an Eliza Doolittle who sold flowers on the streets of London, had decided to change the script. She’s incredible, she really is. You almost have to respect her. You certainly have to make sure you never turn your back on her.

“So what’d she say?” asked Tina.

Carla became touchingly coy. I was facing away from her, but I had no trouble seeing the way she smiled and cocked her head to one side so she’d look shy but mischievous. It’s one of her favourite poses. She was undoubtedly tossing her curls. It was enough to make you vomit.

“Well, you’re not going to believe this, but I told her my idea about changing the location to New York today, and making Eliza a check-out girl in a supermarket…”

“Uh-huh…” chimed in Alma. “It’s a great idea.” Alma thinks everything Carla Santini says and does is great. She probably gives Carla a standing ovation when she goes to the bathroom.

“So what’d she say?” pressed Tina, whining slightly with impatience.

“Yeah,” said Marcia, “tell us what she said.”

“Well…” Carla paused dramatically. The suspense was really killing. “Mrs Baggoli said she thought it was a really excellent idea.” The table behind us erupted in girlish squeals of delight. “She said she’d been thinking it was time to do something a little different,” Carla went on, nobly controlling her own excitement, but not quite keeping the smug triumph out of her voice, “and she thought my idea was just the thing.”

“That’s incredible!” gushed Alma. “That’s truly incredible!”

Tina and Marcia, like myself, were at a loss for words. All they managed were a few awestruck “Gee”s.

Carla’s laughter rumbled around us. “Didn’t I tell you you wouldn’t believe it?”

Carla was right, I didn’t believe it. The major problem with Carla Santini – aside from her character, her personality, and her annoying personal habits – is that she was born and raised in Deadwood. As were all her friends. She established her image and territory in kindergarten. She can make anybody believe anything. Even teachers are fooled by Carla. Even Ella had been fooled. But Mrs Baggoli? Mrs Baggoli has done repertory all over the country; she once directed an off-Broadway play; she even had some small parts in a couple of movies
and
she’s travelled just about all over the world. I couldn’t believe that someone of Mrs Baggoli’s sophistication and worldliness could possibly be fooled by Carla.

“Carla Santini strikes again!” crowed Alma.

Out of the mouths of yes-girls…

“I really have to hand it to you, Carla,” said Marcia admiringly. “You always go after what you want, don’t you?”

“And she always gets it,” I whispered to Ella.

Carla laughed with what passed in her for good nature. It sounded like a knife going through live tissue.

“My parents didn’t raise any losers,” said Carla.

Ella gave me a look. I could tell from the way her mouth was turned down that Ella thought that my parents had.