Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen (9 page)

“Why do I feel like I’m watching a tragedy in one act?” asked my mother.

Still choking, I started to cry.

“Make her eat more,” pleaded Pam. “I want to see her throw up again.”

“Is Mary going to die?” asked Paula.

My mother’s brows were knit.

“It smells like
something
has died in here,” she said.

I peeked through my tears and sobs to find her looking around suspiciously, her nose twitching.

“Am I the only one who smells that?” she demanded.

Paula and Pam hurled themselves into my room.

“Peeoiu!” they shrieked, holding their noses.

“It smells like rotting eggs,” said my mother.

“It smells like it’s coming from the bed,” said Paula.

It was rotting eggs. And it was coming from around the bed. Saturday morning, Ella had brought me some leftovers from her supper the night before and I’d stuck the plate under the bed because I wasn’t hungry then. I’d totally forgotten about it.

My mother dove under the bed like a beagle and, like a beagle, came up with the remains of Mrs Gerard’s mushroom quiche. She looked at it for a few seconds, and then she looked at me.

That was my cue.

I pretended to faint.

OUR MINOR DETAILS GROW

Despite my unexpected setback with passive resistance, I was in a good mood on Monday.

Indeed, I was more than happy; I was ecstatic. George Blue made the announcement Saturday night: Monday was the day the tickets to the Sidartha concert went on sale.

“I’ll tell Mrs Baggoli I have bad cramps and can’t make rehearsal today,” I was saying to Ella as we walked to class. It was a big chance to take, missing rehearsal. Carla Santini was my understudy, after all. It made me nervous, her playing my part. But it was a chance I would have to take. “Then right after school we’ll go to the mall and get our tickets.” I spread my arms and the black velvet fluttered like a raven’s wings. “I’m practically dancing in Stu Wolff’s embrace.”

“Lola,” said Ella. “Lola, it may have slipped your mind, but neither of us has permission to go to the concert.”

“Details, details,” I cried as we turned into the English wing. “I’ll just tell my mom I’m spending the night with you, and you’ll tell your parents you’re spending the night with me.” I snapped my fingers. “What could be easier?” It seemed pretty foolproof to me.

But it didn’t seem that foolproof to Ella.

“It won’t work,” Ella said flatly. She swung her book bag back and forth between us in a resigned way. “You know what my mother’s like. She’s guaranteed to call your house at least once to make sure I didn’t forget anything.”

Sadly, I did know what Ella’s mother was like. Mrs Gerard still reminds Ella to brush her teeth. I mean, really. Ella’s sixteen. Was her mother going to move into Ella’s dorm when she went to college so she could remind her to brush her teeth every night then, too?

“OK,” I said reasonably. “Then we’ll tell them the truth.”

Ella gave me a sour look.

“The truth? You want to tell them that we’re going to go to the Sidartha concert, and then we’re going to crash a party where everyone will probably be drunk or on drugs and making out in the bathroom?”

I sighed. “Not that truth. We’ll tell them we’re going to the concert, but that we’re going with my friend, Shana, and that her folks are going to meet us at the train and escort us to the Garden.” Shana was the friend I told Ella I was seeing when I visited my father. I really did visit Shana when I first moved to Deadwood, but we’d drifted apart, as people do.

“Um…” said Ella.

“And we’ll tell them we’re going to spend the night with her,” I went on. “Her parents have been married for twenty-five years. Your parents will like that.”

“Lola,” said Ella in this mega-patient voice. “What if—”

“Stop worrying,” I advised. I opened the classroom door. “So we still have a few minor details to work out—”

Ella snorted. If her mother could have heard her, she would have gone into cardiac arrest. God only has ten commandments, but Mrs Gerard has at least a hundred, a great many of them pertaining to proper behaviour for young ladies.

“You can say that again,” said Ella. She glanced towards the back of the room, the new location for the Carla Santini Admiration Society. “More than a few.”

Right on cue, Carla Santini looked over.

“Lola and Ella are going, too,” she boomed as we took our seats.

You didn’t have to be particularly gifted as a detective to correctly guess what Carla was droning on about. Even though everybody, including the janitor, knew the whole saga of the Sidartha concert, including every word that had ever been exchanged between Stu Wolff and Mr Santini, it was a routine Carla never tired of.

“Lola’s mother, the potter, got them invited.”

“She must be a pretty good potter,” said one of the boys in Carla’s audience.

They all laughed, even Carla, who had made that same dumb joke herself.

I was getting pretty good at duplicating Carla’s smile.

“As good a potter as Mr Santini is a lawyer,” I said, joining in the laughter.

“Suicide,” hissed Ella. “You’re committing high-school suicide.”

Alma could do a pretty good imitation of the Santini smile, too.

“So you must be used to these celebrity gigs if your mother has clients like Marsh Foreman,” she purred.

“Oh, you know…” I was cool, as someone a little jaded from her life in the fast lane would be.

Ella groaned.

Alma gave me a “get-
you
” kind of look. “What about the concert? Are you going to that, too?”

I felt, rather than saw, Ella glance my way.

“Of course they’re going,” drawled Carla Santini. The dark curls rattled. “We fortunate ones with personal invitations don’t have to worry about tickets to the concert, do we, Lola?”

The classroom door opened and shut, and the cavalry in the form of Mrs Baggoli rushed in. I sat down.

“Nope,” I agreed. “We fortunate ones don’t have to worry about tickets.”

“It’s not for me,” I was saying. My voice was soft and gentle, but charged with emotion and suffering. “It’s for my poor sister.”

Mr Alvarez, whose name-tag claimed he was the manager of Ticketsgalore, was still shaking his head. “Well, I’m really very sorry about your sister—”

“Mary.” I smiled a bittersweet smile. “You see,” I whispered, leaning over the counter towards him, my eyes dark with pain, my youthful features etched with tragedy, “Mary’s dying. Of a very rare blood disease.”

Ella began to choke. I reached out and slapped her on the back, my eyes still on Mr Alvarez.

Mr Alvarez looked embarrassed. “I’m very sorry to hear that,” he said quickly, “but I’m afraid—”

“Sidartha’s her very favourite band,” I rushed on. “No, they’re more than just a band to poor Mary. They’re a source of hope and inspiration. A spiritual well in which she can dip her battered soul for nourishment and rest.” My voice became a little louder with the intensity of my emotions. “Sidartha and their music have kept her going through all she’s had to endure in her tortured young life – the isolation, the operations, the coma…” I clasped my hands in supplication. I stared into Mr Alvarez’s eyes. “If she could just see their last concert she could at least die happy.”

Mr Alvarez pushed a limp strand of hair from his forehead. “I’d love to help you,” he said. “I really would. It’s very sad about your sister—”

“Mary,” I breathed. “Her name’s Mary.” I smiled bravely. “She’s only eighteen.” I bit my lip. “Eighteen, but never nineteen.”

Still gasping slightly, Ella wandered away to check out the posters on the walls.

“Really,” said Mr Alvarez. He was almost pleading. “If there were something I could do to help you, I would. But there isn’t. I simply don’t have any more tickets.”

I was leaning so close by now that I could smell the traces of Mr Alvarez’s lunch (fish and garlic).

“But there must be some way,” I insisted, forcing back a sob. “Someone somewhere must have tickets left.”

“Maybe,” Mr Alvarez conceded. He made an apologetic face. “I really wish I could help you, but I just don’t have any.”

A single tear slid down my careworn cheek. “Not even one?”

He shook his head again. “Not even one. If I did, believe me, I’d let you have it.”

I touched his hand. “Thank you,” I whispered. “God bless you. And I’m sure poor Mary would thank you if…” I paused, choked with emotion, “if she could.”

Ella and I walked out of the store in silence. But as soon as the door of Ticketsgalore shut behind us, she turned on me almost hysterically.

“God bless you?”
she shrieked.
“My poor sister Mary’s dying of a rare blood disease? She’d thank you herself if she could?”
Ella looked torn between shock and awe. “I’m surprised you didn’t invite him to the funeral.”

I led the way to a nearby bench. “What are you getting so worked up about?” I demanded. “We would have had the tickets if he really wasn’t sold out, and you know it. I bet if he had a couple put aside he would have given them to us for nothing.”

“Yeah,” said Ella. “Just to get rid of us.”

We collapsed side by side under a palm tree. Even though it’s located in the temperate north-east, for some reason the Dellwood Mall has a tropical decor.

“If my mother wasn’t too cheap to let me have my own credit card, this would never have happened,” I grumbled. You could bet Carla Santini had her own credit card. Undoubtedly gold.

“It’s probably for the best,” said Ella, placid again. She sighed. “I don’t think I could have handled all the lying involved if we really did go. Your mother … my parents…” She gave another sigh. “I’ve always been taught that honesty is the best policy. It’s a hard habit to break.”

“Well, you’d better start practising,” I informed her, my mind already steaming on to the next solution. “Because we’re still going, tickets or no tickets.”

Ella gave me one of her long, hard looks. “You know, it’s just as well you want to be an actor,” she informed me, “because you definitely have no talent for reality. Don’t you get it, Lola? No ticket, no entry. That’s the rule.”

I gave her a withering look.

“Touts,” I said simply. “Or, even better, we could crash the concert, too.”

But Ella was shaking her head. “I can’t do it, Lola, I—”

She broke off as Carla, Alma, and at least half a dozen glossy shopping bags came out of the Armani store to our left. Even though they were both talking faster than the speed of light, Carla and Alma spotted us immediately – and immediately swooped towards us, smiles flashing.

“Oh no, company,” muttered Ella.

The company of hyenas.

“I think I liked it better when they weren’t speaking to us,” I whispered.

“Well, look who’s here!” boomed Carla. She gave me a low-beam smile. “I thought you were crippled with cramps.”

Several passing shoppers, hearing her roar, looked over at me and Ella.

“I’m feeling better, thanks,” I replied smoothly. “How come you’re not at rehearsal?”

Carla’s expression became serious. “Mrs Baggoli’s neighbour called just as we were starting, to say that her house alarm was going off again, so she had to go home.”

“Carla and I have been doing a little shopping,” said Alma. She giggled.

Carla’s eyes were running over Ella and me like ants over a picnic. One eyebrow rose. “What,” she grinned, her eyes resting on me, “no booty?”

I grinned back. “We just got here. You know what the buses are like.”

“Oh,” said Carla, who had probably never been on a bus in her life, “so that’s it.” She laughed loudly. “You had me worried for a minute,” she went on. “I thought you must have come out of there.” Her eyes darted behind me to where the neon Ticketsgalore sign shone. “I was afraid you hadn’t gotten your tickets after all.” Her expression changed to one of sisterly concern. “And that would be such a shame.”

“Yeah,” I said. “It certainly would.”

“Of course,” Carla went on, “Ella doesn’t have to worry. She can still come with me.”

This time I could see Alma’s reaction. She looked as if she’d been slapped in the face with a piece of wet seaweed. But she still didn’t say anything.

Ella sighed. Whatever she’d been about to say before Carla and Alma turned up about why she couldn’t go through with any of my plans was gone for good. Ella has very strong views on friendship and loyalty.

“I told you before,” said Ella, sweet as a steel bar coated in honey, “I’m going with Lola.”

I THROW MYSELF INTO THE PLAY

Since the concert was still weeks away, I gave myself body and soul to
Pygmalion
. Naturally, this helped to ease the deep pain inside me about the break-up. It also won me points with Mrs Baggoli. She’d already congratulated me on how hard I was working. “I always knew you were right for Eliza,” she’d said, “but I have to admit that you’ve immersed yourself in the part beyond even my expectations.” The only thing it didn’t do was shut Carla Santini up.

“It really is a problem,” Carla Santini was saying to Colonel Pickering and the Parlourmaid. “I mean, what
does
one wear to a party like this? There are going to be so many fantastically famous people there dressing down…” She glanced in my direction. “And so many hangers-on trying to dress up…” Her sigh was like the sound of a nearly-empty aerosol can. “I mean, I’m going to meet Stu Wolff, guaranteed. I want to make the right impression.”

Stu Wolff and Carla Santini, guaranteed. I looked towards the door, hoping to see Mrs Baggoli hurrying in with the cup of coffee she’d gone to get. The doorway was empty.

The Parlourmaid giggled. “I wish I had problems like that.”

Colonel Pickering, who was obviously as tired of hearing about Carla’s dress dilemma as I was, mumbled something about going over his lines again before the break was over, and drifted away.

“I was thinking I might just wear my Calvins and a silk shirt,” Carla went on to the Parlourmaid without missing a beat, “but Daddy thinks I should wear a dress. You know, because so many of these people are clients or potential clients. We do have an image to maintain.” She smiled coyly. “Of course, Daddy will buy me something new. He doesn’t expect me to go in just any old rags…”

Heaven forbid.

I tried to shut out the sound of her voice, as annoying as the sound of a mosquito in the middle of the night. I started thinking about how unfair life is. Why should some people have so much, and others so little? Why should some people have so many teeth, expensive clothes, mobile phones and guaranteed introductions to Stu Wolff, while others sleep on the porch, have to use the family phone, and have no guarantee that they won’t be arrested trying to meet Stu Wolff?

I became so involved in the incredible unfairness of it all, that I didn’t realize Mrs Baggoli was back until she clapped her hands for silence.

I looked up.

“All right everyone,” shouted Mrs Baggoli. “Break’s over. Let’s take it from the top again. Andy and Jon, take your places.” She looked over to where Carla was standing with her face to the wall, going over her lines in a whisper that could be heard in Arkansas. “Carla!” called Mrs Baggoli. “Carla, please get on stage.”

Carla raised her chin. She tilted her head. She told Henry Higgins to behave himself.

“Mrs Higgins!” screamed Mrs Baggoli. “Mrs Higgins, will you please take your place on stage!”

Carla turned around, her beautiful face flushed with embarrassment and confusion. “Oh, I’m so sorry, Mrs Baggoli,” she gushed. “I didn’t hear you. I was so wrapped up in perfecting my tone.”

Although Carla acted as though this announcement was something worthy of the evening news, Mrs Baggoli took the information in her stride. Carla was still constantly perfecting something at rehearsals. If it wasn’t her tone, or her accent, or her motivation, it was someone else’s. Professor Higgins walked out once because Carla suggested that he didn’t understand his own character. Personally, if she didn’t stop trying to help me with my performance I was going to have to kill her.

“Try perfecting your tone on stage,” said Mrs Baggoli. She looked over at me as I got into position in the wings. “No script today, Lola?”

I shook my head. “I think I know it cold.” I should have. I’d been doing nothing else every night for weeks. If I hesitated over a line for a nanosecond, Carla would start hissing it at me.

Mrs Baggoli smiled.

Carla gave me a scornful look, threw her script on a chair, and climbed up on the stage.

We were going through Act Five, where Henry Higgins goes to his mother’s house after Eliza leaves him and discovers that she’s there.

Mrs Baggoli took a seat in the front row. “All right,” she called. “Let’s start where Mrs Higgins tells Henry and Pickering why Eliza left.”

Carla started off. Even I had to admit that she was a good Mrs Higgins. Probably because they were both used to bossing the servants around. Jon started to come in too soon and cut Carla off in mid-sentence. She sighed and gave Mrs Baggoli a look filled with patient suffering. Mrs Baggoli told her to start again.

Carla started again but stopped almost immediately. She had a question about Mrs Higgins’s feelings. Mrs Baggoli told her to trust her instincts. This time both Jon and Andy got a few lines in before Carla had a question about Henry Higgins’s character. I relaxed. This was Carla’s big scene. It would take hours.

I drifted off again, thinking about the concert. I had everything more or less worked out. Ella and I had agreed to tell our mothers that we were spending the night with each other. I know a lot about celebrity parties, and they never end till eight in the morning. That meant we could go straight to the station after the party, and be back in Dellwood in time for lunch. Simple but foolproof. Getting into the show wasn’t a big deal. It would wipe out my personal savings, but I figured I had enough for a ticket from a tout, the train fare, cabs and necessary nourishment. But I hadn’t done much thinking about clothes, which, as Carla had been pointing out
ad nauseam
, were particularly important. Should I look elegant and sophisticated like the models and movie stars Stu Wolff usually hangs out with? Or should I look natural and unpretentious but unique, so he’d know right away that I was different to other girls? I was still mulling this over when I realized that Mrs Baggoli was calling me.

“Lola! Lola!”

I looked over. Everyone was staring at me, but the only one who wasn’t smiling was Mrs Baggoli. “Lola!” she repeated. “That was your cue!”

“Maybe you shouldn’t put your script away just yet,” advised Carla.