by Dyan Sheldon
“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.
ONE OF OUR LITTLE DETAILS DISAPPEARS
The house was in its usual state of hysterical chaos when I got home. My family may be hopelessly ordinary, but they’re not quiet. My mother and my sisters were in the kitchen, screaming at each other. Two of them were crying. None of them paid any attention to me.
I stood in the doorway for a few seconds, thinking of poor, only-child Ella, all alone in her big quiet house with her doting parents listening to her every word. Boo hoo.
My close female relatives suddenly noticed me standing there. Not that it occurred to them to say “Hello” or “How are you?” or anything like that. Instead, the three of them immediately began telling me what had happened as quickly and loudly as they could. It was hard to follow – and not worth the trip. As far as I could make out, Pam took something of Paula’s and broke it, so Paula hit Pam, so Pam ran crying to my mother, so my mother yelled at Paula, so Paula started crying, and then, while my mother was giving them Lectures 288 and 289: Sharing and Violence, Pam threw an apple at Paula and my mother whacked Pam with the dish-towel.
“Ah, Lola,” I shouted into the general din. “How was your day? How did rehearsals go? What will you be wearing on opening night?”
Paula and Pam kept shrieking, but my mother stopped talking and looked at me for less time than it takes a spark to die in a tornado.
“I should think you’d be wearing your costume on opening night.”
I gestured despairingly. “I mean after. At the cast party.”
“This isn’t Broadway,” said my mother. “You have a closet full of clothes. Wear whatever you want.”
What I wanted was a drop-dead gorgeous dress that would make me look twenty-five and so sophisticated I should have a perfume named after me.
“But everyone’s going to be really dressed up,” I informed her. “Carla Santini—”
“Please,” begged my mother. “Not Carla Santini again. Isn’t there anyone else at your school?”
You’d think she actually listened to me now and then.
“It’s my big night,” I reminded her. “I want to look right.”
“Forget it,” said my mother. “There’s no way you’re getting a new dress, Mary. Last week it was the boiler, and this week it’s the car. I can’t afford it.”
“Who asked?” I snapped back. “I didn’t ask for anything. God knows I would never expect anyone in this house to worry about me. To care about how I look on one of the most important days of my life. I’ll just don my usual rags, shall I? Maybe you’d like me to wear a bag over my head as well. That way no one will be able to report you to the NSPCC for neglect of a minor.”
Paula looked at my mother. “What’s Mary talking about?”
My mother rolled her eyes.
Pam looked at me. “Why are you wearing a bag over your head? How are you going to be able to see?”
My mother patted Pam’s shoulder. “Don’t worry, honey,” she said kindly. “Mary can cut eyes in the bag.”
“How typical!” I proclaimed. “How typical that you would mock me in my torment.”
“What does torment mean?” asked Paula as I turned on my heels and marched from the room.
“It means Mary’s had a bad day,” said my mother.
* * *
Ella hadn’t thought about what she was wearing, either.
“I’m trying not to think about it,” she admitted. “I get cold chills every time I do. It makes it seem so real.” She shuddered. “I just know something’s going to go wrong.”
“Nothing’s going to go wrong,” I assured her. “My plan is awesome in its simplicity.”
Ella would ask her mother if she could stay over at my house; I’d ask my mother if Ella could stay at ours. Mrs Gerard would call my mother to make sure it was all right. Then, after that was all settled, I’d tell my mother we’d changed our minds and I was going to Ella’s instead. My mother would never think of calling Mrs Gerard to make sure it was all right. She’d just assume that it was.
I flopped down on the couch beside Ella. Mrs Gerard wasn’t there. Mrs Gerard was taking a course in aromatherapy. She said essential oils helped her to de-stress. I couldn’t see that Mrs Gerard had the kind of life that stressed you out, but, as the great philosophers say, everything is relative.
“Well, you’re going to have to think about it. It’s not that far away.”
“I know,” said Ella. “I know.” She bent down and took two uncreased magazines from the neat stacks under the coffee-table. “Here.” She handed me one of the magazines. “I guess the first thing we should do is decide what kind of thing we want to wear.”
We spent the afternoon flicking through her mother’s magazines. The only magazines my mother subscribes to involve ceramics, but Mrs Gerard gets every women’s glossy going. Reading them one after the other was like being in a hall of mirrors; you know, lots of images but they’re all the same.
On every page were beautiful models wearing beautiful clothes and stunning accessories. Shoes: $175, Handbag: $250, Dress $900…
I leaned back in frustration. If Mrs Gerard wanted to know about stress, she should have my life.
“What’s the use?” I cried. “You can get something perfect, your parents give you money j
ust for breathing, but I can’t afford more than a pair of tights.” It was galling to think that such a great and noble enterprise should be brought to its knees by a mere dress.
Ella leaned over and put the magazine I’d abandoned back in its place.
“Well, why don’t I lend you some money to buy something?” she suggested. “You can pay me back whenever.”
“No.” I shook my head firmly. “I appreciate the offer, but I can’t accept charity. We Ceps have our pride.”
“It isn’t charity,” reasoned Ella. “It’s a loan. Only no time limit, and no interest.”
I shook my head even more firmly.
“I still can’t. I don’t like to borrow money.” This is my mother’s fault. My mother hates debt. “If you can’t afford it, don’t buy it,” my mother always says. She’d rather eat rice and beans for a week than bounce a cheque at the supermarket. That’s why we waited so long to move out of the City; if she hadn’t inherited some money from an aunt in Seattle, none of this would ever have happened.
Ella heaved with exasperation. “Well, let me give you some as a present. An early birthday present?”
“Thank you,” I said. “Really. But I just can’t accept.” I didn’t see that much difference between charity and a birthday present months in advance.
Ella held up her hands and slapped the air. She was becoming a pretty good actor herself.
“All right … all right … what if I lend you a dress? I’ve got tons of things.”
I didn’t know how to say no. I mean, Ella’s the best friend I’ve ever had, the sister of my soul. How do you tell the sister of your soul that you’d rather spend the rest of your life doing toothpaste commercials than wear something of hers? Ella’s taste in clothes had been loosening up since I’d known her, but it was still pretty tight.
“That’s a great idea.” I sounded pleased and excited. “Let’s take a look.”
Ella likes pastels. Winter, summer, spring and autumn, Ella wears shades, not colours. And white. I tend to avoid white; I like to wear things more than once before I have to wash them. I also like to wear things that move and flow; Ella is more partial to the simple, tailored look favoured by businesswomen.
