by Dyan Sheldon
Ella pulled a powder-blue dress from her closet. “What about this one?” She sounded pretty fed up with pulling dresses from her closet.
I cocked my head to one side, pretending to be considering it as carefully as I’d considered all the others. It was a sleeveless A-line with a row of tiny pearls down the front. I’d rather wear one of those old-fashioned black nun’s habits. At least they’re mysterious and dramatic.
“I don’t think so,” I said carefully. “It’s a little young.”
“You’re a little young,” snapped Ella. She put the dress back, then turned to me with her hands on her hips. “Why don’t you just admit it, Lola? You can’t stand the way I dress.”
“It’s not that,” I lied. “It’s just that this has to be really special. It has to be glamorous and sophisticated. It has to make a statement.”
“You mean like Eliza’s ball gown,” said Ella.
I gazed back at her, slightly stunned. Maybe her dress sense was better than I’d thought.
Eliza’s dress for the ball – in our adaptation, a celebrity charity ball – was absolutely perfect. Because most of the women in Deadwood take classes the way other people take vitamins, Mrs Baggoli doesn’t have any trouble finding seamstresses to make the costumes for our plays. Mine had been copied by Mrs Trudeo from an haute couture design. It was red satin and long and devastatingly simple. As I said, I prefer full, flowing skirts, but even I had to admit this dress was hot. My mother was lending me a pair of red satin stilettos, left over from the days when Elk used to drag her out dancing, that nearly matched.
I spread my arms, already feeling the warmth of hope beginning to run through me.
“Exactly.” Even Mrs Baggoli said it made me look at least twenty. “That’s exactly the kind of dress I mean.”
“Well then, your problem’s solved, isn’t it?” said Ella sarcastically. She was still smarting from my rejection of her clothes. “All you have to do is ask Mrs Baggoli if you can borrow it.”
I was so excited at supper that night that it took all of my considerable professional skills to act like the only thing I had on my mind was washing my hair. I forced myself to eat even though about ten million miniature ballerinas were dancing in my stomach. I forced myself to listen to the two-headed monster’s description of the day’s thrilling events. I made myself laugh at my mother’s jokes. I even made a show of paying attention when she explained the problems she was having with the glaze for her new line of mugs.
But all the while, I was thinking about that ball gown. At least now I knew what I wanted to wear. In a dress like that I would make an entrance; a statement. It didn’t even worry me that Carla would see me in the dress. So what? She was going to be so stunned, not just to see me there, but to see the way Stu Wolff reacted to the sight of me, that she wasn’t going to know what I was wearing. And Stu Wolff would notice me in that dress. He couldn’t help but notice me. Notice me? If I turned up dressed like that he’d probably trip over himself trying to get to meet me. I could see him blush shyly; hear him say, “I hope you won’t think I’m too pushy, but I’d really like to dance with you…”
“Why’s Mary smiling like that?” asked Paula, loud enough to blast me from my fantasy.
“It must be something I said,” said my mother. “Was it about going back to the electric blue, or was it about mixing softener with the slip?”
I made a face at Paula. “I was just smiling, that’s all. Is it a crime to smile in this family all of a sudden?”
“Not a crime,” said my mother. “But it means you weren’t really listening. It could be considered a misdemeanour.”
I gave her a mocking smile.
Obviously, I couldn’t actually ask Mrs Baggoli if I could borrow Eliza’s dress, if for no other reason than that she’d say no and I would have no recourse. Not only were all the costumes school property, but mine was Mrs Trudeo’s Advanced Dressmaking project; it had to go back after the last performance to be graded. But I couldn’t not ask Mrs Baggoli and just take it home for the weekend, because all the costumes were locked away in the drama club cupboard for safekeeping. Only Mrs Baggoli and Mrs Ludley, the janitor, had a key.
But at least I knew what I was aiming for. I would comb the second-hand clothes stores of Deadwood and all the nearby towns. I was bound to come up with something. I could feel it in my bones.
“So, Lola, you’re all right to do that for me tomorrow?” shouted my mother, rather as if she’d said it before.
“Do what?”
“Pick up the car at the garage. I have to get this order finished by Sunday.”
“In the afternoon,” I said quickly. “I have something to do in the morning.”
That night I dreamed Ella and I were at the concert. We were in the front row, right in the middle. Carla Santini was there, too, of course. She was sitting in the front, but to the side. She was wearing a very expensive and sophisticated dress – black to match her heart – but she might as well have been wearing a blue flannel and a baseball cap with her Calvin Klein jeans as far as Stu Wolff was concerned. He must have walked past Carla at least a hundred times as he danced around the stage, but he never gave her a second look. He noticed me in my red satin dress, my hair down and my eyes dark and passionate, looking like a gipsy queen while he was singing my all-time favourite Sidartha song, “Only with You” (Only with you does this world seem all right … only with you do I see a true light…) From then on he sang every song right to me. I didn’t smile or giggle or do anything silly like Carla would have done, I just sat there, my eyes looking into his, reading his heart and his soul as surely as he read mine. At the end of the last encore, Stu picked up a red rose someone had thrown at him earlier, leaned over the stage and handed it to me as though it were a precious jewel. I stood on my tiptoes to reach his kiss.
I could still feel his lips on mine when I woke up.
I was outside the first store by ten.
“Describe it to me again?” said Mrs Magnolia. Mrs Magnolia ran Second Best, the sixth store I tried.
“It’s the kind of dress Scarlett O’Hara might have worn if she’d wanted to break every heart in Atlanta,” I explained for the third time. “But modern. No hoops or anything.”
Mrs Magnolia shook her head, her eyes moving past the racks of sweatshirts and sweaters that took up most of the store.
“I don’t think we have anything even close to that,” she informed me sadly, “but you’re welcome to look in the formal-dress section.”
“I have looked.” The formal dress section contained nothing but bridesmaid dresses in the colours of cheap candy. I gave her the hopeful look of a kid on a Christmas card. “I was just wondering if maybe you had stuff in the back. You know, stuff that hasn’t been put out yet.”
Mrs Magnolia started shaking her head again. “Oh, yes, yes … but it hasn’t been sorted and tagged, it’s not ready for sale.”
“Well couldn’t I just kind of look through it?”
I was beginning to wonder if Mrs Magnolia was ever going to stop shaking her head.
“Oh, no, no, dear, I’m afraid that’s out of the question.” She pointed to the door at the back of the room. On it was a hand-written Employees Only sign. “It’s against our rules.”
“But Mrs Magnolia,” I pleaded, my voice hoarse with despair. “Mrs Magnolia, I’m desperate. I’ve been to every second-hand clothes store between here and Dellwood.” The concert was only a week away. I threw myself across the counter. “I have got to have that dress! It’s a matter of life and death!”
“I’m sure there’s nothing like you’re describing,” said Mrs Magnolia. “This isn’t really a Scarlett O’Hara kind of town.” But she’d stopped shaking her head: she was weakening.
I straightened up, my face radiant. “What if I do the sorting, Mrs Magnolia? For nothing.”
“Nothing” did the trick.
“Follow me,” said Mrs Magnolia. “I’ll show you what to do.”
By the t
ime I got home that afternoon I was totally distraught. All those hours! All that pedalling! All that work! And what did I have to show for it? Aching muscles, a clinical dislike of synthetic fabrics, and a depression Hamlet would have recognized. But no dress to wear to the ball. I was Cinderella, but without the fairy godmother.
My mother was totally distraught by the time I got home, too. She must have been watching for me from her studio, because she was in the driveway by the time I pulled in. She was wearing her work clothes and was covered with clay.
“Where on earth have you been?” my mother demanded. “It’s nearly four o’clock. I thought you promised to pick up the car.”
I’d forgotten about the car.
My mother didn’t wait for my excuse; nor did she take any pity on the fact that I was dirty, sweaty, smelled of old clothes, and was traumatized by disappointment. She turned me right around. If I hurried I could make it before the garage closed.
“Remember!” she shouted after me. “Not Jay’s.” Jay was our old mechanic, but he’d sold the business to someone else and my mother didn’t like the new guy. “The one on Stanley.”
I’d never been to the one on Stanley before, but had no trouble finding it; it was the only garage on the street. The yard was full of cars in different states of destruction, and there was a Closed sign in the office window. My heart hit the ground like someone thrown out of an aeroplane. Karen Kapok was going to kill me. Probably slowly.
I was just about to turn around again and ride back into the jaws of death when I realized that all was not lost. The garage itself was still open. There was a pair of combat boots sticking out from under an old Karmann Ghia that was pieced together with parts from so many different cars that it looked like a patchwork quilt on wheels. A portable stereo was blaring. I rode straight into the garage and screeched to a stop by the boots.
“Hi,” I said. No answer. I raised my voice. “Hello? Hello?” I shouted above the roar of The Clash. “I’m here to pick up Karen Kapok’s car?”
From under the car a male voice finally replied. “What?”
I bent down closer to the feet.
“I’m here to pick up Karen Kapok’s car!” I screamed.
“Lola?”
The feet moved and the body followed.
“Sam?” I should have recognized the boots. Sam Creek is the only boy in Deadwood not in the Reserve Officer Training Corps who wears combat boots. “What are you doing here?”
Sam sat up on the trolley. His dreads were tucked up under a filthy knit hat. If you discounted the ring in his nose, he looked almost normal. “I’m working on my car.” He jerked his head. “This is my old man’s place.”
“Oh, thank God.” Ignoring the grease and the grime, I sank down beside him. “I was afraid I was too late. I came to get my mother’s car.”
“You are too late,” said Sam. “The office is locked.” He wiped his grease-smeared forehead with his grease-stained sleeve. “And the keys to your mom’s car are in the office.”
Stricken with despair, I groaned. “Oh, no… Now what am I going to do? My mother’s going to murder me.” I buried my face in my hands. “Does God hate me, or something?” I looked up and groaned again. “I can’t believe you can’t get into the office.”
Sam gave me the wise-guy smile that has so endeared him to the students and staff of Deadwood High.
“I didn’t say I can’t get in,” said Sam. “I just said it was locked.”
I’d never seen anyone unlock a door without a key before. It was pretty impressive.
“Where’d you learn to do that?” I asked.
“Oh, I’m a man of many talents,” said Sam, and he slipped inside. He was back in a few seconds with my mother’s key-ring dangling from his fingers.
I was practically prostrate with gratitude and relief.
“I can’t thank you enough,” I told Sam. “My mother really would have killed me.”
He laughed. “Consider it a token of my appreciation for all you’ve done to get up Carla Santini’s nose since you’ve been here. It’s a joy to watch.” He handed me the keys. “Not everyone can take on the Santini and survive.”
“I know,” I said. “Ella told me what happened to Kali Simpson – that she had to move and everything.”
Sam shook his head. “What she did to Kali was really sick. And what she did to Ella, too.”
I gave him a curious look. “What she did to Ella?” Ella had left that bit out of her account of interesting facts about the history of Deadwood and its Princess. “What’d Carla do to Ella?”
It was Sam’s turn to look curious. “She didn’t tell you?” He shrugged. “No, I guess she wouldn’t. Ella’s too nice.”
Sam, however, was not too nice.
It happened just before I moved to Deadwood last spring. Ella was friends with Michael Jasper. Michael Jasper is a year ahead of me, so he isn’t in any of my classes, but I know who he is. He’s the Prince of the BTWs. Michael and Ella were very good friends. They were always hanging around together, in and out of school. Everyone knew they were interested in each other. But only Carla Santini decided to do something about it.
“You mean Carla stopped them from getting together?”
“You know Carla,” said Sam. “She can’t stand seeing someone having something she thinks she should have, even if she doesn’t really want it.” He wiped some grease on his forehead with the sleeve of his shirt. “I don’t know any of the gory details,” he went on, “but Ella kind of froze up. I know she isn’t the biggest extrovert in the world, but even I could see the difference. She didn’t even seem really mad, just kind of surprised. You know, like her mother had suddenly pulled a gun out over supper and shot her in the heart.”
I shook my head, trying to take it all in. “My God … they’d been friends since forever.”
Sam laughed. “Forever’s not that long for Carla Santini. She swanned around for a couple of weeks, hanging on to Mike like he was a helium balloon, and then she dumped him. But not before she’d totally humiliated Ella. You know, making sure Ella saw her and Mike kissing and crap like that, lording it over Ella every chance she got. It was enough to make you puke.” His face had been intensely serious, but now he smiled. “So,” said Sam, “if you ever need my help in your war against the Santini, all you have to do is ask.”
All you have to do is ask…
I stood there, staring at him. I now had more reason than ever to show up Carla Santini. I had to go to the party. I had to have Eliza’s dress. Sam Creek could get into the closet.
I smiled. “Well, it’s funny you should say that,” I said.
MY LIFE OF CRIME
We waited till Friday, the day before the concert, to take the dress. Sam said that the best time to liberate Eliza’s gown from its prison would probably be during rehearsals. There were too many people around during the day, and if we waited till night there was the problem of the alarms. While I was in the auditorium, my eyes firmly fixed on Mrs Baggoli, Sam would slip into the drama club room, open the cupboard, take out the dress and put it in the binbag I’d provided, and then wait for me in his car. The following Monday, we’d repeat the procedure in reverse. Mrs Baggoli wouldn’t be in on Monday, so the dress would be back long before anyone realized it had gone.
I didn’t say anything to Ella about borrowing the dress. All I said was that I’d found the perfect thing to wear. I decided it would be better to present the liberation as a fait accompli. If Ella knew what Sam and I were up to, she’d worry – and if she worried too much she might change her mind about going.
Crime has never really appealed to me as a way of life. True, you get to do a lot of acting, but it’s stressful and repetitive. I was, however, willing to step outside the strict boundaries of the law because this was a good, a just, and a noble cause.
Nonetheless, I was a wreck throughout the rehearsal on Friday. To begin with, Carla did nothing but talk about the concert whenever she could. “Are you as excited a
s I am?” she kept asking me. “Have you decided what you’re going to wear?”
During our first break, she made a big deal of saying, “Don’t worry, Lola, I won’t forget the camera. I know everyone’ll be dying to see the photo of you and me together.”
One of the stage hands choked back a laugh. “Are you kidding?” he muttered. “We’re making bets.”
Besides being wound up like a toy by Carla, I kept thinking I could hear footsteps behind the stage and doors banging. I forgot my lines; I missed my cues. Carla could only have been more pleased if I’d resigned from the play.
“Why don’t we take a five-minute break?” called Mrs Baggoli. “I’m feeling a little cold. I think I’ll get my sweater from the drama club room.”
I practically fell off the stage, I jumped so fast.
“I’ll get it for you, Mrs Baggoli,” I offered. “You just wait right there. I’ll be back in a second.”
“That’s all right, Lola.” Mrs Baggoli held up her key-ring. “It’s locked.”
Locked! My heart had been moving faster than a zebra with a lion on its tail all afternoon, but now it stopped suddenly. What if Sam couldn’t get into the drama club room? What if it took him a while to get it open and he was still inside? I raced from the stage to cut off Mrs Baggoli in the hall.
“Mrs Baggoli!” I screamed, charging down the stairs and falling into step beside her. The drama club room was only a few yards ahead of us. “Mrs Baggoli, I was wondering if I could ask you a question about that last scene.”
Mrs Baggoli gave me a “not-you-too” look.
“There’s no need to shout, Lola,” said Mrs Baggoli. “You’re not on stage now.”
How wrong she was!
I went on as though she’d said yes.
“It’s Henry,” I said, sliding in front of her. “I’m not sure I really understand his feelings about Eliza.”
