Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen

by Dyan Sheldon

  Stu pulled roughly away. “Why? I don’t have to be anything. I have three gold records. I can do what I want.”

  One of the cops looked over again.

  Genetics is a complicated thing. As different as I am to Karen Kapok, when I opened my mouth I sounded just like my mother.

  “No you can’t,” I told him firmly. “You’re making a spectacle of yourself.”

  It didn’t work when my mother told me I was making a spectacle of myself, and it didn’t work with Stu, either.

  “But I am a spectacle,” he announced to the Purity Café in a working-the-stadium roar. “You think I’m a regular guy? I’m not a regular guy.”

  “Shhh!!” I hissed. I didn’t have Ella’s patience.

  Stu didn’t shhh.

  “I’m a three-ring circus,” he boomed on. “You think anybody knows me? Nobody knows me!” He knocked the bowl of sugar packets off the table. “I don’t even know myself.”

  I gave Ella a look. “Didn’t I tell you?” I whispered. “He’s a tortured soul.”

  The waitress arrived with our coffees. “Food’s coming,” she muttered. The cop who was eating the powdered doughnut was watching her over his shoulder.

  Ella squashed her mouth into a line. “Torture’s involved,” she agreed. She shook her head sadly. “But it makes you think, doesn’t it? I mean, why shouldn’t he be happy? He has everything he could possibly want…”

  No, he didn’t.

  “What’s this?” Stu spluttered as the waitress set a cup in front of him. “This isn’t a boilermaker.”

  “It’s coffee,” said the waitress. “I told you before, this is a restaurant, not a bar.”

  Before I could stop him, Stu was on his feet and pushing past the waitress. “I have to go to the john,” he announced loudly. “I expect that to be a boilermaker by the time I get back.”

  THINGS TAKE A TURN FOR THE WORSE

  While Stu was away, Ella and I congratulated ourselves on how well everything was working out.

  “Can you believe it, El?” I could barely control my excitement. “You and I are having coffee with Stu Wolff!” I’d never let Carla Santini live this down.

  A frown crossed Ella’s face. “I wish he were sober, though. It’s so hard talking to someone who’s drunk.”

  As if she’d had a lot of experience talking to drunks. Ella had less than I did, and the only time I’ve seen either of my parents really wasted was the Christmas my father hit the eggnog too hard and danced into the tree. It was quite a sight. But my father hadn’t behaved like Stu. My father had been happy. He was still laughing as he took broken bits of Christmas ball from his hair.

  “I wish he were, too,” I admitted. “I have so many questions I want to ask him about his work.”

  Ella tentatively sipped her coffee. “I wonder why he is so unhappy,” she mused. “You’d think he’d be the happiest guy in the world.”

  I’d tried to explain to Ella that artists aren’t like ordinary people, but she clearly hadn’t understood. Not that I blamed her. Mr and Mrs Gerard think suffering is when their lawn gets crabgrass or the deli runs out of Brie.

  “You just don’t understand the artistic soul,” I said. But, fortunately, I did. And I knew Stu’s soul almost as well as I knew my own. There wasn’t a line he’d written that wasn’t burned into my memory and etched in my heart. “The artistic soul can never be happy. It creates through anguish and pain. That’s probably why he drank so much.” My face clouded with empathy. “He has to numb the intensity of his feelings. All true geniuses do.”

  Ella, of course, was radically impressed by my explanation. She looked over her shoulder towards the restrooms.

  “You know,” she said, “he’s been in there a while. I hope he’s all right.”

  The counter-man, the waitress, and the cops were all looking towards the restrooms, too.

  Ella turned back to me. “Do you think he’s passed out again?”

  “At least we know that he’s safe if he has,” I answered, slightly distracted for the moment. I was watching the cops push their cups away. The one with powdered sugar on his chin got to his feet and strolled towards the door. I didn’t like the way he glanced over at me and Ella as he stepped into the street. It suddenly occurred to me that Ella’s concern about her mother’s protectiveness might be justified. What if Mrs Gerard had called my house to check on Ella after all? A person with far less imagination than I could easily picture what would have happened. The shrieking; the tears; the phone calls; the overwrought conversation with the police…”

  As casually as a person who is dripping all over could, I glanced towards the street again. The patrol car was parked on a yellow line right out front… The police officer was sitting inside, talking on the radio. I wished I could read his lips. Was he saying, “That’s right, one has blonde hair and the other one’s a redhead…?”

  My euphoria had vanished. It would be just my luck to end up not in Stu Wolff’s embrace but in the strong arms of the law.

  The waitress materialized with Stu’s order and the coffee-pot. “Your friend’s takin’ a long time,” she said conversationally as she refilled our cups. “I think one of you better go check on him before the boss does.”

  As one, Ella and I looked towards the boss. He was leaning between a plastic bottle of ketchup and a pitcher of milk, talking to the remaining cop, but his eyes kept darting to the restrooms.

  “I’ll go,” I volunteered.

  Nonchalant as an antelope, I walked to the back of the diner, praying that no one could hear me squelch. I slipped into the ladies’ – which was next to the men’s room – and locked the door.

  “Stu!” I hissed urgently. “Stu! Are you OK?”

  I pressed my ear to the wall. I couldn’t hear a sound.

  My next move was to try banging.

  “Stu!” Bangbangbang. “Stu, it’s Lola. Answer me. Are you OK?”

  The silence of a pharaoh’s tomb came back at me. And that was when this really awful thought struck me like an arrow. What if Stu had gone in the john to kill himself? He was drunk, he was depressed, he was haunted by the fear that he would never find anyone to love him for himself. Maybe he even worried (foolishly) that his career was over, now that the band was gone. Tortured geniuses are prone to suicide.

  I exited the ladies’, acting carefree and calm.

  The second cop had come back and was talking to his partner. The counter-man was scraping gunk from the grill. The waitress was cutting a wedge of pie. Only Ella was looking at me.

  I put my hand on the doorknob of the men’s room, and turned it gently. It was locked. I pressed my ear to the door. I couldn’t hear anyone breathing. My stomach began to churn as I pictured the crumpled form on the floor, the eyes open, the lips slightly parted, the handsome face blank, the once great mind as gone as yesterday. A soft cry of pain escaped me. I turned back to the diner, unsure of what to do.

  A dark figure was passing in front of the restaurant. Slowly and uncertainly. Almost stumbling, it braced itself against the window for a second. Joy, relief and total panic all surged through me at once. It was Stuart Harley Wolff! He must have found a way out the back. No mean feat for a man in his condition.

  I raced to our booth and grabbed my things. “Come on,” I said. “We have to go.”

  “But Stu—”

  “Now!” I gave her a yank. “He got out!”

  Ella scrambled to her feet. “What about the bill?”

  The bill! The greatest talent of our times was staggering unhappily through the tempest-tossed night and all Ella could think about was the bill! Her parents really have a lot to answer for.

  I picked up the bill and pretended to examine it carefully. The deluxe hamburger platter was $5.95. The large onion rings were another $2.50. The coffees were nearly three.

  “Put whatever you have on the table,” I ordered. I put down my five-dollar bill and fifty-eight cents.

  Ella put down $1.40. “You had the rest
of my money,” said Ella. And then, in case I’d overlooked the obvious, added, “We don’t have enough.”

  One of the cops had disappeared; the other was watching us in the mirror behind the counter.

  I got a firm grip on Ella’s arm. “Just walk to the door like nothing’s wrong,” I whispered.

  “And then what?” she whispered back.

  “Then run.”

  It would have worked, I’m sure it would have. But we never got a chance to run. The cop got up as we started walking; he blocked our way to the door.

  “Not so fast,” he said, in a friendly tone. “I want to ask you two a couple of questions.”

  “Now?” I asked, feigning panic and urgency. “I’m afraid we’re in a hurry. Our friend—” I tried to push past him.

  He took each of us gently but firmly by the arm.

  “Don’t worry about your friend,” said the cop. “He’s going to be just fine.”

  OH, WHAT A TANGLED WEB I’D WOVEN

  I will never forget that ride to the precinct house. The streets were dark and blurred with rain; the blue lights flashed; the neon signs shone feebly through the storm; the windshield wipers whispered like demons. Given her views on being driven home in a patrol car, I’d expected Ella to feel equally strongly about being driven to the precinct house in a patrol car, but she sat calmly in the back seat between me and the dozing Stuart Wolff, humming a Sidartha song under her breath.

  I was the one who was upset. It was obvious that Officer Lentigo didn’t believe my story. Which was that we were eighteen-year-old New York University students, that we were out on a date with Stu and another guy, that the other guy had gone to get his car, and that we’d taken Stu to the diner to sober him up a little while we waited.

  “You know what college guys are like,” I’d joked.

  “He looks a little old to be in college,” said Officer Lentigo.

  I laughed, indulgently. “He’s doing his master’s in literature.”

  Officer Lentigo didn’t so much as crack a smile. “You got any ID?” he asked.

  It was then that Officer Grimkin came back with Stu, and Officer Lentigo decided to take us all back to the precinct to call our folks.

  The desk sergeant recognized Stu the minute he leaned against the front desk, demanding a drink, under the misapprehension that he’d finally found a bar.

  “Hey,” said the sergeant. “I know this guy.” He wagged his pen at Stu. “Aren’t you a singer?”

  It was as if – like Sleeping Beauty kissed by the Prince – Stu had been under a spell that had finally been broken. He looked around, blinking in confusion. “What’s going on?”

  The sergeant shook his head emphatically. “Yeah, you are a singer.” He looked over at Officers Lentigo and Grimkin. “Janellen’s got pictures of him all over her walls,” he explained.

  “Lucky her,” said Officer Grimkin.

  “I thought you told me he was a grad student,” Officer Lentigo said to me.

  “That, too,” I said.

  Perhaps realizing that his fellow officers weren’t as impressed by Janellen’s wall decorations as they might have been, the sergeant became more business-like.

  “OK,” he said brusquely. “Let’s have some names, addresses, and telephone numbers.” He pointed his pen at Stu again. “You first.”

  “Stuart Harley Wolff,” said Stu immediately. He frowned. “Are we being arrested?”

  “Not yet,” said the sergeant. “Address and phone?”

  Stu gave him his address and number, and then turned his frown on me and Ella. “Are we together? Who are you?”

  The sergeant tapped on the desk with his pen. “I was just about to ask them the same thing.”

  Now, I thought, was the moment when Ella would lose it. The moment when she had to put the New York Police Department in touch with Marilyn Gerard. I turned to give her a smile of support, but to my surprise Ella wasn’t looking at me, she was looking at the desk sergeant.

  “Ella Gerard, 58 Birch Hollow Road, Dellwood, New Jersey, 201 238 4917,” she said almost regally. You’d think she did this kind of thing all the time.

  Then everyone looked at me.

  “Lola Cep,” I said. I’d been giving this moment a lot of thought on the drive over; I didn’t hesitate for a nanosecond. The last thing I needed was for the police to wake up Karen Kapok in the middle of the night. Besides, what could my mother do? No one could expect her to drive down in a hurricane with her two little daughters, could they? Tragedy could only result from such a rash action. I was doing her a favour. My father could tell her – later. He isn’t as volatile as my mother. “My father’s address is 311 Second Avenue, Apartment F, 460 5517.”

  I felt, rather than saw, Ella’s expression change from one of princessly serenity to cataclysmic horror.

  “OK,” said Officer Lentigo. “Why don’t you two take the literature student here, and go sit down while I make some calls.”

  I don’t know if it was all the walking in the rain or the sobering effect of being taken in by the cops, but though Stu was kind of dazed, he definitely wasn’t as drunk as he’d been earlier. Walking almost steadily, he followed us to the row of chairs against the wall.

  Ella didn’t seem to notice him. Her calm and cool totally gone, she turned on me.

  “What’s wrong with you?” she hissed. “Why did you lie like that? Don’t you think they’re going to find out that your father doesn’t live on Second Avenue?”

  Stu tapped her on the shoulder. “Excuse me,” he said, obviously struggling to clear his head, “but what’s going on? Who are you two?”

  I’d been so absorbed in what was happening, that I’d forgotten Ella thought my father was a road statistic. Stress wreaks havoc with delicate fabrications. That’s one fact of life that I’ve learned. Another is that the best defence is a quick offence.

  I ignored Stu, too.

  “What’s with you?” I snapped at Ella. “All of a sudden you’re giving your address and phone number to the first policeman who asks for it. How come you’re not afraid of what your parents are going to say?”

  “I’m resigned to my fate,” said Ella rather dramatically. She shrugged. “Besides, what’s the use of more lies? They’re going to find out one way or another.” She shrugged again. “At least this’ll be something to tell our grandchildren, won’t it?” She forgot her outrage enough to smile. “The only things my parents will have to tell their grandchildren are their golf handicaps.”

  It really had been quite a day. I could hardly believe I was hearing this from Ella Gerard, perfect daughter of perfect parents. Her true soul and spirit were finally beginning to emerge.

  Maybe a little too much.

  Ella folded her arms in front of her. “So,” she said. “Why did you lie?”

  It was time, I could tell, to unleash the truth. I turned my eyes on the rich mix of life that was milling around the front desk while I answered.

  “I didn’t lie,” I said quietly as some guy in handcuffs was dragged down the hall. “My father does live on Second Avenue. He has a rent-controlled apartment and a dog named Negus.”

  Stu cleared his throat. “Look,” he said, “this is really fascinating, but could one of you please tell me what happened? The last thing I remember is throwing a CD at Steve.” He made a face. “And I only remember that vaguely.”

  But Ella was no longer interested in Stu. She leaned close to me. “You told me your father died in a motorcycle accident,” she said very loudly and clearly.

  I looked at her out of the corner of my eye. “All right,” I gave in. “So I exaggerated a little.”

  She almost laughed. “You exaggerated a little? You killed off your own father, and you call that exaggerating a little?” Her Gestapo gaze bored into the side of my head. “What do you call exaggerating a lot?”

  “Look,” I said, still trying to avoid direct eye contact. “Can’t we talk about this later? Don’t you think we should tell Stu what happen
ed first?”

  The old Ella would have backed down instantly. She would have apologized for being rude and, remembering all the rules about politeness and manners instilled in her by her parents, would have started being helpful to Stu. But the new Ella couldn’t care less.

  She shook her head. “I think you should tell me what happened. Why did you say that your father was dead?”

  I shrugged. “I had a reason.”

  “Well that’s a start,” said Ella. “And what, pray tell, was that?”

  Pray tell? Since when had Ella started stealing my lines?

  Stu’s head moved back and forth between us as though he were watching a tennis match.

  Before I could answer, Ella held up a hand. “And don’t tell me you lied because he’s a criminal or was tragically maimed rescuing a baby from a burning building, either,” she warned me. “This time I want the truth.”

  “The truth?”

  “Yes,” said Ella. “The truth. You do remember what that is, don’t you?”

  Sure, I thought, it’s boring.

  “Were we in a diner?” asked Stu. “I have this image of old Christmas decorations…”

  Ella stopped staring at me. Temporarily. “If you could just hold on a minute,” she said, “I’d be happy to explain. But right now I’m talking to her.” She turned back to me as she said “her”.

  Stu turned to me, too. “Tell her, will you? I’d like to know what’s going on.”

  I sighed. I know when I am beaten. “All right,” I said. “The total truth.” I looked at Stu. He had no idea who I was and wasn’t as hostile as Ella. I took a deep breath. “I lied because I wanted to make myself seem more interesting, that’s all.”

  “More interesting?” repeated Ella. She glanced around the room as though taking a quick inventory, starting with the two women of the night who were standing at the front desk and ending with Stu. “We’re sitting here, in a New York police station with a cultural icon, waiting for your dead father to show up, and you want to be more interesting? More interesting than what?”