nuisance, but this is so important to me—”
Mrs Baggoli put up one hand. “Please,” she pleaded, “it’s important to all of us. Maybe you could just save all your questions till we’re through.”
Carla nodded. “Of course,” she said. “Of course you’re right. I’ll wait until we’re through.”
“Right.” Mrs Baggoli took a deep breath. “Once more, Eliza.”
If we’d been making a film instead of rehearsing a play, at that point someone would have jumped in front of us with a clapboard and screamed, “
We started yet again. This time we got as far as Eliza telling Higgins that her father only came to get some money to get drunk with when Carla’s calfskin shoulder bag crashed to the floor.
Everyone looked at Carla.
“I’m so sorry…” crooned Carla as she picked up her bag from the floor. “I was looking for a pen and paper so I could write down my questions.”
“I have an idea,” said Mrs Baggoli. “Why don’t we run through the beginning of Act Three instead?”
Mrs Baggoli might be a little naïve and too patient for her own good, and she had no idea what was really going on, but she wasn’t a fool. Act Three featured Mrs Higgins. By now all of us knew that the only way you could get Carla to shut up when I was on stage and she wasn’t, was to change the scene.
You could hear a sigh that was half relief and half frustration ripple through the auditorium.
“Jesus, we’re going to have to start rehearsing our scenes in secret,” Professor Higgins muttered as Carla got out of her seat.
Colonel Pickering snorted.
Personally, I wouldn’t have minded rehearsing every scene in secret, especially the ones where Carla and I appeared together. When we were on together, she did everything in her power to throw me off or steal my scene. She’d change lines, she’d forget to cue me, she’d stand in such a way that the only thing anyone in the audience could see was the top of my head.
Both Professor Higgins and Colonel Pickering smiled as though their dearest wish had just come true when Carla pranced on to the stage. Nobody said anything to Carla’s face that wasn’t a compliment. Not and lived to tell the tale.
It’s true that – except for Carla, who addressed me stiffly, as if I was sitting on her coat or something – everyone in the cast was friendly towards me from then on, but outside rehearsals the Big Freeze continued for weeks. Only in maths, where Sam Creek made a point of talking to me at great length about the intricacies of the internal combustion engine, was there any kind of real warmth.
Ella and I were getting oddly used to the Big Freeze, to tell you the truth. In fact, Ella said that she almost enjoyed it because it took all the stress and strain out of having to be interested and friendly to people you felt neither interested in nor particularly friendly towards. Since I have never felt the same obligation as Ella to be nice to absolutely everybody, I didn’t feel the same relief, but I actually didn’t mind it either.
And then, as suddenly as the explosion of a terrorist bomb, things changed.
We were walking to our first class, and Tina Cherry smiled at us as she passed with a pack of her lesser friends. Because Tina smiled, the rest of them smiled, too.
Again, this doesn’t sound like a big deal. So some girl you’ve seen practically every school day for the last year smiles at you, so what? So something had happened, that’s so what. Tina did what Carla Santini did, or what Carla Santini told her to do. If Tina was smiling, something was up.
“I wonder what brought that on,” I mused, glancing over my shoulder to make sure that Tina wasn’t sneaking up behind us, brandishing a knife. I’d read my Shakespeare. I knew all about the daggers in men’s smiles.
“I don’t know, but I don’t like it,” said Ella.
We turned the corner and walked into Marcia Conroy and her boyfriend of the week. Carla Santini and her friends go through guys the way someone with a bad cold goes through tissues. What gets me is that even though everybody knows this, there’s always another guy right behind the last one, waiting to be picked up and dumped in almost one swift movement.
“Lola,” purred Marcia. “Ella.” She stretched her mouth in a mirthless kind of way.
We strode past her without a glance.
“Something’s definitely up,” said Ella. “I just wish we knew what.”
“I’m sure we’ll find out soon,” I assured her. “Carla, like God, may work in mysterious ways, but she doesn’t have God’s patience.”
An observation that turned out to be prophetic.
Carla decided to sit near us at lunch.
“I’ve been looking all over for you two,” she boomed, catching the attention of anyone who could hear. She dumped her stuff on the table behind us.
Ella froze in mid-bite, gazing at Carla over her forkful of pasta salad. Everyone else was gazing at Carla, too, but with curiosity, not horror.
I looked up. “Haven’t you heard?” I asked sweetly. “You’re not supposed to talk to us.”
You have to hand it to Carla, she has grace under fire.
“Oh, that…” She waved her nails in the air. “I really don’t know what that was all about.”
The Big Freeze was over; Carla was speaking to us again. We were about to be engulfed in an avalanche.
Carla threw herself into the chair next to mine and started rummaging in her bag. “I knew you’d want to see this,” she gushed.
The only thing Carla Santini could show me that I would want to see is a picture of the house she’s moving to in China.
“Really?”
Carla ignored the boredom in my voice.
“Look what came in the mail for me this morning,” she ordered with girlish excitement. “They’ve just been printed. They won’t even be going on sale for at least another week.”
She was holding two rectangles of black cardboard. SIDARTHA – THE FAREWELL CONCERT – PRESS was written across them in silver. She raised the tickets in the air for a few seconds so the rest of the cafeteria could admire them, too.
“And that’s not all!” Carla’s voice was loud enough to deafen anyone within a mile radius. “Look what else I got.”
She held out a third rectangle of black cardboard. This one said SIDARTHA’S LAST BASH and, under it in smaller print, the place and time and the information that it would admit two.
There was a chorus of “Wow”s around us. A couple of people crowded closer for a better view.
“God, you’re lucky,” said one of the onlookers, a girl whom, normally, Carla would never have noticed. “Imagine going to a party like that.”
Carla smiled on the girl, the queen among the peasants.
“Oh, but I’m not the only one,” cooed Carla. “Lola has an invitation, too.” I flinched as she put a hand on my shoulder. “Don’t you, Lola?”
I didn’t answer. I was still staring at her invitation, imprinting the address on my brain before she put it away.
Carla made a few loud gestures of shock and outrage. “Don’t tell me you haven’t gotten yours yet,” she cried. “Stu told my father that they’d all gone out.”
I didn’t believe this for one fraction of a nanosecond. Like Stu Wolff had dropped everything else in his life to make sure Mr Santini knew how the plans for the party were going. Yeah, right…
“I didn’t say I didn’t get my invitation.” I gave Carla a tolerant and amused smile. “As a matter of fact, mine came yesterday.”
“Well show it to us,” said Carla. Her eyes flitted over our audience. “I’m sure I’m not the only one who’d like to see it.”
I laughed as though she’d suggested that I wear my diamonds to school. “I’m not bringing it
Carla’s smile locked on me like a car clamp. “Oh, come on, Lola,” she coaxed. “Why don’t you just admit that
