Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen

“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—”