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.
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 just 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.
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
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
“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
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” (
