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 time 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
