“
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?”
“You don’t understand,” I said – sadly, as a person used to being misunderstood would. “It was a new town, a new school…”
“I understand,” said Stu. “I think.”
I immediately felt less defensive. I believed him. If anyone could understand, I was pretty sure he, a true artist and kindred spirit, could.
“It wasn’t intentional,” I told Stu. “It just came out like that and then I couldn’t change it.” I smiled dauntedly. “I mean, if I’d been thinking more clearly I’d have had him move to Tibet or something.”
“Tibet’s good,” said Stu. “It’s mystic and nobody’s going to go look for him there.”
Ella, however, is more attached to a narrow, pedestrian concept of truth.
“So were they really married?” asked Ella. “Or did you make that up, too?”
“Of course I didn’t make that up. They really loved – love each other.” This, too, was true. My parents are largely incompatible, but they’re really good friends. “He just didn’t die in a road accident, that’s all.” I gave Ella an accusatory look. “I don’t lie about fundamentals,” I explained, not hiding my hurt. “Only minor details.”
But Ella was stuck in the minor details.
“What about Elk?” she persisted. “Where’s he?”
I kept my eyes on Stu. “California.”
Ella shook her head. “This is incredible,” she said. “I feel like I’m in a movie or something.” She smiled bitter sweetly. “
“You know,” said Stu, who was much less self-obsessed when relatively sober than when relatively not, “I really would like to know what’s going on.”
Nor was he the only one. Even as I was sitting there with both Ella and Stu staring at me expectantly, the main door opened and a large mixed-breed dog walked in, followed by a thin, fair man in faded jeans and a black leather jacket, his hair close-cropped and a diamond stud in one ear. The man looked around uneasily.
“You think that’s Marsh Foreman?” whispered Ella.
The man’s eyes fell on Ella, Stu and me.
“Mary!” cried my father. “What the hell’s going on?”
As the rain continued to fall on the dark, heartless streets, we gathered around Officer Lentigo’s cluttered desk and I told our tale. Succinctly, but with passion and raw honesty. I told how desperate Ella and I had been to see Sidartha’s last concert but our parents, insensitive to the intensity of our needs and feelings, refused to let us go. How we tried so hard but couldn’t get tickets. How we decided to crash the party rather than have our dreams forever denied. How everything had gone so incredibly wrong, as though the Fates themselves were pulling the strings. How we’d seen Stu storm out of the Soho loft and followed him to make sure he didn’t come to any harm. It was a slightly edited version. I didn’t mention Carla Santini and I didn’t mention telling Ella that my father had been dead for sixteen years – I didn’t want to complicate it too much.
I’d been right to resurrect my father, rather than wake up my mother. My mother would have interrupted my story every sentence or two to ask annoying questions – like, how did you know about the party? or, where did you get that dress? – but my father only interrupted once to say, “But I said I’d take you to the concert,” and was satisfied with my explanation of our desperate desire to get to the party without an escort. He could understand, he’d been young once, too.
My father kept shaking his head while I talked, but Officers Lentigo and Grimkin and Stu Wolff, riveted by my story, were motionless and staring.
“I know I should be furious,” said my father when we were through. He sighed, looking at me with a mixture of paternal love and paternal frustration. “But I’m not up to fury right now. I’m just thankful nothing worse happened.”
Officers Lentigo and Grimkin were stern but not unkind. They agreed we were lucky they’d become interested in us before someone less savoury did.
Stu said, “Well, now that that’s settled, does anyone want to go to a party with me?”
My mother would have said, “No.” She has a very rigid sense of justice.
My father looked at me and Ella. “Oh, what the hell,” said my father. “Is it OK if we bring the dog?”
“All right,” said Ella softly as we drove to Stu’s loft in my father’s car, “I’m prepared to forgive you.”
How generous, I thought. She hadn’t ruined Eliza’s ball gown. She didn’t have to face Mrs Baggoli. She didn’t have to face Karen Kapok. She didn’t even have to face Marilyn and Jim – there’d been no one at home when Officer Lentigo called and the answer machine hadn’t been on. She didn’t really have anything to forgive me for. I didn’t say anything, though. So far, things were working out better than even I could have hoped. I didn’t want to rock the boat.
Ella’s face was stern in the shimmering shadows. “But you have to promise you’ll never lie to me again,” said Ella. “You know what my mother always says: ‘You can trust a thief, but never a liar’.”
Personally, that seemed a bit hard to me. I mean, sure I’d elaborated on dull reality a little, but I never lied about anything important. I would never let Ella down. I would never betray her. I would never say I was her friend and then steal her boyfriend, the way some people would.
“I promise,” I said solemnly. “I’ll never lie again – not even about things that aren’t important. I’ve learned the error of my ways.”
“Thank God for that,” said Ella, but I made out more than relief in her expression. She was as happy as I was. We’d done it! We were going to arrive at the Sidartha party with Stu Wolff. Carla Santini was going to have a herd of cows!
In the front seat, Stu and my father were talking about my father’s picture books. Stu had recognized my father’s name. His niece was a big fan of my father’s rabbits.
I leaned back against the hairs that cover the back seat of my father’s car, and smiled. “Can you wait to see Carla’s face when we walk in?” I asked softly. “Or what?”
Ella grinned back. “No I can’t. If I wasn’t so wet and hungry and half crippled I wouldn’t believe it was going to happen.” She winked. “All’s well that ends well…” she said.
You wouldn’t have been able to tell it was the middle of the night from the scene in Stu’s duplex-loft. The party was in full swing. Even though he had enough room to house a jumbo jet, the place was packed.
Ella and I hung back in the doorway for a few seconds, our eyes trying to take it all in.
“Look over there!” Ella kept saying as she spotted another celebrity. “Look over there! Look over there!”
“Come on,” said Stu. “I’ll lend you guys something dry and have those dresses cleaned and at your dad’s by tomorrow afternoon.”
I pinched Ella hard. “Stu Wolff’s clothes!” I hissed. “We’re going to be wearing Stu Wolff’s clothes!”
“I’ll be over there,” said my father, pointing to the main bar. “I think I’d like a drink.”
As we followed Stu up a spiral staircase to his bedroom, my eyes scanned the crowd of famous faces for the infamous one of Carla Santini.
“I don’t see her,” I whispered to Ella. “Do you?”
Ella shook her head.
