Dyan Sheldon - Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen

“That’d be great,” said my mother. “I’ll tell her.”

“Tell me what?” I asked as my mother hung up the phone.

“Ella says she’ll make sure she gets all your homework for you.”

Struggling against the pain, I smiled my gratitude. What a friend.

As you can imagine, I had another bad night. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw Carla Santini in the red satin dress, smiling into the spotlight like a glacier. I heard the cheers and cries of “Bravo!”. I watched her step in front of everyone else to take another bow.

I was awake at dawn.

I knew I was doing the right thing; I was sure of it. It meant that I had forever lost the fight against Carla Santini and the forces of darkness, but what did it matter? There’s no point in waging a battle you know you’ll lose even if you win.

All I had to do was stay in bed for the next twenty-four hours, and it would all be over. But I had to stop thinking about it. I had to stop the corkscrew of pain that gouged at my heart every time I imagined Carla Santini in Eliza’s dress.

I heard my mother get up and go into the kitchen. I heard the twins erupt into consciousness. I heard the radio go on. (The weather was going to be mild and sunny. I’d been hoping for rain. Rain’s always so comforting when you’re unhappy.) And then I heard the door bell. I looked at my clock. It was too early for the mailman with a package, or even for the UPS man, come to take some boxes of dinnerware away.

Pam tripped over something and fell, so Paula reached the door first.

“She’s sick!” shouted Paula. “She isn’t going to school today. So now we don’t have to go to her boring play.”

“Now nobody has to go to the boring play,” said Ella.

This was not Ella-like behaviour, this coming to the house at seven-thirty in the morning. She hadn’t been able to bring me my homework the afternoon before because she had to do something with her mother at the last minute, but I’d figured she’d wait till the weekend to come. I had the thought to jump up and lock the door, but before I could it opened and Ella Marjorie Gerard, the girl once destined to be picked as Most Shy in our high-school yearbook, marched in.

“I want to talk to you,” said Ella, and she slammed the door in Pam and Paula’s faces.

“Not now,” I said. I rubbed my eyes sleepily. “I just woke up.”

Ella threw her book bag on the foot of my bed. “Oh, sure you did,” said Ella.

“I really don’t feel well—” I began.

“You can cut the crap,” said the most polite and well-mannered teenager in New Jersey. “I know what you’re doing.” She grabbed the blanket and yanked it off me. “And I’m not going to let you get away with it. Get up now and get dressed for school.”

I stared at her, agog. I’d never heard Ella talk to anyone like that. I didn’t think she was capable of it.

“I’m telling you I’m sick,” I said. I pulled the blanket back around me, shivering slightly. “I have a fever,” I told her. “Ask my mother.”

“What do you think I am, stupid?” asked Ella. “You’re not sick. You’re bailing out of the play.” She folded her arms in front of her and set her jaw. She looked like she was in a play herself. “You’re giving up,” said Ella.

Admitting defeat was beginning to get easier and easier.

“All right,” I snapped. “So what if I am?” I glared at her. “I wish I’d done it when you wanted me to. I could have saved myself a lot of time and trouble.”

“Well, I don’t want you to now,” said Ella. She dropped her arms and sat down on the bed. “You can’t do this, Lola. Everybody’s depending on you.”

Sure they were. Depending on me to play the fool.

“Hah hah,” I said. “Nobody will even notice the difference.”

“Of course they will,” said Ella. “What about your parents? And your grandparents? And me? And Sam? Sam’s never been to a school function before in his life. He’s only going for you.”

“Maybe he can get a refund.” I fluffed up my pillow and leaned back. “Maybe all of you can.”

“I can’t believe I’m hearing this,” said Ella. “This isn’t like you at all. What happened to the person who never gives up? What happened to the person who told me her motto was ‘never say die’?”

“I don’t know,” I said. Which was true. “I guess she bailed out, too.”

Ella gazed at me in silence for several seconds.

“So that’s it?” she said at last. “All that stuff you told me about passion and art and putting your work before yourself, that was just more of your lies?”

“Of course not,” I said. “That’s what’s important. It’s just that I—”

“You’re just the same as Carla, aren’t you?” Ella stood up. “It’s all me, me, me and I, I, I. Nobody else counts for anything, do they?”

I stood up, too.

“That’s not true and you know it!” I felt like I was falling apart inside.

“No, I don’t know it!” Ella screamed back. “You haven’t given one thought to anybody else in all this. It’s all been about you.” She flung her arms wide, appealing to the gods themselves. “What about me?” she demanded. “I was miserable until you came to Dellwood. Totally miserable. I thought that everybody’s life was like mine, just doing all the things you’re supposed to do, when you’re supposed to do them, and never questioning anything. I thought that when I grew up all I could expect was a life like my parents’.” She was trembling with rage. “And then I met you. You gave me courage, Lola. You taught me that you can make life what you want.”

I reached out to touch her shoulder. I’d never seen Ella cry before. “Ella, I—”

She jumped back as though I’d threatened her with a sabre. “Don’t touch me!” She wiped her eyes with the sleeve of her shirt. “You’re a sham, Lola Cep, that’s what you are. I thought being the best Eliza Doolittle you could be was what mattered to you. But it isn’t. Because if it was you’d go on tonight and you’d be the best Eliza Doolittle, no matter what Carla Santini says or does.” Ella’s face was red and blotchy from crying. “Don’t you get it, Lola? That’s the one thing she can’t do anything about. The one thing nobody can do anything about! And you’re just going to hand it to her.”

By now, I was crying, too.

“What’s going on in there?” called my mother. She started banging on the door. “Mary? Ella?”

I snuffed back a few million tears. “Nothing,” I shouted back through my sobs. “I’ve had a miraculous recovery.”

Henry Higgins and I peered through the curtain at the side of the stage.

On the left of the auditorium were Mr and Mrs Gerard, Ella and Sam. Mr and Mrs Gerard were both wearing suits; Ella was wearing the A-line with the pearl buttons down the front she’d wanted me to wear to the party, but it didn’t look so bad because her hair was loose and the contrast between the copper and the blue was actually stunning; and Sam was wearing black jeans and a T-shirt and his leather jacket with the bottle caps bolted to it. They looked so out of place together that a passing policeman would have arrested Sam for holding the Gerards hostage.

On the right-hand side were my mother and father, the twins, my grandparents, and about a dozen of my mother’s closest friends. My parents were sitting together, with a twin on either side, to keep them from talking during the performance.

“Corblighme,” whispered Henry Higgins in a mid-Atlantic drawl. “It’s a full house. There are even people standing at the back.”

I was too excited to comment on his hopeless accent, but I will say that it was just as well that Mrs Baggoli moved the play to America.