Dyan Sheldon: Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen

“ Old-fashioned? Ella, they’d have to be time travellers from the Victorian era to get upset about a pair of chopsticks.”

Ella stopped studying the carpet and turned her attention to the CD player. “Forget it,” she said. “It isn’t important.”

“What do you mean it isn’t important?” I threw myself in front of her. “This is the woman who gave me life we’re talking about. Whose milk fed my fragile body, whose blood flows through my veins. Of course it’s important. What else does your mother have against Karen?”

Ella smiled wryly. “Well, that’s one thing.”

“What is?”

“That she lets you call her Karen. My mother doesn’t like that. She thinks it’s disrespectful.”

“What else?” I pushed. “There has to be more than that.”

Ella sighed. She was no match for me in this kind of thing, and she knew it.

“Well, if you must know, Lola, neither of my parents is too happy about the fact that your mother has three children and no husband.”

To her credit, Ella was looking pretty embarrassed.

I was simply stupefied. “What?”

Ella shrugged helplessly.

“I do know this is practically the twenty-first century and everything, but my folks really are old-fashioned. At least about stuff like that they are. They think single mothers are a threat to society.”

Well, you can see their point, can’t you? I mean, what hope is there for our culture when a mother lets her sixteen-year-old daughter call her by her first name, wears chopsticks to hold up her hair, and lives without a husband? The barbarians are practically battering down the gates.

I was really interested now. I’d never seen my mother as a social outcast before. It was an idea I could warm to.

“You’ve got to be joking,” I said, even though I knew that she wasn’t. “And anyway, single-motherhood is a transitory state. I mean, Karen used to be a married mother. It could happen again.”

It was Ella’s turn to look shocked.

“Your mother was married ?” She couldn’t have sounded more amazed if she’d just learned my mother used to date the President.

“Of course she was,” I reassured her. “Twice.”

“Twice?” Ella frowned. “But I thought you said you were a love child.”

I had said I was a love child. I remembered it clearly – now that Ella had reminded me. The truth, that my father, whom I visit at least twice a month, lives in New York and draws pictures of adorable bears and rabbits for a living, is pretty dull. I thought saying I was a love child made me seem more of a tragic, romantic figure. This happens now and then. When you’re as creative and imaginative as I am, it can be difficult to keep track of your stories one hundred per cent of the time.

“I was a love child,” I said, ad-libbing quickly. “I mean, they were madly in love when my mother got pregnant. They weren’t planning to get married, of course … my father was a loner by nature, but as soon as they found out that I was on the way they drove his motorcycle to Las Vegas.”

“Las Vegas?” Ella had yet to stop frowning. “I thought your mother always lived in New York. Isn’t Las Vegas a little far to go for a wedding?”

You can see why Ella’s in all the advanced classes in school. She has a first-rate analytical mind.

“They wanted to honeymoon in New Mexico,” I went on, beginning to get into my tale. I could actually see my parents, charging down the highway on a vintage Harley, fuelled by love. “New Mexico is a very spiritual place. They wanted to camp in the desert and count the stars.” I could see them doing that, too. Their arms were around each other, their heads were sticking out of their tiny tent. It was incredibly romantic.

Ella thought so, too.

“Geez…” she sighed. “My parents went on a cruise to Jamaica for their honeymoon. They stayed on the boat the whole time. They were afraid to go into town.”

My voice became heavy and solemn. “Maybe your parents were right to be so cautious,” I said very softly. “New Mexico is where my father met his tragic death.”

“Oh, Lola…!” Ella’s face was the picture of empathetic pain. She has a kind nature, as well as being smart. “I’m so sorry… I had no idea…”

I gulped back a tear that even the long years of being fatherless hadn’t managed to dry up.

“Of course you didn’t.” My voice trembled bravely. “He was killed on his way back from town one afternoon.” Inspiration flowed through me like current through a wire. “He’d slipped away on the Harley to get my mother her favourite flowers.” I stared at the patch of sunlight that illuminated the immaculateness of the carpet. “They found them strewn across the road—” I paused, too choked to continue. But then I forced myself to rally. “They were splattered with blood.”

A genuine tear glistened in the corner of Ella’s eye.

“Your poor mother…” She was practically sobbing. “What a horrible thing for her to go through.”

“I know.” I shook my head several times very slightly, the way people do when they’re remembering something especially painful. “It took her years to get over it. But then she met Elk, the twins’ dad. They got married before she was pregnant. At least she knew a little domestic bliss…”

I could hear Ella swallow. “What happened to him ?”

I hadn’t been planning to kill off Elk, too, but the words came tumbling out, beyond my control.

“Elk was a lawyer for Greenpeace,” I explained. “He was on his way to England for a conference.” I spent a few more seconds re-examining the patch of light again. “He never came back.”

“Oh, no…” Ella clutched my hand. “Oh, Lola…”

You had to give it to her, she was a terrific audience.

I went on, quietly, in a voice in which time has numbed but not erased the pain.

“His plane went down near Greenland.” I could hear the shattering of the plane as it smashed into the ocean. Red and orange flames that burned like the fires of hell exploded in my mind. Men, women and children screamed without hope. And then, suddenly, a dreadful silence fell over the cold, depthless water. “My mother had to fly out to identify what was left of the body.”

Ella’s face was whiter than Wonder Bread. “Oh, my God…”

I smiled a small but courageous, so-it-goes smile. “The twins were only a year old.”

Ella shook her head in shock and horror. “Your poor mom, what horrible things she’s gone through.” She wiped away another tear with the sleeve of her blouse. “I feel like I should apologize to her or something…”

Ella was more than capable of apologizing to my mother for having misunderstood her situation. This, however, was not an especially good idea. Elk really is a lawyer for Greenpeace, and he really didn’t come back from England – at least not to us – but it wasn’t a plane crash that kept him, it was a woman named Margot.

“It’s best not to mention the past to her at all,” I said quickly. “You know, too many agonizing memories.” I sighed as only one who has known real suffering can. “It’s ironic, isn’t it?” I said. “Your parents think my mother’s the destroyer of our social order, and she’s merely a victim of Fate.”

“I feel so awful.” Ella chewed nervously on her lower lip. “I really would like your mother to know that—”

“Whatever happened to the music?” I asked brightly. I picked up the CD Ella had abandoned and put it into the machine.

“Sidartha!” Ella managed a smile. “I forgot about them!”

“God…” I groaned. “That’s like forgetting how to breathe.”

I pedalled home beneath a silver crescent of moon, like a nick in the plush velvet of the sky. Ella and I are the only ones who ride our bikes to school. For all I know, we are the only ones who own bikes; most of the kids our age already have cars. But I don’t mind. A great actor needs to have good lungs so she can project her voice for the whole theatre to hear. Ella stopped taking rides from Carla Santini and her buddies when I convinced her that riding a bike is not only environmentally friendly, it’s good exercise as well.