Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen - Dyan Sheldon [19]
“Well?” Ella demanded in a loud whisper. “How’d it go?”
I flung my cape over my shoulder. “I’m pleased to be able to announce that after a rocky start our heroine gave a brilliant reading.”
I really was pleased with what I’d done in the end. I was sure that when the parts were posted the next morning my name would be the one next to Eliza Doolittle. I explained about the rocky start as we left the library.
“Oh, God…” groaned Ella. “What a nightmare.”
“It happens,” I said philosophically. Wasn’t it Shakespeare who said that you can’t be wise if you’ve never been a fool? “There isn’t a great actor in the history of the theatre who hasn’t done something even worse. I read that Robert De Niro once got up on a stage and started performing the wrong play.”
“Really?” Ella grinned wickedly. “Wouldn’t it be great if that happened to Carla Santini?”
Mentioning Carla Santini’s name was like mentioning Satan’s. She instantly appeared, walking across the car park with Mrs Baggoli. Carla drives a red BMW convertible. Mrs Baggoli drives an old black Ford.
“Speak of the devil,” said Ella. She gave me a look. “So how did Carla do?”
“She was good.” If you’re going to be a great actor, you have to learn to be magnanimous. I winked. “But she wasn’t as good as I was.”
“You can’t tell from looking at her, though, can you?” said Ella.
I followed her gaze. Carla and Mrs Baggoli had stopped by Mrs Baggoli’s car. Mrs Baggoli was nodding as she climbed into the driver’s seat. Carla was talking animatedly. Her curls were tossing all over the place. She didn’t look like someone who knew she’d just lost her chance to play Eliza.
I whipped my cape over my shoulder and bent to unlock my bike.
“She probably thinks that if she talks long enough, Mrs Baggoli will give her the part just to make her shut up.”
THINGS GET BOTH BETTER AND EVEN WORSE
Even though my soul was withering like a rose deprived of sunlight and water, I was in a pretty good mood Tuesday night.
As I’d told Ella, although I’d admittedly gotten off to a less than spectacular start with my reading, I was confident that I’d performed significantly better than Carla in the end. I mean, I’d have had to, wouldn’t I? Expecting Carla to identify with a poor supermarket check-out girl was like expecting the Queen of England to identify with a mud wrestler from Alabama.
And although playing Eliza wasn’t the same as knowing that Sidartha was out there – a spiritual satellite in the great nothingness of the universe – it did give me something positive to do with my grief. I would use it to be the best Eliza Doolittle I could be, no matter what her ethnic background. It’s what all great actors do, of course: they put aside the disappointments and tragedies of their own brief lives and throw themselves into their work. The show, as they say, must always go on.
Self-doubt didn’t kick in until sometime between Tuesday night when I fell asleep to the Stu Wolff classic “Everything Hurts” and Wednesday morning when I woke up with a heart as cold and as heavy as Mount Everest.
I dreamt about Carla Santini. She was up on the stage of a packed auditorium. The spotlights were on her, and her arms were filled with dozens of orchids. I was standing in the wings. I was wrapped in my cape because the costume I should have been wearing was on Carla Santini. Just as the flowers that were meant for me were in her arms, and the applause that should have been mine was falling on her ears. I was crying very, very softly. As the audience erupted in shouts of “Bravo! Bravo!”, Carla turned to face me. She smiled at me the way she had during my audition.
My eyes opened to the stain that looks like an amoeba on the ceiling over my bed. From one cell all life grew. One day there’s just this microscopic dot floating around in some swamp, and a few billion years later I’m lying in bed wondering how I could be so stupid.
How could I be so stupid? Why had I been so certain I was going to get the lead? Had I forgotten how Mrs Baggoli had laughed at me? Had I forgotten what she had said?