Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen - Dyan Sheldon [29]
I gave my mother a wan smile.
“No,” I said softly. “No, there’s nothing wrong with the spaghetti.” I gave her another wan smile. “I guess I’m just not very hungry.” I pushed my plate away. “I guess I’m just in too much pain.”
“Cramps?” asked my mother.
It seemed to me that I was always gaping at my mother in horror lately.
“Mommmm…” I moaned. Ella’s mother would never discuss cramps at the table in front of everybody, even though the only people usually at the Gerard’s dinner table are she and Ella. Ella learned about sex and stuff like that from a book her parents gave her. It was made up of questions and answers, so she didn’t have to talk about it with her mother at all.
“I’m in pain, too,” said Pam. She opened her mouth as wide as she could and shoved her face in mine. “See?” she demanded. “My tooth’s coming out.”
All I could see was half-chewed spaghetti. It was enough to make you gag.
My mother didn’t notice that one of her children was making a revolting spectacle of herself any more than she’d noticed my haunted air.
She reached for the salad. “Well?” she persisted. “There’s paracetamol in the bathroom if you need it.”
“It’s not that kind of pain,” I said flatly.
“What kind of pain is it?” asked Paula.
I smiled at her kindly. Even though Pam and Paula are identical twins, Paula sometimes shows signs of being an intelligent life form.
“I think you’re too little to understand,” I gently explained. “It’s a pain of the heart.”
Paula sucked a strand of spaghetti into her mouth. “You mean like indigestion?” And at other times, the closest Paula gets to an intelligent life form is sitting next to me.
“No,” I said. “Not like indigestion. Like having your heart ripped from your body and thrown on to a pile of rusting tin cans. Like having a red-hot corkscrew twisted into your soul. Like having everything you ever loved or dreamed of rolled over by tanks driven by soldiers who are laughing and singing songs.”
Paula looked at my mother. “What’s she talking about?”
My mother shrugged. “You’ve got me.” She helped herself to garlic bread.
“Maybe it’s a bad-hair day,” suggested Pam.
The twins thought this was incredibly funny. Half-chewed spaghetti and bread flew across the table.
“Girls,” said my mother, but she was looking at me. “What happened?” she asked. “Are you having some trouble at school?”
“School?” I covered my heart with my hands as though I were trying to keep it from being ripped from my body yet again. “How can you talk about something as trivial as school at a time like this?” Hot, bitter tears sprang to my eyes. “Can’t you see that my whole world has been pitched into darkness? Can’t you see that I’ve lost any reason to live?”
“Are you going to tell me what happened?” asked my mother.
“That’s what I mean about this family,” I wailed. “Something like this can occur, and you don’t even know about it.”
“Well, maybe if you told us,” said Paula.
I pushed back my chair. “Do you all live in a cave or something?” I shrieked. “Am I being raised by wolves? Doesn’t anybody but me keep any contact with the outside world?” I got to my feet. “Sidartha has broken up,” I sobbed. “They’re having one last concert at Madison Square Garden, and then they are no more!” I raised my eyes to the heavens and opened my arms. “Good night, sweet princes, may choirs of rock angels sing you to your sleep…!”
Pam slurped at a forkful of food.
My mother looked at me.
“Let me make a wild guess,” she said. “You want to go to the concert.”
Hope dried the tears that blurred my eyes.
“Yes,” I snuffled. “If I could see them play live, at least I’d have that memory to carry me through the long, empty years that lie ahead of me like a road in Kansas.