Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen - Dyan Sheldon [38]
“Stop worrying,” I advised. I opened the classroom door. “So we still have a few minor details to work out—”
Ella snorted. If her mother could have heard her, she would have gone into cardiac arrest. God only has ten commandments, but Mrs Gerard has at least a hundred, a great many of them pertaining to proper behaviour for young ladies.
“You can say that again,” said Ella. She glanced towards the back of the room, the new location for the Carla Santini Admiration Society. “More than a few.”
Right on cue, Carla Santini looked over.
“Lola and Ella are going, too,” she boomed as we took our seats.
You didn’t have to be particularly gifted as a detective to correctly guess what Carla was droning on about. Even though everybody, including the janitor, knew the whole saga of the Sidartha concert, including every word that had ever been exchanged between Stu Wolff and Mr Santini, it was a routine Carla never tired of.
“Lola’s mother, the potter, got them invited.”
“She must be a pretty good potter,” said one of the boys in Carla’s audience.
They all laughed, even Carla, who had made that same dumb joke herself.
I was getting pretty good at duplicating Carla’s smile.
“As good a potter as Mr Santini is a lawyer,” I said, joining in the laughter.
“Suicide,” hissed Ella. “You’re committing high-school suicide.”
Alma could do a pretty good imitation of the Santini smile, too.
“So you must be used to these celebrity gigs if your mother has clients like Marsh Foreman,” she purred.
“Oh, you know…” I was cool, as someone a little jaded from her life in the fast lane would be.
Ella groaned.
Alma gave me a “get-you” kind of look. “What about the concert? Are you going to that, too?”
I felt, rather than saw, Ella glance my way.
“Of course they’re going,” drawled Carla Santini. The dark curls rattled. “We fortunate ones with personal invitations don’t have to worry about tickets to the concert, do we, Lola?”
The classroom door opened and shut, and the cavalry in the form of Mrs Baggoli rushed in. I sat down.
“Nope,” I agreed. “We fortunate ones don’t have to worry about tickets.”
“It’s not for me,” I was saying. My voice was soft and gentle, but charged with emotion and suffering. “It’s for my poor sister.”
Mr Alvarez, whose name-tag claimed he was the manager of Ticketsgalore, was still shaking his head. “Well, I’m really very sorry about your sister—”
“Mary.” I smiled a bittersweet smile. “You see,” I whispered, leaning over the counter towards him, my eyes dark with pain, my youthful features etched with tragedy, “Mary’s dying. Of a very rare blood disease.”
Ella began to choke. I reached out and slapped her on the back, my eyes still on Mr Alvarez.
Mr Alvarez looked embarrassed. “I’m very sorry to hear that,” he said quickly, “but I’m afraid—”
“Sidartha’s her very favourite band,” I rushed on. “No, they’re more than just a band to poor Mary. They’re a source of hope and inspiration. A spiritual well in which she can dip her battered soul for nourishment and rest.” My voice became a little louder with the intensity of my emotions. “Sidartha and their music have kept her going through all she’s had to endure in her tortured young life – the isolation, the operations, the coma…” I clasped my hands in supplication. I stared into Mr Alvarez’s eyes. “If she could just see their last concert she could at least die happy.”
Mr Alvarez pushed a limp strand of hair from his forehead. “I’d love to help you,” he said. “I really would. It’s very sad about your sister—”
“Mary,” I breathed. “Her name’s Mary.” I smiled bravely. “She’s only eighteen.” I bit my lip. “Eighteen, but never nineteen.”
Still gasping slightly, Ella wandered away to check out the posters on the walls.
“Really,” said Mr Alvarez. He was almost pleading. “If there were something I could do to help you, I would. But there isn’t. I simply don’t have any more tickets.”
I was leaning so close by now that I could smell the traces of Mr Alvarez’s lunch (fish and garlic).
“But there must be some way,” I insisted, forcing