Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen - Dyan Sheldon [55]
Ella nodded. “Yeah,” she said. “I do.”
“Great.” I slipped my arm through hers. “In that case, it’s time we went downtown.”
According to Carla’s invitation, which I’d had such foresight to commit to memory, the party was in Soho. Where else? Soho is New York’s artistic soul (and, therefore, America’s), and Sidartha was its voice. Besides, everyone knows that Stu Wolff lives in Soho.
Our plan was to be outside Stu’s building when the guests started arriving so we could choose our moment to meld in with the crowd. I figured it would take us at least an hour to get down there on the bus and then find the address, especially with the rain. If we left before the concert actually ended, we’d have plenty of time to reach Soho before everyone else, and even be able to go to a coffee shop to dry off and repair what damage we could.
“Can’t you read?” The bus driver pointed to the sign. “Exact change or tokens only.”
I felt myself blush. I’d been in the wilderness of Deadwood for less than a year by then, and already I’d forgotten how to ride a city bus. It’s my father’s fault; he insists on walking everywhere.
Ella started digging through her pockets, but I kept my eyes on the five-dollar bill in my hand.
“Please,” I pleaded, the shadow of tears in my eyes and voice. “It’s my sister.” I raised my voice. “She broke her foot, but she can’t go to the hospital to have it set until we get there to mind the babies.”
“I have a dollar forty in coins,” said Ella, dropping several of them on the stairs. “How much do you have?”
I knew how much change I had without looking: fifty-eight cents.
“It’s not enough,” I said in a voice thick with sadness. Ella started picking up the coins she’d dropped. I turned my unhappy eyes on the driver. “Please… She had to crawl to the phone to call us. She—”
“Take a cab,” said the driver. “It’s quicker.”
“But we don’t have enough for a cab.”
There was a shriek of disgust behind me.
“Oh, my God!” screamed Ella. “I just saw a cockroach.”
No one paid any attention to her. A cockroach on a city bus isn’t exactly news.
I waved the bill at the driver. “Don’t you understand?” I was practically sobbing. “My poor sister’s all alone with three little babies and a broken foot, maybe even a compound fracture… She’s lying there in pain, waiting for us to come and save her.”
Ella straightened up. “I almost touched it,” she squealed. “I almost touched it with my hand.”
This statement didn’t catch anyone’s attention, either.
“Look,” said the driver. “This isn’t an ambulance, it’s a city bus. You have to have the exact fare.”
Bitter tears of frustration welled in my eyes. “But the littlest is only two months old,” I wailed. “Two months old, sir. Do you have children? Do you remember when they were two months old? How they’d lie in their little cribs crying and crying until their mother picked them up and took them in her arms…?”
“Look,” said the driver, sighing heavily. “It isn’t my bus. I just drive it—”
“You do remember!” I was nearly sobbing. “You do know what it’s like.”
He looked over his shoulder. “Anybody got change for a five?” he called.
ON THE STREET WHERE HE LIVES
Ella, shaken from the attack of the killer cockroach, spent the entire ride downtown standing up, watching her feet to make sure nothing with more than two legs walked over them. When she wasn’t staring at her shoes, she was darting anxious glances at our fellow travellers. Ella had never been on public transport in New York before. When her parents brought her in they went everywhere in cabs. The Gerards don’t take any chances.
“Do you think that man back there is crazy?” she whispered.
Pretending that I was reading an advertisement for a computer course, I looked towards the back.
“Which one?” I asked, my eyes now on the headline of the paper the woman sitting in front