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To answer Carla’s question, I’d had enough. She’d beaten me. Not fairly and squarely, maybe, but she’d definitely beaten me. Carla Santini could be Queen of Deadwood forever, for all I cared.

I didn’t say anything to anyone, not even Ella. Cataclysmic personal defeat isn’t the kind of thing you want to share, not even with your best friend. Like a deer that’s been hit by a Land-Rover, I just wanted to slink into the forest and die by myself.

In fact, Ella and I didn’t talk much that day. I was in too deep a state of grief for idle chit-chat, and besides that, I was laying the ground for a sudden attack of influenza. It was the easiest way. I mean, I couldn’t very well go to Mrs Baggoli and say, “I’ve decided to step down as Eliza, since Carla wants the part so much.”

I was quiet and distracted in my classes.

My teachers noticed that the student they relied on for animated participation was listless and withdrawn.

“Lola,” they said. “Are you all right? You’re very quiet today.”

“It’s nothing,” I answered. “I have a headache”, or “My throat’s a little sore”, or, by the end of the afternoon, “I think I have a fever.”

As soon as I got home, I took to my bed.

My mother found me, prostrate on the couch, wrapped in the old granny-square afghan my dad crocheted when he hurt himself falling off a mountain in the Catskills and was laid up for a few weeks. Whenever anyone’s sick in Ella’s house, they take an aspirin and go to bed. But whenever anyone’s sick in my house, they lie on the couch with the afghan and watch TV.

“What’s wrong?” asked my mother. “Aren’t you feeling well?” Her usual suspiciousness had been replaced with maternal concern. She knew the play meant more to me than anything; it wouldn’t occur to her that I was only acting.

I raised my head as she crossed the room. “My throat hurts,” I croaked, barely loud enough to be heard. “And my head…” I fell back against the pillows. “I think I have a fever…” I stifled a moan of pain. “My skin feels like it’s on fire.”

My mother wiped her hands on her clay-covered apron and felt my forehead. Her face clouded with concern. “You do feel warm…”

I should have felt warm; I’d been lying there with the hot water bottle pressed to my head, waiting for her to come out of her studio.

“I hope you’re not coming down with something…”

“I’m sure it’s nothing,” I whispered hoarsely. “Stress…”

“It could be the flu,” said my mother. “There’s a lot of it going around…” She started feeling my glands. “Serves you right for running around in that storm on Saturday.”

“I can’t be sick,” I moaned feebly. “Tomorrow’s Pygmalion. I have to be all right for that.”

“I’ll make you a herbal tea,” said my mother, “and a compress for your fever. Maybe it’s just one of those twenty-four hour bugs.”

I moaned again. “It has to be,” I said as she bustled out of the room. “I can’t miss the play.”

My mother’s voice was respectfully low and full of concern. “I’m really sorry, Ella,” she was saying, “but I’m afraid she can’t come to the phone. She isn’t feeling well.”

She paused while Ella spoke.

“It looks like some kind of flu,” my mother continued. “You know, throat, head and fever. But despite all appearances, she isn’t going to die. It doesn’t look like she’ll be going to school tomorrow, though.”

I could hear the sound of Ella’s voice coming through the receiver, but not the words themselves.

“I know,” said my mother, “it really is a shame. My folks are coming all the way from Connecticut, and of course there’s Mary’s dad… They’re all going to be really disappointed.”

I didn’t want to hear about all the people I was supposedly letting down. I lifted my hand and waved it in my mother’s direction. I was much too weak and my voice much too sore to tell her to say hello to Ella for me.

My mother gave me a nod. “She says to say hello,” she said to Ella. My mother looked over at me again. “Ella says hi,” she reported.

“That’d be great,” said my mother. “I’ll tell her.”

“Tell me what?” I asked as my mother hung