by Dyan Sheldon
This, however, was one of those times when Carla wasn’t going to let me ignore her.
“What do you think, Lola?” she roared from the next table. “If I have to choose a city to leave out of my itinerary, which should it be?”
I finally looked up, the smile of a Renaissance cherub on my lips. “You definitely don’t want to miss Bucharest, Carla. It’s very near Dracula’s Castle.”
Ella buried her face in her lunch and Sam choked.
Carla was amused. “No, really,” she went on when she’d finished tittering inanely, “you’re not like the rest of us provincials, are you? You’re a cosmopolitan, cultured person. I’d really value your opinion.”
Ella suddenly glanced at her watch. “God, would you look at the time?” Then she turned to me. “Didn’t you want to go to the library before your next class?”
I wasn’t the only one counting the days till I lived in a Carla-free world. Under my tutelage, Ella had gotten much better at confrontations, but hers is basically a placid nature and she still tended to shy away from actual hand-to-hand combat with the Santini whenever possible.
Carla, of course, was going on as though Ella’s words were no more than the rustle of a slight breeze. “I mean, I don’t even have two whole months, do I? I mean, I have to have time when I get back to get ready for Harvard, so I’m just not going to be able to fit everything in.”
“It kind of puts the problem of achieving world peace in a new perspective, doesn’t it?” I asked.
Carla’s smile flashed like a stiletto. “Oh I know it’s not a huge deal really, but it’s not something you have to worry about, is it?”
Since someone in the complex Dellwood, New Jersey spy network had obviously told her I already had a summer job, I wasn’t sure where this conversation was leading – but it was unlikely to be somewhere I’d like.
“You mean because I have to work this summer?”
“Of course not.” [Cue: clap hand over mouth and widen eyes in horrified realization of an innocent remark taken wrongly.] “Oh, Lola, you didn’t think I meant that, did you? No, I’m talking about you going to study at RADA. What’s a few measly weeks in Europe to someone who’s actually going to live in England? Just think of all the great artists and writers and musicians RADA’s produced.” I could feel my own words being thrown back at me like peanut shells. “I mean, like just everybody, right? And you’ll be in the same country where Shakespeare was born! Imagine being able to walk in his footsteps!” She was in full-steam-ahead mode. I don’t think she was even breathing. “And London! London, Lola! I mean, London’s the cultural capital of the Old World, isn’t it?”
“Ouch,” I heard Sam mutter under his breath.
Ella started getting her things together. “We’d better get a move on, Lola, or we won’t have enough time.”
“You are still going to RADA, aren’t you?” Carla’s eyebrows (perfect to match the rest of her) were drawn together with concern, and her big, innocent eyes were on me like lasers. “Don’t tell me you didn’t get in?”
She knew I wasn’t going. Was there no piece of private, personal information that she didn’t know? I can understand why some people don’t believe in God, but if you know Carla Santini you have to believe in the devil.
I raised my chin and the wattage of my smile. “Of course I got in.” At least I would have if I hadn’t cancelled my application.
“Oh, that’s a relief.” I’ve heard Carla’s laugh described as the tinkling of glass bells in the mountains (by some besotted fool), but it always reminded me of bones being rattled in a jam jar (the bones of her victims). “Then you are still going. I mean, you have to still be going. I mean, we’ve been listening to you talk about RADA for months, haven’t we?”
Programmed to respond like a NASA computer, Tina, Alma and Marcia all nodded and hummed in agreement. Forget the rack and thumbscrews, their simpering smiles seemed to be saying. We know what true torture is.
Carla definitely knew about my not going to RADA because my mother’s both impoverished and stubborn. Say what you will about phenomenally well-off, career-less women with nothing to do but play golf and eat lunch for charity, the Mothers of the Dellwood Spy Network outclass the FBI and the CIA combined.
Although I was aware that at the far corners of the cafeteria some kids were eating and talking amongst themselves in a normal kind of way (you know, like people who live in a world where the sun doesn’t have to ask Carla Santini if it’s all right to shine), around us all was quiet and still. We had everybody’s undivided attention. People can sense when a hunter’s getting ready to make a kill.
I thought about lying. In a few days we’d all have gone our different ways, and even if everyone found out that the closest I was getting to London was Brooklyn it wouldn’t matter. But I couldn’t. Not just because I’d promised Ella (and I do try very hard to keep my promises if at all possible), but because I knew I’d get busted. Unlike the army, Carla Santini takes no prisoners.
[Cue: small, self-mocking smile.] “Well, as it happens I decided against RADA for now.” My smile shimmered with a noble sadness. “There were some personal things I had to consider. No girl is an island, you know.”
“Oh, Lola, poor you! After all your plans!” If you ask me, the big cats of the Serengeti should be watching wildlife documentaries about Carla Santini to get their hunting skills up to scratch. “I hope you’re going somewhere just as good.”
I figured she must have our house bugged. How else could she know where I was going?
“Oh, I am,” I assured her.
Ella and Sam were already on their feet, and I stood up, too.
“LA?” purred Carla. “They do have some good drama programmes in California.”
“No.” I gathered up my things. “Not LA. I consider LA a spiritual wilderness, dedicated to only the pursuit of money and mediocrity. It’s not where you go for serious stage acting.”
Carla didn’t get to be the centre of the universe by not being persistent. “Well where do you go for serious stage acting, then?” Seventeen years of expensive dental care flashed. She wanted to hear me say it.
I swung my book bag over my shoulder. “I’m going to Brooklyn, of course. Some of America’s finest actors have gone there.”
“You mean like that old guy in The Sopranos?”
I’m pretty sure Carla was howling with laughter, but I was making my exit and didn’t look back to make sure.
It was enough to know that everyone else was howling with laughter.
At Last The Gods Buckle Under My Pleas And Cajoling
In my opinion, the last few days of high school should be a gay, light-hearted and frivolous time. All the cares and woes that have been one’s companions over the last few years are now no more than fading memories and the heart is filled with excitement and hope. Or it would be if Carla Santini lived in Finland.
But Carla Santini doesn’t live in Finland, and even though she never stopped talking about how much she had to do to get ready for her trip, she didn’t stay at home and do it. Instead she haunted the halls of Dellwood High like a scare of ghosts. She was everywhere. No matter where I went, there she was – larger than life and a lot more perfect. Hers was the only voice you heard, droning on and on about her European Experience as though she was the first person ever to have one. Even when I was in the sanctuary of my own room, listening to my favourite music and imagining my Broadway debut (I tended to skip the wilderness years of Brooklyn), I still saw that smug smile and heard that self-satisfied voice. I felt like I’d starved myself for days because I was going to have this fantastic banquet, and then, when I finally sat down to eat, there was a dead rabbit in the middle of the table. It drove me crazy.
By Friday night, when Sam, me, Ella and Morty Slater went to the movies, I was metaphorically bent under the burden of Carla Santini and her unending good fortune.
“What’s wrong with you?” asked Sam as we left the Dellwood cinema. “You didn’t laug
h once.”
What was wrong with me was Carla Santini. I felt like I was being punished (on top of not going to RADA and having to spend four years in a place that no cab driver in Manhattan can ever find).
“I can’t laugh.” I stopped in front of the snack bar, raising my arms to the unheedful gods. “I just don’t understand what I could possibly have done in a previous existence to deserve my life.”
“Well let’s see,” said Morty. “Maybe you drove millions of Jews, gypsies, socialists and homosexuals into the ovens of Nazi Germany. Or you made a fortune in the slave trade. Or starved the Cheyenne. Or assassinated Martin Luther King.”
[Cue: look of pity reserved for those with unimaginative, literal minds.] “I don’t think so, somehow.”
“But since you’re a part of the human race, technically you did,” said Ella. She was thinking of studying philosophy.
“Maybe you just wouldn’t shut up about Carla Santini for more than three-and-a-half minutes,” suggested Sam.
I felt that was really unkind.
Sam moaned. “For Chrissake, Lola. Why can’t you just let up on the Santini gas pedal a little? I don’t know about Ella and Morty, but I can’t wait till I never have to hear the name Carla Santini again.”
[Cue: cold look and disdainful readjustment of backpack.] “Oh, I’m so sorry if I’ve been boring you, Mr Creek, but I’m afraid I don’t do public humiliation very well.”
“Well you should,” said Morty. “It’s happened enough times.”
“Hahaha…”
“And anyway,” said Sam, “except for me, Morty and Ella, the only people who give a rusted bolt where you go to school or what poor country gets stuck with Carla Santini for the summer are you and Carla. Everybody else’s got their own life to worry about.”
“Sam’s right,” chipped in Ella. “It really doesn’t matter. This time next week it will all be behind us.” She gave me a warm smile. “Don’t you at least feel good that you told the truth in front of everyone the other day?”
The answer to that question was: not really. I felt good about not being caught in another lie in front of everyone, but I’d’ve preferred to have said I was going to RADA and had everyone believe me.
“I guess so.” We strolled through the doors and into the hot New Jersey night. “But I still don’t think it’s fair. I really wanted to end this phase of my life on a high note. Now it’ll haunt me for ever that Carla won the last duel.” I clutched my heart, my face bleak with pain, my eyes on the stars. “There is no balm in Gilead!” I intoned. “Years from now, when I’m accepting my New York Drama Critics’ Award, surrounded by adoring fans and admirers, what should be the greatest evening of my life will be marred by the memory of Carla Santini, making a laughing stock of me to the very end.”
Ella applauded. “RADA doesn’t know what they’re missing,” she said.
A great actor has to have a very persevering nature to be able to withstand the long, dark years of poverty, struggle and tepid reviews. That’s why I can sometimes be a little obsessive and single-minded. Which is why I was still bemoaning my unhappy fate as I biked to my job at the used clothes store, Second Best, the next morning.
I pedalled slowly. I was in a ruminative and reflective mood. Ella and Sam could say what they wanted, but the unfairness of the world still galled me.
Is it really all just luck? I wondered. Is that what a person’s life comes down to? Where she was born … who she was born to…? If you’re born with tons of money, good skin, a lot of hair and enough brains to take the frozen dinner out of the box before you put it in the oven – does that mean you can do and be and have whatever you want?
I sat out two red lights mulling this over in my mind.
One thing was for sure. If Carla Santini had been born to some migrant worker eking out a living picking lettuce one season and grapes the next, she wouldn’t be going to Europe or Harvard. On the other hand, she’d undoubtedly still be convinced that she was God’s greatest achievement, and bossing everyone else around. That’s her nature.
And it’s my nature to make the best of things, no matter how much havoc Fate may be wreaking on my life. But I still couldn’t help feeling that I deserved better. I definitely deserved to make my exit from Deadwood High with my head raised and cries of “Bravo!” following me as I left the stage, not jeers of laughter because I’d tripped over Carla Santini (standing in the limelight as usual) on my way off.
Mrs Magnolia was all in a twitter because I was a few minutes late and she had to get to the bank.
“Where were you?” She was flapping around like a frightened bird. “I thought you promised to be on time today.”
“Oh, Mrs Magnolia,” I cried. “I am so sorry.” I like Mrs Magnolia, but I wasn’t about to tell her the truth – that my soul was heavy with discontent and it affected my legs. Mrs Magnolia has a kind heart, but she was born and raised in New Jersey (and will obviously die there unless she’s abducted by aliens and expires on her way to Alpha Centauri), so though her heart is kind, her soul is sadly unevolved. My soul is vast and ancient like the Grand Canyon, but Mrs Magnolia’s soul is small and contemporary like a cell phone. “You won’t believe what happened to me. I was riding along, hurrying to get here, when this car—”
Mrs Magnolia held up one hand. “Not now. I don’t have time.” She picked up her bag and came from behind the counter. “There’s some new stock in the back you can start sorting through. I have a few errands to do after I go to the bank. Will you be all right by yourself?”
I’d been working part-time for over a month; you’d think she wouldn’t have to ask any more. I gave her my most reassuring smile. “Do ducks swim?”
She eyed me over her glasses. “And if you do have a customer you won’t try to discourage her from buying what she wants, right?”
“Right.” Mrs Magnolia always said the same thing to me when she left me alone because of the time she overheard me telling someone that the pinky-purple trousers made her look like an uncooked turkey. “I’ll put myself in the role of a director of a multinational company who always puts profits before principles.”
Mrs Magnolia smiled in that dazed way of hers. “Thank you. I’d appreciate that.”
I made myself a cup of Red Zinger tea (to revitalize my mind and body after the long ride), and then I started sorting through the new stock. I made four piles: ladies’, children’s, men’s, and clothes that would only be worn by women who didn’t know there was a world outside of New Jersey. My personal cares and traumas faded as I became deeply immersed in my work. I studied each new item, thinking about where it had been and what it had seen. Had that yellow dress with the ruffles been to a wedding? Did it dance and laugh and drink champagne – or did it end up weeping in the bathroom because the love of its life had married someone else? What about those jeans with the butterfly appliqued on the back pocket? Did that butterfly get to soar, to camp in the foothills of the Andes or sail the Gulf of Mexico? Or did it go no further than the nearest party or football game? Even worse, did it stay in the house watching videos and waiting for the phone to ring?
I picked up a pair of practically new red shoes with rhinestones in the heels. I was wondering what they would say if they could talk when the bell over the door rang.
There were two women standing at the front of the store, just kind of eyeing the room the way a greenhorn might eye her first bison. They looked too cool to be actual customers. The younger one had lilac highlights in her blonde hair and was dressed in an arty-funky way (clashing colours and patterns and earrings made from pull tabs off cans), and the older one had dark, short, spiky hair and looked excruciatingly, expensively hip (silver and black). I figured they were lost. I couldn’t think of any other reason why women like that would come into Second Best.
“Can I help you?” I smiled warmly so they knew they weren’t in one of those small towns where everyone’s psychotic.
“No, thanks.” The older woman shook her platin
um earrings. “We’re just looking.”
The younger one took a dress from the rack and eyed it with interest. I was about to point out that if she wore that it would make her look like her name was Ethel when I remembered Mrs Magnolia’s stern words.
“OK.” Normally I would never leave customers alone in the front of the store, but my sensitive actor’s instincts told me that they were too well-dressed to be thieves. I pointed to the open doorway. “I’ll be in the back if you need me.”
I returned to my sorting and wondering about the secret lives of clothes. Fragments of their conversation drifted towards me. Apparently, they weren’t lost. Apparently, they were actually staying in some B&B in the area. He’s got as much charm as a slug and the food’s so last century, but at least she’s letting us use the washing machine… What if we dye this purple or black…? They seemed to be shopping for presents, because it was all, What about this for the girl in the gift store…? What about that for the cook in the diner…? Isn’t this perfect for Lucy’s dream…?
And then the funky one shrieked, “Oh my God, Shona, is this shirt Bret’s character, or have I gone insane?”
My head went up like a periscope. Bret’s character? Did she say Bret’s character? Did she say Lucy’s dream? Suddenly, all was clear as a new pane of glass! They were talking about Bret Fork and Lucy Rio – two of the hottest young actors around. These weren’t ordinary women shopping for presents; they had to be costume designers looking for stuff for a film. As I said, I had no real interest in working in movies (not till I’d established myself in the theatre and commanded the right kind of parts), but a great actor has to be open to everything, not just the things she cares about in her soul. There is nothing in human experience that isn’t fuel to the creative furnace.