Confessions of a Hollywood Star (2 page)

“I must say, Lola, you’re taking not going to RADA very well,” said Mrs Baggoli. “After all I heard about it, I was expecting a few weeks of Meryl Streep in tears at the very least.”

“The world isn’t fair, Mrs Baggoli.” I sighed philosophically. “But whatever the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, the show must go on, mustn’t it? In life as on Broadway.”

Mrs Baggoli said I was very mature.

I was so good that I even convinced myself. Right up to a week before the end of classes, when I was suddenly reminded that though the gods have given me talent and dedication, they’ve always been pretty stingy with everything else.

It was Carla Santini who reminded me. Of course.

Carla Santini Reminds Me That I Wasn’t At The Head Of The Line When The Gods Were Handing Out Luck

“A
pproximately one-hundred-and-sixty-eight hours and counting,” hooted Sam. “Now, that’s what I call getting seriously short.”

“I don’t know…” Ella shrugged. “It feels really strange thinking that after a few more days we’ll never come here again.”

Obviously I didn’t actually feel like that myself, but my actor’s brain totally understood what Ella meant. “Oh, I know, I know!” I cried, casting my arms wide to embrace the infinite mysteries of the universe. “The years of toil and struggle… The moments of dark heartbreak and the moments of pure joy… The days of laughter and of tears…”

“Well, not exactly…” Ella scrunched up her nose as though a bug had flown into it. “I just meant, you know, that we’ve been here a long time.”

“Well of course we have.” To me it felt like about a hundred years of hard labour. “There isn’t an inch of this school that doesn’t hold a memory.”

“Tell me about it.” Sam started ticking things off on his fingers (a habit he’s developed through being a mechanic and having to tell people what’s wrong with their cars). “The time you pretended to faint so you could get out of maths… The time you told Mrs Baggoli you didn’t have your homework because you were chased by wild dogs… The time you ran me and Ella for class office without telling us… The time you got me to steal Eliza Doolittle’s dress from the drama department…”

Like many people, Sam has a very selective memory.

“What about the time Carla Santini stopped the whole school from talking to me and Ella?” I didn’t see why all the memories had to be of things I did. “Or the time she practically had me kidnapped? Or the time she told everyone you’d been in jail? And all the times she called me a liar when I was telling the total and absolute truth…” Several good reasons why, unlike Ella, I felt not nostalgia’s cloying grasp for life at Deadwood High. “Which is why I can’t wait to get out of here.” To be honest, Carla had been so occupied with her graduation (so much bigger, better and more important than anyone else’s) and everything related to it for the last month or so that she’d been almost civil to me recently (which means that she pretty much ignored me). I wanted to end on that high note.

This, however, was not to be.

Towards the end of lunch, Carla’s voice, which had been playing in the background like musak all period, picked up volume and set the lunch trays trembling.

“Oh my God! I can’t believe it! I had so much on my mind that I totally forgot to tell you what Daddy’s giving me for a graduation present besides the new car.”

Technically, this statement was made for the benefit of Carla Santini’s disciples, Alma Vitters, Marcia Conroy and Tina Cherry. Carla, however, is excruciatingly generous when it comes to sharing her incredible good fortune with lesser beings, so there was no one in the cafeteria who wasn’t under a headset who didn’t hear her.

“Oh, God…” groaned Ella. “Not more good news.”

I bit into a carrot stick. “Let’s hope he’s sending her to Mars. The first Princess on the Red Planet.”

Sadly, it wasn’t on a trip to Mars that Mr Santini was sending his only child. It was on a trip to the great continent of Europe.

“Stands to reason,” muttered Sam. “They don’t have any designer stores on Mars.”

“Europe!” enthused Alma. “I’ve always wanted to go to Europe. It’s so old.”

“Me, too,” chimed in Tina. “Continental men are supposed to be so much more romantic and sophisticated than American men.”

Over the years of being a disciple of the Great Santini, Marcia has perfected the envious but admiring sigh. “Oh my God, Carla… You are soo lucky!”

“Oh, I know I am…” It was pretty obvious from Carla’s tone that she didn’t think luck had anything to do with it. Without raising my head I could see the Santini curls swipe the air and those Bambi eyes glance over at me – as though by accident. “I mean, some people have to work all summer at a boring, meaningless job while I get to travel all over Europe practically free because Mommy and Daddy have so many connections.” [Cue: pause for really enormous smile touched very lightly with humility.] “It really doesn’t seem fair.”

It didn’t seem fair to me, either.

Though, of course, I pretended not to hear any of this. I know some people (like Karen Kapok and Mrs Baggoli) say that I exaggerate everything, but it’s no exaggeration when I say that Carla Santini has been my nemesis since I first arrived in the soporific suburbs of The Garden State (so called because most life forms in New Jersey are vegetal). Carla is to Dellwood what the Queen is to England, only Carla’s more attractive, dresses better and has more power than the Queen. For months after she got into Harvard the entire student body of Deadwood High had been bored to their bone marrow by Carla’s tales of what going to an Ivy League school meant (apparently half the rulers of the world went to Harvard, which doesn’t give us much hope for the future if you ask me) and what a great time she was going to have. That scintillating topic of conversation was finally shelved in favour of the car her parents were giving her as a graduation present (a silver, convertible Jag).

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

I
n 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 laugh 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).