Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen Read Online Free Page B

became heavy and solemn. “Maybe your parents were right to be so cautious,” I said very softly. “New Mexico is where my father met his tragic death.”
    “Oh, Lola…!” Ella’s face was the picture of empathetic pain. She has a kind nature, as well as being smart. “I’m so sorry… I had no idea…”
    I gulped back a tear that even the long years of being fatherless hadn’t managed to dry up.
    “Of course you didn’t.” My voice trembled bravely. “He was killed on his way back from town one afternoon.” Inspiration flowed through me like current through a wire. “He’d slipped away on the Harley to get my mother her favourite flowers.” I stared at the patch of sunlight that illuminated the immaculateness of the carpet. “They found them strewn across the road—” I paused, too choked to continue. But then I forced myself to rally. “They were splattered with blood.”
    A genuine tear glistened in the corner of Ella’s eye.
    “Your poor mother…” She was practically sobbing. “What a horrible thing for her to go through.”
    “I know.” I shook my head several times very slightly, the way people do when they’re remembering something especially painful. “It took her years to get over it. But then she met Elk, the twins’ dad. They got married before she was pregnant. At least she knew a little domestic bliss…”
    I could hear Ella swallow. “What happened to him ?”
    I hadn’t been planning to kill off Elk, too, but the words came tumbling out, beyond my control.
    “Elk was a lawyer for Greenpeace,” I explained. “He was on his way to England for a conference.” I spent a few more seconds re-examining the patch of light again. “He never came back.”
    “Oh, no…” Ella clutched my hand. “Oh, Lola…”
    You had to give it to her, she was a terrific audience.
    I went on, quietly, in a voice in which time has numbed but not erased the pain.
    “His plane went down near Greenland.” I could hear the shattering of the plane as it smashed into the ocean. Red and orange flames that burned like the fires of hell exploded in my mind. Men, women and children screamed without hope. And then, suddenly, a dreadful silence fell over the cold, depthless water. “My mother had to fly out to identify what was left of the body.”
    Ella’s face was whiter than Wonder Bread. “Oh, my God…”
    I smiled a small but courageous, so-it-goes smile. “The twins were only a year old.”
    Ella shook her head in shock and horror. “Your poor mom, what horrible things she’s gone through.” She wiped away another tear with the sleeve of her blouse. “I feel like I should apologize to her or something…”
    Ella was more than capable of apologizing to my mother for having misunderstood her situation. This, however, was not an especially good idea. Elk really is a lawyer for Greenpeace, and he really didn’t come back from England – at least not to us – but it wasn’t a plane crash that kept him, it was a woman named Margot.
    “It’s best not to mention the past to her at all,” I said quickly. “You know, too many agonizing memories.” I sighed as only one who has known real suffering can. “It’s ironic, isn’t it?” I said. “Your parents think my mother’s the destroyer of our social order, and she’s merely a victim of Fate.”
    “I feel so awful.” Ella chewed nervously on her lower lip. “I really would like your mother to know that—”
    “Whatever happened to the music?” I asked brightly. I picked up the CD Ella had abandoned and put it into the machine.
    “Sidartha!” Ella managed a smile. “I forgot about them!”
    “God…” I groaned. “That’s like forgetting how to breathe.”
    I pedalled home beneath a silver crescent of moon, like a nick in the plush velvet of the sky. Ella and I are the only ones who ride our bikes to school. For all I know, we are the only ones who own bikes; most of the kids our age already have cars. But I don’t mind.