Backstage Girl

02 | playing it by ear

"I'd like yellow flowers for the funeral," Ella said gloomily. "Roses, if you can find them. If not, daffodils work, too."

Louise snorted. "It's December."

"So?"

"So daffodils are out of season." She plopped a bottle of peppermint Schnapps into the basket that Ella was holding. "Oh, come on. Surely it wasn't that bad?"

"You have met my parents before, haven't you?"

Louise rolled her eyes. "You mean the ones that practically raised Max and I? Yeah. I have."

She started placing a collection of colourful cans in the cart next, stretching on her tiptoes to reach the top shelf of the LCBO fridge. A sales assistant shot her a suspicious look, and Ella didn't blame him; between Louise's short legs, brunette pigtails and striped t-shirt, she could pass for fourteen.

"They want me to go back," she told Louise, half-heartedly examining a bottle of red wine. "To repeat the year."

"But you don't want to?"

"I hate business." She pulled a face. "You know that."

"So switch programs."

"To what?"

Louise looked at Ella as if she'd lost her mind. "Music. Obviously."

She gripped the bottle of wine. God, Louise made it sound so easy. But if her parents were angry at her for dropping out, she could only imagine how that conversation would go. As failed musicians themselves, Ella's parents viewed studying music a lot like buying lottery tickets: often futile, and more liable to ruin your life than enhance it.

And then there was Rory.

She set the bottle of wine back on the shelf, feeling suddenly exhausted. The Patriots were chart-toppers. They had won Grammy awards and Juno awards and other awards that Ella couldn't even pronounce the names of.

She could never live up to him.

Ella blew out a breath. No. She could either go back to studying at the Rotman School of Management, or quit university altogether. Those were her only options.

"What else are you going to do?" Louise made a face as she examined a packet of shimmery crystals that dissolved in champagne. "Live on your parents' couch?"

"Absolutely not."

"Well, then—"

"Look!" Ella seized a gaudy, plastic green reindeer — mostly to distract her — and waggled her eyebrows. "What do you think?"

"There's no way Sophia's letting that into her apartment."

"Really?"

"Go on, then." She crossed her arms, smirking. "I dare you."

For a moment, Ella considered it; then she pictured Sophia's sleek Anthropologie apartment with its white shag rugs and rose-gold bar cart and she swiftly set the ugly reindeer down.

"Maybe not."

Louise handed over her ID at the check-out, and the elderly woman took her time examining it, holding it up to the light as if she might discover that it was made of straw. Ella ducked her head to hide a smile. Louise turned nineteen last month — the legal drinking age in Ontario — but sales assistants never believed her. It drove Louise nuts.

Sure enough, Louise's expression was like a thundercloud.

"Unbelievable," Louise muttered as soon as they exited the store, arms laden with plastic shopping bags. "You wouldn't believe the things I go through as a short person. Do you know a kid at the airport genuinely asked me if I was an elf?"