Livin’ la Vida Lola

LOLA

LOVE

Livin’ la vida Lola

By

Lisa Clark

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty Four

Chapter Twenty Six

Acknowledgements

Copyright

About the Publisher

FADE IN:

Camera flashes pop and crowds cheer as Lola Love, scriptwriter, director and leading lady of the fantastically fabulous and now, Oscar-winning movie, Livin’ la vida Lola! works the raspberry pink, sparkle dust carpet in a customised sequinned vest and tutu combo, sparkly-pink pumps and what have now become her signature pink-tinted shades.

It’s a look that could easily of made her a muse for Andy Warhol. Fact.

She flashes a mega-watt grin at the cameras, holds up the gold statue with fit-to-bursting pride and works a few practised poses for the camera. Lola smiled to herself, thinking how it was good to know that the entire weekends she had spent watching back-to-back re-runs of America’s Next Top Model had not gone to waste.

“Lola! Lola Love! You look awesome!”

The super-hot Americano entertainment TV presenter, Brad Bradston, is calling her name.

“So Lola, how does it feel to be the first ever 14 year old to win an Oscar for writing, directing and starring in your own movie?”

“Brad,” Lola replied, flicking her pink hair and causing a killer breeze with a single blink of her long, fake eyelashes, “it feels blimmin’ brilliant! Can I just say a big, huge thank you to Eva Satine and the Negative Ninas, because without them… well, this would never, ever have been possible!”

Lola turns to the crowd and signals to her pink-jacket wearing girlfriends to come join her on the raspberry pink sparkle-dust carpet. The feisty, fun, fearless and fabulous Pink Ladies walk towards the camera arm in arm, working the carpet like one long fashion-week catwalk.

CUT TO: Evil Eva Satine and her gum smackin’ clique.

Eva is mid-manicure and the Negative Ninas are grooming themselves each other like monkeys in the zoo. Their petite bee-hinds are perched on Eva’s over-sized princess bed and they are all staring at the TV.

At the Oscars.

At Lola Love…

They’re watching Lola on the TV screen.

Open-mouthed.

Eva is shocked and stunned and lets out an ear-piercing, glass shattering wail.

“No WAY!”

FADE OUT.

Chapter One

I heart movies.

My top 5 favourites are:

Breakfast at Tiffany’s–Audrey Hepburn is a goddess-girl. Fact.

Amelie–she’s a total Ooh-la-la magic girl. J’adore.

Ghost World–this film makes me feel just that little bit less alone in the world.

Pretty in Pink–I heart the colour pink. I heart Molly RIngwald. I especially heart her 80s wardrobe, it’s the stuff of retro-girl dreams.

Any movie starring Marilyn Monroe–it would be rude to pick just one, and as I’m not a rude girl, I won’t.

Now, while it maybe true that I have a touch of the drama queen about me, I am absolutely not over-reacting when I say that, right now, if my life were a movie, it would be the straight-to-DVD kind.

It would be called Welcome to Sucksville, there would be absolutely no drama/suspense/romance or even comedy it would lack any amount of drama, the supporting cast would be noticeably absent and there would be nothing, I repeat, nothing that even remotely resembled a plot.

My life is not sweet.

I’m a fourteen-year-old, should-be starlet, with a reflection that rudely disagrees. I mean, seriously, with a name like Lola Love you’d think I’d have an access all areas, VIP insta-pass to the fabulous world of silver screen fabulousness, wouldn’t you? Turns out, not so much. I’m a fourteen-year-old, should-be starlet, with a reflection that rudely disagrees.

Y’see, there are a number of factors standing in the way of my life being a glitter-globe snow-shaker of absolute fabulousity.

These are just a few of the reasons why my name is not currently flashing neon…

1. I don’t have a movie-girl-esque complexion

Starlets have flawless skin.

I do not.

In fact, the only remotely star-like thing about my face right now is that the entire constellation of Orion is very clearly visible on my entire left cheek.

2. I’m awkward looking

Like, really awkward looking Movie stars are picture perfect. I am not. My eyes aren’t symmetrical. No matter how many times my mum tells me I’m making it up, if you look really closely, you can clearly see that my left eye is slightly higher than the right. That’s wrong.

I have freckles that are sometimes visible and sometimes not. They decide.

I have mousy brown hair that never, ever does what it should. It just hangs around my shoulders, all limp and uninterested, like the arm of a super-cute boy who doesn’t actually want to be there.

(Sadly, I am not basing the above statement on my own extensive experience of super-cute boys.

Why is that you ask?

Because I have absolutely no experience with super-cute boys, that’s why.

Yep, you heard me. None. Zilcho. Nothing. Nada. Nuchos.)

Oh wait, there was this one time, it was last September. A super-cute, messy-haired skater boy rode past me in town. He missed his footing and nearly toppled over so, I put my arm out to save him. He didn’t topple, he mumbled something that resembled ‘thanks’, normal life resumed.

Yep, we most deffo shared, what they call in the movies, ‘a moment’.

What’s that?

An ‘accidental, almost arm-brush’ does not a moment make?

That’s rude.

I do however, have A LOT of experience watching movies that include super-cute boys, and FYI, my hair is VERY representative of the uninterested kind.

3. I have a chubby tummy.

I want to live in the olden days, because in the olden days, it was cool to have curves.

For example, Marilyn Monroe, one of my total movie-girl idols, had curves.

Real, woman-like curves.

I also have curves, but apparently, according to the people without curves, curves are no longer cool.

I think this is really rather rude considering I have a bit of a chubby tummy that my mother keeps insisting is puppy fat. It is not. I am just not a stick insect. Fact.

And, as if all that really wasn’t enough for one girl in the world, I’m stuck in Dullsville, the wrong side of Happytown, on my own.

My BFF Angel has been totally kidnapped by her parentals and is on vacay in Europe. Apparently, it’s not enough that my best bud in the entire world is packed off to a super-posh boarding school during term-time, it seems her parentals think it’s more than do-able to kidnap take her away for the entire summer holidays too.

Rude.

And if all that wasn’t bad enough, my aunt Tallullah–uber glam, goddess-like lady, the one person who actually gets me, as in really, really gets me–has gone and moved to my most favourite place in all of the world.

New York City.

I know.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m pleased for her.

(No, really I am. Grr.)

Aunt Tallullah, my lovely Lullah, has an ah-mazing new job that involves her getting all schmoozy woozy with actor-types on a daily basis.

I know.

My aunt is an on-set designer-girl for TV and movies.

I mean, seriously, what’s not to love about that?

And I’m not talking just C-list wannabee actor-types, nope, I’m talking the headline grabbing, pap-toting, turn-up-late-to-work-just-because-I-can A-lister variety.

I know.

But the thing is, with her being all the way over there in Schmooze Ccity, well, it means she’s not here. And here, without lovely Lullah, is like having the hugest, most dee-licious, slice of gooey chocolate cake without lashings and lashings of whipped cream.

Pointless.

Chapter Two

Things I love Some facts about lovely Lullah:

She’s totally fabulous.

She’s my idol-girl.

She sometimes looks like she’s walked out of 1940s Paris–ooh la la.

She sometimes works monochrome like a 1960s mod girl.

She’s a superhero-girl. Think younger, red-headed sister of Wonder Woman. Although, unlike aforementioned superhero, Lullah would never discard her handbag when changing costume. Evah.

She’s a palm reader.

She smells like candyfloss and jasmine incense.

She gave me a journal to track all my hopes and dreams.

She sprinkles her vocab with crazy made-up words from her favourite films. She’ll say things like, ‘sweetie, that’s simply de-lovely’ or ‘Lola, this chocolate cake s’wonderful, s’marvellous.’

She’s a bright ray of sunshine on a dark, cloudy day.

‘Til recently, Lullah was studying all things fashion and film, her two favourite things, at a fancy-schmancy university in the city of Londinium. To save pennies, she shunned the bright lights of the big city and stayed here with us, in dreary old Dullsville-by-Sea, commuting into the Londinium when she had to do the study stuff.

And she did a lot of the study stuff–that’s why she’s got the schmoozy woozy job of fabulousness–but she was never, ever too busy to hang out with li’l ol’ me.

I loved it best when I’d arrive home from school and instead of finding an empty house I’d find a lovely Lullah sat on the kitchen table–literally, either sewing buttons to a £2 chazza shop bargain or sketching a foofy hoop skirt and flowery décolletage in her notebook.

Lullah just gets it.

She doesn’t care what people think of her, not one little bit and dispenses guru-like advice in every sentence. Like, when we go chazza shoppin’ she’ll say ‘vintage clothes are better than new ones because they have history.’

But what I loved best was that, unlike my mum, she was a superhero-girl. And as a superhero-girl with superhero-girl powers, she was able to sense a major-league sucky event in Lola world at 100 kitten-heeled paces.

At the first sign of trouble, she would throw me the double wink and I knew what I had to do.

In a one swift movement that even ol’ slinky-milinky Catwoman couldn’t have found fault with, I would crack open a tub of chocolate chip cookie dough ice-cream, grab two spoons and put Breakfast at Tiffany’s in the DVD player. And together, we would make a Lola and Lullah-shaped dent in the old battered sofa. Mission accomplished.

“When real-life lacks the technicolour fabulousness of the big screen, Lola Love,” Lullah would say in her best Hollywood-esque vocab, “there really is nothing better to soothe the soul than an idol-girl in industrial strength foundation.”

Tres poetic.

With a flick of the ‘play’ switch and a quick cuddle, I felt safe. Safe in the knowledge, that for the next hour and a half, I could imagine what my life might have been like if I had lived in another time and place–what can I say? I’m an old fashioned girl.

But just like every good movie before it, Breakfast at Tiffany’s has to end. It always does. And in one of those sucky ‘life imitating art’ moments, at the end of our last movie session, so did my life, as I knew it.

I’m super-chuffed that Lullah has got her dream job. She’s my real-life actual proof that dreams come true and if that’s not amazing x 100, then I really don’t know what is.

But at the risk of sounding like a selfish Suzie, I miss her.

A lot.

I miss her tying pretty-coloured ribbons in my hair and calling me ‘kiddo’, I miss her making me hot chocolate with huge pink and white yumsville marshmallows and what I miss most, is that when she was around, the parentals didn’t argue as much.

But that’s probably because when Lullah moved in, dad moved out.

Only temporarily apparently, but if I’m honest, it was a welcome relief because, boy, can those crazy-adult types argue. If there were a gold medal for raised voices and inaudible vocab, my parentals would win it. Hands down.

Just before she got in her taxi to the airport, Lullah read my palm. She traced hear chipped, pretty-in pink varnished nail across a long line that went from one side of my palm to the other, looked up and smiled.

“Lola Love, you’re going to be a star!” she laughed, pointing at my hand.

I laughed back because Lullah always said that. And well, if I didn’t laugh, there was a good chance I was going to cry.

“It’s true!” Lullah promised. “See your life line? Your life will be just like a movie, the very best kind. You will write the script and most importantly you’ll be the leading lady–I absolutely promise!”

“Whatever,” I replied. It’s fair to say I wasn’t completely convinced.

“No, really, Lola,” Lullah wasn’t one to give up easily. “Do you really think I would be going to New York right now if I hadn’t made the decdecision I wanted to? We make our own destinies–if you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always got. But if you want things to change, then it’s up to you to make those changes happen, then I promise, when you do, your life will be an absolute blockbuster.”

I figured that was a pretty big promise and one she wouldn’t make unless it was definitely true, but now she’s gone, well, I’m not so sure. But it definitely got me thinking.

Thing is, Lullah’s never, ever wrong. She’s just magic like that.

Which is probably why, when I was busy making the most of my last Lullah hug–that I made last for an entire forever, I agreed to look out for THEM.

IM to self: In future, under no circumstances, make NO deals with Aunt Tallulah. Not unless they involve ME going to live in NY with her. Indefinitely.

Meet ‘Them.’

Her cat–imaginatively named ‘Cat’ in homage to Holly Golightly’s feline friend in Breakfast at Tiffany’s. Not unlike the movie version, this Cat has ’tude. I have the multiple scratches on my arm, thigh, shoulder, back and hand to prove it.

And her older, substantially less fun sister–Scarlett.

My mother.

Like Cat, she too has ’tude, along with a permanent, judgemental frown where her mouth is meant to be.

Like I said before, welcome to my life, Welcome to Sucksville.

Chapter Three

To: princess.lullah@email.com

From: lola@lolasland.com

Subject: I’m a starlet, get me out of here!

Lullah, you’ve got to save me!

There is a severe, 99.9% chance that I’m about to die of a not-even-cureable case of boredomitis.

No, really. I’m not even joking. What is a joke is that in my journal, after our little talk before you left, I have laughing titled this summer vacay ‘the summer of re-invention’ after our little talk before you left. Ha.

Well, I am three whole weeks into the summer holiday, a time that is meant to be filled with fun, adventure and memory-makin’ moments, yet my life, as I know it, is still very much the same old, lame old.

I have no friends and I have no ‘thing’.

I want friends and I want a ‘thing’.

My ‘something’. At this point, my anything.

Lullah, I am beyond frustrated.

I’d also really like Mum to cheer up, Cat to stop chewing everything in sight and to move to NY. Like, this afternoon, if possible.

Until then, please provide me with tales of your muchos glammy life so that I can feel even more sorry for myself, take to my bed and watch Breakfast at Tiffany’s for the 127th time.

Miss you. A lot.

L oxoxox

Hmpph.

I really do want a ‘thing’.

Something that makes people go ‘Wow, Lola Love is cool’ because cool and Lola Love are words that are never, ever mentioned in the same sentence.

Weirdo, loser girl and Lola Love however, are mentioned on a near daily basis, thanks to Eva Satine.

Eva Satine is a toxic girl.

Oh, there’s no doubting the girl’s ability to throw an outfit together or her ‘just-stepped-out-of-a-salon’ silky soft blonde hair, but with all that superficial stuff comes the most horrible of insides, all knotty, angry and self-obsessed.

She’s very clever though.

Eva has fooled the entire school with her butter-wouldn’t-melt, snake-like charm and has won herself the much coveted, Miss I-am-Popularity-Personfied title.

I, on the other hand, have become her very own official torment toy. And it’s not as though Eva is not alone in her quest to make my life considerably difficult on a daily basis. Nope, because like every popular-girl-in-the-playground before her, she has the obligatory, plastic-looking hair-flickin’ clique. Me and Angel call them ‘The Negative Ninas’ (but I don’t think they’re losing any sleep over it) who are the girls at school who arrive everywhere in a stinky mist of Eau Du Nasty, have the same outline as Eva but fade into insignificance compared to the real thing. If they weren’t so rude and obnoxious I might even feel sorry for them.

But ‘The Negative Ninas’ are rude and obnoxious.

They use cuss words that would make a trucker blush and they have a never-ending supply of put-downs.

So I don’t feel sorry for them. Not one little bit.

And just in case you were worried that they weren’t super mean enough, they don’t just stop at name-calling either. Oh no, these girls are premier league. They’ve read every script of every high school teen movie ever made and are completely up to date with their roles as popular-girls-who-make-lonely-weirdo-girl-feel-really-bad.

Now, before I press play on this particular scene of shame straight from the life of me, you absolutely need to know that if I had my way, for the sake of self-preservation, it’d be on the cutting room floor.

Deleted.

Forever.

But for some reason the delete button won’t work and this scene is on constant rewind, play and repeat in my mind.

You will soon see why…

Chapter Four

It was about six months ago, it was PE and I had no kit.

This was bad.

Really bad.

At our school you don’t forget your kit. Not ever. Because only a fool would risk the utter shame and humiliation that comes with forgetting your kit–wearing The Spare Kit.

Except I hadn’t forgotten my kit.

My kit had been stolen.

Which is why I was stood in Miss Appleby, the gym teacher’s office, while she rummaged around in a spectacularly stinky box, looking for a suitable ensemble. An active source of embarrassment since the 1970’s, the Spare Kit box is home to the most hideous of ill-fitting, never-been-washed items of clothing known to mankind.

“You can wear these,” Miss Appleby, the sadistic (aren’t they all?) gym teacher barked. (I should point out that as a gym teacher, she is almost as evil as Eva.)

I could have wept. The shorts were navy blue with off-white piping. Now, navy is a great colour if you can wear it, but against my milky whiter than white complexion, it was just rude and really, really wrong.

They were also a size too small.

Of course they were.

I had barely left the changing rooms when before Miss Appleby, in true Terminator-esque style, decided today was the day she would push me over the edge.

“Lola Love, you’re late. Five laps of the playing field, NOW.”

Now, I don’t do sports.

In fact, I’d even resort to eating my own toenails if it meant I could refrain from physical activity indefinitely.

Running is by far the most unpleasant experience I haved ever endured. That includes the time I cut a frog wide open in biology and its frog-inside juice got me right in the eye. And the time I didn’t eat chocolate for an entire week. Oh, and that oh-so-shameful moment I left the toilets in town with my flowy, flower girl skirt tucked in my knickers and a trail of white toilet paper blowing behind me. It wasn’t until some random dude asked ‘where are the puppies?’ that I realised he thought I was filming an advert for Andrex.

Basically, I don’t run unless I’m being chased.

Mortification x 100.

On the fifth and final lap, having been pushed to, and through, the pain barrier, I began to hallucinate. And for a minute, just a tiny, teeny minute, I thought that I’d seen the toned and honed athletic body of the beautiful Jake Farrell standing on the sideline, waving to me.

Jake is the stuff of candy-covered dreams. His bee stung lips and blonde locks are completely reminiscent of a painted cherub boy. He is the heir to my heart, my number one boy crush.

Sigh.

He’s also captain of the football team but totally not a jock-ass, Jake is funny and looks super cute when he has to wear his thick-rimmed glasses to see the maths board. In Lola Land, he is absolutely the biggest glass of chocolate milkshake with whipped cream and a cherry on top.

J’adore him mostest.

Anyway, back to my torture. It turnsed out I wasn’t hallucinating. It was him. He was on the sideline and he was with Eva.

Whenever I see Jake everything is thrown into soft focus and the sound of violins fill my fit-to-burst heart. I’ve imagined what it might be like for him to notice me at least a hundred times, but I have to say, in all the scenarios I’ve ever imagined, this one had never popped up.

Funny that.

Not really knowing what else to do, I kept on running. As I got closer, I could see that his face was struggling to make an expression. as I got closer. It considered both embarrassment and shock, before finally settling on a combination of vacant and confused. Bless.

I diverted my eyes to avoid his glance, hoping that if I couldn’t see him, there might have been a teeny chance that he couldn’t see me. Unfortunately, that particular method of hiding had one major flaw, it didn’t work.

He looked all awkward and even a little bit pitiful as Eva and the Negative Ninas-pepper-sprayed ‘loser-girl’ taunts in my direction.