Death By Chick Lit (11 page)

 
 
Should she have told Doug where she was going? Probably. But how was she supposed to explain exactly what she was doing? He—like Annabel—would be appalled that she’d taken Daphne’s phone and even more appalled that her freelance sleuthing was all part of a bid for glory.

Also, there was that giant elephant in the bedroom wearing a big rhinestone necklace saying, “You kind of left the whole baby thing hanging,” so Lola really didn’t want to stick around there too long.

Yes, indeed, the note reading, “Walking the dogs, xoxo,” should suffice.

Destiny Car Service. Not much wider than its own door, the office was sandwiched between Verrazano’s Pork Store and an imposing new cigar bar called Humidor, which pretty much told you everything you needed to know about this neighborhood. The $7 drink and $300 stroller set had moved in (differentiating themselves, still, from the $17 drink and $800 stroller people in Manhattan) but had not yet edged out the superb ricotta cheesecake, Italian funeral homes, and big red-sauce restaurants where you went for lunch after communions.

A couple of Town Cars were parked outside Destiny. Inside were two metal folding chairs, a hardware store calendar with bikini-clad girls holding paint cans, and a giant, yellowed map of Brooklyn with the original neighborhoods—her dad’s own Canarsie, for one—that predated the names more recently imposed by colonizing real estate brokers. No North Wayside, no Upper Lundy, no nothing. It was like seeing a map that still said “USSR.”

There was an open box of store-bought donuts on the counter—a shame, Lola tsked, in a neighborhood with such good
sfogliatella
. The dogs sniffed the industrial carpet, a smorgasbord of ashes, ground-in dirt, and powdered sugar.

Behind a window of bulletproof glass sat a forty-some-odd-year-old woman with a telephone headset and a giant clip holding back her gray-blond hair. A copy of the
Day
lay by her foam coffee cup, whose top edge was scalloped with salmon lip prints. She was typing furiously, which was impressive, considering the length of her nails.

I can’t type that fast, and I bite mine, thought Lola.

“Excuse me,” she said.

The woman turned. Her eyes were reddened and bloodshot—no surprise given the amount of cigarette smoke coming from the guys playing dominoes in the back of the office.

“Hi,” said Lola. “I actually don’t need a car. I just have a question.”

The woman waited. She seemed weary. Bet she’s heard it all, thought Lola.

“It’s about my friend. I think she might have called you for a ride, but she, um, never came home. Do you think someone here might remember the phone call, or anything?”

The woman burst into tears.

“Oh, I—uh, ma’am, I’m sorry, I—”

The woman pushed the
Day
toward Lola like a croupier. She swallowed and sniffed. “Is this your friend?”

Lola paused, then nodded. “Yes.”

“Sure, she called us,” said the woman, blotting with a Kleenex. “But she never showed up at door four, outside United, like she was supposed to.”

Lola took a breath. “Are you sure? You don’t think anyone here, anyone here could have . . . ?”

“One of my guys? No way, kid. We’re like family. She never showed up, I’m telling you. I called her myself about a thousand times, but she never picked up.” A new wave of tears was interrupted by a phone call.

“Excuse me.” She pressed a button. “Destiny, where to?”

Lola took that moment to slip Daphne’s phone out of her pocket and check Received Calls, which duh, she should have done before. Sure enough. Ten straight calls from Destiny’s number.

By then the woman had hung up. “I loved her,” she sniffled.

“I . . . Did you know her, too?” asked Lola.

“I was her biggest fan,” said the woman.

Oh.

“I loved her book. She was my inspiration,” she went on. “See, I’m writing a memoir about my experiences as a single woman running a car service.”

Of course you are.

She gestured toward the computer screen, which Lola now saw was covered with lines of text, not blinking dots on a map or whatever it is a car service would have.

“Wow, that’s great,” said Lola. “What are you going to call it?”

“Right now I’m thinking:
Destination: Destiny
. What do you think?”

“Not bad!” said Lola. “Two
D
s, that’s good . . .” She thought for a sec. “You’re a dispatcher, right?”

“Yeah, that plus owner, den mother . . .”

“Right. So how about
Dispatches from Destiny
?”

“Hey, I like it! Thanks.”

“You’re welcome,” said Lola. “Anyway, I’m sorry to bother you. And sorry about, you know.”

“Me, too, kid, me, too.”

Lola turned to go.

“So what’s your name?”

“Destiny.”

Ah. Right. “I’ll look for your book.”

Lola smiled and turned toward the door. So much for that. Do I want a bakery treat?

Am
I
anyone’s inspiration?

As she reached for the door, someone outside did the same.

Oh my God.

Reading Guy.

Seeing Lola, he turned on his heel.

Lola yanked open the door. “Wait!” she yelled.

She tried to run after him, but the loping, distracted bassets held her back. A block and a half away, he got on a bus. The sign said Express to Manhattan. He was gone.

Seventeen

“Uh, hey, Destiny?”

Lola poked her head back in the door of the car service.

Destiny put down her Entenmann’s.

“Yeah?”

“You know that guy who was just on his way in here?”

“Yeah?”

“You do?” Lola walked back up to the window.

“Do I know who you’re referring to, or do I know who he is?”

“Both,” said Lola.

“Yup,” said Destiny.

“Who?”

“Can’t tell you,” said Destiny. “Privacy.”

“Are you sure?” asked Lola.

“Yup,” said Destiny. She cleared a couple of crumbs from the corners of her mouth with a lacquered thumb and forefinger and turned back to her work.

“Perhaps
this
will change your mind,” said Lola, raising an eyebrow and fishing for her wallet.

Damn. Two dollars would change nothing.

Destiny eyed Lola and her crumpled singles. “Nope.”

“Okay, thanks anyway!” I am the least cool detective ever.

Lola turned and headed quickly for the door.

Destiny’s voice came behind her. “You’ll have to wait for the book.”

 
Lola spent her two dollars on an espresso and a copy of the
Day
, to prepare for her irate phone call to Wally. Hello,
New York Day
, it’s been a while, she thought. (Doug certainly didn’t read it. He actually didn’t even read the
Times
; this was mainly a protest against the corny Monday “humor” section he liked to call “Homeless People Say the Darndest Things.” Her husband, he got his news from blogs.)

She sat on a bench outside the café. The dogs, still rather listless, settled onto the sidewalk. Poor guys, thought Lola.

Not quite ready to stomach the Daphne story, Lola flipped to the Books section, which at the
Day
was on the limited side, with maybe one story about the increase in TV sports ratings among females after the success of the novel
Football Widow
. Still, a small amount of industry attention was paid to its Chick Lit Bestseller List. Which, Lola had pretended to forget, came out today.

Lola peered at the page.

No way.

Could I possibly be the only one to notice this?

Lola thought for a minute.

She took out her cell and dialed the main number for the
Day
.

Maybe I’m not the least cool detective in the world.

“Wally Seaport, please.”

Eighteen

“Seaport.”

“Uh, Wally?”

Who else, Somerville? Get a grip.

“Yep.”

“Wally, this is Lola Somerville.”

“Regarding?”

Jeez.

“We spoke at Daphne Duplex’s murder?”

Silence.

“And Mimi McKee’s?”

Pause. Lola heard him take a sip of something.

“What can I do for you?”

“Well, for starters, you can tell me why you keep writing bizarre, inaccurate things about me on your blog.”

“Miss—I’m sorry, was it Somerville?”

“Yes.” And it’s Ms., but whatever.

“Two women were murdered in cold blood,” said Wally. “I’m not really sure why this is about you.”

“Actually, I am,” said Lola.

“I’m sorry?”

“C’mon, Wally.” She waited.

Lola heard a metallic creak as he leaned back in his chair. He took a deep breath. “How come you never called me back?”

A
ha
.

“Wally, I—”

“I mean, I thought we had a really nice time.”

“We did!”

“So why didn’t you call me back?”

“I—look, Wally. I enjoyed meeting you. You’re a great guy. But I just wasn’t up for taking things any further.”

Amazing how easily the
it’s over
phrases still assembled themselves. But my God. Am I breaking up with someone I never went out with? Six months after my wedding?

“Fine. Whatever. But that absolves you from returning a phone call?”

“Well, I—You seemed noncommittal about a second date in your message. I figured you were being polite—”

“That makes one of us. And I thought your online advice column—sorry,
former
online advice column—was all about manners,” Wally, said.

Ow. Double ow.

“Look, Wally, I’m sorry. I guess I should have called you back. I messed up. I—I’m sorry.”

Wally swallowed. “Apology accepted.”

“Thanks,” said Lola. “Now, here’s how you can help me clear my name.”

“What?”

“That, or here’s how I can tell your boss all about how you bragged that night that you’d actually written that whole ‘exclusive from the top-secret undisclosed-location Kabbalah initiation’ story from your apartment.”

Wally took another sip of something, possibly from a flask in a file drawer.

“What can I do for you?”

Nineteen

At this time of so much death, that an opportunity would present itself to celebrate new life seemed cosmically fitting. Still, Lola had almost forgotten about her friend Oona’s baby shower. Good thing Annabel had called her with hungover regret.

But ack, she still needed to buy a gift! So much for her plans to give her poor garden a little love. Doug was heading out to play Ultimate Frisbee. Lola threw on a sundress and kissed him good-bye.

On her way into Manhattan, Lola stopped at the more up-and-came neighborhood nearby, which on a Saturday, with all the sport-utility strollers and darling hats and joyful multi-culti families, was like the Act I finale of
Heather Has Two Mommies: The Musical
. Earlier, she had turned the poor bassets over to an exceedingly charming male cousin of Daphne’s—someone who, it had occurred to Lola, might be good for Annabel if by some cruel twist of fate she never saw the Leo light. Now leashless and Snugli-less, in this neighborhood, Lola felt both smugly unencumbered and slightly, sadly, expendable.

At a store called gaga, or googoo, or something equally adorable and lowercase, Lola scored a hypoallergenic cotton elephant woven by the women of a village in Lesotho, spending an extra five dollars to have it gift wrapped in linen because the store didn’t “use paper.” Except for credit card receipts, thought Lola.

While she was there, she dropped Daphne’s cell phone, wiped of fingerprints, into a postage-paid, return-address-free envelope addressed to Wally Seaport.

The timing of the shower is actually excellent, Lola told herself once back on the subway. I’ll see everyone cooing and aahing, and I’ll get the urge that all those smug ladies who say “You’ll see” are talking about. I’ll bet I just need to be sprinkled with baby dust or something—and today is my day.

Of course, Lola knew plenty of people with babies, or at least one, or two, on the way. It’s just that before she got married—even though she assumed, abstractly, that she would “have kids one day”—it had always seemed like something that would
happen
, not something she’d
do
. Having children, for that matter, seemed like something other people—people with dens—did. Parents were the people who might be described in the
Day
as “the thirty-two-year-old father of four,” which always made Lola think that those people were living in some form of dog years, at least two or three for every one of hers. They were not people who, like Lola, still sat with their legs curled up underneath them or wore plastic butterflies in their hair.

Lola also thought of the people she knew who’d had kids and then completely lost their minds. Like those random friends of hers in Chelsea who had tried to prove that they were still cool by having a dinner party when their twins Logan and Caden—one was a girl, but Lola couldn’t remember which—were still infants. Lola, brilliantly, suspecting that their apartment was one of those we-take-off-our-shoes-at-the-door apartments, had traded her outfit-making turquoise and green cowboy boots for clogs and deliberately created a simple, almost bland look that was all about her dangly, multicolored, show-stopping earrings. Which, when she arrived at the door clutching a bottle of sweating Sancerre, she was asked to take off and leave in the designated “guests’ earrings” box. “We’re doing this for your earlobes,” a defeated Lola was told in the foyer. “The twins are real grabbers,” said her hostess with a tinkly laugh, “and we don’t want to interrupt their experience of curiosity by saying no.”

See? Lola thought. I need to solidify my own sense of self before I replicate. Plus, I love being married. But don’t I really need to get the hang of
that
before we take it to the next level?
Plus
, I simply can’t give my life over to a child till I’ve reached my “potential” on my own. Otherwise, it—my seminal work, my me-defining next big thing—will never happen. And I’ll never be completely satisfied. And—