Death By Chick Lit (15 page)

“I just . . . okay.” Lola took a breath. “Can we get a Genessee?”

 
They clinked paper cups. “Okay,” said Lola, popping her hair into a scrunchie and hooking the heels of her clogs on a barstool rung. “Remember that guy from the Mimi night? Reading Guy?”

“Yeah,” said Doug.

“I thought I saw him.”

“Okay,” said Doug. “So?”

“And I feel like he could be involved somehow with the Mimi thing. Or even the Mimi and Daphne thing.”

“Uh-huh . . .”

“And see, remember how Quentin asked me to help him out?”

“Yeah, with those files?”

“Mmhmm, but there’s more. He actually wants me to help find the killer.”

“Help find the killer? Why—”

“Because he thought I might be good at it?”

“No, duh. I mean, why didn’t you tell me? I could help you! That’s what we do best together, besides making tempura.”

“I . . . I thought you’d think I was crazy.”

“I do think you’re crazy, monkey.” He kissed her. “So should we go look for this guy, or what?”

“Oh, no, I—” Lola took a gulp of ale.

I can’t tell him why I need to do this myself, she thought.
I
need the kudos. I need to not be a “husband and wife team,” other than in real life. I haven’t proven myself on my own yet; I need to do that first.

“I . . . Nah,” said Lola. “I’m sure that wasn’t him. Anyway, I’m keeping this ‘detective work’ to a desk job, pretty much—you know, Willow-from-Buffy stuff—thanks to all the hacking skills I learned from my husband.”

Doug smiled, proud of his wife. “Lemme know if you run into a particularly thick firewall.”

“Totally,” said Lola. “But you know what? Susan Thunder is off today.” The most famous female hacker. Doug kissed Lola in appreciative delight. “Hey, let’s ride the Cyclone!” she said.

Coney Island’s famed roller coaster was another monument in Doug and Lola history. It was, in fact, where Doug had proposed.

“Done,” said Doug. “Monkey, I’m so glad you told me what’s been going on with you. I mean besides the obvious insane freak-out over Mimi and Daphne, and also besides maybe the baby thing that we’re totally not talking about so forget I said it. Seriously. I could tell that something else was bugging you—I mean, that’s what happens when we don’t tell each other stuff. Okay? Okay. Oh, and you can finish—”

Lola had just polished off Doug’s Genessee.

“—my ale.”

 
 
They boarded the Cyclone. As they buckled in and waited for the other cars to fill up, Lola felt the ale, inhaled on an empty stomach, start to fizz toward her brain. No, wait. It wasn’t going to make it all the way to her brain; it was stopping at her mouth.

“Doug?”

“Yeah, monkey? What, I forgot to ‘remove all wigs’?” A little giddy, he pointed to the painted sign that cracked him up every time. Which reminded him: he removed his glasses and stuck them in a case in his pocket.

“No, I—” Lola started. Just then, the ride did, too. A cheer went up. Clack clack clack, up the first steep hill. Lola had to raise her voice. “I—I think I want to do this by myself.”

“The roller coaster?”

“No, the—”
Whooosh!
They zoomed down the first hill. “—the helping Quentin.”

“Okay . . .” said Doug. “Why?”

“Well, because . . .” And suddenly Lola was talking. Talking and talking. Everyone else was screaming and whooping, but she was talking. Out came all her bitterness and frustrations from the past couple of years, her disappointment about her book, her resentment of her more successful peers, all of it. The Cyclone went up, down, around, and up, down, and around again, and, over all the noise, over all the lurching and whooshing, Lola talked.

As they coasted to the end, Lola wound around to her conclusion. “. . . So I just really feel, I just really feel like
I
need to get the credit. Myself. And then write a book.”

Doug nodded. He helped her out of the seat, and then looked at her.

“I understand,” he said. “But just so you know? While we were up there, I was going to re-propose.”

Twenty-nine

For the first time in fifteen minutes, Lola was silent.

She slumped back into the roller coaster seat, only to be glared at by forty teenagers waiting their turn. Doug reached out a hand to help her up again, cocking his head toward the exit. They went out to the street and stopped by a cotton candy and chimichanga stand.

“Look, I get it. I know you. All that stuff was on your mind. Majorly, obviously. It had to come out when it had to come out,” said Doug. “I’m just glad that wasn’t my first attempt at proposing.”

Oh good, thought Lola, I’m pretty sure he just smiled. Jesus, I suck. “How about a do-over?” she asked, gesturing weakly at the coaster.

“Hmmm, no,” Doug said. Ow. “I’ll wait for the next ‘the time is right’ time.”

“Doug,” Lola said, “I’m really sorry. I just—I’m
really
sorry. I know I’ve been hard to reach. And my self-absorption just reached new heights.”

“Eighty-five feet, to be exact,” said Doug, looking back at the Cyclone.

Oh, God.

He grinned. “I kid!” Serious again. “It’s eighty-nine feet.”

“Dammit, Doug!” Lola laughed. Oh, thank God. Okay. This feels better already. “Sweetie, please do not ever mistake my self-involvement for lack of love.” Lola wrapped her arms around Doug’s waist. “I adore and appreciate you every minute of every day. And I swear I will not let my self-absorption reach Cedar Point Top Thrill Dragster heights.”

“Mmmm, the tallest . . . 420 feet, ninety-degree incline, speeds up to 120 miles per hour,” Doug murmured. “How did you know about that ride?”

“I’m married to
you
,” said Lola, kissing him.

 
 
The next few days passed mercifully murder-free, just as Lola had hoped. She spent the time hunkering down with her Mac, finishing up an assignment for
Stylicious
called “Is It Time to Break Up with Your Friend?” that was remarkably, though not action-ably, similar to stories she’d written the year before, and the year before that, which were entitled, respectively, “Spring Clean Your Social Life: Do All Your Friends Still Fit?” and, yes, “Is It Time to Break Up with Your Friend?” After finally doing some emergency gardening—stripping some dead leaves from her peonies and giving her honeysuckle a haircut—she wrapped up a reported essay for
Frisson.com
about the social history of female action figures. This stuff, she loved. And Doug was happy to lend his
Tomart’s Price Guide to Action Figure Collectibles
to the cause.

“I can’t decide if it would be cool or uncool if they made an action figure of you,” said Doug, having corrected a few of her facts. (“No, Lady Jaye didn’t have swivel-arm battle grip. Baroness did.”)

“Um, cool?” said Lola.

“Right, but would it also be, like, objectifying?” He thought for a second, eyes on the ceiling. “No, yeah, it would be cool.”

Doug put the book back down and massaged the back of Lola’s neck. “Hey, haven’t you written articles about how married couples should have, like, Date Night?”

“Yes,” said Lola. “I believe that tip appeared in my articles ‘10 Ways to Make Your Marriage Sexier,’ ‘15 Ways to Get That Spark Back . . . Tonight!’ and ‘20 Ways to Make Your Marriage Sexier.’ ”

“I trust you got paid double for the twenty?” laughed Doug. “No, really. How about tomorrow? Let me make you dinner. It’ll be our do-over from Coney.”

Oh dear. Tomorrow could be bad.

He was nuzzling her neck. “I’ll fire up the kitchen torch.” That could mean only one thing: crème brûlée.

“Mmmmmm,” said Lola. “Sweetie, I would love that.” She nuzzled him back. “But can it be Saturday?”

Doug leaned back. “Saturday. Well, I’m supposed to volunteer at Tekserve, which I’d rather not miss. But I guess if we had to . . . Why, what’s tomorrow?”

“Well, I’m not sure yet. But it could be something good and fun, and I’d want you to be with me,” said Lola. “Thing is, there’s a chance it might not happen, so—”

“Jeez, Lo, what is it?”

“You’ll see. Or not. Uch, sorry. I promise we’ll have our dinner, sweetie.” About her ongoing machinations—which were much more, of course, than the “desk job” Lola had described—Lola just couldn’t bring herself to admit the details to Doug. Not just because they were, potentially, crème brûlée for her ego, but also because they could put her in danger.

I want him neither to stop me nor to think I’ve sunk this far.

“Okay, Lo, whatever,” said Doug. “You know what, better let’s wait for a night we can definitely commit to. And maybe until your basil is just a few days bigger.”

“That works,” Lola smiled as sweetly as she could. She pulled her husband close. Let’s just get through the next couple of days, she thought, and then I can go back to avoiding the discussion about children.

Lola got up early, even for her, and opened the
New York Day’
s website before even checking her garden. She paused briefly to acknowledge the generally brilliant front page headline (naked guy stranded on midtown windowsill: “Moon Over Manhattan”), then clicked to the Books page.

Yep.

There it was.

I cannot freaking believe this worked.

Thirty

Lola had rallied Doug and Annabel to meet her at Earl’s, a steakhouse in Manhattan’s meatpacking district that dated back to the era when denizens of the district actually packed meat. The crooked cobblestone streets, once awash in blood and feathers, were now lined with velvet ropes and limos. Basically, it made SoHo look like New Jersey’s Paramus Mall.

Earl’s, on the other hand, at the farthest edge of the district at the West Side Highway, was like the lone building standing after a pashmina hurricane. Old wooden bar, career waiters in white, giant thick steaks, creamed spinach. Writers hung out there, real writers, escaping their better-known haunts now overrun by college kids in the Village and the tourists in midtown. Lola thought of it as the Algonquin: West.

Lola also happened to know that Earl’s massive, dungeonlike basement contained a meat locker, as any self-respecting scary basement must.

Lola and Doug ordered gin and tonics, their house drink in the summer, unless Doug was in the mood to muddle mint for mojitos.

The bartender slid the tumblers toward them. “Oh, and um, I’m Lola Somerville?” Lola told the bartender.

“Oh! Hang on!” He peeked down at something behind the bar. “Cool. On the house! Yours, too, buddy. Why not?”

Lola grinned.

“Wow, thanks. What—?” Doug asked, fishing out a couple of singles.

“Tell you as soon as Annabel gets here,” Lola smiled.

Beep.

Lola’s phone announced a text message. She hesitated, sensing that she should be giving Doug her full attention.

Okay, just a quick peek.

 
Beep. Another.

 
Hooo-kay, Lola thought, we’ll leave out that part when I tell Honey she made Celebuphone. Good for her for keeping up with the highlights, what with the triplets and all.

“Sorry,” Lola said to Doug, conspicuously setting her phone to vibrate.

“Are you ready to admit that you can’t live without that thing?” Doug asked.

“I can’t live without
this
thing,” Lola said, pointing at Doug. Okay, that was awkward. Was that smile of his a little forced?

“Hey, guys,” said Annabel.

“Hey! That is awesome,” said Lola, admiring Annabel’s cowgirl-style fringed suede skirt. “Where’s Leo?”

Annabel opened her mouth, closed it, then opened it again. “He doesn’t go
everywhere
I go,” said Annabel. “On dates, for example, not so much.”

“We’re not a date,” said Lola.

“Yeah, but Ari is,” said Annabel. “At ten.”

“Oh, great!” Lola said.

Evidently, she wasn’t too convincing.

“Lola, you can say it,” Annabel said. “You’re amused by my single antics, but you really want me to go out with Leo.”

Whoa. Where did
that
come from?

“Well, the incident with Glassblower Guy
was
hilarious,” said Lola.

Annabel didn’t laugh.

“I—Bella, I want you to do whatever you want,” said Lola.

Except publish a book based on your blog.

“Okay, but you think I
should
go out with Leo.”

Yow. Clearly this has been brewing. Clearly I have been distracted.

“I don’t know about
should
, I just think he’s—”

“Sturdy? Dependable? Normal?” asked Annabel. “Lola, this isn’t a book. Just because he’s the ‘great guy’ who’s ‘right under my nose’ doesn’t mean I’m ‘supposed’ to be with him. Did it occur to you that I might just like him, but not
like
like him? Hmm, which advice columnist—former advice columnist—used to write about that stuff, telling people to not feel like they’re being too ‘picky’ if they just don’t feel it for someone ‘terrific’? Oh wait. That was you.”

Lola wanted to crawl into a bottle of grappa. Always the please-everyone only child, she hated getting in trouble—and above all, she hated fighting with her friends. In fact, she avoided it to the point that this was the first time she really remembered doing it. Even though Annabel was naturally more ornery than she was, she had the sense that this was big, big and awful, not like two kids on the playground who scream bloody murder at each other one second and play nice, all forgotten, the next. Lola didn’t know how to do that. Or how to tell herself, “All right, she’s angry; what can I learn from this?” Or what to say.

So Lola sat, cowed and silent.

“Lo, I don’t know. You’ve been helpful and supportive on the outside, but still. I get this other vibe in there, too. It’s been feeling like you’re waiting for me to grow up and settle down, like you,” said Annabel. “I know you guys don’t have a den or anything, but still. I never thought it would happen,” she said, shaking her head and taking a breath, “but I believe you’ve become a Smug Married.”