A young woman in the back raised a hand and Nicole again paused. She was being unusually indulgent, Lily thought. Usually she asked people to hold their questions.
The young woman said, “So if my girlfriend says she’s just not the type to cuddle and, you know, get all emotional when I get home from work, that’s something she can’t help?”
“That’s very difficult to say on a specific case. My background in biopsychology says there’s a fine line between can’t and won’t. We do train our brains to shut down responses. Won’t can easily become can’t. We live our own limitations with a staggering amount of success.” Nicole paused again, this time with her mouth not quite closed. Her gaze met Lily’s for a split second and then she fumbled with the copy of her book that she always took on stage.
After a long, deep breath she went on, “Another key consideration about the Love Drug is that for some people it can prove highly addictive. People who have many relationships over a lifetime may be always looking for a new relationship to get another swell of the Love Drug, and leave relationships when the chemicals fade. In other words, they love falling in love.” Nicole paused to let a ripple of agreement die down. “Questionnaire results from our long-term successful participants were highly indicative that they continued to produce the Love Drug over the long-term. As the octogenarian in the case study on page one-twelve puts it, ‘Hank and I stayed high on love. Don’t know how we did it, but from the day we met until the day he died I got a flutter when I looked at him and I could tell he felt just the same about me.’”
That was Lily’s favorite case study. She heard her little sigh echoed around the room and felt a little foolish. In this day and age, being romantic at heart seemed hopelessly old-fashioned. That ass of an interviewer in Geneva wasn’t alone in his thinking that romance and love were fairy tales perpetrated on society to sell diamonds and candy. But she was romantic at heart, she realized. Some classmates in college had been obsessively focused on getting married—not so much on finding a mate or romance. They would go to great lengths to discuss wedding dresses and places to have a ceremony while Lily felt too shy to even begin to admit she wanted someone in her life who made her heart miss a beat. So she was capable of a quickie in an alley. But that’s not how she wanted to live.
Lily lost track of time, mulling over what Nicole had said. There was no doubt in her own mind that when she looked at Nicole her brain was cranking out chemicals. But it couldn’t be the Love Drug. More like a Lust Drug. Because if it was a Love Drug, then why did she feel so bleak? She wanted, even now, to nuzzle at Nicole’s neck as she unbuttoned her blouse. She felt a little faint remembering how waking up in Nicole’s arms had made her feel warm and sheltered and deliciously aroused.
But her feelings were running headlong toward a cliff. If she didn’t stop she was going to fall, and it was going to hurt. It was futile to feed the situation with wishes on stars. She didn’t need magic that led to a lifetime of regret.
Applause jolted her back to the room. Nicole was giving her a quizzical look and Lily realized she was scowling. She immediately sent a smile, but Nicole’s eyebrow went up. Busted not paying attention, she thought. She’d tell Nicole she was thinking about their flights or something. Little white lies were preferable to the big ugly truth.
* * *
The New Orleans Festival of Books was nowhere near the size of that in Frankfurt, but it attracted crowds of readers interested in the new fall books. Nicole noted that, as in Frankfurt, the lines for fiction writers were long, and lines for celebrities signing memoirs were equally popular.
“This is still a great turnout,” Lily said when Nicole commented on the size of the crowd. She craned her neck to look at the marquee that listed that hour’s appearances and which line they were listed to appear in. “You can’t compete with a tell-all by someone who claims he was the rent boy for every gay actor in Hollywood during the sixties. But it looks like you have more people than a Supreme Court Justice.”
“I think that’s a sad commentary on our times.”
“Oh, I don’t know. The Supreme Court Justice is an anti-woman homophobe.” Lily shrugged. “The gay guy says he went out gambling in Monte Carlo with Marlon Brando. I’d rather hear about that.” She gave Nicole a cross-eyed look. “Or get advice from Love Doctor Nicole Hathaway.”
“Stop that nonsense.”
“Or what?”
Nicole answered her with a look that was challenging and almost feral, then gone so quickly that Lily wasn’t sure what she’d just seen. She had goose bumps and her heart was pounding.
She forced herself not to take a step back. “I promise not to say it in front of readers. But they’re still thinking it.”
“Oh piff.” Nicole turned to the next person in line.
“How scientific,” Lily muttered under her breath.
Out of the corner of her mouth Nicole said, “It’s a technical term.”
They fell into their usual pattern without further discussion. It was certainly easier to handle a crowd when she didn’t have to translate. The cavernous convention floor was increasingly crowded as the festival planners brought in roving street performers to entertain the many readers waiting in the long lines for the biggest titles of the season. Jugglers had their line in a cheerful mood, and that was welcome.
Their allotted ninety minutes passed quickly. Then Lily was sliding her camera into her purse and thinking about their flight to Atlanta in the morning and the lecture at Georgia State University.
As they left their table Lily noticed that one line snaked almost twice as long as any of the others, leading up to the author of the summer’s surprise erotica best seller. Some of the fans were even dressed in fetish wear—full body latex suits, dog collars and chains were on display. A couple of women wore thigh-high leather boots with heels so high that Lily knew they were on tiptoe. Libido found it very interesting, but Lily decided it was best to avert her eyes. Circumspect advised that she not bring it up unless Nicole did.
The subject was unavoidable when their path toward the exit passed a group of leather-clad women Lily thought had to be dominatrices. Nicole raised an eyebrow with a glance at Lily, who shrugged by way of an answer.
“To each her own,” Lily said when they were out of earshot. “I like high heels, but otherwise, not really my scene.”
“Nor mine.”
Lily wondered if there would ever be a way to get Nicole to admit just what her scene might be. On the other hand, she reminded herself, it wasn’t as if she’d been busy telling Nicole about her alley tryst or even that she was a lesbian. It wasn’t as if they were girlfriends gossiping over coffee, sharing diet tips and Cosmo’s latest sex secrets. Inappropriate, remember? “Those are fantastic boots, though.”
Nicole smiled. “I don’t disagree, not that I would ever consider wearing any like that.”
Nicole in high heels? No, that was simply wrong. About to answer, Lily dodged around a fast-moving woman barreling through the venue, obviously in a huge hurry.
She was two steps past the woman when her heart stopped.
She couldn’t breathe.
Nicole stumbled against her. “What is it?”
Lily told herself not to look, to keep walking. But couldn’t make her feet move and she had to know. She turned her head—and met Merrill Boone’s inquiring gaze.
* * *
Surprised by Lily’s sudden stop so close to the exit doors, Nicole followed her stunned look. For a split second she was flummoxed by how forcefully her fight-or-flight reflex kicked in, then she took Lily’s arm and dragged her toward the doors. She’d think about the fascinating chemical reaction later. All that mattered right now was that Lily seemed incapable of moving on her own.
From behind them she heard Boone call out, “Lillian Linden-Smith!”
Lily stumbled and made a sound like a hurt bird.
Nicole bumped open the exit door with her shoulder. “Just keep moving.”
Boone was taller than eith
er of them, but heavier, and in a footrace they would both easily outdistance her, Nicole analyzed. Did she have assistants somewhere, with cameras? The last thing Lily needed was footage of her running for her life.
Lily had done nothing wrong, she reminded herself. It went against her personal grain to be the ones forced to run.
“Is that hair supposed to be a disguise?” Boone had followed them out the door.
Nicole dodged along the crowded sidewalk. A streetcar was getting ready to depart just a few hundred feet up the street, but they wouldn’t get there in time.
The woman’s drawl was penetrating. “What are you running from? They’re still investigating you. They’re going to reopen your trial! Do you have a comment about that?”
Lily gasped for breath and shook off Nicole’s hand. “I can’t do this. I won’t. I just won’t.”
Nicole didn’t know what Lily meant until Lily turned to face Boone, who was bearing down on them like a hurricane.
“I have nothing to say to you.” Lily’s voice was thin and high.
Boone, her face flushed from the pursuit, was digging frantically in her briefcase. “Why don’t I have a damn camera! You’re not running away from me. People want answers. Where’s their money? What about that e-mail where your mother said she was leaving everything to you? What about the key to a safety deposit box that’s still unidentified? Have you no remorse about the lives you ruined? About the people who lost their homes? If you don’t have the money how are you still wearing Givenchy?”
A lone tear rolled down Lily’s cheek. Tension, Nicole thought, as she watched Lily dash it away. Her voice was steady, however, when she asked, “Are you even aware that you’re addicted to serotonin?”
Nicole blinked.
“What?” Boone stopped a scant foot from Lily, using her height to tower over her. She hadn’t yet looked at Nicole, but Nicole was certain Boone knew she was also standing there.
“Serotonin,” Lily repeated. “You’re addicted to it.”
Actually, Nicole thought, Boone was likely addicted to a norepinephrine and adrenaline cocktail. An urgent voice asked her why that even mattered. Lily had answered Boone’s questions with a question, and was standing her ground.
“That’s slander. Don’t tempt me to sue you. I can’t wait to have the power of discovery to find what the prosecutors in New York missed.”
“There’s nothing to find. There was never anything to find. Defending myself bankrupted me, which ought to make you happy. I have paid for the sins of the father and mother. All I have left fits in a small storage locker and a suitcase. Go ahead, find a pile of cash everyone has missed—my lawyers would like to know about it too!”
“You are one of the best liars I’ve ever seen. That innocent act almost works.”
“Now that’s actually slander.” Lily was pale, but her voice was rock solid. “I think I could prove malice too. I’m done being your punching bag for ratings.”
Boone inched even closer and Nicole stepped in the way.
Boone glared down at her, layers of blond hair not moving an inch in the wake raised by a passing bus. “Who are you?”
“Ms. Smith’s friend.”
“It’s Linden-Smith. Lillian Linden-Smith.” She pulled a cell phone from her case and frantically tapped at its tiny buttons.
Lily’s head was up but she seemed momentarily at a loss for words.
Nicole casually observed, “You must be a middle child.”
“What does that have to do with anything? Who are you? Why are you protecting her?” Boone used her cell phone like a pointer. “Are you getting a cut?”
Nicole shrugged. “Middle children tend to use shorter sentences and smaller words because of their acute awareness that parental attention spans are limited. They also tend to ask many questions in the hope that a parent will answer at least one and acknowledge they exist. Invisible is a common descriptor middle children use to describe their familial standing. These feelings lead to increased production of serotonin inhibitors.” Nicole lifted her chin. There was no research basis for anything she’d said, but the important thing was to give Lily a chance to recover. “Hence, resistance to feeling the effects of serotonin and your body’s output of far more than you need. Your pupils are dilated in a situation that is not threatening. You were eight or nine when your parents divorced?”
Boone’s mouth gaped slightly as she took a step back. “I don’t know how you know that, but you have no idea who you’re messing with.”
Nicole was on comfortable ground with this line of argument—truth was easier than bullshit, a fact she’d tried to impress on her students as often as possible. In Spain or Italy she’d peer-reviewed a study about the body language of bullies and their potential biopsychological roots. “Just a conclusion based on observation of your combative stance, tendency to lean forward at the ends of your sentences, and, of course, the classic overcompensation for fear of being devalued as a woman the way your mother was.”
“Be careful. Be very careful.” The steely gaze with eyebrows low was practiced and looked good for the cameras, but Nicole wondered if Boone could actually raise her eyebrows if she wanted to. Her range of expressions did seem limited. Perfect for the camera. Icy in person.
“It’s merely a working hypothesis.” Nicole cocked her head. “Clearly, your addiction to serotonin and adrenaline hasn’t harmed you insofar as it built your marketable reputation for being relentless.” She made another educated guess. “With your ratings slipping—”
Boone jabbed at Nicole with her cell phone. “My change of networks had nothing to do with ratings. How dare you insult—”
“Merrill.” Boone stopped talking at the sound of her own name the way most people did. Skilled debaters learned to ignore the impulse which Nicole interpreted to mean that Boone had constructed her life so that no one argued with her. “Of course your ratings are slipping. You just published a memoir.”
Lily’s voice was steady and clear. “Rock bands release a greatest hits album because their agent insists the time is right. Sales are slipping, business partners are leery of further investment, time to make some easy cash for no work. Next thing you know, they’ve disbanded.” Her tone became increasingly helpful and upbeat. “The Foo Fighters are an exception.”
Boone was wide-eyed. “What in God’s name has that to do with me?”
Nicole was intrigued that Boone’s honeyed accent diminished under stress. Was it an affectation? If so, it was a transparent declaration of not feeling her authentic personality was adequate to get her through life. “When your agent suggested you write a memoir, you’re too intelligent not to know it was a warning. Your neurobiological reaction was to sublimate your panic by producing greater extremes of work product…And resorting to Botox.”
Boone gasped, confirming Nicole’s theory. “I don’t know who you are, but I’m going to find out. And I’m going to nail your friend Ms. Linden-Smith to the wall while I’m at it.”
“No, you’re not.”
All the money and time that Boone put into her face was ruined by the sneer on her lips. “Listen, honey, nobody tells me what I will or won’t do.”
When it came down to basic debate tactics, Boone was either rusty, or she’d ignored the fundamentals of the practice of law. Nicole sighed. “I think you meant to say that very few people tell you what you will or won’t do.”
“This conversation is over,” Boone snapped. “Now get out of my way. I don’t have time for you. Lillian?” She tried to step around Nicole, but Nicole moved into her path again.
“Or what? You’ll prove to your corporate handlers that you’re the bloodhound they think you are? Isn’t that your nickname?” Nicole hoped she remembered that tidbit correctly. “The Bloodhound?”
“You make that sound like an insult.”
Nicole didn’t smile though she wanted to. Boone was thoroughly engaged now. It was fortunate that her entourage was nowhere to be found. It occurred to her that
Boone had been rushing into the venue to meet up with her staff, all waiting wherever Boone was supposed to be signing her book. “Is being compared to a canine a compliment?”
“Now you hate dogs? Bloodhounds are amazing.”
“Of course they are. Highly skilled and very reliable dogs bred to perform a task. They receive stimuli and act on it.” She saw Lily give her a quizzical glance that quickly transmuted to her usual air of aplomb and confidence. She didn’t think anyone but her could read the flutter of fear clouding the green of Lily’s eyes. “What they do is programmed into their DNA.”
Boone’s hostility had taken a backseat to puzzlement. Nicole knew she’d touched a nerve. She pressed her advantage. “By comparing you to a creature whose success is purely instinctive, people are really saying that you run prey to ground because you don’t know how to do anything else.”
At a momentary loss for words, Boone finally spluttered, “That’s ridiculous.”
“Your constricted pupils and slight perspiration at the neck says you know otherwise. As I said, you’re an intelligent woman. You already know everything I’m telling you, but you’ve chosen to live in denial. You’re chasing foxes because you don’t know how not to and you wrongly believe cornering more foxes will prove you are capable of better than that.”
“Doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different outcome is a sign of mental illness,” Lily offered in her helpful-docent mode.
“According to Albert Einstein,” Nicole added.
“Actually, it was Rita Mae Brown.”
“Really?”
“Absolutely.” Lily nodded with conviction.
Boone seemed to come out of her stupor. “You can spare me your psychobabble. You can’t manipulate—”
“Merrill.” Again, Nicole successfully interrupted her. She had graduate students who could best this woman in any kind of discussion. What kind of editing must they do to her interviews to make it appear that she could win a throw down with Daniel Webster? “We’re going to leave now. Enjoy your evening.”
Love by the Numbers Page 22
