by Julia London
“Agreed.”
“So we’re going to have to make the best of it.”
Why did he have to sound so condescending? Like he was the one who was clearly going to have to strive to make the best of it? “Alrighty then,” she said, and smiled. She swiped up her wine glass. “Here’s me, making the best of it.” She took a nice long swig, set the glass aside, and began to make her salad dressing.
“I think we should establish some ground rules.”
“Sure,” she said gregariously. “Like what?”
“Like . . . this is my half of the house,” he said, turning partially and gesturing to the living room and the hallway that led to the two guest rooms. “And you have the master, which frankly, is almost as big as this. We can work out a sharing arrangement for the living room and kitchen.”
“And the pool,” she added, lest he think they were going to halve that, too.
“And the pool. You can have the living room during the day, and I can have it during the afternoon and evening.”
Leave it to a man to assign himself prime time. “So I’m supposed to stay in my room at night?”
He shrugged. “Why not?”
“Because I don’t want to be confined to my room like I’ve been grounded. I like to watch TV at night.”
Handsome Harry’s brows dipped disapprovingly. “You watch TV?”
Lola stopped her whisking. “Oh, I’m sorry, does that make me a troglodyte?”
“I wouldn’t know. I don’t have time for TV.”
How anyone could not have time for Scandal or Game of Thrones was beyond Lola, but boy, didn’t Handsome Harry look a little superior right now. “I’m not giving up the only TV in the house,” she said, and turned around so she didn’t have to see his fat smug face. She shoved oven mitts on her hands and opened the oven door.
“Something smells good,” he said.
“You must mean this,” she said, holding up her pan. “Moussaka, party of one.”
Interestingly, Smug Handsome Harry looked very longingly at her pan. He wasn’t so superior now, was he? Lola made sure to put the pan on the trivets just beneath his nose. “When will you be doing your cooking?” she asked. “Just so I know the ground rules,” she added, making air quotes.
“I don’t cook.”
“No TV. No cooking. Wow, you must have the most fun ever. So what do you do with yourself? Open up cans of soup and then whittle all evening?”
“Trust me, I have plenty to do,” he said, as if she couldn’t possibly understand how important and complex his life was.
That could very well be, but this was a hungry man staring at her. So Lola scraped off a dollop of mashed potatoes from her dish, put it in her mouth, and with a moan, closed her eyes. “Oh my God, I think this is some of the best moussaka I’ve ever made.” She opened her eyes and smiled.
“Funny,” he said. He looked like he was working very hard not to lick his lips. “Anyway, back to our arrangement. You can have the evening in the living room if that’s what you want. But I get the office.”
Perfect. The office was in the far corner of the house, as far from her as he could possibly be. She hoped he spent all his time in there. “Knock yourself out,” she said.
“One last thing,” he said. “I think we should respect each other’s space by, you know . . . tidying up after ourselves.”
Lola picked up a spatula, holding it for a moment for full effect before she shoved it into the moussaka. “Whatever you say, Harry.”
His eyes narrowed slightly with her even slighter sarcastic tone. “Thanks.”
He watched as she heaped a generous serving of the moussaka onto a plate. She pretended to ignore him as she heaped salad onto the plate, too. She picked up her plate and her wine, looked at him, and asked, “Anything else? Maybe we could stick a corkboard up by the front door to leave each other messages. Sort of like a dorm room.”
He gave her a withering look. “I think I’ll just tell you whatever I need to tell you. If I need to tell you anything.”
“Okay. Well, if that’s all, roomie, I guess it’s my time in the kitchen right now.”
He looked startled. And a little sad as he looked at her moussaka. “Have at it,” he said as he slid off the stool. He padded back across the living area.
She was going to have at it, all right. Lola put her plate on the dining room table, grabbed a fork and her phone, and sat down to eat. Her phone lit up as she was deciding if she’d put too much nutmeg in the dish. It was a text from Casey.
How is life in the land of snobby rich people?
Lola put her fork down and texted back: Who said all rich people are snobby? Anyhoo, so far so good. You wouldn’t believe how sweet this lake house is. Very high-end. But a recent sign of vermin.
Vermin! Call an exterminator. But call me first. Right now. I have news.
Lola punched in her sister’s number. “Whaddup?” she asked through a mouth full of moussaka when Casey answered.
“I got a great assignment. I’m doing a story on this twenty-five-year-old teacher without any legs. She’s teaching inner-city middle school.”
Casey was a journalist for a Brooklyn magazine, and somehow always ended up with the most interesting stories. Lola ate while Casey talked excitedly about her piece. Of all her siblings, Casey was the go-getter and always had been—which was why Lola had put off her own college so Casey could go. When they were kids, five of them splitting a can of Chef Boyardee, Casey was dreaming up ways to make them rich. Lola had always known Casey would do something. Something big. Lola had never had that confidence. The only thing she’d wanted to do as a girl and a teenager was write weepy love stories. So when it came time for college, Lola had saved the money they had from their grandparents and had deferred college so Casey could go. And Ben. And Ty. And Kennedy.
“Anyway, I went to check on Mr. Bagatti today,” Casey said.
Lola stopped shoveling food onto her fork. Mr. Bagatti was the old man who lived below Lola’s little walk-up studio in the Clinton Hill neighborhood of Brooklyn. He had no one, and she’d worried about him once she decided to take Sara up on her offer. Who would check in on him? Who would make sure he had what he needed, was taking his meds, was eating? “Casey, thank you!”
“I told you I would.” Her sister bit into something. “He has a new honey,” she said with her mouth full.
“A what?”
“A honey. Girlfriend.”
“You’re kidding,” Lola said flatly. Mr. Bagatti never left his apartment.
“Nope, not kidding. She’s the mother of the guy who runs the corner store. She was there when I stopped by. She’d brought him some candy and he was very happy. I told you he would be.”
“You never said that. What you said was that he should be in a home where they would at least wash his undershirts. And that coming to Lake Haven was crazy.”
“That was before I knew how hip it is to be on Lake Haven. My boss has a house there. And that, dear sister, is why I’m calling.”
“Because your boss has a house here?”
“No, because she told me that her house is next door to Birta Hoffman’s.”
Lola gasped and dropped her fork. Birta Hoffman, the German author and winner of the Man Booker Prize for her novel, Incomplete, was Lola’s all-time favorite author. “She has a house in the States?” Lola all but shouted into the phone. She’d thought Birta lived in the Black Forest in Germany. Maybe she’d romanticized that part, but it just fit with her books.
“Apparently so. And get this—she’s going on a big book tour in the fall with her new novel. So she’ll be in East Beach all summer. I guess you were right, Lola—everyone who is everyone is in East Beach this summer.”
Lola’s heart was racing. To think she could run into Birta Hoffman in this tiny little hamlet! She was almost hyperventilating just thinking about it.
“Oh, and I almost forgot,” Casey continued after taking a bite of something. “Apparently she hangs ou
t at the coffee shop there most mornings, working on her book. So pick up that fancy new laptop, girl, and start hanging out at the coffee shop.”
“Ohmigod, I can’t believe she is here,” Lola said dreamily.
“You should totally go and meet her,” Casey said.
“Right. As if one could simply walk up to Birta Hoffman and say hello. I would never impose—”
“Jesus, you never want to impose!” Casey said loudly before Lola could finish. “Lola, for God’s sake, you’ve been taking care of everyone else for so long, including the douche bag you married—”
“Don’t bring up Will,” Lola said sharply. But it was too late—she could feel herself coloring at the truth in what Casey said. She had taken care of Will’s every need. She’d subjugated all her wants and needs to his.
“Fine. But you get my point. Dad died and Mom turned into a full-time crack whore, and you took care of me and Kennedy and Ty and Ben and you kept child services off our doorstep. You never rocked the boat, you just kept up this facade that everything was okay so that people would leave us alone. But Lola, child services isn’t coming for us anymore, and yet, you’re still acting like everything’s A-OK. Will left, and you were all, ‘sure, if that’s what you need,’ instead of taking him to the cleaners like you could have done. You got booted to that job in Manhattan. You never went to college so that we could go. You’re too nice, Lola. You’re too giving, too generous, too helpful.”
“My God, I’m a monster,” Lola said with a roll of her eyes and picked up her fork.
“What I’m trying to say is that finally, you’re doing something for you. You deserve it! So don’t let any opportunity pass you up. You took this chance on, now explore it to its full advantage. For once in your freaking life, go for broke, will you?”
Lola was set to argue, but something clicked in her brain. Casey was right. She was so right. Lola had hidden grief and fear and uncertainty behind a wall of shame and placidity all her life. “How’d you get so smart, Casey?”
Casey snorted. “I had the best big sister in the history of the universe, and she taught me to go for broke while she kept up a front. Remember?”
“No,” Lola said with a laugh. “What I remember is trying to get through each day with some food and some heat. But you know what? I’m going to do it, Casey. I’m going to meet Birta Hoffman. Because I love her books and it’s all about me.”
“Yes!” Casey crowed. “But maybe first, take care of the rat problem.”
Lola’s thoughts were full of images of her and Birta Hoffman having coffee. “What?”
“You said you had vermin. Get rid of the rats.”
“Oh, that.” Lola glanced across the house. She could see a light in the hallway that led to the extra bedrooms. “Yep. I’m going to handle that, too, not to worry.”
They chatted a little more and hung up. Lola polished off her dinner as more images of Birta filled her head. And then, after she “tidied up,” as requested by the most Humorless Harry, Lola was so entranced by the idea of being besties with a famous author that she settled down with her laptop and notes to work on her book.
But that blank page continued to stare at her.
Seven
At 6:00 a.m., Harry emerged from his new bedroom at the northern end of the house with the smaller bathroom, the stiffer bed, the non-lake view, and he was starving. He hadn’t eaten last night as he’d stewed about this newest complication in his life. He’d waited around, hoping she’d go to bed, at which point he intended to raid the damn kitchen—assuming, of course, that she’d left him anything to eat. But he hadn’t felt comfortable entering the kitchen while she was there, looking around for something to nosh on while she dined on that dish that had smelled so damn delicious.
But did the roommate from hell give him the space he needed? No. She had talked on the phone. Then he’d heard her typing away at something. Another phone call, this one with a lot of cackling. And then banging around in the kitchen. He’d fallen asleep sometime after he heard the TV power up and Jimmy Fallon begin to do his monologue.
To say Harry was in something of a sour mood was an understatement. To say that his blood pressure skyrocketed when he turned on the kitchen light was also an understatement. The kitchen was in a shambles. Unbelievable. What about their chat last night? Had he not been clear about picking up after herself? Apparently not, because once again, dishes were piled in the sink, there were crumbs on the counter, and the cutting board had not been cleaned. Not only that, her lacy bra was still hanging off the back of the bar stool, a bright slash of pink against dark leather.
Harry picked up that dainty piece of underwear and marched to the master bedroom. The door was ajar; he pushed it open and stepped over the threshold.
The mess was worse in here. There were clothes everywhere, shoes scattered across the floor, a pile of books stacked haphazardly on the hearth. He made a move toward the bed to wake her, but stepped on something that crunched under his boot. He looked down to see a mangled red plastic Solo cup.
The sound startled Sleeping Beauty awake—she shot up, her hair a wreck, and blinked at him. “What are you doing?”
“Returning this to you,” he said, and tossed the bra at her.
It landed on her shoulder. She removed it, held it up to see what it was. “Where did you get my bra?” she exclaimed, as if he’d snuck in here and taken it off of her while she was sleeping.
“Oh, I don’t know—where I get most bras. Hanging off the back of a barstool in the kitchen.”
She blinked. “Oh yeah,” she said, nodding, as if it all made sense now.
“I hope I don’t have to explain that a kitchen bar stool is not the place to hang your bras. Or that you should clean up the kitchen after you use it.”
“What?” She tossed the bra onto the floor and fell back against a mound of pillows. “I did clean up the kitchen.”
That left Harry speechless for a moment. “If you call that clean, we’re gonna have a problem. This isn’t your house, Lola. None of this belongs to you,” he said, making a circular motion with his hand. “The least you can do is keep it clean.” He turned on his heel, crunching the Solo cup again, and walked out.
“Hey, just a damn minute!” she shouted after him.
He heard the bed squeak, heard her pounding across the bedroom floor. When he looked over his shoulder, kitchen lady was marching toward him wearing nothing but a T-shirt and panties. He wondered if she even realized it. Or maybe she’d left her pants in some weird place, too, like, say, the garage.
“You can’t talk to me like that!” she said hotly.
“Like what?”
“Bossy!”
“Says who?”
“Me! I say!”
Harry slowly turned to face her, and folded his arms across his chest. “And I say you can’t trash someone else’s house.”
“It’s not trashed. It’s a little cluttered. And besides, it was late!”
“What has that got to do with anything? You could have put the dishes in the dishwasher while you were cackling at everything Jimmy Fallon said.”
Her eyes widened. “First of all, I do not cackle. And second, he is really funny! Just because you’re some sort of obsessive-compulsive neatnik is no excuse to talk to me like I’m your kid.”
Half of her hair was hanging over her face. Didn’t that bother her? He wanted to push it out of her face. “I’m not obsessive-compulsive. But I do have basic standards.”
“Oh yeah? So did you work in a department store at some point, or have you always folded your T-shirts and boxers to a uniform size?”
“What’s wrong with being neat?” he exclaimed.
She opened her mouth, but he cut her off. “It was a rhetorical question. I’m not going to take clothes-folding tips from a woman who looks like she’s been on a hell of a bender.”
She gasped. “I beg your pardon,” she said grandly, speaking like some lady from Downton Abbey, the show Melissa used to
watch.
“I’m just saying, you look a little rough, so if it’s all the same to you, I’d rather stick with my folded shirts than go with your method of storing clothes all over the bedroom floor. Now, if you will excuse me, I have to go to work.”
“Thank God,” she said, and turned around, marching back to her room.
Harry meant to march off, too, but he couldn’t make himself while that very nice bottom bounced away from him in skimpy black polka dot panties. Yes, the woman definitely had some very appealing junk in that trunk. So appealing that he had trouble thinking clearly about how mad he was.
Harry went out, locked the front door behind him, got in his truck, and drove far too fast down Juneberry Road into East Beach, fuming the entire way. He pulled to the curb outside the Green Bean Coffee Shop and turned off the ignition.
This roommate thing was not going to work. It has been less than twelve hours and already they were butting heads. He would have to do something different. But what? Unfortunately, Harry had run out of money and, therefore, options. It was either East Beach, which was fairly close to his current job and the bigger job he was trying to land, or it was his parents’ apartment on the Upper East Side.
“Someone shoot me now,” he muttered.
The last time he’d seen Jack and Beth Westbrook had been the week after he and Melissa had split up. He’d joined his family for their standing Sunday lunch to deliver the news.
He’d been feeling adrift, still wondering what he could do to make it right for Melissa. He’d tried to call her, but she wouldn’t answer the phone and had finally texted him, asking him to give her some space. So Harry had dressed in dark slacks and the cashmere sweater Melissa had given him for his last birthday, shaved his week-old beard, and combed his hair back as best he could. With all the emotional turmoil of that week, he hadn’t made it to the barbershop. He’d fully expected his mother to make a remark about the length of his hair, and of course, she did not disappoint.
“You should really trim it, Harry,” she’d said, reaching up to tuck more of it behind his ears when he’d arrived at home.
