by Julia London
“Thanks,” Harry said, and splashed her. “I appreciate the barbecue, more than you know,” he said. It could possibly be his last-ditch effort to make this company work. “Points off for Birta and the entourage, however.”
She giggled. “It was the least I could do. You helped me so many times, and I am returning the favor. And in spite of Birta’s social skills, she did give me some great feedback on my book.”
“That’s great, Lola,” Harry said sincerely. He hoped she went far with her wild book.
“Who would have thought that we both might get what we came for in this little town?” Lola asked.
Harry sort of nodded, but he wasn’t thinking of bridges. He was thinking of life, and the choices one had to make from time to time. Of the people who swam in and out of his world. Of how things that once seemed so certain were suddenly uncertain, and how relationships formed and then unformed. The why and how of it, what it all meant in the long run. How decisions he made now would determine the course of his life. And how heavy it had felt these last few days. For the first time in his life, he was feeling the weight of real dilemmas.
“What?” Lola asked.
“Nothing. Thank you for arranging it, Lola. It might be my last gasp.”
“You can thank me by cleaning the kitchen. I made beef bourguignon.”
Harry began to glide through the water toward her. “I saw that disaster area when I came in. I don’t think I have the right boots or gloves to go in.”
Lola’s eyes sparkled with amusement. “Big baby. What’s a few pots and pans?” She kicked hard, showering him with water and at the same time sending her giant rubber duck sailing backward, out of his reach.
Harry wanted nothing worse than to haul her off that duck and kiss the brass right out of her. But Lola had already dumped herself off the ducky and was walking up the steps of the pool, water pouring over every ridiculously sexy curve. She looked back at him. It was a brief look, hardly more than a few seconds, but it seemed to Harry that the light in her eyes had changed. She wasn’t as okay about any of this as she’d said. If she couldn’t or wouldn’t admit it, what was he supposed to do? Pin her down and force her to say it?
Lola grabbed a towel and wrapped it around her body. “Are you coming?”
“Yes,” he said. “Be right there.”
He turned his back to her and looked at the lake and the golden glitter of the sun on its surface as it sank behind the hills. He was at a loss to what to do with her.
Twenty-three
Birta was in fine form the next morning. She was tense, snapping at Lola at every turn. Her tea was too hot. Her papers were not straight. And as Lola worked to format a blog post Birta had been asked to write about the creative process, Birta was hanging over her shoulder, reaching for the mouse. “No, no, that’s not how you do it,” she said, and made a few clicks, undoing the work Lola had just done.
“Sorry,” Lola muttered.
“For God’s sake, stop saying you’re sorry,” Birta snapped. “You have nothing to be sorry for, do you? It’s such a weak, girlish thing to always apologize. I can’t abide it.”
Lola gaped at her, surprised by the admonishment. “Then I’m sorry for being sorry too much.”
Birta glared at her.
The woman had no sense of humor. How could one become a famous author with no sense of humor?
Birta turned away from Lola and locked her hands behind her head.
“Is everything okay?” Lola asked, frowning now.
“What?” Birta dropped her hands and looked blankly at Lola. “Fine. Everything is fine. My last book hasn’t performed as well as the publisher hoped, that’s all. Naturally, they blame me for trying something new.”
“Ah.” Lola hadn’t enjoyed Birta’s latest book as much as she had her previous work. It didn’t have the same emotional complexity that Lola admired about her writing.
Birta waved it off with her heavily jeweled fingers. “But I am a writer. An artist! I must explore new landscapes or I will die. I can’t spoon-feed the masses with genre-driven tropes,” she said with disgust.
Personally, Lola would feed the masses whatever they wanted if they would only read her books.
“Never mind this. Cyrus and I mean to discuss it when he arrives this weekend.”
Lola stopped what she was doing. “Your agent is coming here? I thought you said he would only go to the Hamptons.”
Birta clucked her tongue at that. “I say many things,” she said dismissively, as if it were Lola’s fault for having believed her. “He is coming here.”
“You should bring him to the barbecue at the Cantrells’,” Lola suggested.
“Perhaps I will. And your beau?” she asked, glancing slyly at Lola. “He will, in fact, attend this barbecue?”
Lola didn’t have a beau, a fact that made her belly do a funny little flip. “Yes, he’ll be there.”
“Hmm,” Birta said. “Perhaps I will have Cyrus accompany me. Now, I must go and write. “And please,” she said, as she swanned out of the dining room where Lola was working, “I must once again remind you to have a care how you close the door. I was quite startled by the slam of it yesterday.”
Lola had not slammed the door shut yesterday; she had carefully drawn it closed. “Sorry,” she said, and smiled inwardly as Birta glowered at her apology.
She left soon after that, headed for Mallory’s candy shop. Her new morning routine was to ride her bike into East Beach and meet Mallory for coffee. From there, Lola borrowed Mallory’s car and headed to Birta’s. After two hours there, she would return to East Beach and tackle Mallory’s accounts.
The beauty of it was that Mallory’s accounts were in such a mess that Lola could hardly think about anything else. She didn’t have to think about Harry, or the things he’d said to her. She didn’t have to think about how she was doing him a favor by letting him go. She didn’t have to think about how her heart ached every time she saw him. She could only think about numbers.
Speaking of numbers, it was almost as if Mallory had worked at making them a mess. When Lola tried to explain to Mallory what was wrong, Mallory would throw up her hands two seconds in and say, “I can’t deal with this. I’m dyslexic!”
It was clear to Lola that Mallory relied on that disability to excuse her from learning.
Nevertheless, Mallory was great in the store. She’d created a wonderful little shop, including a play area for children complete with games and books and a crafting table. The candy bins were built so that they lit up when the lids were opened. Children loved it, and Mallory loved children. Lola hoped she’d be able to convince Mallory to hire an office manager when she’d finished setting up the software system Mallory’s father had purchased for her, because this store was perfect for Mallory. But she couldn’t continue on like she had.
Lola was working on Mallory’s books when Casey called. “You should be in the city today,” she chirped when Lola answered. “The weather is gorg. I’m at Bryant Park for lunch and honestly, I am thinking of ditching the afternoon and staying right here. Maybe read a book. What are you doing?”
“Helping a friend,” Lola said.
“With what?”
“Accounting! How bad is it when I am better at accounting than the friend?” Lola said, and explained to Casey what had happened with Birta and Mallory, and how she had come to be helping them both.
“For free,” Casey said disapprovingly.
“No one is paying me money if that’s what you mean,” Lola said primly. “But it’s all great experience.”
“Lola, stop helping people!” Casey exclaimed. “You’re doing it again! You’re putting everyone else before you. Only this time, it’s people you don’t know that well! You haven’t mentioned your book once.”
“I don’t have to mention it, Casey. We’re just talking. It’s not like I have to report to you what I’m doing.”
“Then how is it coming?” Casey snapped.
Lola was too mad t
o answer that question. “It’s not. Birta said she really liked what I had, but I’m stuck. I can’t seem to find words.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t know . . . too much on my mind,” Lola said, and threw down a pencil.
“Oh, Lola,” Casey said, her disappointment evident in her voice when Lola remained silent.
“Don’t, Casey,” Lola said sharply.
“Okay,” Casey said. “Fine. Ruin this opportunity, what do I care? New subject: What’s up with Harry?”
And there was the reason that Lola couldn’t find words. “Well, his ex came to East Beach and it looks like they are going to give it the old college try once more.”
Casey gasped. “Details!” she demanded.
Lola gave them. She told Casey how she’d met Melissa at a party. And about the look she’d seen on Harry’s face, and the longing that had seemed to vibrate around those two. When she had finished telling her sister every last horrible detail, Casey said simply, “But what about you?”
“What about me?”
“Don’t you want him?”
Lola snorted. “Of course. But I had what, a month with him? Melissa had a year. Melissa was going to marry him.”
“Not your problem! You have to fight for him, Lola.”
Lola rolled her eyes. “I don’t want to fight, Casey. It’s not like that.”
“What do you mean, it’s not like that? Who do you think you’re talking to? You like him. And you two seemed really good together. Need I remind you that you’re not going to get a guy that good-looking to come waltzing into your life every day?”
“Well thanks for that. Need I remind you that this was only a casual sex thing? That you advocated?”
“And aren’t you glad I did? Anyway, casual sex never stays casual. You have to tell him how you feel, Lola. Let him make the decision!”
“Stop directing me, Casey! You’re always doing that. I don’t know how I feel. It’s not like it was a relationship.”
It just felt like one.
“Oh for God’s sake. If you have any feelings for him, you better say it before it’s too late—”
“There is no late,” Lola snapped. “It’s done! It’s over!”
Casey groaned. “Lola. I don’t want to see you let something really good pass you by because you’re too busy burying your feelings and helping others who are going to take advantage of you in the meantime.”
“Okay, all right,” Lola said. She was beyond angry now. She wanted to argue that Casey was way off base, but Casey knew Lola better than anyone, and she’d seen through her. Lola was hiding behind a wall of being helpful, of filling her thoughts and her time with someone else’s problem instead of facing her own. “I have to go,” she said curtly. “I promised Mallory I’d help her.”
Casey was silent for a moment, and Lola could almost hear her debating with herself. “Okay,” she said, giving in. “When are you coming into the city?”
“Not sure. Maybe next week. I have to go,” she said, and said good-bye.
She tossed her phone into her purse and stared at the wall of the tiny office in the back of Mallory’s store.
She was fine. She was going to be just fine. She always was. This wasn’t the end of the world. Frankly, she’d probably dodged a bullet. How long could it have lasted, anyway? A couple of months?
Mallory dropped Lola home after swinging by a fish market in Black Springs so Lola could pick up some lobsters.
“Harry is a lucky guy!” Mallory said.
Yes, he was a lucky guy, and as usual, Lola was the one on the outside of luck.
She’d put on a skirt and a T-shirt, donned her Last Time I Cooked, Hardly Anyone Got Sick apron, and made a batch of her famous garlic-cheese mashed potatoes. She was boiling the water for lobster when Harry came in from work, looking more disheveled than usual.
“Hey,” he said, smiling fondly as he walked into the kitchen.
“Do you like lobster? They were on sale.”
He smiled hopefully. “I love lobster,” he said, leaning over the bar to look at her preparations. “Are you inviting me?”
“I am.”
“That’s the best news I’ve heard all week. Thank you. I’ll get cleaned up.”
As he started for his room, his phone rang. Harry dug it out of his pocket and looked at it. He shoved it back in his pocket.
That call was from Melissa, Lola was certain. Perhaps more than anything, Lola hated being envious of the beautiful Melissa.
Harry returned as Lola was finishing up the lobsters. They sat at the kitchen bar with the paper lobster bibs Lola had found in the utility room. They talked amicably about the day. Harry had to crawl up on a truss to inspect some bolts, which explained how disheveled he’d looked. He reported he’d heard through the grapevine that the bid specs for the toll road bridges would be out soon. “I hope so, because I don’t have anything lined up at the moment,” he said. “How is your book coming along?”
“Slow,” Lola admitted. “I haven’t had much time to work on it.”
He looked oddly concerned. “Are you overextended? Because you were so into it.”
“I’m still into it. I love writing.” Lola truly believed it was her calling. But . . . there was something holding her back. She could feel it growing like a vine in her. At first it had been her disappointment about Harry and Melissa. That had morphed into a bigger thing over the last couple of days. She said she was stuck . . . but the truth was that she was petrified of continuing on. She ran her finger around the rim of her wine glass. “My problem is that I have this unnatural fear of disappointment,” she said. “And when Birta said she liked it, that it showed promise, I was over the moon. But then . . . I started to panic.”
“Why?”
“It’s hard to explain. When I was growing up, I was constantly disappointed. It seemed like every time I got my hopes up that things were going to be different or better, or at least bearable, something would happen to crush those hopes and disappoint me. And now, I think I live in fear of it.”
Harry stopped eating. “But you can’t live in fear of it. Disappointment is part of life. If you’re never disappointed, you can’t really understand true happiness.”
“Oh I know,” she said, nodding. “I get that. And still, I can’t help it. I know that I work really hard to avoid chances because I have that fear in me,” she said. “This book makes that fear worse. Generally, it’s people who disappoint me, but my book is all me. It will be me disappointing me.” She sighed and shook her head. “That must sound completely whacko to you.”
“No,” Harry said. “I totally get it.”
Lola snorted. “You’ve probably been disappointed like three times in your life.”
“Not true. I’ve been disappointed many times. My big fear is failure.”
“It is?” she asked, surprised by his admission.
“Oh yeah,” he said with an adamant nod. “My biggest fear is that I will have given up a really great job to go out on my own, and for whatever reason, I can’t make it work. If that happens, I’ll have to live with myself somehow. But I know me, and I’d be miserable. So the fear of failing drives me. It makes me work that much harder. It makes me take chances.”
Lola smiled. “Are you going to tell me I’m not working hard enough?”
“No, I’m going to point out that you’re working so hard at not being disappointed, you’re already disappointing yourself. I can see it in your eyes, Lola. I just hope you don’t wake up one day wondering if you could have sold that book. Or wondering where all those passed chances might have led you.” He took her hand in his, stroked her knuckle with his thumb, and looked directly into her eyes. “I know it’s not easy to step out on a limb. But I also know if you really want something, you have to do it. You can’t cling to the tree. You can do it—you are braver than anyone I know.”
Lola smiled a little. “I’m not brave. I can hardly ride a bike.”
“Yeah, you are.�
�� He held her hand against his knee. “Look at what you did—you raised your siblings even though you were a kid yourself. You have kept your family together under circumstances so difficult that I can’t even fathom what it must have been like. This book is a cakewalk in comparison. You’ve already lived the hardest part of your life. So don’t worry about disappointing yourself. Because you won’t.”
His silver-green eyes were filled with the warmth and light of the setting sun behind her. How had this perfect man walked into her life? “Wow. You’re handsome and smart.”
He grinned. “Nope. I’m just pretty good at knowing the value of things.”
God, she wanted to kiss him right now. She wanted to kiss him and make love to him, and dammit, why did Melissa have to come to East Beach and ruin it? She thought of Casey’s advice, of telling Harry right now all the mixed-up and utterly undeniable things she was feeling. But Lola couldn’t bring herself to do it in that moment. Harry’s pep talk aside, it was impossible to slough off years of conditioning. She couldn’t face the disappointment of losing him. If not today, then in a month, or even two . . . however long it took him to realize he’d made a mistake.
She took a breath so deep that it lifted her chest, and sighed it out. She squeezed his hand. “You really are a good friend, Harry.”
The light in Harry’s eyes began to dim. He smiled sadly and let go her hand.
“I guess we’re both rounding third base, aren’t we?” she asked. “One last pretend date tomorrow night?” she asked, referring to the barbecue.
“Yeah,” he said, and pushed a strand of her hair from her face. “One last pretend date.”
Twenty-four
Harry was crunching some numbers, trying to figure out how long he had before he pulled the plug on Westbrook Bridge Design and Construction when Melissa called. “Hey, you answered!” she said cheerfully.
“Hi, Lissa,” he said, rubbing his eyes.
“Guess what? I’m going to be in East Beach tonight.”
He dropped his hand, blinking. “You are?”
“Birta’s agent is coming out for a barbecue or something, and she wants me to come and meet him. Apparently she wasn’t happy with the work Andy did on the publicity for the new book and wants to talk changes.”
