by Julia London
She was in the kitchen angrily making the dough for a batch of cookies when she heard Harry’s truck in the drive. “Oh, hey,” she said as he walked into the kitchen. As if nothing had happened. As if he’d just strolled in from work and she’d just written a dozen chapters.
He approached the kitchen cautiously, as well he should have, because Lola was certain she looked like a mad scientist. She was a mad woman, which was equally dangerous. “Lola? Are you okay?”
“Who, me?” Lola asked. “Sure! You mean that business at the Cantrells’?” She waved her hand at him. “No big deal. I figured out last week that Birta is an asshole.”
He walked around the kitchen island.
“I’m okay!” she said, and moved just out of his reach. “Listen, not everyone is going to like my book. Can’t please all the people all the time, you know,” she chirped. “I’m making cookies. I need something really super sweet. When I’m really pissed off, I like to stuff my face.” She pointed the spatula at him. “It’s true. I’m not afraid to eat my emotions.”
Harry reached for her again, and Lola threw up a hand. She was suddenly trembling; she could hardly hold on to the mixing bowl. “Don’t touch me,” she said, her voice rough. “Because if you touch me, I might disintegrate. I can’t take your touch without all this yearning,” she said, making a fist against her chest. “So please don’t touch me, Harry, because I can’t take it,” she said, her voice shaking now.
Harry grabbed her then, pulling the bowl from her hand and putting it aside as he wrapped her in his embrace. He kissed her as if she were water and he a drowning man. His hands slid down her body, to her hips, holding her tightly to him. He felt so right, so hard and strong and virile against her, and Lola lost all control. All the feelings for him she’d tamped down suddenly exploded in her, and she was burning out of control, a five-alarm fire that nothing could douse.
He kissed her with as much fire as she kissed him, their tongues tangling, his hand cupping her face, stroking her hair. He spun her around, began marching her backward to the couch as she frantically undid the buttons of his shirt. They were wild for each other, their hands roaming, their bodies pressed hard to each other. He toppled her over the back of the couch, and they landed on the soft cushions, her knee between his legs, pushing against his hardness. He pressed his lips against her cheek, her eyes, and her mouth again . . . and then he paused.
“What? What is the hold up?” she asked impatiently, and pulled his head down to hers, dipping her tongue into his mouth. She was a fat little pig, spinning and roasting and basking in the flames of overwhelming desire for this man.
Harry moved, pulling Lola on top of him, casing her head with his hands so that he could kiss her deeply, then sliding his hands down, slipping under the sweatshirt, up her ribcage to her breasts. Her skin was blazing where he touched her. Lola wanted him inside her, but Harry wasn’t moving fast enough. He kept looking at her. “What are you doing?” she asked frantically.
“Looking at you,” he said, just as frantically.
“Why? We’re kind of in the middle of something here.”
He smiled. “You know why, you little lunatic. Because I want you. I want you so goddamn bad.”
His admission, completely in lockstep with her own violent desire, turned Lola into a ravenous beast. She tried to continue their frantic lovemaking, but Harry paused again.
“What?” she asked impatiently.
“Look at me, Lola,” he commanded. “I mean it. Look at me.”
She could hardly catch her breath, but Harry had her pinned to the couch. So Lola looked at him. She looked directly into his eyes, and when she did, her heart began to jackhammer—she could see the raw want in his eyes. He truly wanted her, which made her yearning for him swell to the point of suffocating her. She lifted up on her elbows and kissed him, slowly and reverently, letting her emotions flow from her. She held nothing back. Nothing.
His clothing came off, and she was now wearing only a tiny bit of lace thong, which Harry promptly removed from her body. He twisted again, putting her on her back on that couch and moving on top of her. Something had shifted in Lola: she could feel it, could feel the newness, the freshness of this thing between them emerging stronger and more beautiful than before.
She was impatient. She took him in hand and began to move, gazing up at him with fierce determination. He slid into her and Lola closed her eyes, sighing with relief. She felt herself fraying at the edges; the thread had been pulled, and she was rapidly untangling from all the confusion and old habits and fears of rejection.
Harry moved steadily, watching her, really seeing her, and Lola wasn’t afraid of it. She began to move with him, urging him along, her hands tangling in his hair, her mouth dragging across his cheek, to his mouth. And then she was clutching him, her breath rising. He was hard and hot and he dug his fingers into her hips, lifting her up, pushing deeper until she cried out with release. He fell over the edge with her, gasping as the waves of fulfillment spilled over them.
Harry collapsed on top of her, breathing as hard as if he’d run up Juneberry Road.
Lola lazily twined her fingers in his hair. She didn’t want it to be over. She traced a line down his spine, filled her hand with his bare hip. She kissed his cheek, then his neck. Harry tried to move himself off her chest, but apparently misjudged his place on the couch. The two of them tumbled off, landing on the rug. After a stunned moment, they both burst into laughter. Lola sat up, bracing her arms against his chest. “Hey,” she said, pushing her hair from her face. “Which do you prefer? Cookies? Or skinny dipping?”
Harry caressed her arm as he smiled up at her. “Can I have both?”
“You can have anything you want,” she said, and winked as she hopped up and walked into the kitchen to resume her baking.
In the nude.
Sunday was possibly the most delightful day Lola had ever spent in her entire life.
She and Harry woke late, having spent half the night in the pool and in bed. They had a leisurely breakfast of pancakes, then sipped coffee as they dangled their legs in the pool, talking about everything and nothing.
Lola didn’t ask Harry his plans, and he didn’t ask her hers. They didn’t talk about the night before. They didn’t try to plot the future, they didn’t try to dissect the last few weeks. They just existed together in that space of complete and utter compatibility and contentment.
Later, they munched Lola’s batch of angry cookies while she worked on her book—Birta had ignited her determination—and Harry ran some numbers he wanted to think about before his meeting. Their phones rang with calls and beeped with text messages, but neither of them answered or looked at their screens. It quickly became clear to Lola that she was not the only one avoiding the outside world. It became so apparent, in fact, that she began to giggle every time one of their phones sounded.
In the afternoon they played a game of saying what they intended to do with the millions they hoped to make on books and bridges. Harry said he would buy a boat, maybe build a lake house in East Beach. Lola said she would put her mother in a better place and then open a bookstore. Harry said he would build a better place for her mother . . . maybe in Florida. Lola laughed and said that when her book was turned into a movie, she would thank him at the Oscars.
It was a whimsical day. They were like two little kids in a field of sunflowers.
Lola eventually returned to her work . . . or tried to. Harry kept distracting her. He put his hands on her shoulder and leaned over. “Who are you killing?” he asked.
“That’s an interesting question,” she said in all seriousness. “My girl met a pig on Match.com who dissed her. But when she goes to do the deed, he’s gone, and she finds his mother in his apartment.” She smiled devilishly. “His mother looks a lot like Birta Hoffman.”
Harry laughed. And then he reached over her, closed her laptop, and put his hands on her breasts.
“You’re going to keep me from being a lite
rary success,” she warned him as he nuzzled her neck.
“I’m hoping you can be a literary success tomorrow,” he said, and pulled her to her feet, dancing her to a bedroom.
Yes, it was a wonderful, stupendous, beautiful, perfect summer day. Lola didn’t allow herself to think about tomorrow, because for the space of one Sunday, she was going to pretend that this was forever.
But eventually, the spell had to break, and Harry was the one to do it. It began when Lola saw him looking at his phone, then responding to a text. She tried not to think about it. That could have been a text from anyone.
It could have been . . . but it wasn’t.
Lola closed her laptop and busied herself making mushroom risotto.
When dinner was ready, they decided to eat outside.
“You’re spoiling me rotten, Lola,” Harry said. “It’s delicious. I’ve probably gained ten pounds since I met you.”
She looked at him. “I actually like to spoil you.”
Harry looked up from his plate, surprised. “You do? Do you have anything else up your sleeve?”
She smiled. “Nope. I think you’ve seen it all.”
Harry put his fork down. “Have I?”
The tone of his voice had changed. Lola immediately put her fork down, too, and bent her leg, propping her foot on the edge of her seat and wrapping her arms around her knee. Shielding herself. “Yep.”
“There is nothing you want to say? Maybe discuss?”
Only everything. But as Lola was struggling to find the words and make herself walk out on the limb, she saw a range of emotions scud across Harry’s face—sadness and hope. Weariness.
He reached for her hand. “You know, six months ago, I would have said that I knew exactly what I was doing. I would have said that I was completely certain about the woman in my life, about my career direction, about my decision to sell my apartment. Those were all pieces of the map I had drawn in my head of where I wanted to be and where I wanted to go. But things change, Lola. They changed when I met you.”
She smiled dubiously. “You tried to kick me out when you met me.”
Harry impatiently squeezed her hand. “You know what I mean. Everything changed—my feelings for Lissa. My confidence in my company. My entire direction in life became a big question mark. But I can look back on that now and see that it was a metamorphosis I needed. I was so sure of myself that I hadn’t bothered to even look at myself. I have now, and I know what I want. I want this,” he said, holding up their hands. “I want us. And I would really like to know what you want.”
Lola didn’t need a metamorphosis to know that she was falling in love with him. She wanted, more than anything, to be with him. She could hear Casey’s voice: Just say it, chickenshit.
“Lola? What do you want?”
“I want . . . you to be happy,” she said. “Whatever that means.” She smiled. Nothing is wrong, everything is fine! Take all the time you need to walk all over this.
Harry stared at her. “What the hell does that mean?”
“It means that I want you to be sure of everything. I don’t want you to wake up one day and wish you were with Melissa.”
His face darkened and he dropped her hand. “Will you please stop thinking about Melissa? She’s not your friend, she’s not your concern.”
“You were with her a long time—”
“I know how long I was with her!” he exploded, coming up out of his seat. “I want to know what you want,” he said again.
Lola shrunk back in her chair. She was suddenly reminded of a school counselor she’d been forced to see when a teacher noted how disheveled she looked at school. The counselor had tried to pry information out of a ten-year-old Lola. She’d grown frustrated with Lola’s evasive answers, then had said, “Let me ask this another way. If you could have anything you wanted, what would it be?”
“A house,” Lola had said instantly. “With a swing set. And maybe a bike we could share.”
The counselor had said, “Well, that’s not going to happen, sweetie, obviously. I can’t get you a house or a swing set.”
“Lola?”
“I told you,” she said.
He sighed. He looked down at the table, and locked his hands, ran them over his head. He gazed at her plaintively and said, “I don’t know what has happened in your life that you can’t express what you’re feeling. But I’m sorry for you. I am so very sorry.” He picked up the plates and went inside.
Their perfect Sunday came to a crashing end.
Lola fretted half the night, tossing and turning in her bed, reliving that moment on the terrace. She was a coward and a fool. She had let her fears and insecurities loom over her like a beast, menacing everything she did. She couldn’t live like this, she realized, like a scared little bird, always hopping back into her nest so that nothing could get her. That was the thing—there really was no danger except for the fear she’d allowed to live in her all these years.
She heard Harry in the kitchen at half past seven and got up. It took her a moment to find something to wear, and when she padded into the kitchen, she heard him on the phone.
“I’ll see you around four, okay?” He was talking low, as if he was trying not to wake her. “Listen, I have to run. I’ll explain when I see you—” There was an abrupt pause, and then he said, “Can it wait? Thanks. See you then.” He clicked off.
Lola’s heart began to beat wildly with panic. She knew without a doubt he was speaking to Melissa. She put her back to the wall, shoving her hands into her hair and squeezing against her head. What was she supposed to do? Had he given up on her so soon?
“Oh, you’re up.”
She jumped at the sound of his voice and whirled around. “I’m up.”
Harry smiled fondly. He slipped his arm around her waist and shook his head. “What a mess,” he said, and kissed her forehead. He let go of her and walked to the end of the kitchen counter where he began to stuff things into his pockets. “Okay, I’m out of here. I’m going to grab a coffee and do a little more work before my meeting.”
“Sure, okay,” she said. She was hugging herself, trying not to implode.
Harry smiled, but it was strangely distant. He’d given up. He began to walk for the door at the same moment her phone began to ring. “Harry?”
He turned back. “Yes?”
Lola’s pulse began to pound in her ears. Her palms were damp—it was just like the night she met Birta and couldn’t find her tongue. “Ah . . . I wanted to say something.”
He looked suddenly hopeful and took a step toward her. “Okay,” he said.
Lola’s tongue felt thick. She swallowed. Her phone stopped ringing, then instantly started ringing again. She was distracted by it—she looked at the counter where it was buzzing.
“Don’t answer it,” he said.
The phone stopped ringing again. A moment later, it was buzzing with a text.
“What were you going to say, Lola?” he asked.
She opened her mouth. I love you. I am falling in love, I love you, I don’t know what I am, I just want to be with you. I’m telling you now before you go to Melissa. I’m standing up for me, I’m saying what I have to say, I am speaking my truth. I am not afraid.
But her phone—the texts were coming one after another and she was suddenly filled with apprehension. She picked it up.
Mom seriously ill. Rushed to hospital. Come now.
“Oh my God,” she said.
“What is it?”
“My mom,” she said, and held up the phone so he could see the message.
Harry looked at the phone, then at her.
“I have to go,” she said.
“Yes, of course. I’ll give you a lift to the train station.”
“No, no, you go on. I’ll call Mallory. She’ll get me there.”
“Are you sure?” he asked uncertainly.
“I’m sure,” she said. “She’ll be happy to do it. Go, Harry. Don’t worry about this. I’ll, ah . . . I’l
l call you later.” She turned back for her bedroom, but remembered something and whirled back around. “Good luck.”
Harry hadn’t moved. “Thanks,” he said softly.
He remained standing there as Lola turned around and hurried to her room.
Mallory was not happy with taking Lola to the train station. She insisted on letting her driver take her all the way to Long Island. “Seriously. It will give him something to do,” she said. “Take all the time you need.”
When Lola arrived at the hospital, her siblings were all gathered outside the same intensive care room. One of her mother’s lungs had collapsed.
“We need to battle an infection that’s cropped up, but I think she’ll pull through,” the doctor had said. “We’re going to have to keep her a couple of nights.”
“What are we going to do?” Kennedy asked. “I’m starting my new internship today. I have to show up.”
Her four siblings looked at Lola. “Right,” she said, sighing. “Let me run home and pick up a few things. I’ll be back this afternoon to stay with her. Can anyone stay until I get back?”
“I will,” said Casey gravely, raising her hand as if volunteering for a combat role.
Lola headed back to Lake Haven. When Mallory’s driver turned into her drive, Lola asked, “Would you mind . . . I need to grab some stuff, but I’d really appreciate a ride to the Black Springs train station.”
“Of course,” he said. “I’ll wait here.”
She hopped out and hurried inside to collect her things.
She was in the laundry room, looking through a stack of clean clothing, when she heard voices on the drive. The front door squeaked open. Harry. God, she was glad he was here. She combed her fingers through her hair and stepped out of the laundry room with a smile.
But the man standing in the living room was not Harry. He started when he saw her, put his hands on his hips, and said, “Who the fuck are you?”
