Queen of the Universe (In Love in the Limelight Book 2)

by Geralyn Corcillo

  “No.” Tom says.

  “Then will you get the hell out of here? She's not the first kid from the rave tonight, and she won't be the last. You can't be standing outside the E.R. talking about legal counsel! Nobody's gonna drop off the kids here and then they're really screwed. So just leave.”

  Without a word or even a second of hesitation, the three of us turn and scamper along the garish lighting of the walkway back to the relative darkness of Ray's parking spot. My chest is heaving.

  God, she must be okay or they would have tried to arrest us or something, right? The terror of the last hour washes over me and I can't get enough air in this stupid corset. And my T-shirt is back in my car and on its way to Pasadena. Holy fuck, I could use a hug.

  “Lola,” Tom says.

  I turn to him, seriously ready to fall into the guy's arms if he'll catch me.

  “What the hell was I letting myself in for,” he growls. “Keeping you on as head of the show?”

  I open my mouth, about to tell him to go fuck himself five ways 'til Sunday, when Ray steps in front of me. He doesn't flail or flounce or puff out his chest. He just moves with the stealth and power of a vampire.

  “She saved that girl's life,” he says to Tom, his words lashing onto the night air.

  “We all did,” I correct.

  Ray ignores me and takes a step closer to Tom. “So what did you get? You got a kick-ass showrunner who did NOT check her humanity at the door.”

  A muscle in Tom's jaw jumps but he does not break eye contact with Ray. Seconds tick by. Tom swallows. “Neither did I,” he says quietly. He looks at me. “Lola, why don't you take Ray's car home. He can come with me.”

  Ray doesn't make a sound or move a muscle.

  “I mean,” Tom says, clearing his throat. He looks at Ray. “I mean, I would like you to come with me.”

  Silence.

  “Would you?” Tom asks him. “Come with me?”

  “Lola,” Ray says, still focused on Tom. “The keys are still in the ignition.”

  I scoot to the driver's side of the car, get in, and pull away from the curb before I even think to put on my seatbelt. In the rearview mirror, I see Ray and Tom walking to the parking lot, Tom's arm around Ray's shoulders, pretty much crushing him to him as they go. I smile and bite my lip. I pull out onto some dark side street and make my way to the freeway. I've got to get to Arlen's to give the girls back the corset and shoes. And … I just need to get there.

  Chapter 67

  ARLEN

  “Christ, Katie,” Arlen said. “I'm not going to punish you. You're here for one more week and I'm not sacrificing any of our time because you and Mary Lou lied to me and acted like jerks. And if anything happens to my car, you're both paying for it. And if that happens, I'm not accepting any checks from Jon or from your parents, Mary Lou.”

  Katie's eyes were wide and glistening. Her nostrils flared. “How did you even know?”

  “Ray overheard you two talking,” he explained, deciding he wouldn't give up the goods about the spying equipment. “It finally hit him tonight what it meant, and he called.”

  “And you came running after us!” Katie wailed this like it was an accusation.

  “Of course I came after you. Jesus, Katie! Did you see the girl Lola and Ray took to the hospital? Do you know how many kids die at raves?”

  “We wouldn't have done anything stupid like OD'd or drank so much we got alcohol poisoning.”

  “Okay,” Arlen acknowledged. “But what if you got a roofied drink? Or tainted drugs? Doesn't the possibility scare the bejesus out of you?”

  “We can't spend our whole lives locked up and afraid,” Mary Lou pointed out.

  “Yeah,” Arlen said, “but you can use reasonable caution. It's one thing to learn to surf and another to go scuba diving in shark infested waters. Why didn't you just go to the concert?”

  “Los Angeles raves are famous.”

  “Because kids die at them!”

  “You're exaggerating.”

  “Eleven kids in the past three years.” Lola let herself in through the screen door and dropped the red heels on the floor. She stepped into the room. “One of them on SAT day this past June.”

  Arlen ran a finger down Lola's leg as she brushed past him to take a seat on the end of the couch arm.

  Lola looked at Arlen. “Did you rescind all driving privileges?”

  “No. But I plan to follow them everywhere.”

  “Great,” Katie muttered. “So now you don't trust me.”

  “Katie,” Arlen said, leaning forward and taking her hand. “I didn't trust you before tonight.”

  She snatched her hand back. “What? You don't trust me? At all?”

  “Not about where you're going and what you're doing.”

  “What?!”

  “Katie, you're a teenager. Of COURSE I don't trust you. I used to BE a teenager. Why any grown-up would trust a teenager is completely beyond me.”

  Katie began to tear up and she sniffled. “Arlen, I thought you were—” She stopped talking and looked away with dramatic subtlety.

  “What?” he asked on a laugh. “So crazy about you kids I'd believe anything?”

  She gave him a tight-jawed stare.

  “I am crazy about you kids,” he said to Katie. “I love you. And I don't care if I'm not your BFF. I'm going to look out for you. And hopefully, I can catch you before you fall when you do stupid stuff like tonight.”

  Mary Lou smiled and lit up the whole room. “Hey,” she said. “You're like the catcher in the rye.”

  Arlen leveled his gaze at her. “I do not, nor have I ever, tried to pick up hookers.” He glanced at Lola, resplendent in her corset and eye liner. “Lola doesn't count,” he amended. “She doesn't charge.”

  “Hey!” Lola piped up, her brow furrowing in indignation.

  “Well,” Mary Lou said, looking at Lola, “if you own clothes like that—”

  “These aren't my clothes!” Lola squawked. “They're yours!”

  Mary Lou stood up to get a better look at the corset. “That's my corset? It does NOT look like that when I wear it! Plus I always wear it over a blouse. It's a whole steampunk thing. Not a Hookers-Take-Manhattan thing.”

  “Will everyone stop calling me a hooker!” Lola shouted. “I had five seconds after we realized where you were to find something that could get us into the rave. And it worked. I am freaking brilliant. So put that in your pipe and smoke it.”

  Mary Lou laughed at Lola's rant.

  But Katie's eyes were getting huge. “Wait,” she said slowly, looking at Lola, then Arlen, then Lola again. “So you were already here when Arlen found out we were at the rave?”

  Lola let her butt slide down so she was sitting on the couch. “I was.”

  Katie opened her mouth once, closed it, then opened it again. “What were you doing here?”

  “Having sex with Arlen.”

  Mary Lou and Katie squealed in unison. Arlen slid Lola a look.

  “There's been enough subterfuge for one night, don't you think?” Lola batted her lashes at Arlen.

  Katie stopped laughing and pinned Arlen with a vicious stare. “Wait. So you got us out of the house so you and Lola—”

  “No!” Arlen cut her off. “I hardly ever get to see you and I'm going to try to get rid of you for the night? And the concert was YOUR idea!”

  “I stopped by with tomorrow's rewrites,” Lola jumped in to explain. “And you guys weren't here, so ... I pounced.” She shrugged, as if enough had been said and all had been made clear.

  “Wait!” Mary Lou exclaimed. “Are you guys, like, boyfriend-girlfriend?”

  Lola and Arlen opened their mouths at the same time but Katie chimed in first. “Are you in love?”

  Lola and Arlen shut their mouths. Silence wafted over the room like a giant feather. “Well,” Lola said with a quiet smile, “I gotta get going.” She stood up. Arlen looked at her. She looked back at him.

  A muscle in Arlen's jaw jump
ed.

  “See you on set in a few hours, Arlen.”

  Arlen sat very still, watching her walk out of the living room and grab her keys off the hall table before she disappeared through the front door. He turned back to the girls and saw both of them staring at him, eyes bugging out of their faces.

  “Go!” they both yelled at once.

  Arlen got up and followed Lola outside. He reached her on the lawn, under the huge oak, where he caught her elbow and turned her around. It was dark, but there was enough light from the streetlamp shining through the leaves that he could see her face. “Lola,” he said.

  “Arlen.” She smiled and moved closer. “Arlen, I love you. I love you body and soul. Day and night. At work and at home, in my car, in the grocery store, at the gas station. I love you when I'm dressed all sexy and when I'm feeling pretty and when I'm feeling fat and frumpy. I love you on the set and off, on my roof and off, in bed and out. It's just how it is.”

  Arlen stood still as an empty suit of armor. When he spoke, his voice was raw. “Why don't you sound happy when you say that? When you say all that to me, why do you sound so tragic?”

  “Because I have to tell you the truth,” she said softly.

  “About what?”

  Lola licked her lips, as if looking for a place to start, for something to say. “When I found out about the kids,” she finally said, “I was so sad. So sad for you.” Her voice shriveled to a whisper. “So sad for me.”

  “Lola—”

  “But I got them back for you,” she said fiercely. “I could at least do that for you.”

  “At least? Lola, there's so much more.”

  She shook her head. “No, there's not. I knew it when I heard your story. I'm not the one for you.”

  “What? Why? Because I loved Rachel?”

  “No! God, no. Your love for Rachel, for the kids, it all just makes me love you more.”

  “Then—”

  “I can't have kids, Arlen. Ever.”

  Chapter 68

  LOLA

  He doesn't say anything. He just stares at me.

  I swallow. “Remember when I said I wasn't going to get pregnant? I'm not. Not ever. I don't have a uterus,” I say.

  “Oh, God,” he says, his eyes getting scared. He moves toward me and puts a hand on my tummy. “Are you—Did you have to—”

  “No,” I rush to say, moving away from his warm hands. “I'm not sick. I didn't have it removed. I never had one. And I've never had ovaries either or eggs or anything.” I can see him getting confused, trying to make sense of what I'm saying. “I have AIS,” I say. “Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome. My chromosomes are XY,” I explain. “But I was born without male hormone receptors, so ... since I couldn't absorb testosterone, I developed as a girl on the outside, and then as a woman. But I have no female reproductive organs.”

  “Lola,” he whispers. “Oh, Lola. Jesus, that must have been hard. When did you find out? When you were a teenager? Jesus, that must have been hard.”

  I shrug. “I've had therapy. Physical, hormonal, psychological. And one surgery. To remove my sterile testes. About a year ago. They were nothing but a cancer risk.”

  Arlen moves forward. “So … what? You think I don't want you because on some level you're a guy? Do you think I care?”

  “No!” I tell him. “It's not that.”

  “Because seriously Lola, that night you came barreling through your front door naked, I was already so in love with you that if you'd had a penis, I would've been like, okay, so I'm gay.”

  “Arlen—”

  “No matter what your chromosome map says, you're Lola, and you're the one I want.”

  “Arlen,” I say again, backing away. “I can't have kids.”

  “So? Is that what you think I want? A woman who can crank out a bunch of mini-Arlens?”

  “Maybe not now,” I say. “Now it's all new and sex and discovery. But when the dust settles, are you telling me you aren't going to want a family?”

  “I have a family. I want you to be part of it.”

  I shake my head back and forth.

  “Lola,” Arlen says, his voice soft and gentle. “I would jump in front of a train for them if I had to. I would. Katie, Matteo, Ella—without a second's hesitation.” He smiles ruefully at me. “I'd miss you if I did that, but I would do it, no question. For them. Because I love them—Katie, Matteo and Ella. Them. I am not some random kid lover. This is the core of who I am, my human heart laid out for you. Don't you get that it's about them, and not some grand plan to settle down and procreate? I thought you were supposed to be good at understanding all this heart and soul stuff. How can you be so clueless?”

  “Arlen, you deserve to have your own kids. Kids that no one can take away.”

  “That's not how it works. Ever, Lola.” His voice cracks as he continues. “God knows, and God forbid, but Lola, even if kids are yours, blood and bone, you can still lose them. No guarantees, no control.”

  I back away even further. “Arlen, think about it. If we got together, what happens a year from now? Two years? I'm not enough for you. You've already lost so much. I couldn't do that to you.”

  “Damn it, Lola, don't do this to me! Don't you dare do this to me. You could command an Armada and I would stand back and watch you do your stuff. Write kick-ass scripts, run the show, employ hundreds of people with your brilliance. It's all you and it is amazing. You are awesome. But do NOT tell me what I'm thinking and how I feel and what I want. You've been wrong about me from the beginning. Why I didn't want to do the show. Why I did. How I felt about you. You have always been so wrong.”

  “Not about this.”

  “Bullshit. But you want to call the shots, be in absolute control. And it's not about the show and your reputation. It's not that you can't have kids. It's the complete lack of control you feel when you let yourself love someone. You basically give the universe permission to crush you like a bug. And you can't stand the thought of feeling that powerless.”

  “No ...”

  “Lola, I want you, exactly as you are.”

  Shaking my head, I back toward the car, keys digging into my hand. Arlen never takes his eyes off me. When I get in the car, pull out, and drive away, he's still watching.

  Chapter 69

  LOLA

  I head into my office and shut the door. I turn and engage the lock before I collapse into fetal position on the couch. I want to run and hide, but there is simply no place left where I can escape Arlen. My office is stifling with its memories of kissing Arlen on the very first day, of an anguished Arlen trying to quit. And in the past two weeks, of Arlen stopping by for performance notes, icing me out with every look and every word. Cutting me off. Just like I wanted. I squeeze my eyes shut.

  And I can't even go home. Just the word.

  Home.

  I feel something in my chest collapse into hollow nothingness. My house, my stupid, perfect house with signs of Arlen everywhere. Everything works, everything fits, because of what Arlen did. I can't even hide under my own damn covers on my own damn bed without remembering Arlen. But I need SOME PLACE. I need a home base, some sort of refuge. My functioning properly depends on my having a Fortress of Solitude where I can reboot and recharge.

  My phone jangles in my front pocket, tickling my hip bone. The song starts. Everybody run, The homecoming queen's got a gun—

  “Hi Mom.” I sigh into the phone as I press it to the ear that's not smushed into the couch.

  “Lola.” Charlotte's voice lilts up in surprise.

  “Yes. Mom. You called me. On my phone. Using my phone number.”

  “Well, yes,” she concedes. “But it's ten-thirty in the morning, your time. I never dreamed you'd pick up.”

  “So you called just so you wouldn't have to talk to me?” I try to inject my voice with some accusation, disregarding that I do the same thing to her all the time.

  “Well, I suppose. But what I wanted isn't important.” Charlotte's voice takes on a gr
avity I haven't heard her use with me for a million years. “What's wrong?”

  “Wrong?” I echo. “Nothing's wrong.”

  “Lola.”

  “What? You think something's wrong just because I have a sec to answer a call from you?”

  “Mmmm, yes,” Charlotte says, considering.

  And I can see her golden blonde hair gliding against her silk-clad shoulders as she decides she's right.

  “That,” she continues, “and the way your voice sounds.”

  “My voice?”

  “Yes, Lola,” she says. “You sound … slothful.”

  “Slothful?” I parrot the insult back at her, but my ire isn't strong enough to get me to sit up or anything.

  “Oh, maybe that's not the right word,” she says, actually sounding a bit flustered. “You were always so much better with words than I was.”

  What?

  “I think I mean,” she forges ahead, “weary. No, that's not it. Beaten. That's it. You sound beaten, Lola.” But the triumph in her voice at having found the precise vocabulary quickly withers. “Lola?” she asks, and I hear the unfamiliar concern once again.

  “WHAT Mom?”

  “The show. Is everything okay with the show? Your job? As showrunner?”

  Now she cares? Now?

  “The show is fine, Mom. Better than fine. Some reviews came in—”

  “I know. I saw them. Congratulations. And your job? Wendy? Is everything all right?”

  Good Lord, she's starting to sound like she did that day in the principal's office, the day she was giving the school staff hell because I was getting bullied on the school bus. “My job is fantastic, mom. The studio thinks I'm God's gift and Wendy is turning into a real dream to work with.”

  “Oh.” She sounds a little disappointed to have to re-sheath her fiery sword of maternal justice, old and rusty as it is. “Okay.”

  “So why were you calling in the first place?” I ask.

  “Oh, that,” she says, and I can almost see her swat it away like it's a flitting wasp. “Some stupid shit about Darcy and the house she bought.”