Page 24 of Hotter in the Hamptons

He shook his head. “To get my grandmother’s ring.”

Her mouth hung open. “Herring?” she repeated. “Her engagement ring?”

This was not how she imagined a proposal would go.

“I’m tired of our life here,” he said. “You know I am. On nights I’m off work, it’s all I can do to make dinner and collapse in bed. I’m ready for something new. Something quieter.”

She was silent for a long time. She thought about all the signs she’d missed—how burned out he was. How he wanted to stay home with her while she yearned for wild nights. How had she not noticed this growing schism between them?

Was it possible she loved New York City more than she loved him?

No, that wasn’t it. She could love them both. She could speed around on her bike and go to glamorous events and still want to come home to him. But marriage? Was it that she just wasn’t ready to settle down or that she would never want to? That she just wasn’t the type?

“I don’t want to leave New York,” she whispered.

He stared at her, confused, and then he furrowed his brow. Helooked furious. “Why not?” he demanded.

“It was alwaysyourplan to leave,” she said. “Not mine.”

“You should have told me if it wasn’t what you wanted. All this time, Lola! All this time, I thought we were on the same page about our future.”

“I just don’t think my time here is over. There’s so much I want to do. And I don’t think we should get engaged just because you’re mad about what some journalist wrote.”

“You know that’s not the reason.”

She sighed. “I’m sorry. I’m just really in my own head right now.”

“In your own head?” he repeated. “Lola, you areneverin your own head. You are so in your body that you’ve stopped thinking. All you do is eat expensive food and wear beautiful clothes and feel the sun on your skin and have afternoon sex and go to the spa. You haven’t intellectualized one damn thing.”

She felt her skin flush, nails digging into her palms.“What?”

“I’m sorry,” he said, backpedaling. “That was way more harsh than I meant it to be. But Aly Ray Carterwasright about a few things. You’ve been doing what brands wanted for so long that you don’t even know what you want anymore. When I met you, you dreamed of being a fashion designer. Where did that girl go? I never thought you’d want to be an influencer forever. You’ve lost yourself, Lola. And now I’m giving you a chance to find yourself, and you don’t even want to take it?”

She shook her head in disbelief. “Are you trying to neg me into marrying you?”

He threw his hands up in the air. “I’m just trying to be honest with you. I know you’re not happy. This isn’t living, what we’re doing here. It’s an empty existence. You’ve always known I wanted to go back toLA eventually. I told you the night we reconnected.”

The worst part of all this was that he wasn’t off base.

Loladidfeel empty. Shedidfeel as though she’d lost herself in a sea of sponsored content and brand partnerships. But was the answer to her problems abandoning her life and becoming Justin’s housewife? Popping out a few babies and vanishing into wealth and obscurity? How would that befinding herself?

It wouldn’t be a terrible way to live, she knew. The WeHo house, which Justin’s parents currently used for rental income they didn’t need, was a mid-century modern stunner. And itwouldbe nice to be close to both of their families.

Maybe she could delete all her social media and live completely off the grid, just a regular civilian, not ruled by the algorithm. Hell, maybe she could even throw her cell phone away and get a landline, something cute and aesthetic, like a pink rotary phone with a curly cord that she could wrap around her wrist while she talked to her mom and wandered around the first floor.

She could start wearing beige linen sack dresses and get really good at braid crowns, learn to grow herbs in their abundant garden and make hummus from scratch and maybe eventually put out a cookbook with a photo of the two of them laughing over salad on the cover. It would be calledLola Likes Greens, if the Lola Likes brand wasn’t totally dead by then. Maybe Alison Roman could develop the recipes with her. Or maybe she could resist monetizing her new gardening hobby and just be happy to do it, not try to turn it into a publicity opportunity.

And then what?

She imagined having two or three daughters—scheduled C-sections, most likely—and then having to navigate their doctors’ appointments and school schedules, their sports practices and musiclessons and math tutors, their playdates and the other moms. God, those other moms, with their Land Rovers and their spray tans and the jewelry they’d wear to compete with each other at morning drop-off.

As if Lola would be able to wake up early enough to make morning drop-off.

And where would Justin be during all that? Seeing patients? Doing something that mattered while she still didn’t have a purpose?

Her heart was pounding wildly. She had broken out into a cold sweat. She tried to breathe normally, but it was getting harder and harder.

She slipped deeper into her spiral, wondering, what would she even do with herself when the kids were at school. Mend their clothes? Start drinking orange wine with two ice cubes every day at 3:00 p.m. in a big straw hat, staring at the hills?

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