Page 102 of Suddenly Dating
“Who?” Birta asked, noticing Melissa.
“Your assistant,” Melissa said.
“I don’t know how you’ve missed her. She’s there,” Birta said, and nodded to a point behind Melissa and Harry. “Heavens, will youlook,” she said disapprovingly.
Melissa looked in the direction Birta had indicated. “Oh,” she said.
Harry couldn’t see around Melissa, so he stood. There was a commotion across the lawn where three people were happily following a fourth, who was teaching them what looked like some sort of hip-hop dance. Those people included Mallory and Lola. Harry moved a step or two away from the picnic table to have a better view, and he smiled as he watched them. God, they were awful. But they were laughing, holding onto each other, and dissolving into fits of laughter when Lola accidentally kicked Mallory.
“Oh, wow... she’s making a spectacle of herself,” Melissa said.
Lola and Mallory grabbed each other’s arms and pulled themselves out of the dancing queue. That was when Mallory happened to see Harry and waved. Harry waved back.
“Didn’t I tell you?” Birta said. “You ought to read the book. What an unmitigated disaster! The structure is all wrong and the prose is so overwrought. I was absolutelyshockedwhen Cyrus said it wasn’t bad. I had to point out to him just how bad it was.”
“Harry, can you give me a hand?”
Harry glanced back; Cyrus had returned to the table juggling drinks in his hands. Harry took some from Cyrus’s hands and set them down on the picnic table before the ladies.
“What did you point out to me?” Cyrus asked.
“My assistant’s book!” Birta said. “It wasawful.Just a train wreck.”
Cyrus shrugged. “It could use some work, as all books can. Still, I liked the premise.”
Birta laughed incredulously. “You like a book about a psychopath who murders the men who reject her? And with all that alleged humor so tragically woven in?” she added, fluttering her fingers.
“I said it could use some work,” Cyrus repeated. “But I see promise.”
“I think it would be a publicity nightmare,” Melissa offered. “How would you promote a book like that?”
“Oh!” Birta said suddenly, and reached across the table to grab Melissa’s hand. “Remember the passage I read you where she changes her clothes at least three times, uncertain what to wear when she stabs her boyfriend, and she’s thinking all those ridiculous things—”
“Like if blood would be better disguised by the dark red mini, or the long black halter?” Melissa eagerly added.
“And then she fusses with the shoes!” Birta crowed, and she and Melissa laughed.
Harry stared in disbelief at the two women. They had amused themselves with Lola’s book? It soured him. They might not like the book, but at least Lola had tried. She damn sure didn’t deserve their ridicule. “I don’t find anything funny about a person striving toward her goal. I thought the book was clever,” Harry said.
“But the dialogue, Harry! It was theworst,” said Birta. “So stilted!”
“I’m sorry you didn’t like it.”
Birta blanched at the sound of Lola’s voice; they all jerked around, none of them having noticed that she’d walked up to the picnic table.
Lola looked stunned. Andpissed.
“I think it has promise, Lola,” Cyrus said. “My offer still stands.”
Lola flashed a thin smile at him. “Thank you. I can never express how much I appreciate it. I hope that doesn’t sound stilted,” she said, and shifted her attention to Birta. “Please. Go on,” she said. “I don’t want to interrupt your discussion of my horrible writing. Which would be the same writing you praised to my face, by the way.”
Birta groaned. She stretched her arm out across the picnic table, as if reaching for Lola. “All right, darling, I did tell you I liked it. But I was trying to be encouraging.”
Lola was shaking. One hand fisted at her side, and Harry had the impression she was working to keep from punching Birta in the mouth. “It was truly a pleasure getting to meet one of my favorite authors,” she said. “But now I really wish I hadn’t. I liked the idea of you better than the real you.” She whirled around and strode away.
Melissa snorted and said, “Wellthatwas awkward.”
Harry glowered at Birta, not bothering to conceal his contempt. “What gives you the right to destroy someone’s dream?”
