Page 110 of Suddenly Dating
Zach stood there with his legs braced apart and his arms folded over his chest.
“How did she leave? Did someone pick her up?”
Zach gaped at him. “Do I getanyexplanation for how you shit all over me? I don’t know how she left, man! I kicked her out and I didn’t take notes.”
Harry couldn’t say what came over him. Maybe it was because he’d realized that what he wanted from this life, above all else, was Lola Dunne. Whatever it was, he was moving before he realized it, flying over the back of the couch, grabbing for Zach.
“Get off me!” Zach shouted when Harry grabbed his lapels. “I had to hear about this from fucking Dobbs Harvey, Harry! He’s on Sara’s side, you dipshit! You’ve made a huge mess here.Huge!”
“Then talk to Sara!” Harry shouted, shoving Zach backward. “She gave this house to Lola. Not me.”
“Yeah, well, looks like you’ve cozied up with Sara’s side, too.”
Harry rolled his eyes and pushed past Zach. He walked back to his room and began to stuff his belongings into a duffel, his papers and computer into a briefcase.
Zach followed him. “What are you doing?” he asked. “Come on, man, you don’t have to go. You have to help me figure out how to spin this.”
“I have to find Lola,” Harry said tightly.
Zach grabbed his shoulder and tried to force him around, but Harry shoved him off.
“Jesus!” Zach said. “What is the matter with you?”
Harry pushed past Zach with as many of his things as he could carry and walked out. He threw them in the back of the truck, then rubbed his face, thinking. How would he find her?
Twenty-nine
Lola’s neck hurt. She’d been sleeping on Casey’s futon for the last three nights trying to figure out what she was going to do next. So far, no solutions had come to her. She leaned her head against the subway train’s grimy window and closed her eyes.What an awful week it had been.
The first thing Lola had had to do after Zach kicked her out was to explain to Mallory what had happened. Mallory’s driver, who apparently never had anything to do, was suddenly in high demand that afternoon and had explained to Mallory when she called for him that he was helping Lola move.
“Move?”Lola had heard her shout over the phone. “Come and get me before you take her anywhere!”
On the way to the train station, Lola had told Mallory the truth. “I lied,” she said. “I don’t really know Zach Miller. I know Sara Miller.”
“What?”Mallory shouted. “Tell me everything and don’t leave out a single detail.”
Lola told Mallory the story of how she’d come to be in the lake house on their way to the train station. Mallory kept gasping and saying things like“Get out!”
When Lola had finished her story, Mallory had looked confused. “But... what about Harry?”
That was the million-dollar question, wasn’t it?
Lola had been on the train to Brooklyn when she’d realized she’d left her phone at the lake house. Worse, she couldn’t remember Harry’s number. If it was possible for her day to get any blacker, it did in that moment.
The next person Lola had had to explain her situation to was Casey, who came stomping out of her apartment building to help Lola gather her things from the cab she’d taken from Grand Central. “I don’t understand!” Casey said. “You were putting yourself out there!” She said it as if mystified by how someone could put themselves “out there” and not succeed. “You have to call Harry, you know. You can’t leave that twisting in the wind.”
“I forgot my phone. It’s in Zach’s house,” Lola had said morosely.
“Oh myGod, it’s like you intentionally sabotage yourself!” Casey had shouted angrily.
Casey was right too damn much of the time.
Lola knew where Harry’s parents lived—that much she remembered. But in between her mother’s hospitalization and that nagging idea that she knew Harry had intended to meet Melissa that day, she hadn’t yet gone uptown to knock on that door. Why was he going to meet Melissa?
In the gritty part of Long Island where Lola’s mother lived, Lola got off the train and walked the four blocks to the home, where her mother had been moved just this morning.
Lola could hear her mother ranting about something as she walked down the hall to her room. “Mom?” She poked her head into the room her mother shared with poor Mrs.Porelli.
