Page 37 of Suddenly Dating
Harry followed her out. Lola set fire to the charcoal and they took up residence in two Adirondack chairs and shared a footstool as they waited for the coals to get hot. Neither one spoke for a few moments as they gazed out at the deepening shadows. Harry was thinking about food. Just the smell of the charcoal in the grill was making him ravenous. But he wouldn’t ask when he’d be fed like some impatient clod.
He tried to take his mind off his stomach. He squinted at the lake and a pair of paddleboarders coming back to shore and asked, “Where are you from, Lola?”
“Brooklyn. What about you?”
“Manhattan.” He eyed his glass before sipping.
“Upper East Side,” she said matter-of-factly.
She said it as if she knew him, and he glanced curiously at her. “How did you know?”
“Easy. You have that look.”
“Thatlook?”
“You know, a little preppy, a little rich.”
“That’s ridiculous,” he scoffed. “I don’t look preppy or rich. I wear hard hats and steel-toed work boots. I don’t even have a look.”
“Maybe it was the Cornell T-shirt,” she said. “I saw it in the laundry. No one in my neighborhood is trying to start a bridge company or wears a Cornell T-shirt. That’s really curious to me, by the way.”
“That I went to Cornell?” he asked, laughing a little self-consciously.
“No, the wanting to start a bridge construction company. Why not the rest of the road? Why single the bridge out for special treatment?”
He grinned. “Because I like bridges. I like designing them and figuring out how to build them. After working several years in a big civil engineering firm, I discovered that I’m pretty darn good at bridges. So I decided to go for it.”
“Cheers!” she said, holding out her wine glass to him.
Harry touched his to hers. “And what about you, Superwoman? When did you decide you wanted to be a writer?”
“Oh, I...” She waved her hand and looked out over the lake. “Always. But I never thought I could. That always seemed like one of those jobs you either fall into, or you’re born to do, you know? It’s not like you can get a creative writing degree and just hang your shingle, right? Not if you want to eat, anyway. My family was really poor, so I went to community college and became a paralegal before I decided to commit to writing.” She smiled sheepishly. “That’s what my sister Kennedy calls it—committing to a vision. You would not have guessed from that phone call, but she’s actually studying psychology. Which she is very good at applying to all of us, but never to herself.”
“Small world,” Harry said. “My sister is a resident psychiatrist at Mount Sinai.”
“No way!” Lola said with delight.
“So you were a paralegal with dreams of becoming a writer.”
“Not exactly. I always wanted to write, and I wanted to study creative writing. But Casey and Ty and Ben were all bound for college on scholarships, and there wasn’t enough money to cover all the expenses. And Kennedy would need money for school... so I bowed out.”
She had given up pursuing writing so her siblings could go to college? “Could you have borrowed the money?”
“Oh yeah,” she said. “I almost did. But do you know how much it costs to get a degree these days? I would have been paying it back for the rest of my life.”
“What about your parents?”
“My parents?” She glanced away. “My dad died when I was young, and my mother is... she’s not well. Oh, geez, I have to get the steaks on.” She popped up and hurried back inside before he could ask her more about it.
It was an interesting difference in life, he thought idly. There had never been any question that he would go to college, and to a good one. The point of friction between him and his parents had been his field of study and the fact that he’d not wanted to pursue graduate degrees like his sister.
Lola returned a few minutes later with two thick slabs of steak on a plate and put them on the grill. They chatted about the weather until the steaks were ready, and then went inside. Lola pulled out a salad from the fridge, potatoes from the oven. She took off her apron, pulled her hair down from a hair tie and shook it out with her fingers. “Please sit,” she said as she found the wine bottle and placed it on the table.
The meal was delicious—the steaks were grilled to perfection and the mushroom sauce reminded Harry of the meals he’d had in five-star restaurants with his family. Lola was animated during the meal, asking how one went about starting a bridge construction company. He told her bits and pieces, how he’d had some setbacks—skimming over how far in the hole he actually was—and that the need for heavy equipment and operating costs had led him to sell his apartment. He told her about the toll road and how he hoped he could get the bridges on that project.
“And then what?” she asked.
“Then, bid on the next job. And the next.” He had polished off his steak and was feeling completely renewed. “Like you, right? You finish your book, then start another one, right?”
