Page 51 of Suddenly Dating
Lola tried to ignore the little niggle of guilt—she’d already accused him of that. “Could you maybe tone down the sweeping generalizations? What do you know, anyway? You haven’t been in a relationship since Jonah,” Lola reminded her. That was another of Casey’s boyfriends who had turned out to be bad news. Casey was definitely attracted to the bad boys of Brooklyn.
“Yeah, but I date, Lola. Alot.And you don’t. And your one time up at bat was a foul tip or whatever.”
“Your metaphor doesn’t make sense.”
“I’m just saying, have fun, but be careful.”
Lola sighed skyward. “Okay, all right already. How’s Mom?”
“The same,” Casey said without emotion. “Kvetching about this and that. Why no one comes to see her. How everyone has forgotten her. Her kids don’t care if she lives or dies. You know, the usual.”
“I need to go see her—”
“No you don’t,” Casey said firmly. “I had a huge fight with Ben about it, but we agree—we’ve got it covered. You deserve this, Lola. Go get you some of that thirty-four-year-old man meat and forget about Mom for once.”
“You are horrible,” Lola said. But she was laughing.
“You can thank me later. Okay, I gotta jet. Have fun tonight!” she said, and clicked off.
Lola paddled lazily with her feet back to the edge of the pool and tossed her phone onto a beach towel.
She wished she could take Casey’s advice and forget about Mom for a change, but Lola did worry about her mother. She’d been worrying about her since she was five or six years old. Her mother lived in a state-run house for the infirm out on Long Island. She had a chronic and debilitating lung condition that kept her from working or caring for herself, the result of years of substance abuse. The same substance abuse that had kept them in that rundown, two-bedroom apartment. How her mother had managed to hang on to it at all without a job was something of a mystery to Lola now. She’d never worked that Lola could remember, and what money she did come by was split between feeding her kids and whatever drug she was abusing at that point.
Even at six years old, when her father was still stumbling home at the end of the day, exhausted from his work in the shipyards, Lola was taking care of Ben and Casey. Then Ty and Kennedy had come along, and their father had died, and Lola had become the de facto head of their tragic little family while her mother had coughed and moaned and slammed the door of the back bedroom. Lola had kept it together, had made sure her sisters and brothers were fed and that they got up for school. When social workers came around, which they would from time to time when a neighbor complained, Lola smiled and said,Mom just ran out to the store. Or,Mom’s at work.Or,Mom’s asleep. We’re just watching TV.
Was her mother grateful that Lola had stepped in to take care of her siblings, even before she knew what she was doing? Not for a moment. Lola’s mother was the sort of person who felt as if the world had turned on her. Her sorry life, her many children, her horrible disease of addiction—all of it someone else’s fault. And still, Lola went every week to visit her mother and listen to her litany of complaints—most of which seemed to center on her children, all of whom, in her mother’s estimation, had it “better” than her.
It was impossibly hard to go, and yet, Lola kept going. The woman had no one in the world but her children, and if Lola didn’t go, who else would look after that bitter old woman? In the back of her mind, Lola had the idea that if she actually managed to sell her book, she could perhaps move her mother to a better place. Maybe her mother would perk up a little if she was in a nicer place with a private room.
Well, never mind that—Lola had been given a reprieve by her siblings for a few months, and right now, she had a party to go to. A very important party that could get dicey very fast if they weren’t careful.
It was half past seven, and Lola was putting the finishing touches on her hair for the evening. She’d seen no sign of Handsome Harry all afternoon, but apparently, he’d roused himself, because he was knocking on her bedroom door. “What?” she shouted.
“What is taking you so long?” he shouted back. “It’s time to go!”
“I’m coming!” She did one last twirl before the mirror and then walked to the door, adjusting the bodice of her dress as she opened it. “Hold your horses, pal. It takes a lot of work to—” Lola’s words trailed off, because Hardhat Harry looked like a GQ model. He was wearing a dark blue suit that was formfitting...formfitting... and a creamy white shirt open at the collar. He’d brushed his hair back behind his ears and he’d shaved. Lola couldn’t help but stare, so astonished was she by the transformation.
He waited for her to finish her sentence. When she didn’t, he cocked his head to one side. “Are you checking me out?”
“Yes,”she admitted, still slightly dumbfounded.
Harry slipped his thumb under her chin and pushed it up to meet her upper jaw. “What, were you expecting a hard hat?”
“Yes! I meanno,of course not. Okay, maybe I was a little. I sure wasn’t expectingthis,” she said, gesturing to the full length of him. “I mean... this is completely surprising.”
Harry chuckled. “I’m not sure how to take your utter surprise. But I guess you approve. And by the way, you look fantastic, Lola.”
“What?” She glanced down, then smiled at him. “Are you buttering me up?”
“You’re my date, aren’t you?” He grinned, put his hand on her shoulder, and dipped down to look her directly in the eye. “Are you as ready as I am to get this over with?”
She wouldn’t have put it precisely like that, but she said,“Yes,”as if this party ranked right up there with trips to the dentist.
The funny thing was, she suddenly wasn’t worried about how dicey the party could get if they weren’t careful. She was suddenly looking forward to it.
Fifteen
Mallory was right—there was only one house on Hackberry Road, and it was the biggest house Lola had ever seen.
