Page 57 of Suddenly Dating
“You do?”
“Well... the breaking up was done to me,” Lola said. “But yeah... every party, every cocktail hour, every dinner with friends, I was reminded of him and how much I missed him. Sometimes, I still am.”
“Exactly,” Melissa said.
“Why’d you break up?” Lola asked curiously.
“I don’t really even know anymore. We wanted different things. Classic story of it’s not you, it’s me,” she said, in a mockingly high voice. She rolled her eyes. “Can you believe I actually said that? But lately I’ve been thinking it really was all me. He was a great guy. Really great,” she said with a wince of sadness. “And I was impatient.” Melissa shook her head. “God, look at me, the proverbial wet blanket.”
“No you’re not,” Lola said, laughing.
“I am! I’m awful.” She smiled again, and Lola thought she was really pretty when she smiled. Maybelline pretty.
“I love your dress,” Melissa said. “Where’d you get it?”
“This? A little dress shop in Black Springs.”
“Do you ever get to the city? Because there is this great shop on Lex, in the fifties, I forget which... but they have designer clothes for more than half off.”
“Really?” Lola asked. Not that she could afford designer clothes even at more than fifty percent off. But she wouldn’t mind having a look.
Melissa told her about the shop, and had moved onto shoes when a man walked up to them. “There you are,” he said, and smiled at the two of them.
“Oh. Hi, Andy,” Melissa said. “This is Lola.”
“Hi, Lola.” He looked at Melissa. “Ready to get out of here? I need to get back to the city.”
“Sure,” Melissa said. She stood up and smiled at Lola. “Really great talking to you, Lola.”
“You, too, Melissa.”
“Too bad you’re not in the city,” Melissa said. “We could check out that dress shop.”
“Rain check,” Lola said, pointing at her, then waved as Melissa walked away with Andy in super-high heels and a super-short dress. When they had disappeared into the crowd, Lola noticed the line at the bar had eased somewhat. Time for that martini.
Sixteen
Albert Cantrell was not where Mallory had left him, which was with her mother on a terrace at the back of the house. As Harry stood by awkwardly, the two women argued about when, exactly, Mr.Cantrell had wandered off to look at a friend’s boat. In the course of the argument, Mrs.Cantrell glared up at Harry and said, “Will you please sit. I don’t like people towering over me.”
Startled, Harry sat in the chair next to her.
Lillian Cantrell was the opposite of her daughter—tiny and perfectly put together. Her face had been surgically enhanced, so she looked much younger than she could possibly be. Harry guessed she had to be around sixty.
Mrs.Cantrell held out her hand with an empty glass in it; a waiter appeared from nowhere to take it as Mallory and her mother argued. Harry sat, caught like a bunny rabbit in this dysfunctional family trap.
Just as the waiter returned with the drink, Mallory huffed away, incensed by something her mother had said, leaving Harry there. “Well,” he said. “I should—”
“Stay right there,” Mrs.Cantrell commanded, then paused to sip her drink. “Too sweet,” she said, and held it out to the waiter.
It was forty-five minutes before Harry could extract himself from Mrs.Cantrell, who was determined to relate her recent experience at bridge club, at which Debra Pressley had condescended to the entire group by explaining how to play.Towomen who had been playing for forty years.Mrs.Cantrell had emphasized that more than once. Harry was desperately trying to think of a polite way out of this, but fortunately, the little dog beside her was apparently real, because it suddenly leapt up, barking and racing for something in the woods, and in the course of doing so, knocked Mrs.Cantrell’s glass from the arm of her throne, which resulted in a flurry of activity that gave him the means of escape.
He headed down the decks two steps at a time, looking for Lola and a drink, but not finding her anywhere in the crowd. He must have wandered around for another quarter of an hour before he spotted a flash of green and silky strawberry blonde hair on the dock. She was dancing with the man Harry had met in his pool. Roland? Nolan? They were holding each other loosely, sort of swaying this way and that. Lola’s shoes had come off, and she was still slightly taller than her partner.
Harry strolled along the edge of the dock, stepping over her shoes, and pausing only a few feet from her. Her dance partner was laughing, and suddenly twirled her around so that Lola spotted him.
“Oh, hey,” she said. She tapped her partner on the shoulder.
“What?” he said, and looked in the direction Lola was looking. Nolan’s gaze did a quick up and down over Harry’s body, and he smiled.
