Page 86 of Suddenly Dating
Birta apparently had a pair of elephant ears on her; she’d been at least ten feet away.
“Birta, thank you for a lovely evening,” Harry said smoothly. “But Lola and I both have to work tomorrow.”
“We hardly had a moment!” Birta said, pouting like a child.
Lola thought she’d had plenty of moments with Harry. She’d monopolized him for half the evening, so that even Melissa couldn’t steal him away.
“I wish you’d stay for a nightcap,” Birta said.
“Thank you, but no,” Harry said.
“When would you like me to start?” Lola asked Birta before she could beg Harry again.
“What? Oh yes. Come Tuesday, darling. I’ll be too exhausted to think tomorrow,” she said, as if she’d cooked the meal and waited on her guests, instead of hiring others to do that for her.
Lola said she would, then went to find Mallory. She left Birta with her hand on Harry’s arm, shifting closer. Jesus, was there a woman in the northeast who didn’t want into the man’s pants?
In the meantime, a wobbly Mallory had trapped one of the waiters with some tale that involved a lot of hand gestures. “Come on, Mallory, it’s time to go,” Lola said, and smiled at the waiter. Or rather, his fleeing back. He made a run for it as soon as Lola showed up.
“Lola?” Mallory said, throwing her arm around her shoulders. “I have beenwaaaayoverserved.”
“That is an understatement,” Lola muttered and managed to get Mallory moving in the direction of the door.
Harry joined Lola to help, putting his arm around Mallory’s back, propping her up against him and telling her to use her feet.
“Feet,” Mallory said, and laughed. “Where are they?”
They managed to navigate the walk to the drive with Mallory between them, then poured her into the backseat of Harry’s truck when the valet brought it around. As they started toward Juneberry Road, Mallory had rolled onto her side in the back seat. “I’m theworst,” she moaned. “I drankso much.”
“You seemed kind of down tonight,” Lola said. “Is something wrong?”
“No!” Mallory moaned. “I’m just a drunk.”
“No you’re not,” Lola said, exasperated.
Harry put his hand on her knee and rubbed it. “Save your breath. You can’t argue with anyone that drunk.”
He was right—Lola knew that firsthand from her childhood. Best to hide under the bed and wait for it to pass. She sagged into the passenger seat. “I hate to see her like this. Whatever is going on with her, tying one on is not going to help.”
Harry looked in the rearview mirror. “Is she alive?”
“For the moment,” Lola said. She stared out the window at the road the headlights illuminated. She was dying to ask Harry all the obvious questions—what did Melissa say, did he know she was coming, how did hefeel—but she forced herself to keep quiet.
“Lola?” he said softly. “I need to talk to you.”
This was it. He’d tell her that he and Melissa were talking. The one thing Lola had feared going into this casual relationship was rejection, and she was quick to head it off at the pass. “Please, not here,” she said low. It was one thing to hear him say that the love of his life had come back, trotting into a party when he had least expected her. It was another thing entirely for Mallory to hear it, too, no matter how drunk she was.
Harry didn’t say anything. Not a single word. He didn’t disagree, he didn’t agree.
“You don’t want to talk about Birta, right?” Mallory blurted from the back seat. “That’s why I am somad,Lola! Why Birta? Why not me? Albert is so upset about the candy shop.”
Was one crisis not enough for the evening? Did Mallory have to have one, too? “What are you talking about, Mallory?” Lola asked irritably. “Is your dad mad because you didn’t open the shop Wednesday?”
“No!” she said, and surged in between the seats, so that her head was between Harry and Lola. “Sort of! No, no, it’s more than that. The books arehorrible,” she said with a little hiccupped sob.
“What books?”
“Mybooks,” Mallory said, and tried to tap herself on the chest, but missed, and fell forward a little more before righting herself.
