Death By Chick Lit by Lynn Harris Read Free Book Online Page B

insane to take this on.
    “I know,” said Quentin. “Not officially. But come on. The whole thing at Ovum, those articles you’ve written—you’ve busted your share of bad guys.” He accepted some more Pellegrino. “And I’d just—I’d feel so much better if I knew you were looking into it. You just have such a good sense of, I don’t know, people. Their motives. I feel like you can really get inside people’s heads.”
    Oh, man. He’s really not letting up. “Quentin,” Lola pulled her hair back into ponytail position and then let it drop. “You and I dated for like ten minutes. We e-mail every three months. All you really know about me is that I’m not scared of dead mice, I’m bad with the names of rivers in Eastern Europe and I fit under your bed. Where are you drawing all these conclusions?”
    “I can just tell,” Quentin said. “You know, from all the characters you developed so brilliantly in your book.”
    He read my book?
    He used the word brilliant ?
    Lola caught herself. No, Quentin, no! she thought. Stop flattering me! If you continue, I may actually say yes! Quit it!
    “Speaking of which,” said Quentin, “I don’t know, maybe if you find the guy first, you can write a book about it.”
    Hold on. Lola’s mouth twitched, threatening to smile. Quentin Frye was no Jodie Foster. But he was, in effect, calling her with a book idea.
    Lola looked down at the floor, then up at the ceiling. Her guilt and her ego did a high five. “Okay, Quentin,” said Lola. “I’ll see what I can do.”
     
 
When Quentin’s twin sister, Penny, arrived, Lola got ready to leave. Blond, with wire-framed glasses and maroon Dansko clogs, Penny was still in her white coat from work. Since when did we all get old enough to be doctors? Lola thought.
    “Say, Lola, can I ask your advice sometime?” asked Penny.
    “Sure,” said Lola. “Intubate.”
    Penny laughed. “No, about writing. I’m working on a book proposal.”
    Who the hell isn’t?
    “Of course,” said Lola. “Anytime.”
    Much as she felt surrounded, oppressed, by people with book ideas, Lola felt safe in the knowledge that Penny would never finish her proposal, much less publish the book. That was how the universe maintained literary equilibrium: everyone thought they had a book in them, but few realized what it took to get one down on paper. She looked back into the apartment. “Quentin, are you going to be okay?”
    “Eventually,” he said. “And Lola, thanks for everything.” Lola hailed a cab. She rested a hand on her chin and watched Second Avenue’s trattorias and nail salons go by. Where was that muffin place? They had a solid apple-ginger, if she remembered correctly. Right around here, no? Yes, that kiosk definitely looked famliar. It was right—nope. The muffin place was now a cell phone store.
     
 
“Annabel? We’re old.”
    “Not too old to be blabbing on the phone in the middle of the night,” said Annabel.
    “Right! That’s exactly my point,” said Lola. She was now lying down, seat beltless, on the backseat of the cab. If an accident didn’t kill her, her mother would. “We are old, but we don’t act it. I didn’t pack away Giraffe until my wedding night, for God’s sake.” Giraffe had been Lola’s stuffed companion since childhood.
    “You made air holes in the box, right?” asked Annabel.
    “Yes, and I also put in some leaves,” said Lola. “But I mean, pretty much all my high school and college friends are, you know, grown-ups. Remember that party we went to when you came home with me at Christmas?”
    “Yeah, at what’s-her-name’s,” said Annabel. “Their place was so grown-up I totally thought they were house-sitting.”
    “Right? They had those little brass lamps over their art.”
    “They had a fucking den .”
    Lola and Annabel paused, letting the full weight of that memory—and that word—sink in.
    “Part of that is having money,” said Lola. “But God, people our age are