Chapter 2
As it was, Renee had been reduced to repeated trips to the bar for refills of the signature cocktail—the Joshinator—to escape her mom’s tips for socializing.
Deborah could not stop asking Renee: Did she recognize anyone from high school?
Was she planning on dancing? Why didn’t she try being friendly for once?
Renee didn’t want to be friendly. Claudia’s friends were a few years older and they absolutely radiated the heterosexuality and basic Midwestern-ness that Renee had constructed her personality around rejecting.
Plus, by avoiding them, she could avoid explaining that she was twenty-seven years old, had no money and no prospects, and had become a burden to her parents.
“There’s Lola!” Deborah pointed across the room as the entrees were being served. “Go say hi, Ree-Ree!”
Renee did not turn her head. “Mom, you don’t just point at a celebrity .”
“How else am I supposed to tell you where she is? You’re not even looking.”
“I can’t look now. She’ll know we’re talking about her.”
Deborah’s patience for Renee’s etiquette tips was as short as Renee’s for hers. “So what? Lola always did like you. Gosh, she looks pretty.”
Renee sipped her Joshinator. Claudia’s wedding party, including her sister as maid of honor, had been seated during the ceremony, and Renee’s spot at table 14 faced the back of the hall. Renee still hadn’t gotten a good look at Lola. She had to admit, she was a little curious.
Finally, Deborah excused herself to the ladies’, freeing Renee from direct parental supervision. Renee twisted in her chair to search the crowd.
Lola wasn’t hard to find.
She was so petite that she should have been swallowed by the chaos of the wedding guests, but Lola drew the light to herself as she floated around the hall. Her dress skimmed her figure, and wisps of chocolate-brown hair escaped her casually romantic updo.
In one slender, manicured hand, Lola held a flute of champagne that remained precisely two-thirds full.
She never took a sip. It seemed like every few seconds, someone asked for a picture, and she expertly took their phone and snapped the selfie.
Even from this distance, Renee could see that Lola wore the same smile the whole time, whether she was posing or not: a pleasant grin with a crinkle around the eyes.
Renee couldn’t figure out that smile: How could it look so real, but feel so fake? But Lola had always been like that: an ex-pageant kid, hungry for approval. She used to blush when she said the f-word and go fully red-faced when Renee said fuck .
Renee wondered if she still did.
Deborah returned to the table and thrust her phone into Renee’s face. On the screen was a blurry photo. “It’s Claudia and Josh! Don’t they look happy?”
“For now,” Renee said, fiddling with her dessert fork. Deborah frowned. Renee didn’t understand how her mother could be optimistic about anyone’s marriage when her own had dissolved without warning. “What? I’m being realistic.”
Dave glanced up from Deborah’s phone to say, “Don’t worry, Renee. You’ll find someone.”
Renee gaped at him, horrified that he had unearthed such a traditionalist desire in her exceedingly rational comment. Dave had been her mother’s boyfriend for what, four years? He didn’t know anything about her!
“I’m not looking for anyone,” she corrected. “It wouldn’t be fair of me to get involved with anyone here. Once I get my thesis in order, I’m moving back to New York.”
Dave and Deborah exchanged a look laden with doubt. It was one Renee had seen many times in the last year, and it always made her shoulders curl into her chest.
In a feeble attempt at self-defense, Renee added, “The idea that the one for me might be in Fellows, Michigan , is really hetero-centric. Queer people can’t just go into any straight space and meet someone because—”
“Oh, stop it,” Deborah cut her off. “Dave knows that. He’s an ally.”
Renee dug the dessert fork into the tablecloth.
Dave was an ally, and so was Deborah—even if, when Renee came out, she’d been most concerned that being a lesbian would make Renee’s life harder.
It took her years to realize that society was the problem, not her daughter.
Last summer, Deborah and Dave had gone without Renee to cheer on Fellows’s quaint Pride Parade.
“Whatever,” Renee said sullenly, as the wedding DJ grabbed the mic.
“Listen up, party people! The sister of the bride requests that you make your way to the dance floor for a once-in-a-lifetime moment!”
Renee groaned. Kadijah was right: Lola was going to perform.
Excitement swept through the hall as everyone hurried to the dance floor, where a curtain had been strung up.
It pulled back to reveal Lola Gray with her trademark lavender acoustic guitar slung over her shoulder.
She looked radiant onstage, like she would have sparkled even without the lights.
That was Renee’s cue to hit the bar. She did not need to hear an ode to true love right now, and she’d seen enough Lola Gray performances in high school to last a lifetime.
Lola leaned into the mic. “You were probably expecting a toast, but since I’ve written a love song or two, I thought I’d play something instead. Claudia and Josh, this is for you.”
Renee ordered another Joshinator as the drink’s namesake led Claudia onto the dance floor.
Then Lola began to sing.
Renee’s gaze drifted past the newlyweds and back to the stage.
Goose bumps rose on her skin. This wasn’t the Lola she remembered.
That girl had always had an awkward eagerness in front of an audience, and her voice had strained at high notes.
Now, Lola occupied the stage as if it were her domain, as if her nimble fingers on the frets of her guitar were weaving a spell over the room.
Lola’s voice was liquid and rich, like warm honey, and it pooled deep in Renee’s chest. Renee was transfixed.
Lola soared into the song’s bridge, the emotion in her voice like a tide pulling Renee out to sea.
Lola’s eyes were half-closed, lost in the sound.
When she lifted them, Renee could have sworn that Lola was looking right at her.
Renee stared back at the woman onstage.
Who had Lola become?
L OLA ONLY PLAYED three songs, but by the time she closed with a cover of “Stand by Me,” everyone with a date and the physical capacity to report to the dance floor was having the most romantic moment of their lives—Deborah and Dave included.
As Lola left the stage, the DJ transitioned seamlessly to Bruno Mars.
Those poor chumps were never getting back to their seats.
Renee would not be joining them. She leaned against a shadowed wall near the bar, hoping the half-drunk Joshinator in her hand made her look less friendless kid at a middle school dance , and more confident bad bitch .
“Could I please have a sparkling water?” a voice from the bar said.
There was Lola, squeezing a lime into her glass. Alone.
Renee should have said hello. It would have been the polite choice, but it was not the one Renee made.
This was her first close-range opportunity to see Lola since they were eighteen.
Her large, dark eyes peering out from under the sweet curl of her lashes, the golden tone of her skin, her heart-shaped face.
But there was an air of fragility about her too.
The longer Renee looked, the more it seemed that Lola was tired, or a bit sad.
Renee couldn’t square the grown woman before her with the girl who’d gone around clutching a velvet-covered journal of lyrics, who did vocal exercises in the middle school bathroom because she claimed it had perfect acoustics, who had once cried at a sleepover because no one wanted to watch Phantom of the Opera .
When they were young, Lola and Renee had bonded over being weird, creative kids, but once high school started, they lost the thread of what they’d had in common.
Lola doubled down on her dreams of pop stardom, which put her out of step with everyone at Fellows High.
It was cool to be a Billboard chart–topping star once you’d actually done it, but when you were a teenager telling anyone who’d listen that one day you’d top the Billboard charts?
You were weird. Anyway, Renee had been too busy navigating her own whirlpool of existential depression to think about the girl next door, who was as edgy as a Girl Scout.
Was that why she’d never realized how gorgeous Lola was?
Lola covertly slipped some cash into the tip jar that the caterers had set out despite the open bar. Then she said, “Are you going to say hi, Renee, or just lurk in the shadows?”
Renee straightened up. “I’m not lurking , I’m respectfully standing. You and the sparkling water were having a moment. It would have been rude to interrupt.”
Lola came over to Renee and set her shoulder against the same patch of wall where Renee had just been leaning.
“I need a moment to find myself again when I get offstage,” Lola said.
“Still losing yourself in the music,” Renee said.
She’d meant it playfully, but Lola’s expression stilled.
Renee sensed that Lola was on the brink of reverting to the forced, crinkle-eyed smile she’d worn earlier.
Renee didn’t want to see that smile. She suddenly said, “Your voice sounds better than it used to.”
Gratifyingly, Lola didn’t smile at that. Instead, her lips quirked to the side and her brows arched. “Wow, a compliment from Renee Feldman.”
Renee’s cheeks warmed—or maybe that was the cocktail. “Yeah, well. Write that one down in your journal, Lo.”
“Oh, I don’t need to. I’ll remember it forever,” Lola said. “I didn’t expect to see you here.”
Renee shrugged. “We get so few chances to dance the Electric Slide in this short life, and I intend to take each one.”
“You’re in luck. Josh’s family are major Electric Slide people. They do the ties on their heads and everything.”
“If only I’d worn a suit,” Renee said.
Lola’s lashes dipped as her eyes ran down Renee’s body. “But I like what you have on.”
There was something about how Lola said it, her voice dropping a little low, that made Renee’s skin prickle.
Platonic compliments women gave each other usually came in higher-pitched, friendly tones.
If it had been anyone else—anyone queer —Renee would have said this was flirting.
But this was Lola . It must have been a failed attempt at sarcasm.
Where most people had a sense of humor, Lola had a deeply unhealthy work ethic.
None of that explained why heat was blooming through Renee’s chest.
Maybe it was an excess of Joshinators, but suddenly Renee felt they could have been in the shadowy corner of a bar, or a house party—someplace actually fun.
Someplace she’d actually flirt.
Not that she’d ever flirt with Lola , who had glossed over that comment like it had never happened.
“I’d heard you moved to New York. Film school, right? I’m surprised you came back for this.”
Renee tossed back the rest of her drink, nonchalant. “I was here already. I’m taking some time off to get my inspiration back before I start my thesis. You know, refill the creative well.”
Lola’s lips parted in mock outrage, her eyes sparkling up at Renee. “Did you just say ‘refill the creative well’? Fifteen-year-old Renee would be rolling her eyes so hard right now.”
“It’s an expression!” Renee protested, but she was laughing.
She laid her hand on Lola’s shoulder. She hadn’t meant to do it, not exactly.
Just like she hadn’t meant to notice how soft Lola’s skin was, or to use that touch as a reason to step in closer, before letting her palm skim Lola’s arm as it fell.
“But really, that sounds nice. I wish I could take a break for a few weeks.” Lola sighed.
Renee didn’t correct Lola that her break had lasted a year. “What would fifteen-year-old Lola say to that? Don’t tell me you finally learned how to relax.”
“Of course I know how to relax. I’m at a party right now.”
“And you’ve had what, one glass of champagne all night?”
Lola’s eyes widened, the golden-brown irises edged by a darker ring. “Have you been watching me, Renee?”
“Everyone’s been watching you,” Renee answered softly.
“Which is why I don’t drink with this many people around. I can’t do anything too—” Lola made a face, bugging her eyes out. It was shockingly charming.
“If you could, what kind of”—Renee pulled the same buggy-eyed face—“thing would you do?”
Renee must have imagined it. The Joshinators had caused a break with reality. Because it looked like Lola had lowered her lashes, then gently bit her lip.
“I have a bottle of champagne in my room, for later,” Lola said. “But what sounds really good right now is getting into bed.”
Renee’s mouth was suddenly dry. She felt herself moving closer to Lola, leaning in as though magnetized. “That sounds good to me too.”
“Lola, you better not be on your phone!” Claudia said, running up to them.
Lola spun away from Renee. “I was catching up with Renee. You didn’t tell me she’d be here!”
Renee congratulated Claudia, then fended off demands that she follow them to the dance floor. Her eyes kept shifting to Lola, but she was wearing that smile again, the one Renee couldn’t tell was genuine or not.
Renee wandered back to her table, shaking her head. Had Lola been flirting with her—and had she flirted back? The very thought was cursed. This was Lola Gray , not some hot femme at a queer bar in Brooklyn. Lola was an international pop star. By comparison, Renee was a fingerling potato.
And on top of that, Renee was a woman .
Did Lola like women? Not as far as Renee knew—and as shallow as her pop culture knowledge was, Renee would have heard if the reigning Princess of Pop had come out.
The idea that Lola was secretly queer was ridiculous.
But until a few minutes ago, it had felt ridiculous to imagine Lola undressing her with her eyes, and Joshinators be damned, Renee was pretty sure that had happened.
Almost as ridiculous as the fact that Renee, who prided herself on never having listened to a Lola Gray album, had been ready to melt for her.