Chapter Nineteen #2
The afternoon air was warm and fragrant with nectar.
The only sounds were birdsong and the buzz of drowsy bumblebees floating around the flowering plants, which grew higgledy-piggledy by the three back fences.
Lola imagined Jazz tossing handfuls of seeds unperturbed by when and how they bloomed, but bloom they had.
Decadent peonies, floofy as a wedding dress.
Yellow-striped snapdragons and burnt orange dahlias, monarch butterflies fluttering between them.
Hardy purple lavender swayed next to vivid blue delphiniums. Behind the plants, climbing wild roses in various shades of pink and red claimed the fences.
Jazz’s untamed garden was a rainbow of flowers.
Annie sat in one of two red Adirondack chairs beneath an enormous oak tree. She was gazing up at the cloudless sky, so blue it was almost purple, twirling a clover between her thumb and forefinger.
Lola threaded through the grass, the earth soft under her bare feet. “Postmates delivery,” she announced, placing the tray on a little side table between the two sloping chairs.
“Holy mac.” Annie sat up, her gaze roving around the tray, then up to Lola. “Have I told you I like eating my feelings or is that just my vibe?”
Lola laughed and took a seat. “Apple cake.” She pointed to the two fat, sticky wedges of it. “Homemade, from the farmers market. Local cherries, which are incredible. Plums. Olives. Spiced nuts. And some Brie, to have with the baguette.”
They piled their plates and dug in.
“So,” Annie said, after a few mouthfuls, “whatever should we talk about?”
There was still so much Lola didn’t know. “Everything.”
They swapped stories. Annie explained how, after her grandmother died, she sold the house to pay off her medical bills.
There wasn’t much left; college wasn’t an option.
“Did the vagabond thing for a bit—Brooklyn, for a year. Fun, but hectic, and I couldn’t really afford it.
” Then, she followed a girl to Portland, Maine.
After they broke up, she decided to move to Austin.
“I liked the food, the people, the size of the city. Got a part-time gig in a dog-grooming salon, which I absolutely loved.” The memory brought a smile to Annie’s face.
“I ended up as the manager, but then the pandemic hit and it felt like time to come home.”
Lola envied the ease with which Annie had moved through the world, following whims and women. She wanted to know more—every detail.
Most pressingly about the girl Annie followed to Portland.
Under a single plum tree, a blue jay was cooling off from the afternoon heat in an old stone birdbath. If only she were a bird, something small and nimble, able to change course with the flick of a wing. Her own path didn’t feel anywhere near as easy. Living simply was underrated.
In turn, Lola told Annie more about her last two decades in the business of show—the guest spot on a police procedural where everyone was lovely, and a very popular sitcom where everyone was not.
The commercials that paid well but were mildly humiliating and definitely bizarre: “A spinach shake so silky, it’s simply sublime is unfortunately a sentence not even death will take from me. ”
Lola told Annie about fun style teams and laidback grips and fascinating co-stars.
About how casts and crew grow so close over a shoot that everyone feels like family, and then, poof, the film wraps and the family disbands, and how it took years to develop the emotional resilience to handle that ride.
But also the much harder parts. Having a public profile meant living in a fishbowl, every move potentially monitored.
She couldn’t spontaneously dye her hair pink or move to a different city on a whim.
“I love acting,” Lola said. “But most of what I do now isn’t acting.
It’s reading terrible scripts. Waiting alone in a trailer.
Keeping my body camera-ready. Acting for film doesn’t feel freeing or artistic—it’s a grind.
But ever since we started rehearsals, I’m remembering how much I love performing.
Creating something; collaborating. Even when it’s hard, it’s fun.
Being back here”—she gestured expansively at the back garden, at their snacks, at Annie herself—“it’s all just reminding me how many different ways there are to live. Maybe I just need fewer.”
“That’s funny,” Annie said. “Because you being back makes me wonder if I should want more. I love Rhodes,” she added, “I do. But sometimes I get lonely. Sometimes I want a bigger life.” Annie’s gaze settled on Lola.
“When you first came back, I felt insanely insecure. About everything, but especially my job and where I lived. I felt like it must pale in comparison to your life. I wanted to impress you, which is ironic, as I just repeatedly embarrassed myself in front of you. I’m a Pisces and I’d like to learn to roller-skate. Kill me.”
Lola giggled. Wit was the quality Lola found most attractive in another person.
Some people were drawn to money or power or physicality.
As a flamboyant hair stylist once observed, Lola went gaga for a ha ha.
“Ah, the infamous table read.” She reached for a sun-warmed cherry and took a bite. “It wasn’t that bad.”
“Lollie, I made preschoolers doing The Nutcracker look like the Rockettes.”
Lola laughed. God, it felt good. Being around Annie just felt good. “Well, you’ve made up for it since. Rehearsals are going well.”
“Yeah,” Annie said, sounding a little surprised. “They are.”
They exchanged a smile. And didn’t look away.
Despite their bumpy start, being around Annie still felt deeply comforting and unexpectedly electrifying.
Lola was relaxed but not mindlessly so. She felt the same sort of presence she did during a take; a switched-on hyper-focus.
But with Annie, she wasn’t performing or being someone else.
She just felt wholly, even urgently, in a moment she didn’t want to end.
Lola didn’t want Annie Lightfoot to disappear from her life for another twenty years.
The sun was dipping toward the horizon. Golden hour. All that remained on the tray were cherry pits and olive seeds.
“You know,” Lola said, “we haven’t caught up properly on…relationships.”
Annie flicked Lola a loaded look. “We haven’t.”
“Not that you asked,” Lola said, “but I still identify as bisexual.”
“Oh.” Annie looked surprised, then a little sly. “I was curious about that, actually.”
Lola smiled. It’d been freeing to say those words out loud.
“I don’t talk about it much because I’ve never had a serious girlfriend or dated a woman publicly.
I know that I can be queer without a relationship, and that I can still be queer while dating a man.
But, y’know”—she twirled her wrist—“the internet can be brutal. I don’t want to take space away from someone who needs it more. ”
“So is Brett Burns really your celebrity crush?” Annie asked delicately.
“Oh god,” Lola groaned, vaguely recalling saying that in an interview—one that felt very long ago. “No. I don’t even like him. I said it to keep my publicist happy. So stupid.”
“You’re not stupid. You’re just navigating a lot.” Annie’s cheeks were the color of cut grapefruit, her lips curved in a pleased smile. “But I’m glad you’re still on Team Gay.”
“Put me in, coach,” Lola quipped. “I’m ready.”
They both chuckled, the air between them warm and lightly charged.
“I admire how out you are,” Lola added. “With the business, and just in your own life.”
Annie nodded, looking a bit surprised. “Well, I love being queer. Love being part of the queer community. It’s the tits, literally.”
“But I’m sure sometimes you get…pushback?”
“Like the time someone threw a rock through our window?” Annie said. “Or started hassling my ex and me when we were making out on the train? Yeah. But, fuck ’em. I’m not, like, dimming my light to appease a bunch of homophobes.”
“I like that you stand your ground. That’s”—Lola searched for the word—“rare. Especially in my world.”
The sun was a glowing orange orb in the west, kissing the horizon.
“What about you?” Lola asked, shifting to face Annie. “Deborah mentioned you’d been through a breakup?”
“Yeah, that was Harriet, my ex. We were together for a couple years—she moved in with me, above the salon—but by the end, we were more like roommates. And she didn’t want kids.
By the time we were peeing with the bathroom door open and calling each other ‘bro,’ I knew it was over.
” Annie sighed. “She left me for some chick who makes ceramics shaped like her own vagina.”
“Yikes.” Lola made a sympathetic face, waiting the right amount of time before asking, “So you want kids?”
“Yeah,” Annie said, lightly. “One day. You?”
“Yeah,” Lola said, just as lightly. “One day.”
Lola felt her neck get hot. They both looked out at the darkening backyard. Beyond the fence, the sky was purpling. The moon was overhead, a pale disc all alone in the sky.
“Oh look,” Annie said softly, pointing. “A firefly.” Floating in the twilight, like a tiny fallen star.
As they watched, more lightning bugs appeared, hovering above the peonies, drifting over the wild roses. Beyond the back fence, Lola could see more in the distant fields, high up in the trees.
“They only live for a few weeks,” Annie murmured. “They light up to find a mate.”
They watched the fireflies pulse, tiny green spells blinking against the dark.
A memory slid into place, the way a long-lost key finds its lock. The two of them, starry-eyed and moonstruck, kissing under a blanket on an evening just like this. Back when they were both foals, gangly and inexperienced. Back when life was a blank page, waiting for them both to make their mark.
The whole evening shimmered with magic—Lola could feel it in the humid air, clinging to her skin. But the magic was predicated on one thing. The girl next to her. Lola swiveled to face her. “You’re still so important to me, Annie.”
Annie’s mouth fell open in soft surprise. “I am?”
Lola nodded, her heart thudding in her chest. A slow breathless warmth spilled through her limbs at the spontaneous admission. “Yeah. You feel like home.”
Slowly, Lola shifted her hand toward where Annie’s lay on her armrest, longing to close the distance—skin to skin.
“Hey, bitches!” Vicky’s voice cut through the quiet like a firework. “Movie night?”