Chapter 11
R enee slid into a red leather booth at the Formosa Cafe.
She looked delighted as she took in the vintage black-and-white headshots lining the walls, the crimson Chinese lanterns, dragons, and knot patterns woven into the decor.
In one corner, there was a full-size trolley car, retrofitted to hold tables.
“This place is awesome,” she said.
“I thought you’d like it,” Lola said. “Clark Gable and James Dean used to hang out at the bar. There’s a studio lot across the street.”
When Renee had texted that evening asking to grab a drink, Lola had been surprised.
Her schedule and security concerns, along with the schedules and security concerns of her friends, seldom allowed for spur-of-the-moment plans.
But Lola jumped at the chance. A drink with Renee would be so much more fun than finding convincing replies to Gloriana’s requests for progress on new music.
A waitress took their order: crab rangoon to split, a Mai Tai for Lola.
Still making her final decision, Renee studied the cocktail menu.
As she did, she absently ran her fingers past her ear and into the short, dark roots at the nape of her neck.
Suddenly, Lola was imagining her own hand there, her lips pressed to the delicate skin.
Lola swallowed hard as Renee chose a drink called Passion and Paradox.
Lola’s Mai Tai arrived in a tall glass, sunset-colored, with pineapple leaves and a cocktail umbrella sticking out of pebbled ice.
“Oh, gimme a taste,” Renee said, then winced. “Was that out of line? I keep forgetting you’re super famous now, not just Lo from next door.”
“Hey! I’m still Lo from next door.” Lola passed her drink to Renee. Renee’s red lipstick marked the straw. “Let me try yours.”
Renee’s coupe glass was full to the brim. As she edged it across the table, the orange liquid threatened to spill over the side. Lola dipped her head to the glass and slurped a taste.
Renee clicked her tongue. “They let you out of the house with manners like that?”
“Barely,” Lola said solemnly. She cut her eyes to Henry at the bar. “I have to be supervised at all times.”
Renee laughed and inched her drink back to her side of the table. “How do you think filming’s going?”
Several thoughts collided in Lola’s head: that the shoot was a disastrous distraction from songwriting; that without the distraction, she might have already given in to her demons and posted a screenshot note announcing her retirement; that sometimes, when the cameras were rolling, she felt like she was watching herself from behind them, rather than living in her own head; that the words It’s going great needed to come out of her mouth.
She’d hesitated too long. Renee’s expression shifted subtly in understanding. There was no point in lying to her now.
“I can’t say I’m enjoying it, but don’t worry about me! I’ll manage,” Lola added with a bright smile.
“I’ll worry about you if I want.” Renee’s green eyes were so serious under furrowed brows.
Lola stopped smiling.
“You deserve to be comfortable on set—and it makes for better footage. Today went better, after some of the crew left, didn’t it? I’m going to keep things more minimal moving forward, especially when we’re in your space.”
“I’d appreciate that. Thank you.” The knot of tension in her chest felt a little looser.
“I always take care of my star,” Renee said with a wink.
“I thought I was your first star.”
“Well, at school I made a very moving short about a bodega cat in my neighborhood and I made sure she had tasty treats and pets.”
“Nice to know what I have to look forward to.” Lola had expected Renee to laugh, but instead her face had fallen. “Don’t tell me it ended badly for the cat.”
“No, the cat’s fine, as far as I know. I just get kind of down when I think about my work from grad school.”
“Why? The cat movie sounds adorable.”
Renee’s mouth pulled into a grimace. It took her a second to answer. “My brain just goes straight to all the feedback I got. The negative stuff—I don’t remember the positive comments at all.”
Lola leaned forward. “Hey, criticism can be really hard. It hurts. Especially at the beginning. Everyone says you need a thick skin but no one tells you how to get one.”
Renee softened a little. “Do you have any tips?”
“I mean, try writing four albums of hyper-personal songs about your love life and letting the public tear them apart.”
Renee snorted. “Hardly enough content there in my case.”
“Come on, I’m sure girls are all over you.” Lola fiddled with the tiny paper umbrella from her Mai Tai.
“Not to sound overconfident, but that’s not really the issue. It’s more that I’m not much of a relationship girl.”
“Maybe you haven’t met the right person.”
“I’ve met plenty of people. Sex doesn’t always have to mean something. But the sapphics, right? They get so attached. You must know how it is.”
Lola didn’t know what to say. There was a deep-buried part of her that ached to hear Renee talk so casually about sex.
It basically confirmed that their night together meant nothing.
But far more urgent was an electric thrill of recognition.
Lola couldn’t remember the last time she had a conversation with a woman like this, where liking women felt normal, not a challenge to outfox, or a very brave choice, or worse, a fatal vulnerability.
Renee simply knew Lola liked women and treated her accordingly.
It probably meant nothing to Renee, but to Lola it felt miraculous.
“Yeah, for sure,” Lola said. “I’m, uh, usually the one getting too attached.”
Renee perked up at that. “Oh yeah?”
Lola’s throat felt tight, but this was Renee . If she couldn’t talk to Renee about this, how would she ever talk to anyone? “That’s what happened with my last … girlfriend.”
“Was that …?”
“Ava.” Her voice was thin. Thankfully, Renee had leaned in, her shoulders hunched up like they were having a top-secret conference. Which, Lola supposed, they kind of were. “You probably saw the rumors.”
“I happened across them, yes,” Renee said. “So, you guys were for real?”
“I thought so.” Lola took a sharp breath, then said, “I thought I was in love with her, but I guess I got too attached, like you said. Actually, I wanted to go public.”
“You did? Like, with everything?”
Lola nodded, her eyes on the tablecloth. She’d torn the cocktail umbrella entirely to shreds. “I thought that would make her happy. Because we could really be together. I had a whole album I wanted to record about her. And then she left me.”
“Damn. I’m sorry, Lo. That’s awful.”
“It’s okay. It was a while ago now. But I had to shelve the album and that’s why it’s been so long since I’ve released anything.”
“Which is why you’re doing the doc.”
“Right.”
“Which means, in a weird way, that your breakup is really responsible for our whole friend-reunion film-collaboration thing.”
Lola laughed in spite of herself. “I guess it does.”
“And what about coming out? Do you want to talk about it?” Renee asked.
Lola didn’t have it in her to explain. She just shook her head.
Renee’s hand was creeping across the table toward Lola’s, with her eyebrows rumpled sympathetically.
Suddenly Lola knew that Renee would listen to her talk about Ava all night, if Lola needed her to.
Or take her dancing, or sit through an ice cream–fueled Sex and the City marathon, or whatever else Lola asked.
Privately grieving all that she’d lost with the relationship had been so hard, so isolating—but now that she had someone to share it with, she wasn’t sure she needed it anymore.
“I just want to forget it ever happened,” Lola said.
“I got you, my star.” Renee looked around for the waitress. “Where’s that cocktail menu?”