Lola

 

At a dinner party given by none other than the great Kai Leiko and his new squeeze, Daisy Swizzle, I saw Lola for the first time since she’d introduced me to Kyra.  And boy, she must have aged twenty simyears seemingly overnight. 

I was startled to see her.  And our first words to each other were pretty awkward. 

“Um, hi, Lola,” I croaked, in plain view of her companion, Tiara Angelista.  “You look different.”

“I had my hair done at the new salon that opened up in town.  You know Bronson – the Littler boy – he’s become a fine stylist.”

I noticed Lola was unsteady in her stance and her eyes were again concealed by huge, thick glasses.  I didn’t know how to tell her that she looked like a skeleton.  She was so frail, so thin, that I worried about her. 

“I became an elder – an age I’ve long dreaded.  I have not looked forward to growing old at all.  I looked in the mirror this morning and I saw my grandmother.”  If I didn’t know any better, I saw a few tears leak from beneath her jet-black glasses. 

“Lola, it’s going to be okay, really.”

“Easy for you to say,” she shot back, “you’re a young buck.  You’ve got so much time left, it isn’t even funny.”

Her tone of voice shook me.  It took me a bit to really grasp the meaning of what she said.  I thought about my parents back at home.  They don’t really have much time left.  Life is something to be cherished and savored.  They savor their lives and have, indeed, grown old together.  My sister and brother-in-law look like they’re going to grow old together.  I can’t say the same for Lola.

Here was a woman who prided herself on her youth and vitality.  She dated younger guys and worked out like a maniac.  But Father Time catches us all, eventually.  Even Lola.

Then I spotted Lola in the kitchen talking to Todd Lynch, one of the paid bartenders she has in her home. 

Lenny Shutter, who works for one of the (many) gossip rags here in Bridgeport, was also in attendance.

Tiara spotted me from a distance.  “Sebastian?” 

“Yeah.”

“Come here, I need to talk to you.”

 

“Lola appreciates that you showed up here tonight.  She won’t say it, but she’s extremely fond of you.”

Really?

“For awhile there, before the video came out, you were pretty much all that she talked about.”

Really?

“She raved about your Goopy Carbonara.”

“Tiara,” I whispered, “she’s really, really thin.  Is she ill?  I mean, if she is, we have to get her to hospital – she’s wasting away.”

“You have to understand something about Lola, she’s very, very stubborn.  She’s not going to listen to us.”

“Not even to Jupiter?”

“Least of all to him.  She blames him for Kai leaving her.”

“Well, what about her fitness trainer, what’s her name, Foxie, Roxie –"

“Moxie.  Moxie Logan.”

“Yeah, her.”

“Moxie quit after marrying Romeo Rake.  She and Lola are barely on speaking terms now.”

I shook my head.  “Wow.”

“Moxie went and started her own family.  I can’t say I blame her.”

 

I spent most of the rest of the night in a deep fog…

…and only came out of it when Todd Lynch asked me to pose for a pic, with Lola standing right next to him. 

I went through the rest of my night in a fog.  A lady at Eugi’s asked me to pose for a pic. 

When I went into Eugi’s, I participated in a “play-off,” a guitar-playing contest, mostly at the spur of the moment.  My “opponent” was an elder lady who could certainly move her strings. 

So I got up on stage and I saw everybody was dancing and murmuring.  I didn’t see any celebrities but I didn’t care. 

A guy walked up to me and asked for my autograph.  Some of this I still can’t get used to. 

Annabelle (Pt. 2)

 

“You comin’ or not?” Annabelle barked.  “I ain’t got all night.  My feet hurt and I’m tired as hell.”

So I spent the next five minutes trying to figure out the call box so I could get her upstairs. 

She continued to eye me suspiciously in the elevator.  I still don’t trust you, her look said. 

Finally I walked out of the elevator and into their sparse apartment. 

I sat down on the sofa waiting for Kyra to finish her dinner. 

Meanwhile, as she’d planned, Annabelle crashed on her bed, shoes on her feet and all.  I reached over and unbuckled her shoes. 

“I take it you met my roommate, Annabelle,” Kyra murmured to me.  “She can be quite…bossy…at times.”

“I’ve noticed.  I’m used to it, though.  I don’t mind.”

Kyra laughed.  “I don’t think you’ll ever get used to Annabelle, though.”

Kyra and I managed to spend a few moments together before I had to go back home to bed.  Kris wanted me in her office at 10 in the morning… I wasn’t sure how I was going to make it.

Annabelle (Pt. 1)

 

Ran into Annabelle Smith at the diner the other night.  She’s the roommate of my girlfriend, Kyra Foster. 

“So, you’re Sebastian,” Annabelle murmured.  “Kyra’s new boyfriend.  I’ve heard SO much about you.”

“I bet you have.”

Annabelle piped me with questions.  “So.  Kyra tells me you’re an actor, right?”

I sighed.  “Um, I suppose you could say that.  Community theater, a couple plays here and there, a guest role on a soap opera – believe me, it’s not as glamorous as you think.  It’s a lot of hard work.  I swear, I spend more time reading about acting theory than actually being in front of the camera.” 

“Hey, weren’t you on that Llama Musk commercial?” she asked me. 

“Yeah, unfortunately, that was me.  I was getting over a head cold when I recorded it, too, so I sounded like a croaking frog.”

Annabelle complained that she didn’t want to catch the subway home, so I offered her a ride.  Besides, it gave me an excuse to see Kyra. 

We’d been riding for a few moments when she took note of how fast my car ran. 

“It’s a La Matea,” I told her.  “In my favorite color.”

“Nice,” she hummed.  “An expensive custom-made foreign car.  Costs more than our whole apartment.  You buy that with your actor’s salary?”

I couldn’t tell her mom and dad bought the car before I arrived in Bridgeport.  So I said, “I got it with my savings.”

She shook her head.  “You better not be playing Kyra like a guitar.”

“What do you mean?”

“I know your type.  Rich playboys who just have to say ‘boo’ and they get everything they want.”

“You think I’m a rich playboy.”

“Oh, come on.  You drive an expensive car, you live in the tony part of town – if that isn’t the definition of a rich playboy –”

“It is true that my family is fairly wealthy.  But we earned our wealth.  My grandfather, my dad’s dad, came over from England with nothing."

Annabelle gave me a ‘yeah, right’ look. 

We arrived at the apartment at a quarter till eleven. 

My phone rang as soon as I got out of the car.  “Hold on, Annabelle, I have to take this call,” I told her.

It was (who else) my boss.

“Sebastian, I want you at the studio at 10 am sharp.”

I let out a deep breath.  Today of all days???

Newcomers

 

Got a few more peeps for y’all to meet. 

This is Lise-Marie Granier, my boss’s new personal assistant.  She’s from frigid Montreal, Quebec, Canada and arrived in Bridgeport right after Christmas.  I don’t know if she’s actually living in my boss’ house but it’s quite possible. 

And this is Kyra Foster.  My new girlfriend. 

We met at a party at Lola’s house.  Lola’s the one who actually introduced us.  She’s one of Lola’s backup musicians. 

We went out to eat at the local diner.  The diner is set off on this little island by its lonesome.  It can get packed at times, especially in the evenings before celebrities do their club hopping and party hardy thing.  Kyra and I like to go in the evenings before the crowd arrives.

“Sebastian?”

“Huh?”

“I’d appreciate it if the press didn’t know about our relationship just yet.  We’re just getting started.”

Fat chance.  The paps are vultures out here. 

Rather predictably, the gossip rags trumpet our coupling. 

So the next day at work I’m walking past a meeting in the conference room of the studio where she and her new PA were with a tall, willowy blonde.  I learned later that she’s Nadija Berlander, the Swedish author selling the movie rights to her mystery novel “About Emily” to Plumbob Pictures and working with my boss on the screenplay.  I took a glimpse of Nadija.  She definitely looked Nordic.  White-blond hair, blue eyes, and she was tall and thin.  Her mother was Ukrainian and her father was Swedish.  “Ms. Berlander, please, have a seat.” 

Lise-Marie took her seat next to Kris and across from Nadija.  I found her to be standoffish and somewhat aloof. She kept her eyes trained on her boss. 

“Per Sorenson is good,” whispered Lise-Marie to Kris, who kept staring at the TV screen.
“I don’t know,” summed Nadija in a husky voice.

“I read the book,” said Kris. “Emily’s killer/lover is an incredibly charismatic but incredibly evil man. We need someone who can convey both.”
“What about your guy, Hamming?” asked Lise.
“He’s tied up with the Steve Glue project,” Kris reminded her. “We need someone else.”

I can’t say I’m familiar with the business aspect of this life, but I don’t think it’s something I’d get involved in.  I guess that’s why Kris does what she does – and I do what I do. 

At the gym

Ran into Lola at the gym.  It was kind of funny because I didn’t even know she was a member there.  I hadn’t seen her since the tape went viral.

So I tried the oldest trick in the book … to slip in unnoticed and do what I had to do and decided to let her notice me.

Sure enough, she did.

“Sebastian,” she called in a voice that even sounds musical.

“Um, hi, Lola,” I croaked.  “What’s up?  How was your Christmas?”

“Quiet, actually, just the way I like it.  I’m not too big on the holiday, except for the time it gives me to recharge.”

“Go anywhere special?”

“Well Jupiter and I thought about getting away to China but thought better of it.  We pretty much stuck around Bridgeport.”

“Hmm.  I see.” 

I took a deep breath.   "Lola...we need to talk.”

“About what?”

“About that tape..."

"Yeah?"
"Look, I know you're kind of upset that it got out... I am too… but really, it's, it’s not my fault.  I didn't have anything to do with it."

“You didn’t?” Lola looked at me like I had just come down with a bad rash.  Maybe I had.  I felt my cheeks getting pretty warm.

“No.  I didn’t even know about the video until my sister wrote me a letter saying it was on TV.”

Lola managed a chuckle.  “You guys still write letters?”

“Emails, but, yeah.  We try to sign them by hand.  Makes them more personal.”

“You guys sound like you’re pretty close.”

“When I decided to leave Sunset Valley she was the first person I told.  Before my parents.”

 

“I was an only child,” Lola confessed, “I wanted siblings but my parents, who weren’t actually supposed to be together in the first place, split up right after I was born.  My father was a sometime musician who had a local band and played gigs around town, and my mother was a lounge singer, and both of them were in relationships with other people.  So, I was concealed.  For years.  Neither of their partners knew of my existence until I was well in my teens and by then I had shut everyone out. 

“I hardly knew my father, and my mother led a lifestyle my grandmother hated.  So she raised me.  I got my start playing music in the church.  I actually took my stage name ‘Lola Belle’ from my grandmother.  Because I lacked parental affection at home, I sought my companionship … elsewhere.  In the form of many different men.  I’ve repeated the pattern as an adult, a pattern I’ve tried desperately to break.”

“Have you told this to anyone?”

“No,” she whispered quietly.  “Not even Jupiter knows.  Yet.”