Page 44 of The Other Side of Paradise

“I mean, that’s what you do, right?” I put my hands up. “Try to get married and live a good life.”

“With someone full of himself and annoying?”

“Isn’t everyone a little annoying?” I said, starting to feel a little defensive now. She rounded on me.

“Okay, Stella, be honest with me. Have you actually dated anybody you like?”

“C’mon,” I said. “You can like people and still find them annoying sometimes. Don’t come for me, I have, like, a tenth the issues my friends do.”

“So you haven’t dated anybody you don’t find annoying.”

“Am I getting a lecture now?” I said incredulously. “From the one who just dumped a cheating boyfriend?”

“Uh, yeah. Consider me now an expert in telling off an annoying partner you don’t really like. What’s the point in…” She trailed off, searching for something she never found. I settled for that.

“Thepoint,” I said, “is that being lonely sucks. I don’t want to be single forever and just end up collecting weird things alone in my house until I’m like an episode ofHoarders, dying alone and getting eaten by my cats.”

She was quiet for a second, her eyes on the ocean, before finally, she laughed. I scowled.

“What?”

“You and me both,” she said, her voice a little softer now, more vulnerable. “Gotta watch out, though, or you just end up dating a Shane, and I’d rather at least feed a cat than that.”

Huh. Maybe she wasn’t all bad. “Okay, true,” I said, raising my drink to hers. “Here’s to that.”

She smiled at me, a different smile than usual—small, soft, a little vulnerable again. “You sure you don’t mind flipping off the entire family just to come listen to me complain about my ex-boyfriend and listen to Allison complain about talking to girls?”

“Nah. I feel like I’m getting to know you,” I said. “We should do some more of this. Where are you staying tonight?”

“Oh, I, uh, I booked a different hotel,” she said awkwardly, and I realized we’d already had the conversation.

“Oh, yeah. The one Allison couldn’t force you out of,” I said. “I can’t believeShaneis there squatting in your room and you’ve ended up kicked out to a different hotel. Fuck that guy.” I paused. “But not literally.”

“Ah… indeed.”

“Was he at least good in bed?”

She wrinkled her nose. “He… wasn’t.”

I laughed—a big snort, and then broke out laughing, falling onto my back, sprawled out on the towel, and I said, “Drag his ass.” I paused, looking over at her, and I said, “Hey, tell me about your new job and everything. All I ever hear about it how it’s not as good as your old job.”

She pursed her lips. “Itismy old job. I’d been doing it for years before I left the other job to focus full-time on it. But Mom won’t tell you that part.”

“Huh. No kidding, she won’t. She really doesn’t like it, huh?”

“Doesn’t like that I’m not on the corporate ladder… doesn’t like that I don’t get regular paystubs. But I really like the job. Like you said, basically, I write stuff on the internet.” She sank onto her back, sliding her sunglasses on. “But the writing is only part of it. It’s an information-gathering job, really. Journalist is a lofty title, but I investigate human rights abuses—mostly in underserved areas and communities in the US, but I’ve done work all over the world.”

“Right. Your big trips off to Liberia.”

“Libya.”

“Seriously?” I shot her a look, and she raised her eyebrows, brows creasing above her sunglasses.

“What, you don’t know the difference?”

“Grandmadoesn’t know the difference. She said Liberia. Multiple times.”

She laughed, turning back up to the sky, letting out a long sigh. “That makes sense… Grandma considers a trip out of the suburb and into the city to be a life-defining journey.”