Page 114 of When I Picture You

“We were best, best friends. As close as girl friends could be.” Ava’s eyes glinted as the hair at the back of Renee’s neck prickled. Girl friends. Girls who were friends. “Although in the last year we’ve grown apart.”

“Let’s talk about how you two met.”

“Yes, it’s such a fun story. I was presenting at an awards show, and of course, all eyes are on you, but I could just feel her staring at meonstage! I had a laugh afterward. I said, ‘That hot little pop star in the front row was undressing me with her eyes.’ Then she won her little statue and came backstage and wanted to meet me. She had on that smile—you know the one? Where she just wants to make you happy?”

Ava paused, waiting for Renee’s acknowledgment.

She cleared her throat. “I know the one.”

“I thought so.” Ava pursed her lips in satisfaction. “Anyway, Lolly—that’s always been my pet name for her—Lolly and I were instantly infatuated with each other. She’d been running around with these silly boys and didn’t realize how badly she needed some girl time.”

Renee hadn’t been sure what to expect of Ava. She hadn’t told her that Lola would be coming out in the documentary. Because of that, she’d anticipated that Ava would give a wide berth to the truth of her relationship with Lola, but nearly everything Ava had said was laced with innuendo. Was it catnip for the LavaTruthers or meant for Renee, personally? Ava couldn’t know that she and Lola were together now—could she?

“Your relationship—the friendship—got a lot of attention,” Renee said.

Ava’s eyes flashed. “The attention was the best part! Forgive me for being a little vain, but I loved that the two of us got people talking.”

“Why do you think that was?”

“I suppose because we’re such opposites. An odd couple. I’m known to be a bit of a wild child, and Lola—she’s a good girl, isn’t she?”

Heat flared in Renee’s cheeks, but she gathered herself. “Sure, Lola’s image is America’s Sweetheart. That’s something we’re going to unpack in the film. Where that image doesn’t overlap with the real person underneath.”

“You think that it doesn’t?”

Renee paused a beat, then said, “We both know it doesn’t.”

“What’s your next question?” Ava asked.

“Can you talk about how Lola’s changed or grown over the time you’ve known her?”

“I adore Lolly. I always will.” Ava slung her wrists over her knees. “But I don’t think shehasgrown all that much. Lola hates to take risks, but if you can’t push yourself to try new things, you don’t evolve. Lola, underneath it all, is simply so afraid of failing, of upsetting anyone, of being a little bit imperfect.”

“No, that’s not how Lola is,” Renee said, though part of what Ava said resonated. “She’s under a lot of pressure to fit this”—Renee tasted bitterness as she formed the words—“this good girl image. But that’s not who she is.”

Ava’s dismissive laugh set off a burst of nausea in Renee’s gut. “Who do you think came up with that image? Lola. Who gets out of bed and says yes to that image every morning? Lola. Who makes her money from that image? Lola. Lolly’s a girl who knows what’s in her interest.”

“How can you say that when she was going to come out for you?” Renee blurted out.

“Oh, she told you about that?” Ava sighed. “Think about the terrible position she put me in. Hanging the responsibility for all her hopes and dreams on me, on our relationship. That wasn’t fair. I knew enough not to take it seriously. What’s that saying? If she’d wanted to, she would have.”

“You don’t know that.”

“Don’t I? Or did I miss her big announcement?”

Renee knew she should let it go, that this wasn’t her fight, but instead she said, “You left her.”

“I didn’t have a choice, with what she was asking me to do! Herfeelings had always been stronger than mine, and she knew it. I couldn’t give her the kind of relationship she thought she needed.” Ava fell silent for a moment. When she spoke again, her tone was different—drained. “You have to understand the reality of that relationship. For a whole year, Lola would barely be seen with me. She’d cringe if I looked at her too long in public, always texting her manager in a panic if someone took our picture. How could I have committed myself to something like that? I have to take her actions into account, not just her words. Otherwise, I’m the one who ends up hurt, and I’d rather do the leaving than be left.”

“I don’t understand how you can say that,” said Renee, who understood leaving before you were left with every fiber of her being. “Lola wrote a whole album about you.”

“Aboutme? No.” Ava laughed again, a sound Renee now found as harmonious as a cat vomiting. “Those songs could be about any of her boyfriends. Yes, she left her easter eggs about me in the lyrics, but forgive me if I’m not entirely moved by a consolation prize. Oh, don’t look so outraged. Isn’t it the same for you?”

Renee’s eyes were wide. It was. It was exactly the same for her. “This album is going to be different.”

“Let me guess, because she’s in love with you and she’s written you these songs and she’s promised to go public? Tell me, which part sounds different to you?”

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