Page 23 of When I Picture You

Gloriana had cautioned Lola not to lose her head then too. But Lola hadn’t listened, so Gloriana spent a year protecting her, making sure the world—including most members of Lola’s team—believed the women were just super close friends. Together with Veronika, she killed any story that said otherwise. When Lola had wanted to include a song she’d written about Ava as a bonus track onWild Heart, then decided to release another as a stand-alone single, Gloriana had made sure the lyrics were sufficiently obscure and agreed. The songs did well, but now Lola wished Gloriana had put her foot down. Those songs—along with her indiscretions with Ava—had spawned a community of fans. The #LavaTruthers obsessively analyzed Lola’s songs, photos, posts, and who knew what else for signs that she was into women, generally, and one woman, specifically.

At least she had Gloriana to thank for stopping her from putting everything on the line for Ava, like she’d wanted to.

“And if anything does happen, we’ve got Chess in our back pocket,” Gloriana said, giving Lola’s shoulder a reassuring squeeze, as if Lola had raised the concern herself.

But as Lola joined Renee in the hall, she found herself wondering why it had felt like a threat.

7

At a table in the corner of a farm-to-table restaurant, Renee scoffed at salad-for-lunch exactly as Lola had expected. Renee attacked a plate of steak and eggs as she perused her slightly crumpled copy of the shooting schedule.

“Flutter by Lola Gray, perfume scent consultation,” Renee read, then crammed a forkful into her mouth. Around her food, she said, “Swimwear collaboration design meeting. What’s with this corporate stuff?”

“They’re other ventures I’m involved with,” Lola explained as she assembled a perfect bite of her macrobiotic salad. “This is a great opportunity for cross-promotion.”

“Perfect. I’ve always wanted to make a film about swimwear design.” Scanning farther down the page, she read, “Make-A-Wish meeting, schedule TBD.”

“What do you have against Make-A-Wish?” She didn’t expect Renee to love everything the team had planned, but that was how the business worked: Renee had been hired to do a job, not reinvent it.

“I have something against putting kids with cancer on camera for clout.”

“They don’t all have cancer,” Lola said. “I’ve done Make-A-Wish six times.”

“And now they want it in your movie.” Renee dropped the paperon the table and stabbed it with a finger. “I’m already falling asleep watching this thing and we haven’t even shot it yet. We need to say something real here.”

Lola shifted uncomfortably. The point of the documentary was to make people forget she’d stepped into a dimmer part of the spotlight and bridge the gap in income between albums.Saying something realwasn’t necessary.

“Do they always talk around you like that?” Renee crossed her arms. She’d taken off her hoodie, and the tattooed muscles of her arms and shoulders bulged distractingly. Lola forced herself not to look. “At that meeting, it was like you weren’t sitting right there.”

Lola’s grip on her fork tightened. She’d learned years ago that any meeting with more than two people wasn’t a place for her voice to be heard. She was used to it now—maybetooused to it, because hearing Renee say it like that made her feel seen. But as the spotlight sometimes did, it also made her feel horribly small.

“It’s business. That’s how it works.”

“Is that how you wantthisto work? You really want to shoot—” Renee grabbed the paper again and read: “Stylist meeting,Fit to Live. Glam session,Fit to Live. Red carpet premiere,Fit to Live. What evenis Fit to Live?”

Lola blinked at her. Did Renee live under a rock? “Fit to Liveis going to be the biggest movie of the fall. Nash is the star, so I’m committed to the premiere.”

“Right, yourboyfriend, Nash Walter.”

“NashWalker.” Maybe Renee really did live under a rock. She and Nash had been in constant circulation in the tabloids, thanks to their PR teams working overtime. “Do you have a problem with him?”

“It would have been nice to know you had a boyfriend before we—”

Lola silenced Renee with a raised hand. The neighboring tables were empty, but they were still in public.

Renee corrected course. “I mean, before I could have met him at the wedding. But I didn’t even know I should have been looking for a boyfriend.”

“I assumed you knew. We’ve been all over the tabloids for months,” Lola said, conscious of the fluttering in her belly at the thought of Renee being jealous. It hadn’t occurred to her to mention Nash to Renee, since she didn’t think of him as her actual boyfriend. “Anyway, the relationship is almost over.”

Renee pulled an exaggerated frown. “No, babe, you can work it out!”

“Check page three.”

“Break up with Nash Walker,” Renee read dubiously.

“It’s a PR relationship,” Lola said in a hushed voice. “Management sets it up. Everyone does it when you get to a certain level. Nash needed a girlfriend for a few press cycles, and I—well, I haven’t dated anyone publicly in a while, but my fans love thinking they know exactly who my albums are about. Don’t feel bad if you believed it. You’re supposed to think we’re really together.”

“I didn’t think anything. Someone asked if he was at the wedding, so I googled him, saw he looked like an overgrown sea monkey in gray sweatpants, and forgot all about him.”