Page 7 of When I Picture You

“Which is why I don’t drink with this many people around. I can’t do anything too—” Lola made a face, bugging her eyes out. It was shockingly charming.

“If you could, what kind of”—Renee pulled the same buggy-eyed face—“thing would you do?”

Renee must have imagined it. The Joshinators had caused a break with reality. Because it looked like Lola had lowered her lashes, then gently bit her lip.

“I have a bottle of champagne in my room, for later,” Lola said. “But what soundsreallygood right now is getting into bed.”

Renee’s mouth was suddenly dry. She felt herself moving closer to Lola, leaning in as though magnetized. “That sounds good to me too.”

“Lola, you better not be on your phone!” Claudia said, running up to them.

Lola spun away from Renee. “I was catching up with Renee. You didn’t tell me she’d be here!”

Renee congratulated Claudia, then fended off demands that she follow them to the dance floor. Her eyes kept shifting to Lola, but she was wearing that smile again, the one Renee couldn’t tell was genuine or not.

Renee wandered back to her table, shaking her head. Had Lola been flirting with her—and had she flirted back? The very thought was cursed. This wasLola Gray, not some hot femme at a queer bar in Brooklyn. Lola was an international pop star. By comparison, Renee was a fingerling potato.

And on top of that, Renee was awoman.

Did Lolalikewomen? Not as far as Renee knew—and as shallow as her pop culture knowledge was, Renee would have heard if the reigning Princess of Pop had come out.

The idea that Lola was secretly queer was ridiculous.

But until a few minutes ago, it had felt ridiculous to imagine Lola undressing her with her eyes, and Joshinators be damned, Renee was pretty sure that had happened.

Almost as ridiculous as the fact that Renee, who prided herself on never having listened to a Lola Gray album, had been ready to melt for her.

3

Lola had no idea what had come over her.

She had no business flirting with Renee—Renee Feldman, whom she hadn’t spoken to in years, and who she’d last solidly counted among her friends in eighth grade. But she’d come offstage and she’d felt raw. For weeks, Lola had been worrying about that three-song set: a song from her first album that she’d written after she and Claudia watched10 Things I Hate About You; Claudia’s favorite of her love songs, “Unwritten Letter” from her second album; and a cover of “Stand by Me,” a surprise. Lola considered it one of the most romantic songs ever written, and she’d labored over how best to perform it solo. When the guests stopped watching her and started dancing slow, heads resting on shoulders, she’d known she was pulling it off.

She’d imagined that when she heard “Stand by Me” at a wedding, she’d be slow dancing with someone she loved.

Performing was one of the few things she could do that always felt right. All the different versions of herself that normally took so much effort to balance came together onstage. But tonight, at the end of her set, her heart felt even more than usual like a wound barely patched over in her chest, as if being surrounded by so much love had split her fragile new scars.

Already, Lola had been navigating the reception in an unaccustomed haze of public awkwardness. Her mother, as usual, set Lola onedge. She never knew how Donna would react when her daughters were the object of attention. Thankfully, she seemed to relish the role of Mother of the Bride, so it had been beaming pride, not fiendish jealousy. But that could change in a second, and on Claudia’s day, it would be Lola’s responsibility to settle her.

On top of that, some of these guests had known her when she was a kid in headgear—literally, her mom had insisted on inviting their orthodontist. They might remember the time she forgot the words to the national anthem at a hockey game. Now, they all wanted their moment with Lola Gray, the star. She didn’t want to disappoint them, but she couldn’t let her presence detract from Claudia and Josh.

It would have made it all better if she’d had someone at her side, who was there just for her. Someone who could see, even through her smile, that she was spinning out, who would squeeze her hand and tell her she was doing a good job.

But she didn’t have that, and she wasn’t going to find it here.

What she might find instead was distraction, release.

She hadn’t quite gone looking for Renee when she edged around the dance floor to the bar. But she knew Renee would be there. She’d spotted her from the stage: leaning against the wall to show off the tattoos that ran from elbow to shoulder. Renee had this energy as if she’d been born with no fucks to give, and Lola, who cared too much about everyone, always found it magnetic.

As she danced with Claudia, her cheeks flushed as she replayed what she’d said to Renee. Whenever she allowed herself to flirt with a woman, Lola chose her words carefully, to maximize deniability if anything got out. But from the way Renee’s eyes had widened, her body canted into Lola’s, her meaning had come across.

It was pathetic, getting a rush from a two-minute conversation. She’d probably imagined the sexual tension. Renee had only gotten hotter in the last ten years, and Lola was lonely—lonely and horny.

Which was probably why, while guests were loading into the bus that would take them to the hotel after-party, Lola’s thoughts were still caught on Renee.

“You really won’t come?” Claudia begged her as Josh’s cousins triumphantly emerged from the venue bearing crates of leftover alcohol. “You’d have fun.”

Lola gave her an apologetic smile.