Page 122 (1/2)
Enid laughed “Don’t be silly, ful if you have the power to execute them And you, my dear, do not” She stood up “I’ve tolerated your antics for quite a while But today you’ve ry” She nodded at the coffee table “Take the test”
Lola grabbed the box Enid was old, but she was still the irl Lola had ever encountered, and Lola was afraid of her So afraid, in fact, that she actually peed on the plastic indicator and handed it over to Enid, who exarim satisfaction “Now, that’s lucky, nant after all If you were, it ht have been complicated We wouldn’t have knoho the father was Not until the baby was born It could have been Philip’s—or Thayer Core’s And that’s no way to bring a child into the world, now, is it?”
Lola had come up with a hundred responses—after the fact In the actualEnid, she wasn’t able to think of what to say
“Consider this an opportunity, dear,” Enid said “You’re only twenty-two You have a chance to start over I had a long conversation with your mother this afternoon, and she’s on her way to pick you up and take you back to Atlanta She’s a lovely woman, your mother She should be here in an hour I’ve booked a room for you at the Four Seasons hotel so you can enjoy your last night in New York in style”
“Oh no,” Lola said, finding her voice She looked around in a panic, spotted her handbag next to the door, and grabbed it “I’ New York”
“Be sensible, dear,” Enid said
“You can’tonly that she had to get away She frantically pressed the button for the elevator as Enid followed her into the hallway
“Where are you going? There’s no place to go, Lola”
Lola turned her back and pressed the button again Where was the elevator? “You haven’t any money,” Enid said “You don’t have an apartment Or a job You have no choice”
Lola turned “I don’t care” The elevator came at last, and she stepped in
“You’ll be sorry,” Enid said As the doors were closing, Enid made one last atte fiercely, “You don’t belong in New York”
Now, in the church, Lola relee how Enid’s plan had backfired Her ad in New York had only made her more determined In the past teeks, she’d put up with quite a bit of hardship, returning hoed Lola to stay in Windsor Pines and even tried to fix her up with the son of one of her friends as getting a business degree—but Lola wouldn’t hear of it She sold several pairs of shoes and two handbags on eBay, scraping together enough money to return to New York She forced Thayer to take her in, and for the ti with Thayer and Josh in their little hellhole, sharing Thayer’s tiny bed On the third day there, she’d broken down and actually cleaned the bathroo Josh, thinking she was free bait, had tried to kiss her, and she’d had to fight hier She had to find her own place—but how?
She tried to peer around thefor Philip and Enid She spotted the back of Enid’s coiffed head first What would Enid do when she found out she was back in New York? Sitting next to Enid was Philip Seeing the back of his head, with that too faht back all the fresh hurts and indignities she’d suffered at his hands as well
After rushing out of his apart in One Fifth, she’d wandered around the West Village, weighing her options But after two hours, her feet began to throb, and she’d realized Enid was right—she had no o She’d returned to One Fifth to find herher with kid gloves as if she were a mental patient who’d had a breakdown, and Lola realized she had no choice but to corace of allowing her ly distant throughout the process, as if he had become a completely different person He’d behaved as if he hardly knew her and they hadn’t had sex a hundred times—and this, to Lola, was the most unfathomable of all How could a s and his penis inside your vagina and mouth, and kissed you and held you and tickled your sto uptown in the taxi with her mother, she had burst into tears and cried and cried and cried “Philip Oakland is a fool,” Beetelle declared fiercely “And his aunt is even worse I’ve never met such an aoman” She put her ar you got away from those terrible people,” she said, but this only made Lola cry harder
Beetelle’s heart broke for her daughter, re incident in New York with the doctor She would have been about Lola’s age then Pulling her daughter closer, Beetelle felt helpless in the face of Lola’s distress It was the first ti the terrible truth about life: It wasn’t what it seemed, and fairy tales did not necessarily come true Nor could