“Yeah, you’re right. Too much. But the whole thing is just so catty and stupid. So cliché and unimaginative, you know? Like fighting over a dude? Really? Seems ridiculous.”
“Ridiculous,” I repeat hollowly, still not sure how to handle it.
“Just ignore her, I guess,” she says, “I suspect being ignored drives someone like Erica bonkers.”
“But I don’t want to drive her bonkers,” I say.
“Oh. Well. Then I’m out,” she says shrugging and going back to her book. And at just that moment Erica comes flying through the door.
“You have GOT to be kidding me,” she screeches, “He asked you out again?! YOU?!” her face is flushed and when she says ‘you’ she gestures at me like I’m some kind of horrifying object. She looks like she’s been crying.
“I’m sorry.” I offer as genuinely as I can, shrugging my shoulders and lifting my hands up helplessly, but even I know it comes out sounding confused.
“Unbelievable!” she screams. And I don’t know if it’s just my super hearing or what but it feels loud enough to shatter glass, or at least bother Liesel, when nothing else seems to.
“Oh. My. God.” Liesel says, popping up from behind the desk. It startles Erica, momentarily, from whatever tirade she’s about to launch into. “Leave her alone already, Erica. She didn’t do anything. Dude likes her. She likes him, happy ever after and all that crap. Just move on already. If you keep acting like you lost something you actually wanted people are going to realize that you’re not the most beautiful person to ever operate a cash register. Do you really want that?!”
Erica stands there with her mouth hanging open and then shuts it, turns on her heel and walks out of the room.
“Wow,” I say, dumbfounded. “Thanks.”
“No problem,” Liesel says lying back down behind the desk with her book. “Calling ‘em like I see ‘em is like my one gift in this world…my superpower if you will. But I so rarely get to use it for good instead of evil, so I should thank you,” she says.
I smile, to myself, since Liesel has already checked back into one of her fictional worlds, and load the cart up with books, wondering if this is how people make friends…and enemies.
•
It’s only a few days before I show up at Dr. Elizabeth Grant’s office with no appointment. I suspect it surprises me far more than it will her. I’m not sure if I’m here out of mind-numbing boredom or because I haven’t quite been able to get her out of my mind. Her receptionist, or assistant, or whatever she is tries to throw me out at first but thinks better of it after a minute and lets me sit in the waiting room. Elizabeth comes out in less than five minutes, talking to the assistant, practically before she even opens the door. “Jan, can you type up these notes, I’ve got to get out of here if I’m going to-” She stops mid-sentence as if sensing someone in the room and looks up. “Lola,” she says, breaking into a small smile. The assistant sighs.
“Yeah, there’s someone named Lola here to see you, but she doesn’t have an appointment,” she says with a snotty edge to her voice.
“Hi Doc,” I say with a little half-wave.
“It’s so nice to see you, Lola. Why don’t you come in?”
“She isn’t on the calendar,” Jan says, repeating herself, obviously irritated. “And if you don’t leave now, you’re going to be late for the conference.”
“I know Jan. It’s fine. Why don’t you head over to the conference, make apologies for my lateness. I’ll close up and get there as soon as I can, okay?” Jan nods her head like it’s decidedly not okay. Elizabeth ushers me into her office. It’s modern, with clean lines and perfectly placed books and objects. It looks like she does – deliberately assembled, but not unappealing. There’s artwork on her walls and I wonder briefly if she picked it because she likes the way it looks, or because it’s supposed to mean something, or just because it goes with the room. She motions me to a coffee-colored leather couch and I plunk down, not sure what the hell I’m going to say to her.
“So, Lola. I’m glad you decided to come by. Can I ask what made you decide to?” She sits in a matching coffee-colored leather chair opposite me and crosses her legs smoothly. I remember my decision to not lie to her.
“Curiosity, I guess.”
“Curiosity? About what?”
“About my name. You said it has a history…and a lot of people have made fun of my name, so I thought maybe you could tell me what’s up with that.”