chapter 6
Lila sauntered into the Gull’s Point Country Club at four o’clock sharp, selected a seat at the bar, and waited for her friends to show up.
Ten minutes later, she was still waiting.
When the bartender asked what she’d like to drink, Lila had a stroke of brilliance. “Yes, I’ll have four”—she had to look away to finish the sentence—“sex on the beaches, please.”
“Oh, you’re here!” A familiar voice rang out behind Lila. “Sorry I’m late; traffic was a nightmare.”
“You guys better not have started without me!” another voice cried. “My son was a beast when he woke up from his nap, and the sitter had to pull him off me like a barnacle from a battleship.”
“I’m here, I’m here!” chimed a third voice. “It’s not like I could ever be on time in high school, so why should real life be any different?”
Lila turned around and threw herself into a giggly, weepy, four-way hug. The first few minutes of the reunion was a blur of squealing and exclaiming over how fantastic everybody looked. Christa’s long, wavy hair had been cropped into a sassy shag; Stacie’s trademark red lipstick had been replaced by a more subdued shade of rose; Val had let two of the four holes in her earlobe close up. They all looked a bit more buttoned-up and a lot more tired than they had twelve years ago. But they were still friends. They could pick up right where they left off.
The bartender approached, bearing a tray with four peachy pink cocktails. “Here you go, ma’am.”
“What is that?” Christa stared at the frosty glasses.
“I’m surprised you don’t recognize our signature drink from high school.” Lila wagged her finger at them. “Shame on you.”
Val burst out laughing. “Sex on the beach? Oh my God!”
“How could I have forgotten?” Stacie groaned at the memories. “We thought we were sooo sophisticated.”
Christa picked up one of the drinks and sniffed it suspiciously. “What’s in these things, anyway?”
“Vodka and juice and, like, peach schnapps.”
“I thought it’d be fun.” Lila raised her glass. “For old times’ sake.”
“I actually can’t drink.” Val made a face. “Still breast-feeding.”
Christa nibbled her lower lip. “I have to drive all the way back to Dover, and I’m such a lightweight.”
“I have to leave early so I can finish up a presentation for work.” Stacie shook her head ruefully. “Kids and jobs have ruined our social lives.”
“Let’s have iced tea and talk fast.” Val signaled the bartender, then gave Lila a quick kiss on the cheek. “So, how long are you going to be in town, lady?”
“I’m not sure.” Lila folded a paper napkin into little triangles. “I’ll be here through the summer, helping my mom.”
“And then?” Stacie prompted. “Doesn’t your viewing public need you back?”
“We’ll see. My agent’s been lining up a few auditions.” Lila’s agent had been lining up auditions for months now, for increasingly smaller and more obscure jobs. Lila had shown up early, schmoozed with the casting directors, networked like mad, but the feedback had been increasingly negative:
She’s too generic.
She’s too short.
She’s too old.
“Do you have your own fan club?” Christa grinned. “I always knew if any of us ended up famous, it would be you.”
“Lila Alders, living the dream.”
Lila laughed weakly. “Not really.”
“Oh, please.” Stacie looked wistful as she sipped her iced tea. “You did just what you always said you would—moved to the big city and broke into show business.”
“Our lives are so boring by comparison.” Val dipped her napkin in her water glass and patted a blobby stain on her cardigan. “You’re wearing silk and I’m wearing spit-up stains.”
Stacie smiled sympathetically. “Chase still has reflux?”
“We don’t know what it is.” Val frowned. “Now the pediatrician is saying it might be an allergy or maybe dairy intolerance.”
“I’ll keep my fingers crossed it’s not an allergy,” Christa said. “Those are so hard to deal with once the kids start school. Although my niece has a serious tree nut allergy, and they’ve done a great job managing it at her preschool.”
Lila sat back, sipped her iced tea, and tried to contribute to the conversation, which bounced from teething to elementary school districts to corporate benefit packages to upcoming wedding anniversaries.
“Eight years!” Val gushed. “Can you believe it’s been that long?”
“What are you and Troy going to do to celebrate?” Lila asked.
“Well, at first we wanted to go to the Caribbean. But that’s so expensive, and it’s hard to be away from the kids so long, so then we thought maybe Florida. And then Troy’s boss left and he’s up for promotion, so we’ll be lucky to squeeze in a weekend in North Carolina.”
“Make the time,” Stacie advised. “I know it’s hard when your babies are little, but if you don’t . . .” She trailed off as everyone’s gazes slid toward Lila. “Oh. Sorry, Lila, I didn’t mean . . .”
“Of course not!” Lila waved this away with manic energy. “It’s fine.”
“You’re just lucky you didn’t have kids with your ex,” Stacie opined. “That makes divorce so much harder.”
“And it makes you a much better dating prospect,” Christa said. “A lot of guys don’t want to date a woman with kids. But you’re so pretty and fun, you’ll be remarried in a hot minute.”
“Here’s to that!” Val trilled. They all clinked glasses.
“Speaking of which . . .” Stacie motioned everybody in. “What’s going on with you and Ben Collier?”
Lila glanced away from the trio of inquisitive faces. “Um . . .”
“Don’t play coy. Word’s all over town that he’s back and you’re back and the epic love story of our time is going to have a second chapter.”
Christa gasped. “I didn’t hear this part! Damn work getting in the way of my gossip. Why is Ben in town?”
“Oh, I think we all know why.” Everyone nudged one another and giggled and looked at Lila.
“Remember how you guys used to go to the bonfires on the beach after every football game?”
“Remember when Ben sent all those roses to you in homeroom on Valentine’s Day?”
“Remember how devastated you were when you guys decided to break up?”
“Even your breakup was better than everybody else’s,” Christa marveled. “The perfect breakup for the perfect couple.”
“And now, the perfect reunion.”
“You guys.” Lila felt herself blushing. “He’s just here to oversee some retail construction.”
“Oversee, nothing. He’s inheriting a real estate empire,” Val informed everybody. “His dad’s company does residential and commercial development, and they’ve done very well.” She shot Lila a meaningful look. “Very well. You should snap that man up while the snapping’s good.”
“Have you talked to him yet?” Stacie demanded.
Lila nodded. “Just for a few minutes.”
“And . . . ?”
“And he said he was going to call me.”
More squealing and hand clasping.
“But he hasn’t actually called,” she hastened to add.
“Oh, he’ll call.”
“Absolutely.”
“How many kids do you think you’ll have? He’s going to be such a great dad.”
Lila rolled her eyes. “You guys are worse than my mom.”
“You know who else I heard is back?” Christa said. “Malcolm Toth.”
Lila tried to place the name. “Who?”
“Malcolm Toth,” Christa repeated. “He was in our class.”
/> “Oh, that quiet guy?” Stacie nodded. “Yeah, I think he joined the army or something after graduation.”
Lila shook her head. “Don’t remember him.”
“Yeah, you do. Didn’t you go out with him once sophomore year? Before you and Ben got together?”
Lila shook her head. “No.”
“Well, his sister lives here, too. Her baby goes to the Montessori center my cousin just opened down by the elementary school.”
Which sparked a spirited debate on the merits of Montessori versus Reggio Emilia. After another thirty minutes, everyone started making noises about work deadlines and sitters and Lila picked up the check, just as she always had in high school. No one else even reached for it.
“We should do this again,” Christa said.
“Definitely.” Val tapped away at her cell phone.
Stacie started hugging everyone again. “We should do this every month.”
But after five minutes of poring over their schedules, they couldn’t manage to find a free evening for the next cocktail hour. So the old friends disbanded, making vague promises to text one another and keep in touch.
“No one wants to stay here and have a real drink with me?” Lila cajoled as everyone gathered up their briefcases and diaper bags.
Everyone shook their heads and headed back to their busy lives, leaving Lila alone with the bill and four watery sex on the beaches.
“I haven’t had one of these since high school.” She smiled at the bartender and took a sip, then almost gagged at the sweetness. “And now I remember why.” She surveyed the sedate, elderly clientele seated in the dining room. “Listen, is there someplace to get a margarita around here where I won’t run into anybody who knows me and/or my mother?”
“There’s a new wine bar on Main Street.” The bartender wrinkled her nose in distaste. “Very touristy, very pink. Ben Collier wouldn’t be caught dead there.”
Lila blinked. “You know about me and . . . ?”
The bartender nodded. “Everyone knows. You’re the talk of the town.”
“The Whinery, you say? Full of booze, devoid of ex-boyfriends?” Lila handed over her credit card and prayed that the transaction would go through. “Then that’s my next stop.”
chapter 7
The first person Lila saw when she walked into the Whinery was Tyler Russo, whom she had dated throughout the fall semester of her freshman year of high school. His linebacker physique looked even bulkier now, and she could glimpse the beginnings of a bald patch at the crown of his floppy brown hair, but his face was still boyish and his baggy jeans appeared to be the exact same ones he’d worn to Black Dog Bay High School fifteen years ago.
He put down the cardboard crate he was carrying when he saw her. “Lila Alders, is that you?”
“It’s me.” She forced herself to smile and wave, even though she wanted to duck and cover.
Tyler looked her up and down, and for a moment, his eyes flickered with longing and admiration. “I heard you were back in town.”
“Yep, here I am.” She held up her arms.
“Huh. You look different.”
Her whole body screamed for a margarita. “It’s the hair. I went blond.”
“No, it’s more than that. You look a little . . . tired.”
“That, Tyler, is an understatement.” Lila glanced around at the decor, which was so pink and frilly, it would make a sorority house seem butch by comparison. A sparkling crystal chandelier hung just inside the entrance, little silver candy dishes brimming with chocolates lined the glossy black bar top, the sound system was playing “Walking After Midnight” by Patsy Cline, and a chalkboard advertised a drink special called “Cure for the Common Breakup” in curlicued script.
“You work here?” she asked Tyler, thinking back to the days when he wouldn’t even wear red because it was “too girly.”
“Nah, I’m a wine distributor.” He handed her a business card.
“Second Star Spirits and Wines,” she read. “Nice.”
“Yeah. My cousin owns it, but I’m going to buy in as a partner next year.” He pulled a bottle out of the box. “Here. You like Cabernet? This is a great Napa blend.”
“Thank you.” She resisted the urge to pull the cork out with her teeth and guzzle the contents on the spot, opting instead to tuck the bottle into her oversize leather satchel. “So you’re doing well?”
“Can’t complain.” Nor could he hide the boastful note in his voice. “Went to college in Wilmington; wife’s an accountant. We’ve got a three-year-old daughter who just started preschool.” He pulled up a picture on his phone, and Lila oohed and aahed and counted the minutes until she could politely excuse herself and go have a nervous breakdown in the ladies’ room.
“What about you?” Tyler asked. “I heard you were a famous talk show host in New York City?”
Lila leaned over and grabbed a miniature Reese’s peanut butter cup from the nearest silver candy dish. “Not exactly. It was a home shopping cable affiliate in Philadelphia.”
“Still, you were on TV. You must be pretty rich, huh?”
Lila didn’t even finish the first peanut butter cup before she unwrapped the second one. “Yeah, not so much.”
“Really? But last time I saw your mom, she said—”
The last vestige of Lila’s perky politeness disintegrated. “You want to know what I’ve been doing since high school? I’ve been marrying the wrong man, selling people overpriced crap they don’t need in the middle of the night, and using all the money I earn to buy Botox and personal training sessions and fancy furniture for the humongous house I lost in the divorce.”
Tyler backed away, holding up the box of wine as if to shield himself. “Well, I’ve got some cases of wine to unload—”
“And now I’m broke and moving back in with my mother so I don’t have to live in the SUV that I bought for spite, and the highest hope anybody has for me is that I might get back together with the guy I dated when I was sixteen.” Lila shoved the second peanut butter cup into her mouth and leaned forward to show him her dark roots. “Look at my hair, Tyler. Let this hair be a cautionary tale.”
Glass bottles clinked as he shifted the case of wine. “Uh . . .”
“Remember when we read Walden in Mrs. Turner’s English class?”
He took another step backward. All the longing and admiration had vanished from his eyes. “Yeah.”
“Remember how Thoreau went on and on about quiet desperation? That’s what I’ve been doing since high school. Living a life of quiet desperation.”
She heard rustling on the other side of the bar, and then a female voice said, “Sounds like someone needs a drink.”
Lila looked up to find a tall, willowy woman with choppy platinum hair, sparkling blue eyes, and an unmistakable joie de vivre.
“Lila Alders, this is Summer Benson. Summer, this is Lila. Bye.” Tyler escaped out the door.
Lila saluted him as he went. “There goes one ex-boyfriend I’ll never hear from again.”
“Nice to meet you, Lila.” Summer strolled around to the other side of the bar. “Let me mix you up a glass of something delicious and highly alcoholic.”
“Beat it, Benson.” A petite brunette with curly hair emerged from the back room. “Stop pretending you work here.”
“I do work here,” Summer shot back. “Sooner or later, you’ll come to accept that.”
“You know, it’s funny, but I don’t seem to remember ever paying you a dime. Get out from behind my bar or I’m telling Dutch you violated health code regulations.”
“Go right ahead.” Summer offered up her cell phone. “I violate health code regulations with Dutch every day.”
The bartender laughed and shooed Summer away. Then she offered a handshake to Lila. “Hi, I’m Jenna. I actually own this place, despite what Summer here woul
d have you believe.”
“Hi.” Lila cleaned her chocolate-stained fingers with a pink cocktail napkin before shaking hands. “Sorry, I’m not usually this . . . disheveled.”
“Have some M&M’s,” Summer advised as she sat down next to Lila. “You look like I felt when I first showed up in town.”
“Don’t exaggerate. No one looks as bad as you did when you first got here.” Jenna addressed Lila. “Think translucent zombie with dead eyes and poor driving skills. Although, you both had the blond-hair-dark-roots thing happening.”
“Rebound Salon, two blocks thataway.” Summer pointed down the street. “Cori and Alyssa will fix you right up. Tell them I sent you.”
Lila nodded, deciding to spare them the whole Walden spiel.
“Is this your first visit to Black Dog Bay?” Summer popped a Hershey’s Kiss into her mouth. “We’d be happy to show you around.”
“Oh, I’m not a tourist. I grew up here.”
The Whinery’s front door opened and a tall, coltish teenager with unruly russet hair poked her head in. “Hey. Stop socializing, you guys. Summer’s got to be home at six thirty. Family dinner.”
“That’s Ingrid Jansen,” Jenna explained to Lila. “Summer’s sister-in-law-slash-stepdaughter. Sort of. It’s complicated.”
“It’s only complicated because she and my brother insist on living in sin instead of getting married like regular people,” Ingrid informed the room at large. “They’re setting a bad example.”
“We’re doing family dinner tonight?” Summer checked the calendar on her phone. “Is Dutch home from that conference already?”
“No, but I’m home. And I’m making spaghetti squash with marinara sauce, so you’d better be there.” Ingrid gave Summer a stern look.
“Fine. But if this turns out anything like your coconut creamed kale, I’m getting pizza.”
Jenna waved to Ingrid. “Can I get you something, honey? Iced tea? Fresh orange juice?”
“No, thank you. I’m on my way to the bookstore. It’s Tuesday, and you know what that means—new release day. Hollis said she has some recommendations for me.” Ingrid leveled her index finger at Summer. “See you at six thirty . . . or else.”
New Uses For Old Boyfriends Page 5