Writing on the Wall Page 3

  “No cheating, Miss Doolittle. You turned yourself over to Professor Higgins, and I’m not done yet.”

  She giggled, and she and Adonis both chuckled when someone asked who Professor Higgins was. Maybe Adonis is right, she thought. I haven’t even seen myself yet, but I feel different. I feel like maybe I could actually turn out to be a real person. She pressed her eyes shut tight, but a few tears leaked out, and she felt a hand press a tissue to them.

  “I know,” he said. “It’s not easy, being beautiful.”

  That cracked up both of them again, and Lola relaxed and gave in. If Adonis had shaved her head, so be it. She sank back into her daydream.

  Someone was putting more makeup on her. She’d worn lipstick before, and cover-up, but that was it. She worried that Adonis would be disappointed and she didn’t want to let him down. He seemed so hopeful about all of this, but at the end she’d still be herself. She would open her eyes, and he would be disappointed but too polite to show it.

  Pretend you love it, she told herself. Let him pretend you’re pretty and that he worked miracles, and then you’ll be able to leave, and it will all be over. You never have to do this ever again, and it’s almost over.

  Finally, the stylist pronounced her finished. She kept her eyes closed an extra second to prolong the suspense and heard Adonis groan in impatience. She felt herself smiling, and she finally looked in the mirror.

  She could hardly process the image for a moment. Then she gasped out loud. The woman who stared back at her in the mirror was a stranger. She looked like some television version of Lola. Younger, prettier, and somehow more expressive, she had big eyes and shiny hair and a wide smile. It was weird. Kind of scary, even. She would not have recognized herself but for the crookedness of her teeth. It was like looking at a stranger. Like the old Lola had disappeared and been replaced by some better version of her. Lola saw her smile falter. Was that her reflection? Was it a trick mirror? Was she dreaming?

  “You— ”She couldn’t continue.

  “I know,” Adonis said, tilting his head to the side. “You’re right. I am an amazing, remarkable and talented genius, thank you very much.”

  “How—”

  “I told you,” he said, taking her hand. “You had yourself all wrong, Lola Lolita Doolittle. You thought you were supposed to be somebody’s ugly stepsister, didn’t you?”

  “But?” At some point, she was going to have to be able to make an actual sentence, but it was still beyond her. She reached up and lightly touched her hair. It felt soft, like a baby’s hair. Adonis pulled her hand away and held it. She shook her head slowly, and her hair flew around her face as though it were weightless.

  “I don’t understand.” She frowned. “This isn’t me. This isn’t what I look like. I never looked like this. What did you do?”

  “I knew, the minute I saw you, that you weren’t my usual client. You weren’t trying to be more than you were. You’d made yourself invisible, hadn’t you? And now you’re ready to stop being invisible. It’s not magic, honey. It’s just a little makeup and a haircut from this century.”

  Lola’s eyes overflowed again, and Adonis smiled as she dabbed at them.

  “Tommy,” he called over his shoulder, “change Lolita’s mascara to waterproof!”

  “One more thing, and I don’t want you to be insulted,” Adonis said. “But you need to stop dressing like a fugitive from a chain gang.” He pulled out a stack of magazines and showed her clothes she should buy. He asked her to pick a few things and then told her what was wrong with those choices. After a while, she was able to pick a half dozen items that Adonis approved of.

  “Go shopping,” he ordered, “and bring everything back to me so I can check it. I don’t quite trust you, and I don’t want you ruining my work with mom jeans and a baggy sweatshirt. Dress like someone with an ounce of self-worth, okay?”

  She promised to do so and reached out to shake his hand. He shook his head and pulled her close for a hug. He’d spent more time with her than she’d ever imagined. And never once had he made her feel like an outsider or a freak. It was unnerving, having someone so dazzling treat her with such sweetness.

  “Thank you so much,” she whispered. “You’ve been so kind and so brilliant. Thank you, thank you, thank you!”

  Change, she told herself while walking home, is good. This was a new habit of hers, coaching herself. Go team! She laughed at herself and saw a cute, tomboyish girl smile at her. Was she flirting? She couldn’t be. Someone so beautiful would never look twice at someone like her, but the very possibility was exhilarating. She finally looked and felt like she belonged in this lovely, lovely place. As the sunlight dimmed around her, Lola wandered around her pretty new house and wondered what kind of person she would turn out to be, now that she could choose.

  Chapter Three

  With Halloween a week away, Del realized that her porch was the only one with no pumpkin on it. She couldn’t believe she’d let things go like that. The neighborhood kids had no patience for excuses come candy night, and she didn’t blame them. But tonight was not the time to worry about that. She was on her way to her book club and didn’t want to miss it again. She’d read the book three weeks before and barely remembered it, something about an alien or something? Whatever. She used to have friends, but now she spent much of her time alone, and it was wearing on her. Tess and the other members of the book club were all she had left, and she hadn’t seen them since summer. Taking in the decorations and breathing in the cool fall air made her wish she were actually excited about the rapidly approaching holiday season.

  Last Halloween Janet had talked her into wearing a costume, something Del hadn’t done since she was a small child. They went as prisoner and guard, Janet in a sexy little uniform and Del in the stripes. Del left a huge bowl of candy on the porch and they joined the crowd on the streets. Del had felt lighter and freer that night than maybe ever before, even as she kept a watchful eye on the more ebullient gatherers. While the neighborhood had once been known for its wild Halloween debauchery, new ordinances and pressure from a variety of sources within the community had changed things to a more subdued hubbub. It was the perfect setting for Del’s mood that night. She was in love with a beautiful woman who seemed to love her back, and she was happy.

  Janet was more than just beautiful. She was both larger than life and unimaginably tiny. Everything about her seemed delicate. Her wrists, her shoulders, even her hips were bony. But her voice was loud, teasing and provocative and sexy and sharp, either purring or screeching and on the verge of hysteria. She demanded constant attention, and Del was surprised to find how much she enjoyed being in demand like that. Sometimes it was more exciting than exhausting. Sometimes it was not.

  Janet was obsessed with her weight, always insisting that she needed to go on a diet. She dressed in the sexiest clothes and wore the highest heels, and she never went anywhere without full makeup. Del loved walking into a bar or restaurant with Janet on her arm. Every head in the place would turn to Janet, and she would strut along, head high, hips swaying, well aware of her sexual prowess. Her dark, heavily lined eyes and long, shining hair made her an exotic beauty in a city full of exotic beauties, but it was something else that made her special. What that was, Del never could figure out. Confidence, charisma, mystique, maybe? She certainly had all of them to spare. Janet was what Del’s daddy would have called “a right good one.”

  They’d met in a bar. When Janet sauntered up and just stared up at Del, unsmiling, her chest stuck out like she wanted to fight, Del almost laughed. She thought that if the girl weren’t such a knockout she’d seem ridiculous. But she was a knockout.

  “You gonna buy me a drink, Stretch, or what?”

  Del smiled and wished she had a hat to doff. Of course she bought the girl a drink. She had always been very confident with women. She was used to being the one to approach them, to seeing them blush as she charmed and flattered and teased them. It was disconcerting to have this tiny go
rgeous girl walk up and seduce her. She’d been off balance ever since that night. She spent months growing to trust Janet and wanted something she hadn’t wanted since she was a kid—real love, real trust, a family of two. And Janet seemed to want it too.

  Late at night, after dinner and wine and Janet’s detailed and apparently fictional stories about whatever school she’d worked at that day, they had long talks about their future together. Del told Janet things she never shared with anyone. She talked about conflicts within the department, about inept administrators, about the difficulties of being a woman and gay and a detective. She opened her heart, and for the first time in her life, shared everything she felt and thought. She never imagined that Janet, who listened to her every word with wide eyes and an attentive air, who ran to Del at the end of the day as if burning with passion for her, would turn around and stab her in the back. Del was still reeling.

  It was six months after that first night in the bar that Del found out Janet wasn’t a substitute teacher but a freelance reporter writing an expose on the SFPD. All Janet’s stories about teaching were fictional. All those months, all those questions—in retrospect, it was obvious. She was never in love with Del. She was working her, using her to dig up dirt on the department.

  When the article came out, first online, then in every local paper, and finally in a national magazine, everyone seemed to know Del was the source. Del wasn’t sure how. She wasn’t the only lesbian in the department, or even the station, but everyone knew that Inspector Del Mason was the one who’d blown it. She was never formally disciplined, but she was still paying for her stupidity in the contempt from her police colleagues and supervisors, their ostracism.

  Whatever headway Del had made in the last several months in rebuilding her life on the job, she’d failed to make in her personal life. One minute, she and Janet were going to be together forever. The next, Janet was a traitor who’d only been with her to use her. Del still felt raw, exposed and hurt and angry. Though she’d never been in the closet, she had always kept her personal life separate from her professional life. She’d certainly never made a public spectacle of herself. She also hadn’t been anyone’s fool since she was seven years old, and now, at forty, she felt like a hapless child all over again. Losing her head over a woman was a mistake she’d never planned to make and one she did not intend to make again.

  The thrumming of her bike brought Del back to the present. She headed toward the coffee shop, eager to touch base with the women from the book club. She only made it to the meeting about half the time because of the job but she enjoyed it when she did go.

  As she carefully backed the Rebel up against the edge of the sidewalk, Del noticed a woman walking toward her in the gathering dusk. The new neighbor, what was her name? Linda? Laura? Lola. That was it, Lola Bannon.

  “Lola?” she called, and the woman froze. She stood peering at the helmet that hid Del’s face, poised on the balls of her feet like she might flee into the night.

  “Hey, hi. Didn’t mean to startle you. I’m Del, your neighbor. We met at Marco and Phil’s. Remember?” Del pulled off the helmet and smiled in what she hoped was an “I’m a nice person and not a serial killer” way. Actually, she realized belatedly, they hadn’t met. She scarcely recognized this woman.

  “No. Yes. Did we? Hi, Del. Uh, I’m sorry,” Lola protested, “I wasn’t paying attention.” She came closer and flashed a brief, reflexive smile. Even in the waning light of evening, she looked like a completely different woman from the one Del had seen in Marco’s living room. Now Del was surprised she’d recognized her at all. She looked like that other woman’s sexy twin.

  She wore a lavender sweater and stylish jeans. A fitted leather jacket completed the look, and the new clothes showed off a shapelier body than Del had realized before. Her hair was tinted a warmer brown, no grays, and cut at least twenty inches shorter, in a style that framed her face and drew attention to her eyes. Those eyes, Del noticed, were even prettier than she’d thought, golden and sparkling. Her cheeks were a soft pink, and her lips looked full and glossy and rose colored. Soft. Full. Kissable.

  “What are you doing here?” Del heard the brusqueness in her voice and saw Lola’s shoulders hunch. Most people would bristle, not retreat. She’s more skittish than I thought. She grimaced and saw Lola’s face freeze.

  What is wrong with me? Be nice. She gestured at the paperback Lola clutched. “Book club?”

  She climbed off the bike and saw Lola take an unconscious step backward. This could get old, fast. Del felt like she was standing over a feral cat. She eased her body backward. Lola took another unconscious step, this time forward. That was interesting.

  “Oh, uh, I saw the ad for a book club here, I mean, I saw it online, and I thought I’d check it out. Maybe. I’ve never joined a book club. How about you?”

  Del nodded. “I’ve been coming for a while. I don’t always make it, but nobody seems to mind. They’re a nice group. What’d you think of the SAFE neighborhood thing?”

  “Oh.” Lola tilted her head, “Great. I’d never been to anything like that before. I thought it would be nice to meet my new neighbors.”

  But you didn’t talk to a soul. You slipped out just as fast as I did. Faster. She held out her book, and Lola smiled, holding out her own copy of Stranger in a Strange Land.

  “D’you like it?” Del asked.

  “Like it?” Lola seemed to take the question seriously. Her eyes widened, and a small smile lit up her face, even in the dim light on the sidewalk.

  Oh, but it was a beautiful smile. A real one, this time. Del liked the way that smile, brief though it was, warmed her in a way that was disconcerting. She reminded herself, I don’t even know this woman.

  “I did. You know, the ‘grok’ thing. That’s a lovely concept, isn’t it? And I think we all feel a little—alien, sometimes.”

  “What makes you feel like an alien?”

  The question was too direct. Lola shook her head and shrugged at the same time. She gave an apologetic smile and looked away, turning toward the door. “We should probably go in, I think.”

  Del nodded at Lola’s back and held the door. She leaned forward to hear Lola’s barely audible thanks.

  Del knew she could be intimidating with her height and build and cop’s demeanor, and she tried to be as nonthreatening as possible, especially with this kind of woman. She generally treated people like they were witnesses—drawing them out, making them feel comfortable and safe, letting their personalities show themselves naturally.

  Timid women she tended to handle with kid gloves, allowing them their space. Proving that she was nice and not scary. She felt like she’d bullied Lola, somehow. I feel like a bad guy around her, and I don’t like it. I’m not too sure I like her. Pretty or not, sweet or not, she was all rabbit and no fight. But there was something intriguing about her. Del suspected, though she had no reason to do so, that there was more to Lola Bannon than met the eye.

  The tables had been pushed around so the group could form a rough oval on one side of the brightly lit neighborhood hangout. It was a popular place and often hosted poetry readings, live music and book clubs. Because of this, regulars had become accustomed to clustering on the smaller side of the oversized coffee shop and bakery, leaving the larger side open for whatever was going on that night. Del thought of it as a kind of home away from home, one of the few places she could go and not feel like she was on duty.

  Several members of the book club were already seated, sipping coffee and chatting. Tess, the book club organizer, had made arrangements with the owner, and now they always had a few carafes of coffee and some cups set on a table so that members could serve themselves. Their annual dues somehow supposedly covered the cost of this, although Del suspected that Tess ended up paying more than her share. She vowed, not for the first time, to address this privately with Tess. She didn’t like the idea of letting the kid pay for all of them.

  Del waited by the door to see what Lola would do.
She saw her look around for Tess, who always wore a nametag when someone new was joining them—she was a natural organizer and facilitator and one of the reasons Del had joined the group. Del spotted Tess at the edge of the circle and smiled; her dark curls bounced every time she gestured or nodded or laughed. She was a lively, charismatic Cuban woman who managed to balance strength and softness with seemingly effortless grace, and she was one of Del’s favorite people.

  She remembered meeting Tess nearly a decade earlier, when a burglar had stabbed an elderly neighbor and Tess had managed to bring the guy down with a baseball bat, call for help, and save the neighbor’s life without breaking a sweat. Del had given her a high five, which had earned her a sour look from her then-captain. She’d also asked Tess if she’d ever considered a career in law enforcement, something she still thought would be a good idea. But Tess was a nurse, and she had no interest in law enforcement. Del had expressed her sincere regret over this, and she’d seen that Tess was flattered. A few weeks after that, Tess came into the station to find her—she was recruiting for a local basketball league and had thought of Del. This wasn’t much of a surprise. People always asked Del if she played basketball.

  Del wasn’t a great player, but she was pretty athletic, and her height and quick reflexes made her an asset. She played for six seasons and enjoyed hanging out with Tess and the other players, then quit when Janet complained that it took too much time away from each other. Tess approached her every few months to ask her back, but Del wasn’t sure she wanted to play anymore—the younger players tended to throw elbows pretty freely, and she was no longer young enough to recover from bruised ribs in an hour or two. Janet’s whining had just made for a good excuse. Tess, still in her early thirties, didn’t seem to get that in ten years she herself would probably be more wary of contact sports.