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He examined it closely. “That puppet looks exactly like her.”
“It’s a marionette. And yes, it does.”
He shook his head minutely, his lips curving up like maybe, just maybe, he thought I was the cutest fucking thing he’d ever seen in his life. “And her marionette is literally feeding squirrels.”
“I know.” I smiled wide and nodded my head excitedly. “I want to be exactly like her when I grow up.”
“Exactly like her?” he questioned in amusement. “With the look-alike marionette and all?”
“You bet your sweet ass, I do. I want to take it to the park and feed squirrels with it, too.” I took in his befuddled expression. “Wait…is that weird?”
“It’s probably the weirdest life aspiration I’ve ever heard anyone speak,” Reed said through a quiet laugh. “But it’s weird in an eccentrically adorable, Lola kind of way.”
“Reed Luca, are you sweet on me?” I whispered and placed a soft kiss to the corner of his mouth.
He smirked. “You bet your sweet ass I am.”
Ditto.
Column in hand, I opened the door to the San Francisco Journal and passed the receptionist with a smile on my face.
She looked at me differently, and I had to imagine it was because I was looking at things differently.
Lola had opened my mind to the fact that I couldn’t dismiss things as trumped up or falsified just because they excluded a portion of the population—especially if that portion included me.
Sometimes people are opinionated and bold, and that’s part of the glory of their personality. It’s how they function, how they breathe, how they move from one activity to the next, and Lola was one of those people.
But what set her apart and made her the woman who’d sunk her entire being into me and hung around was the way she did it. The zeal she had for nearly everything, and the honesty with which she approached it. She was herself through and through, even in the weird ways that most people didn’t understand or didn’t like, and she wasn’t afraid to align herself with people who were different.
She found comfort from within herself, rather than from the validation of the people around her, and hell if that didn’t make us two peas in a pod.
But her validation of me and my opinions… Well, that had become something to strive for. And the newness of that desire on my part really made me stand up and take notice.
I approached the Leech’s office so satisfied, so smug, so fulfilled in all the ways I really wanted, I almost didn’t notice the look on her assistant’s face. It took him sticking out a hand and planting it in my chest to gain my attention.
“She’s on a bender,” he warned.
I smiled. “What’s got her riled now?”
He winced. “You.”
My smile melted slowly. “Me? What did I do?”
He tilted his head and I laughed. “Okay. What’d I do this time?”
“Reed! Get in here!”
He raised his eyebrows and whispered his best wishes. “Good luck.” I had no choice but to meet my fate head on—not that I ever handled anything any differently.
I swept in the door and sat right down in the chair in front of her desk. “Hello, Rhonda.”
Her eyes narrowed at my innocent tone.
She didn’t even bother with small talk, and instead, held out her hand in wait. Suspecting she expected my column to fill it, I looked down to what pretty much equated to my heart in my hands and forked it over.
It was the second column agreeing with Lola’s, but more than that, it was a declaration of all the things I was terrified to give in to. Normalcy, love, long-term commitment—but mostly, the admission that I craved all of those things, lusted after them like all of the other “sheeple” I’d fought so valiantly to oppose.
“Reed This,” she read. “Sex really does say.”
Accusing eyes shot to mine, and I shrugged. It had seemed like a good title to me at the time.
“Either Lola Sexton is getting smarter, or I really am in love with her,” she read, her eyes peeking over the edge of her glasses with icy intensity. “The smart approach she took to intimacy with her readers buttered me up, and her wise words on welcoming life changes and embracing your natural strengths sealed my fate.”
She ripped her glasses off of her face and tossed the column down on her desk.
“What the hell is this?”
“My column,” I told her needlessly.
“I mean,” —she emphasized— “this watered-down, love-sick version of the guy we hired? Where’s the insight, the battle, the so valiantly argued flip of the coin?”
God, this didn’t sound like it was going to go well. I felt sick to my stomach over the personal nature of everything I’d bled onto that page and the way Rhonda discarded it.
But I maintained my composure, as always. “I agreed with her. So that’s what I wrote.”
“No. I don’t think that’s it,” Rhonda said quietly, pushing back into her chair and steepling her hands in her lap. “I think you’re like every other weasel out there, hooked by whatever spell she puts out and eager to keep a direct line to her genitals.”
Pulses fired behind my eyes and needles pricked at my skin, and I fought to make sense of each sensation.
It took an almost ridiculously long moment to recognize I was angry—something I was completely and wholeheartedly unfamiliar with.
My clarity was so hazy, so scattered, I had to take an extra second to gather my thoughts.
When I found my focus, aided no doubt by the daggers shooting out of my boss’s eyes, the only conclusion there was to come to settled over me like the San Francisco fog. “I’m not going to disagree with her just to disagree. Sorry. That’s not how I do things.”
Rhonda shot forward in her seat again, leaning her elbows onto the gleaming wood of her obscenely large desk. I’d heard of men compensating for penis size, but I wasn’t sure what the equivalent was when it came to a woman. “The column has a buzz because you disagree. That’s the whole point, Reed.”
“I thought the point was to help people looking for advice or direction in their lives.”
“Ohh,” she hemmed. “Yeah, that wasn’t the goal. We’re looking for sales, and let’s face it, people love conflict. The mushy, we-actually-like-each-other feelings you’re portraying, not so much.”
Thanks to her indifference, I came back into myself. I only sought the opinions of people whose passion matched my own—whose position held merit and substance. Rhonda Leech wasn’t either of those things. She was a money-grubber and a gatekeeper to ruthless morals. She was, perhaps, an exact portrayal of her true self—a concept I always preached—but she wasn’t a good mesh with me. I wasn’t even angry anymore.
“Again, sorry. Falsifying advice for the gain of the paper is not my scene.”
“You work for us, so really, we tell you what your scene is. And the gain of the paper is always it.”
I shook my head and stood up from my seat.
“I’ve never been good at being a puppet. Played Pinocchio once in my elementary school play, and all of the reviews said it was a spectacular failure.”
She grabbed my column from the desk and shook it. “This…love letter…is never going to print. Either you rewrite another draft that aligns with the goals of this institution, or you can consider your column discontinued. We’ll draft a good-bye from you to fill the spot.”
“Then it’s been a good run, but I guess this is good-bye.”
“Reed—”
“Have a good day, Rhonda.”
I reached forward and pulled the column out of her hand. “But this…I’ll keep.”
I didn’t look up, and I didn’t look back as I left the office and headed straight for Lola’s apartment. I wanted to see her, touch her, breathe her in as a means of reassurance as I struggled to understand the disappointment I felt.
My only comfort came from knowing the disenchantment wasn’t pointed within but outward, to the world around me. It was a temper tantrum of sorts, where emotion lashed out at the readers for loving a good scandal and at Rhonda for being so ruthless.
I mused over why people couldn’t find joy in writing rather than in drama, but by the time I made it a couple of blocks, all that fire burned out.
This wasn’t about a job or societal letdowns. This was about pouring my heart onto a paper, bleeding myself into the moment and my wants, and having them slapped down.
Lola’s validation felt more important than ever.
I was only a block away from Lola’s building when the power of distraction ran me right into the past—literally.
“Reed? Holy shit, man. Is that you?” the low voice asked, a crying baby on his hip. Wild blond curls and a thumb in her mouth, the little girl struggled to settle as I moved my gaze from her to the man holding her.
I could hardly believe my eyes. “Brandon?”
Once my best friend, this man had gone on to become everything I hadn’t and then some—a partner, a husband, a family man with a sense of purpose other than himself—everything that was now staring my Lola-loving self in the face.
Fate sure had a sense of humor.
“Knock. Knock,” I announced and tapped my fist against the door to Reed’s apartment three times.
