Page 33 of The Last Days of Lilah Goodluck

“Drink some more water before you go to bed,” he says in a no-nonsense tone.

“Thank you again for doing this. It was great.”

“You’re welcome.” He nods. “Thank you for going along with visiting my mother. She enjoyed meeting you.”

“Sure.”

I search for something meaningful to say. Something to prolong this moment with him or to check on the heartbeat of our burgeoning friendship. However, not enough sleep last night and a full day with absinthe have caught up with me, and my mind is a mess. What I really want to ask is if I will see him again, but instead, I just stand there and dither. Given everything going on, I should be braver and put my heart on the line. But what if I say the wrong thing? What if he gets all up in his feelings again?

Fuck it.“This was fun today. I was wondering did you want to maybe—”

“I’m busy,” he says, frowning at the steering wheel. Like it personally did him wrong.

“Oh. Okay.”

“You should head on inside. I have to go.” And that’s exactly what he does.

8

Tuesday

The first thing I decide the next morning is to be more daring (after popping some Advil for yet another hangover). My wish list is too staid. Too boring. There must be a balance betweenWhat a stupid thing to doandWhoa!but in a good way. It takes some calling around to various businesses, but I manage to line up two new and interesting experiences. And the first one happens at midday in a nearby park.

“Talk it through,” says my skateboarding instructor, Booker. He has short braids and is cooler than I could ever hope to be. He also has much better balance. Though that isn’t hard.

“My foot goes over the front hardware, positioned at a slight angle.”

“That’s right.”

“Are you sure there isn’t a rule about which foot goes where?”

“Nope. Left or right is fine. Just use whichever feels the most comfortable.”

“That’s a shame. I kind of like rules,” I say. “Okay. Lining up my back foot with the back hardware on the board. But my foot is on the ground, of course.”

We’re in a skate park in West LA. I have already mastered the art of standing on the board while it is stationary. My balance isn’t too bad. The children on the other side of the park are laughing at me and calling me a noob. Little jerks. But everyone has to start somewhere. On the plus side, we’ve been at this for almost an hour, and I haven’t broken a bone or landed on my ass once. Which I count as a win. High school phys ed classes can convince you of all sorts of things, like how much I suck at sports. But this skateboarding class has kind of been cathartic. It also makes for a great distraction from pining over a certain Scotsman.

“Push with my back foot while shifting my weight to the front foot.” And forward I go for about five or six feet. I won’t be taking home any titles or performing tricks in the near future. But having never been particularly athletic or coordinated, this effort is fine with me. “That wasn’t bad.”

“You’re doing good,” says Booker, who is a man of much enthusiasm and great patience. “That’s our time. How are you feeling? Did you enjoy it?”

“I did. Thank you.”

“That’s great. You’ve got my number if you want to book another lesson.” He smiles and I smile back at him. It takes me a minute to remove the hand, elbow, and knee guards. Then I give all of them back, along with the helmet and board. And I tip him well because the man is doing God’s work out here in the half-pipes.

My cell vibrates in my back pocket. Rebecca is texting me a series of screenshots from a leading gossip site. The headline is “Prince Charming Breaks Another Heart.” I can feel my soul leave my body. It’s just me and my sense of impending doom sitting on a park bench. And sure enough, there’s a photo of us in the convertible. Me climbing out. And him driving away.

The expression on my face as I stare after him is pathetic. Just fucking awful. To think all of this is out there in the universe and anyone can see it. But this also means I’ve been identified. My name is in the article, and they knew exactly where to be to get these shots.Ugh.

My cell vibrates again, and I answer the call on the first ring. “Hey.”

“What are you going to do?” asks Rebecca. “These photos are spreading like a virus. You can’t go home. They’ll probably be there, right? The paparazzi and so on?”

“Yeah.”

“Come stay with me.”

“No. I don’t want to dump this mess on anyone.”

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