On Common Ground

Matt managed to stop next to him without tripping. “I know. I’m pathetic. But before I forget. I gotta ask you. Did you say Lilah Evans?”

“I THINK YOU LI-IKE HIM,” Mimi taunted Lilah.

“Oh, please. This isn’t junior high school. And I’m too old to have crushes,” Lilah replied. She let her eyes wander around the kitchen, anywhere but on Mimi. How often did someone use two dishwashers? she wondered.

“I don’t know what you’re so defensive about. What’s the big deal about being forced to stay close to a man who is drop-dead gorgeous—and as we now have personal proof of—gentle and gifted and loves children?”

“You don’t understand.”

“What don’t I understand?” Mimi grabbed for the gin bottle again. “Don’t tell me you still have a thing for Stephen?” She poured two fingers and didn’t bother with the tonic water.

“No, of course not. Not anymore.” Lilah eased herself onto a stool. The night was growing longer by the minute. “You know, I looked him up on Google when I decided to come back.”

“As anyone rightly would.” Mimi took a swallow.

“Seems he’s a partner in a big law firm in Cleveland. They even had a picture up on the website—he’s gotten fat. Which is kind of ironic when you consider how he always used to be on me about my weight.”

“And he’s married with two children and a third on the way.”

“You’re kidding? How did you find out?” She realized she experienced a glimmer of jealousy—but not for Stephen. Her breakup, which was once so heart-wrenching, now only held a faint “what if?” No, the pang she felt was for the idea of children. Lilah rested her chin on her hand.

“Excuse me. I’m a reporter. I’m supposed to get that kind of information.”

“Well, did you also find out that he’s not coming to Reunions?”

“That I don’t know. It seems you have your own sources. Speaking of sources—” She glanced down at her watch. “Where is that little brother of mine? I’m beginning to think he didn’t turn out so well after all.” Then she looked back at Lilah. “Hey, no pooping out yet. The night is still young—especially because we still haven’t cleared up this matter.”

“What matter?” Lilah stifled a yawn.

“About Justin? You and Justin? C’mon. Let’s wait outside by the pool. We’ll spot Press sooner that way.”

Lilah took the remnants of her second drink and dutifully followed Mimi. “There is no me and Justin.” Lilah settled into one of the deck chairs around the pool. Tiled dolphins cavorted as in some Roman mosaic. For all she knew, it was a Roman mosaic. She squinted and peered more closely. No, it couldn’t be, could it? “You know, maybe I shouldn’t have had this second drink.”

Mimi settled into the chaise next to her. She flicked off her sandals and ran her bare feet up and down the cedar slats. “Don’t tell me there’s no you and Justin. I mean, in the face of overwhelming positive attributes, can’t you let go for at least a long weekend? No one is expecting you to find true love, after all. But even you, especially you, you little saint, deserve to fall off your pedestal every once in a while.”

“You don’t understand,” Lilah protested. “Every time I look at Justin I’m reminded not only what a total creep Stephen was, but I also unfortunately remember how incredibly self-centered I was, too.”

“Self-centered? That’s the last thing I’d describe you as, Ms. I Don’t Have A Dime To My Name, but go ahead and please take the shirt off my back. Hey, maybe you can use that line on Justin?”

Lilah placed her drink on the side table between them. “Feel free to laugh.”

“Who said I was laughing?”

“Listen, admit in retrospect that Stephen was a creep. But even though he called off the engagement, I really didn’t give him any alternative. Up until then, I had always gone along with his plans. He always seemed so goal-oriented, so focused on our future.”

“His future, with you in tow,” Mimi cracked. “The future corporate attorney with the good little academic wife standing steadfastly at his side.”

“Excuse me. It was my idea to go to graduate school at NYU while he was in law school at Columbia,” Lilah argued.

Mimi threw up her hands. “I don’t even know how you can justify his actions. As far as I remember—and I have a pretty good memory—when you decided on a change in career, it didn’t go down well with him. And when you wouldn’t change your mind, he dumped you and broke your heart.”

Lilah dropped her head. “I’d always been such a good girl up until then,” she said softly.

“Lilah, we were all good girls once upon a time, you especially.”

“I’m still a good girl,” Lilah said despondently.

“Well, get over it. And I can’t think of a better way than with someone warm and sexy by your side. And really. You can’t tell me that you think all these depressing thoughts every time you look at Justin Bigelow?”

Lilah pictured Justin driving again, one hand comfortably on the wheel, the other on his thigh, his fingers tapping out a lazy rhythm on his faded jeans that fit his legs perfectly.... No, not every time.

“Because if that’s the case, why not reintroduce him to me?”

Lilah bit down on her bottom lip. If the Justin she had met today was still the old Justin Bigelow, the one embedded in Lilah’s memory, then there’d be no problem about her having a simple romp with a scrumptious good-time guy. Plus it’d be a snub to an ex. What more could a girl ask for?

But the new Justin Bigelow was…well…new. He seemed much more than the old one. And the voice of her overly developed good-girl conscience told her that was exactly the problem.

CHAPTER SIX

“LILAH EVAN AS IN SISTERS for Sisters Lilah Evans?” Matt asked.

“I don’t know about this Sisters thing, but I guess so. I didn’t know she was such a big deal. I mean, Mimi said something about her getting some alumni award, but I figured it was because she gave big bucks to Grantham.” Press shifted the large bag of food to one arm and fished the car keys out of his jeans. His dad had given him his old BMW convertible when he graduated from high school. He’d left the keys with a card that his secretary had written.

“I don’t think it was for giving money, dude,” Matt said. “She came and gave a talk at Yale last fall at the Political Union. She founded this group that helps women in Congo. You know about the civil war going on there, right?”

“Sorry. If it happened after the Mesozoic era, I’m pretty ignorant,” Press answered. He stepped off the curb, and like most students, didn’t bother to look either way before heading out into traffic. A Lexus SUV screeched to a halt and let him cross. “C’mon, the smell of all this food is reminding me just how starved I am. Let’s head home.”

Matt chugged along beside, holding his can at his side. “Why I’m even friends with such an ignoramus is beyond me.”

“It’s so you have someone to freely lecture.” He beeped open the car and settled the bag in the backseat.

Matt got in the front passenger seat, and before he even put his seat belt on, twisted around and fished out a take-out container of French fries. “So you’re telling me you don’t want to hear all about the warring factions and about how everyone—and his little brother—is trying to get ahold of the diamonds and gold and other metals in the country?”

Press started up the car. “Not really.” He grabbed a French fry. “Hey, crack your window, would you? The smell of this stuff stays around for days otherwise.”

Matt shook his head, but turned to press the window lever. “How you can worry about the smell in your car when millions are being killed is beyond me, and believe me, it’s mostly women who are being brutalized. And besides, didn’t your mother give you Febreze when you went off to college?”

Press slanted him a skeptical look. “My mother?”

“You’re right. What was I thinking? Maybe you could give her some to use with all her tennis shoes? A handy travel size for her sports bag?”

Press didn’t bother to laugh as he pulled out of the parking lot and into Main Street. Some people, like Matt, had good parents and some people didn’t. It was less painful to discuss the state of world politics. “So where does Lilah Evans fit into the whole scenario?”

And naturally Matt was off and running, summarizing Lilah’s work.

Press stopped at the traffic light on the corner of Adams Road. The university library was on the left and the town’s only movie theater on the right. He recognized some friends from school and honked the horn. Then he glanced over at Matt. “Well, I’m glad someone thinks she can save the world. And I have even greater respect for her because given all the culinary delights possible in our fair city, she had the wisdom to choose Hoagie Palace.”

“Laugh all you want. I’d give anything to ask her about an internship.” Matt took a swig of his drink.