you you should have gone to bed, thought Lola.
Ping! Instant message from Annabel. She was still up, too?
“Oy, SORRY,” Annabel typed. “Saw the article. At least he got your name wrong?”
“SLEEP!” typed Lola.
“XOXOXO!” typed Annabel.
“ZZZZZZZ!” typed Lola.
Lola closed her computer and tiptoed into the bedroom, stopping on the way to peel her contact lenses out of her sore eyes. The room was perfectly still, with not so much as a breeze whispering through the curtains that Lola had paid a nice Italian lady to make, which was the kind of business you could still, if you knew where to look, get done in Brooklyn. She tossed her clothes on the floor and climbed into bed with Doug. He was sleeping on his back with his knees up, which Lola found bizarre and adorable, though it made her have to trade spooning for a sleeping still life more like fish knifing.
I don’t know how to solve a murder, thought Lola. I can’t dust for fingerprints. I’m not even like Doug, who figures out the ending of CSI : Dead Model in the first ten minutes. What was I thinking? What have I done?
She rolled over. Her eye caught the stack of books on her nightstand, bathed in the faint yellowish glow of her family hand-me-down clock radio, a clunky vintage model with an analog face.
I am never going to finish Anna Karenina .
But you know what? Books. That’s what I’ve got that they don’t. They know blood spatter patterns, but I know Mimi’s world. That’s gotta count for something. Plus, I recall very clearly from Encyclopedia Brown that a person’s reflection appears upside down in a spoon. You never know when that could come up.
Anyway. Tomorrow.
Lola shifted onto her back, her left shoulder touching Doug’s right. She took a deep breath and closed her eyes.
Just. Need. To. Sleep. On. This.
Her alarm went off.
Nine
Hell’s Bells.
“. . . and with a $1000 pledge, Garrison Keillor will leave the outgoing message on your answering machine,” said NPR.
“Grplnah,” said Doug.
That wasn’t even a catnap, thought Lola. Not even a bird nap. Not even an ant nap.
Doug rolled over. “Sweetie, go back to sleep,” he said, eyes closed.
Catnap.
Dogs.
Lola leapt out of bed.
“Wish I could,” she said, kissing Doug on the nose. “Looks like you’re sleeping for two.”
Fifteen minutes later, after prodding her contact lenses from their own brief rest, wrestling her hair into a ponytail, and giving her garden a quick bare-minimum spritz, Lola was sipping a blue-and-white paper cup of crappy bodega coffee—whole milk, one sugar—as she crossed the girdered bridge over the canal. An orange sun, pale and round as a canned peach, was just beginning to cast its muted light. The air still carried a bit of a damp chill; Lola was glad she had grabbed her light cotton jacket and also that she, a big believer in breakfast, had thought to stick in its pocket a couple of Fig Newtons.
Lola shot an appreciative glance at one of her favorite features of the canal: a rickety red caboose-shaped structure topped with a huge bin full of stones, perched on the bank like a giant square pelican. The faded sign read Lundy Crushers, which, not coincidentally, was also the name of the borough’s women’s roller derby team. Ever wonder where rocks come to get crushed into gravel? Here’s where. There are whole worlds out there—out here—that most of us never think about, Lola mused.
Her only company was one seagull, who landed on the railing and stared at her sideways as she passed. This is why I am a morning person, thought Lola. Even if I haven’t slept. Now’s when I can think.
Thank goodness she had remembered: today was the day she’d promised to dog-sit for Daphne Duplex. Thirty seconds of sleep notwithstanding, Lola was trying—with measured success—to convince herself that having to dog-sit today was a good thing.
Daphne, successful author of So Many Men, So Little Taste , lived about ten blocks away, on
Ping! Instant message from Annabel. She was still up, too?
“Oy, SORRY,” Annabel typed. “Saw the article. At least he got your name wrong?”
“SLEEP!” typed Lola.
“XOXOXO!” typed Annabel.
“ZZZZZZZ!” typed Lola.
Lola closed her computer and tiptoed into the bedroom, stopping on the way to peel her contact lenses out of her sore eyes. The room was perfectly still, with not so much as a breeze whispering through the curtains that Lola had paid a nice Italian lady to make, which was the kind of business you could still, if you knew where to look, get done in Brooklyn. She tossed her clothes on the floor and climbed into bed with Doug. He was sleeping on his back with his knees up, which Lola found bizarre and adorable, though it made her have to trade spooning for a sleeping still life more like fish knifing.
I don’t know how to solve a murder, thought Lola. I can’t dust for fingerprints. I’m not even like Doug, who figures out the ending of CSI : Dead Model in the first ten minutes. What was I thinking? What have I done?
She rolled over. Her eye caught the stack of books on her nightstand, bathed in the faint yellowish glow of her family hand-me-down clock radio, a clunky vintage model with an analog face.
I am never going to finish Anna Karenina .
But you know what? Books. That’s what I’ve got that they don’t. They know blood spatter patterns, but I know Mimi’s world. That’s gotta count for something. Plus, I recall very clearly from Encyclopedia Brown that a person’s reflection appears upside down in a spoon. You never know when that could come up.
Anyway. Tomorrow.
Lola shifted onto her back, her left shoulder touching Doug’s right. She took a deep breath and closed her eyes.
Just. Need. To. Sleep. On. This.
Her alarm went off.
Nine
Hell’s Bells.
“. . . and with a $1000 pledge, Garrison Keillor will leave the outgoing message on your answering machine,” said NPR.
“Grplnah,” said Doug.
That wasn’t even a catnap, thought Lola. Not even a bird nap. Not even an ant nap.
Doug rolled over. “Sweetie, go back to sleep,” he said, eyes closed.
Catnap.
Dogs.
Lola leapt out of bed.
“Wish I could,” she said, kissing Doug on the nose. “Looks like you’re sleeping for two.”
Fifteen minutes later, after prodding her contact lenses from their own brief rest, wrestling her hair into a ponytail, and giving her garden a quick bare-minimum spritz, Lola was sipping a blue-and-white paper cup of crappy bodega coffee—whole milk, one sugar—as she crossed the girdered bridge over the canal. An orange sun, pale and round as a canned peach, was just beginning to cast its muted light. The air still carried a bit of a damp chill; Lola was glad she had grabbed her light cotton jacket and also that she, a big believer in breakfast, had thought to stick in its pocket a couple of Fig Newtons.
Lola shot an appreciative glance at one of her favorite features of the canal: a rickety red caboose-shaped structure topped with a huge bin full of stones, perched on the bank like a giant square pelican. The faded sign read Lundy Crushers, which, not coincidentally, was also the name of the borough’s women’s roller derby team. Ever wonder where rocks come to get crushed into gravel? Here’s where. There are whole worlds out there—out here—that most of us never think about, Lola mused.
Her only company was one seagull, who landed on the railing and stared at her sideways as she passed. This is why I am a morning person, thought Lola. Even if I haven’t slept. Now’s when I can think.
Thank goodness she had remembered: today was the day she’d promised to dog-sit for Daphne Duplex. Thirty seconds of sleep notwithstanding, Lola was trying—with measured success—to convince herself that having to dog-sit today was a good thing.
Daphne, successful author of So Many Men, So Little Taste , lived about ten blocks away, on
Similar Books
