Look - Zan Romanoff Page 0,69
dark of the night.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
IT’S FIFTEEN MINUTES to midnight when Lulu shows up on Bea’s doorstep. She thought about sending her a Flash on the way over, but then she figured Bea wouldn’t be paying attention to her phone, and might especially not be in the mood to talk to Lulu if she didn’t know it was urgent. It’s not like her parents are home to be woken up, anyway.
It feels very strange and formal to ring the bell. Lulu listens to it echoing through the downstairs.
It takes five minutes and another ring before Bea comes to answer it. Lulu sees her dimly through the door’s glass panes—the lights are mostly off down here, but Bea looks disheveled, and annoyed.
Her face changes when she realizes who’s standing on her porch.
She opens the door.
“Can I come in?” Lulu asks.
“What the fuck?”
“Can I come in?”
Bea stands back. “Of course. Of course. Lulu, are you okay? Is that Owen? What’s happening? What’s going on?”
Owen is sitting in his car. He was the one who came out and found Lulu standing, shivering, mute, in The Hotel’s driveway. He put his jacket around her shoulders and when she wouldn’t go inside he coaxed her into his car. “Bea’s,” she told him. “If you want to do something, take me to Bea’s,” and he did.
Lulu sends a mental apology to Kiley for depriving her of her rightful midnight kiss. She waves at him, Hi, I’m fine, and he flashes his lights in response and starts backing out of the driveway.
“Are you okay?” Bea asks again.
“I’m fine,” Lulu says. “Something bad happened. But I’m fine. Look at me. I’m fine.”
“You always look fine, Lulu!”
Bea stands back to make room, so Lulu walks into the house, over the threshold, into the familiar space. There’s mail on the side table and it smells like Bea’s house always does, like her own almost-home.
“Where were you?” Bea asks.
Lulu follows Bea into the kitchen. “I don’t want anything,” she says.
“I might.”
“Is Rich upstairs?”
“Mmmm.”
“I was at a party,” Lulu says. “At the—at the hotel property Ryan owns.”
“Oh. Of course.”
“Can we put that on hold for tonight?”
“Put what on hold?”
“Our argument,” Lulu says. “Any argument.”
“Oh, so now that you need me we’re friends again?”
“Yes,” Lulu agrees. “Now that I need you. I really need you, B.”
Her voice must convey how desperate she is, because Bea just sighs. “Oh, girl,” she says, and holds open her arms.
After a while, Bea goes upstairs to let Rich know what’s going on. When she comes back down, she grabs a bottle of champagne out of the fridge and brings it and Lulu up to her bedroom.
“Where’s Rich?” Lulu asks.
“Jerking off in the shower.”
“Right,” Lulu says. “I forgot. Happy New Year.”
Somehow, that’s what does it—breaks the seal of tension between them, so that they both dissolve into helpless, eye-watering laughter.
“Happy New Year!” Bea says, miming a jerk-off motion, her hands describing a dick so big they don’t touch around it.
“Happy New Year!” Lulu cries, and pops the top off the champagne so that it fizzes and splashes onto her hands, and then the floor.
“My rug!” Bea yelps.
“MY LIFE,” Lulu yelps back. She sucks the foam out of the bottle. It spills, wet and white, down her chin.
“Give me,” Bea says. “Give it here,” so Lulu does.
Out of habit, she checks her phone.
Ryan sent her a link to a website. When she opens it, he has the photographs for sale. He’s calling the exhibition LOOK AT THIS. He’s selling it like he owns it. Like he owns her.
“What?” Bea asks.
“Well,” Lulu says. “You wanted to know what happened? This is what happened.”
She hands her phone to Bea.
Bea clicks through the slideshow. Rich comes out at one point, hair damp, deeply pouty, and Bea waves him away. “Girl stuff,” she says. “Urgent.”
He goes downstairs to play video games.
Bea hands the phone back to Lulu when she’s done.
Lulu can’t keep herself from thumbing through the gallery some more. It’s crazy to see herself as a model, a photograph, a thing that can be bought and sold. All of the magic of The Hotel sucked up and turned into a way to manipulate her into letting her guard down for long enough that he could capture the shape of her body for himself.
As if it even had to be that hard. Everyone knows Lulu is easy for a camera.
Bea takes the phone from Lulu’s hands. Lulu doesn’t resist. It feels so good to let someone else take care of her.
“I think we should