Lilah's List

“I don’t know,” Angie argued. “I think we got you pretty close in high school. I had to bake Bobby Carnivelli cookies for two months so he’d let you take over as Reggie’s math tutor. It’s not my fault you were too shy to make the first move.”

For her entire junior and senior year, she and Angie had devised many a plot to get Reggie’s attention, all of which stopped just short of her confessing her undying love. A girl had to have her pride.

“I’m old-fashioned. I prefer the gentleman to do the asking.”

“Old-fashioned, my gluteus maximus. You were just a big, fat chicken.”

“Oh ho. Was I chicken in the sixth grade when I talked LaTonya Richards out of beating you up?”

“Well—”

“And what about the time I convinced a Maryland State Trooper not to give you yet another ticket. The ticket that would have ultimately caused you to lose your license. And—”

“I meant with boys, okay? You’re a big, fat chicken when it comes to boys.”

“Fine. I’ll concede on that point. Which brings us back to the issue at hand. Number one on my list, date Reggie Martin, has gone from unlikely to impossible. He’s a superstar now.”

Reggie had always been a singer. He had a lovely melodic voice and could be found singing on almost any occasion. But no one could have predicted that he’d manage to parlay that into a career. Right now, his first single, “Love Triangle,” was getting heavy rotation on all the air waves.

“He’s not a superstar yet—more like a rising star. It’s not the same as trying to get a date with somebody like…Usher.” Angie was eternally optimistic, which was one of the qualities Lilah missed most about her.

“Yeah, whatever, girl. Keep hitting that crack pipe.”

“Okay, put number one aside for now. What else is left on your list?”

“Eat escargot, ride a mechanical bull, get a tattoo, crash a party—”

“Slow down there, girlfriend. Those are all things you can still do.”

“Angie, I don’t even want a tattoo.”

“That point is moot. Listen…. I have a plan—”

In the past those four words between them would have given her a charge, but Lilah’s mature, twenty-nine-year-old self had learned to avoid trouble at all costs. “No, I have a plan. How about we forget I ever mentioned the stupid list and talk about something else.”

“Not a chance. Here’s what I think—you should come to New York a week before your birthday, and we’ll knock The List out.”

“Remember number one—”

“I said I have a plan.”

“You have a plan to get me a date with the hottest new R&B singer?”

“No, I have a plan to get you a date with an old, high school friend who happens to be a hot new R&B singer.”

“Okay, let’s hear it. This ought to be good.”

“As I see it, we have two viable avenues by which to reach Reggie. One, I read that his older brother Tyler is his business manager, and he lives here in the city. We can try to contact him and enlist his help hooking up with Reggie.”

Lilah remembered Reggie’s older brother well. And she’d always been a tiny bit scared of him. If Reggie were sunshine, Tyler was a thunder cloud—a dark, brooding killjoy. During her tutoring sessions, Reggie had complained rather frequently about how hard his brother rode him. She’d always suspected Tyler was jealous of Reggie’s talent and popularity.

“And the second avenue?”

“Well, you can’t live in New York and work in the fashion industry without being hot-wired into the celebrity grapevine. With his brother managing his business affairs here in the city, odds are he either lives here or frequents the area. I know my contacts can dig up the dirt on his whereabouts. Then it’s just a matter of matching the two of you up in time and space.”

Sure, it sounded straightforward, even plausible, but Lilah knew from experience that their schemes never went according to plan. “Well, I have to hand it to you, Ang, that’s not bad. You certainly haven’t lost your touch.”

“So we’re on?”

“Not. A. Chance.”

“What? Why not?”

“I have to work.”

“I know for a fact you haven’t taken any time off since the divorce. That was a year and a half ago. You must have vacation accrued up to your eyeballs.”

“I just moved. There’s still so much to be done around here.”

“Nothing that can’t wait.”

“It’s just not a good time….”

Angie was silent for a minute. “Wow, I guess your marriage really did crush all the life out of you. You’ve lost your sense of adventure.”

Lilah gasped. That was a low blow. And it hit its mark. She’d been a good girl. She’d played by the rules. It hadn’t made her happy.

She couldn’t remember the last time she’d been utterly content. Her wedding day? College? She’d gotten so used to the status quo that she didn’t even challenge herself anymore.

Her gaze fell back on The List. Maybe she needed to practice a random act of kindness. Maybe she needed to drink champagne straight from the bottle. She definitely needed to climb to the top of the Statue of Liberty and ice skate in Rockefeller Center. She’d promised her best friend that they’d do those things together.

“Okay, I’m in.”

Over the next week Angie and Lilah talked nearly every day working out the arrangements for her visit. Lilah ended up taking off the entire two weeks before her birthday. After all, she was overdue for a vacation, and she’d need all the time she could get to work her way through The List. She’d booked a first-class flight—scratch that off The List—from D.C. to New York Friday morning.

Angie tapped into the grapevine and discovered that Reggie did, in fact, live in Manhattan. According to Reggie’s bass player’s wife’s hairdresser, he was attending a private party in the Flatiron District Friday night.

“The party’s at some trendy club called Duvet,” Angie informed her the night before. “I ran a Google search and apparently they serve you food and cocktails on these enormous cushion-lined beds.”

“Let’s see—private party, Friday night, trendy club. Sounds like it’ll be hard to get into. We could be waiting outside in the cold for hours—if they let us in at all.”

“Oh, we’ll get in. We have to.”

“And why is that?”

“Because crash a party is on your list.”

Chapter 2