One Fifth Avenue

f your things in your storage locker in the basement. I hope you don’t mind,” she’d said, as if suddenly realizing he might.

“Lola, it’s just not a good idea.”

“What isn’t? You asked me to move in with you, Philip. In Mustique. If you’re saying you don’t love me anymore…” She’d started crying.

Philip had buckled under her tears. “I didn’t mean that. I do care for you, Lola. It’s just that—”

“How can you say you care about me when you’re trying to tell me you don’t want me around? Fine. I’ll leave. I’ll go live on the street.”

“Lola, you don’t have to live on the street.”

“I’m twenty-two years old,” she’d said, sobbing. “You seduced me and made me fall in love with you. And now you’re ruining my life.”

“Lola, stop. Everything is going to be okay.”

“So do you love me?”

“We’ll discuss it when I get back,” he’d said resignedly.

“I know you’re not ready to say it yet. But you will,” she chirped. “It’s just an adjustment period. Oh, I almost forgot—your friend Schiffer Diamond is dating some guy named Derek Brumminger. It was in the Post. And then I saw them together, leaving the building in the morning. He’s not very attractive. He’s old and he’s got bad skin. You’d think a movie star could do better, but maybe she can’t. She’s not so young anymore, either.”

For a moment, Philip had been silent.

“Hello? Hello?” Lola had said. “Are you there?”

So she’s gone back to Brumminger, he’d thought. After telling him to get rid of Lola. Why had he thought she’d changed?

“Lola,” he said now, going into his apartment. “What’s this business about your friend?”

He looked around. Lola wasn’t home. He put his suitcase on the bed and knocked on his aunt’s door.

Lola was with Enid. “Philip! You’re home,” Lola said, throwing her arms around him. He patted her on the back and looked at his aunt, who smiled and rolled her eyes. Lola went on, “Enid was showing me her gardening books. I’m going to fix up your terrace this spring. Enid says I can make tulip boxes. And then we can have cut flowers.”

“Hello, Philip, dear,” Enid said, slowly getting up from the couch. Not having seen her for two weeks, Philip realized she was getting old. Someday he would lose her, and then he’d truly be alone. The thought changed his mood: He was happy he still had his aunt, and that Lola was still living in his apartment, and that Enid and Lola were getting along. Perhaps it would work out after all.

“I want to show you what I did in the kitchen,” Lola said eagerly.

“You were in the kitchen?” he asked in mock surprise. He followed her back to his apartment, where she showed off her handiwork. She had rearranged the contents of his kitchen cabinets so he no longer knew where anything was.

“Why did you do this?” he asked, opening the cabinet that had once held coffee and condiments but now contained a stack of plates.

She looked crushed. “I thought you’d like it.”

“I do. It’s better,” he lied, looking carefully around the apartment and wondering what else she’d disturbed. In the bedroom, he cautiously opened the closet. Half his clothes—the jackets and shirts that had hung in an orderly fashion for years—were missing; in their place, Lola’s clothing hung haphazardly, dangling from his hangers like Christmas ornaments.

“Have you forgotten about me?” she said, coming up behind him and slipping her hands into the front of his jeans. She scooted back onto the bed. With a hard-on that reminded him he hadn’t had sex in two weeks, Philip put her ankles over his shoulders. For a second, he looked down at her bare, waxed pussy, remembering that this was not what he wanted. But it was there before him, and he dove in.

Afterward, searching through his kitchen for his misplaced wineglasses, he said, “What’s this story about your friend cutting the Internet cables to the Rices’ apartment?”

“Oh. That.” She sighed. “It was that horrible Mindy Gooch. She’s jealous of me because her husband, James, is always trying to come on to me behind her back. She said Thayer Core did it. You remember, we went to his Halloween party. Thayer was only here like two times—he wants to write screenplays, and I was trying to help him—and Thayer keeps writing about Mindy and her husband on Snarker, so Mindy was trying to get even with him. And Thayer wasn’t even in the building when it happened.”

“How often has he been here?” Philip asked, his annoyance rising.

“I told you,” she said. “Once or twice. Maybe three times. I can’t remember.”

In the apartment next door, Enid picked up her gardening books and shook her head in frustration. She’d tried everything she could think of to get rid of Lola—forcing her to go along to three upscale supermarkets on Sixth Avenue in search of canned flageolet beans, taking her to a Damien Hirst retrospective of dead cows and sharks, and even introducing her to Flossie—all to no avail. Lola claimed that she, too, had a love for flageolets, was grateful to Enid for introducing her to art, and was not even put off by Flossie. Begging Flossie to tell her about her old days as a showgirl, Lola sat rapt at the foot of the bed. Enid realized she’d underestimated Lola’s tenacity. After the Internet Debacle, when Enid confronted Lola once again about her relationship with Thayer Core, all Lola did was look at her innocently and say, “Enid, you were right. He is a scumbag. And I’m never going to talk to him again.”

Unlike Mindy Gooch, Enid did not believe Thayer Core had cut Paul Rice’s cables. Thayer Core was a bully, and like most bullies, he lacked courage. He was far too fearful to take physical action, instead striking out at the world from behind the safety of his computer. Mindy’s accusation was an attempt to divert attention from the real culprit, whom Enid suspected was Sam.