Death By Chick Lit Read Online Free PDF Page B

giant deal, crime-wise,” Quentin was saying. “But it might be a big deal to me. And Lola, I’m barely holding it together as it is.” He was clearly near tears.
    Doug was gesturing. Can we go inside? Lola had practically forgotten they were on the sidewalk, under a dark gray sky—it’s never quite night in New York—and the wan glow of the streetlights.
    Lola nodded, walking and talking. She and Doug climbed the metal-grate steps to the front door. “Okay, Quentin,” she said warily. “I’m listening.”

Five
    Doug was adamant. “I’m not letting you go in there alone,” he insisted.
    “Into Quentin’s apartment?” Lola asked, frowning.
    “No, into his Mac.”
    They were leaning on their kitchen counter, knocking around what Quentin had explained to Lola.
    “Want some?” Lola was firing up the stainless steel coffeemaker with a timer and built-in grinder. (Wedding present.) “Wait, what am I saying? No Peet’s for you,” she said. “You’re going to bed.”
    It was well after midnight. Lola would have loved Doug’s company on her mission, but she truly thought it unnecessary. While Doug was the night owl, Quentin was her friend. Plus, it’s always nice to be needed, and to take any chance to prove that you and your husband aren’t joined at the hip. Besides, at least one of them should get some sleep.
    While the coffee began burbling, Lola got out the travel mug and sat down on a barstool. Since their three parents had generously helped with the down payment on the apartment—Doug’s dad, a widower in Los Alamos, held a lucrative patent on something having to do with solar cars—the couple had opted to put their remaining wedding gift cash toward what they’d agreed was the most important room: the kitchen. (Doug had honed his amateur chef skills at the side of his big sister, who ran a country restaurant near Glacier National Park that had its own cookbook. Lola had honed her eating skills in their apartment.)
    The kitchen’s best features, other than the refrigerated leftovers, were the granite countertops, wooden cabinets painted in a purple and lime patchwork, and a light fixture Lola had fashioned from a colander in a brief fit of crafting. A smaller one made with a cheese grater hung over the flea market diner-style breakfast table. A counter, with barstools, separated the kitchen from the L-shaped area that served as living and dining room; this allowed Doug—in theory—to simmer his famous gnocchi while chatting with guests on the couch. In theory, that is, because if guests actually made the trek to NoWay, they always hung out in the kitchen to begin with. Which was partly because their living room was still a little bit “grad student,” as Lola called it: steamer-trunk coffee table, bulging bookcases—Lola had never been able to achieve that spare “intersperse your artfully displayed books with framed photos and interesting objets from your travels” look—and a vaguely funky floor lamp from Target whose on/off knob had been missing since the day after they bought it.
    Lola and Doug did their own second-best hanging out in their shared office, decorated with vintage photos of their shared idols, Johnny Cash and Dolly Parton, though more often than not, Doug was out with clients doing his mysterious “strategic new media consulting.” Some of their most memorable conversations took place with the two of them seated back-to-back at their desks, not even turning their heads from their work while they bantered. Many of said conversations took place over instant messenger.
    Doug took some seltzer out of the stainless steel fridge, which Lola still couldn’t believe she was grown-up enough to own. The seltzer, they got delivered; every two weeks the guy—last guy in the borough still in the business—rattled up in his truck filled with wooden crates of siphon-topped blue glass bottles. When Lola had mentioned the Last Seltzer Man to her dad, his eyes had misted over with