Read Online Adulation by Elisa Lorello - Free Book Online

Divorced? Dating?”
    I decided to keep my answers curt: “No to the first, yes to the second, and no to the third.”
    “How long you been divorced?”
    I counted backward in my head. “Seven years.” Luc whistled, the kind you do when someone hasjust told you something shocking or impressive, like “Americans consume one-point-two billion poundsof potato chips each year.” Something about that whistle unnerved me. Did it signify disbelief? That sevenyears was a long time to be divorced? That I was pathetic? Did he somehow know that I could count onone hand how many dates I’d been on in those seven years and come up a few fingers short?
    “When was the last time you were on a date?”
    Yes, apparently he did.
    “Um...” I couldn’t even venture a guess.
    “Sunny’s in a bit of a dating drought,” said Georgie. “That’s why we’re here.”

    “Isn’t there a bottle of peroxide or something you could pour on his head?” I asked.
    Luc smiled. “Peroxide is so eighties. So what do you do for fun?”
    Again I needed a moment to consider my options, especially since the first thing that came to mind was an image of me in the Whitford’s stockroom, and although  I liked my job, I wouldn’t call it fun. “I watch movies, I read a lot. And I write too. Or at least I used to.”
    “What do you write?”
    “Novels.”
    “That’s cool. Have you published any?”
    “Not really,” I replied, feeling foolish.
    “Sunny is a great writer,” said Theo. “She’ll be published by the year’s end, mark my words.”
    This time Theo received the wrath of my glare, although how intimidating could it be when I had enough foil on my head to get better reception on someone’s radio?
    “Don’t give me that look,” said Theo. “Hello, Forty for Forty?”
    Damn my friends.
    “What are they about?” asked Luc, seeming to ignore Theo.
    “They’re mysteries,” I said, “all set on Long Island. One for each decade, starting with the fifties.”
    “I can dig that. I’m not much of a reader, but I’d probably read something like a mystery if it wasn’t all Sherlock Holmes and Agatha Christie and that old stuff.”
    “That old stuff is so good, though,” I protested. “But mine are more modern with a commercial appeal.”
    It had been so long since I’d talked about my novels that I felt tears coming to my eyes; I missed them.
    After the second process of color application, Luc escorted me to a row of hair dryers, where I saton the cushioned chair as he lowered the dome over me like the Cone of Silence, adjusted the setting andtimer, and left again, only to return moments later with a delicate china plate containing a blueberry sconeand a matching cup  of espresso for me. Nice. Theo and Georgie thumbed through hairstyle books,occasionally turning a page toward me and pointing to a model, as if they were reading a picture book tome, and dog-ear-flapping pages of cuts they deemed appropriate.
    The shampoo was a welcome change following the drone of the dryer, which felt more like beingin a sensory deprivation tank. A young assistant dressed in black and wearing an apron washed out thecolor with a tea-tree-extract shampoo followed by a peppermint conditioner that actually gave me chills,it was so invigorating, and a scalp massage that nearly prompted me to ask her out for dinner afterward. She then directed me back to Luc, who double-checked his color work and complimented himself severaltimes. He then went to work on the haircut, his scissors as fine a tool as a sculptor’s chisel or a chef’sknife. He continued to ask more questions, and I couldn’t seem to get beyond a two-word answer.
    “Sorry,” I finally said.
    “For what?”
    “It’s not a very interesting life.”
    “I’m not the one you should be apologizing to, gorgeous.”
    The hollow crater that my life had become was widening, as if I were seeing it on a screen, andthe camera was zooming farther out to show what it really looked