Free Have to Have It by Melody Mayer

vessel.
    Take that, Marym
, she said mentally, trying to buoy her self-confidence.
He could have stayed with you that night, but he came to me instead.
    She leaned in closer to Tom, sure that he'd politely turn down Marym's invitation to join the table of models. He'd tell Marym that he wanted to be alone with Kiley. It would be so wonderful and romantic and—
    “Sure, we'd love to join you,” Tom said easily. “Kiley?”
    “Oh, yeah, sure!” she agreed, lying through her teeth.
    Damn all over again. She couldn't very well say no, so she slapped a hap-hap-happy smile on her face as Tom and Marym led her to the back of the rowdy restaurant to join the beautiful people.

“So, bottom line, you need to learn how to drive,” Billy concluded as he and Lydia walked hand in hand along the wet sand, stepping up the beach from time to time to avoid the incoming tide.
    Billy had taken her to Mia-Mia's, a little Italian-themed coffeehouse in Redondo Beach, where they'd shared weak espressos and dry pastries while listening to a woman sing and play guitar on a small, raised stage in the corner Lydia decided that her voice resembled a squealing squirrel monkey in heat, and her original songs all seemed to involve women deeply depressed over lost love.
    Lydia sized up the situation thusly: the girl had been hired for her eye-popping cleavage, amply displayed in a silver brocade sweater unbuttoned to her navel, which was pierced with a diamond stick-pin, and for her legs, which were barely covered by a Seven for All Mankind denim miniskirt, below which she woreripped thigh-high fishnet stockings and Balenciaga by Nicolas Ghesquiëre stiletto heels with black and silver velvet polka dots.
    When she shared her observations with Billy, he pretty much agreed. The only reason he'd picked the spot was because as kids, he and X used to come to an Italian ice cream parlor that had been at the same address. It was the nostalgia factor that had seduced him into checking out the coffeehouse. Lydia found it sweet that a guy who had grown up in so many different countries—Mozambique, Germany, Thailand, Liberia, and, of course, the U.S.A.—could be so nostalgic about a simple neighborhood ice cream parlor.
    The more she thought about it, though, the better she understood. She hadn't been back to Houston since she was eight years old, but there were places in her memory that still loomed large. Houston was home, and it would always be home, no matter where she lived in the world. As soon as she had the chance, as soon as she had enough money for a plane ticket, she planned to return to what she still thought of as
her
city, to revisit the glory days of her rich and pampered youth.
    Mia-Mia's was only a block from the Pacific. By mutual decision, they left the coffeehouse halfway into the singer's first set. It was a glorious June night, and they decided to walk over to the beach. It was a wise decision. Whatever Mia-Mia's had lacked in inspiration, the ocean and the night sky made up for. On the walk over, Lydia told Billy the whole story of the moms' “X Is No Longer Your Driver” edict.
    He whistled. As everyone knew, Los Angeles without wheels was not doable.
    “So, two things. I need to learn to drive, and I need a car. I
need
a car.”
    Billy bent down and plucked up a seashell, then hurled it into the inky water. “I can't help you with the wheels, but I can teach you to drive.”
    “I'm not so sure that's a great idea,” Lydia mused. “Maybe I should ask X for lessons. Havin' your boyfriend teach you to drive might be relationship suicide.”
    He put an arm around her slender waist and bumped his hip playfully into hers. “O ye of little faith.”
    “Oh, I have a whole lotta faith in all kinds of things,” Lydia corrected. “Just to be on the safe side, though, maybe we should have sex before we start the driving lessons.”
    Billy threw his head back and laughed. “Come on, fess up. If I spent every waking hour trying to