- "On the plus side, I got a new character I think people are going to love."
- Henry Stein
Lottie was one of Joey Drew's friends during World War I, during which she was a Hello Girl in the book The Illusion of Living. She would fall in love with him over stories they created together, but Joey did not feel the same way about her. After Joey's death, Nathan Arch will go on to report that he could not find any letters from Lottie, bringing his stories about her and her existence into question.
History[]
Joey had met Lottie through Donaldson at a dance hall in 1917, during which they danced for a while, before sitting down together and talking, during which at one point she noticed the initials "ZW" on his boots. A few days later Lottie sat down next to Joey in the mess hall and explained that she had been thinking of ZW. She's ruled out the possibility of it referring to a soldier as there had been no known registered identities with these initials in the army, so Joey suggested she look into if they belonged to a Hello Girl. Every time they sat together, Lottie would have something new to report on in regards to the initials. Eventually Lottie concludes that they there the lover of the boots' former owner, and Joey plays along with the idea. The story was that a handsome blond man named John owned the boots before being shipped overseas, and his lover was a striking and fair red-haired woman named Zelda. As they continued to develop their story, Joey soon realized that Lottie was falling in love with him, but he doesn't "have time for girl," so he does not feel the same way back.
Soon after this realization, Lottie was shipped off to London while Joey was assigned to the lab, meaning he remained in New Jersey. Lottie writes to Joey constantly, but as the war continued her letters grew sadder and darker. Joey decides to cheer her up by making up his own story about ZW, and tells her that they were right about her. The owner of the boots, who in Joey's story turned out to be named James and not John, has injured his leg and was sent home, and he later came by the base to say his to former colleagues, and Joey met him when he came into the lab to say hi to Corporal Nathan Arch. Joey and James talked for a while, and upon seeing in initials on the boots revealed that Zelda was his lover's name. Although their story of how they met wasn't right, he still enjoyed hearing about them and wanted to say hello to Lottie. A few weeks later, Joey got a letter from Lottie, revealing that she believed his story and it cheered her up tremendously. Joey, now excited about his story, began to have Nathan write letters pretending to be James (although Nathan will later go on to say he does not remember doing such a thing).
Lottie's letters to Joey began to be happy and cheerful once again, and she wrote about her friends, especially one named Davey. Soon enough Joey and Lottie began to drift apart, and so did her and the made up James. Joey would later on go to create his own final letter from Lottie for The Illusion of Living.