The Most Dangerous Thing - Laura Lippman [20]
Seven years ago, when they started the process that would bring Annabelle into their household, Gwen thought, hoped, prayed that a child would change the balance in their lives, that their professional selves would recede somewhat. She was right, and yet she was wrong. Karl adores Annabelle, despite initially resisting Gwen’s choice of China. Why not his native Guatemala? (Gwen claimed she feared that country’s bureaucracy, but the truth was she couldn’t bear to have a daughter who would be like Karl, but not her.) What about Zimbabwe, where he had performed yet another surgery? He wanted to find the child that needed them most, he wanted to save someone. But Gwen understood that a child would save her. If they had a child, at least one person would find her essential.
“How was the freel?” Annabelle asks, mouth full of toast.
“The what?”
“You said you were going”—she swallows—“to a funeral yesterday. For your friend.”
“Oh. It was very sad. It’s always sad when people die. But I saw some old friends.”
“Your best friends?” Annabelle is entranced with the idea of best friends. Since entering kindergarten this year, she has had no fewer than five. She tries them on like hats. She has a heartless quality. Nature or nurture? Gwen or Karl?
“Yes, I guess so.” Does Gwen really want to affirm Annabelle’s belief that best friends are interchangeable, disposable, that they come and go like trends? “We were best friends until high school, when we went to different schools.” True, but a lie. She was suggesting to Annabelle that the different schools changed the nature of their relationship. But Gwen and Mickey had never attended the same school, and their friendship was irrevocably broken before they started high school.
“Who’s your best friend now?” Annabelle asks her mother.
“Miss Margery, I suppose,” Gwen says, although she considers all her female friends equally close. Which is to say—not very. But Margery is the one she would call if there were major trouble. She’s the one she called the night she decided she wanted a trial separation from Karl.
“Did he cheat on you?” Margery asked. Everyone starts there. Everyone expects it. He’s too damn handsome. Gwen’s looks are holding up well, and Karl is ten years older, yet it’s clear that everyone thinks she’s competing above her weight class.
“No, not really.”
“Not really?”
“A woman’s after him, but he really doesn’t get it. I mean, he has no clue. He’s pretty naive that way.”
“How do you know, then?”
“He’s so naive that he showed me her e-mails because he thinks they’re funny. He’s, like, ‘She’s such a good writer. You should hire her, give her a column.’ I had to explain to Karl that women don’t write funny, flirtatious e-mails about being newly single to their old boyfriends in order to get the attention of their editor wives.”
“Someone from high school?”
“College.”
“Had they seen each other recently? At a reunion? Did he e-mail her first?”
“No. And no. Margery, that’s not the point.”
“What, then?”
What, then. She toys with the story in her head. It still hurts, thinking about it, but she knows others would find her overly sensitive. Babyish, even.
It was last month. Karl came home from one of his full, full days. The White House had called. Not the president himself, but still. And now there was going to be this documentary, serious stuff, made by an Oscar winner. Two hours of Karl’s life, his real life, not the cotton-candy version on the cable network, with all the fake romances and intrigue thrown in. Gwen listened, happy for him, happy for their life. Gwen never had a problem being happy for Karl. Annabelle put out place mats in the renovated kitchen alcove, where they preferred to dine. It’s a lovely house. A lovely house is practically obligatory when one is the editor of a consumer service