The Most Dangerous Thing - Laura Lippman [74]
Nothing has changed. She looks as young as she did two minutes ago, when Miller called, taking advantage of the Sunday rates, as he always does, thrifty boy. It is only 3 P.M. out in Denver. Here, it is the end of a perfect autumn weekend, which Gwen has wasted by spending it indoors at a roller-skating rink. Tally is skeptical of Gwen’s enthusiasm for such a wholesome activity. She worries it might be used as a cover for something else, something done out in the parking lot, assuming they really go to the rink at all. But what’s the worst thing that could happen? Gwen will get pregnant. So what? Tally’s already going to be a grandmother.
She knows her reaction makes no sense. If she had anticipated this development, prepared herself, she would be elated or at least somewhat enthusiastic. But it feels messy, being a grandmother when one child is still in high school. It makes her feel old and young at the same time—a grandmother at forty-three, but still a mother to a high school freshman. Clem, she knows, will have no ambivalence, and she steels herself for his arrival in the kitchen, his eagerness to celebrate.
Sure enough, he comes in and kisses her with an excitement he has not shown in—well, let’s not add up all those weeks, months, she thinks. A year, at least.
“What are you looking for?” she asks, for Clem has released her and is rummaging through the small collection of wine they keep in a stackable Formica holder on the counter.
“Something worthy of the news.”
“What news?” Gwen says, clattering up from the basement. Her cheeks are ruddy, her hair mussed. A completely normal by-product of roller skating, but also of other activities. And why did she enter through the basement?
“Your brother’s going to have a baby.”
“How advanced of him,” Gwen says, going to the refrigerator and staring into it, a habit that makes Tally wild because she never takes anything, only studies the food with an almost voyeuristic delight. “I would have thought that Sylvia would have the baby, but I guess Miller is superevolved. Kramer vs. Kramer must have hit him pretty hard.”
Tally knows that Clem hates this new tone of Gwen’s, a flip sarcasm honed over the summer, but he ignores it today, determined to have his moment of joy. “If you like, you can have a glass with us to celebrate.”
“A glass of what?” She’s interested, Tally can tell. Gwen likes being treated like a grown-up. Tally was the same way at this age. Still, it makes her nervous, the way Gwen brightens at the thought of drinking something with alcohol. Don’t move so fast, she wants to tell her daughter. Or next thing you know, you’ll be on the verge of being a grandmother.
“This white Burgundy, I think. I’ve been saving it for a special occasion.”
“It won’t be cold in time,” Tally says. “Dinner’s at seven.”
“I’ll put it in an ice bucket. That will be good enough. Does it go with what you’re fixing?”
It will, actually. She’s making poached salmon, a light green salad for dinner. A summer dish, but it is technically summer for one more day, although the seasons also seem to be rushing, impatient as Gwen. The light is pulling away. The days are darker at both ends. Tally hates to feel the ebbing of the light, even though she made very little progress over the summer when there were daylight hours galore. The new painting, which began with so much promise, is torturing her, has been torturing her for almost a year. But for once she’s not going to give up.
While Tally wishes she could stop time, she understands Gwen is eager for the calendar to move forward. She is wearing fall colors today—a plaid skirt with burgundy knee socks, a navy sweater. This is Gwen’s “new look,” straight from The Official Preppy Handbook, and Tally objects to it on every front. It is expensive, first and foremost, and materialistic. She hates Gwen’s sudden attachment to labels, the insistence on branding herself with tiny alligators, polo players, a socialite’s signature.
But Tally also finds it confounding that her daughter wants to dress in this conservative, rigid style. If Tally had been