The Most Dangerous Thing - Laura Lippman [87]
“When did everyone become a purse designer?” Margery’s voice isn’t loud, but it’s clear and it carries. “Or jewelry designer? When did these become the default professions? You think that between Monica Lewinsky and all those reality-show types who run around with BeDazzlers and glue guns, people would have too much pride to make this crap.”
The woman at the nearest booth shoots Gwen a glance that is at once puzzled and wounded. Gwen shrugs, hoping the gesture serves as a blanket apology for her opinionated friend. To further make amends, she stops, examining this particular crop of purses. They are clutches woven from recycled materials, candy and gum wrappers and newspapers. Not original—she has seen bags like this in other stores and catalogs for the past several years—but well executed. Besides, being of-the-moment is not important in Baltimore.
“Are you from here? Do you have a card?” she asks the woman, who points to a little stand with embossed business cards: LH DESIGNS.
“I’ve only been at this for a few months, but I’ve managed to place my bags in some local stores,” she says. “Are you—”
“Just an editor, not a buyer. Gwen Robison of Baltimore magazine.”
“You looked familiar, but I guess that’s why. I’ve probably seen your picture in it.”
“Not mine.” That bit of vanity is reserved for her publisher, the moneyman. He pays the bills, which entitles him to a monthly column, rambling on about some safe, boosterish profundity that never angers anyone. Except, perhaps, people who dislike exclamation marks and chamber-of-commerce boosterish crap.
“Still, I feel I have seen you somewhere.”
“You look familiar, too.”
She holds out her hand: “Lori Halloran.”
“Oh my god—the funeral. I’m so sorry.”
Margery has kept moving all this time and is far, far down the aisle. She turns around, makes an impatient hurry-up gesture. But there’s no way to walk away now. Lori Halloran is young, early thirties at most. She was Go-Go’s second wife, Gwen recalls. Estranged at the time of the accident, although she and her daughters were down front in the church, sitting with Tim Junior’s wife and girls, while the brothers flanked their mother. They were the little girls who wouldn’t go up to the casket.
“I’m really sorry,” Gwen repeats. “I’ve known him since he was a little boy, although we had fallen out of touch—”
“He talked about you a lot.”
“Me?” A lot?
“All of you. His brothers, you, a girl named Mickey, although it was a while before I even realized Mickey was a girl. He said that was the best time in his life, playing in the woods.”
“Really?” Before, perhaps. Before Chicken George did whatever he did. Why does Gwen still feel that twinge of guilt she always feels when that memory returns, unbidden? We shouldn’t have left him there. He was hurt. Whatever he did, it wasn’t right to leave him there to die alone.
“I admit, that’s not saying a lot. He wasn’t a very happy guy.”
How much do you know? What did Go-Go tell you?
Gwen chooses her words with care. “We had a lot of freedom. Sometimes I think we were the last generation to live that way. These days, we live near a state park, very pretty and bucolic, and I would never dream of letting my daughter play there, unsupervised.”
The “we” is a lie, used for convenience’s sake but it gives her a pang.
“Gordon was real paranoid about our girls, too. He didn’t even like them to be in our fenced backyard by themselves.”
“I saw them at the funeral. They’re beautiful little girls.” Gwen is not being polite. The girls are beautiful, as is their mother—blue eyes, blond hair, fair skin. Go-Go, for all his rough-and-tumble ways, always liked beauty, respected it. He had high standards, too. He clearly thought Tally Robison exquisite, he loved to look at her, grab her. Gwen, even after her transformation, did not impress him.
“My mother-in-law blames me for his death,” Lori says. Her tone is matter-of-fact,