Gossip (23 page)

Authors: Beth Gutcheon

BOOK: Gossip

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It had been graceful of her. I just wasn't in the mood for it.

I
don't need to describe the reception to you, you were there. Balloon glasses of chardonnay in every hand, and platters of funeral food. Clumps of young women leaned together in their too-short dresses, weeping. The young men looked restless and miserable and tried to check their watches without being seen. It
was
a workday. No one from Dinah's side came, unless you count me.

Sherry Riggs came up to me. I think I mentioned her, Sherry Wanamaker, my new-girl roommate at Miss Pratt's. She had been crying. She said to me, “Lovie, was I a bitch to you at boarding school?”

I just looked at her. She said, “Never mind. Don't answer. But I'm sorry.” She wandered off, following a tray of hot canapÃ©s.

D
inah is giving up that apartment at last. She may move up to the Vineyard full-time. Avis has settled into a routine of work and Lindy. Lindy will go to nursery school in the fall, which is good. A child shouldn't be alone in a silent apartment with two old ladies so much of the time.
Grave
is not the word you want to think of when you think of a child-centered home.

I don't sleep well anymore. As I've mentioned. Sometimes in the very dark hours of some morning, I think about my garden. There was a CÃ©cile Brunner climbing rose on the back wall that I had taken out because there was too much pink in that section of the perennial beds, and it was common. I regret it now. The Lady Banks I put in instead would have been lovely, but it never did well. I have no idea why not.

I've been seeing a lot of Casey Leisure. She was widowed suddenly and doesn't seem to know what to do with herself, and she talks too much for most people. She has her good points. She likes to go on cruises now and play bridge with people she meets on the ships. My bridge game has gotten fairly good; if I have to close the shop, I may try one with her. There's a tour of the Baltic I like the look of; we'd see the cities of the Hanseatic League and end in St. Petersburg. The white nights of summer are so lovely there.

At least that's what people tell me.

Acknowledgments

So many people help a book along its path. Sanna Borge Feirstein has been deeply generous,
again,
this time providing guidance on the course of Loviah's young professional life. Jennifer Mitchell Nevin was similarly invaluable on the subject of Avis's career, and I thank them both. Thomas Mifflin Richardson, Anthony Fingleton, Phil Norris, Katherine McCallum, Gail Monaghan, Ramon Rodriguez, Don Barney, and Richard Osterweil all enriched these invented lives, and I'm grateful to have them in my actual life. Lauren Belfer and Elizabeth Oberbeck kindly read the manuscript for me at different stages and provided essential advice and support. I thank Wendy Weil, who has been my friend and my agent for over half my life, for her wisdom, her loyalty, and the pure fun of being a member of her tribe. I am grateful to my editor, Jennifer Brehl, for her skill and her lovely spirit, and to all those at William Morrow who do what they do so well. And first, last, and always, I am grateful to Robin Clements.

About the Author

B
ETH
G
UTCHEON
is the critically acclaimed author of
eight previous novels:
The New Girls, Still Missing,
Domestic Pleasures, Saying Grace, Five Fortunes, More Than You Know, Leeway
Cottage,
and
Good-bye and Amen
. She is
the writer of several film scripts, including the Academy Award nominee
The Children of Theatre Street
. She lives in New York
City.

www.BethGutcheon.com

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Also by Beth Gutcheon

Good-bye and Amen

Leeway Cottage

More Than You Know

Five Fortunes

Saying Grace

Domestic Pleasures

Still Missing

The New Girls

Credits

Cover design by Mumtaz Mustafa

Cover photograph Â© by Ellen von Unwerth / Art + Commerce

This book is a work of fiction. The
characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author's imagination and
are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons,
living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

GOSSIP
.
Copyright Â© 2012 by Beth Gutcheon. All rights reserved under International and
Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have
been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text
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downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any
information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether
electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express
written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

FIRST
EDITION

ISBN 978-0-06-193142-0

EPub Edition Â© MARCH 2012 ISBN:
9780062100948

12 13 14 15 16 OV/RRD 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

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