Dream Girl by Laura Lippman

Author:Laura Lippman [Lippman, Laura]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780571361007
Publisher: Faber & Faber
Published: 2021-06-21T23:00:00+00:00

March 15

“TGIF,” AILEEN SAYS cheerily when she brings him lunch. “With Victoria gone, I have three more days to put everything to rights.”

She has not left the apartment since Wednesday, except for errands. One of those involved fetching a small suitcase, as she says she needs to be here 24/7 to get everything done. He realizes he has no idea where she lives, or if there is anyone in her life—family, roommates, a partner.

“I’m sorry you have to, um, work this weekend.”

“It’s fine,” Aileen says. “I’ll put in for overtime. I’m going to assume no one has access to your checking accounts except you? You can just write me a check for overtime. Which is time and a half, by the way.”

Part of him wants to object that she is gouging him. But a larger part of him is so relieved that Aileen has taken over that he would gladly pay her anything. Money is for solving problems. Who told him that? Surely not his mother, who had worried constantly about her lack of money. And not his father.

Margot said that. “Money is for solving problems” was a Margot-ism. Said whenever she wanted Gerry’s money to solve her problems.

“I think I’ll have to tell my accountant, though,” he said. “So they can calculate the taxes. That’s how it’s always worked with my assistants. There’s withholding so they don’t end up having a big tax bill at year’s end.”

“You know what? Once we calculate the amount for this weekend, just write on the check ‘Supplies.’ So it looks as if you’re reimbursing me for something I paid out of pocket.”

“Ooookay,” he says.

Gerry doesn’t want to be a snob, but it seems to him that Aileen speaks differently since what he has decided to think of as the accident. Of course it was an accident. Gerry has never raised his hands to anyone, except in consensual, mildly kinky moments. Sarah had liked a little light spanking. It was her idea and he had to be persuaded. He had felt mildly ridiculous. He doesn’t like women with daddy issues. He has his own daddy issues and he prefers to keep them out of the bedroom.

“What are we doing, Aileen?” he asks.

“Buying time,” Aileen says. “Trying to figure out exactly what happened. Maybe in a day or two you’ll remember and we can take it from there.”

Wouldn’t it be pretty to think so. Gerry wants to do the right thing and he can’t help believing, childlike, that there is a way out of this dilemma that he just hasn’t been able to envision yet. He simply cannot believe he killed Margot, not even if she attacked him while he was in an Ambien haze. Buying time—yes, that’s all they’re doing. Affording themselves the time to figure out the best way to proceed.

“I wonder if I will ever remember,” he says.

“It must have been a horrible shock, something that didn’t even register as a dream,” Aileen says. “That woman sneaking back in here and doing God knows what as you slept.

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