Goodnight Nobody by Jennifer Weiner

Author:Jennifer Weiner
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Atria Books

TWENTY-THREE

Ten minutes later Joel Asch and I were seated at a table at Brookfield Bagels, a gray-shingled cottage with yellow-and-white-striped awnings and half a dozen round wooden tables for two, where six bucks could get you a watery cup of coffee and a warm, squishy circle of dough the exact texture of impacted Wonder Bread. Joel Asch took one bite, winced, and set it aside.

“I know,” I said, lowering my voice, “they’re awful, aren’t they?”

“They’re . . . not good,” he said. He looked as if he was debating whether to force down his mouthful of faux bagel or spit it into his napkin. He finally decided to keep chewing.

“So tell me,” I said. “How did a stay-at-home mom from Upchurch end up writing for one of the most important magazines in America?” With my fulsome compliment still hanging in the warm, yeast-scented air, I reached into my bag for my notebook.

Joel Asch smiled at me indulgently. “You wouldn’t be angling for her job, now, would you?”

I shook my head. “I keep pretty busy here,” I said.

“Well,” he said. “I was Kitty’s professor in college, and we’d kept in touch over the years. Kitty was actually the one who brought Laura Lynn to my attention. I caught her a few times on CNN. Her ideas intrigued me. The battle between stay-at-home mothers and mothers who work. The contested ground of maternity in America.”

I nodded and wrote contested ground. “As a mother myself, I have to tell you, that’s a fascinating subject.” As a mother myself, it was doubtful I’d ever find time to read about it, given that I was too busy living it, but flattery couldn’t hurt.

“So I called Laura Lynn, and she was eager to be associated with Content.”

“Of course,” I said, in a tone that implied that you’d have to be a pederast or a space alien not to want to be associated with Content.

“But she was busy. The demands on her time were such that it became clear that she would need . . .” He twirled his plain gold wedding band around one thin brown finger. “A certain level of assistance. And I’d seen plenty of Kitty’s work in college.”

Seen her work, I wrote. The plot was thickening. At least, I hoped it was. “What subject did you teach at Hanfield?” I asked.

“I was a guest lecturer there for a semester. I taught a course in politics and the press.” He carefully rolled up his empty cream cheese packet. “Kitty impressed me. Her mind impressed me. The clarity of her writing. The singularity of her focus.”

“Mmm-hmm,” I said, wondering whether singularity of focus wasn’t professorspeak for nice rack. Kitty must have been a tasty morsel as a coed—that bittersweet chocolate hair tied back in a headband, that fresh face and perfect body in jeans and a Hanfield sweatshirt.

“She was very bright,” he said. “And a hard worker, and she turned in her papers on time. I helped her find her first job, writing the in-house newsletter for St.

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