Laura Lamont's Life in Pictures (9781101596890) by Straub Emma

Author:Straub, Emma [Straub, Emma]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9781101596890
Publisher: Penguin USA
Published: 2012-09-03T16:00:00+00:00

The memorial service was held at the Trottman Funeral Home in Egg Harbor, the only full-service mortuary on the peninsula. Laura rode with Irving and the children, following her mother and sister in Josephine’s truck. Florence and Junior were quiet, and stared out the window at the passing scenery, which mostly meant cows and docked boats and houses much like Laura’s parents’, only smaller. Clara was gushing, suddenly, about a classmate’s older brother named Theodore with long eyelashes and a dimple in his chin.

“And then he asked her about me!” Clara said to no one.

Laura couldn’t summon the energy to pretend to follow along, as she sometimes did when she’d had a long day, mm-hmming at every pause in each of Clara’s lilting sentences, even when she wasn’t sure whom the object of Clara’s affection was. Her firstborn daughter was pure Los Angeles, conceived under the aegis of Hollywood’s hope and glamour, weaned on sequins and sunshine. Laura wondered how different her family would be if she had taken the girls and raised them in Wisconsin, whether their laughter would be different, their dreams, their hearts.

“Marjorie told me that Theo’s been telling his friends that he’s going to ask me to the homecoming dance. She says it’s for sure, a hundred percent. He said that he already has his license and everything. That’s okay, right, Poppa? If Theodore takes me to the dance? Florence would be there too, and everybody else from school. We wouldn’t be alone at all, and I’d dance with other people too, so it’s really more like it would just be calling it a date.”

Irving coughed into his shoulder, silencing Clara, and then reached over and took Laura’s hand. The funeral home was a fifteen-minute drive, but Josephine was driving twenty miles an hour, even on the stretches of road that were completely empty.

“Isn’t this supposed to be how we drive from the service to the cemetery?” Laura asked in a low voice. “I think Josephine is trying to drive me insane. I honestly think that my throat is going to close up and my eyes will fall out of my head if this takes a minute longer. I’m so sorry, my love, for making you come here.” She started to breathe heavily, as if she’d just run up seven flights of stairs and was going to vomit.

“Here,” Irving said, letting go of Laura’s hand and shoving it into his coat pocket. He pulled out two small pills: the blue ones, for anxiety. “Take these.”

Clara remained completely silent long enough to watch Laura drop the pills into her mouth and swallow them dry. There was a brief chalky taste in her throat, but then it was gone. By the time they arrived at Trottman’s, Laura was able to smile at her mother and sister, and the hard edges around their faces began to blur. The three women walked into the funeral home together, their arms linked like debutantes. When people started to approach them, Laura realized

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