Picture Me Gone by Meg Rosoff

Author:Meg Rosoff
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9780399257650
Publisher: Putnam Juvenile
Published: 2013-10-03T07:00:00+00:00

twenty

Gil has some explaining to do.

But, he protests, think about it. I didn’t have the faintest clue we were going to run into Lynda. She didn’t seem especially relevant when we set off. I haven’t seen or heard from her—haven’t thought about her—in years. And Matthew somehow never got around to telling me about Jake, if in fact Jake is his son and Matt isn’t just sending money to Lynda for any of a hundred other reasons.

A hundred? Name one.

You know what I mean.

I guess you couldn’t just ask?

Gil looks uncomfortable. I suppose. But wouldn’t she have told us if she wanted us to know?

Maybe she thinks you know already. Being Matthew’s best friend and all.

Of course, if it’s true, it’s quite shocking, Gil says, frowning. I wonder if Suzanne knows. Do you think he’d have told her?

Do I think?

Gil smiles. Yes, of course. I keep forgetting how old you are.

I don’t say anything but just on the fly I’m guessing he didn’t tell Suzanne.

This whole story gets messier and messier, says Gil, and he sounds weary all of a sudden. There’s Matt’s disappearance after the accident as well.

Why would he do that?

Gil shakes his head. I have no idea.

It’s very snowy and he is concentrating on not sliding into other cars. There’s so much going on in my own head that I don’t know where to start. It feels as if the landscape has cracked open to reveal a river of lava flowing beneath.

Gil pulls in at the Mountain View Motor Inn, which is undergoing that strange kind of transformation that happens when a completely alien place begins to feel like home. First you say, I’d like to go home now, or, Let’s go home, and suddenly realize that you don’t mean your lifelong home in London, but the Mountain View Motor Inn.

The motel is nice inside with huge comfortable beds. Gil plugs his computer into the converter plug from the airport and reaches down to find the socket. The manuscript of the book he is translating covers most of his bed and the book he found in the secondhand shop sits on a pillow like Cinderella’s glass slipper.

I liked the idea that there was no one but me in Gil’s life at the moment, but Lynda and Jake and the ghosts of Matthew and Owen have all crowded in on the party and ruined the illusion. It is very weird to see your father look at another woman as a woman, even if it is completely harmless. It is also fairly strange to discover that your father’s best friend may have been cheating on his wife about the same time he got her pregnant.

Gil says a bit peevishly that he’s not getting any work done, which is hardly surprising given the circumstances.

Never mind, I say, it’s only a few days, try to enjoy the company.

He kisses my forehead and replies, How could I not?

Lynda seems nice, I say cautiously.

Yes, he says. She is. But her life is messy, as ever.

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