The Lost Girls by Heather Young

Author:Heather Young
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2016-05-30T04:00:00+00:00

Justine

The next morning Maurie came with Justine to drive the girls to school, saying she wanted to see what the town looked like these days, so after they dropped the girls off, Justine drove around the square. It was overcast, and in the milky light the buildings looked even more timeworn than usual. The few passersby walked with their shoulders hunched into the wind, past mounds of graying snow that clogged the street corners. Maurie looked out the window through huge black sunglasses, her face expressionless.

Justine pulled the Tercel into a spot in front of Ray’s. She felt an oddly proprietary desire to show her mother the diner and its inhabitants. She’d felt the same way about Dr. Fishbaum’s office when Maurie visited her in San Diego. She’d invited her mother to come with her to work one day, and Maurie spent the morning chatting with the old and befuddled patients in the waiting room. They seemed younger with her there. Dr. Fishbaum and Phoebe liked her, too. Justine had been proud of her, and proud of the office—it was her office, her job, her coworkers. Her place.

Now, though, Maurie kept her sunglasses on as they slid into Justine’s usual booth. Not until she’d established that she didn’t know anyone did she take them off. Justine cataloged the now-familiar faces—Maisy and Mike and Roberta, Lorna and Steve from the general store—and felt a rush of affection for them even though she’d never exchanged a word with any of them. She was about to tell her mother how she came here every morning and how great the coffee was when Ray came out of the kitchen.

“Maurie. What a surprise.”

Maurie gave Ray her most brilliant smile. “Ray Spiver. I thought you got out of this place years ago.”

Justine looked from Ray to her mother. It had never occurred to her that they were the same age. Maurie seemed so much younger.

Ray shrugged. “I came back.”

“And whatever happened to—what was his name? Jimmy?”

“Vietnam.”

“Oh, what a shame,” Maurie said, with what seemed like sincere sympathy.

“What can I get for you?” Ray’s manner was friendly, but Justine knew her well enough by now to sense the distance. It made her think about what her mother had said the night before, about this town and her reputation in it.

“Just coffee,” Maurie said, again with that wide smile. As soon as Ray left she leaned across the table and hissed to Justine, “God, I hated that bitch.”

“What?” Justine shot a glance at Ray, who thankfully had her back to them. “Why?”

“She always looked down that fat nose of hers at me, even though she was nothing but trailer trash from Mahnomet. When she got that scholarship, you’d have thought she’d been crowned queen of England. Now look at her. Right back where she started.” Maurie’s face contorted with malicious satisfaction, but when Ray brought her coffee she smiled at her as if she hadn’t just called her an ugly bitch, and asked after a few old classmates. Ray, unsurprisingly, knew the latest on all of them.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.