Read Online Goodnight Nobody by Jennifer Weiner - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Jennifer Weiner
Tags: Chic-lit
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pink pearls, and pearl and gold earrings. Her obligatory blond tresses, dyed the color of straw, had been blown out and sprayed until her entire head looked like it had been stuck under a broiler and crisped.
"Come," she instructed, tightening her grip on my arm, drawing me into a cloud of hairspray and sour coffee breath, and leading me into a living room, a high-ceilinged space sparsely furnished with a few pieces of leather and metal furniture as hard-edged as she was. "Sit." She pointed, and I perched on a corner of a white suede love seat. There was a trio of panel-style television sets hanging on the wall like paintings. They were flanked by floor-to-ceiling bookshelves filled with hardcovers. All the conservative heavy hitters were there: Ann Coulter and Peggy Noonan, Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity, the Michaels (Medved and Savage), and her fellow Lauras (Ingraham and Schlessinger).
I stared at the titles, blinking at the yellow Post-its stuck to the spine of each title, each bearing two numbers and the words "How High" and "How Long."
"The New York Times bestseller list," Laura said. "I like to keep track."
I looked around for the baby paraphernalia--the bouncy seats, the Exersaucer, a couch cushion stained with spit-up--but couldn't find any. I did, however, see a framed eight-by-ten of her father, Byron "Bo" Baird, posed in front of an American flag. Bo Baird, with iron-gray hair and a complementary steely gaze, had owned twenty-eight newspapers nationwide at the height of his powers, each of them more right-leaning than the next. He'd dined with presidents and advised senators before dropping dead at the age of seventy-eight in a bed he turned out to be sharing with a woman who, regrettably, was not his wife. I'd been in high school when it had happened, but I remembered the late-night talk show hosts having a field day. The rumors--never confirmed, but extremely persistent--were that not only had Bo expired on top of another woman, he'd been wearing her high heels at the time.
"I've got twenty minutes," Laura Lynn said, making a production of looking at the gold watch on one itty-bitty wrist. "And before we get started, I want to make one thing clear: Kitty Cavanaugh was not my ghostwriter. We worked together. Those goddamn fucking bloggers are already getting it wrong, big surprise, the Times had it wrong this morning, my lawyer's already drafting a cease-and-desist motion..." She paused for breath and snatched a can of Diet Coke from an LLB-monogrammed ice bucket on the chrome and glass coffee table. "You saw the obit?" she barked.
"I...uh..." I fumbled through the slurry of broken crayons and juice-stiffened napkins at the bottom of my WGBH totebag and pulled out a notebook with a pink, glittery cover featuring Hello Kitty. It was Sophie's--the only thing I'd been able to find on short notice.
"O-bit-u-a-ry," she said, pronouncing each syllable as if she were speaking to someone who'd just come back from her lobotomy. "In today's so-called paper of record." She snatched the offending pages off the coffee table and tossed them at me. "Connecticut Mother, Writer Slain," said the two-column headline on page B-6. "Katherine Cavanaugh, a Connecticut woman who worked in the editorial department of Content magazine writing 'The Good Mother' column beneath the byline of conservative social critic Laura Lynn Baird, was found dead in her kitchen on Friday afternoon. Mrs. Cavanaugh, thirty-six" was all I saw before Laura Lynn grabbed the newspaper out of my hand.
"Don't read it," she rapped, her jaw clenched and tiny eyes glittering. "It's all lies, lies and bullshit, typical liberal smear garbage. My lawyer's already spoken to their ombudsman--oh, excuse me," she said, her husky, clipped voice heavy with sarcasm, "their ombuds-person. Gotta be gender neutral these days, right? Right?" She threw back her head, exposing a scrawny, corded neck, and made a noise that must have sounded like laughter when she was on
"Come," she instructed, tightening her grip on my arm, drawing me into a cloud of hairspray and sour coffee breath, and leading me into a living room, a high-ceilinged space sparsely furnished with a few pieces of leather and metal furniture as hard-edged as she was. "Sit." She pointed, and I perched on a corner of a white suede love seat. There was a trio of panel-style television sets hanging on the wall like paintings. They were flanked by floor-to-ceiling bookshelves filled with hardcovers. All the conservative heavy hitters were there: Ann Coulter and Peggy Noonan, Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity, the Michaels (Medved and Savage), and her fellow Lauras (Ingraham and Schlessinger).
I stared at the titles, blinking at the yellow Post-its stuck to the spine of each title, each bearing two numbers and the words "How High" and "How Long."
"The New York Times bestseller list," Laura said. "I like to keep track."
I looked around for the baby paraphernalia--the bouncy seats, the Exersaucer, a couch cushion stained with spit-up--but couldn't find any. I did, however, see a framed eight-by-ten of her father, Byron "Bo" Baird, posed in front of an American flag. Bo Baird, with iron-gray hair and a complementary steely gaze, had owned twenty-eight newspapers nationwide at the height of his powers, each of them more right-leaning than the next. He'd dined with presidents and advised senators before dropping dead at the age of seventy-eight in a bed he turned out to be sharing with a woman who, regrettably, was not his wife. I'd been in high school when it had happened, but I remembered the late-night talk show hosts having a field day. The rumors--never confirmed, but extremely persistent--were that not only had Bo expired on top of another woman, he'd been wearing her high heels at the time.
"I've got twenty minutes," Laura Lynn said, making a production of looking at the gold watch on one itty-bitty wrist. "And before we get started, I want to make one thing clear: Kitty Cavanaugh was not my ghostwriter. We worked together. Those goddamn fucking bloggers are already getting it wrong, big surprise, the Times had it wrong this morning, my lawyer's already drafting a cease-and-desist motion..." She paused for breath and snatched a can of Diet Coke from an LLB-monogrammed ice bucket on the chrome and glass coffee table. "You saw the obit?" she barked.
"I...uh..." I fumbled through the slurry of broken crayons and juice-stiffened napkins at the bottom of my WGBH totebag and pulled out a notebook with a pink, glittery cover featuring Hello Kitty. It was Sophie's--the only thing I'd been able to find on short notice.
"O-bit-u-a-ry," she said, pronouncing each syllable as if she were speaking to someone who'd just come back from her lobotomy. "In today's so-called paper of record." She snatched the offending pages off the coffee table and tossed them at me. "Connecticut Mother, Writer Slain," said the two-column headline on page B-6. "Katherine Cavanaugh, a Connecticut woman who worked in the editorial department of Content magazine writing 'The Good Mother' column beneath the byline of conservative social critic Laura Lynn Baird, was found dead in her kitchen on Friday afternoon. Mrs. Cavanaugh, thirty-six" was all I saw before Laura Lynn grabbed the newspaper out of my hand.
"Don't read it," she rapped, her jaw clenched and tiny eyes glittering. "It's all lies, lies and bullshit, typical liberal smear garbage. My lawyer's already spoken to their ombudsman--oh, excuse me," she said, her husky, clipped voice heavy with sarcasm, "their ombuds-person. Gotta be gender neutral these days, right? Right?" She threw back her head, exposing a scrawny, corded neck, and made a noise that must have sounded like laughter when she was on
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