Just like my mother—a woman whose maternal instincts manifested themselves in two ways: indifference and rage. Strangely enough, she’d always preferred the rage.
Amanda glances back toward the woman in the pink sweater set, who smiles at her as she continues talking on the phone.
The last time Amanda saw her mother, her mother was wearing a blouse in almost that exact shade of pink. Her short, honey-blond hair was freshly washed and neatly coiffed, as always. Indeed, Amanda can’t remember a time when her mother didn’t look as if she’d just come from the beauty salon. Even if she was drunker than the proverbial skunk, and falling all over everything, her hair was always picture-perfect.
What’s she done now?
Really, this doesn’t concern me.
Who’d she kill?
This is not my problem.
She’s your mother.
Not anymore.
Amanda pushes her mother’s image aside with a swat of her hand, as if shooing away a pesky fly. “Can we please get this show on the road?” she begs the other drivers, and mercifully the cars in front of her begin to pick up their pace. “Thank you,” she says to the smiling face in the moon.
Forty minutes later, she is home.
“Hi, Joe.” She waves to the doorman.
“You get stuck in that mess on I-95?”
“I sure did.”
“Radio said there was an accident at the exit to Riviera Beach.”
“There were still police cars at the side of the road,” Amanda tells him.
“Expecting company?” He nods toward the bottle of wine in her hand.
Amanda feels her spine stiffen. Is it curiosity she hears in his voice or judgment? “Not tonight.”
He smiles. “Well, have a good one.”
“You too.”
He was just making idle conversation, she reassures herself in the elevator, grateful that the ride to the fifteenth floor is mercifully uneventful. No unnecessary stops. No former lovers. No suspicious wives. “Just me and my bottle,” Amanda says to the empty hallway as the elevator doors open. She walks briskly to her unit on the southeast corner, almost tripping over a piece ofivory-trimmed red carpet that has come loose from the ivory-colored wall. She’ll have to call the building manager in the morning, tell him to send someone up to repair it before anyone gets hurt. Wouldn’t want some ambitious young litigator, such as herself, to sue.
Not that personal injury lawsuits are her area of expertise, Amanda thinks. No, her specialty is defending creeps who try to swallow their girlfriends. Not to mention those who beat up strangers in a bar or rob a 7-Eleven and shoot a few innocent bystanders. Of course if the creep who does the shooting is the son of a prominent local politician, or if one of the bystanders happens to be young and beautiful, and therefore likely to make the front page of the
Palm Beach Post
, then it becomes a case for Jackson Beatty or Stanley Rowe, who keep all the really good stuff for themselves.
“The good stuff,” Amanda says out loud, wondering when she became so jaded. And what has her more upset—the fact Derek Clemens was acquitted on four charges or found guilty of one?
She stands for several seconds outside her apartment door, almost reluctant to go inside. How many messages from her former husband will she find waiting on her voice mail? Although, surprisingly, there were no further messages from him at work.
Nor are there any now. “Good,” Amanda says, standing in the middle of her all-white kitchen and uncorking the bottle of red wine. “Good,” she repeats, feeling curiously slighted. She fills a large wineglass almost to the top and takes a long sip, deciding she should probably eat something. She opens her fridge, finds nothing but a bottle of orange juice and a dozen containers of assortedfruit-flavored yogurt. She checks the best-before date of a strawberry-kiwi yogurt and sees that it expired five days ago. Which means all the other yogurts are likewise past their prime, since she bought them all at the same time. How long ago?
Amanda glances back toward the woman in the pink sweater set, who smiles at her as she continues talking on the phone.
The last time Amanda saw her mother, her mother was wearing a blouse in almost that exact shade of pink. Her short, honey-blond hair was freshly washed and neatly coiffed, as always. Indeed, Amanda can’t remember a time when her mother didn’t look as if she’d just come from the beauty salon. Even if she was drunker than the proverbial skunk, and falling all over everything, her hair was always picture-perfect.
What’s she done now?
Really, this doesn’t concern me.
Who’d she kill?
This is not my problem.
She’s your mother.
Not anymore.
Amanda pushes her mother’s image aside with a swat of her hand, as if shooing away a pesky fly. “Can we please get this show on the road?” she begs the other drivers, and mercifully the cars in front of her begin to pick up their pace. “Thank you,” she says to the smiling face in the moon.
Forty minutes later, she is home.
“Hi, Joe.” She waves to the doorman.
“You get stuck in that mess on I-95?”
“I sure did.”
“Radio said there was an accident at the exit to Riviera Beach.”
“There were still police cars at the side of the road,” Amanda tells him.
“Expecting company?” He nods toward the bottle of wine in her hand.
Amanda feels her spine stiffen. Is it curiosity she hears in his voice or judgment? “Not tonight.”
He smiles. “Well, have a good one.”
“You too.”
He was just making idle conversation, she reassures herself in the elevator, grateful that the ride to the fifteenth floor is mercifully uneventful. No unnecessary stops. No former lovers. No suspicious wives. “Just me and my bottle,” Amanda says to the empty hallway as the elevator doors open. She walks briskly to her unit on the southeast corner, almost tripping over a piece ofivory-trimmed red carpet that has come loose from the ivory-colored wall. She’ll have to call the building manager in the morning, tell him to send someone up to repair it before anyone gets hurt. Wouldn’t want some ambitious young litigator, such as herself, to sue.
Not that personal injury lawsuits are her area of expertise, Amanda thinks. No, her specialty is defending creeps who try to swallow their girlfriends. Not to mention those who beat up strangers in a bar or rob a 7-Eleven and shoot a few innocent bystanders. Of course if the creep who does the shooting is the son of a prominent local politician, or if one of the bystanders happens to be young and beautiful, and therefore likely to make the front page of the
Palm Beach Post
, then it becomes a case for Jackson Beatty or Stanley Rowe, who keep all the really good stuff for themselves.
“The good stuff,” Amanda says out loud, wondering when she became so jaded. And what has her more upset—the fact Derek Clemens was acquitted on four charges or found guilty of one?
She stands for several seconds outside her apartment door, almost reluctant to go inside. How many messages from her former husband will she find waiting on her voice mail? Although, surprisingly, there were no further messages from him at work.
Nor are there any now. “Good,” Amanda says, standing in the middle of her all-white kitchen and uncorking the bottle of red wine. “Good,” she repeats, feeling curiously slighted. She fills a large wineglass almost to the top and takes a long sip, deciding she should probably eat something. She opens her fridge, finds nothing but a bottle of orange juice and a dozen containers of assortedfruit-flavored yogurt. She checks the best-before date of a strawberry-kiwi yogurt and sees that it expired five days ago. Which means all the other yogurts are likewise past their prime, since she bought them all at the same time. How long ago?