The Accidental Detective and other stories: Short Story Collection. Laura Lippman
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Название: The Accidental Detective and other stories: Short Story Collection
Автор: Laura Lippman
Издательство: HarperCollins
Жанр: Современная зарубежная литература
isbn: 9780007492053
isbn:
“It’s Molly, you idiot. Even I know that.”
“Molly. That’s what I said. A bit of playacting. No harm in that.”
“Bullshit. I’m not even convinced that it was a woman’s name you were saying.”
“Fuck you. I don’t do guys.”
His accent had changed—flattened, broadened. He now sounded as American as she did.
“Where are you from?”
He didn’t answer.
“Do you live in Dublin?”
“Of course I do. You met me here, didn’t you?”
“Where do you live? What do you do?”
“Why, here. And this.” He tried to shove a hand beneath her, but she felt sore and unsettled, and she pushed him away.
“Look,” he said. “I’ve made you happy, haven’t I? Okay, so I’m not Irish-Irish. But my, like, ancestors were. And we’ve had fun, haven’t we? I’ve treated you well. I’ve earned my keep.”
Bliss glanced in the mirror opposite the bed. She thought she knew what men saw when they looked at her. She had to know; it was her business, more or less. She had always paid careful attention to every aspect of her appearance—her skin, her hair, her body, her clothes. It was her only capital and she had lived off the interest, careful never to deplete the principle. She exercised, ate right, avoided drugs, and, until recently, drank only sparingly—enough to be fun, but not enough to wreck her complexion. She was someone worth having, a woman who could captivate desirable men—economically desirable men, that is—while passing hot hors d’oeuvres or answering a phone behind the desk at an art gallery.
But this was not the woman Rory had seen, she was realizing. Rory had not seen a woman at all. He had seen clothes. He had seen her shoes, high-heeled Christian Lacroixs that were hell on the cobblestones. And her bag, a Marc Jacobs slung casually over the shoulder of a woman who could afford to be casual about an $800 bag because she had far more expensive ones back home. Only “home” was Barry’s apartment, she realized, and lord knows what he had done with her things. Perhaps that was why he hadn’t yet alerted the credit card company, because he was back in New York, destroying all her things. He would be pissed about the T-shirts, she realized somewhat belatedly. They were authentic vintage ones, not like the fakes everyone else was wearing now, purchased at Fred Segal last January.
And then she had brought Rory back to this room, this place of unlimited room service and the sumptuous breakfasts and the “Have-whatever-you-like-from-the-minibar” proviso. She had even let him have the cashews.
“You think I’m rich,” she said.
“I thought you looked like someone who could use some company,” Rory said, stretching and then rising from the bed.
“How old are you?”
“Twenty-four.”
He was she, she was Barry. How had this happened? She was much too young to be an older woman and nowhere near rich enough.
“What do you do?”
“Like I said, I don’t worry about work too much.” He gave her his lovely grin, although she was not quite as charmed by it.
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