Pretty Girls by Karin Slaughter Page B

prom.
    “Mom, you missed the turn.”
    Lydia tapped the brakes. She checked the mirrors and backed up. A car swerved around her, horn blaring.
    Dee’s thumbs blurred across the bottom of her phone. “You’re gonna end up killing yourself in a car accident and I’m gonna be an orphan.”
    Lydia had only herself to blame for this kind of hyperbole.
    She drove around the school and pulled into a parking space in the back. Instead of the Valhalla that was the Westerly Intramural Sporting Complex, the gym behind Booker T. Washington High School in downtown Atlanta was a 1920s red-brick structure that more closely resembled the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory.
    Lydia scanned the parking lot, because that’s what she always did before she unlocked the doors.
    “I’ll get a ride home from Bella.” Dee grabbed her gym bag off the back seat. “See you tonight.”
    “I need to go in.”
    Dee looked horrified by the prospect. “Mom, you said—”
    “I need to go to the bathroom.”
    Dee got out of the car. “You pee all the time.”
    “Thank you for that.” Between thirty-two hours of labor and the looming specter of menopause, Lydia was lucky her bladder wasn’t hanging between her knees like a cow’s udder.
    She turned around to retrieve her purse from the back seat. Lydia stayed there, making sure Dee went into the building. And then she heard the click of the driver’s-side door opening. Instinctively, Lydia swung around with her fists up, screaming, “No!”
    “Lydia!” Penelope Ward had her arms over her head. “It’s me!”
    Lydia wondered if it was too late to punch her.
    Penelope said, “Gosh, I didn’t mean to scare you.”
    “I’m fine,” Lydia lied. Her heart was down by her bladder. “I was just dropping off Dee. I can’t talk right now. I have a funeral to go to.”
    “Oh, no. Whose?”
    Lydia hadn’t thought that far ahead. “A friend. An old teacher. Miss Clavel.” She was really talking too much. “That’s all there is. There isn’t any more.”
    “Okay, but a quick word.” Penelope was still blocking the open door. “Remember how I told you about the International Festival?”
    Lydia bumped the gear into reverse. “Just send me whatever recipe you want and I’ll—”
    “Super! You’ll have it by three o’clock today.” Penelope was good about setting her own deadlines. “But, listen, are you still in touch with the band?”
    Lydia edged her foot toward the gas.
    “It jogged my memory when you said you grew up in Athens. I went to UGA.”
    Lydia should’ve guessed by the pastel sweater sets and blowjobby pucker to her lips.
    “I saw you perform a zillion times. Liddie and the Spoons, right? God, those were the days. Whatever happened to those gals? Probably ended up married with a ton of kids, am I right?”
    “Yep.” If you mean incarcerated, divorced four times and keeping a punch card in her wallet from the Women’s Health Center so she can get her tenth abortion for free . “We’re all just a bunch of old ladies.”
    “So,” Penelope was still blocking the door, “you’ll ask them, right? What a kick Dee would get out of seeing her mom on stage.”
    “Oh, she’d be thrilled. I’ll email you about it, okay?” Lydia had to get out of here with or without the minivan door intact. She eased her foot off the brake. Penelope walked alongside her. “Need to go now.” Lydia motioned for her to get out of the way. “Need to close the door.” She tapped her foot on the gas.
    Finally, Penelope stepped back so she wouldn’t get knocked down. “I look forward to receiving your email!”
    Lydia hit the gas so hard that the minivan lurched. God, this really was her day to have her shitty past dredged up and thrown like a pile of steaming cow manure at her feet. She’d love to get Penelope Ward and the band together. They would eat her alive. Literally. The last time the Spoons had been in the same room together, two of them ended up in the hospital with severe bite