Free Nursery Crimes by Ayelet Waldman Page A

blushed.
    “Nice, Stace.”
    “Sorry.”
    “Forget it. What a turnout!” I said, changing the subject.
    “I know! Unbelievable. Look over there. There are Nicole and Tom sitting next to Michelle. She’s a client of ours. Michelle! Hi, Michelle.” Stacy waved at the movie star, who stared back, nonplussed.
    “For God’s sake, Stacy, this is a funeral, not a cocktail party! Keep your voice down!” I said.
    Chastened, Stacy assumed a stage whisper. “So, what are you going to do about preschool?”
    “I don’t know. We missed the deadline for most places.”
    “What were you thinking?” Stacy seemed genuinely disgusted. “How many schools did you apply to?”
    “Three. And we got rejected everywhere.”
    “Three? That’s it? Are you nuts?”
    A woman in the row ahead of us turned around to get a good look at the mother of the preschool reject. I smiled at her and waved. She blushed and turned back around.
    “Stacy, can we just drop this? I’ll figure something out.”
    “No, we cannot drop this. This is terrible. You don’t seem to understand. If Ruby doesn’t go to the right preschool, there is no way she’ll get into a decent elementary. Then you can kiss high school good-bye. And let’s not discuss college. This is a crisis. An absolute crisis.”
    “You mean a crisis as in the AIDS crisis? The dissolution of the Soviet Empire? The massacres in Rwanda? Would you please get some goddamn perspective?” I was hissing like an angry rattler.
    Stacy looked at me and rolled her eyes. “We’ll talk about this later. Maybe there’s someone I can call.”
    “Oh, my God, really? Is there? I’m sorry for losing my temper. Do you really think there’s something you can do?” My own indignantly expressed sense of perspective lasted about fifteen seconds. Stacy patted my hand and turned back to scanning the crowd.
    “You see down front? That’s Abigail’s husband, Daniel Mooney. He’s a real estate developer or something.” She pointed out a tall man in his mid- to late fifties, with salt-and-pepper hair done up in long, Byronesque curls falling to his shoulders.
    “
That’s
her husband?” I was astonished. “That hippie dude is married to her?”
    “Was. And he’s not a hippie. He’s more of a Boho, Euro-trash type. Except I think he’s from Iowa or something. Her daughter is sitting next to him.”
    Abigail Hathaway’s daughter looked to be about fifteen.My heart went out to her as she sat there, a chubby adolescent with a pale face trying unsuccessfully not to cry. Her hair was dyed a sickly purple and shaved on one side. She had obviously tried to tone it down for her mother’s memorial service, combing the long side over the top and clipping it with a plain tortoiseshell barrette. There was a foot of space between her and Daniel Mooney. Neither so much as glanced at the other. He looked straight ahead, and she stared into her lap.
    “Poor thing,” I said. “Why doesn’t her father put his arm around her or something?”
    “Oh, that’s not her father,” Stacy replied. “He’s Abigail’s third or fourth husband. They’d only been married for a few years. Audrey’s father was her first husband, I think. Maybe her second.”
    “Abigail Hathaway had four husbands? Are you serious?”
    “Three or four. I don’t remember.”
    Just then the hall filled with the sound of an organ, and we all hushed. A small man in a cleric’s collar walked solemnly onto the altar, raised his hands to the gathered mourners, and led us in a hymn. Stacy pointed out the words in the hymnal, but I didn’t need to look. I’d memorized Judy Collins’s rendition of “Amazing Grace” long ago. I even knew the harmony.
    I found most of the service remarkably moving, but then I’ve been known to cry at Lysol commercials. One of Abigail Hathaway’s oldest friends gave the eulogy, recalling her as a wonderful wife, mother, and a resource to the entire community on child-rearing. A moderately famous