Free The Private Lives of Pippa Lee by Rebecca Miller

that had died.
    A van arrived with ‘ASPCA’ written on the side. Two men got out. Chris let them lift the body off him, then, without glancing at Pippa, he stood up and walked back into the convenience store.One of the men from the ASPCA asked her if it was her dog. Pippa shook her head, brushed off her knees, picked up her shopping bag, and walked unsteadily to her car. She felt shaken and strangely moved.
    *
    Moira was late. Pippa leaned back in the aqua leatherette banquette and scrutinized the small oil paintings which were hung at regular intervals on the walls of the restaurant. They were all dutifully painted, humorless landscapes. She thought about her old friend Jim, how he would have looked up at them, his head slightly bowed. He would have nodded slowly. ‘Ah, yes,’ he would have said, smiling grimly. She wondered if Jim was still alive.
    Moira appeared, out of breath, kissed Pippa, strands of black hair escaping from her ponytail. She smelled pleasantly of milk.
    â€˜I am so sorry I’m late, I was writing and I looked at the clock and –’
    â€˜Don’t worry,’ said Pippa, ‘I was just relaxing, enjoying the art. That’s a great buckle,’ she said, fingering a silver sheriff star below Moira’s belly button.
    â€˜Thanks,’ said Moira, covering it with her hand and sliding into the opposite bench, her large suede handbag clutched to her side. An effeminate waiter appeared. ‘Oh! Hi! Can I please have, um, an iced tea? The one with, um, melon in it?’ Moira said to him with involuntary flirtatiousness. Then she looked back at Pippa, tucked a strand of hair behind her ear girlishly, and smiled, a dimple indenting her left cheek. No wonder she had been her father’s favorite of seven kids, Pippa thought. She must have been a magical child, with that heart-shaped face, those enormous, Indian orphan eyes – and that imagination. In her messy, breathless, self-obsessed way, Moira was adorable. There was no getting around it. You could think her sincerity was ridiculous, you could lampoon her overblown sexuality, her exaggerated appreciationof life, but finally, you just had to throw up your hands and love the absolute purity of her confusion. Disarming. That was the word for Moira.
    â€˜You look so beautiful ,’ Moira said, scrutinizing Pippa’s face. ‘What are you doing different?’
    â€˜It’s the indolence,’ said Pippa.
    â€˜I wish I could be so peaceful and good like you.’
    â€˜ Good ? ’
    â€˜You seem so … beatific.’
    Pippa laughed. ‘If only you knew.’
    â€˜Knew what?’
    â€˜Oh, a variety of things. I’m like one of those shiny used cars that have been in a terrible accident. They look perfectly fine on the outside, but the axle is bent.’
    Moira smiled, puzzled. ‘You’re so mysterious about the past.’
    â€˜You think?’
    â€˜You never say anything about your life before.’
    â€˜There are things that happened that I don’t dwell on.’
    â€˜What, like what happened to Herb’s first wife?’
    â€˜Second.’
    â€˜Second. He said she was already crazy.’
    â€˜Not that crazy.’
    Moira sighed, put her head in her hands, and sniffed.
    â€˜What?’ Pippa put her palm on Moira’s shoulder.
    â€˜I’m just a rotten apple,’ said Moira, wiping the tears off her cheeks. ‘I’ll never have a normal life.’
    Pippa was used to her friend’s sudden episodes of self-flagellation. She always used humor to bring her out of her maudlin spirals.
    â€˜Oh, come on,’ said Pippa. ‘What’s normal? You mean marriage?’
    Moira nodded, blowing her nose. ‘It’s over between Sam and me. Oh, Pippa, it’s all so completely fucked up. I – I’ve gotten myself into – I’m going to be forty with no man, fifty, not that it matters but it does . I – I