We Are Here (52 page)
Authors: Michael Marshall
She put a pin in the idea.
Eventually she pushed away from the railing and started the walk down to Chelsea. It was time to pick up the girls. She walked slowly at first, then gradually with more enthusiasm, finding that her mood, if not cured, was a little lighter. She thought of her two little girls, happy to have them, and glimpsing for a moment the road that lay in front of these young women—the road of school and college, of living in apartments and having good sex and bad hangovers and working hard and goofing off and meeting a guy (or girl, whatever) and eventually starting to settle, moving in smaller circles like balls rattling around a pinball table, before finally finding the place they were meant to land. Maybe they’d be housewives. Maybe one would be president.
Dreams are dreams and real is real. Somewhere in between is what you get, and that’s good enough.
Catherine picked up her step and strode down into the bustle and noise. If she got a move on she might even have time to pick up a tub of shrimp salad. The fact that Mark liked it wasn’t the point, and never had been.
The point was this was her life.
Bad Things
The Intruders
Blood of Angels
The Upright Man
The Straw Men
Killer Move
AN ORION EBOOK
First published in Great Britain in 2013 by Orion Books.
This ebook first published in 2013 by Orion Books.
Copyright © Michael Marshall Smith 2013
The right of Michael Marshall Smith to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All characters and events in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published without a similar condition, including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN: 978 1 4091 3329 2
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