“In a school renowned for dowdy mothers, Lynette Moore
was one of the dowdiest, gone to seed in the way only a truly preppy woman can.
She had leathery skin and a Prince Valiant haircut, which she smoothed back
with a grosgrain ribbon headband. Her laugh was a loud, annoying bray and if
someone failed to join in her merriment, she clapped the person on the back as
if trying to dislodge a lump of food. On this particular Thursday afternoon, Lynette
stood on the sidewalk, speaking animatedly to one of the teachers, punching the
poor woman at intervals. Sally, waiting her turn in the car pool lane, thought
how easily a foot could slip, how an accelerator could jam. The SUV would surge
forward, Lynette would be pinned against the column by the school’s front door.
So sad, but no one’s fault, right?”—Crime fiction writer Laura Lippman, “ARM
and the Woman,” in Hardly Knew Her: Stories (2008)(Photo of Laura Lippman taken at the 2015 Library of Congress National Book Festival, Sept. 6, 2015, by fourandsixty.)
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