All the Beautiful Lies(10)

“Okay. I won’t.”

But on Monday at school, the word WHORE had been written in capital letters with a silver marker across the front of Alice’s locker, and while she was crossing the open walkway to the science building for Period C, a girl that Alice had never noticed before started yelling at her from the smoking pit. “Stay away from Scott, you fucking slut.” She was a blonde with crimped hair. One of the blonde’s friends held her upper arm, restraining her from coming over. Alice kept walking, her heart jackhammering in her chest. Why had Scott told people after telling her not to tell anyone? For the rest of the day she felt like everyone in school was staring at her, and either laughing or judging. She didn’t see Scott once, and assumed that he was avoiding her.

When she did finally see Scott, the following day, he didn’t even look at her, just slammed something into his locker and took off. Alice watched him walk away, still wondering what had happened, when a girl—another friend of the blonde—shoved Alice hard in the shoulder and said, “Don’t even look at him, Bitcheford.” A group of students walking by burst into laughter. For a brief moment Alice almost went after the girl. She imagined grabbing her hair, pulling her hard to the floor, stamping on her neck. But Alice controlled herself; she showed nothing.

It was only at the very end of freshman year that Alice heard the whole story. Gina Bergeron was another freshman whose family had recently moved to Kennewick. She was tall and gangly, and spoke so rapidly that sometimes spit would bubble from her lips. They’d met in science class, where they’d been paired together to dissect a fetal pig. She had two older brothers and two younger sisters, all about a year apart. Alice and Gina became friends almost by default. They were both new to Kennewick, and both friendless, and that was where the similarities ended. Still, it was someone to eat lunch with in the cafeteria.

Gina’s brothers were both athletes; the sophomore was a tennis player, and the junior, Howie, was good at lacrosse. Gina got the story from Howie. There actually had been a party the night that Alice had sex with Scott, but not on Kennewick Beach. It had been down at the Harbor Beach. Scott had skipped out to be with Alice, but when he returned he got drunk and bragged to all his friends how he’d just fucked a freshman girl. His on-off girlfriend, Stacy Homstead, the girl with the crimped hair, heard about it, and she was the one who spread it around school the following day, the story of the slutty freshman from Biddeford who’d steal your boyfriend. The Bitcheford.

“Did you really have sex with him?” Gina asked. They were walking together to Alice’s house, along the sidewalk that bordered the beach.

“Sort of, I guess. It didn’t last very long.”

Gina covered her mouth and laughed, more of a snort.

“What was it like?”

“It was like nothing,” Alice said, and meant it.

“Geez,” Gina said. Alice knew that despite being fascinated, Gina had judged her as well. She also knew that Gina, gawky now, with her giraffe legs and wobbly head, was going to be beautiful by senior year, and that their friendship would not last. She didn’t really care. She’d already resolved to just get through high school on her own. She’d gotten through her whole childhood on her own, after all, without a father or brothers or sisters. She had her mother, who barely counted. Alice felt that she’d been counting down the days to being on her own as an adult for longer than she remembered. She didn’t really need friends, even though Gina and she remained somewhat close throughout all of high school. But Alice’s first prediction did come true. Between junior and senior year, Gina lost her awkwardness and turned into a runway model. It didn’t make her as popular as Alice thought it would, though. The girls seemed to resent her, and the boys were frightened away.

Alice, by senior year, was almost as pretty as Gina. Despite her aloofness, boys occasionally flirted with her, sometimes asking her out, but she had no interest. She’d learned her lesson from Scott. She knew what teenage boys were like, and she’d decided that she preferred the company of men. What she really preferred was the company of Jake Richter, her stepfather. Edith’s afternoon drinking had gotten worse, and, more often than not, she’d either forget to prepare dinner for her husband, or she was already passed out by the time he’d gotten home. One Friday night, Alice and Jake had arrived back at the condo at the same time, finding Edith asleep on the recliner, one of her vodka strawberry smoothies tucked between her legs. They found a chicken in the oven but the oven hadn’t been turned on. Jake laughed.

“It’s not funny,” Alice said.

“No, it’s not, Ali.” He was the only one who called her that. “Tell you what. Your mother isn’t going anywhere. How about you and I go out for dinner?”

“Okay.”

“Good. I’ll have a quick drink while you change, and then we’ll go out.”

Alice assumed that they’d be going to the Papa Gino’s on 1A—it was where they usually went out to eat when Edith hadn’t managed to get dinner ready—and she asked Jake why she needed to change.

“We’re going somewhere special,” he said. “Wear your nicest dress.”

They drove all the way to Kennebunkport and ate at a waterfront restaurant that was attached to a hotel. Jake was still wearing his suit from work, although he’d loosened his paisley tie, and she was in a pale pink, sleeveless dress, the one she’d worn to her uncle’s third wedding over the summer.