All the Beautiful Lies(11)

“Have you had French food before?” Jake asked, after they were seated at a corner table.

“Do French fries count?”

Jake smiled at her joke, his lips spreading wide while his teeth remained together. “No. Not tonight. Can I order for you?”

“Sure.”

Jake ordered escargot as a starter, which turned out to be snails in their shells. Alice agreed to try them and they were not bad. For dinner they each had steak with béarnaise sauce. Jake drank wine, and Alice drank sparkling water. It was clear that their waitress thought that they were father and daughter, but Alice pretended, in her mind, that they were a sophisticated couple out for a casual dinner at the end of a busy week. She tried not to think about her mother at home in the recliner, and whether she’d wake up and wonder where her husband and daughter were. Instead, she made her mother disappear into nonexistence, and shrunk the world so that it was a perfect bubble that only contained her and Jake.

“Save room for dessert,” Jake said. She’d been using some of the still-warm bread to sop up all the amazing sauce that was left on her plate.

After the chocolate mousse for her and just a cappuccino for Jake, they drove back in Jake’s BMW, listening to one of his Roxy Music tapes. It was early fall, but still warm enough to have the windows open, and Jake was driving along the coastal route. Alice kept pretending her mother didn’t exist, imagining that they were going back to the condo they lived in together, and alone. The song was “Avalon,” Alice’s favorite. When they got home, Edith was there, although she was now stretched out on the couch instead of the recliner, and the television was on, the volume turned up way too high.

“Where’d you two go?” she said, as Jake turned the television down. She had propped herself halfway up on an elbow, and was pulling a strand of hair away from her mouth.

Jake said, “Out to dinner, Ed. You forgot about our reservation, and I didn’t want to wake you.”

“What? Where?” Her voice was thick and sleepy.

“The Brasserie. In Kennebunkport.”

“Oh yeah. I’m so sorry, honey. I completely forgot.”

Alice went to her own room as Jake bent and kissed Edith on the forehead. Alice shut her door, and sat on the edge of her bed, wondering if Jake and Edith really had had plans to go to the restaurant and her mom had forgotten. Or had Jake just made that up? She remembered the chicken, her mom’s attempt at cooking dinner, but that didn’t mean much of anything. Her mother was forgetful, and even if they’d had dinner reservations, that didn’t mean she’d have remembered them. Thinking about it was starting to give Alice one of her headaches, like fingers jabbing into her temples, so she took four ibuprofen, changed into her pajamas, and got into bed. She lay there awake for a long time, staring up at the textured ceiling, so similar to the apartment ceiling from back in Biddeford, although that ceiling had had glitter in it. She took deep, regular breaths, trying to get back inside the bubble, the one in which Jake took her to French restaurants all the time, and they traveled to Europe, and her mother no longer existed. She could feel the headache start to go away, like poison seeping out into her pillow, and then her limbs got heavy, and her eyes closed, and she was asleep.





Chapter 5





Now



The funeral was Sunday afternoon, the same time as the graduation that Harry was missing. Despite Harry telling him not to, Paul Roman skipped the graduation ceremony as well, and drove up to Maine. He arrived just before noon. Harry was in his bedroom, the window open, and heard the car brake sharply on the driveway. He met Paul at the doorway. Alice was out back, cutting flowers, and Harry desperately wanted a little time alone with Paul before he had to change into his suit and attend his father’s service. He took him straight to his room.

“You have any idea what happened?” Paul asked, as soon as the door was shut.

“You mean, how did he die?”

“Yeah. Did he just trip?” Harry had met Paul their freshman year, when they both had single dorm rooms on the same hall. Paul’s second question to Harry, after asking his name, had been: “You sleep with boys or girls or both?”

Harry, flustered into honesty, replied, “Girls. In theory, though, not in reality. Yet.”

“All right. Let’s go find some. Girls for you, and boys for me.”

They’d stayed best friends through four years of college, building a group around them. Well, Paul had built the group, being one of those people who attract friends as easily as a flower draws bees. Harry felt privileged to be in his company, and sometimes overshadowed. Paul was funny and gregarious, filterless at times, but always knowing what to say and what to do. Privately, Harry pictured Paul as a fellow soldier of the social realm who would draw enemy fire in his direction so that Harry could make small incremental advances, trench by trench.

“There’s going to be an autopsy,” Harry said to Paul, now sitting on the edge of the bedroom’s one chair. “But he probably just fell. Just a freak accident.”

“You don’t think anyone else was involved?”

“What do you mean? Like someone pushed him?”

“I don’t know, I’m just wondering.”

“I think it’s more likely that maybe he had some sort of heart attack, or a stroke, and that caused him to fall off the path and hit his head. It was a pretty steep drop.”