All the Beautiful Lies(16)
When the bottle was empty—Alice had only had one glass—Edith declared that they should do final preparations for the arrival of the guest. She told Alice to light the candles and fluff up the pillows in the living room while she prepared the stuffing in the kitchen. The champagne had taken the edge off whatever pills she’d taken earlier. Alice thought her mother seemed back to normal—her voice slightly slurry, and her face slack—and she knew that before she started on the stuffing, she’d build herself one of her health drinks in the kitchen.
Jake arrived home first. He was in his navy blue suit, wearing his tie with the little anchors on it, and he had two bottles of wine in the crook of his arm. “Smells good in here, ladies,” he said loudly.
Gina arrived not long after, wearing a shimmery blazer over a white T-shirt and tight jeans. She’d done her hair, teasing her bangs, and was wearing eye makeup in addition to the lipstick and rouge she usually wore. Jake looked her up and down when he saw her. “I can’t believe it. You were a little girl yesterday,” he said. Gina smiled, and Alice was pleased that a little bit of lipstick was stuck to one of her big front teeth. She hadn’t even considered that Jake might be attracted to Gina, but of course he would be. He hadn’t seen her for at least a year, and she looked like a movie star now.
The jealousy went away when Gina grabbed Alice, and said, “Show me around. I can’t believe I’ve never been here.” Then added, in a whisper, “How’s the momster?”
“Still standing,” Alice said.
She brought Gina up the stairs and showed off her room, and her own bathroom, then they went out on the deck, and Gina smoked one of Edith’s cigarettes.
“So I thought you’d like to know, but now it’s official. I’m going to NYU.” Gina had been wavering between NYU and the University of Maine. Alice knew that Gina would pick New York City, and that once she got there she’d look for a modeling agent. “Why don’t you come with me?”
“To where? To New York?”
“Yeah. We could live together, and you could take classes and apply for a degree program.”
“I’ll come visit. How about that?”
Alice had already decided that she was going to take classes at the southern campus of the Maine Community College System. She had told Gina that she was worried about leaving her mom alone, but, in truth, she didn’t want to stop living with Jake.
“You promise?” Gina stubbed out the skinny cigarette in the ashtray. The filter was imprinted with her lipstick color, a dark plum.
“I do,” Alice said, but didn’t really mean it, and didn’t really think that Gina would remember the promise once she arrived in New York.
Jake shouted, “Girls,” from downstairs, and they joined Jake and Edith for appetizers and drinks in the living room. Edith had calmed down, and was her usual slow-motion self, smiling beatifically at both Alice and Gina as though they had done something a lot more impressive than graduate from Kennewick High. Jake kept the conversation going, asking Gina lots of questions about her plans. Alice was slightly jealous again, and actually glad that Gina would be leaving Maine and probably never returning. After appetizers they moved to the dining room table, where every plate was adorned with a Cornish game hen stuffed with wild rice, and a pile of honey-glazed carrots. They looked nice but they’d gone cold. Alice and Gina were allowed to keep drinking wine, and Edith had switched to what looked like vodka on the rocks, her speech getting more incomprehensible by the minute. Edith kept pushing the tiny hen around her plate, occasionally taking a small bite. Gina ate ravenously as she always did, concentrating on her food until all that was left on her plate was a small pile of bones. Alice knew that growing up with four siblings had left her with the constant feeling that there would never be enough to go around.
“You girls should get going to your party. Ed and I will clean up,” Jake said. He’d eaten only about half his food, and Alice thought that was strange. He looked embarrassed, probably because there was a new witness to his wife’s behavior. He didn’t know that Gina had been prepped for the spectacle.
“It was delicious,” Gina said, refolding her napkin and placing it on her plate.
“Sorry about . . . My wife sometimes drinks too much.”
Edith perked up, and blew a raspberry in the direction of her husband. “I’ve had three drinks tonight, a lot less than some people around here. But don’t worry, don’t worry, I’ll clean up.” She stood up suddenly, went to steady herself by grabbing hold of the chair, missed it, and sat down hard on the floor. Everyone around the table jumped up, but Jake got to her first, helping her stand and bringing her to the couch in the living room. While he got her settled, Alice and Gina brought dishes into the kitchen. Alice whispered: “I wasn’t exaggerating, was I?”
“No,” Gina said, smiling, but her eyes looked concerned.
At the door, Jake said, “Be extra-careful tonight, you two. Look after Alice, okay, Gina?”
“I’m only staying half an hour, tops,” Alice said, as Gina took her by the shoulders and pushed her out the door.
“Thank you so much for dinner, Mr. Richter,” Gina said, “and please thank Mrs. Richter for me.”
“I will,” Jake said, and he swiped at a damp eye. Alice had never seen her stepfather cry. She opened her mouth to tell Gina that she was staying home, but she was already being led down the hall.