All the Beautiful Lies(32)
That night Jake came back from the bank with a large bottle of white zinfandel but no flowers and no movie. He seemed tired, and when Alice told him she was thinking of going over to the Bergerons’ for dinner he made a face but didn’t say anything negative. Right before she left, however, he said to her: “You won’t tell them anything, will you? About us?”
“I won’t, but don’t you think . . . I mean, it’s been two years, and I’m a grown woman now.”
“Trust me, Alice, they won’t understand. They’ll think that I’m taking advantage of you. We live in America. We were founded by Puritans. In other countries, they would totally understand what was going on between us, but not here.”
“I won’t tell them anything. I wouldn’t have, anyway. It’s none of their business.”
Alice drove Jake’s car across town, listening to the tape he’d left in the deck. It was Genesis, Phil Collins singing the word Mama over and over again. She got tired of it, and sped ahead to “That’s All.” After she pulled into the Bergerons’ driveway, she listened to the rest of the song, the sky a deep, dusky blue over the Bergerons’ house, its first floor brick and its second story painted yellow, the windows with black shutters. The front yard was brown from the summer drought, and with a scattering of orange pine needles. As the song finished, Alice wondered if tonight was the beginning of the story of Gina’s fall from grace. What had Gina’s mother said, that she was “exhausted”? Alice shut the car off.
Gina didn’t seem exhausted during dinner. If anything, she seemed a little hyper, constantly interrupting anything anyone else was saying to get her own word in, pushing her food around the plate, cutting her sloppy joe into bite-sized pieces with her fork and knife, something the rest of the family made fun of her for.
“You want chopsticks for that, G?” her father asked. “She eats sushi now,” he said to Alice.
“Everyone eats sushi, Dad,” Gina said.
“Not in Maine. We cook our fish up here.”
“High five,” Gina’s youngest sister said and slapped Mr. Bergeron’s palm.
Alice kept mostly silent during the meal, except when she was asked direct questions, either about her job at the drugstore or the courses she was taking at MCC. No one asked her about Jake, and what he was up to, at least not at the dinner table. She felt strange during dinner, not uncomfortable exactly, but like an alien that had been dropped into a typical American family, full of inside jokes and overlapping conversation. It was different, so much louder, than what she was used to with Jake, just the two of them, everything perfect and civilized. A small part of her was jealous, only because there was something relaxing about not always being the center of attention, not always having eyes on you, but then Alice looked at Gina, the way her eyes were darting between members of her family, her fingers tugging on one of her earlobes till it had turned an angry red, and she thought: No, family life is messy, and unpredictable. Who would want that?
After dinner, when the two youngest girls were tasked with clearing the table, Alice caught Gina giving her mother a quick glance, then saying, awkwardly, “New rule: the grown women get the night off cleaning.”
“New rule?” Mr. Bergeron said.
Gina was standing. “Come on, Alice, let’s go outside a minute.”
“Gotta get her fix,” said Gina’s younger sister, pantomiming taking a puff of a cigarette.
“I’ll come, too,” said Mrs. Bergeron, as Alice rose from the table, suddenly nervous.
It was balmy outside for September, the dark sky filled with stars. Gina did light up a cigarette before the back screen door slammed shut, then took a seat on one of the patio chairs. She offered the pack to Alice, who turned it down.
“Smart girl,” said Mrs. Bergeron, leaning against the outdoor table.
Alice sat next to Gina on the very edge of a chair. She said how much she’d enjoyed dinner, then immediately asked about Gina’s oldest brother, Howie, who hadn’t been there that night. She just wanted to keep asking questions to avoid the discussion that she felt was coming. Mrs. Bergeron said that Howie was doing the backpack thing in Europe, and she wondered if he’d ever return. While she spoke, Alice felt Gina’s eyes on her. She turned toward her just as she was snuffing the butt of her cigarette out against the bottom of her sandal.
“You should—” Alice began, but Gina interrupted her.
“Alice, I want to talk about Jake.”
“So do I,” said Mrs. Bergeron.
“Okay,” said Alice. She could feel the blood rushing into her face, her skin heating up.
“We both think it’s really strange that you’re still living with him,” Gina said, removing another cigarette from her pack of Parliaments. “I know that he’s your stepdad, but it’s not like he was with your mom for a really long time. You’ve lived with him longer than he lived with your mother.”
“Where else am I supposed to go?” Alice said, anger causing her chest to tighten, and her words to come out sounding slightly pinched. “I don’t have a family. He pays for my classes, Gina.”
“We’re not judging you, honey,” Mrs. Bergeron said. “We’re worried that Jake is taking advantage of you, and if he is, we want you to know that you have options.”