All the Beautiful Lies(33)

“What do you mean?”

Gina said, “You remember Maddy, right? She said she saw you at a restaurant in Portland with Jake and that you were acting like a couple.”

“What does she mean we were acting like a couple?”

“That doesn’t matter,” Mrs. Bergeron said. “What we want to know is that you are comfortable with whatever situation you’re in. That’s all. If you tell us that you and Jake are happy together, I mean, who are we—”

“I don’t care if you are happy together,” Gina said, shouting a little. “It’s gross, Alice. You’re a young, beautiful girl, and you let that fucking creep have his way with you.”

“Gina . . .” said Mrs. Bergeron.

Alice stood up. She felt tears pricking at her eyes, and really didn’t want to cry. She quickly scanned the fenced backyard, like a cat looking for an exit, then began to walk toward the latched door that led onto the driveway. Gina ran after her.

“Sorry, Alice, come back. We just want to talk with you.”

Alice kept walking, not trusting her voice. When she reached the door, Gina grabbed her shoulder. Alice, without thinking, spun and grabbed Gina’s hand, pulling it to her mouth and biting down at the base of Gina’s thumb. Gina screamed and yanked her hand back. For a moment, they both stood there, Gina grasping her hand, and Alice frozen, shocked that she’d actually bitten Gina. Mrs. Bergeron had jumped up after hearing Gina scream, and was coming toward them, saying, “What is it? What happened?” Alice pushed through the door and ran to the car. She could taste Gina’s blood in her mouth.

When she got back home, Jake was still up, glassy-eyed, watching television, a snifter with brandy on one of his knees. “How was it?” he asked.

“Fine,” Alice said.

“What did they serve?”

“Sloppy joes,” she said, and Jake smiled. “It was kind of a scene, honestly, everyone talking over everyone else. I missed being here.”

“Well, you’re here now,” Jake said, adjusting the chair so that he could get out of it comfortably, almost spilling his drink. “Let’s get into bed.”

Alice went up the stairs, feeling good about controlling her feelings in front of Jake. During the drive back in the car, she told herself that she’d barely even bitten Gina, that her teeth had only just broken the skin, and that it had been Gina’s fault anyway. Gina was the one who’d grabbed her violently, and she had just been trying to get away. It was nothing. And then she told herself that the conversation in the backyard hadn’t actually happened, and that the night was merely annoying. If she believed that, it kept the anger she felt toward Gina from rising up in her and making her want to scream. She brushed her teeth, then changed into pajama bottoms and a threadbare T-shirt.

Under the covers, she carefully composed her body, shut her eyes, and began to try to relax. It had been a nice dinner at Gina’s family’s house. Nothing more. But the words she’d tried to erase kept coming back. Gina calling Jake “that fucking creep.” Mrs. Bergeron’s condescending tone, talking to Alice like she was some little girl. And then she remembered the feeling when she’d bitten down on Gina’s hand. Her body was so tight that it was beginning to tremble. While Jake was applying his face cream in the bathroom, Alice slid out from the covers and got off the bed. “Want anything from downstairs?” she asked Jake, and he shook his head.

In the kitchen she made herself a White Russian, heavy on the vodka, and told herself to drink it slowly, to not be like her mother. She drank half of it in short, small sips, and began to feel better. Of course they’d be critical. They didn’t know what she had with Jake. Or maybe they did know, and they were just jealous. That made a lot more sense. As she was making herself a second drink, she heard a very light tapping and thought for a moment that Jake was coming down the stairs. She stepped out into the living room. There was the tapping sound again, and she realized someone was knocking on the door. She went and peered through the eyehole. It was Gina.





Chapter 14





Now



Every time the front doorbell rang at the store the following day, Harry thought it might be Grace, returning to find out more about a possible job. He didn’t really believe she’d return—why would she when he’d told her he would call?—but he found himself disappointed, anyway. He’d been obsessing over their conversation the previous afternoon, telling himself that maybe she was just what she said she was—new in town, and looking for a job. But she wasn’t, was she? She had obviously come in for some purpose other than a job. Why else would she have been at the funeral, and walking past the house on his first night back in Maine?

But each time the bell rang, it was either a customer—usually coming to offer condolences instead of buying a book—or Alice, who stopped by at lunchtime to bring chicken sandwiches and then again midafternoon, because she was shopping and wanted to see if Harry or John needed anything. Dinner at home the previous night had been less intimate, and less awkward, than the night before, but only because Harry told her he wasn’t feeling well, passed on a drink, and ate in record time. He spent the evening in his room, finishing the Ed McBain and starting another, but mostly just thinking about his father and what might have happened on the path that afternoon. He also thought of Alice, sexualized images of her flashing unwanted through his mind. He kept picturing her from that first summer when she was married to his father. The green bikini top and the denim shorts, so short that he could see the bottom curve of her buttocks. He realized that four years of college hadn’t managed to shake that image from his mind.