Alice Bliss - Laura Harrington [107]
“I don’t get me, either.”
Henry stashes the bottle between his knees. When Alice reaches for it he jerks away from her.
“What, do you think I’m going to attack you?”
“No!”
She takes the bottle.
“How could you . . . with John Kimball and—”
“I didn’t know he was following me.”
“Ha!”
“I didn’t. I was just trying to get away.”
“Why did you go there, Alice?”
“I don’t know. . .. It’s a safe place.”
“It’s more than that.”
“I know.”
“Do you? Do you even care anymore?”
“I do. You know I do.”
She can’t look at him. She offers him the bottle; he shakes his head. She takes another taste. There’s a long, uncomfortable silence.
“You’re not helping,” she tells him.
“What do you want me to do?”
“I want you to get drunk with me and . . . and—”
“And what?”
“And do whatever it is that people come here to do.”
Alice is starting to make a pretty good dent in the bottle with all her little tastes.
“You’re kidding, right?”
Of course she’s kidding, she has to be kidding, he says to himself.
“There’s a blanket in the trunk.”
“How do you know that?”
“My mother told me. She also told me to watch out for boys like Uncle Eddie.”
“I’m not like Uncle Eddie.”
“I know.”
Henry’s brain is running on high-octane fuel as he calculates what’s about to happen. Alice is going to drink herself silly, possibly drink herself right into puking. There could be kissing. Hopefully before the puking. But is that even what he wants anymore? And what is she doing? What is she out to prove and just what the hell was she doing with John Kimball? He’s really furious but it’s hard to be angry, or stay angry on the day your best friend buries her father. So maybe he’s just supposed to stay with her and try to keep her safe and try not to worry too much about, well . . . everything. But by then, the sun will be going down and here they are all the way out at the lake and Alice won’t be able to drive and Henry has driven like once in his life for maybe twenty minutes and this is a nice car, a really nice car, that Henry does not want to crack up or dent, or even mess with.
So how the hell is he supposed to get her home?
Alice exits the car, bottle in hand, and heads for the beach. Henry grabs the keys and follows her. She takes off her shoes—for a moment he thinks she’s going to take off her dress, too—drops the bottle, and starts running down the beach. He picks up the bottle, thinks maybe he should pour it out, realizes she’d be purely pissed at him then, puts it back, and heads over to the car to get the blanket out of the trunk, which is a good thing, because by the time he returns, Alice has finished off the Southern Comfort, taken her dress off, and gone swimming. And is now, of course, freezing.
He wraps the blanket around her. She presses into him, he tries backing up, she follows; it might be funny if he weren’t so mad at her, she keeps pushing against him until he has no choice but to hold her.
“You could have drowned.”
“Shut up. You sound like my mother.”
“Sobered you up a bit.”
“I’m really dizzy.”
She tries to kiss him. It’s sloppy and none too smooth with her arms trapped inside the blanket. Henry thinks, she’s had too much to drink, she’s got her dress off; they’ve got the blanket from the trunk of Uncle Eddie’s car. How is it that this turn of events, minus Alice being crazy with grief and drunk, is the stuff of fantasy, only it’s all wrong, it’s confusing as hell, he can’t trust one single thing Alice is doing or saying.
Next thing you know Alice is spewing all over the sand. Thank God she turned her head fast enough. It’s disgusting. She’s on her knees now, wiping her mouth with her hand and spitting and, oh, God, there she goes again. And then she just passes out, sprawled on the sand right next to the guck. In her underwear. Which Henry has never seen before, and certainly never expected to see in quite this context.
Henry tries to pick her up to move her. Can’t. Gets hold of her under the armpits and drags her several feet away. Kicks sand over the mess and the smell, covers her with the blanket, and sits down beside