Maine - J. Courtney Sullivan [107]
“Thank you,” Alice said. She lowered her voice as if she were about to tell the juiciest of secrets. “Rhiannon, your skin is absolutely gorgeous.”
“Thanks. My ex-husband used to say—”
Alice sputtered. “Your ex-husband? You had a husband?”
Maggie couldn’t tell if this was some reaction to divorce in general, or to Rhiannon in particular. Possibly her age.
“Yes. If you can believe it,” Rhiannon said with a laugh.
“Well, don’t worry. A girl as pretty as you. You’ll have the boys banging down your door again soon, no doubt.”
Maggie took note of the fact that her grandmother had offered her no such assurance.
“Did Maggie tell you her mother is divorced also?” Alice said, as if Rhiannon and Kathleen had some rare and jolly hobby in common—a pair of rowboat enthusiasts, championship jugglers. “Now, there’s a girl who was not suited to it, looks-wise. She put on weight after all that, didn’t she, Maggie?”
Maggie felt like any answer she could give would be a betrayal of her mother, so she just took a bite of potatoes in response. She was desperate to change the subject.
Alice reached for the wine bottle and poured herself a second glass.
“Anyone else?” she asked. “Maggie, you haven’t touched yours. Don’t you like it? Would you prefer a white? I have one open.”
“No, I’m fine,” she said.
Alice frowned. “Are you on the wagon?”
“No. I’m a bit hungover, actually,” Maggie lied, since this was the only acceptable reason for not drinking among the drinking members of the Kelleher family.
Alice filled Rhiannon’s glass and her own, emptying the bottle.
“I will be too tomorrow, if I’m not careful. Don’t tell your mom,” she said, “or she’ll drag me off to rehab with that whoosie what’s-her-name actress.”
“The meatloaf is delicious, Grandma,” Maggie said. Neutral ground.
“It is, so moist,” Rhiannon said.
“It’s just one part ketchup and one part Worcestershire that does it,” Alice said with a pleased grin. Then she slapped her palms against the table.
“Drat, I forgot the rolls!” she said, getting up and rushing toward the kitchen.
Maggie looked at Rhiannon.
“What did I tell you?” she whispered.
“What a character,” Rhiannon said.
Alice returned with a basket of rolls in one hand and a fresh bottle of red wine in the other.
“They’re only burned a smidge on the bottom,” she said. “Still perfectly good.”
Rhiannon and Alice drained the second bottle of wine while Maggie led them in conversation about the most benign topics she could think of—the scaffolding she had noticed outside the church her grandmother attended each morning, movies they had all seen or wanted to see, the weather forecast for the week.
Alice opened a third bottle after they had cleared their plates. Maggie pushed her glass away, still full. Rhiannon’s glass was full too. Alice filled only her own and took a long sip.
“Maggie mentioned you’re a fellow book lover,” Rhiannon was saying. “Are you reading anything good?”
Alice smacked her lips together. “Yes! The most marvelous biography of Vincent van Gogh. Fascinating, absolutely fascinating.”
“How interesting,” Rhiannon said. “There’s an amazing collection of his work in Amsterdam. A whole museum dedicated to him.”
Alice nodded, as if she was well aware of this fact. “You know, there’s an art museum a mile from here, by Perkins Cove,” she said.
Maggie had been there once or twice as a kid. The Van Gogh Museum it was not. But she felt protective of Alice just then, and so she said, “It’s really lovely. It overlooks the ocean.”
“There used to be an artists’ colony there,” Alice said.
“Really?” Maggie had never heard that before.
“Yes,” Alice said. “They were at their height when we built this place.”
“Did you like the artists, or did you