Maine - J. Courtney Sullivan [118]
Alice just looked at her, without saying a word.
“Let’s take a walk,” Mary said. “I need to talk to you.”
“I’m tired,” Alice said stubbornly. “I want to go home.”
“I’ll come with you then,” Mary said.
“What about Henry? You’re going to just leave him inside?”
“We’re here with other friends; he’ll be fine,” Mary said. “And anyway we’re going to the beach tomorrow for some reason, even though it’s freezing out. It’s where we had our first kiss.”
Alice realized then why he had chosen to propose there. And while every bit of her said that she ought to be excited for Mary, she just felt numb.
“Oh yes, your other friends,” Alice said. “I hope they didn’t catch a glimpse of you talking to the likes of me.”
“Is that what this is about?” Mary said. “For heaven’s sake, Alice, I’m terrified of those people. Most of them wouldn’t save me from drowning if it meant their trousers might get damp.”
Alice’s heart stung, to think of her sister that way.
“You can’t leave,” Mary said. “Something’s happened. I need to talk to you.”
“What is it?” Alice asked.
“Henry is moving to New York. He just told me tonight—well, someone let the cat out of the bag at dinner. He looked really peeved and said we’d discuss it tomorrow. Alice, I am so afraid that he’s taking me to the beach to end it. I had this vision of you and me tonight, turning into those horrible old spinsters who live at home forever.”
She hadn’t seemed worried inside the club, but Mary had always been good at painting a rosy picture in mixed company.
Alice’s chest tightened. In the morning, Mary’s bad dream would show itself to be a misunderstanding. Mary would get everything Alice herself had wished for. Those horrible old spinsters, she had said. Was that to be Alice’s fate?
She might have put her sister at ease, whispered that tomorrow Mary would get what she wanted most. But instead Alice said, “You shouldn’t have gone to bed with him.”
The words were a sweet release as they came out of her mouth, but she instantly felt bad once she’d said them.
Mary looked taken aback. She bit her lip and stood there in silence until Alice let out an involuntary shiver.
“You must be cold,” Mary said. She reached into her purse, “Here, take my mittens.”
“I have some,” Alice snapped. It was then that she realized she had left Mary’s suede gloves sitting on the bar. “Damn it to hell,” she said, before she had time to think. “I forgot them inside.”
“Which ones?” Mary said, in a tone that implied she already knew.
“The gray suede.”
“Oh, Alice, they’re my favorite—you know that. I saved up to buy them.”
Alice knew she ought to feel guilty, but she didn’t.
“Go get them, please,” Mary said.
“I’m not going back into that crowd,” Alice said.
“Quit being willful, and go get them, and I’ll hail us a cab.”
“No.”
“Alice!”
“Why do you care so much? You know Henry will buy you a new pair.”
“Why must you always be so pigheaded?”
“I’m not! My head hurts. And you’re the one who wants the silly gloves so bad.”
Mary blinked. “Fine then. You hail us a cab, and I’ll get them.”
She didn’t respond.
Mary turned around with a sigh and went back into the club.
Alice stood there, still as stone. She lit a cigarette and smoked it down to the bottom.
After a few minutes, a taxi ambled down the block, and she waved it over, climbing into the backseat. She thought of leaving Mary behind, but at the last second she said, “I’m waiting for my sister, she’ll just be a minute.”
She pulled a compact from her purse and stared into the mirror. Her makeup seemed to have drooped. She looked ten years older than she had when the evening began.
Mary was taking ages. Alice imagined her inside, saying her long good-byes, as if she weren’t going to see Henry again tomorrow.
The driver shifted impatiently in his seat. Alice started to feel a bit embarrassed. Hurry up, she thought.
Still looking in the mirror, she heard a ruckus out by the doors, voices booming, the sort of noise that could mean only true joy or terror. She felt jealous of whoever they were for a moment, but then