What Alice Forgot - Liane Moriarty [120]
She found her address book and Sophie’s mobile number. It seemed that Sophie was living in Dee Why. The northern beaches. Good for her. She’d always wanted to live by the beach, but Jack preferred to live close to the city. She must have won out in the end. They must be married with children by now, although of course Alice had to remember not to take that for granted. She hoped Sophie hadn’t had fertility problems like Elisabeth. Or she and Jack could have broken up? No. Not possible.
“Sophie Drew.”
Goodness. Everyone had become so professional and grown-up.
“Sophie, hi, it’s me, Alice.”
There was a slight pause. “Oh, hi, Alice. How are you?”
“Well, you’re not going to believe what happened to me,” said Alice, and she realized she was feeling strangely silly. Almost nervous. Why? It was only Sophie.
There was another pause. “What happened to you?”
There was something not quite right. Sophie’s voice was too polite. Alice wanted to cry. Oh, for heaven’s sake, I can’t have lost you as well, can I? Who do I talk to?
She didn’t bother spinning out the story. She said, “I had an accident. Hit my head. I’ve lost my memory.”
This time there was an even longer pause. Then she heard Sophie say to someone in the background, “I won’t be long. Just tell them to hold on.”
Her voice came back. Louder. Maybe a touch impatient. “Sorry, Alice. So, umm, you had an accident?”
“Are we still friends?” said Alice desperately. “We are still friends, aren’t we, Soph?”
“Of course we are,” said Sophie immediately, warmly, except now her voice had an undercurrent of “Something weird is going on here. Must tread carefully!”
“It’s just that my last proper memory is of being pregnant with Madison. And now I find I’ve got three children, and Nick and I aren’t together anymore, and I can’t work out why, and Elisabeth—”
“No, no, not that one! The green one!” Sophie spoke sharply. “Sorry. I’m in the middle of a shoot for the new line. It’s a madhouse around here.”
“Oh. What do you do?”
Another pause. “Does that look green to you? Because it sure doesn’t look green to me. Alice, I’m sorry, but can I call you back?”
“Oh. Sure.”
“Look. I know we keep saying it but we must catch up!”
“Okay.” So they weren’t friends anymore. Not proper friends. They were “must catch up” friends.
“I mean, the last time I saw you was when we had that drinks thing with that friend of yours. The neighbor? Gina. How’s she?”
Gina, Gina, Gina. It occurred to Alice that she wouldn’t have called Elisabeth or Sophie about the kiss in the laundry. She would have called Gina.
“She’s dead.”
“Sorry, she’s what? Green! Green! Are you color-blind? Look, Alice, I’ve got to go. I’ll call! Soon!”
“Just tell me one thing,” said Alice, but the phone was beeping at her. Sophie had gone.
Just like everyone, it seemed.
The phone rang in her hand and Alice jumped as if it had come alive.
“Hello?”
“Oh, you sound much better.” It was her mother. Alice relaxed. Barb might now be the salsa-dancing, cleavage-baring wife of Roger, but she was still her mother.
“I’ve just been speaking to Sophie,” said Alice.
“Oh, that’s nice. She’s so famous these days, isn’t she? After that article? I was just talking to someone about her the other day. Who was it? Oh, I know! It was the lady who comes to do Roger’s feet. The chiropractor. No, no, that’s not it. The podiatrist. She said her daughter wanted one of those ‘Sophie Drew’ handbags for her birthday. I said, well, I’ve known Sophie since she was eleven years old, and I was nearly going to offer to try and get a discount for her, because it has to be said, Roger has awful hairy feet, so I do feel a bit sorry for her, but then I thought, you and Sophie don’t really