What Alice Forgot - Liane Moriarty [162]
Alice nodded at Nora.
“And now, ladies and gentlemen, we bake,” said Nora.
Maggie’s husband gave the thumbs-up signal to the forklift driver. Everyone’s eyes were fixed on the magnificent pie as it was lifted by the forklift and slid into the oven. There was a round of applause.
“Year 4 has kindly offered to keep us entertained while the lemon meringue pie is baking,” said Nora. “As many of you will remember, our dear friend Gina loved Elvis. Whenever she was cooking, she always had Elvis playing. You couldn’t get her to play anything else. So Year 4 is going to perform a medley of Elvis hits for us. Gina, honey, this is for you.”
There was a burst of laughter and cheers as thirty miniature Elvises swaggered into the center of the marquee. They were wearing dark glasses and white satin jumpsuits complete with sparkly rhinestones. A teacher pressed a button on a stereo and the children began to dance, Elvis style, to “Hound Dog.”
There was nowhere for the Mega Meringue mums to sit, so they all leaned back against the long tables. Some of them took off their pink aprons. Alice’s legs ached. Actually, everything ached.
Oh, this song is so . . . familiar.
Yes, that’s because it’s Elvis. Elvis is familiar to everyone.
The song switched to “Love Me Tender.”
The sweet lemony smell of the baking pie was overpowering. It was impossible to think of anything else but lemon . . . meringue . . . pie . . .
That smell is so . . . familiar.
Yes, that’s because it’s a lemon meringue pie. You know what a lemon meringue pie smells like.
But there was something more than that. It meant something.
Alice’s face had been feeling flushed and hot. Now she felt cold, as if she’d stepped into an icy wind.
Oh, dear, she wasn’t well. She really wasn’t well.
She looked desperately into the audience for someone to help.
She saw Nick suddenly lift Olivia off his lap and stand up.
She saw Dominick bounce to his feet, frowning with concern.
Both men were making their way past people’s knees, trying to get to her.
Now the song was “Jailhouse Rock.”
The scent of lemon meringue was becoming stronger and stronger. It was going straight up her nostrils and trickling into her brain, filling it with memory.
Oh, God, of course, of course, of course.
Alice’s legs buckled.
Elisabeth’s Homework for Jeremy
I missed seeing Alice collapse because I’d gone outside to the toilet.
They had a row of those blue plastic Port-a-loos.
I was bleeding.
I thought, How fitting. That I should be losing my last baby in a Port-a-loo.
Trashy and slightly laughable. Like my life.
Chapter 32
“Hi!”
The woman who opened the door was smiling delightedly, wiping her hands on a floury apron, as if Alice were a very dear friend.
Alice hadn’ t wanted to come. She hadn’ t been at all thrilled when this “Gina” had moved into the house across the road and turned up the very next day, knocking on their door to invite Alice for “high tea.” For one thing, shouldn’t Alice have been the one doing the asking—seeing as she was the one already living there? That made her feel guilty, as if this woman already had some sort of etiquette point over her. And she could tell just by looking at Gina that she wasn’t her sort of person. Too loud. Too many teeth. Too much makeup for the middle of the day. Too much perfume. Too much everything. She was one of those women who drained Alice of her personality. And “high tea”? What was wrong with just ordinary old afternoon tea?
This was going to be awful.
“HELLO there, sweetie!” Gina bent down to say hello to Madison.
Madison clung to Alice’s leg in an agony of shyness, burying her face in Alice’s crotch. Alice hated it when she did that. She always worried people might think the kid had inherited her poor social skills from her mother.
“I’m terrible with children,” said