What Alice Forgot - Liane Moriarty [164]
Gina was the sort who got involved with things at the school. Volunteered for everything. Alice became that sort of person, too. She liked it. She was good at it.
Mike and Gina were having problems. Gina told Alice every cruel remark, every thoughtless gesture. Mike told Nick he wasn’t happy with his life. Alice and Nick had a Christmas party one hot December night. Mike got drunk and kissed that horrendous Jackie Holloway in the laundry. Gina went in to get champagne and found them.
Nick and Alice were in bed one night talking in the darkness.
Mike is my friend.
Are you saying you approve of him kissing another woman in our laundry?
Of course not, but there are two sides to every story. Let’s just stay out of it.
There are not two sides! It’s not excusable. He shouldn’t have kissed her.
Well, maybe if Gina stopped trying to turn him into something he’s not.
She is not! What do you mean? Because she’s encouraging him to get a different job? But that’s because he’s not happy there!
Look. Is there any point in us playing out another version of their fights? You playing Gina and me playing Mike?
They turned away from each other, carefully not touching.
It was not “cherries.” It was half a fruit platter. A beautifully presented fruit platter she’d spent the morning making to take to his mother’s place. She was rushing around trying to get the children dressed and instead of helping, he was reading the paper and happily eating his way through the fruit platter, as if Alice were the hired help.
After Mike moved out, Gina wanted to lose weight. So Alice and Gina decided to get a personal trainer. They joined a gym. They started doing spin classes. The weight fell off them. They got fitter and fitter. Alice loved it. She dropped two dress sizes. She had no idea exercise could be so exhilarating.
Gina went on a date with a guy she’d met on the Internet. Alice minded the kids. Nick was working late.
When Gina came home, she was all glittery and flushed. Alice, lying on the couch in her tracksuit pants, felt envious. First dates. How wonderful to experience a first date again.
When Nick came home that night he said, You’re getting too thin.
When Nick heard that his dad was dating Alice’s mother, he laughed out loud.
She’s not his type. He goes for eastern suburbs women with fake boobs and big divorce settlements. Women who read all the right books and see all the right plays.
Are you saying my mother isn’t cultured enough for your father?
I hate the sort of woman my father normally dates!
So your dad’s slumming it, then? With my poor simple Hills District mother?
It is impossible to talk to you. It’s like you want me to say the wrong thing. Fine. Dad is slumming it. Is that what you want me to say? Satisfied?
Elisabeth had disappeared. Her sister turned into this bitter, angry person, with a hard, sarcastic laugh. Nothing as bad had ever happened to anyone else as was happening to Elisabeth. Alice couldn’t say the right thing to her. Once she asked if she’d had another embryo implanted and Elisabeth’s lip curled contemptuously. The embryo is “transferred,” she sneered, it’s not implanted. If only it were that easy. How the hell was Alice meant to know all the right terminology? If she invited her to one of the kids’ birthday parties, Elisabeth sighed, in a way that meant it would be excruciating for her, but she would still come, and she’d look like a martyr the whole time. Didn’t offer to help, just stood there with her lips folded together. Don’t do me any favors, Alice wanted to say. After the fourth miscarriage, she tried to talk to Elisabeth. She offered to donate her eggs. Your eggs are too old, Elisabeth had said. You really don’t know what you’re talking about.
When Roger proposed to Alice’s mother, Nick was angry.
Well that’s just fabulous. Wonderful. How is that going to make my mother feel?