What Alice Forgot - Liane Moriarty [70]
The bitch.
He was probably drunk. It probably just happened once. Maybe there was a party and Nick kissed her (quickly! hardly at all!) and Alice had overreacted and Nick had apologized but Alice wouldn’t budge (stupid!) and now they were getting a divorce because of it. It was all Alice’s fault. And Gina’s fault.
She must be very beautiful.
The thought of her beauty, and the thought of Nick finding her beautiful, hurt so sharply that she groaned out loud.
“Are you remembering?” asked Frannie anxiously.
“I think so.” Alice massaged her forehead.
“Oh darling,” said Frannie, and when Alice looked up and saw the utter sympathy on her grandmother’s face, she knew it had been far more than just a kiss.
How could you, Nick? She wouldn’t throw her arms around him on Sunday night. She would beat closed fists against his chest. How could he make her feel so safe in their relationship, so smug, so comfortable—and then maliciously rip it all away? Make her look like a fool?
Still, Hillary was prepared to stand by her man while his semen stains on another woman’s dress were analyzed. Poor old Hillary.
It occurred to Alice that the whole Monica Lewinsky affair must be ten-year-old news now. She wondered if Hillary’s marriage had survived.
The phone rang.
Alice stood up automatically and went to answer it.
“Hello?”
“Alice? Kate! I’ve just been doing a million things at once and I’ve only just now picked up your sister’s messages! I was so worried when I saw you at the gym yesterday morning, I’ve been telling everybody, and I meant to call you, but I’m just run off my feet right now, as you well know, and then Melanie said she saw you laughing in a car at the traffic lights at Roseville, so I thought, Phew, she’s okay! But now, your sister says you’re possibly not well enough to host the party?”
Alice recognized the terribly cultured voice. It was the sleek blond woman she’d seen at the gym before she’d been sick all over George Clooney’s shoes.
“Ah,” said Alice.
“Of course, normally I’d say no problem! Have it here! In an instant! But what with the renovations, and Sam’s mother staying with us, it’s just literally, physically impossible. I mean, you don’t have to do a thing tonight, you really don’t, if you’ve still got a bit of a headache. I’ll take care of everything. I have to admit I haven’t been feeling that well myself, but I’ll be all right, just a touch of the flu. Melanie said to me, ‘You’re a superwoman, Kate, how do you do it?’ And I said, ‘Well, no, Melanie, not a superwoman, just an exhausted woman trying to do what she can.’ Sam says I just need to learn to say no and stop putting myself out for everyone, but I can’t help it, I’ve always been that sort of person. Anyway, as I say, if your head is aching, I promise you can just put your feet up tonight, and we’ll all rush around and bring you drinks. I mean, it’s not like you have to cater or anything.”
A strange inertia had crept over Alice as Kate spoke. Was this woman really her friend? Alice couldn’t imagine wanting to talk to her for more than five minutes. She’d take Jane Turner’s brisk snippiness any day over this woman’s prissy sweetness with its razor-sharp edges.
She said, “Oh, okay, fine.”
Who cared if hundreds of strange people turned up on her doorstep tonight? Her life was a nightmare and she may as well let it continue on its nightmarish way.
“We don’t need to change it, then? Well, thank goodness. I knew I could rely on you! I had thought to myself your sister probably had it wrong. She’s the bad-tempered career woman with all the infertility problems, isn’t she? I guess she just has no inkling what a mother can do when she has to! All right, I must dash, and I’ll look forward to seeing you tonight. All right! Bye!”
The line went dead. Alice slammed down the phone so hard, the cradle shook. How dare that horrible woman speak about Elisabeth like that? She thought