What Alice Forgot - Liane Moriarty [83]
Now Alice traced her fingertips along the grouting of the white bathroom tiles. (She and Nick had done a tiling course together in preparation for this job—number 46 on their Impossible Dream list.) She didn’t remember doing it. It was possible she had lost thousands of memories.
Was Nick in bed with Gina right now?
Gina’s name had come up at the party. It had been awkward. Alice had been talking—or, more accurately, listening—to a woman wearing distractingly large diamond earrings and a man who was obsessively interested in getting another mini-samosa and was watching the caterer’s plates with an eagle eye. The topic was homework and how much of a strain it was on the parents.
“It’s three a.m. and I’m sticking paddle-pop sticks together to make Erin’s early settler’s house, and I tell you, something inside me just snaps”—the earring woman clicked her fingers and her diamonds flashed.
“I can imagine,” Alice had murmured, although she couldn’t. Why hadn’t this Erin kid done her own homework? Or why hadn’t they done it together? Alice imagined laughing happily with a sweet daughter while they glued together paddle-pop sticks and drank hot chocolate. Also, Alice was great at that sort of thing. Her kid’s early settler’s house would be the best in the class.
“Well, they’ve got to learn discipline, haven’t they? Isn’t that the point of homework?” said the man. “Hey! Excuse me! Are they samosas you’ve got there? Oh, kebabs. Anyway, these days you can just Google anything.”
Did he say giggle? Goggle? Alice’s head ached.
“You can’t Google an early settler’s cottage made of paddle-pop sticks into existence! Anyway, I bet you don’t have to help them with their homework, do you?” The woman had given Alice a womanly “Men!” look, which Alice had tried to return. (She was sure Nick would have helped.) “I’m sure Laura has it all done by the time you get home from work. I remember hearing Gina Boyle say once that she thought homework should be—”
The woman had stopped herself mid-sentence with an exaggerated wince of embarrassment. “Oh, I’m sorry, Alice. How insensitive of me.”
The man had given Alice a brief, brotherly hug around the shoulders. “It’s been so hard for you. Oh, look! Let me get you a samosa.”
Alice had been horrified. Did everyone know that Nick had cheated on her with Gina? Was it public knowledge in this strange, cliquey circle?
Dominick had appeared from nowhere, gently extricating her. She was starting to rely on him. She even found herself looking for him in the crowd, thinking vaguely to herself, “Where’s Dominick?” while at the same time imagining telling Nick the story: “So, this guy acted like my boyfriend for the whole night. What do you think of that?”
Elisabeth and Ben had come to the party, too, because Alice had told Elisabeth she would have a panic attack if she didn’t come. Ben was even huger and grizzlier than the man Alice had remembered meeting. He looked like a woodchopper who had escaped from a fairytale picture book, and he was particularly conspicuous amongst all the other smooth-faced men with their neat button-down shirts and neat gym-toned shoulders. He seemed fond of Alice. He told her he’d been “thinking a lot about their conversation the other day” and then he said, “Oh, but of course, you probably don’t even remember it,” and slapped himself lightly on the side of the head. Elisabeth had folded her lips together and looked the other way. “What did we talk about?” Alice had asked. “Not now,