What Alice Forgot

This all had to stop. She had to get Nick’s coins and his socks and his sneakers back in her bedroom, and these roses gone.

She lay back on the bed. Elisabeth was downstairs phoning up that Kate Harper woman trying to get tonight’s party canceled.

Alice crawled across the bed, pulled back the duvet, and got into crisp, clean sheets, still wearing her red dress.

She looked at the ceiling (plastered and painted, the water stains and cracks gone as if they’d never existed) and thought of that moment in the bathroom at the hospital when she had been going through that odd makeup routine and she had that rush of feeling after she smelled her perfume. It had seemed like she was about to fall headfirst into all her memories but then she’d deliberately resisted it, stepped back from the edge when she really should have let herself go. It would be far easier and less confusing if she could just remember what the hell was going on in her life. She sniffed at her wrist where she’d sprayed the perfume that had seemed so evocative of everything, but this time she experienced only a confused, choppy mass of half-remembered feelings; they were insubstantial and slippery, gone before she could even attempt to name them.

She woke to find Frannie sitting at the end of her bed, holding a gift.

“Hello, sleepyhead.”

“Hello.” Alice smiled with relief, because Frannie looked exactly as she should. She was wearing a familiar pale-pink buttoned-up blouse Alice had seen many times before, or at least one like it, and tailored gray pants. Her back was ramrod straight. She was like a little elf. She had short white hair tucked behind tiny ears, creamy white skin, and cat’s-eye glasses on a gold chain.

Alice said happily, “You haven’t changed a bit. You look just the same.”

“You mean as I did ten years ago?” Frannie adjusted her glasses on her nose. “I guess there was no room for any more wrinkles. Here.” She handed her the present. “You probably won’t like it, but I wanted to get you something.”

Alice sat up in bed. “Of course I’ll like it.” She unwrapped a bottle of talcum powder. “Lovely.” She twisted the lid, poured some into her palm and sniffed. The scent was simple and flowery and reminded her of nothing. “Thank you.”

“How are you feeling?” asked Frannie. “You gave us all a fright.”

“Fine,” said Alice. “Confused. Sometimes I feel like I’m on the verge of remembering everything, and then other times it all feels like a huge practical joke and you’re all just pretending I’m thirty-nine when you know perfectly well that I’m about to turn thirty.”

“I know that feeling,” said Frannie reflectively. “Just the other day I woke up and felt like I was nineteen. I went into the bathroom and saw an old lady staring back at me from the mirror and it really startled me. I thought, ‘Who is that dreadful old crone?’”

“You’re not a crone.”

Frannie waved her hand at that dismissively. “Well, anyway, I think you’re probably having a nervous breakdown.” Alice looked appalled. “Don’t look at me like that! People do have nervous breakdowns, and you’ve been under so much stress lately. What with this divorce—”

“Yes, about that. Why are we breaking up?” interrupted Alice. She couldn’t bring herself to say the word “divorce” out loud. Frannie wouldn’t try to hide anything from her. She would tell her straight.

But Frannie said, “I have absolutely no idea. That’s between you and Nick. All I know is that you both seem very set on the idea. There doesn’t seem any chance of reconciliation. So we’ve all just had to button our lips and accept it.”

“But you must have an opinion. You always have an opinion!”

Frannie smiled. “Yes, I generally do, don’t I? But in this case, I really don’t know. You haven’t confided in me. It’s very sad for the children. Especially this awful fighting-over-custody business. I don’t approve of that at all, as you know.”

“I don’t know. I don’t remember.”

“Oh. Well, I’ve made my opinions on the matter clear. Too clear, you might say.”

Alice said, “Do you think I can get him back?”

“Who back? You mean Nick? But you don’t want him back,” said Frannie. “Actually you talked to me on Wednesday and said you’d just received roses from some new fellow called Dominick. You seemed very excited about it.”

Alice looked with dislike at the roses. She said sourly, “I thought you said I was stressed.”

Frannie said, “Well, yes, you’re stressed, but you were happy about the roses.”

Alice sighed. “How are you, Frannie? You’re still living next door to Mum, right?”

“No, darling.” Frannie patted Alice on the leg. “I moved myself into a retirement village five years ago. Just after your mother moved in with Roger.”

“Oh.” Alice paused to consider this news. “Do you like the retirement village? Is it fun?”

“Fun,” said Frannie reflectively. “That’s what’s important these days, isn’t it. Everything should be fun and lighthearted.”

“Well, not everything, obviously.”

“Do you think I have a sense of humor?” asked Frannie. She gave Alice a look that was surprisingly vulnerable.

“Of course you have a sense of humor!”

Although “sense of humor” weren’t exactly the first words that came to mind when you thought of Frannie.

Frannie sighed and smiled. She wasn’t an especially smiley lady, so when she smiled, it was like receiving a gift. “Thank you, darling. Tell me something, would you buy deodorant in front of a man? Or would you think that was too . . . personal?”

“What man?” said Alice.

“Any man!” said Frannie irritably.

“Well, I think I probably would. There’s nothing especially personal about deodorant. Unless, I guess, you had to use some really heavy-duty one that would make him think you had some sort of rare and horrible perspiration disease.”

“I can assure you, Alice, I don’t need a ‘heavy-duty’ deodorant!” said Frannie, looking affronted.

“What’s this about?” asked Alice.

“Nothing. Just a very silly friend of mine asked the question.”