What Alice Forgot

She kept walking, seeing houses that had doubled in size, like cakes in the oven. Red-brick cottages had been transformed into smooth mushroomcolored mansions with pillars and turrets.

Actually, it was interesting, because she was walking quicker and quicker, sort of bouncing along the pavement, and the idea of running didn’t seem that stupid at all. It seemed sort of . . . pleasant.

Was it a bad idea with a head injury? Probably a very bad idea. But maybe it would jar all those memories back into place.

She began to run.

Her arms and legs fell into a smooth rhythm; she began to breathe deep, slow breaths, in through the nostrils and out through the mouth. Oh, this felt good. It felt right. It felt like something she did.

At Rawson Street she turned left and picked up her pace. The fat red leaves of the liquid ambers trembled in the sunlight. A white car packed with teenagers screeched by, thudding with music. She passed a driveway where a group of kids were shrieking and brandishing water guns. Someone started up a lawn mower.

Up ahead, the white car with the teenagers pulled up at the corner.

A momentous feeling of panic exploded in her chest. It was happening again, just like in the car with Elisabeth. Her legs quivered so ridiculously she actually had to crouch down on the footpath, waiting for whatever it was to pass. A scream of horror was lodged in her throat. If she let it out, it would be very embarrassing.

She looked around, her hands on the ground to balance herself, her chest heaving, and saw that the children with the water pistols were still running back and forth, as if the world hadn’t turned black and evil. She looked back at the end of the street where the white car was waiting for a break in the traffic.

It was something to do with a car pulling up at that corner.

She closed her eyes and saw the brake lights of a green four-wheel-drive. The number plate said: GINA 333.

Nothing else. She felt simultaneously hot and cold, as if she had the flu. For God’s sake. Was she about to be sick again? All that custard tart. The children could clean it up with their water pistols.

A horn tooted. “Alice?”

Alice opened her eyes.

A car had pulled up on the other side of the road and a man was leaning out the window. He opened the car door and quickly crossed the street toward her.

“What happened?”

He stood in front of her and blocked out the sun. Alice squinted mutely up at him. She couldn’t make out the features of his face. He seemed extremely tall.

He bent down beside her and touched her arm.

“Did you faint?”

She could see his face now. It was an ordinary, kind, thin, middle-aged sort of face, the unassuming face of a friendly newsagent who chatted to you about the weather.

“Come on. Up you get,” he said, and lifted her by both elbows so she rose straight to her feet. “We’ll get you home.”

He led her across the street to the car and deposited her in the passenger seat. Alice couldn’t decide what to say, so she didn’t say anything. A voice from the back of the car said, “Did you fall over and hurt yourself?”

Alice turned and saw a little boy with liquid brown eyes staring at her anxiously.

She said, “I just felt a bit funny.”

The man got back in the car and started the engine. “We were on our way over to your place and then Jasper spotted you. Were you going for a run?”

“Yes,” said Alice. They stopped at the corner of Rawson and King. She thought of the car with the GINA number plate and felt nothing.

“I saw Neil Morris at the IGA this morning,” said the man. “He said he saw you being carried out of the gym on a stretcher yesterday! I left a few messages for you, but I didn’t . . .”

His voice drifted away.

“I fell over and hit my head during my ‘spin class,’” said Alice. “I’m fine today, but I shouldn’t have been running. It was stupid of me.”

The little boy called Jasper giggled in the backseat. “You’re not stupid! Sometimes my dad is stupid. Like today, he forgot three things and we had to keep stopping the car and he’d say, ‘Boofhead!’ It was pretty funny. Okay, first thing was his wallet. Second thing was his mobile phone. Third thing—ummm, okay, third thing—Dad, what was the third thing you forgot?”

They were pulling into Alice’s driveway. They stopped the car and the little boy gave up on the third thing and threw open his car door and ran toward the veranda.

The man pulled on the handbrake and then turned to look at Alice with gentle concern. He put a hand on her shoulder. “Well, I think you’d better put your feet up while Jasper and I take care of those balloons.”

Balloons. For the party, presumably.

“This is a bit awkward,” began Alice.

The man smiled. He had a lovely smile. He said, “What is?”

Alice said, “I have absolutely no idea who you are.”

(Although, in truth, there was something about the way he smiled and the feeling of his hand on her shoulder that was giving her an idea.)

The man’s hand sprang back like an elastic band.

He said, “Alice! It’s me. Dominick.”

Frannie’s Letter to Phil Me again, Phil.

Barb and Roger took me for lunch at Alice’s place today.

Physically she seems fine, but she is definitely not herself. She didn’t remember Gina! It was disconcerting. Gina played such a big part in Alice’s life. Almost too big a part.

Barb talked about it all the way home. “Sometimes I wish Alice had never met Gina,” she fretted. “You can’t change the past,” pronounced Roger, and we were all quite overcome by his wisdom. He’s a philosopher, that fellow.

It’s not relevant now but I always thought that Gina did dominate Alice. (Alice does have a slight tendency toward hero worship.) I remember her making some comment about Alice’s outfit at Olivia’s birthday party last year. It was something along the lines of “Your such-and-such blouse looks nicer with that skirt.” Alice went straight back upstairs and changed. I noticed Nick was watching the whole incident and didn’t look too happy about it.

After Barb and Roger dropped me off, we had yet another Social Committee meeting. This time we were discussing plans for this year’s Christmas party. Mr. Mustache suggested a “Casino Night.” People loved the idea! Can you think of anything less Christmassy, Phil?

He’s the most aggravating man.