What Alice Forgot

“She might have forgotten about it,” said Maggie. “It’s been three years.”

“Were Mrs. Holloway and Mike having an affair?” asked Alice, and realized she was steeling herself for the answer. Even though she knew it hadn’t been Nick, that raw, betrayed feeling remained.

“As far as we know, it was just that one drunken kiss,” said Maggie. “But it seemed to trigger all of Gina and Mike’s problems. It never seemed fair. Gina and Mike break up, and meanwhile the Holloways still look like the golden couple. I saw them holding hands, do you mind, at the Trivia Night the other week and I thought, ‘Someone please bring me a bucket.’”

“Maybe they’ve got an arrangement,” mused Nora. “It could be an open marriage.”

“Do you think?” said Maggie with wide eyes. Then she shook herself. “We’d really better go do this meeting.”

“Maybe I should stay here,” said Alice. “Tell them I’m sick.” She had no idea how to “do a meeting.”

“I’ll run through the agenda,” said Nora. “Just nod along. Anyway, you’ve had everything organized so well in advance, we all know exactly what we’ve got to do. You’re the most efficient person I know, Alice.”

“I wonder how that happened,” sighed Alice. She licked her finger and pressed it against the muffin crumbs on the plate in front of her. She saw the two women were studying her, as if she were behaving oddly.

Instead of sucking her finger, she let it drop by her side and said, “Why are we making the world’s biggest lemon meringue pie, anyway? Why not a cheesecake or something?”

“It was Gina’s signature dish,” said Maggie. “Remember? You’re dedicating the day to Gina.”

Of course she was. In the end, everything circled back to Gina.

Once she remembered Gina, she would remember everything.

Elisabeth’s Homework for Jeremy I feel like I could easily do one of two things.

I could drive out of Sydney. Maybe down that long winding ribbon of highway on the South Coast with the lush green hills and the flashes of turquoise sea. That would be cheerful.

And then I could find a long empty stretch of road with an appropriate telephone pole. One that’s begging for a memorial cross.

And I could drive at it very fast.

Alternatively!

I could drive back to the office. And I could ask Layla to buy me a Caesar salad, yes, with anchovies, and a Diet Coke, or perhaps a banana smoothie, and I could eat my lunch while I prepare my keynote address for next month’s Australian Direct Marketing Association conference.

I could do one. Or I could do the other.

The telephone pole or the office.

It seems no more important a decision than whether or not I will have the Diet Coke or the banana smoothie.

“Oh, Alice, glad I caught you, I was wondering, the weekend after this I’ve got that thing I was telling you about, so I was thinking, what if I picked up Tom for you from Harry’s party, because I know you said you had that thing, so I could keep the boys before soccer and then you could pick them both up after the game?”

“Excuse me please, Mummy. Excuse me please, Mummy. Excuse me please, Mummy.”

“Alice! Has Olivia decided what she’s wearing to Amelia’s fancy-dress party? Have you heard? There’s a drama. Seven kids want to go as Hannah Montana, and apparently Amelia wants to go as Hannah Montana, and after all, she is the birthday girl, so apparently all other Hannahs are banned!”

“Big day coming up, Alice!”

“Mum, I said excuse me and you just keep ignoring me!”

“Mum, can Clara come over this afternoon? Please, please, please, please? Her mum said it was okay!”

“Mummy?”

“Mum?”

“Not long now, Alice!”

“Mrs. Love?”

“Can I talk to you, Alice?”

Alice stood in the school playground and the world of canteen duty and playdates and birthday parties whirled around her like a spinning top.

She didn’t remember any of it.

Yet it all seemed oddly familiar.

Elisabeth’s Homework for Jeremy Just in case you’re wondering, I decided to go to the office today.

The Caesar salad wasn’t very nice. A lackluster attempt. Wilted lettuce. Stale croutons. Very disappointing. Like life.

I wasn’t really serious about the telephone pole.

I would never do that. I’m far too sensible and dull.

By the way, I have canceled our next session. I do apologize for the inconvenience.

Frannie’s Letter to Phil Mr. Mustache has a name, and I guess I should use it now that he no longer has a mustache.

It’s Xavier. It doesn’t suit him at all, does it? What was his mother thinking? Xavier is far too elegant a name for a man who “places bets on the doggies” and loves beer and “the footie season” and tomato sauce and dreadful right-wing talkback radio.

We have nothing in common, obviously. Not like you and I! Remember the plays we saw, the books we shared, the—well.

Did we like the same books? I might be making that part up. Sometimes the details become a little hazy. I couldn’t tell you, for example, whether you liked tomato sauce or not. Did you?

While I was having my shower this morning, I was thinking about how just last week Alice said to me, “Frannie, when will I stop being shocked that Gina isn’t alive?”

I was full of grandmotherly wisdom about how “time heals,” but I understood.

It was the same when my dear, silly Barb lost their father. She must have said it a million times: “But Frannie, he ate a mandarin that morning. He was fine.”

Because how is it possible for your husband to eat a mandarin at eight a.m. and be dead by ten a.m.?

And how is it possible to watch your best friend hop into a car and then for you to never hear her voice again? (And goodness, that Gina had a loud voice!)

And how is it possible to believe your lovely fiancé isn’t still gallivanting around Queensland when a letter full of love and jokes and a pile of snapshots arrives the day after his coffin is lowered into the ground?

Your mind resists death with all its might.

Oh, Phil, it’s completely foolish that I’ve kept writing back to you all these years. It’s become one of those habits I can’t seem to break. Writing to a memory.