What Alice Forgot

They were pulled up at a red light. The lights changed and Alice had no idea where to go.

“Umm,” she said.

“Straight ahead. Second on the left,” said Tom laconically from the back, sounding so much like his father that Alice wanted to laugh.

Alice drove. The car was huge and unfamiliar again.

She saw she was driving behind a similarly huge car with a woman at the wheel and two small heads bobbing about in the back.

Alice was a mother driving her three children to school. She did this every day. It was unbelievable. Hilarious.

“So, compared to the other mums at school,” she said, “am I strict?”

“You’re like a Nazi,” said Madison. “You’re like the Gestapo.”

“You’re about average,” said Tom. “Like, for example, Bruno’s mum won’t even let him go on school excursions, that’s how mean she is. But then there’s Alistair’s mum—she lets him stay up till nine o’clock, and they have KFC whenever they want, and they watch television when they’re eating their breakfast.”

“Hey!” said Alice.

“Oh, yeah.” Tom gave a dry chuckle. “Sorry, Mum.”

“When am I like the Gestapo?” asked Alice.

“Don’t worry about it,” sighed Madison. “You can’t help it.”

“I don’t think you’re strict,” said Olivia. “Just—sometimes, you get a bit angry.”

“What makes me angry?” asked Alice.

“Me,” said Madison. “Just looking at me makes you mad.”

“Running late for school normally makes you really mad,” said Tom. “Ummm, let’s see, what else. Doors slamming. You can’t stand it when a door slams. You have got really delicate ears.”

“Daddy makes you angry,” said Olivia.

“Oh, yeah,” agreed Tom. “Dad makes you the angriest.”

“Why?” Alice tried not to sound too interested. “What does he do that makes me so angry?”

“You hate him,” said Tom.

“I’m sure that’s not true,” said Alice.

“You do,” said Madison wearily. “You’ve just forgotten that you do.”

Alice looked in the rear-vision mirror at her three extraordinary children. Tom was frowning at a chunky plastic wristwatch, Olivia was staring dreamily ahead, and Madison had her forehead pressed against the car window, her eyes closed. What had she and Nick done to them? This casual talk about hatred. She was filled with shame.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

“Sorry for what?” said Olivia, who seemed to be the only one listening.

“I’m sorry about your dad and me.”

“Oh, that’s okay,” said Olivia. “Can we have hot chocolates after school?”

“That’s a green arrow,” said Tom tersely.

Alice pulled into a street lined with trucklike cars similar to the one she was driving. It looked like a festival. A festival of women and children. The women stood in groups of two or three, sunglasses pushed up on their foreheads, scarves slung around necks. They wore jeans and boots, beautifully cut suede jackets. Were mothers always this attractive and thin? Alice tried to remember the mothers from her own school days. Weren’t they sort of chunky and plain? Sort of irrelevant and fading into the background? A few women waved when they saw Alice. She recognized someone who had got quite drunk at the kindergarten cocktail party. Oh Lord, she should have done her hair.

The children whooped and swooped about in their blue school uniforms, like flocks of tiny birds. All those innocent, smooth-skinned faces.

“We’re not late,” said Alice.

“We’re late for us,” muttered Tom. “I’ve got a meeting of my spy club. They don’t know what to do without me.”

They found a parking spot.

“Watch it,” winced Tom as Alice backed the car into the curb with a thud.

She breathed a sigh of relief as she pulled the keys from the ignition. The children immediately unclicked seat belts and opened the heavy car doors with a clunk, sliding out of the car, backpacks slung over their shoulders.

“Hey, wait for me!” said Alice, worried about procedures and kisses goodbye.

As she got out of the car, she saw Dominick. He was wearing a tie, his shirtsleeves carefully folded up to his elbows, and he was squatting down to talk to three boys who were explaining something to him that appeared to be about a soccer ball. Dominick was nodding seriously, as if he were in a top-level business negotiation. Two mothers were standing nearby, waiting to talk to him. Dominick caught sight of Alice and winked. Alice smiled self-consciously. He was nice. There was no denying it. He was very, very . . . nice.

“Have you slept with him yet?” said a posh voice in her ear, and the heavy sweet scent of a beauty salon filled Alice’s nostrils.

It was that dreadful Kate Harper woman again.

“Oh, hi.” Alice reeled back. Kate was wearing a beautifully fitted trench coat, skin polished, lips shimmery. It was a bit much for this time of the morning.

Kate didn’t wait for an answer. “God, I’m jealous. It’s been a year for us.”

“A year?”

“A year since we’ve done the deed. I must have cobwebs down there.”

The things strangers told you.

Kate was still looking at Dominick. “The claws are out, by the way. Miriam Dane has had her eye on him for ages. Apparently, she told Felicity that she thought it was rather poor form for you to go after him only three months after you and Nick separated. I promised I wouldn’t pass it on, but of course I knew you’d want to know!” She lowered her voice. Her beautiful face turned nasty. “You’ll die laughing when you hear this. Apparently, after she’d had a few drinks at the party the other night, Miriam called you the S-word.”

Alice looked at her without comprehension.

Kate lowered her voice and whispered, “Slut!” Then she raised it again and screeched, “Isn’t that hilarious? Isn’t that just so eighties! I thought, I must tell Alice, she’ll love that! The woman is pea green with jealousy! And of course she hated it when Tom kicked that goal at soccer, when, you know, she’s been getting all that extra training for Harry, because he’s supposedly so talented, ha, ha, that little piglet!”