Sometimes, when the three of them were together, Alice constructed elaborate fantasies in which Jake and she were married, and Edith was their sickly child. A burden, but one they bore together. But mostly, Alice imagined that it was just the two of them, just Jake and her, living a perfect life together, years and years passing. Somehow, in these daydreams, Alice got older but Jake stayed the same. No one would mistake them for father and daughter. Maybe one day they’d even have their own child. A daughter. Alice sometimes saw her in her mind, and it was as if she were real, an actual child being remembered. She’d love swimming in the ocean, and grow up speaking both French and English because of all the time they’d spend in France. Genevieve would love her mother, but she’d love her father most of all, doting on him.
“My mom is making a big fancy dinner for the night before graduation,” Alice told Gina.
“Are you inviting me?” Gina laughed.
“Thinking about it.”
“I’ll come. I need to see the real Edith in action.”
Alice clenched her jaw, suddenly wishing she’d just told her mom that Gina was busy that night. “Sorry, Al,” Gina quickly said. “That was a rude thing to say, but, yes, yes, I want to come to dinner. What is she cooking?”
“Cornish game hens, I think. I told her about a hundred years ago that they were my favorite, so . . .”
“Who else is going to be there?”
“Just you and me, and Edith, and Jake. Should be a hoot.”
“It’s perfect, because my mom is inviting half my family for that whole entire week, including the cousins I told you about, the NASCAR ones, and I’m going to need some time out by Friday night, and there is no way my mom will say no to me going to your house for dinner. But you gotta promise me one thing, Al. We’ll go to that party afterward, at Justin’s house. You don’t have to stay, but you have to come with me. I’m not going alone. You promise? And I get to pick what you wear.”
Alice promised. Gina, now that she had other friends besides Alice, including a dim but nice boyfriend that she’d met doing the yearbook, was always trying to get Alice to come to parties, or hang out with other kids. Alice would occasionally agree, not really because she wanted to, and not really to make Gina happy, but because she saw it as practice for the adult world. It was important to know how to talk with someone in a social situation, even if that someone was a dumb high school boy with a can of beer in his hand. And now that Alice was a senior, the incident with Scott Morgan from freshman year was ancient history. Alice was no longer the slut from Biddeford who would give it up to anyone. She’d changed all that, and now she was known as the aloof girl, too sophisticated for high school boys.
“Yay!” Gina said. “I’ll tell Justin. He’ll pee himself.”
According to Gina, Justin Lashaway, another friend of hers from cross-country, had a huge crush on Alice. “Whatever. I’ll go with you, but I’m not staying long. You agree to that, right?”
“Yeah, fine. What time at your mom’s house?”
On the day of the dinner party, Alice stayed home all day helping her mother. They’d cleaned the already immaculate condo, made the hors d’oeuvres—asparagus wrapped in ham—set the table, and done all the prep for the dinner. It was four o’clock, three hours before Gina was supposed to arrive, and everything had been done. Edith hadn’t been drinking, at least not that Alice could tell, but she was talking a blue streak, and grinding her teeth, and it was clear she was on something.
“You okay, Mom?” Alice asked.
“Of course I’m okay. I want to make a perfect dinner for my perfect daughter to celebrate her graduating from high school and becoming a woman.”
“You’re just so jumpy.”
“Am I?” Edith said. Then, with a wide, lunatic grin on her face, she began jumping up and down, her shoes clacking on the tile floor. Alice just stared. She was used to seeing her mother passed out, mouth open, but she wasn’t used to seeing her act unhinged. She was clearly on some kind of drug.
“Mom. Stop. You’re freaking me out. Maybe you should have a drink.”
“What time is it?” Edith asked, glancing at an imaginary watch on her wrist. At least she’d stopped jumping. “I told my Jakey that I’d wait till he got home before having a drink because I think he’s worried I’m going to embarrass you in front of your friend.”
“You just seem a little wired. Let me make you a drink. What do you want?”
“Just so long as you tell Jake that it was your idea, and not mine, if he gets upset. Let’s have some champagne together. I bought it for both of us. Thought it would be okay for you to have a little bubbly on your birthday.”
“Sure,” Alice said, not correcting her mother that it was a graduation, and not a birthday party.
They drank champagne together on the deck so Edith could smoke. She went through four of her cigarettes—long, thin menthols—in about thirty minutes, talking the whole time about nothing. Alice was just relieved that she seemed to be getting a little bit calmer, but she barely paid attention to the words her mother was saying. Instead, she stared out toward the beach. It was a warm, gusty day and there were whitecaps on the ruffled surface of the ocean. As she listened to her mother talk about how when she’d graduated high school her only option had been to go and work at the mill—a story Alice had heard countless times—Alice wondered if she’d ever loved her mother. She must have loved her when she’d been a baby, back when her very survival depended on it, but since then, and definitely since the settlement, Alice felt almost nothing when she thought about Edith. Her mother was an alcoholic who looked twenty years older than she was. She’d been pretty once, but the cigarettes and the alcohol had wrecked her looks, and now she was a boring, rotten waste of space. Just like that dry rot that Jake had found in the wooden stairs that led from the first floor down to the garage. He’d ripped it all out so it didn’t spread, and then hired someone to build new stairs. That was what Edith was. Dry rot that was never going to get better. The only good thing she’d done was marry Jake, and Alice truly didn’t know why he’d stayed with her. She didn’t like to think about it, because if she thought about it too much, she’d become convinced that Jake would disappear from their lives as fast as he had entered into them, and then it would just be her and her mother again, the dry rot spreading from mother to daughter.
When the bottle was empty—Alice had only had one glass—Edith declared that they should do final preparations for the arrival of the guest. She told Alice to light the candles and fluff up the pillows in the living room while she prepared the stuffing in the kitchen. The champagne had taken the edge off whatever pills she’d taken earlier. Alice thought her mother seemed back to normal—her voice slightly slurry, and her face slack—and she knew that before she started on the stuffing, she’d build herself one of her health drinks in the kitchen.
Jake arrived home first. He was in his navy blue suit, wearing his tie with the little anchors on it, and he had two bottles of wine in the crook of his arm. “Smells good in here, ladies,” he said loudly.
Gina arrived not long after, wearing a shimmery blazer over a white T-shirt and tight jeans. She’d done her hair, teasing her bangs, and was wearing eye makeup in addition to the lipstick and rouge she usually wore. Jake looked her up and down when he saw her. “I can’t believe it. You were a little girl yesterday,” he said. Gina smiled, and Alice was pleased that a little bit of lipstick was stuck to one of her big front teeth. She hadn’t even considered that Jake might be attracted to Gina, but of course he would be. He hadn’t seen her for at least a year, and she looked like a movie star now.
The jealousy went away when Gina grabbed Alice, and said, “Show me around. I can’t believe I’ve never been here.” Then added, in a whisper, “How’s the momster?”
“Still standing,” Alice said.
She brought Gina up the stairs and showed off her room, and her own bathroom, then they went out on the deck, and Gina smoked one of Edith’s cigarettes.
“So I thought you’d like to know, but now it’s official. I’m going to NYU.” Gina had been wavering between NYU and the University of Maine. Alice knew that Gina would pick New York City, and that once she got there she’d look for a modeling agent. “Why don’t you come with me?”
“To where? To New York?”
“Yeah. We could live together, and you could take classes and apply for a degree program.”