“You do care, Gina. You want me to stop.”
“I don’t, really. Alice, I think I need help.”
“Okay,” Alice said. She was starting to tire now, too, and began to swim in a crawl, her arms struggling to get out of the water, so she switched to the breaststroke. There was a definite pull in the water, a current tugging her away from the shore. Panic coursed through her, squeezing her chest, but she took a breath, and told herself to swim parallel to the shore for a while, till she was out of the current.
“Alice, help,” Gina shouted, and Alice turned to see her wave a hand above the water, her head submerging then coming up again. She was drowning, her words sputtering.
Alice felt a burst of strength and began to swim north, toward the lighthouse on the bluff, stopping occasionally until she no longer felt the pull of the current. Then she turned toward shore, her lungs burning, her arms as weak as jelly, and began to breaststroke home. After what felt like an eternity, the water began to swell again, and suddenly she was being pushed forward by a curling wave, her chest and thighs scraping the rock-strewn shore. She crawled forward and collapsed, her body shivering, her lungs pumping. When her breathing returned to normal, she stood, stumbling a little, then worked her way along the shore, making sure to walk near the waterline and not where the sand was dry. She didn’t want to leave footprints.
The moon came out again and she was able to find the two small piles of clothes, Gina’s and hers, up near the rocks. She pulled her pajama bottoms and T-shirt back on over her damp, sandy skin. She was now shaking uncontrollably, her teeth starting to chatter. A car went by on Micmac Road; she crouched under the sweep of its headlights, seeing Gina’s clothes briefly illuminated. The tide was now going out, but the sand was smooth and wet right up to where her sandals lay. There were no footprints visible.
Despite how cold she was, Alice crouched and watched the ocean for as long as she could, scanning its surface when the moon was out from under cloud cover. She knew that Gina had drowned—she must have gone under right after Alice had swum away from her—but still she watched, just to make sure. She tried to feel her way across the water, to sense Gina still struggling to stay alive, but there was nothing. The ocean had swallowed her.
Alice took the cement steps back up to the road, crossed it, and jogged toward home. She pushed the door open, glad she’d remembered to leave it unlocked, and stepped into the quiet interior, lights still on in the kitchen and the living room. She turned them off, and went upstairs. Passing through the bedroom, she could hear the rhythmic staccato breathing of Jake that meant he was in a deep sleep. She undressed, bundling her clothes together and pushing them toward the bottom of the laundry basket, then got under the hot pulse of the shower, letting the water warm her up, soothe her muscles, and wash away the sand that ran off her body in dark rivulets. She shampooed and conditioned her hair and soaped herself completely with Jake’s Irish Spring twice. She stopped shivering, and the taste of salt in her mouth went away, but she turned the water off and stepped out of the shower only when her legs felt like they could no longer support her.
In a fresh set of pajamas she got under the covers quietly and lay on her back, and told herself she needed to make some decisions. When the police came to question her—and they would come—she’d tell them that Gina had come to her door, and that Alice had told her she was too tired to talk, and that Gina was very drunk, and maybe on drugs. She’d wanted to go swimming but Alice refused, and so she left. They couldn’t prove otherwise, not after Alice laundered the pajamas and took another shower to make sure there was no other evidence. She could do that early in the morning, before Jake woke. How soon would the police come? How soon would Gina be missed?
She closed her eyes, and she was back in the cold, deep water, Gina asking for help. Alice told herself there was no way she would have been able to save her, even if she’d wanted to. She’d barely saved herself from the tide. And Gina was incapacitated. She’d gotten what she wanted—all the beautiful lies about fame and money and the world telling her how special she was—and it had clearly been killing her. And maybe because her own life was such a shit show, she’d decided to mess with Alice’s life, to pass judgment, because Alice had actually found someone to love who loved her back.
No, she couldn’t have saved Gina even if she’d wanted to. She’d be dead now, too, if she’d tried to save them both. Gina would have dragged them both under the water. There was nothing Alice could have done.
Satisfied with these thoughts, Alice turned over onto her stomach and fell happily asleep.
Chapter 16
Now
Harry slept late again the following day, coming down to find a note from Alice saying she had gone out to do errands and wouldn’t be back till noon. Harry suddenly relished the idea of some time alone in the house, some time to think some more about what had happened to his father, and his strange date the evening before with Grace. He called John at the store and let him know that he wasn’t feeling great, and could he just come in during the afternoon.
“You don’t have to come in at all, Harry,” John said. “I can handle things here.”
“Okay, but I’d like to come in. If I feel better I’ll drop by, and if I don’t feel better, I guess you won’t see me.”
“Okay. Take care, son.”
There was half a pot of lukewarm coffee left and Harry poured himself a mug, adding milk, then heating it up in the microwave. He brought the coffee back up to his room and logged on to his laptop. He was hoping to find out something more about Grace; he knew she had lied about her relationship with his father. Were they having an affair? And if so, was that why she had come to Maine from New York? For the funeral? Then why was she sticking around?
He realized he didn’t know her last name, so he Googled “Grace” and everything she’d mentioned to him the night before. “Ann Arbor, Michigan.” “New York University.” He even tried “Ackerson’s Rare Books.” Nothing came up, and it made him realize how little he’d learned about her. On a whim, he decided to call the Ackerson’s in New York and see if Ron Krakowski was there. He got the number from their website and called on his cell phone.
“Ackerson’s Rare Books.” It was a female voice.
“Is Ron available?”
“Let me check. Can I ask who’s calling?”
Harry gave his name, knowing that Ron, phobic sometimes about talking on the telephone, would take the call.
A half minute passed before Ron’s voice said, “Jesus, Harry, I can’t fucking believe it.”
“I know,” Harry said, suddenly happy to hear Ron’s voice. He was a prickly presence, but a constant one. Harry had known him his whole life.
“I left a message for Alice, but I haven’t heard back. You in Maine now? Of course you are. What are they saying? He just slipped and fell and died, just like that?”
“Actually, no. Now they’re saying that maybe he was hit first. That’s what killed him.”
“Like someone killed him? Jesus H. Christ. How do they know all this? Maine CSI, I guess, right? They know who did it?”
Harry told him they didn’t, and that the police had been by to ask him if he knew anyone who might have had a grudge against his father.
“You told them no, I hope. I like to say that your father had few friends but no enemies. I would have said that at the funeral if I’d, if I’d . . .”
“Don’t worry about it. I understand. It was a long way to come.”