“I thought I’d let you know. In advance.”
She gave her notice at Blethen’s Apothecary and got a job as an office assistant at a real estate company. She stopped taking classes, since she was working full-time, and rented a one-bedroom apartment in a stucco building not far from the real estate office. It was quiet in the apartment, and she liked it. She made simple meals, and watched television, and on the weekends she’d go swimming at the Y.
Coast Home Realty grew, relocating to a new, larger office in a strip mall off Route 1A. Alice coordinated the move, even working with Caroline, the big boss, to design the new office, and when the company was firmly established in their new plush surroundings, Caroline asked Alice if she ever thought about getting her real estate license. “I hate to lose you as our office manager, but you’d be a good agent, I just know it.”
Alice had never really considered this, partly because the real estate agents, at least the ones who made the most sales, all seemed to have big, vibrant personalities. Alice told Caroline that she didn’t think so, but Caroline insisted. “You’re the hardest worker I’ve ever had in here. It just seems a shame that we can’t get you making some fat commissions.”
So Alice got her license, and two months later sold her first property, a starter home for a young couple, both schoolteachers, who had moved down from Orono. She celebrated by getting a larger apartment and a new car. She began to spend more time with Chrissie Herrick, another Realtor at the agency, who’d gotten her license when her second kid began grade school. Chrissie, a talker, reminded Alice of Gina, but a Gina that had life all figured out. She was happily married to a dull and faithful man, and was basically content with her lot. Chrissie’s favorite activity was telling Alice how pretty she was, and how she wanted to set her up with some nice man.
Alice let her have her way just once, more out of curiosity than anything else, and Chrissie and her husband plus Alice and a local divorcé who worked in Portland in insurance all went out to dinner. At the end of the interminable night, the divorcé walked Alice to her car, one hand on the small of her back, his thumb making circular motions. She imagined sinking her teeth into that thumb, the surprised look on his piggy face when the blood began to flow. But she didn’t do it, just quickly slid into her car, shutting the door and cracking the window enough to thank him for the evening. That night she lay in bed, ignored the ringing phone in her house that could only be Chrissie hoping for an update, and slid gradually into sleep, wondering if her life would ever start again.
Then she met Bill Ackerson, a suave New Yorker looking to relocate to Maine and open a bookstore. She knew he was attracted to her, and she thought he seemed to be a nice man but decided she wasn’t interested. When he next contacted her, he asked if she’d mind if he brought his son along to revisit some of the places she’d shown him before. He brought Harry, who looked just like his father but was almost beautiful, if a boy could be beautiful, with high cheekbones and wavy hair. He was so perfect that it almost hurt Alice to look at him. Something clicked in her. She didn’t know exactly what it was, but she knew that a new part of her life was just beginning.
Alice returned to Jake’s condo, pulled off the police tape, and tried the door. It was locked. She’d thought that would be the case, and removed a credit card from her purse, picking the lock the way she’d done as a teenager whenever she’d forgotten her key.
It was dusk outside, and the interior of the condo was dark. Her phone had a light on it, and she used that to look around. She went straight up the stairs and into the bedroom, so unchanged since she’d last been in there that she could almost feel time falling away. She turned off her phone’s light and let her eyes adjust. The bed was made, loosely pulled together, and she ran her hand along the chenille bedspread. She remembered that her mother used to sleep in this room before she did, and then was suddenly alarmed to realize that she was nearly the same age as her mother was when she died. She shook the thought of her mother out of her head, and reminded herself of the reason she was here. Jake had taken pictures of her, many years ago, back when she hadn’t known any better, and she wanted to make sure they weren’t around for just anyone to find. When she’d lived here, he kept the photographs in a copy of James Michener’s Hawaii that was always on his bedside table. She should have taken them back then, but she had decided to leave that small memento to Jake. But now he was on the national news, and so was she. She needed to get those pictures back.
It took a while, but she found them in one of the hardcover books stacked on Jake’s dresser. She quickly riffled through them, marveling at the beauty of her young body. She stared into her own eyes in the photographs, wondering what that different person had been thinking. She put the pictures in her purse.
Walking back to her car, she noticed that there was a station wagon with a boat trailer next to her Volvo that hadn’t been there before. The vehicle gave her a bad but familiar feeling, as though she should have known whose car it was. But the feeling passed, and then she was annoyed by how far the trailer jutted out, and how hard it would be for her to navigate her own car out of the lot. Rounding the boat on its trailer, she could see two people still in the car, and decided she would ask them to move out of her way. But as she got closer, the light in the station wagon went on, the driver’s side door opened, and a familiar man got out.
“Alice,” Mr. Bergeron said, and stepped toward her, hand extended.
Then Alice heard a sound like a fuse being lit and her entire body stiffened. She felt herself trying to speak but no words came out, and she fell, the side of her head smacking the pavement. Her whole body hurt. Then her face was covered with a damp, sweet-smelling cloth, and the world went dark.
She jerked awake, her nostrils burning, her head throbbing, and something sharp pressing painfully into her back. There was the sound of water, and the world was rocking back and forth, and she thought: I’m on a boat. And then she remembered the parking lot, and Mr. Bergeron. She was nauseous, spit pooling under her tongue, and she shut her eyes. The darkness closed in, then her nostrils were burning again, and she shook her head, her body tensing.
“Hi, Alice. You awake?”
She tried to say something but all that came out was a groan. She opened her eyes again—the nausea had begun to pass—and found she was able to keep them open. She could see a sky filled with stars, the dim figure of Mrs. Bergeron crouched over her, her face ravaged by cancer, wearing a woolen hat on her head. Sitting up, Alice looked around, the twisting motion of her neck making her head hurt worse. They were far out in the ocean, the outboard motor silent, with no sign of land in any direction. Mrs. Bergeron slid back and seated herself across from Alice. Water sloshed in the bottom of the boat.
“Where am I?” Alice asked.
“This is right around where Gina drowned, more or less,” Mrs. Bergeron said. “I thought you’d remember it.”