Chapter 33 Alice
Alice left the fireworks early.
She couldn’t help but dwell on how excited David used to be after he finished the show. They would head over to the Mustang
Lounge for a nightcap. He was a local hero. Everyone would clamor to talk with him, tell him how impressive the grand finale
was and which shape of firework was their favorite.
Not Alice, though. She was nearly always livid with David after the fireworks, insisting it would be the last time she’d let
him put himself in that kind of danger. But her memories had a nice way of editing themselves to make her sound calmer, more
supportive.
She drove home slowly in the golf cart now, back to the cabin David had built for them all those years ago. Well, he had help
from the rest of his crew, but David had overseen it, that much was true.
At the top of the hill, Alice passed Lillian and James. They dropped their voices when they saw her and gave her a cheery
hello, but Alice wasn’t fooled. They were arguing about something. It wasn’t surprising. They had too much in common. Their
similarities would chafe. The reason her relationship with David had worked was because David had been so steady, so predictable.
Alice had been the volatile one, the wild child. Nothing close to Gigi’s level, of course, but Alice drank, she smoked, and
David was not the first man to take her to bed.
Liam had been, not that she was thinking about that given how cold he had been to her tonight. Brushing her off, sitting on
the opposite side of the lawn. It was childish, really, how he was taking the rebuff.
The point was that polarity was needed in a relationship.
It was why Alice had initially thought Gus and Eloise were such a good fit.
He added the spunk, brought it out in Eloise, who had always been too serious of a child, too consumed by the need to be good.
The trouble was that Gus’s zest for life had gone too far, right out the door.
***
She took a detour by the cemetery. It was located amid the undulating hills of the island’s interior, enclosed by forest.
Milky moonlight splashed on the rows of tombstones. Getting out of her golf cart, Alice walked to the two graves side by side.
David and their daughter Penelope. Alice always kept fresh flowers there. Lilies and hydrangeas. The petals cushioned the
ground like church pew kneelers.
In the distance, Alice heard cheering and clapping. It must be the grand finale.
She found other people’s happiness oppressive. Everyone was coupled up, even Eloise (Alice hoped she knew what she was doing).
It made Alice all too aware of the hand she no longer had to hold, the body that wasn’t next to her in bed.
Georgiana didn’t have anyone, but that was different. She had her whole life ahead of her.
There was a melancholy to having your great love behind you. A relief you had found it, when so many never got that chance
at all. And a sadness too, that everything from here on out was second-best.
Alice could go back to Liam and tell him she had reconsidered, that she, too, wanted to explore what they might be in this
stage, this season. But it would only exacerbate her guilt.
Alice stooped low over the tombstone, head bent. “I’m sorry, David,” she said. “I’m so sorry.”
She listened hard for an answer. There was nothing, just tree frogs chirping like a metronome, keeping beat to the songs she
and David would never dance to again.