Chapter 34
Alice walked slowly up Main Street from the station, past the spot where it had happened. She stopped and listened. There was no noise other than the clinking of the cables overhead, tiny waves crashing on the shore of the distant river.
It was as though she had been here only the day before.
She walked past Bygones, the antiques emporium where she and her dad used to eye up the china and glass trinkets, debating what to buy next.
At Lana D’s beauty parlour, she saw Dolores’s mother finishing up a client’s hair, laughing with her as both of them looked in the mirror: Alice shrank against the shadows on the sidewalk so Mrs Delaney didn’t see her and then she caught sight of herself, a tall, slender shadow in the reflection of the bank windows, recoiling.
‘Allie,’ she said out loud. She felt him near, so close she could almost hear him saying it. ‘It doesn’t matter, honey. Doesn’t matter!’
It was hot; she was hungry. She had run out without anything but her wallet, which contained a small roll of dollar bills that she had stolen from Jack. She had taken to stealing from her husband lately.
Her husband. She had married Jack Maynard.
Alice crossed over into the shade, walking up past the fire station, where Tony Pisano’s dad, the fire chief, was polishing the front of the truck. He stared at Alice curiously, like he recognized her but couldn’t place her. Alice smiled. ‘Afternoon,’ she said.
He touched his hand to his bare head. ‘Afternoon, ma’am,’ he said blankly. She remembered her reflection in the window. Perhaps she wasn’t a girl any more.
And there, at the top of the street, was Mackie’s. There was the pink marble counter with the sign behind showing the different ice cream flavours and combinations, and there was the booth by the window where she and her dad used to sit.
Alice walked to the window and pressed her face to the glass.
Imagine, she thought to herself, imagine if this was all a bad trip.
All of it. If he was just there, waiting for her, in his worn houndstooth jacket, having ordered his usual Rita Hayworth, his kind, round face smiling at her, waiting to hear about her day, to tell her some interesting fact or hum a line from a musical or laugh over some joke only the two of them found funny.
His full, joyful laugh. There would never be anyone, anyone in the world, whose company she enjoyed as much as Bob Jansen’s, or anyone who gave her so much pain throughout her life.
Alice stood facing into the diner, her slim shoulders heaving as she forced her arms to her sides, trying not to sob.
Just one more day, she heard herself whisper.
If she could have just one more day with him, to ask him what had gone wrong, how she could help, what he thought about the state of things, about RFK, about Nixon, about whether she was right to marry Jack, what she should do with her life, what he really thought of Wilder Kynaston, why he had borrowed from him.
He had left her with so many questions. But, more than all of that, one more day so she could feel his arms around hers, his fingers squeezing her shoulder, rest her head against his chest, hear him tell her it was all okay, in his kind, cheerful voice.
And then they would sing ‘If I were a Rich Man’ or ‘I Have Confidence’ or ‘When I Marry Mr Snow’.
There was no one like her dad, no man as kind and silly and clever as him.
And suddenly she was back on that day, his final expression, the thousand-yard stare.
How he had clutched her wrists and begged her to forgive him.
The unreality of it, the sound of his death – how she had shut her eyes too late and seen too much, but also how she had done too little, not really believing that he would do it.
The full force of the pain he must have been in that he hid from her, meaning she had let him down, and the pain of the loss of him both hit her at that moment, as though they were physical blows.
Alice stepped back, terrified. She could make out the shape of someone in the diner, staring at her, yanking the sleeve of another customer. ‘Hey … isn’t that …’ she heard them say, but she couldn’t see them: the sun was shining on the glass and her vision was blurred by tears.
All of it, dancing in front of her eyes in the midday sun. She crossed a side road, stumbling against a mailbox, cursed and wiped her eyes.
‘Allie?’
She carried on walking, not wanting to stop.
‘Hey! Allie? Allie! ’
She turned around, tears streaming down her cheeks. A girl was hurrying up the hill. ‘Alice Jansen? What the hell –’
‘Dolores!’
‘You – I knew it was you! I saw you through the parlour window! Oh, Allie! You’re back!’
Dolores ran the last twenty yards toward her, into her arms. Alice flung her arms around her, smelling Dolores’s old, familiar scent, cigarettes and perfume and hair spray, feeling the strength of her hug – she hugged furiously, did Dolores, like she did everything.
Laughing, they stepped back, and Alice kissed her friend’s cheek, almost frantic with joy at seeing her. Dolores gripped her by her upper arms, staring at her, and Alice saw herself reflected in the horror and fascination in Dolores’s eyes.
‘That bad, huh?’ Alice said.
‘You look different, that’s all,’ said Dolores, and her expression was serious. ‘You’re a grown-up. You’re – oh, Allie, I’ve missed you, honey.’
‘You look different too,’ said Alice, cupping her cheek. ‘You look very cute, Dolo. What happened to the lipstick?’
‘I moved with the times,’ said Dolores. She was wearing less make-up, so Alice could see the freckles on her olive skin.
She had on a dark shift dress, huge white daisies for pockets and daisies around the collar.
Her black hair was no longer up, but in a sharp side parting, razor cut.
Her kohl-lined eyes raked over Alice, her grip tightening.
‘I did as well,’ Alice said, looking down at her long, floral dress, which she had made, and the headscarf which kept her hair out of the way. She couldn’t stop smiling at Dolores. ‘We went our separate ways, fashion-wise.’
‘Only fashion-wise, honey. You’re still my best friend in the whole world, even if we’re nineteen and too old for best friends.
Here. Watch that car, the guy driving it is a maniac, even if he does have a super-cute brother.
’ Dolores waggled her fingers at a man in a Pontiac, who waved back, at the same time as moving Alice gently across the road, to the other side of Main Street, next to the path that led towards Valhalla and the gatehouse.
‘He works at the deli. Allie, I swear, he gives me extra pastrami every time – honey, what are you crying for?’ she said, when she turned back to Alice. ‘What’s happened?’
Alice shook her head. ‘It’s strange to be back. I guess I didn’t want to think about home … you know.’
‘I understand,’ said Dolores. She squeezed her arm and they stood in silence for a moment. Alice gave a huge sniff. Dolores said, in a lighter tone, ‘Hey, did you know Diane Hendricks is engaged to Frank Logan?’
‘No way.’
‘It’s true. Their wedding registry is at Macy’s.
She wants eight bridesmaids in aquamarine.
’ Dolores’s eyes were dancing. ‘Keeps going around town saying Frank’s going to stand for mayor when he’s thirty.
As if that makes them the new Kennedys.’ She pushed her hair out of her eyes.
‘Oh, Allie, everyone who’s still here is real square.
And, since Tag died, you can’t say anything anti-war in this town.
It’s like even though everyone agrees we need to get out of Vietnam, just to say the truth makes you anti-American. It’s nuts.’
‘The world is pretty nuts.’
‘You got that right. Hell, I miss you, Allie.’
‘I miss you too, Dolo,’ Alice said.
Dolores said, ‘I want to go and cause trouble somewhere. Not get stuck here. I’m thinking of taking a trip to Europe.
I had a schoolfriend in Chicago who lives in somewhere called Camden now.
London, Allie! And Paris. And Venice. I’m going in the fall.
’ Her eyes snapped open. ‘Hey! Come with me. Didn’t you always want to go to England? ’
Alice shook her head. ‘I can’t.’
‘Yes, you can.’
‘I’m married, Dolo. To Jack.’
‘Of course,’ said Dolores. ‘Jack.’ She opened her mouth, as if about to say something, then shut it again.
It was even stranger hearing the words here, back at home.
She had a husband. She managed to forget it most of the time but it was true: tall, handsome, shy, beautiful Jack Maynard was her husband.
Where had he gone, that boy she’d walked through the woods with?
And what, really, had they ever had in common?
What would they do for money, or jobs, or for any of it in the future? She hadn’t the vaguest idea.
‘Allie, you’re so pale. Why don’t you come home with me, have some lemonade or something? I don’t have to be at college for half an hour,’ Dolores was saying.
‘No –’ Alice began, her throat closing up. ‘I have to get back there.’
‘Get back where?’
‘I’m going to Valhalla,’ Alice said.
‘Oh,’ said Dolores. Her eyes were huge. She bit her lip. ‘Are you sure?’
Alice nodded. ‘I need to make sure Teddy is okay.’
‘Do you think you’ll ever come back here?’
Jack had asked her the same question when she’d first arrived in New York in November.
‘Do you think you’d ever go back?’ he’d said. ‘If he wasn’t there?’