Alice Fantastic (16 page)

“Oh.”

“I don't want to dwell. It won't help. She's not dead yet anyway.”

Ava's pretty mouth was forming an “o” of surprise.

“Don't look at me like that. Please.”

She said nothing. But she kept looking.

“I want to go to the movies,” I said. I did. I desperately wanted to go to the movies. I wanted to be lost.

“Okay,” she replied carefully, “we can do that.”

She started speaking to me very softly after that. As we went onto her computer to look up what was playing. As we sent Ron outside to pee. As Ava searched for her eyeglasses.

I didn't know if I could take Ava's level of empathy much longer. I started feeling claustrophobic. We were almost ready to go, Ava was just stuffing her wallet into her tote bag, when I felt my mouth opening and unpleasant words coming out.

“I need to go back to the city. I need to be alone.”

“What?” Ava looked like I'd slapped her.

I
felt
like I'd slapped her. I didn't know where it was coming from. I needed to hurt her. And to get away from her.

Ava sank onto the living room couch. She was very pale.

“I didn't say I don't love you … And don't look at me like that.”

I saw her wince. I wanted to go home. Back to my hole.

“But what about Ron?” Ava was saying.

I had packed up two bags. I had looked up the bus schedule online and gotten Ava to agree to drive me to Kingston to catch a late bus into Port Authority. She had stopped talking at a certain point. Had, in fact, disappeared to some other part of the house. But now, as I stood near the door, wondering if I had everything, Ava was playing the Ron card, as if he were our child, as if we'd had a long marriage and I was uprooting myself from a family. It was ridiculous and tragic.

“He likes you better anyway,” I shrugged. “And I didn't say I'm not coming back.” I was being cold. Cruel even.

Ava stood gazing down toward the floor. I didn't even look at Ron as I walked out the door.

I had been holed up for three days, alternately working on a new batch of stuffed animals and laying sprawled on the floor, listening to Lyle Lovett, crying over Indio, and vomiting. I had known for a while that I was pregnant. And, just as my mother had failed to tell people she was dying, so had I failed to tell anyone I'd been knocked up by Billy Rotten. The whole time I'd been with Ava, I'd been pregnant. She had once commented on how full my breasts were looking. I had just shrugged. I kept thinking I'd know what to do but that hadn't happened yet. I'd had an abortion when I was nineteen. The father was a creep, I was broke, I hadn't dwelled on it too long. Now, ten years later, I wasn't broke. The father was still a creep but so it goes. I'd figured I'd wake up one morning feeling ready to embrace motherhood. That hadn't happened either.

Ava hadn't called and I hadn't called her. It seemed like she'd been a dream, an invention, not a flesh-and-blood woman I had shared everything with for eight and a half weeks. A few times a day, I'd pick up my phone and start dialing her number. Then I'd slam it down. Every time it rang, I wondered if it would be her. Invariably, though, it was just Alice.

I had just brushed my teeth after vomiting when the phone rang.

“Are you coming or what? Mom will be back in four hours,” Alice said into my ear.

“Yes,” I heard myself answering, “I'm coming.”

“There's a 2:30 bus that gets in at 5. I can pick you up and have you at the house when Mom walks in. I don't want to do this alone, Eloise.”

“Two-thirty? What time is it now?”

“One forty-five. Hurry.” She hung up in my ear.

I did as I was told.

I threw some things into an overnight bag then brought Hammie, my cat, downstairs to my neighbor Jeff who'd looked after her so much these last weeks; I was pretty sure Hammie actually preferred him to me. The cat didn't even give me a second glance, just rubbed against Jeff's calves and gazed up at him like he was a can of tuna.

I caught a cab and the young Puerto Rican driver was thrilled that I was in a hurry. He drove like a stock car driver all the way down. I gave him a huge tip and rushed into the station where I found an incredibly long line snaking up to the bus I needed.

I found a spot in the rear, with the smell of toilet seeping out from the little bathroom cubicle. I put on my iPod and took out a new pit-mouse I was working on. I saw the boisterous student-type girl sitting next to me stare at what I was doing. I reflected on the time, shortly after the settlement, when I was newly rich and had hired a limo to take me up to Mom's. It hadn't cost that much in the grand scheme of things, but I'd felt that if I kept spending that way, the money gods would be angry and some child would choke on one of my stuffed animals, the parents would sue me, and all my manhole money would be gone. So I've taken the bus ever since.

I had Prokofiev violin sonatas playing on my iPod, not the quietest music in the world, but it wasn't doing much to drown out the student next to me who was talking loudly to another girl sitting across the aisle.

I wanted to stab the girl for ruining my Prokofiev. Instead, I thought of Ava. I tried to picture what she'd do in this situation, how she might manage it with equanimity. Then I realized Ava wouldn't be on a packed bus, as her presence on Pine Hill Trailways would create hysteria once someone recognized her. I mused over the particulars of Ava's movie star life and wondered if she would be as easy-going and kind as she is if she did things like take crowded busses.

As the vehicle emerged from the Lincoln Tunnel and out into the grim, stumpy wilds of New Jersey, it occurred to me that Ava was infecting almost all my thoughts. Even in the days I'd been holed up in my apartment, deliberately not thinking of her, I had still carried her with me, was still strongly affected by her. I wondered if this is why I had left unceremoniously. Since love, to me, is parasitic and horrifying.

As the students kept on braying, I put the pit-mouse away and drifted off, coming to moments before the bus pulled into Woodstock. I rubbed my eyes, pulled my bags down from the overhead baggage holder, and stumbled down the narrow aisle and out of the bus. I saw Alice sitting at the far end of a bench, on the little triangle known as the green. The other end of the bench was occupied by a baby-faced skateboarder who was talking to two other baby-faced skateboarders in ill-fitting pants. Alice's little white spotted dog was at her feet and Alice was hunched, with her hair in her face. She didn't look up until I was standing right in front of her and Candy started making a fuss, pulling on the end of her leash in order to put her front paws on my legs and scratch at my jeans.

“Hi, Elo,” Alice said lifelessly. “Mom just called. Fifteen minutes ago. She's extending her trip by three days.”

My first instinct was to be angry with Alice for dragging me up there. Fortunately, I bit my tongue since, obviously, it wasn't Alice's fault, and a dying mother extending what was probably her last vacation was not someone I could be angry with either.

“I'm pregnant,” I announced.

One of the skateboard kids looked over at me, grinned, made a thumbs-up, and said, “Right on, man.”

Alice stared up at me without blinking. “By a woman?” she asked, deadpan.

“By that fucking asshole.”

“You mean William?”

“Yeah. Him.”

The skateboard kids were now all listening in, so Alice got up.

“I parked behind Haust,” she said, motioning at the hardware store.

We walked across the street, avoiding colliding with a homeless-looking woman in a giant winter parka who was standing in the middle of the road, directing traffic.

“You're gonna have the kid?” Alice asked after putting Candy in the backseat of Mom's Honda.

“I don't know. Should I?”

“Don't ask me, Eloise. I'm not a kid person, but obviously someone has to have them.”

“Where's the asshole anyway? Have you talked to him?” I asked.

“Not a word. Two e-mails and one phone call unanswered.”

“This may sound uncharitable but I admit I'm glad.”

“Yes. That not only sounds uncharitable but it actually
is
uncharitable. Though I guess since the guy impregnated you, there are extenuating circumstances. But does this mean he doesn't know he knocked you up?”

“It does. Yes.”

“Shit,” said Alice as she pulled out of the parking lot and waited for the seemingly endless flow of cars on Tinker Street to let her turn. “That's a pretty valid excuse for a meltdown. I'm sorry, Elo. You know I had no idea that William was your Billy and of course I had no idea you were pregnant by him.”

“I know,” I sighed, “I know.”

We fell silent for a bit, ignoring the five-hundred-pound gorilla of our dying mother as we drove up Rock City Road, left at Glasco Turnpike, and onto Upper Byrdcliffe Road, with its peaceful overhang of branches and dappled sunlight.

The dogs all went bonkers as we entered the house and Alice, doing an impressive imitation of Mom, went about quieting them down.

“I'm going to put my stuff upstairs,” I told her, “I might as well stay until Mom gets back.”

“Good,” Alice nodded.

I trudged up to the guest room where I put my overnight bag on the unpleasantly hard bed then sat down and stared out the window at the massive evergreen that stood guard in front of the house. After a few moments, Alice appeared in the doorway.

“You should call that asshole, I think. Don't you?”

“Yeah?”

“Probably, yes.”

“Won't he think I'm trying to get something from him?”

“I have no idea what he'll think, but I suppose, as awful as he is, he has a right to know.” Alice shrugged.

“But know
what
? I don't even know if I'm going to have the kid.”

“I think you are.”

“I am?”

“I think so.”

“Oh,” I said, glad that my sister knew what I was doing. While her knowing what I'm going to do before I know is one of the things that gets me angry at her, it can also useful. “Then I suppose he should be told.”

“What about your girlfriend?”

“I don't know what I'm doing about her either.”

“Eloise, you're in love with the girl. Call her. Better yet, go see her.”

Alice had never counseled me quite this extensively. We'd had a lifetime of gruffness between us. Love, yes, occasional snippets of something that could be construed as advice, but heartfelt counseling? No.

“What should I do first? Call the asshole or see if Ava still wants me?”

“Call the asshole. Go use the phone in Mom's room for privacy.”

“Okay,” I said, shrugging. I went into Mom's room and closed the door. Timber was asleep on the bed and Carlos, the one-eyed Chihuahua, was lying on a pile of laundry on the floor. Even though Alice's stuff was strewn around the room, it still felt like Mom. I lay face first on the bed and started weeping.

I was still crying when I sat up and pulled my cell phone from my jeans pocket to look up Billy's number.

I dialed and it went straight to voicemail.

“Hi, Billy,” I said, hoping I didn't actually sound like I was weeping. “This is Eloise, could you call me please? It's important. I'm at my mother's house for a few days.”

I left the number. Hung the phone up. Lay back down.

Timber licked my tears.

Alice eventually came in and found me like that, on the bed, puffy-eyed, with the black dog snuggled up next to me.

“You all right?” She came to sit at the edge of the bed.

“No.”

“Mom, Billy, or Ava?”

“All of the above.”

“Did you talk to Billy?”

“Left a message.”

Alice sighed. “I'm going to play the late Pick 4 at Santa Anita,” she said, “meaning I'll be absorbed for a couple of hours with the TV blaring, etc., so I wanted to see if you needed anything before I zone out.”

“I'm going to go to Ava's.”

“Good. She's there?”

“I don't even know. I'm just going to go over there.” I said it a little defensively, daring Alice to tell me I should do otherwise.

She did not. She just nodded then went downstairs to gamble.

I washed my face, brushed my hair, then changed my underwear and T-shirt. It occurred to me I had no way to get to Ava's unless I braved it and drove Mom's Honda. The idea of driving all the way to Ava's, which had to be at least six miles of winding roads away, was a bit terrifying. But then again, so was the idea of not seeing Ava.

“Can I take Mom's Honda?” I asked Alice as I came down the stairs, half a dozen dogs on my heels.

She was slumped in front of her laptop. The TV was going and she was staring at the horses on the screen. She did not seem to hear me. I tried to see what was happening on the TV. I waited for the horses to cross the finish line, at which point my sister cursed volubly.

I cleared my throat. Alice, at last, noticed me.

“Mom's car? Mind if I take it?”

“Oh,” Alice said, “of course not, go ahead.”

I told her I wasn't sure when I'd be back. I don't think she heard me.

I took the keys from the little hook in the kitchen and, after shuffling dogs away from the door, walked to the car thinking about Alice's strange behavior. The main reason Mom and I had never worried too much about her gambling was that she never seemed strung out on it. We'd known her to have bad days, bad weeks, even bad months, but she never seemed to sink into a pit of depression about it. She just studied that much harder, took a deep breath, dove back in, and usually came out ahead sooner or later. She frowned on things like slot machines or any game that was purely chance. She never seemed to lose herself in gambling. Until now. She was gone, inside some other world, a world where, I'd guess, her paramour wasn't in jail, Mom wasn't dying, and she and I had not slept with the same man.