Alice Fantastic (21 page)

“What happened?” I asked Joe, pulling a chair over so I was near him.

He looked confused.

“I mean, why … um … why the turn for the worse?” I felt like an idiot as soon as I said it. I'd always thought of cancer as a very slow killer, but I'd actually known several people who'd gone very quickly. “Never mind,” I added, though Joe showed no signs of answering me.

I sat watching Joe and Alice stare at Mom. But something was gnawing at me.

“I'll be right back,” I said, though neither Joe nor Alice even looked up.

I went through the big piano room and into the kitchen where there was an old-fashioned wall phone. I picked the receiver up, stared at the rotary dial, then slowly dialed Ava's number.

I let it ring twelve times, but nothing. I hung up and tried again. This time, on the sixth ring, her sleepy voice answered: “Yeah?” She sounded incredulous.

“It's me. Mom's dying. I'm at Joe's house. Will you come over?”

There was the slightest pause. Then: “I'll be right there.”

I thought terrible things. Terrible because they were irrelevant things having nothing to do with the last moments of my mother's life. I thought about breakfast. I thought about Ava's lingerie. I thought about the time Alice hit the Pick 6 for 122K and offered to buy me a car, back before I'd fallen in the manhole and struck it rich. I thought about everything except my mother and the many tendernesses and torments that had passed between us.

She was rattling now, that death-rattle sound, descriptions of which I remembered, maybe from Camus's
The Plague,
maybe from some other hideous but beautiful account of death. Her breathing was so labored I just wanted it to stop.

I got up several times. Walked through the piano room, into the kitchen, outside. Sometimes Ava would follow me. Not intruding. Just making sure I was all right.

I was there at the bedside, when, close to dawn, Mom opened her eyes.

Alice had gone to get Ira, the three-legged hound mix Mom had rescued six years earlier and still hadn't found a home for. Though Mom always claimed not to have favorites and not to consider any one of these orphans as her personal dog, it was understood that, in fact, Ira was very much her dog and, as such, had a right to say goodbye.

“Ira,” Mom said in a tiny, hoarse voice.

“I thought you'd want to say goodbye,” Alice said.

Mom's eyes got glassier. Ira put his lone front paw on the edge of the bed, wedging himself in between Joe and Alice, and gave Mom's shrunken, sweaty face a tentative lick. He intuited, as dogs do, that there was something gravely wrong. He was gentle with her.

“Ira,” Mom said again.

This was her last word.

I saw her hand move. Scrabbling at the sheet, reaching for Joe's hand. Her own hand relaxed once it found his. I saw her gripping him fiercely. Then her eyes stared straight ahead.

Light was starting to show at the window.

“She wants us to go swimming,” Joe said.

The nurse had closed Mom's eyes so she wouldn't keep staring out at those she'd left behind. Ira was whimpering. Alice was slumped in a chair. Ava was holding me.

“Swimming?” It was Randee, the nurse, who acknowledged that Joe had said something.

“Last night,” Joe explained, “Kim told me she'd die by dawn and we should all go swimming. Specifically skinny-dipping.”

Alice's head snapped up and she stared at Joe.

“That makes sense,” Ava murmured.

“It does?” Alice sqinted at my girlfriend.

“Well,” Ava seemed nervous now, “yes, sort of. To me.”

“How so?” I asked Ava, turning to look at her tear-streaked face.

Ava had wept more than I had. More than Alice or even Joe.

“She wants us all to be together doing something liberating. Help release ourselves. And, by extension, her. She doesn't want us holding onto her. She has places to go.”

“I think that's right.” Joe was nodding.

“Where exactly are we supposed to go skinny-dipping?” I asked.

“We could go to the rock star's pool. He's never there,” Alice said, referring to the musician who lived down the road. None of us were sure what band he was in, nor what his name was. Alice had seen him once and said he was sexy but I didn't even know what he looked like. Somewhere along the line, though, Mom had been introduced to him, yet she could never remember his particulars. He was just a nameless, loner rock star who had a big house with a huge pool that we could all see from the road.

“I'm sure he has some sort of elaborate security system and/or is home,” I said.

“We don't need to break into the rock star's pool. There's a pond on Stoll Road,” Joe said. “Her friend Janet's old house. It's been for sale for ages and Janet has long moved out. It has a lovely fresh-water pond. Kim and I spent many an evening there.”

We all looked at him.

The pond was discussed at length as Mom lay there, still and gray and, I imagined, stiffening. A consensus was reached. We would go skinny-dipping and we would take all the dogs.

“We're just going to leave Mom here?” I asked no one in particular.

“Yes,” Joe replied.

“Aren't there regulations against that kind of thing?” I asked, hoping that there were, hoping that the dead weren't just left to lie there while the living went swimming.

“I'll take care of everything,” Randee spoke up.

We all turned to stare at her.

I wondered what taking care of everything might entail. Was there a medical examiner involved when someone died of cancer? Or would she just be moved straight to the funeral home in Kingston? I wanted to know. But not at this moment.

“So we just leave her,” I said.

“She would want it that way,” Joe said.

Under normal circumstances, I would not trust the opinion of one of my mother's lovers, but Joe was different, and these weren't normal circumstances.

I cast one more glance at my dead mother before we all migrated out of Joe's house and over to Mom's to collect dogs and beach towels.

I thought there was some likelihood of our getting arrested and it causing a big stir, not just on a local level but, due to Ava's presence, at an international level. As we pulled into the driveway of the vacant gray house on Stoll Road, I fantasized about the headline:
Larkin's Free Love Lark
.

Ava and I got out of her Volvo with Ron and Rosemary and Carlos and Lucy in tow.

Alice and Joe emerged from the van, unloading the rest of the dogs, including the infirm and aged ones who usually never went on these sorts of outings as they had trouble navigating anything more than a five-minute walk. But Joe had been insistent that all the dogs come. And we knew it's what Mom would have wanted.

The land was beautiful, a rolling green meadow edged by maple and pine, the house, set into the treeline, a simple but tasteful gray wood box with many windows.

“Are we completely certain no one is home?” I asked Ava. “I'll find out,” she said.

Joe and I watched her stride up to the house and ring a bell, following this up with a loud knock. When, after a few minutes, no one emerged with a shotgun, we decided we were safe.

The pond was at the far edge of the property, by Stoll Road. There was some chance of passing cars looking over and seeing us as the shrubs and trees set against the deer fencing didn't give complete privacy. Not that people in Woodstock would be particularly shocked at nude pond swimming, but some might try joining in.

“Eloise, what are you waiting for?” Alice had, in the space of a few seconds, stripped off her clothing and was standing, pale and skinny and naked near the pond, throwing sticks in for the dogs to chase.

I took my shirt off then cast a glance toward the road where I saw a cyclist laboring up the hill. When the guy reached the top, he sat back down on the saddle, reached for his water bottle, glanced over, and, I think, did a double take.

I waved and took my pants off, embracing the spirit of the moment.

Hi, Mom,
I thought, knowing she'd appreciate this.

I wasn't sure if she was in a position to hear me. Though I have some notion that the dead linger and look down on the living, particularly in the weeks immediately following death, there might be some sort of waiting period after the time of physical death.

I saw Ron standing at the edge of the pond, barking at Ava. We didn't know how Ron felt about water. He waded through the creeks on the Rabbit Hole trail just fine, but he'd never been in over his head.

I moved to go help him in, and at that moment, he jumped in and started biting at the water as he paddled over to Ava.

I ran to the edge of the pond and jumped in. It was colder than I'd expected and I swam furiously toward the edge, planning to climb out, but Ava floated up to me and pulled me back down into the water. Then she kissed my forehead.

“This is nice,” she said, like we were at some civilized wine-tasting party in Europe.

“Thank you,” I said, feeling like her saying that signaled her approving of my loopy family and, by extension, of me.

“Are we okay?” I asked, looking into her big blue eyes, “or are you just being here for me because my mother is dead?”

Ava looked at me long and hard. “Eloise Hunter,” she said, “I am in love with you. Every part of you. Including the parts that scare me. I'm sorry I was awful earlier. I don't freak out often, but when I do, I really do.”

“Is that a yes?”

“Yes,” she said, touching my face.

I believed her. I believed she would try to love me. And that was more than I had believed in years.

There were thirty or so minutes of chaos with dogs and humans mingling in the pond. Now and then, Joe and Alice and Ava and I would look at one another and small, sad smiles would pass between us.

Finally, when we were getting shriveled and cold and most of the dogs had had enough, we all got out and began drying ourselves off.

The sun had come up. It was a clear, beautiful day.

13. ALICE

I
had been trying to get rid of the toothless, one-eyed Chihuahua for four weeks now. This had been one of my dead mother's last wishes, that, first and foremost, I find a home for Carlos, the charismatic but unattractive Chihuahua who'd been rescued from an upstate meth lab nine months earlier. But Carlos, in spite of his diminutive size, was a hard sell to would-be adopters. Even people specifically in the market for Chihuahuas wanted dogs with teeth and two eyes. They didn't care that Carlos was genial and intelligent and played well with others.

I had a new prospect lined up. A man who'd seen Carlos on
Petfinder.com
and filled out an e-mail application. This prospect was due to stop by in forty-five minutes, but the thought of impending human contact had not yet motivated me to shed my dead father's bathrobe, put on some clothing, and run a brush through my hair.

I had Carlos propped on the kitchen table and was rubbing him with a rag, the way you would a horse, to make his coat shine. Mickey sat, as ever, at my side, carefully studying what I was doing, the way he carefully studied everything I did, everything any of the other dogs did.

I had started examining Carlos's gums when the dogs, a mere six of them now, all ran to the door, some barking, some growling, some just standing wagging their tails.

I put Carlos down, closed my robe, and yanked the door open, expecting either some local political candidate or a solicitous handyman type here to offer his services.

Instead, I found a dark-haired strapping guy standing there looking incredibly earnest.

“Yeah?” I said, squinting at this apparition.

“Hi, I'm Matthew?” He didn't seem convinced of this. “About the Chihuahua?”

“Oh …” I said. In the same moment I realized the guy was attractive and that I was wearing a filthy bathrobe and hadn't brushed my hair in days. “Right,” I added, “come in.”

“I'm sorry, am I early?” he asked politely.

“Yes,” I said.

“Oh,” he looked dejected, actually hung his head the way a child might, “I have a really bad memory. I wasn't sure what time I said I'd come by.”

“It's fine, come on in.” I ushered him past the wall of dogs at the door.

Matthew came into the kitchen then squatted down on his haunches and opened his arms. The big dogs made a beeline for him and Mickey, in his enthusiasm, knocked the man backwards. He fell on his ass and started laughing. Meanwhile, poor Carlos stood off to the side, looking peevish, as if he knew this particular human was here to see him and the big dogs had ruined it.

“This,” I said, scooping the Chihuahua up, “is Carlos.” I deposited him in Matthew's lap.

I never would have pegged this big manly man as a Chihuahua type, but to see him holding the dog, looking at poor Carlos as if he were the most beautiful thing ever, well, it was heartwarming. And my heart hadn't been warmed in several months.

After a few minutes, I excused myself and went up to Mom's bedroom, which I still couldn't think of as my bedroom, to put some clothes on. I found a pair of blue jeans on the floor by the laundry hamper, a white tank top nearby. I held the tank top up to my nose and sniffed. Not too bad. I put it on. I went into the bathroom to look at myself in the mirror and actually gasped audibly, causing Mickey, who had followed me upstairs, to tilt his enormous white head.

“Shit,” I said aloud. I looked awful. No sooner had I realized this than I also realized I didn't really care. Sure, the guy was a big attractive slab of a man but I had sworn those off.

I went back into the bedroom where there was a phone by the bed. I dialed Ava's landline, hoping Eloise would pick up. She did.

“Hi, Alice,” she said in that soft, tired voice she'd had for a few weeks now as her pregnancy progressed. She still didn't look wildly pregnant but she was weak and weepy and swollen and Ava had cancelled a film in order to stay home tending to her and the four dogs of Mom's they still hadn't found homes for.

“There's a very attractive man in the kitchen,” I said without preamble.

“What?”

I explained.

“And why are you telling me this?”

“Because I don't know what to do. I feel stirrings.”

“Stirrings?”

“You know, of the old me. I want to pounce on this guy.”

“Really?” Eloise, who had spent years lecturing me on what she perceived as my indiscriminate sexual rapaciousness, almost sounded happy about this. She had, for the last few weeks, been nagging me about my depression. About the way I seldom changed out of my dead father's bathrobe and just sat morosely in our dead mother's house trying to find homes for our dead mother's dogs.

“Really,” I said. “But I feel disjointed at the prospect of pouncing. I mean, I feel like I'm not my old self. I won't know how to proceed.”

“It's just like riding a bike,” Eloise assured me. “You'll be fine. Go for it, Alice. You need something to pull you out of your torpor.”

“Yes,” I said. “Okay.”

I started asking her about herself, but she told me to get off the phone and tend to the strapping man in the kitchen.

I found him laying flat on his back, with Carlos on his chest, Candy under his right arm, Lucy licking his face, and Mickey standing near his head. It was a striking vision.

“I guess the dogs like you.”

“Oh,” he said, sitting up, “you're back.” He glanced up. “Wow. You put clothes on.”

“Yes. I do actually get dressed sometimes. I've just been a little low. My mother died.”

“I'm sorry.” He didn't take it further. Didn't ask when or how and I was grateful for that.

We looked at each other. He was now cradling Carlos like a baby.

I started in on the dog questions and learned that Matthew lived alone in a rented cabin where, yes, he was allowed to have pets but, no, he didn't presently have any other pets.

“And what kind of work do you do?”

“Trees.”

“Trees?”

“Everything to do with trees. I cut 'em down. I make tables with them. I like trees.”

“Right,” I said, envisioning reporting to Eloise that the strapping man really liked trees.

What are you doing later?
I thought, but for some reason didn't ask.

“Well,” he said, gently putting Carlos on the ground and then standing up, “is there anything else?”

Would you like to go upstairs?
I thought, but, again, didn't ask.

“I think you're good for Carlos but I want to sleep on it and you should too.”

“Okay,” he said in his big, soft voice.

He was standing close to me, looking down at me. I could imagine what he tasted like, what he'd feel like. There were just a few inches between us. I could have moved closer, lifted my face up to his big beautiful mug. He might have been surprised. But he would go with it. One thing would lead to another, and there we'd be, a tangled mess of limbs and sheets and body fluids.

“Okay then,” he said, as if he knew what had just gone on inside me.

He turned toward the door. I saw him out. Watched him get into a big blue pick-up truck.

“What the fuck is wrong with you, Alice?” I asked aloud when he'd pulled out of the driveway and I'd gone back into the house.

Mickey looked at me and tilted his head. Candy wagged her abbreviated tail. Carlos let out an excited bark.

As the day progressed, as I wandered through dog chores, gambling chores, and even a few house chores, I thought about Matthew, the tree man. I could see the end before I'd even gotten to the beginning.

I tried calling Eloise again but there was no answer. I thought about calling Ida, Mom's NA pal who seemed to be cultivating a friendship with me. But I didn't have the strength to try explaining my plight to someone who didn't know me. Though it was an absurd thing to do, particularly around post time for the seventh race, when Arthur would be in the middle of the Pick 6 sequence, I dialed his number.

“What?” he yelled into the phone.

“It's Alice,” I said with as much force as I could muster.

“I know. Why are you calling me? I'm getting slaughtered out here. Goddamned state-bred turf sprints.”

“I don't play the Pick 6 when those unmanageable races are in the sequence,” I said loftily.

“Did you just call to tell me how smart you are?”

“No. I need friendship and succor.”

“And you're calling
me
?”

“You're my friend, Arthur, admit it.”

“Alice, what the fuck is wrong with you?”

“I'm not sure.” I was actually relieved to find Arthur back in usual form. Right after Mom died, he had been sweet and sensitive and had gone so far as to leave New York City—which he only ever did to go to Saratoga—and come up here for the memorial service. It had moved me and I suppose that's why I was calling him now.

“Well, it must be bad if you're turning to me for a shoulder to cry on. What is it?”

“I really don't know. Just general malaise, I guess.”

“Alice, what the fuck is wrong with you calling me at the track using words like
malaise
? What is this? You've got to get out of the woods. You're falling apart. Just sell your mother's house and come back to the city already. You've made your point. I actually miss you. Now come on.”

“You miss me? Really?”

“Jesus, get ahold of yourself, Hunter. I'll start to think you like me or something.”

“But I adore you.”

“Of course you do. But you don't actually
like
me. Are we done here? I gotta go.”

“Yeah,” I sighed, “you can go. You
have
made me feel better.”

Arthur growled a goodbye and hung up in my ear. And I truly did feel better. Even though I was considering moving permanently into Mom's house in the woods, even though I'd suddenly sprouted a moral compass and couldn't manage to pounce on the tree cutter, even though most of the things in my life were upended, Arthur was the same. A constant. A reminder that I could always go back.

That night, I called Matthew and told him he could have Carlos.

“Oh,” he said, so softly, “thank you so much. I'll take great care of him.”

“I know.”

I thought of innumerable other things to say but kept them to myself. We arranged a time the next day when Matthew would come get his new companion.

I got used to watching the dogs leave. After Carlos, there was a rash of successful adoptions. Harvey went to a racing writer I knew from Kentucky, Lucy went to a marathon runner in nearby Kingston. All but Simba, a sweet, lazy black Lab, had been placed in suitable homes and it was just Mickey, Candy, Simba, and me. It got so the house actually felt empty. But I didn't have the strength to be active in rescue the way Mom had. I could never bring myself to go to the kill shelters, plucking some dogs while leaving the rest to their fates. I had decided that, if and when a dog in need presented itself, I would help, but I wouldn't go out of my way to bring in new orphans. I had enough to do trying to keep up with my work, taking care of the house and Mickey and Candy, and not losing my mind.

One afternoon, there was a knock at the door. Candy went crazy, barking and growling, while Simba and Mickey just stared at the door with their tales wagging gently. I went so far as to run a hand through my hair and make sure my fly was closed before opening the front door.

“Can I borrow a cup of sugar?”

It was Joe. The neighbor. Mom's lover.

“Sugar?” I squinted at him.

“Sugar.” He smiled, offering his well-organized and very white teeth. Ira, Mom's three-legged hound who had moved in with Joe the day she died, was faithfully at his side.

“You're really just checking to make sure I haven't gone insane, aren't you? Did Eloise tell you to come over?”

I had been blowing my sister off for more than a week now. She wanted me to go with her to various prenatal appointments and yoga classes but I kept turning her down in favor of holing up by myself, with just dogs for company.

“I haven't spoken to Eloise in days,” Joe protested. “Why, is she questioning your sanity?” He entered the kitchen and looked around, like he'd never seen the place before.

“Eloise has always questioned my sanity. But now more than ever. I told her I'm staying here. Going to sell my father's house in Queens.”

“But that's fantastic, Alice,” Joe said, his whole face lighting up in a way I hadn't seen since Mom died.

“It is?” Eloise thought my decision to move to the woods so uncharacteristic she'd asked if I wanted Ava to recommend a therapist.

“I'm really glad, Alice.”

“Do you miss Mom?” I heard myself ask. Just like that. No warning.

Joe flinched.

“I'm sorry. I didn't mean to be so abrupt.”

“No,” he said softly, “it's okay. You have no way of knowing just how badly I miss Kimberly.”

What had possessed me to ask such a question? Of course he missed her.

“Sometimes I need to censor myself,” I said.

“No,” Joe replied slowly, “no. That was one of the things your mother most admired about you and Eloise. The way you both just say whatever comes to mind. Which you got from her.”

“Yeah,” I felt myself smiling, “we did get that from her.”

Joe and I fell silent. I made coffee and offered him some of the wretched banana bread I'd baked earlier. The only person I'd found so far who'd eat anything I cooked was Mom's NA friend Ida. She was obviously trying really hard to win my friendship.

Joe knew better than to eat anything I'd cooked.

“No thanks,” he said as politely as possible.

“Mickey loves it,” I said. “Jumped up on the counter last time I made it and devoured the entire loaf, including the plastic it was wrapped in.”