Alice
by Brenda Cronin
[ fiction - november 06 ]
At breakfast Alice told Jeffrey why they should not go to Greece with his friends. She would prefer to take a trip with him alone; she didn't have much vacation time, and she thought France and Italy were higher on their list than Corfu. But at lunch, when Jeffrey hinted that he was going anyway, she immediately declared that she would love to travel with Clarissa and Carl, that she would work something out with the newspaper, and that there was no place more inviting than a Greek island.
It was Clarissa's fault they were going at all. The producer who had bought the rights to her book was shooting a movie in Corfu, and was finishing early. Most of the crew had gone home, but the company had paid for countless hotel rooms, which would go empty if they did not come. As soon as Alice heard some of the actors might be around, she knew it was a hopeless battle, since Jeffrey could not resist a whiff of celebrity, or the prospect of touring a movie set. Alice's protests about the expense were quashed by Jeffrey's rich mother, who covered their transatlantic passage from her trove of frequent flyer miles, while Clarissa found charter flights from London to Corfu.
As usual, Alice was charged with finding sunscreen and maps, and even telling Jeffrey what to pack, since he was helpless before a suitcase. Her directions were dispensed long-distance, since although they had met two years before in Washington, Jeffrey had moved back home to Philadelphia, to open his law firm's office there. They spent every weekend together, but as time passed, Alice began to realize that the longer they stayed together, the less likely they were to marry. There was no question of Jeffrey rerouting his career, so early on she had offered to shelve her work to raise their children, to move to Philadelphia, and to sit through endless meals with Jeffrey's relatives.
"Can you hear me, Hon?" In Philadelphia, Jeffrey awaited instructions from Alice in Washington. "I finally found my special flip-flops. You know, the ones from that spa in Napa? So, what should I put in first? God, I'm pathetic about this, aren't I? I'm so lucky to have you. You'd think I'd be able to pack for myself by now."
But he was not, or so he claimed, and Alice rejoiced in that helplessness, wondering how anyone who loved and needed her so much would not want to spend the rest of his life with her. They were both divorced, so marriage wouldn't be entirely new and terrifying ground. Besides, he was 43 and she 36, so if they were ever to have the four children he mused about, they would have to get started. But Jeffrey seemed content with nothing more to show for their time together than telephone bills and frequent-flyer miles. The fact that he could not even bring himself to discuss a commitment, except on the rare occasions when Alice shoehorned him into a talk, was surely not, to use one of his favorite expressions, a good augury.
In two years, they hadn't missed a weekend together in Philadelphia or Washington or any number of interesting places where Jeffrey was inclined or required to be. Alice, eager to have children, believed that they stood a good chance of surviving as a married couple. Although dating Jeffrey meant tolerating a man whose mother had cosseted him to such sensitivity, he snipped holes in the collars of cashmere sweaters to keep the labels from tickling his neck, it was also a guest pass to his interesting, if peripatetic, life, which was dotted with travel and diversions funded by his mother or grateful clients. While she had neither Jeffrey's wealth nor his connections, she had the patient and conciliatory instincts bred into children from large, happy families, as well as a craving to be a stay-at-home mother like the one she had had.
But when two years elapsed with no proposal, she knew that her zest for marriage had not infected Jeffrey. Instead, she sensed that their weekly transit - which she had considered a premarital proving ground - was, for Jeffrey, a perfectly satisfactory investment in nothing more than the present. Alice skittered along on the hope that he would propose on New Year's Eve, then Saint Valentine's Day, even April Fool's Day. But when it didn't happen then, or on her birthday, she could no longer contain her chagrin.
"I don't think we can keep on traveling every weekend like this," she had said as they hiked around a Colorado mountain where they had traveled, in principle to celebrate her birthday, in truth because Jeffrey had a conference there, and didn't want to go alone. "We've been together two years," she began one of the pleas she had rehearsed on planes and trains to Philadelphia. "And I think that's long enough to know we get along well together."
"Absolutely," Jeffrey gave the earnest nod that always surfaced during these talks.
"And you've said you'd like to get married again and have a family." Alice was both humiliated that Jeffrey couldn't force himself to commit, and thoroughly embarrassed for him, as this articulate man was reduced to stammering whenever marriage came up.
"Yes, totally," Jeffrey began. He was behind her as they walked single-file along the mountain path, his voice floating forward faintly, as if altitude sickness were about to fell him any second. "I thought we'd decide. You know. The - whatever - if you come to Philadelphia."
Alice nearly wheeled around to make sure she had heard this commitment of sorts correctly, and guessed from Jeffrey's ashen face that it was not a joke. "Today's the 19th of June, so a month would be the 19th of July. What about if you decide then?"
"Sure," he answered.
And that had been that. In the thin air above the trees, the deadline had been set. She did not mention it to her friends, who found Jeffrey unbearably smug, and long ago had advised her to end things with him. She and Jeffrey did not speak of it anymore, and then on 8 July, they were on their way to Corfu.
As she flew alone from Washington to Philadelphia, Alice wondered why she had agreed to spend a week in a country she did not want to visit, with a boyfriend who likely would never marry her, his best friend, and the best friend's girlfriend. This will be the vacation, she decided, where we get engaged, or it will be our last trip ever.
At the Corfu airport, crowds expelled from earlier charters were ringed seven deep around a luggage belt the size of a wading pool.
"Let's find Carl and Clarissa. They'll be worried about us."
"But they know what time our plane's coming," Alice protested. She had hoped to postpone meeting up with Carl and particularly Clarissa as long as possible, and slowly followed Jeffrey to the rental-car counter.
"You made it, you angels! Listen to this!" Clarissa, teetering on platform sandals, so her pink sundress shook like a tutu, launched into the drama of how their computers were nearly confiscated. "It was extraordinary! You'd think they'd never seen one here! With all the work we have to do, we'd be sunk without them! I had to get really bossy with the Greek customs people!"
"You go, girlfriend!" Jeffrey said. "I hope you let them know not to mess with, like, a kick-ass writer, and Cambridge's most famous philosophy scholar." Alice wondered why when Jeffrey spoke with Clarissa, he was compelled to drag out fatuous scraps of slang, as if because she were only 31, she required a different, cooler vernacular than Alice or Carl.
"No big deal, we got them back," Carl turned around from the counter. "How are you, Alice? You guys made it okay? Great to see you." Alice liked Carl, and found it hard to be intimidated by a 40-year-old graduate student, who dressed as if he were in 11th grade, and instead of holding a job, had sailed from one prestigious fellowship to another, trailing his philosophy thesis like a spinnaker.
"We've got a few decisions to make," Carl gathered them around the counter, and although Alice could feel Jeffrey's arm on her shoulder, she felt apart, her inclinations and will at odds with the group. Jeffrey and Carl and Clarissa had traveled together - with Jeffrey's previous girlfriends - and no matter how warm they were, she felt as if they were a seamless whole, and she but a spare part of limited tenure.
Even Clarissa, who should have had little to add to the discussion, as she could neither drive nor read maps, and got nauseated just riding in cars, had an opinion on the rental car. "Isn't it a question of whether there's some relative psychological gain to be had from paying a few pounds more a day on our little car?" she asked earnestly, as if to emphasize that her provocative getup notwithstanding, she had a doctorate from Cambridge. That doctorate, and more importantly, her successful memoir of a harrowing childhood, haunted Alice, who could not help envying the literary fame that had enveloped Clarissa a year earlier and shifted her career from English professor to author. Alice, who had yearned since childhood to write fiction, had yet to publish even a short story, and was still plodding along what she saw on most days - and certainly compared with Clarissa's life - as the uninspiring treadmill of daily news. She had planned to work on fiction once she resigned from the newspaper and was happily married and raising a family with Jeffrey.
The Acropolis Hotel was clean and promising, with a swimming pool and terrace shaded by plane trees. Alice unpacked their bags alone, since Jeffrey, anxious to call his mother, had given up on the telephone in their room, and darted off to use Clarissa and Carl's. Greek cuisine was another pleasant discovery. Alice, ashamed of her squeamish palate, still found plenty to eat without forcing herself through the squid and octopus that Clarissa, Carl and Jeffrey favored. When Clarissa kept insisting that she try a bite of some new horror - roasted shark, deep-fried eel - Jeffrey said: "You don't have to, Honey. It's delicious, but don't eat anything you don't want."
After dinner, as the waiter put a tray of melon slices and cherries on the table, Jeffrey stretched and looked around. "I've been meaning to ask you guys. Think about this. Would you say you have many enemies?"
Alice, cowed and quiet, was rarely the first to take on these questions that the other three liked to discuss. But this was so simple, she immediately answered, "No. I don't."
"Really?" Carl asked. "Are you sure?"
"Absolutely. I'd say most of the people at work would say they like me. I like them."
"Really, Alice?" Clarissa chirped. "That's so lovely."
"What about you guys?" Jeffrey asked. "Enemies?"
"I've definitely got some," Clarissa smiled beatifically. "There's a lecturer in women's literature who's just dying to be published, and she laced my desk with acid. I'm serious. I can think of at least three people who hate me."
"Well, of all of us, you've got the most reason to make people jealous." As Jeffrey spoke, Alice pretended not to hear, so that the sting from his words - like the eel, the octopus and the olives - was ignored.
Their vacation life assumed a rhythm, with days starting at eleven o'clock, when they met for breakfast. It was the only meal where Alice felt alert and not dulled by sun and reading and fatigue, which set in long before they sat down to dinner twelve hours later. On the plane from London, Jeffrey had promised that they would have as much time alone or with Carl and Clarissa as they liked, and Alice learned that that meant spending every waking moment together. She vainly hoped the computers, which had provoked such a drama at Greek customs, would absorb some of Clarissa and Carl's time. But every day, they would sigh at the prospect of their deadlines, and, as if sapped just by the thought, recoup by opening up the map in search of a new beach.
"We're so desperately behind!" Clarissa said. "Carl's got to submit the first draft of his essay for the London Review as soon as we get back. And I just got a call this morning from Robin - yes, can you believe my agent tracked us down here - because Penguin is asking if I'll contribute to a new anthology of young British writers!"
"How exciting!" Alice tried to strain the envy from her smile.
"It's a bit difficult," Clarissa grimaced. "Robin's not sure I should do it, with the movie and everything."
"She thinks it's too small a deal for you?" Jeffrey asked.
Clarissa nodded, fishing a compact from her purse.
"I don't know," Jeffrey laid a hand on Clarissa's arm. "Sure, the guy's bought the rights, but that's a hell of a long way from having a movie made. I'm sure Robin knows her stuff, but I think if Penguin's calling, you should do it."
"You're so smart, Jeffrey! That's exactly what Carl said this morning, when I told him about, didn't you, Darling?" She lifted the cap from Carl's head, and kissed him. "Shall we get some more cappuccinos? I need heaps more caffeine," she pulled Carl to his feet. "And I want to find out where the people in the film go for dinner."
As they shuffled off, Jeffrey put an arm around Alice. "Does that hurt, Honey?" he asked in a low voice. "You got all quiet all of a sudden."
"Did I? Does what hurt?"
"Come on, the book thing."
"Oh that. Sure, I'd like to have Penguin asking to publish my fiction. Gee, I'd sort of like to have an agent, too, much less a movie deal for my first book."
"Oh, honey," he patted her hand. "It might happen, some day."
But when? she wondered. Between work at the newspaper, traveling to Jeffrey on weekends, and maintaining his wardrobe and schedule and career, there were no free days or even half-days to spend writing, much less getting published.
"We've got the whole scoop!" Clarissa came swinging back. "They usually have dinner at that place near the boats. And he told us the beach they like. We can go there, can't we? Let's leave the work just for a day?"
The computers stayed packed all week, as they discovered one beach after another, some by car and some by boat, all with the same relentless sun and clear water. At every one, Alice found Jeffrey unusually solicitous, making sure she was covered in sunscreen, and directing her away from the sea urchins in the sharp white stones near the shore. All this fussing was so out of character, she assumed it must be a prelude not to a proposal but a break-up, as the deadline drew near.
She tried to explain this to Clarissa as they walked along the coast one afternoon, while Carl was reading and Jeffrey was calling his mother. "I think Jeffrey and I'll either get married or split up pretty soon." The deadline was too humiliating to mention, especially since she liked to imagine that relationships were one of the few areas where she had more experience than Clarissa. "If I'm going to give up my life in Washington, then Jeffrey can jolly well make a few changes to his. Like starting with getting engaged."
"I think it would be divine if you could just move to Philadelphia so you could totally devote yourself to your writing. Jeffrey would love it."
"I think two years is enough time to know whether or not you want to get married."
"You don't think you might be rushing things a bit? I'd need to live with someone for years before getting married! Of course, when I met Carl it was just like that!" Clarissa snapped her fingers and let them fall beside the strap of her checkerboard thong - her sole concession to modesty in case they passed anyone. "We've lived together right from the start, since we're in the same building at Cambridge."
"Yes, I'm pretty sure Jeffrey told me."
"But I'm so glad we're on holiday! I've been unbelievably stressed, with all the publicity for the paperback version. I had to do a week in Paris for the French translation, and Alice, I am not exaggerating, Carl and I did not have a minute to ourselves. Between television, Vogue, whatever, the whole time I was either being interviewed or photographed or made up or just being bundled into a car and taken on to the next place."
Alice's mouth nearly watered, and she had to focus on the horizon, for fear her envy would show, like a blush or a freckle.
"And to have Robin on me all the time about how the critics have such expectations for my next book, and I can't let my readers down and all that. It sounds funny, but I envy people who haven't had their first book come out. It's a clean slate for them - for you I mean."
Alice just pressed her lips together, hands pumping beside the T-shirt over her bathing suit.
"I couldn't handle this weird fame thing without Carl! We both write at home, so we're never apart. I wish you and Jeffrey could live together."
"Well, there's the little problem of location. But we'll see." Of course it wasn't about jobs or cities. It was simply that she wanted to marry and Jeffrey did not, could not, would not. At times she yearned to wake and find him kneeling on the linoleum beside the bed, one hand holding out a ring and the other on the table with the citronella candle and the telephone that never worked. But as usual she woke only to find that he had taken the entire duvet and - thanks to the loud and effective air-conditioning unit - she was shivering under a corner of the paper-soft sheet. As the week went on, she lay awake wondering how and when it would end. She was so accustomed to arranging herself in Jeffrey's plans, it was strange to think only for herself. She was also sick at the thought of abandoning something into which she had invested all of herself for the past two years. Would she and Jeffrey dissolve as fast as they had gelled? She thought until she could bear no more, and fell asleep.
Alice was so excited for their departure on Sunday, she could not sleep past dawn on Saturday. They were writing postcards after breakfast when Jeffrey said, "Guys, we have to talk about tomorrow." He swirled his finger in the traces of poached egg on Carl's plate and licked it clean.
"Jeffrey, you're too cruel! You know we're leaving!" Clarissa flung herself against Carl.
"We're scheduled to leave," Jeffrey continued. "But if we're thinking of this France thing, we should make some calls."
"What France thing?" Alice knew what he was talking about, since she had vetoed the notion weeks ago in Washington. But she also had vetoed the trip to Greece, and here they were on Corfu.
"You know, stopping by on the way back." Jeffrey's former wife Sally and her movie producer boyfriend had rented a house in Provence. Alice was furious that her tepid reaction - which meant she hated it with all her might - had not squelched this proposal when Jeffrey first floated it months ago when Clarissa and Carl were in Philadelphia to promote the book. But here it was again, being welcomed by Clarissa and Carl as if they were two orphans yearning for a day out of the asylum.
"Would Sally really let us? Swoon! We think it'd be dreamy, don't we, Darling?" Clarissa all but clapped her hands.
Alice wondered what had happened to the publishers' deadlines. And why was Jeffrey carrying on as if he were a graduate student like Carl, with no office expecting his return?
"It'd mean staying about another week, I guess," he said. "But it's like - hey, we're already over here."
Alice slid on her sunglasses and stared at the huge terra cotta planters around the cafe, their contents long scorched by the sun. "You bet, Hon," she wanted to answer. "Since `We're over here,' why don't we continue on to the Middle East and then hit Japan, while we're at it?" Had it not occurred to him that she might not want to spend time with Sally? A quick drink or a meal was one thing, but spending a week as the house-guest of the woman who years ago was married to her boyfriend was quite another. The comforts of the estate would be more than countered by the droves of Hollywood children imported to entertain Sally's six-year-old son, not to mention their parents lounging around the pool nuzzling cellphones. And Jeffrey's ex would be running the whole show. How, Alice tried to fathom, could the overheated trio around her think she would endure, much less enjoy, such an experience?
"I guess we'd fly to Paris from here or Athens, and take the train down to Avignon," Jeffrey said.
Alice sensed that if she did not act, things would be out of control in seconds. "It sounds wonderful, but there's just no way I can. It was hard enough wangling the time off for this - really great - trip. I can't miss any more work."
"I suppose if - " Jeffrey put his palms together, so the thumbs jutted back against his mouth. "No, fuck it. There's no way."
"What?" Alice asked.
"You'd be upset, wouldn't you, if we went and you - you went home alone." His words caught Alice like a shower of ice.
"Ah! I never thought of that!" She tried not to gasp.
"Come on, Alice," Clarissa pleaded. "Once when I was supposed to teach a writing course in Wales, I was with friends on Ibiza, and it was just so lovely there, I couldn't bear to go!" Alice tuned out the rest of the anecdote, which Clarissa performed like a tableside cabaret. "We could do the same thing! We could make up a story, and say you ate some bad olives, and you absolutely couldn't travel, doctor's orders!"
"I'd like to," she shook her head. "But it wouldn't work. First of all, they'd never believe it. And second, I just can't."
Jeffrey twisted his baseball cap backwards and took it off. "Sally said she'd pick us up in Avignon. Or maybe Saul would. She told me that the house comes with a fucking Hummer. That'd be kind of cool, hanging with the California set."
Now we're getting to the heart of it, Alice could barely keep from snorting. She could picture them draped across the wood benches in the Avignon station, waiting for Sally to show up. Clarissa would be turquoise with motion sickness from the TGV, but not so ailing that she would cease burbling and wielding her eyelash curler, and trying to order cappuccinos. Carl would be reading or asleep, Jeffrey would be animated in fits and starts at the prospect of sharing a bathroom with some third-tier movie types. They would be bedraggled, hungry and reduced to the discomforts of college backpackers. Then they would arrive at Saul and Sally's, where things would get even worse.
"I can't," Alice repeated. "And, for what it's worth, I've been to Avignon, and there's not a whole ton to do. There's the Papal palace, and the countryside's pretty, but -"
"We aren't going for tourism," Jeffrey interrupted.
"Oh, no!" Clarissa breathily concurred. "We want to meet Sally and her - her family."
Who are you, kidding? Alice stared back. You're so dying to make some real live Hollywood connections, you're ready to hitch up that thong right now and start hiking across the Alps in your platforms. Give me a break. "Well," she said levelly, gesturing across the table. "Of course you could go. I mean, you two."
"Honey, no." Whenever Jeffrey started a sentence like that and ended it by running one hand over his face and through his hair, she knew she had gotten something embarrassingly wrong. "For Christ's sake, Sal would be totally okay with having these guys come and stay any time. But I think they'd feel more comfortable - well, it'd be better if I'm there. It just would."
"Fine, then." Alice answered. "I think you should do whatever you want. I'm keeping to our original plan."
"Why are you getting all mad?"
"Who's mad?" Alice could barely squeeze out the words.
"Fuck it. Forget the whole thing," Jeffrey crammed a triangle of melon into his mouth with such force, juice and pulp sprayed down his chin. He looked down at the egg-streaked plates strewn with fruit rinds and seeds. "We're done, yeah? Let's get the check."
There was just one meal to go, one more dinner that Alice calculated would be her last with Clarissa and Carl and, inflight meals aside, with Jeffrey. His bad mood over the thwarted France plan dissipated and was succeeded by the odd solicitude. At dinner, he made sure she had a view of the sea, and went back to the car for her sweater when it turned cool.
As they pulled into the hotel parking lot, Jeffrey suggested, "Why don't we drop you off, honey? You can get a jump on the packing while I go on with these guys and make a few last calls. Our phone sucks and I should check in with my mom."
Yes, it's been at least 24 hours, Alice thought, squeezing his hand and answering, "Of course, sweetheart."
As she was making a final check of their drawers and the outdoor clothesline, he came in.
"Still awake?"
"Just about there." She pointed to his suitcase, zipped and labeled beside the bed.
"You're amazing. What would I do without you?"
She smiled. "You'd have to start packing your own bags, for one."
"I think I'm going to have one last cigarette."
"I'll sit out with you."
"You don't have to. Why don't you go to bed? You must be dead."
"No, no, I want to. It's our last night." If ever there were an opportunity for Jeffrey to propose, this was it. Below their balcony, the terrace was lit by the flickering reflection of the swimming pool. Alice stared at the sky, drew in her breath and said, "Star light, star bright, first star I've seen tonight. I wish I may, I wish I might, get this wish I wish tonight."
"You already said that," Jeffrey pointed out.
"I did?"
"In the car going to the restaurant."
"But that was hours ago. Between dinner and packing it feels as if we've lived two nights." She was glad it was dark, and that he was staring away from her, one foot on the railing, blowing smoke and watching it float into the darkness. The vacation was over, and so were two years with Jeffrey, and where she had expected sorrow she instead felt anger - at him, for wasting her time, and at herself for doing the same - for spending two years packing bags and finding boarding passes all because she had not recognized when hope curdled to desperation.
They would go through the motions on the way back, holding hands and leaning against one another over the Atlantic. Then they would collect their bags at Kennedy and say good-bye, and get on planes to Washington and Philadelphia. Two days later, a month after her birthday, Jeffrey would call and stammer that he loved her but he didn't think it was a good idea for them to get married. And just as predictably, she would be dignified and dry-eyed. She would reply that she accepted his decision even if it broke her heart. She would not say that he could add an enemy to his list. She would say "I love you," and he would say "I do too, Darling, I think I love you more than I've ever loved anyone before." Then they would hang up, free from one another forever.
And that is exactly what they did.
