Laura Lippman - Every Secret Thing

But Rosalind was in the backseat, so Cynthia drove sedately by, her gaze fixed on Helen Manning. What was it like for an attractive woman to have an unattractive child? Did a good-looking woman ever reconcile herself to having a child whose face did not invite loving coos and fond glances? Of course, Cynthia knew the answer to those questions.

The thought came and went so quickly, she could have pretended never to have had it. But something akin to heartburn fanned out in her upper chest and throat. Cynthia drove miserably home, where she tried to be a little cool to Rosalind for the rest of the afternoon, as if that could compensate for the momentary betrayal of Olivia.

Alice noticed the BMW, but only because it was shiny and big, moving so slowly up the street, and then doing the curious turn and circling back, like someone who was lost. Helen didn’t notice the SUV at all because she was staring with dismay at Alice ’s sunburn-pressing her fingertips into the soft flesh of her daughter’s upper arms, shaking her head at the white marks that appeared.

“A girl with skin like yours should never go out without putting on something with an SPF of 15 or higher,” Helen said. “Now, I have a little olive undercoat to my complexion, even though my hair has so much red in it. In my day, I could lie out with nothing but baby oil on and not get burned. But you have your father’s skin.”

In my day was another Helen-ism, her day being defined, whether she realized it or not, as the months between college graduation and Alice ’s birth. But she almost never mentioned Alice ’s father, in any context, and it gave Alice a rare opportunity.

“What was he like? My father?”

“Handsome. Big-broad-shouldered, very tall. Hair a shade darker than yours.”

This was how Helen always described Alice ’s father, in physical terms, and Alice seldom pressed her for more information.

“I mean, what kind of person was he?”

“Well, very…capable. He was all alone in the world, had been since he was seventeen. An orphan, with no brothers and sisters.” Her mother was always adamant on this point. Her father had no relatives, not even a cousin, that Alice could hope to find. “Strong. If he had gone to college, he might have been an architect. As it was, he built houses, from the ground up.”

“I’d like to be an architect,” Alice said, then realized she was saying this only to test the idea. Once she gave voice to the desire, she knew she’d like nothing less.

Helen continued to press on Alice ’s arms, ghostly fingerprints appearing only to disappear again. Her touch felt unexpectedly good on Alice ’s scorched skin, for her mother’s hands were cool and greasy with the lotion she had applied for her late-afternoon sunbath, a habit of long standing. She would spread her towel in the backyard, near the fence overhung with honeysuckle, between the hours of four and five-never any earlier, and never for a second more than an hour-and always with an exotic drink at her side. Over the years, Helen had fixed herself piña coladas and Mudslides and daiquiris, Cosmopolitans and Appletinis. This summer’s drink was a julep, made with mint that grew wild in the yard. Helen prepared her juleps with a sterling silver muddler, and the preparation of the drink took almost as long as the sunbath.

“Speaking of what you’d like to be,” Helen said, “have you found a job yet?”

“No, but that’s what I’m doing. Looking for a job.”

“I know the economy isn’t as flush as it was, but you sure are having a hard time of it.”

“Yes, I am,” Alice agreed.

She had no intention of finding a job, and had not been looking for one on this hot Saturday. A few weeks back, she had made inquiries at the county’s social services department, which had a job placement program. But she didn’t hear what she wanted to hear, so she left. Alice was, however, following Sharon ’s advice. She walked up to six, seven miles a day, yet she didn’t appear to be losing any weight. She walked morning and night, usually west, until her feet were sore and cracked at the heels. She walked along Frederick Road and ended up at the community college, where she took home course information for the fall semester. She detoured through the pretty old neighborhoods along Frederick Road -Ten Hills, North Bend, Catonsville -and made up stories about the families she saw in the old Victorian houses, with their big porches and cupolas.

Today, she had walked to Westview Mall, drawn by the memory of the G. C. Murphy’s. Alice had loved the old dime store, with its smells of fresh-popped popcorn and wooden floors. She used to buy chocolate-covered peanuts there, and she had never found ones that tasted quite the same, even as her mother brought her Brach’s and Russell Stover’s, Fannie Farmer and See’s on visiting days at Middlebrook. Exasperated, Helen finally told Alice that her memory was playing tricks on her, but Alice trusted her mouth’s insistent recall. G. C. Murphy was long gone, but she had a theory that the dollar store that had taken its place might be the best place to find a similar treat, that the flavor had been captured in the walls, in the floorboards.

She had not headed out with the plan of seeing Ronnie. But she couldn’t forget Helen’s mention of Ronnie’s job, at the bagel place over by Westview. The Ronnie she had known had no talent for routine. The most basic requirements at school-bringing permission slips, milk money-had defeated her. She wondered what Ronnie looked like, how she had changed, if at all. If she saw Ronnie, she might understand what people felt when they looked at Alice. Her mother and Sharon had seen her pretty regularly over the past seven years, so it wasn’t as if they had to adjust to a whole new Alice when she came home. But they acted as if they had, as if they expected a little girl, and didn’t know what to do with this heavyset eighteen-year-old who looked so much older than she was. It wasn’t Alice ’s shape that made her look old so much as the way she moved, dragging her feet as if her legs were swollen. Store clerks called her “ma’am,” and she probably could have gotten served in a bar if she were so inclined. She wasn’t. But seeing Ronnie-yes, seeing Ronnie had a definite allure.

She wasn’t sure what feelings might surge up if she saw Ronnie again. Hatred, of course. Time had dulled that emotion somewhat-Alice’s stomach no longer twisted at the mere thought of Ronnie, and the girl was largely gone from her dreams-but hatred was still there, along with the desire to see her punished, really and truly.

Once, just once, Sharon had come close to saying what Alice needed to hear, but she had said it in the odd roundabout way she used with Alice. This was just a few years ago, when Alice was forced to go back to the chaos of Middlebrook after a year in a smaller, much more pleasant juvenile home. She was upset about leaving the old stone building where she thought she would get to stay until she was eighteen, and in her hurt she had lashed out at Sharon. Why had the law treated Alice and Ronnie as if they were the same kind of girl, guilty of the same things, when everyone should know they were not?

“Well, imagine Ronnie was someone who went swimming and got a cramp,” Sharon began.

“In her stomach or her leg?” Alice asked.

The question seemed to catch Sharon off guard, although it seemed reasonable to Alice. It would make a big difference, where the cramp was. “In her stomach, I guess. And she begins to drown, and you’re swimming nearby, so you go over and try to help her. But sometimes drowning people get panicky and they grab the people who are trying to save them and drag them down, and they both end up drowning.”

“Does it happen a lot?”