Alice Bliss (3 page)

Alice is watching her mom and her dad and holding on to her dad’s other hand until Ellie worms her way in and pushes her out of the way. Then she hangs back feeling forgotten.

She wishes she knew what to say, but every phrase that pops into her head sounds stupid or childish. And Matt’s not one for big gestures or big speeches, and he’s definitely not one for spilling his guts at the Greyhound station surrounded by strangers.

Last night Matt gave Alice a map of the Middle East. They put it up on her wall together and put pins in where he’s supposed to be going. Not that anybody knows for sure. Alice wonders how anybody can get things done when nobody knows anything for sure.

And then he’s walking away from them, his duffel slung over his shoulder, his too-short hair bristling out the back of his cap. The backs of their necks, she thinks—the skinny, tense ones and the ones with rolls of fat—they look like kids, like boys, really.

She sprints out of the waiting group and catches up with her dad.

“Dad . . . Dad—”

He stops and lifts her off the ground in a hug. When he sets her down, he slips his watch off his wrist and puts it into her hand. She’s working as hard as she can not to cry. It suddenly seems so important to see him, really see him. He turns away and the wind picks up and the grit of the parking lot blows into their eyes, and Alice thinks desert and Alice thinks land mines and Alice thinks will she ever see her dad, this dad, the way he is right now, full of this life, again?

She stands there watching until every last one of them is on board and the bus begins to back out of its bay.

She turns around to see that some of the families are waving little flags, like the ones you get for the Memorial Day parade. It begins to snow, the heavy, quiet snow that blankets the world in stillness and makes the road surfaces treacherous within minutes.

Angie waves her scarf as the bus drives away. She stands there too long, long after the bus is out of sight, long after the other families have piled into their cars and left. She blows her nose and finally crosses the parking lot to join Ellie and Alice at the car.

“Could you unlock the car please?” Alice asks, shivering.

Angie gives Alice a long, unreadable look.

“It’s
cold
, Mom.”

For once Alice and Ellie do not fight about who gets to sit in the front. The three of them get into the car and it’s way too quiet. Angie pulls the seat forward so she can reach the pedals and reaches up to adjust the rearview mirror. Ellie has brought her recorder along and thinks that now might be a good moment to practice.

“Not now, Ellie.”

“But Mom—”

“Not now!”

Angie backs up and turns and when she reaches the street she doesn’t seem to know which way to go. These hesitations are so unlike her mother, Alice thinks.

Driving down Monroe Avenue, Angie pulls her silk scarf off, rolls down her window, and holds the scarf outside, billowing and snapping in the wind.

“Mom—?”

When Angie lets the scarf go, Alice turns in her seat to watch it float away before it drifts to the snow-covered ground. The car behind them runs over it.

“What did you do that for?”

“I love that scarf! You could have given it to me,” Ellie chimes in.

Angie just keeps driving.

“Mom! It’s cold back here! Close the window!”

“I think . . .” Angie begins and then trails off.

“Mom!” Alice says. “The window!”

“Who wants frozen custard?” Angie asks.

“In this weather? Are you crazy?”

“I do! I do!” Ellie shouts.

Angie makes a sudden U turn, throwing Alice against the door. Alice feels a jolt in the pit of her stomach. The car fishtails in the snow as she tries to grab the door handle.

“Mom! What are you doing?!”

“Can I get jimmies?” Ellie wants to know. “Extra jimmies? A cup full of jimmies?”

Alice is looking at Angie. She is driving way too fast. Angie never drives too fast. And, Alice registers again, she is not wearing her glasses.

“Mom, do you want me to drive?”

“You don’t know how to drive.”

“I think you need to pull over.”

“Why?”

“You need your glasses.”

“I’m
fine.”

“You’re driving really fast and you’re scaring me.”

“And it’s freezing in here!” Ellie adds. “Close the window!”

Angie turns to look at Alice.

“We’re going to Don and Bob’s. We’re getting frozen custard. Then we’re going home.”

“Okay. Okay. Would you just keep your eyes on the road?”

“I sure could use a scarf back here where it’s as cold as the arctic tundra!” Ellie says.

Alice wishes she could laugh.

“Is anybody listening to me? I’m probably catching a terrible cold right this minute. Mom! Earth to Mom! Come in, Mom!”

Angie manages a smile.

“Your window!?”

Angie rolls up her window and turns the heat up high.

“Can I have hot chocolate with my ice cream?” Ellie wants to know.

“You can have whatever you want,” Angie answers.

“Onion rings?”

“At the same time?” Alice makes a face.

“No. Onion rings and a vanilla shake. Then hot chocolate. Then ice cream.”

“You’re gonna be sick.”

“Mom said whatever I want.”

“You’re crazy.”

“I don’t care. That’s what I want.”

They pull into Don and Bob’s, and Angie nearly clips the SUV at the entrance as their car slides a bit on the snow. She gives the fat guy in the front seat a jaunty wave, like we’re all in this crazy weather thing together, aren’t we?

Crossing the parking lot, Angie is tiptoeing through the snow trying not to ruin her new heels. She slips and grabs on to Alice to steady herself.

“Wrong shoes,” she shrugs.

“Yeah,” Alice concedes.

“I was trying to look pretty.”

“Yeah.”

“For Dad.”

“Yeah.”

“He likes heels. He likes a woman in heels.”

“That’s about all I want to know about that, Mom.”

Ellie has run ahead and grabbed a booth. She’s already chatting up the waitress as she shakes the snow from her shoulders and takes off her coat. Alice slides in beside her and picks up the menu.

“I’m ready!” Ellie announces to no one in particular.

“Give me a minute.”

“You know what you’re going to have. It’s what you always, always have.”

“I like to look. Just in case.”

“Just in case what? You turn into another person?”

“Just in case it’s a grilled Reuben kind of day.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. Stick to the tried and true.”

“That could be boring.”

“You’re already boring, Alice.”

“Thanks a lot!”

Alice looks up to see that Angie has her head resting against the back of the booth and her eyes closed. Her long, fine fingers are crossed over her stomach. She looks pale and tired in the fluorescent light. She’s sitting in the middle of the booth as if she can cover up Dad’s absence. Alice checks to see if Ellie has noticed any of this.

“Can we order, already?” Ellie asks.

“Yup.”

Ellie waves to the waitress, who comes right over. Her name tag says “Marge.” Her glasses are incredibly thick and her hair looks like it’s been teased and shellacked with hair spray. Who wears their hair like that anymore?

“Hi, Marge!” Ellie says. “Can I get started with onion rings and a vanilla shake?”

“You bet.”

“I’ll have the classic burger and a root beer, please. Mom? What do you want?”

Angie opens her eyes and sits up. Alice holds out a menu, Angie ignores it.

“Do you have soup?”

“Beef barley or chicken vegetable.”

“Chicken, please. A cup.”

Marge heads off to shout their order to the cooks behind the counter.

“We could play hangman,” Ellie says.

“Okay.”

“Mom, you got a pen?” Ellie asks.

Angie finds a pen in her purse, and Alice fishes her carefully folded geometry homework out of her back pocket. Ellie, Little Miss Genius, instantly takes the pen and thinks up a nine-letter word, drawing the short lines carefully

“Nine letters?”

“You’re never gonna get this one.”

“E.”

Ellie fills in two blanks.

“A.”

Two more blanks.

“Where did you get that?” Angie’s voice is maybe a little sharper than she intended. To Alice it’s coming at her with enough force to induce whiplash.

“My homework?”

“No. Daddy’s watch.”

“What? Do you think I took it?”

“I’m just asking.”

“No, Mom, you’re accusing.”

“I am not!”

“Or insinuating.”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake.”

“He gave it to me.”

“Why didn’t he give it to me?” Ellie wants to know.

“He gave it to you,” Angie says, her voice flat and disbelieving.

“Why don’t you believe me?”

“He didn’t say anything to me about it.”

“Why would he? It’s not your watch.”

“Let’s just drop it.”

“Do you want the watch, Mom?”

“No.”

“Why does Alice always get the good stuff?” Ellie asks.

“Shut up, Ellie.”

Which is when, thank you Marge in the Coke-bottle glasses and the Elvis Presley updo, the food arrives.

Gram, a.k.a. Penelope Pearl Bird, or Penny to her many friends, owns the last remaining café in Belknap. When Grampa died six years ago, Gram sold her house out on Plank Road, bought one of the old Victorians at the Four Corners, moved into the apartment upstairs, and resurrected Belknap’s one and only coffee shop. She roped her sister Charlotte, who was also recently widowed, into helping her. They call it The Bird Sisters and are open for breakfast and lunch, six a.m. to two p.m. Wednesday through Sunday.

Angie was predicting the worst from Day One, thought it would be too much for Gram, thought Gram was throwing her money away. According to Angie, all kinds of dire emergencies were going to crop up, from a leaky roof to poisoning patrons. But Gram would retort that she’s got her son Eddie and her son-in-law Matt for the roof and anything else that involves carpentry, plumbing, or electrical, and as for the food poisoning, Gram says nobody ever died from eggs, toast, and coffee.

And what do you know? Gram has the touch: she’s a savvy businesswoman, and she’s having fun with The Bird Sisters. There is no one in Belknap she hasn’t met. Most people come in at some point or another needing a cup of coffee and someone to listen, which is Gram all over. Some people have taken to calling her the mayor of Belknap.

It was more fun, of course, before Aunt Char died last year. The Bird Sisters closed its doors for a month while Gram worked out whether she could go on without Char. Gram needed time to reassess and recover from that long string of losses: her husband, James; her kid brother, George; her brother-in-law Bobby; and her beloved sister, Char.

Ask Gram about Char and she’ll say, “Oh, Char was the pretty one,” or “Char was the smart one,” like Gram isn’t pretty and smart? But Gram has this open-hearted way with the people she loves. Some people focus on your flaws, but Gram focuses on your best feature, or tells you that she actually, honestly
likes
your supposed flaw. Gram’s highest forms of praise are “He’s a real gentleman,” or “She’s true blue.”

As an example of the loving your flaws thing, Aunt Char was a whistler. She’d even whistle classical music. Drove her husband, Bobby, completely bats, but Gram loved it. She’d brag to customers: “My sister, Charlotte, can whistle Schubert’s ‘Trout Quintet.’ ”

“Just try it,” she’d challenge anybody who laughed.

When Gram reopened she tried to do it all herself, relying on her two short-order cooks, Ginny and Dave, to carry plates now and then. Luckily, Sally Perkins walked in the door one day, ate the best breakfast of her life, so she says, tied on an apron, and never left. Sally’s a divorcée from down by the lake. Her kids are grown but still going through their troubles right in Sally’s neighborhood, sometimes right outside Sally’s backdoor. Her husband’s still in the neighborhood, too. Some people say he’s trying to make amends. Sally says, what that man broke cannot be fixed.

Sally’s a little short and a little stocky, but curvy, too, and she likes to accentuate the positive. She’s also got that bottle blonde, tough broad thing going on. And it’s like she does backward flirting, giving guys such a hard time they can’t believe it, but they keep coming back for more. People from out of town assume Sally and Gram are sisters.

Gram always says, “We’re like sisters, but we’re not the
original
sisters.”

Playing on the Bird theme, Gram has birdbaths and bird feeders galore. There’s suet hanging in the oldest apple tree next to the house, hummingbird feeders stuck to all the windows, and supposedly squirrel-proof feeders hanging from most branches. All the bird activity, especially the hummingbirds, keeps little kids occupied while their parents get to talk. It’s fair to say it’s the most popular place in town, but then again, it’s the only place in town.

Mrs. Piantowski makes all the bread for the restaurant, right out of her own kitchen. Mrs. Piantowski is forty-something years old, has eight kids, and wanted to make a little money on the side. She didn’t really know anything about bread when she sold Gram on this idea, so she started small, just white, wheat, and rye. But Mrs. Piantowski fell in love with bread: Portuguese sweetbread, Finnish Nisu, Swedish limpa rye with caraway and fennel seed and orange rind, anadama, sticky buns, biscuits and scones and on and on. She got her husband to move the fridge into the pantry and install a second double oven. It is a bread adventure with Mrs. Piantowski, and Gram says she’s happy to go along for the ride.