by Karma Brown
“Hmm?” Alice stood on her tiptoes, pulling out small boxes and spice bottles. Baking soda. Cinnamon. Check. Cloves? She dragged a hand deeper into the pantry until her fingers pulled out the remaining bottles at the back of the cupboard. Cream of tartar. Another cinnamon. Bingo. Ground cloves. “Oh, we went to that Italian place. On Seventh.”
“Trattoria Dell’Arte?” Nate said. He groaned. “Did you have the lobster carbonara? I miss the lobster carbonara.”
“Um, yes.” She gathered the bottles and boxes and bag of chocolate chips on the counter, reread the recipe, avoided making eye contact with Nate. Worried he’d see her flushed cheeks and awkward smile and realize something was up.
“What are you making?” Nate asked, picking up the bottle of ground cloves, apparently sensing nothing amiss.
“Chocolate chip cookies.” Alice opened drawers to pull out everything else she needed. Bowl. Wooden spoon. Measuring cup. She found a never-before-worn apron in one of the drawers and put it over her head. “Can you grab the butter out of the fridge?”
It was as hard as a rock. She tried pressing her fingertips into its surface, leaving shallow indentations in the foil wrapper as the butter yielded little. “I’ll need to wait for this to soften.”
“You can grate it.”
“Like, with a cheese grater? Really?”
Nate nodded. “A trick I learned from my mom. Works like a charm.”
“Huh, who knew?” She took the cheese grater out of the dishwasher—the only new appliance in the kitchen—and got to work, following the recipe in the cookbook precisely.
“I’ve never heard of putting cloves in chocolate chip cookies,” Nate said, watching her measure and add and stir. “Where did you get the recipe?”
“From that cookbook in the basement.” Alice kept her eyes on the page. “I’m having coffee with Sally in the morning, and I don’t want to show up empty-handed.”
“Look at you, baking cookies from scratch for our elderly neighbor. I think the suburbs are agreeing with you, babe.” Nate was pleased Alice was making an effort, reading into this sudden swing to domesticity from a woman who had previously complained if she had to do more than open a can of soup. He wrapped his arms around her waist from behind and planted a kiss on her neck, murmuring how sexy she looked in the apron.
“If you make me mess up these measurements you’re going to be eating a lot of terrible cookies,” Alice said, shifting away, but affording him a smile.
She pressed the slippery butter against the grater’s sharp holes, careful to keep her knuckles out of the way. “Meant to ask, how did you make out today without your laptop?”
“What?” Nate frowned, focused on his buzzing phone.
“Your laptop. You left it at home?” The grating trick worked beautifully, the shards of butter piling up inside the metal triangle.
“Oh, right.” He scrolled through his screen for a moment, then tucked his phone in his back pocket. “I was in meetings most of the day, but we used Drew’s to study.”
“Do I know Drew?” Alice ran through the faces of Nate’s colleagues but came up blank. She put the grater in the sink and rinsed her buttered fingers under warm water.
Nate shook his head. “She’s only been there for a couple of months.”
“Drew is a woman?”
“Yeah, like Drew Barrymore.”
Alice wiped her still-oily fingers on a piece of paper towel. “Does she look like Drew Barrymore?”
He smirked, swatted at her behind. “No, she does not.”
“Okay, get out of here. I need to finish these cookies before I fall asleep into this grated butter.” It was nearly 11:30 P.M. and Nate had been home for only half an hour, which was typical these days between work and preparing for his upcoming exam.
“Okay, okay,” Nate said, kissing her cheek as he walked by and into the living room. The light went on and the floorboards creaked as he moved through the room, settling onto the couch with his study notebooks.
She scooped the grated butter into the bowl, measured the baking soda, and stirred in the chalky, past-their-prime chocolate chips. As she did her belly fluttered as she thought back to her meeting with Georgia, who was probably still shocked by how much she’d underestimated Alice.
The call from the Wittington Group’s attorney had come a few hours earlier, around dinnertime. Alice was finishing a tomato-and-cheese sandwich alone in the kitchen, as Nate wouldn’t be home until much later. She didn’t answer the call but let it go to voice mail, checking it once she had a glass of wine in hand. The attorney’s message informed her that James Dorian would not be going forward with the lawsuit, and the matter was closed. She left her number, but Alice deleted the message.
Now, hours later, distracted by her internal postmortem about the meeting and her relief about James Dorian, as well as not burning Sally’s cookies, Alice didn’t notice that the chill in the house had abated—her cardigan, resting over the chair at her writing desk, where it had been since the day before, no longer needed.
17
Don’t keep your sweetest smiles and your best manners for outsiders; let your husband come first.
—Blanche Ebbutt, Don’ts for Wives (1913)
Alice
JUNE 12, 2018
Shortly after midnight, moments after the cookies came out of the oven, Alice and Nate had argued. And not just a short-lived and snappish argument, but the sort that makes a couple go to bed in silence with backs to each other, a chasm of purposeful space between them. It started when Nate came into the kitchen to make a coffee, where Alice was transferring the hot cookies to a cooling rack, and let out an irritable sigh.
“What’s up?” Alice asked, glancing up from the cookie tray.
“Nothing,” he said, his tone cagey. “Tired, I guess.”
“Me too,” she replied. “I’m going up the second I get this done.”
“It’s just—” He sighed again, and again Alice moved her focus from cookies to Nate, waiting for him to finish the sentence.
“Aren’t you going to clean up first?” he asked.
Alice looked around the kitchen, at the dough-crusted bowl and butter-oiled grater, the trails of flour. Chocolate chip bag open and spilled next to the spice jars, mixer paddles unwashed and discarded in the sink. Eggshells littering the countertop. The kitchen was a mess, but what difference did it make if she cleaned it up tonight or in the morning? “I wasn’t going to.”
Nate’s jaw tensed, and he nodded before taking out the coffee grinder and beans from the cupboard. But then he made a big show of trying to find space for them on the countertop between the eggshells and flour, and Alice let out a frustrated groan.
She shoved the grinder and beans at him so he was forced to take a step back with them nestled in his arms. Nate stared at her, brow furrowed, as she furiously stacked the dishes in the sink and wet the dishcloth.
He’s overworked, Alice reminded herself. Tired and impatient, and you can easily end this before it goes completely sideways. But she didn’t say anything, pumping liquid soap into the mixing bowl and running the hot water. Tears pricked at her eyes and she pressed her lips together.
“Ali.” Nate put the beans and grinder on the table, rested a hand on her elbow, and tugged gently. “Sorry. I’m just stressed about . . . It doesn’t matter. Tomorrow is fine.”
Tomorrow is fine? Yes, Alice had made the mess, but in Murray Hill Nate would have been just as likely to clean up as Alice (if not more so)—back when neither one of them was keeping tabs, both equal players.
“No, I’m sorry,” Alice said, voice quaking as she spun out of Nate’s touch to put away the chocolate chips, spices, and sugar. “I’ll do better next time.”
“For fuck’s sake,” Nate murmured, pressing his hands to his eyes. Alice felt badly—he was working all day and then spending his evenings
studying. It wasn’t too much to ask for a clean kitchen so he could make a late-night coffee without eggshells and flour and dirty bowls in the way. “What are we even fighting about?”
“I don’t know,” Alice whispered, losing her battle with the tears. But she refused to turn around so Nate could see. Unlike Alice, he had been raised by a stay-at-home mom who continued doing her sons’ laundry long after they left home and had dinner on the table every night by seven. And while he spoke fondly of his childhood and revered his mother for all she had done, Alice—perhaps foolishly—never considered that Nate might expect the same of her.
Nate sat at the table, wrapping the cord around the coffee grinder and closing the bag of beans. “Ali . . . will you look at me, please?”
She didn’t turn her head, and he let out a ragged breath. “It’s fine. I just want to get this done and go to sleep,” she said.
He stayed put for another couple of minutes, watching as she washed and dried the mixing bowl, continuing to ignore his presence, then grumbled, “This is bullshit,” and got up and left the room. Shortly after, Alice, hating herself for letting things escalate but too tired to fix it, went upstairs, and though she hadn’t fallen asleep when Nate joined her two hours later, she kept her eyes tightly closed. In the morning he whispered, “I’m sorry,” into the softness of her neck, and she apologized too, though she didn’t feel much better.
“I just miss you,” she said.
He held her, promised to be home for dinner—he could study afterward—and she promised a great meal “and a clean kitchen,” which made him laugh softly. They were okay, Alice told herself. Then Nate got up to shower and she lay alone in bed, chilly without his body heat, thinking about how a baby would fit in their current life. Nate was never home and Alice was always alone. Like a round peg in a square hole.
* * *
• • •
“There’s something I can’t place. Not cinnamon, I don’t think,” Sally said, taking another nibble of the cookie. “It actually reminds me of my mom’s chocolate chip cookies. I haven’t had one in too many years to count.”
Alice smiled. “You’re tasting the cloves. It’s a recipe from that old cookbook, the one I found in our basement? It has Elsie Swann’s name in it, whoever she was.” Alice took a sip from her mug. Sally made a great cup of coffee. “I’ve cooked a couple of recipes out of it. It’s been sort of fun. I am not a chef and definitely not a baker, but I sort of see the appeal.”
“Nothing beats homemade, Mom always said.” Sally popped the last bite of cookie in her mouth and murmured how delicious it was, adding, “I wonder if Elsie Swann might have been Nellie’s mother. The name does sound familiar, and cookbooks used to be passed down from one generation to another, often as wedding gifts to help the new wives. I’m sure there were many who married completely unprepared.” She brushed a few crumbs from her fingers, then peeked into Alice’s near-empty mug. “Can I give you a warm-up?”
“Please.” While Sally went to fill up Alice’s coffee, she stretched her legs and looked around the living room. There was a photo of a young Sally, her wild curls longer and dirty blond rather than white, standing arm in arm with an older woman who could have been her twin, save twenty-five years or so. Alice glanced at the other photos adorning the hutch and fireplace mantel—all of Sally at various stages of her life and medical career. In one she appeared with a swarm of smiling children standing on a patch of dusty red earth, a note in the corner reading Ethiopia, 1985. In another a young Sally held a framed medical school diploma in her hands and wore a deep blue cap and gown, and in the final one on the mantel she was dressed in what appeared to be a flight suit and bottle-round goggles.
“I went skydiving on a whim,” Sally said, coming to stand beside Alice. “It was in New Zealand, in the seventies, and let’s just say it was an era of spontaneity.”
Alice smiled, then glanced back at the photos. No signs of a family, and she couldn’t help her curiosity. “Did you ever have children?”
Sally shook her head, but there was no sense of melancholy at Alice’s question. “Never even married,” she said. “Not that you need to be married to have children, but no. My work was my child.” She pointed to the picture from Ethiopia. “I spent some time in Africa with Doctors Without Borders in the eighties, and there were so many children who needed care and love, so I put any maternal energy I had into them.”
They sat in the upholstered chairs across from the fireplace. “I might have married if the right man had come along, but I was committed to medicine, and no one was as fascinating or satisfying as that,” Sally said. “How long have you been married?”
“It will be two years October fifteenth.” Alice thought back to the unseasonably warm fall day when she became Mrs. Alice Hale. Remembering as she stood, sweating lightly, in her strapless sheath gown, hair in soft waves held back by glossy pearl pins, feeling beautiful under Nate’s adoring gaze. Things had made a lot more sense back then.
“Do you and Nate hope to have children?”
“Yes. Soon, I think,” Alice said, shrugging. “But the house is taking a lot of energy. And I’m trying to write a novel. Life feels high-maintenance right now, which is crazy because in some ways I have nothing but time.”
Sally watched Alice, ever perceptive. “Ah, you’re young,” she soothed. “Plenty of time for a family. So, tell me about your writing. Is this your first novel?”
“It is. I have to say, I’m not making much progress yet.” A sliver of guilt snaked through Alice. I’ve not written one word, actually. It wasn’t that she hadn’t tried; rather, it was proving more difficult than she’d expected. Turns out writing a book took more than simply wanting to do it.
“A touch of writer’s block?”
“Something like that,” Alice replied. “I’m waiting for a flash of inspiration. Or maybe a muse to show up on my doorstep.”
“Such an interesting vocation, writing. Being able to create a whole world with nothing more than your imagination.” The skin around her eyes crinkled deeply as she smiled. “If I had a single creative bone in my body, I might have considered it after I retired. Everyone needs a hobby for their twilight years.”
“You could still do it. I bet you have a ton of stories from all your years in medicine. Traveling the world. Skydiving on a whim.”
“Ah yes, skydiving. I’m terrified of heights, actually, but I had some help that day. A different sort of brownie—with a special ingredient, if I remember correctly.” Sally chuckled.
At Alice’s age Sally had been traveling the world, saving lives, eating pot brownies before jumping out of a plane—things women typically didn’t do in those days. Shouldn’t Alice be more like the young Sally rather than arguing with her husband about cleaning up the kitchen? “Speaking of writing, I should get back to it. But this has been really nice. Thanks, Sally.”
“Thank you for those delicious cookies. Mine always burn on the bottom.” Sally opened her front door, and Alice gave her a hug, which the older woman returned warmly. “Good luck with your book, Alice. I hope you find your creative muse. Or perhaps she’ll find you.”
* * *
• • •
A few hours later a knock at the door made Alice jump from the couch, where she’d fallen asleep. Elsie Swann’s cookbook was on the coffee table, fanned open to a recipe for Pineapple Chicken Alice was considering for dinner. The pile of Ladies’ Home Journal magazines previously in her lap tumbled to the floor as she stood. She was confused, adrenaline from her sudden wake-up making her heart pump furiously. Shaking off the dizziness, she stepped over the magazines and went to answer the door.
Sally stood on the front stoop, two stacks of envelopes held together with elastic bands in her hands.
“Hi,” Alice said, smoothing down her hair; she hoped she didn’t look too awful. “Come in. Just doing a bit of research. Uh, for my book.
”
“Thank you, but I’m on my way to a tennis lesson.” Sally was dressed in tennis whites, a racket in a carrying bag over her shoulder and a sun visor nestled into her white hair. “But after we chatted about that cookbook you found, I went through some of my mom’s things because the name Elsie Swann sounded so familiar. I thought perhaps she had lived in the house before the Murdochs moved in and that Mother might have had an old picture. It was a very social neighborhood in those days.”
Alice took the stacks from Sally. The envelopes were yellowed with age and flimsy. “I found these on my hunt in the basement. They’re all addressed to Elsie Swann but unopened. The return address is your house, to an E.M., who I’m guessing might have been Eleanor Murdoch?” Alice tilted her head to read the address on the top letter, the cursive writing slanted sharply to the right.
“I’m not sure how Mother ended up with these but thought they might be of interest to you. Might answer some questions about the history of your house.”
The letters all appeared sealed, curiously missing postmarks showing they had been through the mail system. “Thank you, this is great.”
“You’re most welcome,” Sally said.
Alice ran a finger over the address on the top envelope, an unexpected thrill coursing through her. “Are you sure? They were your mom’s . . .” Her voice trailed because she really didn’t want to give them back, suddenly desperate to know what was inside the dozen or so envelopes.
“I certainly have no use for them, dear. They’re yours now.”
Alice smiled. “Maybe there’s a story in here. For my book. Old letters that were mysteriously never mailed?”
“Well, perhaps a muse did show up on your doorstep today,” Sally said. A taxi pulled up to the end of the driveway. “Oh, there’s my ride. I’m off. Happy writing, Miss Alice.”
A few minutes later Alice sat back on the sofa and unwrapped the brittle elastic, which had no stretch left in it, taking the top letter off the first stack. She hesitated briefly, feeling a hint of guilt at reading someone else’s private thoughts—even if that person would never know—but intrigue won out, and she slid her finger under the flap. It released easily, the glue long desiccated. Alice unfolded the two pages of delicate cream paper and began to read.