Alice Fantastic

by Maggie Estep

  I rang the bell and was buzzed in. As I climbed up the stairs, Alice’s dog Candy came racing down the steps, wiggling and letting out excited barks. I scooped the small beast into my arms and let her lick my face, a thing I know Alice doesn’t permit.

  “You shouldn’t encourage licking, Mom, most people don’t care for that sort of thing.”

  She was standing at the top of the stairs, hands on her hips, looking down at me. She was wearing navy sweat pants that hung down so far over her narrow hips, I was surprised her pubic hair wasn’t showing. Her long, skinny feet were bare and there was chipped red polish on her toes.

  “Nice to see you too, darling,” I said, reaching the top of the stairs. I deposited Candy on the floor, then kissed my daughter on each cheek.

  “What possessed you to actually warn me you were coming?” Alice inquired as we went inside her apartment.

  “I had to ask you something and wanted to make sure you’d be here.”

  “That sounds ominous.”

  “It isn’t.”

  “So are you going to ask or just keep me in suspense?” Alice sat down on the couch and tucked her feet under her butt.

  “I wonder if you’d come look after the dogs so I can take a vacation.”

  “Vacation?” Alice looked genuinely shocked. “Yes. I need a vacation.”

  She considered this long and hard.

  “Betina and I broke up,” I said, warming myself up for telling her about Joe.

  “I know. Eloise told me. And you’re knocking boots with your neighbor Joe.”

  “Yes,” I said, feeling mildly miffed that I wasn’t getting to tell her myself and that she seemed completely unfazed by my sleeping with a man.

  “I can’t keep track of you and Elo with all your gender switching. I may have curious taste in bed mates, but at least they’re always the same gender.”

  “Don’t feel superior about it. Maybe Eloise and I are just more open.”

  Alice rolled her eyes.

  “Yes, Mom,” she said then, “I’ll watch your unruly hounds so you can go off and shag your neighbor on a beach somewhere.”

  “Don’t make it sound so … so …”

  “Debauched?”

  “Exactly. I’m deeply fond of Joe.”

  “Mother, are you in love with a man?”

  “You’re being callous.”

  “I’m just asking a question. Tell me.”

  “I’ve come to realize I know nothing about love.”

  “You love him,” Alice practically squealed.

  Now it was my turn to roll my eyes.

  “It’s possible,” I admitted.

  Alice looked exceptionally pleased with this bit of information. I wasn’t quite sure why.

  “And what of your man?” I asked.

  “William?”

  “Who’s William?”

  “A guy I met.”

  “What about Clayton? This morning you were wistful and pining for Clayton.”

  “Clayton is in Rikers.”

  “So who is William?”

  She told me. At length. More length than I suppose I really wanted or needed. Graphic details of their lovemaking, of his three cats and his pit bull and his small architectural firm.

  “You’re not listening to me, Mom,” Alice said.

  “Yes I am,” I lied.

  “Am I grossing you out?”

  “Alice, I think it’s nice that you sound genuinely moved by another human being. I admit that I don’t trust it though. You have the most fickle heart of any individual I’ve ever known.”

  “I know,” she said, surprising me with self-awareness. “William does something to me. Something I’m not sure I want done to me. But there’s no question he does it.”

  “You barely know him.”

  “True,” she shrugged. Then frowned. “What’s wrong with you, Mom?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You don’t look that good.”

  “That’s not nice.”

  “You look thin. A little sallow.”

  “I’ve had the flu.”

  “Oh?” She was really scrutinizing me.

  “Nothing to worry about,” I said, trying to look cheerful. “So,” I added, changing the subject, “Arturo has a home and it looks like Chico does too, so it’s only fifteen dogs.”

  “Only and fifteen do not normally go in the same sentence when talking about quantity of dogs, Mom. Anyway, I imagine you’ll be going to the pound on your way out of town to pick up five three-legged pit bulls or something.”

  “No. I’m going to scale down a little.”

  “Really?” Alice looked incredulous.

  I promised that she would only have to care for fifteen, maybe even fewer, depending on exactly when Joe and I ended up taking this vacation of ours. Not that Alice seemed to care. For once, she had made up her mind to help me and there didn’t seem to be many conditions on her providing that help.

  We talked about men, women, and dogs for another half hour and then I kissed my eldest goodbye and went back down to my car. I skipped the planned pedicure as I wasn’t feeling very well and wanted to get back on the thruway, back to Woodstock, back to the trees, the air, the dogs. And Joe.

  Night had come, misty and cool, the many trees around my house rustling like clean sheets. Sue had dropped by, signed the adoption contract, and then whisked Chico off into the sunset. I’d watched the two drive away, pit bull and banker, in love. Eloise had called from Toronto to announce that she’d taken in a German shepherd she’d found in an alley behind the hotel where she was staying with Ava Larkin.

  All was as it should be.

  I settled the dogs in, then went over to Joe’s.

  I found him sitting at the piano. His button-down shirt was rumpled and his hair looked dirty. His glasses were perched crookedly on the tip of his nose.

  “Hi,” he looked up and offered a weak smile.

  “Hi, yourself.” I walked over and kissed him. His lips tasted like coffee.

  He’d been working on a piano piece commissioned by a grande dame who’d been married to a minorly famous but now-dead composer. Lilian, the grande dame, missed having personalized compositions left on her pillow several times a month. Now, nearing the age of ninety, she went around plucking youngish composers from the New York scene, giving them small commissions to write her piano pieces that she then butchered in her overheated living room as her aged friends sat around sipping fruit-flavored liqueur. Joe was one of her favorites and she hired him at least three times a year but became more demanding each time, spending hours on the phone badly expressing what it was she wanted.

  “You look exhausted,” I said, sitting down next to him.

  “I’m drained,” he replied, petting my head.

  In spite of not feeling well, I’d wanted him to ravage me. To put his hands all over my body. To prop me on top of him, to throw me face first on the bed. But that all evaporated now as I felt his exhaustion, and in place of the lust I’d been harboring a few minutes earlier, I felt a gentle tenderness, a desire to be kind to him for a very long time.

  I kissed his neck and offered to make him some food as I was sure he hadn’t eaten anything in hours.

  “That’s okay,” he said softly, “just sit here with me, be with me, restore me.”

  We sat in silence for a few minutes. And then I felt awful. I had been keeping a secret from him. It wasn’t fair.

  “Joe,” I said, looking over at his beautiful, tired face, “there’s something I have to tell you.”

  He looked over at me with an almost hopeful expression, as if he expecting me to reveal some shocking but very good news.

  I felt my heart breaking.

  8. ALICE

  I stumbled out of my mother’s bed, tripped over Timber, the Newfoundland, and went sprawling onto the floor.

  “What happened?” William asked in a groggy voice.

  “I fell,” I said, getting up and fumbling for the bedside lamp.


  Timber was blinking up at me but seemed completely unharmed. My knee was throbbing and I’d probably have a bruise. It was the least of the indignities that had befallen me in the four days that I’d been dog sitting for my vacationing mother. Ira, her three-legged hound who was experiencing separation anxiety, had peed on me, the house’s water heater had exploded, and Mom’s ex-girlfriend had shown up in the yard, naked. But I’d dealt with these various horrors and, to soothe myself, invited William up. I hadn’t seen much of him in the few weeks since we’d first slept together. In that time, I had been on a vicious losing streak at the track, Clayton had been in a fight at Rikers and lost half a finger, and Candy had contracted giardia, an intestinal ailment that gave her intense diarrhea. I’d actually been glad to escape to my mother’s house atop a small mountain, gladder still when William had agreed to come up.

  “Are you all right?” William asked.

  “Fine. I’ll probably have a bruise, but I’m fine.”

  “You look beautiful,” he said, propping up on one elbow.

  I squinted at him like he was a lunatic. Then I looked down at myself and realized I was wearing a slinky red nightgown. I’d found it hanging on a hook in the bathroom and had to assume it belonged to my mother. I’d never known her to own such a garment, but then again, I hadn’t known her to sleep with men either.

  “Thank you,” I said, staring at William. He was naked, lolling there comfortably in spite of the slight wings of fat around his middle. I’m not a naked person. There’s nothing wrong with my body. People seem to like it, and I don’t particularly mind it, but I’ve always felt weird walking around with my ass hanging out. I wear nightgowns or pajamas to bed. I do enjoy skinny-dipping, but you won’t find me at a nudist colony.

  “Why don’t you get back into bed?” William asked.

  “I have to pee.”

  “Hurry,” he said.

  For what? I wondered. Though William was very pleasing in bed, he wasn’t one of those prodigal lovers, like Clayton, for example, who, when things had been going reasonably well between us, wanted me in the morning, in the afternoon, outdoors, in my sleep, in the back of his van, etc.

  I went into the hall and to the bathroom. I shut the door, turned on the light, and started running water in the sink. I didn’t actually need to pee or wash my hands or face but I did need the white noise of running water to help me think. I was deeply confused. On one hand, I missed Clayton, but this missing seemed to have been engendered by his imprisonment, which might indicate that I am more emotionally ill than I ever suspected. On the other hand, there was William, reaching parts of me I didn’t know existed. He disturbed and excited me on a molecular level. I liked his mind, I liked the intense and intimate sex, I even liked his dog, Gumdrop. I was in deep and I don’t like to be in anything deep other than a Pick 6 carryover at Belmont Park.

  I turned off the faucet and left the bathroom.

  I tiptoed over Timber and climbed under the sheets. William had fallen back asleep. I lay on my side and stared at him. He didn’t look idiotic in sleep. His wide, pale face was relaxed, his mouth was slack, but he wasn’t drooling or doing anything disgusting, though I knew the disgusting was inevitable. Bathroom doors left open, stinky socks left strewn, drooling, belching, farting, general loss of inhibition. But I was actually contemplating the disgusting with William. William who I’d slept with just three times so far. William who I really didn’t know or trust but possibly wanted to know and trust. It was too much to deal with. I closed my eyes and counted horses.

  I opened one eye and peered at William. He was still sleeping. I touched his face. He stirred a little, let out a sigh. I started kissing his chest then biting his stomach. He came to life. Reached for my hips and hoisted me on top of him. I ground my body into his, then pushed forward, wanting to get closer and then closer still. I came like that, sprawled on top of him.

  I started to wiggle off but he kept me there. He wasn’t done with me.

  I hoped he never would be.

  Forty minutes later, William had gotten out of bed, showered, turned on his cell phone, cursed the lack of reception, and announced he had to go.

  “Go?” I said. “What do you mean go? Go where?”

  “I have to get back,” he said, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. Even though it was Saturday and I couldn’t imagine what might be so pressing for an architect on a Saturday.

  “Oh?” I said, looking him over head to toe, trying to read his face, his body, his mind. What the fuck?

  We hadn’t talked about how long he’d stay, but I’d envisioned two nights. And now I was upset. At him for wanting to leave, and myself for not wanting him to.

  I imagined my face was long, a little sullen looking, his cue to interject something like, I wish I didn’t have to go.

  He said nothing though, just put his toiletries kit into his overnight bag. The bag looked full, as if he’d planned to stay more than one night but had changed his mind.

  “Walk me to my car?”

  “Sure,” I shrugged. I felt all my hopes shrivel up and trot off to a corner to die. I watched William as he put his bag into the backseat of his ancient Saab.

  “Okay, bye,” I said, giving him a hard look.

  He put one hand under my chin and tilted it up. With the other hand, he brushed a strand of hair out of my eyes.

  He kissed me very softly. I was stiff at first, then melted into the kiss. Just as I was about to suggest we return to bed, he pulled back.

  “See you soon,” he said. He got into his car, put it into reverse, and backed out of the driveway.

  I stared after him, expecting him to turn around and come back.

  He did not.

  I went into the house and wandered from room to room, dogs following me as I went. I was restless. Surprised. Angry. I wanted to smash something. But I couldn’t smash my mother’s things.

  For the first time, I really noticed my mother’s deranged color scheme, the walls painted orange in one room, lime-green in the next, but all of it somehow actually working. It was a lovely house, I realized, one filled with my mother’s relentless spirit.

  I wandered back into the bedroom where the bed was still rumpled. Ira, the three-legged hound, jumped onto the bed and looked at me with huge brown eyes. He was soon joined by Harvey. They were willing me to pull myself together and take them out. But I felt lifeless and broken.

  I shuffled into the bathroom and glanced at myself in the mirror. I’d expected worse. My hair wasn’t plastered to my head with grease and, for once, my face was free of blemishes.

  I idly opened the medicine cabinet because medicine cabinets are always an interesting glimpse into the physical secrets of a house’s inhabitants. Do they have headaches? Diarrhea? Itching? Something more ominous like a psychiatric disorder? I didn’t know these sorts of details about my mother.

  I’m not sure what I expected, but it wasn’t what I found. The cabinet was chock full of prescription drugs. I didn’t know what half of them were, but the other half were painkillers. Were they Betina’s or was my mother working some local quack for opiate prescriptions? I examined a bottle of Oxycontin; Mom’s name was on it. The prescription date was recent. Take 1–2 every six hours for pain as needed.

  This explained my mother’s looking thin and drawn.

  I slammed the medicine cabinet door shut. I felt my stomach knotting up. I had met some of Mom’s Narcotics Anonymous friends but it’s not like I had their phone numbers to call and ask if she was on a relapse. Eloise probably didn’t know any more than me and was still away somewhere with her movie star lover. My stomach knotted tighter. The dogs were swarming around me now, some whining softly, some just staring at me. Harvey grabbed the corner of a towel, pulled it off the towel rack, and engaged Lucy, the Ibizan hound, in a game of tug.

  I sat down on the closed lid of the toilet and put my face in my hands. I probably should have cried but tears wouldn’t come.

 
Harvey licked my bare foot. Candy put her front paws on my knee, and when I looked up from under my veil of hair, I saw that she was staring at me imploringly.

  “All right,” I said, slowly getting to my feet, “all right.”

  I stuffed my pockets with dog treats and shuffled into the kitchen. I put half the animals out on the sun porch where there were many beds and bowls of water and nothing to destroy. I shooed the other half outside and into my mother’s van, where Candy reluctantly shared the front passenger seat with Carlos, the toothless Chihuahua.

  I headed down Byrdcliffe Road toward Bearsville and Rabbit Hole Road. I know my mother takes the dogs there as a special treat and I remembered the time she had forced Eloise and me to go there for a mildly arduous hike involving several crossings of a raging creek.

  It was a winding road with a swollen rushing creek on one side, pretty farmhouses on the other. I pulled into the dirt parking lot near the trailhead and unloaded the animals. I unleashed the dogs who would come back when called, and proceeded onto the trail, my arm nearly pulled from its socket by Rosemary, a German shepherd who wished dismemberment upon all squirrels.

  We reached the first creek crossing, and while the water wasn’t as high as I remembered, hopping from rock to rock still looked like a precarious operation. I had put on a pair of Mom’s hideous Teva sandals, the kind of sensible footwear designed for this sort of thing, but the rocks in the creek were mossy and looked slippery. I pictured sliding into the water, losing control of Rosemary, and possibly cracking my skull open.

  As I stood studying the rushing creek and breathing in the clean, sweet air, I suddenly choked up and tears came. I felt weak and squatted down on my haunches. Rosemary, sensing something, had grown perfectly still, as had the other two leashed dogs. Even some of the loose ones had hopped back across the creek and come to stand near me. The pack seemed to realize that the human was having a meltdown. This somehow made it worse. I wept.

  I was lost inside myself when Rosemary pivoted her head and let out several sharp barks. I turned around and there, amazingly, was my sister, Eloise. She looked more beautiful than I’d ever seen her. She was wearing loose-fitting gray pants and a flowing white blouse. She was barefoot. She still had the hitch in her step but now it just seemed to add to the regalness of her bearing.