* * *
—
All three of the children, even David, knew that their mother hated to cook. She claimed she loved to cook, but what she meant was, she loved to make desserts. And her desserts were the fancy kind: not cookies or chocolate pudding but delicate pastry cornucopias filled with sweetened whipped cream, and towering structures of meringue studded with candied violets. Things she’d served in her youth to her gentleman callers, Alice surmised. Beautiful to look at, but not what her children wanted to eat.
Or Robin, either, although he never admitted it. He would say, of some lacy concoction, “Why, honey! How did you do that?” But he wouldn’t have more than a sample spoonful of it.
This meant that Alice took on more of a role in the kitchen than most girls her age. She opened a can of Dinty Moore or boiled some frankfurters, to begin with, but gradually she moved on to simple casseroles and then to recipes from Woman’s Day or the food page of the newspaper—dishes with “Espagnol” in their names or “à la Fran?aise.” “Oh, why, sweetheart!” her father would say, poor man. “Did you fix this?” He was a meat-and-potatoes guy himself. But she knew he was grateful to her for pitching in.
For their first supper at the lake—Mercy not back from sketching yet, David cranky with hunger—Alice heated some tinned corned beef hash and topped it with grated cheddar and a sprinkle of chives from a bottle she’d found in the cupboard. （Previous renters had left all manner of odds and ends behind—jams and dried beans and barbecue sauces and various mysterious cans that she looked forward to exploring.） She sliced up several farm-stand cucumbers and doused them in a mixture of Mazola and cider vinegar. David, meanwhile, begged for something to hold him over. Crackers, cookies—“Anything!” he said dramatically, but then turned down the slice of cucumber she offered.
“Where’s your mother?” her father asked her. It was a constant refrain of his: “Where could she be?”
Alice said, “Still out sketching. Let’s start without her.” Then she slapped plates on the table, and counted out silverware, and raced around hunting napkins till she realized they’d forgotten to bring any and started tearing off sections of paper toweling instead.
Alice often liked to imagine that a book was being written about her life. A narrator with an authoritative male voice was describing her every act. “Alice sighed” was a frequent observation. “Go call Lily for supper,” she told David, and David said, “She’s not here,” and Alice said, “Where is she?” and David said, “She went off with a boy.”
“Alice sighed heavily,” the narrator said.
* * *
—
It was true that Lily was off with a boy. Trent, his name was; apparently they’d met when she happened to stroll past his family’s lake house. She showed up with him toward the end of the meal. By that time Mercy was back from sketching, pine needles clinging to the folds of her skirt, and the four of them were starting in on their butter brickle ice cream. “Where have you been?” Alice asked Lily, while their mother sat up straighter and sent Trent an extra-bright smile. He was a handsome, heavy-browed boy in a U of Maryland T-shirt, and Alice figured him to be several years older than Lily. Lily said, “This here is Trent, and him and me are going to this burger place in town so I won’t be needing supper.”
“Isn’t that nice!” Mercy said, at the same time that Robin asked, “How’re you getting there?”
“Oh, Trent has a car,” Lily told him.
“You a safe driver, son?”
Lily said, “Daddy!” but Alice thought he was right to ask, and also she didn’t like the prompt, easy way Trent answered him. “Yes, sir, an excellent driver,” he said. Something smarmy about him, Alice thought. Robin, though, said, “Okay, then, I guess. Don’t keep her out too late,” and Lily gave a twiddly wave with just her fingertips and the two of them left.
It always puzzled Alice, how the boys would flock to Lily. Oh, she was pretty enough, in a round-faced, dimply sort of way, but that didn’t explain why they grew so alert when she walked into a room. It seemed she gave off some kind of high-pitched signal that only male ears could detect. （Grown men as well as boys. Alice had noticed more than one friend’s father sending Lily that same sharp arrow of awareness.） Alice herself was asked out only on occasion, only for official events like school dances. She knew she lacked Lily’s powers of attraction. She wasn’t even sure she wanted them. （She really disliked the look of that Trent guy.）