“Oh darling,” said Frannie, and when Alice looked up and saw the utter sympathy on her grandmother’s face, she knew it had been far more than just a kiss.

How could you, Nick? She wouldn’t throw her arms around him on Sunday night. She would beat closed fists against his chest. How could he make her feel so safe in their relationship, so smug, so comfortable—and then maliciously rip it all away? Make her look like a fool?

Still, Hillary was prepared to stand by her man while his se**n stains on another woman’s dress were analyzed. Poor old Hillary.

It occurred to Alice that the whole Monica Lewinsky affair must be ten-year-old news now. She wondered if Hillary’s marriage had survived.

The phone rang.

Alice stood up automatically and went to answer it.

“Hello?”

“Alice? Kate! I’ve just been doing a million things at once and I’ve only just now picked up your sister’s messages! I was so worried when I saw you at the gym yesterday morning, I’ve been telling everybody, and I meant to call you, but I’m just run off my feet right now, as you well know, and then Melanie said she saw you laughing in a car at the traffic lights at Roseville, so I thought, Phew, she’s okay! But now, your sister says you’re possibly not well enough to host the party?”

Alice recognized the terribly cultured voice. It was the sleek blond woman she’d seen at the gym before she’d been sick all over George Clooney’s shoes.

“Ah,” said Alice.

“Of course, normally I’d say no problem! Have it here! In an instant! But what with the renovations, and Sam’s mother staying with us, it’s just literally, physically impossible. I mean, you don’t have to do a thing tonight, you really don’t, if you’ve still got a bit of a headache. I’ll take care of everything. I have to admit I haven’t been feeling that well myself, but I’ll be all right, just a touch of the flu. Melanie said to me, ‘You’re a superwoman, Kate, how do you do it?’ And I said, ‘Well, no, Melanie, not a superwoman, just an exhausted woman trying to do what she can.’ Sam says I just need to learn to say no and stop putting myself out for everyone, but I can’t help it, I’ve always been that sort of person. Anyway, as I say, if your head is aching, I promise you can just put your feet up tonight, and we’ll all rush around and bring you drinks. I mean, it’s not like you have to cater or anything.”

A strange inertia had crept over Alice as Kate spoke. Was this woman really her friend? Alice couldn’t imagine wanting to talk to her for more than five minutes. She’d take Jane Turner’s brisk snippiness any day over this woman’s prissy sweetness with its razor-sharp edges.

She said, “Oh, okay, fine.”

Who cared if hundreds of strange people turned up on her doorstep tonight? Her life was a nightmare and she may as well let it continue on its nightmarish way.

“We don’t need to change it, then? Well, thank goodness. I knew I could rely on you! I had thought to myself your sister probably had it wrong. She’s the bad-tempered career woman with all the infertility problems, isn’t she? I guess she just has no inkling what a mother can do when she has to! All right, I must dash, and I’ll look forward to seeing you tonight. All right! Bye!”

The line went dead. Alice slammed down the phone so hard, the cradle shook. How dare that horrible woman speak about Elisabeth like that? She thought about the way Elisabeth’s face had caved in when she talked about the baby’s heartbeat and she wanted to punch that woman’s elegant nose.

“Is everything okay?” said Frannie.

But did that mean Alice had been complaining to Kate Harper about Elisabeth? “Alice?”

There was an old-lady quaver in Frannie’s voice. Alice suddenly saw her as a stranger would: tiny and frail.

She pulled herself together. She was nearly thirty—whoops, forty—years old. She couldn’t go and sob in her grandmother’s lap anymore.

“Everything is fine,” she said. “I told Kate Harper we could still have the party here.”

“You did?” Her mother had walked back into the room, followed by Roger. “Are you sure you’re up to it?”

“Oh sure,” said Alice. “Sure. Why not?”

“She’s remembering Gina,” said Frannie.

“Oh, darling,” said Barb, while Roger’s face contorted into a horrendously mournful expression which was meant presumably to convey sympathy.

Apparently Roger had affairs when he was married to Nick’s mother. “I’m afraid my ex-husband was something of a philanderer,” Nick’s mother had once told Alice with a delicate sigh, and Alice had been impressed at the way she could make even a cheating husband sound elegant and expensive.

Was Roger cheating on her mother now?

Maybe it wasn’t so surprising that Nick had turned out to be a cheat, too. Wasn’t there some old proverb about the orange not falling far from the tree? She should say that to Roger, look him straight in the eye and say sneeringly, “So, Roger, I see the orange doesn’t fall far from the tree.” But knowing her, she’d get it wrong and nobody would understand what she was trying to say. “What do you mean, darling?” her mother would say, brightly interested, spoiling the moment.

And actually, she had a funny feeling it was meant to be an apple, not an orange. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. She felt a hysterical giggle rise in her throat. She was such an idiot. “Oh, Alice,” they would all say.

“Alice?” said her mother. “Do you want a cup of tea? Or a painkiller?”

“Or a drink?” Roger furrowed his brow. “A brandy?”

“Oh, the last thing she needs is alcohol, Roger,” snapped Frannie.

“I’m fine,” said Alice.

She would think about all this later, when Roger wasn’t there pulling his grotesquely sympathetic expressions.

She didn’t care how much her world had changed. Apple or orange, Nick was absolutely nothing like his father.

Elisabeth’s Homework for Dr. Hodges Alice gave me such an imploring look, I almost considered canceling my lunch, but it wasn’t like I was leaving her alone with Roger-Dodger. That’s what Ben calls him. It suits him.

Anyway, I didn’t want to get into a conversation about Gina. My feelings about Gina are complex. Or maybe childish is a more appropriate word.