What Alice Forgot (37 page)

Yet it seemed as though her friendship with Gina had been a significant part of her life.

And then Gina had died and she’d been “devastated.” It made Alice feel sort of silly. As if she’d made too big a fuss over something.

The sound of the motorbike got closer.

Goodness. It was coming up her driveway. Was this “L”?

Alice wiped a hand across her mouth and put the plate down on the step next to her.

A man in a black leather jacket, his face invisible behind his opaque black helmet, lifted a casual gloved hand in greeting as he pulled up in front of her. He stopped the bike and turned off the ignition.

“Hey there,” he said, as he pulled off his helmet and unzipped his jacket.

“Hey,” said Alice, and coughed because she’d never said “Hey” to anyone before. He was so handsome, it was like a joke. He was all broad shoulders, biceps, piercing eyes, and stubbled jaw. Alice found herself looking around for another woman. There was no point in such a gorgeous man without a friend or sister there so you could exchange glances.

Surely, she wasn’t
dating
him as well? It wouldn’t be possible. He was way out of her league. He was a cartoon character. She felt a wave of giggles rising in her chest.

“What are you doing eating just before a session?” asked the sex god.

“A session?” asked Alice. Her mind raced. Oh, my Lord, maybe he was a
gigolo
and he was here to
service her
. After all, she was a middle-aged woman with a swimming pool.

“That’s not like you.”

He pulled off his leather jacket and his white T-shirt rode up to reveal his stomach.

Well, it wouldn’t be the end of the world.

No sirrreee. If she’d paid in
advance
, for example . . .

Alice began to giggle helplessly.

He smiled warily. “What’s the joke?” He rested his helmet on the front of his bike and walked over toward her. What could she say?
You’re so good-looking, I find it hilarious.

She was giggling so hard her legs felt weak. He looked frightened. For heaven’s sake. Attractive people were still real. They had feelings. Alice took a hold of herself.

“I had an accident,” she said, looking up at him. “Last week. At the gym. Hit my head. I’m suffering a bit of memory loss. So, I’m sorry, I don’t know who you are, or, ah, why you’re here.”

“You’re kidding.” He looked down at her suspiciously. “It’s not April Fools’ Day, is it?”

“No,” sighed Alice. Her giggles drifted away. She had a bit of a headache actually. Damned head. “I don’t know who you are.”

“It’s me,” he said. “Luke.”

“I’m sorry, Luke. I need more information.”

He laughed a bit, and his eyes darted around nervously as if someone might be watching him make a fool of himself. “I’m your personal trainer. I come every Monday morning to give you a training session.”

Oh, for heaven’s sake. No wonder she was so skinny.

“So, we exercise, is that right? What do we do exactly?”

“Well, we vary it. A bit of cardio, some weights. We’ve been doing well with the interval training lately.”

Alice had no idea what he was talking about.

“I just had three pieces of custard tart,” she said, holding up the plate.

Luke sat down next to her and helped himself to the last piece of tart. “Yeah, I won’t tell you how many calories you just consumed.”

“Oh, thousands!” said Alice. “Thousands of divinely delicious calories.”

He gave her an odd look, and said, “Well if you’ve got a head injury, I suppose we shouldn’t be training today.”

“No,” said Alice. She didn’t want to exercise in front of him. The very thought made her feel self-conscious. “I’ll still pay, of course.”

“That’s okay.”

“No, no, I insist.”

“Well, let’s just make it a hundred.”

Geez. What did he normally charge?

“So, this memory thing is just temporary, I assume?” he said. “What do the doctors say?”

Alice waved him away irritably. She didn’t want to talk to him about that.
One hundred dollars!
“How long have you been my personal trainer?”

Luke stretched out his long legs and leaned back on his elbows. “Oh, wow, it must be coming up to three years now. You and Gina were, like, maybe my second-ever clients. Bloody hell, she made me laugh in the beginning. Remember the fuss she made whenever we did the stairs down at the park?
Not the stairs, Luke, anything but the stairs.
She got pretty good, though. You both got so fit.” He stopped talking and Alice realized with a start that he was trying not to cry.

“Sorry,” he said in a muffled voice. “It’s just that I never knew anyone who died before. It sort of freaks me out. Every time I come over to train you, I think of her. I mean, obviously you miss her so much more than me. Probably sounds stupid.”

“I don’t remember her,” said Alice.

Luke looked at her, shocked. “You don’t remember
Gina
?”

“No. I mean—I know she used to be my friend. And I know she’s dead.”

“Wow.” He seemed lost for words. Finally he came up with one. “Freaky.”

Alice stretched her neck from side to side. She felt a strong desire to eat or drink something quite specific, except she couldn’t work out what it was. Frankly, it was making her feel quite irritable.

“Luke,” she said snappishly. “Did I ever talk to you about Nick?”

If she was paying him one hundred dollars for a chat, she might as well gather some useful information.

He smiled, revealing chunky white teeth. He was a walking multivitamin advertisement. “You and Gina were always trying to get the male perspective from me on your marriage problems. I’d say, ‘Hey, girls, I’m outnumbered here!’ ”

“Yes,” said Alice. She was surprised at just how very, very irritable she was feeling. “It’s just that I don’t remember why Nick and I are splitting up.”

“Oh,” said Luke. He flipped over on his stomach and started doing push-ups on the top veranda step. “I remember once you said that in the end your divorce all came down to one thing. I went home and told my girlfriend that night. I knew she’d be interested.”

He put one arm behind his back and started doing his push-ups on one hand. Was that really necessary?

“So . . .” said Alice, as he switched arms with a grunt. “What was that one thing?”

“I can’t remember.” He flipped back over and grinned at the expression on Alice’s face. “You want me to call her?”

“Could you?”

He pulled out a mobile phone from his pocket and pushed a button.

“Hey, babe. Yeah, no, nothing’s wrong. I’m just with a client. Do you remember I told you that lady said her divorce was caused by one thing? Yeah, no, I just want to know, what was that one thing?”

He listened.

“Really? You’re sure? Okay. Love ya.”

He hung up and looked at Alice. “Lack of sleep.”

“Lack of sleep,” repeated Alice. “That doesn’t make much sense.”

“No, that’s what my girlfriend said, but I remember Gina seemed to understand.”

Alice sighed and scratched the side of her face. She was sick of hearing about Gina. “I’m feeling really grumpy. I need chocolate or . . . something.”

“You probably need to see your dealer,” said Luke.

“My dealer?” What next? Was she a drug addict? Did she drop the kids off at school and then go home and snort a few lines of cocaine? She must be! How else did she know this drug-addict sort of terminology, like “snort a few lines”?

“The coffee shop. Your body is screaming for a flat white.”

“But I don’t drink coffee,” said Alice.

“You’re a caffeine junkie,” said Luke. “I never see you without a takeaway coffee in your hand.”

“I haven’t had a coffee since my accident.”

“Have you had a headache?”

“Well, yes, but I thought that was the injury.”

“It was probably the caffeine withdrawal as well. This might be a good opportunity to give it up. I’ve been trying to get you to cut back for ages.”

“No,” said Alice, because now the desire she’d been feeling had a label. She could smell coffee beans. She could taste it. She wanted it right now. “Do you know where I get my coffee?”

“Sure. Dino’s. According to you, they do the best coffee in Sydney.”

Alice looked at him blankly.

“Next to the cinema. On the highway.”

“Right.” Alice stood up. “Well, thanks.”

“Oh. We’re done? Okay.” Luke stood up, towering over her. He seemed to be waiting for something.

Alice realized with a start that he wanted his money. She went inside and found her purse. It was physically painful to hand over two fifty-dollar notes. He actually wasn’t that good-looking at all.

Luke’s huge hand closed cheerfully around the cash. “Well, I hope you’re back to yourself next week, eh? We’ll do a killer session to make up!”

“Great!” beamed Alice. She
paid
this man over a hundred dollars to tell her how to exercise each week?

She watched him roar out of the driveway and shook her head. Right. Coffee. She looked at the step where Luke had done his push-ups and suddenly she was down on her hands and knees, palms flat, body horizontal, stomach muscles pulled in hard, and she was bending her elbows and bringing her chest smoothly down toward the step.

One, two, three, four . . .

Good Lord, she was doing push-ups.

She counted to thirty before she collapsed, her chest burning, arms aching, and yelled, “Beat that!” as she looked around triumphantly for someone who wasn’t there.

There was silence.

Alice hugged her knees to her chest and looked at the For Sale sign across the road.

She had a feeling the person she’d been looking for was Gina.

Gina.

It was very strange to miss a person she didn’t even know.

Chapter 24

Elisabeth’s Homework for Jeremy

Well, I don’t know, you seemed a bit grumpy this morning. Is that allowed? Are therapists allowed to have feelings? I don’t think so, J. Save them for your own therapy sessions. Not on my time, buddy.

I really wanted a bit more praise when I showed you how many pages I’d written for my homework. Couldn’t you tell that, as a therapist? I mean, I know you’re not meant to read it, but the reason I brought along my notebook was so you could say something like “Wow! I wish all my clients were as committed to this process as you!” Or you could have said what nice handwriting I had. Just a suggestion. You’re the one who is meant to be good with people. Instead you just looked a bit taken aback, as if you didn’t even remember asking me to do the homework. It always bugged me when teachers forgot to ask for the homework they’d set. It made the world seem undependable.

Anyway, today, you wanted to talk about the coffee shop incident.

Personally, I think you were just curious about it. You were feeling a bit bored for a Monday morning and thought it might spice things up.

You seemed quite testy when I said I preferred to talk about Ben and the adoption issue. The customer is always right, Jeremy.

This is what happened in the coffee shop, if you must know.

It was a Friday morning and I’d stopped in at Dino’s on the way to work. I was having a large skim cappuccino because I wasn’t pregnant or in the middle of the cycle. There was a woman at the table next to me with a baby and a toddler about two years old.

A little girl. With brown curly hair. Ben has brown curly hair. Well, actually, he doesn’t because he gets it cut really close to his head like a car thief but I’ve seen photos from before we met. When I used to imagine our children I always gave them brown curly hair like Ben’s.

So, there was that, but she wasn’t particularly cute or anything. She had a dirty face and she was being sort of whiny.

The mother was talking on her mobile phone and smoking a cigarette.

Well, she wasn’t smoking a cigarette at all.

But she
looked
like a smoker. That sort of thin, edgy face. She was telling someone a story on the mobile phone that was all about how she put someone in their place and she kept saying, “It was just
too
funny.” How can something be too funny, Jeremy?

Anyway, she wasn’t watching the little girl. It’s like she forgot the child even existed.

Dino’s is on the Pacific Highway. The door is always being opened and closed as people come in and out.

So I was watching the little girl. Not in a weird, obsessive infertile way. Just watching her, idly.

The door opened to let in a Mothers’ Group. Prams. And mothers.