“Maybe?” Alice said uncertainly.
“How else are we to get to know each other if we don’t ask questions?”
“Some questions are rude.”
“And was it rude to ask me why I choose to live alone?” Madeline stared expectantly at Alice in anticipation of her response.
“Maybe?” Alice said again.
“My dear, for someone whose reputation as a decisive writer precedes her, I would have expected you to carry yourself with more certainty.”
Again Alice was tempted to ask where she had heard about Alice’s reputation. If Madeline hadn’t told her the first time, she wasn’t going to divulge a name now. It didn’t really matter anyway. Alice was here. She wanted to be here. She wanted to know why Madeline had summoned her.
“I’m finding myself on unfamiliar ground,” Alice admitted.
“By all means then, let us make ourselves more familiar.” With that, Madeline wiped her mouth with a black linen napkin and pushed her chair away from the table. When she stood, her stomach was distended slightly below her waistband. “Shall we retire to the parlor?”
Alice reached to clear her plate.
“Leave it,” Madeline said.
“Please, let me help you,” Alice insisted, holding on to the plate.
Madeline rested her hand on Alice’s wrist and gave it a gentle squeeze. Her fingers were alarmingly cold. “You will, dear, but not with the dishes. Besides, Poirot and Ripley would be furious with me if I didn’t let them have last grazing privileges.”
Alice followed Madeline through a hidden door beside the banquet into a parlor. There, she saw Poirot, lounging on a settee beside another Persian; she assumed this was Ripley.
“Believe It or Not?” Alice asked, pointing to the fat white cat. Madeline looked confused until Alice added, “Ripley’s?”
Madeline laughed. “Tom Ripley. Quite possibly the best character in fiction.”
Of course. Alice loved Patricia Highsmith’s Ripley novels. How could she have made such a silly mistake?
“You’re a reader?” Alice said excitedly.
Madeline sat in one of two armchairs beside a fire that was already blazing when they’d entered the room. Alice plopped into the other.
“You have to be a reader, living as I do.” Madeline followed Alice’s eyes around the spacious room, which was covered in oil paintings of landscapes more pastoral than the dense woods that surrounded Madeline’s home. The room was sparsely furnished, just the settee and the two armchairs, a large Persian rug covering the expanse of the redwood floor. Alice saw no books other than one on the coffee table entitledCabin Life, resting beside a tray holding a pot of tea and shortbread cookies with jam in the middle. Alice’s favorite.
“You’re wondering where my books are. Always judge a person by their books, isn’t that right?” Alice shrugged. She didn’t want to appear snobbish. Madeline laughed again. She had a glorious, airy laugh. Like a child’s. “The library’s upstairs.”
Alice waited for Madeline to offer her a tour. Instead she poured Alice a cup of tea. At last, the promised tea.
“So, Alice.” Madeline leaned back, nearly disappearing in the tall, voluminous chair. “Tell me a story about your childhood.”
“My childhood?”
“Your clients don’t ask you about yourself? How are you to get to know me if I don’t get to know you? How we describe our childhood reveals more about us than our present selves.”
Alice took a sip of tea, discovering it too hot to consume. It scalded her tongue. She forced herself not to flinch. She set the cup down and selected one of those jam-filled cookies, nibbling on a corner as she asked, “What does your childhood say about you?”
Madeline tsked then took a sip of tea, evidently unafflicted by its temperature. “Nice try, but we’re talking about you.”
Alice almost protested. This wasn’t about her. It was about Madeline. Only she found herself wanting to make Madeline understand what it meant for Alice to be here, to have confronted that stretch of road.
Alice swallowed the last bite of cookie and told Madeline, “My dad used to take me to Cold Springs Tavern every Sunday as a kid. He wasn’t a biker, really. A weekend rider, real bikers would call him. My mom said it was his midlife crisis. I think it was more something he’d always wanted to do and he got to a point where he couldn’t remember why he hadn’t done it. I don’t know, maybe that’s the definition of a midlife crisis. I used to love riding on the back of his bike. Anyway, this is the first time... I haven’t been up here in years.”
“When did he pass away?”
