“And at the end of the month, you won’t be taking care of them at all. You don’t stay.”
“You don’t care, you don’t even see them.” There was a long silence, and Andie thought, This is stupid. “I’m sorry. I don’t want to have this dumb argument. Of course you care, you sent me down here.”
“Fair enough,” North said, as distant as ever. “Is there anything else you need from me?”
Not anymore, Andie thought. “No, we’re fine. Unless you’re willing to come out here and burn the place down for me so we have to leave.”
There was a sharp intake of breath on the phone.
Andie thought, That wasn’t North, somebody is listening in.
It had to be Crumb; Carter wasn’t interested in anything but his books and his drawing, and Alice would have contributed to the conversation by now. “Well,” she said brightly. “I can’t wait to get home to you, baby. I really miss you.”
“What?”
“I know how hard this separation is on our marriage, but it’s worth it to see that the kids are safe.”
“What?”
“But I’ll be home in a couple of weeks,” Andie said. “I’ll send the cookies and banana bread tomorrow. Can’t wait to see you. Love you. Bye.”
“Uh, good-bye,” North said, and Andie thought, Jesus, you suck at improv, as he hung up.
She went downstairs and told Mrs. Crumb to stop eavesdropping-“I never!”-and that she’d be making her own tea from now on. She went into the pantry, a dark narrow little room off the back of the kitchen, and found a row of old glass decanters in a cabinet, most of the bottles empty except for one with peppermint schnapps and another that smelled like musty Amaretto and a third that was some kind of brandy. She made a cup of tea with a shot of Amaretto in it-one shot-and took the cup upstairs and sipped it in the warmth of her bed while looking over the kids’ schoolwork, which was really very good. When she was done, she put the empty cup on her bedside table, and slid down into the sheets, thinking about the kids. They had such potential if only they weren’t so…
Her thoughts clouded, and she slipped into a deep tea-and-liquor-aided sleep. The whispers began again-Who do you love? Who do you want?-and she thought, Yeah, yeah, yeah, and when North showed up in her dreams, she thought, Bad Uncle, and refused to have anything to do with him.
After the first week, Andie kept pushing and the changes came fast. Alice worked her way through the third-grade workbooks, her tongue stuck between her teeth, her pearls, shells, locket, and bat swinging forward as she bent over her papers, her Walkman cast forlornly to one side so she could concentrate. It really was a miracle she hadn’t become hunchbacked from the weight around her neck. She’d decided she liked the black-and-white-striped leggings Andie had bought her, but they were too small, so when Andie went back and bought her the larger size, Alice cut the pants off the too-small ones and tied her topknot with one of the legs. She liked it so much she began ordering Andie to do her hair every morning, which was an annoying improvement. It took Andie a while to realize who Alice looked like: a very short Madonna in Desperately Seeking Susan, except Alice hadn’t discovered earrings and eye shadow yet. Well, it was only a matter of time.
Alice cooperated with everything once she was bribed, earning many trips to the shopping center, which resulted in each of the bedrooms sporting different treatments: red and black paisleys, pumpkin-orange stripes, purple checks, a violent green leaf pattern, a multicolored dot extravaganza that made Andie dizzy when she looked at it, and a green Sesame Street comforter with Bert and Ernie waving on the top. “Bee-you-tee-ful,” Alice said with each one, and since Andie didn’t have to sleep in any of them, she said, “Yep,” and moved on. Alice and Andie painted Alice’s bedroom walls white, and Alice spent the ensuing days drawing pictures on her wall in marker. The black got quite a workout since that’s what she drew everything in, and the red was almost as bad since there was a lot of blood in Alice’s imagination, but the blue ran out first, used for many butterflies and a woman in a long blue dress. “Who is that?” Andie asked, and Alice said, “Dancing princess,” and drew on. She also badgered Andie to tell her the princess story every night and then critiqued it mercilessly as it evolved into a story about a brave princess in a black ruffled skirt and striped stockings, and the Bad Witch who lived with her and tried to make her eat soup.
But it wasn’t all Bad Witch. Alice also began to follow Andie around after school time, asking, “Whatcha doing?” and then criticizing whatever it was with great interest and enthusiasm, which evolved into the Three O’Clock Bake, when Andie would turn on the radio and they’d listen to the only station they could get-“All the Hits All the Time”-while Andie mixed up whatever she was making in time to the music, and Alice helped a little and danced around the kitchen a lot, belting out the hits with fervor if not technical accuracy.
Alice was singing “I’m too sexy for my shirt” one afternoon as Andie began to make banana bread. “This is my specialty,” she told Alice as she got out her mixing bowl. “Do you want me to show you how to make it?”
Alice said, “My specialty is dancing,” and kept hoochie-coochieing to Right Said Fred.
My specialty used to be dancing, too, Andie thought, and began to peel bananas for banana bread.
Alice stopped and peered over the bowl. “The bananas are yucky,” she said. “They are spotted and brown and dead.”
“They’re supposed to be spotted and brown for banana bread,” Andie said, smooshing them up in the bowl with her fork. “That’s how you know they’re ready to make into banana bread. If they’re yellow, they’re no good for bread. Everything has a time, Alice, and it is time to make these bananas into bread. It’s very good.”
“I do not like nuts,” Alice said, frowning at the bag of walnuts on the counter.
“Then don’t eat the banana bread,” Andie said, and beat the banana bread in time to the music, bouncing while she stood at the counter and Alice danced around singing, “I don’t like nuts” to “Achy Breaky Heart” (“I do not like nuts, I really don’t like nuts”). Then Andie put the bread in the oven, and Alice went back to singing with the music.
When the banana bread came out, Alice ate it.
The next day she danced to “Everything Changes” while Andie made chocolate chip cookies with nuts-“I do not like nuts.” “Then don’t eat the cookies”-and ate the cookies. The day after that, she belted out “I Will Always Love You” as cupcakes came out of the oven-“I will eat these because there are no nuts”-and after the first two weeks and many Hits All the Time, she added waffles and pancakes and lasagna and spaghetti and whole wheat rolls to her menu-“I do not like whole wheat.” “Then don’t eat the rolls”-and began to put on ounces and bounce just from consuming Andie’s quality calories as she danced around the kitchen. After a while, Andie danced, too, which Alice, surprisingly, approved of. She was still pale as a little ghost, but she was a healthy little ghost. By the time the first three weeks were up, the only problems Alice still had were intractable stubbornness, occasional screaming, and nightmares.
Andie didn’t realize Alice was having nightmares until she used the kids’ bathroom one night and heard her crying as she came out. She knocked on the door and went in, and found Alice weeping helplessly in her sleep. She woke her and then picked her up and carried her to the rocker and began to rock her, saying, “What happened, baby, what did you dream?” and Alice sobbed, “They had teeth.” “What had teeth, baby?” Andie said, and Alice said, “The butterflies.” Andie kissed her forehead and said, “Butterflies don’t have teeth, it was just a bad, bad dream,” and rocked and rocked as Alice cried, quietly now. I need a lullaby, she thought, but the only one she could think of was from a Disney cartoon Alice played over and over. She began to hum “Baby Mine,” and when Alice quieted down a little, she sang, “so precious to me,” holding her close. Alice sighed and in a little while fell back asleep, and Andie held her for a while longer, just for the chance to hold her and in case she dreamed again, and then she put her back to bed and tucked her in. The next day she asked Alice about the butterflies, but Alice said, “I don’t remember,” and turned away, stubborn as ever in the daylight. After that, Andie put a baby monitor in Alice’s room so that when the little girl had bad dreams, she could go to her.