37

Jen Coulter is at the door, a basket of late-season vegetables over one arm, a bottle of wine in the other. “I can’t stand any more squash. You have to eat these or throw them out when I’m not looking.” She puts the basket on the counter beside the sink and hands Alice the bottle of wine. “Somebody at work gave Derek a ticket to the Sox, so he’s in Boston and won’t be home till midnight. Thought we could both use a little company.”

Jen knows that Ed’s out tonight at the semimonthly zoning board meeting, vainly attempting to preserve the rules without giving into the variances that are beginning to change the face of their town. Jen is young enough to think that Alice would prefer company over a solitary evening at home watching her favorite shows without argument. The new television season is about to begin and she was really looking forward to it. Alice smiles at Jen and takes the bottle of wine, wishing that she had one of those DVR things that would allow her to stop time.

“Have you looked at the YouTube clip yet?”

Alice is hunting down the corkscrew. “What YouTube clip?”

“Of you and the dog dancing. Derek posted it on the Internet. All of our friends are raving about it and it’s gone viral.”

Alice finds the corkscrew and brings down two wineglasses. “So you’re saying that the whole world can watch me being foolish.”

Jen takes the opener, digs the tip of the screw into the soft cork of the bottle, drawing it out with a soft pop. “It’s not foolish; it’s great. Pour us some wine and then we can go look at it on your computer.”

“I’m not sure I like the idea of being on the Web.”

Jen just laughs, as if Alice is hopelessly naïve. Sometimes Jen feels like a peer, and at other times, like right now, Alice feels the generation gap and remembers that she’s old enough to be Jen’s mother. More than old enough. Jen’s mom and she are exactly the same age. If she’d had Stacy earlier, Stacy would have been Jen’s friend, not her charge. One of the maybes that tortured Alice was the fact that she was forty when Stacy was born. Just as Stacy entered a very difficult adolescence, she’d reached menopause. Ed called it “menopause meets puberty—clash of the hormones,” but the strength, patience, and flexibility Stacy had needed was subsumed by hot flashes and irritation. Maybe if she hadn’t felt so edgy and overwhelmed by her own physical changes, she would have been more aware of Stacy’s own difficulties. Difficulties that weren’t obvious to the naked eye, beyond her physical changes. Taller, but not tall; built like a soccer player, then suddenly thin as a reed. Silent, not quiet. A new tendency to insomnia.

*   *   *

“Jen’s a nurse, Alice. She knows what she’s talking about.” Ed paces in front of her. It is a beautiful Saturday afternoon and Stacy is in her bedroom, the door shut, not even the sound of music leaking out from under the locked door. Sleeping, or crying—they can’t tell which. “She thinks that we should take her to someone who can help figure out why she’s so unhappy.”

“She’s a kid, Ed. An adolescent. They invented angst.” Another hot flash is beginning to rise up out of her core, flushing her cheeks and making her want to throw off her clothes and run out into the chill March air.

“This is different and you know it.” This is classic Ed, the authority, the knower of all things. The insister.

*   *   *

“See, here it is.” Jen has booted up their PC and signed into her YouTube account.

Alice watches herself and Buddy dance right there on the little screen. He looks so happy, and his soft grey-and-white coat with its wash of black sparkles in the floodlights of their deck. Derek had even gotten a good shot of Buddy’s odd blue and brown eyes. The dog pirouettes, dips, and bows. Alice is charmed, and pleased that she doesn’t look entirely foolish. She actually looks fairly good. The clip lasts little more than a minute, so they play it again.

“Let’s get you set up with your own account and then you can look at this anytime. We posted it so anyone can see it. Just search for ‘dancing dog.’ There are a lot of them—you wouldn’t believe it—but his is popping up almost at the top. You can save it to your account.”

“Ed will love this.” Alice sips at her glass of wine and replays the video one more time. The Beatles music is going to be stuck in her head for hours, but it’s such fun watching the dog’s antics. Jen is right; there is a whole strip of thumbnails offering dog-dancing videos. The still photo in one of them even looks like Buddy, except that he’s wearing a little black bow tie.

Alice lets Jen set up the account. Maybe tonight, if Ed doesn’t get home too late, she’ll play it for him.