Alice, by senior year, was almost as pretty as Gina. Despite her aloofness, boys occasionally flirted with her, sometimes asking her out, but she had no interest. She’d learned her lesson from Scott. She knew what teenage boys were like, and she’d decided that she preferred the company of men. What she really preferred was the company of Jake Richter, her stepfather. Edith’s afternoon drinking had gotten worse, and, more often than not, she’d either forget to prepare dinner for her husband, or she was already passed out by the time he’d gotten home. One Friday night, Alice and Jake had arrived back at the condo at the same time, finding Edith asleep on the recliner, one of her vodka strawberry smoothies tucked between her legs. They found a chicken in the oven but the oven hadn’t been turned on. Jake laughed.

“It’s not funny,” Alice said.

“No, it’s not, Ali.” He was the only one who called her that. “Tell you what. Your mother isn’t going anywhere. How about you and I go out for dinner?”

“Okay.”

“Good. I’ll have a quick drink while you change, and then we’ll go out.”

Alice assumed that they’d be going to the Papa Gino’s on 1A—it was where they usually went out to eat when Edith hadn’t managed to get dinner ready—and she asked Jake why she needed to change.

“We’re going somewhere special,” he said. “Wear your nicest dress.”

They drove all the way to Kennebunkport and ate at a waterfront restaurant that was attached to a hotel. Jake was still wearing his suit from work, although he’d loosened his paisley tie, and she was in a pale pink, sleeveless dress, the one she’d worn to her uncle’s third wedding over the summer.

“Have you had French food before?” Jake asked, after they were seated at a corner table.

“Do French fries count?”

Jake smiled at her joke, his lips spreading wide while his teeth remained together. “No. Not tonight. Can I order for you?”

“Sure.”

Jake ordered escargot as a starter, which turned out to be snails in their shells. Alice agreed to try them and they were not bad. For dinner they each had steak with béarnaise sauce. Jake drank wine, and Alice drank sparkling water. It was clear that their waitress thought that they were father and daughter, but Alice pretended, in her mind, that they were a sophisticated couple out for a casual dinner at the end of a busy week. She tried not to think about her mother at home in the recliner, and whether she’d wake up and wonder where her husband and daughter were. Instead, she made her mother disappear into nonexistence, and shrunk the world so that it was a perfect bubble that only contained her and Jake.