Gina arrived not long after, wearing a shimmery blazer over a white T-shirt and tight jeans. She’d done her hair, teasing her bangs, and was wearing eye makeup in addition to the lipstick and rouge she usually wore. Jake looked her up and down when he saw her. “I can’t believe it. You were a little girl yesterday,” he said. Gina smiled, and Alice was pleased that a little bit of lipstick was stuck to one of her big front teeth. She hadn’t even considered that Jake might be attracted to Gina, but of course he would be. He hadn’t seen her for at least a year, and she looked like a movie star now.

The jealousy went away when Gina grabbed Alice, and said, “Show me around. I can’t believe I’ve never been here.” Then added, in a whisper, “How’s the momster?”

“Still standing,” Alice said.

She brought Gina up the stairs and showed off her room, and her own bathroom, then they went out on the deck, and Gina smoked one of Edith’s cigarettes.

“So I thought you’d like to know, but now it’s official. I’m going to NYU.” Gina had been wavering between NYU and the University of Maine. Alice knew that Gina would pick New York City, and that once she got there she’d look for a modeling agent. “Why don’t you come with me?”

“To where? To New York?”

“Yeah. We could live together, and you could take classes and apply for a degree program.”

“I’ll come visit. How about that?”

Alice had already decided that she was going to take classes at the southern campus of the Maine Community College System. She had told Gina that she was worried about leaving her mom alone, but, in truth, she didn’t want to stop living with Jake.

“You promise?” Gina stubbed out the skinny cigarette in the ashtray. The filter was imprinted with her lipstick color, a dark plum.

“I do,” Alice said, but didn’t really mean it, and didn’t really think that Gina would remember the promise once she arrived in New York.