“I seek your friendship,” she said.
“You shall have it,” Lizzie said. “But surely, Alison...”
“Ah, then we are friends. That’s the first time you’ve said my name.”
“You do have a bad habit of interrupting, you know.”
“So I’ve been told.”
“And, really, if you assumed I might prefer idle chatter...”
“The thought crossed my mind,” Alison said, and smiled. Her hand was still on Lizzie’s arm.
“Wrongly, I’m sure. I do not, in fact, much care for it.”
“I don’t care for it at ally Alison said.
“Then why do you want to hear about a boy I’ve forgotten years ago?”
“Only if you care to tell me,” Alison said, and took her hand from Lizzie’s arm.
“And if I choose not to, you shall accuse me of being as empty-headed as my friend Felicity.”
“The horns of a dilemma, to be sure,” Alison said. She was no longer smiling.
“Your friendship may prove too costly,” Lizzie said, and sighed.
“Most real friendships are,” Alison said.
“What would you know, then?” Lizzie said.
“All, everything, all,” Alison said, and suddenly clapped her hands together like a child. “Who was he, what was his name, how did you meet — all, Lizzie,” and she leaned forward with great anticipation, clasping her hands in her satiny lap now, the long fingers intertwined, her green eyes wide, as though waiting for a cherished older sister or aunt to tell a fantastic story about witches and fairies and golden palaces.
“I shall disappoint you,” Lizzie said. “It’s a dreary tale.”
“I’m certain it’s not,” Alison said.
“Very well,” Lizzie said, and sighed again. “His name was Stephen Carmody... he was a student at Brown, visiting his aunt for the summer.”
“How old were you?” Alison asked.
“Nineteen.”
“A perfect age for a summer romance!”
“You haven’t yet told me how old you are,” Lizzie said.
“Oh, my!” Alison said, and burst out laughing. “And I was the one insisting on honesty!” Her laughter — bubbling from her mouth with such spontaneous mirth, such self-mockery this time — surprised Lizzie as much as had her earlier intensity; she had never met so mercurial a woman in her life.
“Well, how old then?” she insisted.
“Thirty-seven,” Alison said.
“You seem much younger.”
“My compliment returned. Bread upon the waters. Oh, would that I were, Lizzie! But you mustn’t believe for an instant that this aged crone...”
“Crone, indeed!” Lizzie said.
“... can so easily be sidetracked or hoodwinked. Oh, no, my dear. You were about to tell me of your beau...”
“Not precisely a beau...”
“Your young man, then...”
“Yes, young.”
“How old?”
“My own age. Nineteen at the time. Well, about to be twenty. He, I mean. Stephen.”
“Eleven years ago...”
“Yes.”
“In the summertime...”
“And continuing into the fall.”
“And did he love you madly?”
“So he said.”
“Then he was a serious suitor.”
“I believe so.”
“Well, Lizzie, what happened? You could give Mr. Doyle lessons in suspense, truly!”
“He behaved badly. I was obliged to...”
“Behaved badly how?”
“Well...”
“A stolen kiss in the barn?”
“We do have a barn,” Lizzie said. “But...”
“A barn, how delightful! And was it there that he behaved... badly?” she said, lowering her voice and narrowing her eyes.
“No. Alison, I shall call you to account each and every time I feel you’re mocking me.”
“Am I mocking you now?”
“A barn is surely not so uncommon a thing in England as to provoke...”
“But I’ve never had a barn!”
“Well, we do. Just behind the house.”
“And I’ve certainly never had a young swain who behaved badly in one.”
“I told you it wasn’t in the barn.”
“Then where was it? Some deserted pasture? Some idle country lane? An August moon shining above, the stars...”
“There’s the mockery again. I realize Fall River isn’t half so grand as London, but it is a city, you know, and not quite so rural as you’d have it!”
“How fierce, my Lizzie!”
“Yes!”
“How splendid in her anger!”
“I am angry, yes.”
“Your very hair is on fire!” Alison said.
“It has been since birth!” Lizzie shouted, and both women burst out laughing. Neither of them could speak for several moments. Their laughter was the sort of spontaneous explosion Lizzie remembered from her girlhood, when the slightest comment could trigger an endless succession of irrepressible giggles between her and her sister. What was remarkable about the laughter now was that two grown women were overcome by it on a darkening afternoon in the city of London. The very thought of such an unimaginable happening caused a new burst of laughter from her and provoked a similar gust of mirth from Alison, who clutched her knees to her bosom and, gasping, said, “Tell me what this cad did to you!”
“Undid!” Lizzie said, and burst into fresh laughter. “My corset!” she managed to say, astonished to find herself laughing at what surely had been the most embarrassing event in her life. “Or tried to!” she said, and laughed till tears came to her eyes.
“Oh, the raging maniac!” Alison said, laughing.
“He couldn’t get the ties undone!” Lizzie said. “I was wearing the shorter corset...”
“Yes!”
“Laced down the back, you know, and he kept fumbling about...”
“Mr. Fumblefingers!”
“Oh, my dear Lord!” Lizzie said, and brushed at her eyes with her handkerchief. “We struggled for what must have been a full ten minutes...”
“Under that bright August moon...”
“It was October, actually.”
“He bobbing for apples, then...”
“Apples!” Lizzie echoed, exploding into laughter again.
“Or pears, more precisely. Or at least a pair!” Alison said, and threw her head back and let out the sort of bellow she’d earlier attributed to ill-mannered American girls. “Oh, Lizzie, I can just visualize it! There you were in the hay... your skirts above your head...”
“It was in a carriage,” Lizzie said. Her cheeks were burning. She had never before this discussed the incident with anyone, so embarrassing had it been. And to be talking about it now, relating it in the manner of a... well, yes, a bawdy tale... hearing Alison compare her breasts to apples first and then to pears, and then punning on her own words, and to find it all so hilarious — she simply could not believe herself!
Both women were suddenly and surprisingly sober.