Outside Wonderland: A Novel - Softcover
Alice, Griffin, and Dinah Stenen's mother and father died tragically when they were quite young. The loss haunts them into adulthood. Alice is a stage actress in New York who can't commit to a relationship. When she meets Ian she's smitten, but suspects it's Ian's four-year-old son that really captivates her. Griffin and his longtime partner are settled into a contented domesticity, however Theo's insistence that they adopt a child throws Griffin into a panic. When he refuses to cooperate, the crack in their relationship widens. Dinah, the youngest, has a short, passionate love affair that leaves her pregnant and alone when she discovers the father is engaged to someone else. The three look to each other for support during this rough period but they falter. What they don't know is that their parents are watching them from a place outside time and space--worrying, reminiscing, and perhaps guiding their children as each makes their tentative way towards happiness. In luminous prose, Cook tells the story of these tender souls and a love that knows no boundaries.
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About the Author:
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.:
Lorna Jane Cook is the author of Home Away From Home and Departures. She lives with her family in Holland, Michigan.
ONE
It always began, and ended, with a gift—a filmy scarf, a box of square chocolates with hand-drizzled icing, and, of course, flowers. Wiser men dismissed the cliché of roses and opted for white freesia or peonies, fat pink blooms like layers and layers of lace—an inverted petticoat, something sweet and old-fashioned, yet hinting of sex. Perhaps it was her own perversion that turned something as innocent as a flower into a come-on. But in Alice’s experience, that was exactly what it was. Admirers sent them backstage, or waited outside behind the ropes and stanchions, clutching bouquets to their tweed or corduroy chests, hoping to elicit a smile at the very least.
“Alice!” they called, as if they knew her personally after seeing her onstage, her name on the posters and marquees: Alice Stone, an Off-Broadway celebrity. A reviewer had said she was destined for greater things, and perhaps because of that endorsement, members of the audience always wanted to see what she looked like up close, “in real life.” Onstage, she was beautiful; in real life, a little less so, though she was curvier than some costumes revealed (she always ate the chocolates); her face more arresting without the makeup.
Alice was amused that adults could have trouble separating real life and fantasy—wanting so desperately to believe in fairy tales, true love, and happily-ever-afters. Women in the plush mohair seats breathed softly when Alice collapsed into the arms of the magnetic lover, the wrong man, the right one, whatever. The men beside their dates or wives simply watched Alice move across the stage, imagining they were the ones grasping her arm, or ripping off her dress. Of course, the latter never happened onstage, but several lovers had acted it out in Alice’s apartment.
Acting was so simple. Alice thought of it like swimming: Dive in and float or thrash about, and then climb back out. Often she was reaching for her regular self like a towel the moment the curtain fell. Other actors—starry-eyed, smitten with theatre—held on, claiming characters had them in their grip for days or even weeks after a play ended. Alice knew it was the other way around. They didn’t want to let go of being Stella or Stanley or Laura or Desdemona or even Puck. It was intoxicating. It was also, Alice thought, childish, though she couldn’t blame them. In a way, she envied them.
Once upon a time, Alice believed in fairy tales. Her mother had recited them from memory on the edge of her bed while Alice closed her eyes and imagined. The night became starrier, the covers silkier, and the wind through the window filtered with magic particles and the whispers of elves beyond the sill. Her mother’s favorite stories were from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass. She had named her three children after characters in the books—Alice (obviously), Griffin (modified spelling), and Dinah (the cat).
Then she slipped, as through a looking glass, and disappeared. Off to Wonderland, or Heaven, or somewhere far away and out of reach.
Alice was seven, and sitting four backyards away with a friend, languidly stringing garlands of untrimmed blades of grass and lily of the valley stems—while at home, life as she knew it was ending.
Everything changed the instant Alice’s mother lost her footing on the rubberized step stool in the pantry—while her husband lectured at work; while her baby napped in the crib; while her four-year-old watched cartoons, sucking his thumb; and while Alice, her eldest, crushed fragrant flowers to smell the sweetness in her palm. A neighbor returning a casserole dish happened by the house just after the fall and called for help, but it was too late.
After that, Alice accepted that bad things rose out of thin air, in the middle of normal life—when you weren’t even looking, even if you were being careful, or good. Normal people tripped or had heart attacks in foreign countries. Thus, you could lose your mother—and then, stunningly, also your father. Alice realized that she had a choice: either collapse or brace herself for what might come next. She opted for the latter.
For years, she was careful to the point of obsession—locking and relocking doors, boring her gaze into traffic lights and oncoming cars, consuming only organically grown food, vitamins, filtered water. As a teenager, she’d kept watch over her siblings and Joan, and until she moved to New York after college, where she had to fend only for herself. It was a relief not to worry about the others, but she didn’t feel less anxious. In her early twenties, she went to a kindly but faintly inept therapist, who advised her to “tamp down” her fears, as if they were mere campfires and it was her own fault for letting them flare up. And one day, he actually chided Alice for being “so negative,” and encouraged her to “always look on the bright side of life.” Later, when she heard the Monty Python song, she recognized the line and laughed. There was no end to advice, no matter how absurd the source. Alice left the therapist and never went back.
Besides, on her own she’d found that time had passed and nothing else terrible had happened. She relaxed, a little. Drank, at times, a lot (it seemed to help). And best of all, she discovered acting. Or rediscovered it. She’d always acted, even as a child, playing at being other people, improvising when life called for it. It was, in fact, her calling.
Onstage, in rehearsals or performances, Alice Stone was in perfect control; it was because at the same time she was letting go of Alice Stenen. She disappeared beneath a character’s skin and clothes and had to move only within the orbit of a stage, everything laid out and planned beforehand. Thus she was free, and, as an admiring cast mate had observed, “buoyant.” Buoyancy was not a normal state of being for Alice in real life. She was not good at letting herself go. But she was not good at holding on, either. It was why her relationships were mostly fleeting.
* * *
Standing alone in her dressing room, Alice surveyed her latest gift, already knowing what it meant.
The box was a slender rectangle, as if for a tie, but when she lifted the lid, Alice smiled wryly. Of course, it was a necklace—this one a silver strand, teardrop gem shimmering in the vanity lights—which meant “I can’t live without you,” and “I’m sorry,” and also, inevitably, “It has to end.” For some reason, a necklace was the farewell gift of choice for most; maybe it symbolized a noose.
Without reading the attached note, Alice knew it was from Alex, fifty-four and just through a costly divorce, lavishing his spare time and half of his selfish heart on her. The other half belonged to his college-age children, whom he didn’t wish to hurt. Alice suspected that the ones he really was afraid of hurting most were himself, his bank account, his orderly life. A girl on the side (even a girl of thirty-five) was what kept him sane, and “alive.” As if a tumble in her bed—or on the floor, or the backseat of a cab—were akin to an oxygen mask, or the slap of defibrillators to a chest. Perhaps it was, and Alice had been happy to oblige, to help save a drowning man from a boring life.
Finally, she read the note. Alex—kindly, greedy, charming, needy Alex—was calling it off: “I actually love my wife” (What happened to the “ex” part?), “and I can’t risk losing everything.” It occurred to Alice that she could use the note as blackmail if she wanted to. But she had no desire to turn someone’s life upside down. Men like Alex could do that all by themselves.
Alice sighed and slipped on the necklace. Maybe she’d wear it for tonight’s performance. The necklace would be perfect, the gem catching the overhead spotlight and glinting like a diamond. She inspected. It wasn’t a diamond, but pale bluish green. Amethyst? Quartz? The setting and the silver looked expensive, but it could be something Alex had found on a quick run-through at a department store. Yet even if he had bought it with care at Tiffany’s, the implication was the same: Here. I’m going. Get lost.
Alice stuffed the box and note in the trash and turned to get dressed, ignoring the chatter of the other actresses crowding the mirrors, singing and shrieking their lines to warm up and calm nerves. By the time she stepped onstage, diving effortlessly into character, Alice had left Alex far behind on the shore.
The audience that night was spotty, many rows empty, but Alice attributed it to the day and the weather—Wednesdays were always slow, and cold, torrential rain didn’t help. Who would come out on such a night to see a play about a dysfunctional family, even if it was by Tennessee Williams? Which it wasn’t. It was a small, experimental two-act play written by a talented but mostly unknown playwright whose following so far consisted of friends and admirers.
Afterward, the other actors invited Alice out for drinks. Creatures of habit, they liked to convene at nearby bistros or bars and rehash the night’s performance. Five of them were gathered on the sidewalk now, lighting cigarettes underneath umbrellas while someone hailed a cab.
“I’ll think I’ll pass,” Alice said, huddling inside her coat.
“Come on, Alice,” implored Janine, a baby-faced newcomer who played the younger sister of Alice’s character. “We’re going to have champagne to celebrate ten weeks. You have to come!”
“No, thanks,” said Alice. “I’m really tired. And if it really has been ten weeks, I think you’re going to need something stronger than champagne.”
Janine laughed. “B...
It always began, and ended, with a gift—a filmy scarf, a box of square chocolates with hand-drizzled icing, and, of course, flowers. Wiser men dismissed the cliché of roses and opted for white freesia or peonies, fat pink blooms like layers and layers of lace—an inverted petticoat, something sweet and old-fashioned, yet hinting of sex. Perhaps it was her own perversion that turned something as innocent as a flower into a come-on. But in Alice’s experience, that was exactly what it was. Admirers sent them backstage, or waited outside behind the ropes and stanchions, clutching bouquets to their tweed or corduroy chests, hoping to elicit a smile at the very least.
“Alice!” they called, as if they knew her personally after seeing her onstage, her name on the posters and marquees: Alice Stone, an Off-Broadway celebrity. A reviewer had said she was destined for greater things, and perhaps because of that endorsement, members of the audience always wanted to see what she looked like up close, “in real life.” Onstage, she was beautiful; in real life, a little less so, though she was curvier than some costumes revealed (she always ate the chocolates); her face more arresting without the makeup.
Alice was amused that adults could have trouble separating real life and fantasy—wanting so desperately to believe in fairy tales, true love, and happily-ever-afters. Women in the plush mohair seats breathed softly when Alice collapsed into the arms of the magnetic lover, the wrong man, the right one, whatever. The men beside their dates or wives simply watched Alice move across the stage, imagining they were the ones grasping her arm, or ripping off her dress. Of course, the latter never happened onstage, but several lovers had acted it out in Alice’s apartment.
Acting was so simple. Alice thought of it like swimming: Dive in and float or thrash about, and then climb back out. Often she was reaching for her regular self like a towel the moment the curtain fell. Other actors—starry-eyed, smitten with theatre—held on, claiming characters had them in their grip for days or even weeks after a play ended. Alice knew it was the other way around. They didn’t want to let go of being Stella or Stanley or Laura or Desdemona or even Puck. It was intoxicating. It was also, Alice thought, childish, though she couldn’t blame them. In a way, she envied them.
Once upon a time, Alice believed in fairy tales. Her mother had recited them from memory on the edge of her bed while Alice closed her eyes and imagined. The night became starrier, the covers silkier, and the wind through the window filtered with magic particles and the whispers of elves beyond the sill. Her mother’s favorite stories were from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass. She had named her three children after characters in the books—Alice (obviously), Griffin (modified spelling), and Dinah (the cat).
Then she slipped, as through a looking glass, and disappeared. Off to Wonderland, or Heaven, or somewhere far away and out of reach.
Alice was seven, and sitting four backyards away with a friend, languidly stringing garlands of untrimmed blades of grass and lily of the valley stems—while at home, life as she knew it was ending.
Everything changed the instant Alice’s mother lost her footing on the rubberized step stool in the pantry—while her husband lectured at work; while her baby napped in the crib; while her four-year-old watched cartoons, sucking his thumb; and while Alice, her eldest, crushed fragrant flowers to smell the sweetness in her palm. A neighbor returning a casserole dish happened by the house just after the fall and called for help, but it was too late.
After that, Alice accepted that bad things rose out of thin air, in the middle of normal life—when you weren’t even looking, even if you were being careful, or good. Normal people tripped or had heart attacks in foreign countries. Thus, you could lose your mother—and then, stunningly, also your father. Alice realized that she had a choice: either collapse or brace herself for what might come next. She opted for the latter.
For years, she was careful to the point of obsession—locking and relocking doors, boring her gaze into traffic lights and oncoming cars, consuming only organically grown food, vitamins, filtered water. As a teenager, she’d kept watch over her siblings and Joan, and until she moved to New York after college, where she had to fend only for herself. It was a relief not to worry about the others, but she didn’t feel less anxious. In her early twenties, she went to a kindly but faintly inept therapist, who advised her to “tamp down” her fears, as if they were mere campfires and it was her own fault for letting them flare up. And one day, he actually chided Alice for being “so negative,” and encouraged her to “always look on the bright side of life.” Later, when she heard the Monty Python song, she recognized the line and laughed. There was no end to advice, no matter how absurd the source. Alice left the therapist and never went back.
Besides, on her own she’d found that time had passed and nothing else terrible had happened. She relaxed, a little. Drank, at times, a lot (it seemed to help). And best of all, she discovered acting. Or rediscovered it. She’d always acted, even as a child, playing at being other people, improvising when life called for it. It was, in fact, her calling.
Onstage, in rehearsals or performances, Alice Stone was in perfect control; it was because at the same time she was letting go of Alice Stenen. She disappeared beneath a character’s skin and clothes and had to move only within the orbit of a stage, everything laid out and planned beforehand. Thus she was free, and, as an admiring cast mate had observed, “buoyant.” Buoyancy was not a normal state of being for Alice in real life. She was not good at letting herself go. But she was not good at holding on, either. It was why her relationships were mostly fleeting.
* * *
Standing alone in her dressing room, Alice surveyed her latest gift, already knowing what it meant.
The box was a slender rectangle, as if for a tie, but when she lifted the lid, Alice smiled wryly. Of course, it was a necklace—this one a silver strand, teardrop gem shimmering in the vanity lights—which meant “I can’t live without you,” and “I’m sorry,” and also, inevitably, “It has to end.” For some reason, a necklace was the farewell gift of choice for most; maybe it symbolized a noose.
Without reading the attached note, Alice knew it was from Alex, fifty-four and just through a costly divorce, lavishing his spare time and half of his selfish heart on her. The other half belonged to his college-age children, whom he didn’t wish to hurt. Alice suspected that the ones he really was afraid of hurting most were himself, his bank account, his orderly life. A girl on the side (even a girl of thirty-five) was what kept him sane, and “alive.” As if a tumble in her bed—or on the floor, or the backseat of a cab—were akin to an oxygen mask, or the slap of defibrillators to a chest. Perhaps it was, and Alice had been happy to oblige, to help save a drowning man from a boring life.
Finally, she read the note. Alex—kindly, greedy, charming, needy Alex—was calling it off: “I actually love my wife” (What happened to the “ex” part?), “and I can’t risk losing everything.” It occurred to Alice that she could use the note as blackmail if she wanted to. But she had no desire to turn someone’s life upside down. Men like Alex could do that all by themselves.
Alice sighed and slipped on the necklace. Maybe she’d wear it for tonight’s performance. The necklace would be perfect, the gem catching the overhead spotlight and glinting like a diamond. She inspected. It wasn’t a diamond, but pale bluish green. Amethyst? Quartz? The setting and the silver looked expensive, but it could be something Alex had found on a quick run-through at a department store. Yet even if he had bought it with care at Tiffany’s, the implication was the same: Here. I’m going. Get lost.
Alice stuffed the box and note in the trash and turned to get dressed, ignoring the chatter of the other actresses crowding the mirrors, singing and shrieking their lines to warm up and calm nerves. By the time she stepped onstage, diving effortlessly into character, Alice had left Alex far behind on the shore.
The audience that night was spotty, many rows empty, but Alice attributed it to the day and the weather—Wednesdays were always slow, and cold, torrential rain didn’t help. Who would come out on such a night to see a play about a dysfunctional family, even if it was by Tennessee Williams? Which it wasn’t. It was a small, experimental two-act play written by a talented but mostly unknown playwright whose following so far consisted of friends and admirers.
Afterward, the other actors invited Alice out for drinks. Creatures of habit, they liked to convene at nearby bistros or bars and rehash the night’s performance. Five of them were gathered on the sidewalk now, lighting cigarettes underneath umbrellas while someone hailed a cab.
“I’ll think I’ll pass,” Alice said, huddling inside her coat.
“Come on, Alice,” implored Janine, a baby-faced newcomer who played the younger sister of Alice’s character. “We’re going to have champagne to celebrate ten weeks. You have to come!”
“No, thanks,” said Alice. “I’m really tired. And if it really has been ten weeks, I think you’re going to need something stronger than champagne.”
Janine laughed. “B...
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- PublisherSt. Martin's Griffin
- Publication date2011
- ISBN 10 0312625693
- ISBN 13 9780312625696
- BindingPaperback
- Edition number1
- Number of pages336
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