“Were you expecting someone else?” Madeline asked. Her eyes read Alice, and Alice tried to surmise what the woman saw in her own presentation, her ill-fitting jeans and loose T-shirt, her wild shoulder-length brown hair that she left unbrushed in hopes that people might mistake her for an artist. She wore no makeup, not even lipstick or nail polish. Looking at the cherry red on Madeline’s nails, she reconsidered her stance on painting her nails. The charm of Madeline’s Cupid’s bow made Alice want to sketch two perfect peaks onto her own lips. The cut of Madeline’s clothes made Alice want to invest in a wardrobe, to see her clothes not as something to hide behind but as an expression of how she wanted the world to see her, how in turn she might be able to see herself.
Madeline motioned for Alice to remove her muddied hiking boots. Obediently Alice bent down to take them off, aware the old woman was watching her. Madeline’s eyebrow inched upward at the sight of Alice’s big toes poking through her socks, so she took those off as well. She looked down at her own feet, bunioned from working so many hours on them, toenails ravaged, veins bulging from the tightness of her boots. People say our hands reveal the stories of our lives, but it’s our feet that expose how we treat our bodies. Alice needed to take better care of herself.
The two women headed down a long narrow hall beside a staircase. From above, a clock ticked loudly. On the right side of the hall, an open door revealed a billiards room the length of the house. On the other side were three closed doors with dim outlines and fluted glass doorknobs to distinguish them from the surrounding redwood. Madeline stopped at the middle door and twisted it open.
The dining room was larger than Alice would have imagined from the hall, with a farmhouse table long enough to seat a dozen people, spread with enough platters to feed at least that many. A lanky Persian cat nibbled at a plate of whole small fish.
“Poirot,” Madeline admonished, scooping up the cat and plopping him on the floor. “You know the humans get first pickings.”
Poirot, Alice nearly exclaimed, telling Madeline that her own cat was named for Agatha Christie. She caught herself. This was not a social engagement. She had to exude an air of professionalism. There would be no bonding over felines or mystery authors. Instead, the topic of conversation would remain fixed on Madeline, how Alice could help her.
The cat trotted toward the door, nudging it open with his head and disappearing into the hall. Alice made a mental note to avoid the plate of fish, hoping that the cat hadn’t also grazed the other plates on the table. She was famished, but not so hungry that she’d overlook fur in her food.
Madeline sat at the head of the table and gestured for Alice to sit beside her. Now Alice could clearly see the arced scar on the right side of Madeline’s face. All scars tell a story. This one was long and deep.
High tea, it turned out, did not involve tea but wine. While Alice was wary of drinking since she had an arduous drive home, she accepted the glass Madeline poured.
Madeline raised her glass in a toast, so Alice did the same. The wine was a lush garnet that absorbed the light.
“To beginnings,” Madeline said. “They’re always the best part of stories. Or perhaps you prefer endings?”
“Endings are harder,” Alice said, speaking from personal experience.
“Shouldn’t they be? It’s so much easier to know where to enter a story then where to leave it.” Madeline brought the glass to her lips.
The wine coated Alice’s tongue in robust cherry. It tasted expensive. She found she couldn’t resist a second sip, then another.
“Slow down, my dear,” Madeline said. “No one is going to take it away from you.”
Embarrassed, Alice placed her wineglass behind her water so she would have to reach around to drink it.
“I got your letter,” Alice said rather obviously. How else would she be here? “Can I ask how you heard about my services?” What she meant was,How did you know where I lived?Suddenly it occurred to her how intrusive the letter had been, how foolish it was to follow it into the desolate mountains.
Madeline laughed, seeming to read Alice’s mind. “Relax, my dear. If you were in danger you would realize it already. Besides, isn’t that the goal of a word of mouth business, that people hear about you?”
“Usually when new clients reach out, they mention who referred them, and they do it over email.”
Madeline shrugged. “I’m not most clients. I assume you’ve already gathered that.” She seemed in no rush to eat or to talk business. She took a full sip of wine and held it in her mouth a moment as she shut her eyes, swallowing appreciatively. “Let’s just say that I was always going to hear about you. That’s how fate works when it’s destined to bring people together. And I’m a proud Luddite. Electricity is just about the most modern thing you’ll find in this house.”
Madeline watched Alice, gauging her response. While the old woman was cagey, Alice found she didn’t mind. It complemented the general mystique Madeline cultivated. Alice just needed to determine what she was hiding, the fatal flaw that Alice would fix in a story. She patted her curly hair self-consciously as her host unapologetically continued to observe her.
“You shouldn’t do that,” Madeline said. “You’re a pretty girl. You should let people stare at you without embarrassment.” She angled her scar toward Alice as if daring her to ask about the story that marked Madeline’s life as much as it marked her face. Madeline could have hidden the scar behind carefully positioned hair or concealed it with thick makeup. Instead, she let it define her without apology.
Even if Bobby had never taught her daughter how to cook a proper meal, Alice knew how to behave at one. She did not ask about the scar. She did not continue to press Madeline on how she’d heard about Alice’s services. Still, having Madeline stare at her so baldly made her feel too large for her body, too clumsy for her chair. She reached around the water for the wine, took a sip, and placed it in front of the water glass. No use pretending she wasn’t going to finish it and possibly another. She’d just have to wait a few hours before she drove home.
The discomfort Madeline aroused in her notwithstanding, Alice was intrigued. With her other clients, despite their varying reasons for wanting love, that first meeting unfolded in approximately the same way. The clients divulged too much too quickly, as if Alice was a new therapist they were seeing and they wanted to get right to the heart of what they believed their problem to be. Alice was learning to read between the details they shared, the way they tried to focus her attention on how they’d been unlucky instead of how they’d manifested that bad luck, the way past lovers hadn’t understood them rather than how they misunderstood themselves. But Madeline—Madeline offered Alice nothing. She was going to make Alice work for her story.
Madeline reached for the closest bowl of food. It was filled with some sort of room temperature eggplant. Alice did not like eggplant. It was too slimy, too fleshy, but when Madeline held it out to her, she scooped some onto her plate, followed by cucumber slices in yogurt, roasted duck, beef tenderloin, smashed potatoes that were somehow piping hot, and green bean casserole. The only thing she declined was the whole fish.
Madeline ate deliberately, chewed pensively. When she finally swallowed, she shut her eyes, savoring the flavors before they disappeared from her palate.
“Did you make all this?” Alice asked. “It’s delicious.”
“I learned a long time ago how to be self-sufficient. Not just out of necessity, though of course living here as I do, one must be able to care for oneself. No, I choose to live this way.”
“Why?” Alice tried to eat as slowly as Madeline did, but she was too hungry and the food was too good. When Madeline didn’t reply right away, Alice added, “You don’t have to answer that. I shouldn’t pry.”
“Is that what you were doing, prying?”
