Alice’s voice squeaks. “You were acheerleader?”
Van rolls her eyes, pushing at Alice’s shoulders again. “I was not.”
“Umm,” Alice says, grinning and pivoting to face Van, gesturing up at the picture and trying to stifle her laugh so she can demand answers. “Deny it all you want, but the photographic evidence doesn’t lie. Admit it. You—the handsome, stone-cold butch standing before me—were once forced into this outfit, and it’s been immortalized on this wall ever since.”
Van must be only five or six in the picture. Her black hair is curly and wild up in two high pigtails, each secured with an enormous blue sparkly bow. She’s wearing an honest-to-goodness cheerleading outfit, blue and silver and glittery as hell, and she’s holding matching pom-poms. Her face is still obscured in the baby softness of childhood, but Alice would recognize that scowl anywhere. Little Van is clearly furious, a second away from ripping the bows out of her hair and yelling every bad word she knows, and it’s absolutely the best thing Alice has ever seen.
“The whole thing lasted about five minutes,” Van admits, yielding to the fact that Alice will absolutely never let this go. “I screamed the entire way there for the first day, and then lay down on the mats and refused to stand up for the whole hour. The teachers asked my mom not to bring me back.”
Alice bursts out laughing, belatedly clamping a hand over her mouth. The Van in front of her is making pretty much the same face as the one on the wall, and Alice can’t think of anyone less likely to like cheerleading.
“You could have been a cheer prodigy,” Alice says, shakingher head in faux sadness. “What if you’ve been depriving the world of your brilliance this whole time?”
“Seems likely,” Van deadpans. “What with my immense pep and all.”
Alice snorts—which is absolutely humiliating—and Van shakes her head again, smiling this time, and even when being mocked, Van is so affectionate that Alice can’t help it. She reaches out, resting both palms on the top of Van’s chest. Van is so tall and solid, and every time they touch Alice is surprised by how soft she is, by the give of her flesh, the way it feels like her body is trying to let Alice sink down into it, to envelop her.
“I would pay so much money to watch you lead one single solitary cheer.”
They’re standing very close together now, connected by Alice’s hands, but Van leans even closer. “You couldn’t afford me,” she whispers into Alice’s ear, and it’s both hilarious and so, so painfully intimate that Alice’s fingers flex, curling around Van’s collarbones.
“Van?” That’s Marie’s voice. Alice springs backward, and Van does too, so that by the time Marie comes around the corner they’re standing weirdly far apart. “Hey, Mom wants you to get down the box of blankets.” Marie looks between the two of them, clearly trying to make sense of what she’s seeing. “What are you guys doing?”
“Alice found the cheerleading picture,” Van says, and her voice sounds different. Higher, maybe. Tighter.
“I had a lot of questions,” Alice adds, trying to pull Marie’s focus away from how Van won’t look anywhere near Alice.
“Oh,” Marie says with a laugh, her shoulders relaxing. “Isn’t it amazing? Come down this way, there’s one of me on my first day of soccer absolutely sobbing.”
—
Alice isn’t sure why Babs needed Van to get a box of blankets, because there are already so many on the couch that Alice can’t tell what color the fabric of the couch actually is. She, Van, and Marie—“the kids”—have been banished to clean the already spotless living room while Babs and Aunt Sheila bang around the kitchen. According to Babs they’re “not cooking at all,” but it kind of sounds like they’re preparing for a nuclear launch from the way they’re yelling back and forth and opening and closing what seems like every cabinet in the Portland metro area.
“Should we help?” Alice asks after one particularly loud crash, but both Van and Marie immediately shake their heads.
“This is our process,” Marie says, in what is clearly an impression of Babs.
“Dad used to complain about how loud it was, until Mom told him that if he wanted a quiet kitchen, he could cook himself,” Van says. “That shut him up pretty quick.”
“They’re literally just supposed to be putting frozen latkes from Trader Joe’s in the oven, though,” Marie says in her real voice. “No freaking idea what’s so complicated in there.”
“Women’s secrets,” Van tells Alice, using air quotes and affecting her own Babs impression. “Which I think is also the name of one of the books about getting my period she gave me when I was eleven.”
Alice chokes on a sip of water, and Marie giggles.
“Girls,” Babs calls from the kitchen, sounding so like Marie’s impression of her that Alice almost chokes again. “I’m hearing a lot of laughing and not a lot of cleaning!”
Half an hour, two extra-loud bangs, and one smoke alarm later, things have settled down somewhat. Alice is leaningagainst a wall, furtively googling Chanukah facts on her phone, but she quickly clicks it off and shoves it into her pocket when Van approaches her. Van hands her a can of sparkling water, and pulls her back into the hallway, away from everyone else. “I wanted to run something by you,” she says, like Alice can focus on anything other than her proximity. “I really want you to feel free to say no, okay? Like, legit no hard feelings.”
That makes Alice perk up, her curiosity slicing through her attraction just enough for her to be able to pay attention. “Okay.”
“My colleague and I are leaving Total Body PT and starting our own practice,” Van says, leaning close, like it’s a secret. “We need an office manager slash receptionist, and I was wondering if maybe you’d want to do it.”
Alice wouldn’t be surprised if her jaw has literally dropped, like a cartoon character. “You…” She swallows and tries again. “You’d want me to come work…for you? At your new physical therapy practice? To, like, single-handedly run your office?”
Something changes in Van’s face. It looks like she’s shuttering up all of her expressions, like she’s packing herself away. “I’m sorry,” she says, “I shouldn’t have assumed you’d—”
“No,” Alice interrupts, holding up a hand. “Sorry, I’m…processing.” She’s not sure why Van is closing herself off, but she wants to be crystal clear right now. “That honestly sounds fucking amazing.”
