“I remember this place,” Nolan says, and Alice’s heart sinks. It’s doomsday. She’s officially run out of time.
He keeps going. “I remember this building. I remember moving back to Portland. I remember Marie’s high school graduation and Van’s diagnosis. I remember everything from the last five years. From the last five months. But you knowwhat’s funny?” His voice is cruel now, a little taunting, and Alice knows that she deserves it.
It feels like everything in her body is frozen, like she’s a rabbit crouching in place hoping against hope that the hawk in the sky doesn’t see her, even as it’s diving right at her, talons outstretched and a hungry look in its eye. She can’t quite breathe, and even though she imagined this happening a million times in the last eight weeks, none of those nightmares came close to how quickly her heart is pounding now, how horribly sad she is to be breaking their hearts. Well, Marie’s and Van’s hearts, at least. Nolan probably didn’t give a shit about her last week, and he certainly won’t now that he knows the truth, now that he can place her as the receptionist and not as his girlfriend.
She doesn’t respond, but Nolan doesn’t need her to. “I don’t remember you,” he says. “I’ve never seen you before in my goddamned life.”
Okay, that one stings. There had been those little smiles, those fourhis, threeheys, and twohow’s it goings, and those had meant so much to Alice, back when they were all she had. She’d clung to those, developed a rich and satisfying fantasy life around them, and he’d never even reallylookedat her. Never took in her face at all, despite seeing her every time he walked through the lobby at night.
“I can explain,” she says, swallowing down the way his words hurt more than she thought they would, and sounding meek even to herself.
“I’m all ears,” Nolan says, spreading out his arms in that aggressive way men sometimes do when they’re sort of daring you to talk but you know they aren’t planning on listening.
Alice looks around the lobby, taking in all the people that are starting to show up to work. It’s six-thirty now, and thelobby isn’t the empty, echoing cavern it was even thirty minutes ago. “Not here,” she says quickly, making up her mind. “My shift is over in half an hour. I can meet you at Fresh Grounds, down the street? You deserve…” She can’t help but dart her eyes over to Marie, to Van. “I owe you an uninterrupted explanation.”
Two big groups of frowning men in suits come up to the desk, obviously writing off a group that includes a teenager and a lesbian as a waste of space. “Helloooo!” one of them says, waving a hand like he’s been waiting for twenty minutes and is the most important man in the world. “We need elevator passes over here!”
Alice nods at him like he isn’t the worst. “Right away, sir. If I could have you come over this way, I can get those for you right now.”
The Altmans seem to be huddling up to discuss like they’re onFamily Feud,and then Nolan says, “Fine. We’ll see you at the house. Half an hour.”
Alice doesn’t bother to say that it’ll take a while to get to the house on the bus, which is why she originally suggested the coffee shop down the street. They’re smart people; they’ll figure it out, and the guys in front of her are rude as hell. She nods at him, and lets her eyes linger on Van as they walk away until the asshole in front of her impatiently clicks his tongue.
—
Alice walks out the front doors at seven, looking down at her phone to double-check that she’s right about what bus she needs to take to get to the Altman house.
“Alice.”
Her head snaps over, and she’s pretty sure her eyes must bug out of her head, because there’s Van. And Marie. AndFrank, bless his wiggly little heart.
“Thought you might need a ride,” Van says, and she’s clearly trying to sound gruff but Alice knows her too well for that. Van’s upset and confused and hanging on to the smallest possible thread of hope that maybe this was a huge misunderstanding, that somehow Alice is going to pull out an explanation that will make sense, and everyone will heartily laugh, and then she and Alice can sleep together again.
God, Alice wishes that were true.
“We got you breakfast,” Marie says, holding out what is clearly a breakfast burrito wrapped in foil. “Or, dinner? I don’t know. But Van said you’d be hungry.”
Alice is horrified to feel tears coming to her eyes. God, she hasn’t even done this yet, hasn’t revealed herself to be a monster yet, and she’s already a fucking mess.
This is going to massively suck.
“Thank you,” she says, walking closer and taking the burrito from Marie. It’s still warm. “Thank you both.”
Van leads them to her car, and even though she looks exhausted she’s walking quickly, so Alice figures she’s probably feeling okay today. Marie gets into the passenger seat, so Alice slides into the back with Frank, which involves a lot of getting stepped on and being licked in the face, all of which she tries to savor even while it’s very unpleasant.
They don’t say much in the car. It’s probably hard to make small talk with someone who might have been lying to your entire family for two months, and they all seem equally averse to breaking the seal on the tough conversation until they’re at the house. Alice kind of hopes it’s only Nolan waiting there for them, but she’s pretty sure if that were true they’d be heading north to his condo instead of across the Burnside Bridge.
Van fiddles with the stereo, and Alice hears a sound she’dalmost forgotten, the changing of a CD inside a car radio. The first song is one Alice doesn’t know, but the second perks her up. “I love this song,” she says over the familiar staccato guitar opening. “I love Ani DiFranco.”
“So does Van,” Marie says. But then she adds, “Obviously,” with a look over to Frank, and it takes Alice a second to figure it out.
“Wait,” she says, and despite everything, she can see Van trying not to laugh. “Frank, like DiFranco? You named your dog after Ani DiFranco?”
Van smiles at her in the rearview mirror, and Alice wants to kiss her. “Hell yeah I did,” Van says, and Alice grins.
“God,” she says, reaching out to scratch Ani DiFranco behind his ears. “You’resucha lesbian.”
Van does laugh at that, and Alice vows to remember that sound forever.
