Chapter Thirteen #2
Okay, Babs probably (hopefully?) doesn’t know Van’s extremely hot, but still!
If Van were a dude, Alice would one hundred percent be in her own Snuggie right now.
It’s not that Alice wants Van to be a dude, or for anyone in the room to be aware of her raging crush or anything, but, come on.
The weird forced-asexuality of their gay child is the second most awkward thing to happen tonight, for sure.
But Van clearly isn’t going to protest. She shakes out the blanket, sliding her right hand through the armhole and putting her left back behind Alice again, using it to tuck the blanket up over Alice’s shoulders. “You don’t have to use the arm thingy,” Van says softly, “but it’s kind of amazing.”
Alice wriggles her left arm into it—she’ll try anything once—and, dang. Van’s right. Alice can pet Frank’s head without jostling the entire blanket or losing the heat that she and Van are rapidly generating.
She doesn’t know how to knit, but she honestly could knit in this thing.
Marie presses play, and Adam Sandler comes back onto the screen, singing some hit from the eighties, and Alice finds herself melting into the couch.
Warm, soft, and full, she doesn’t even panic when Van’s arm slips down from the couch cushion to rest on her shoulders.
It’s dark in the room, but Alice doesn’t want to have to explain to anyone, so she gently reaches up and tucks the corner of the blanket over Van’s hand, trapping her in their little navy-blue cocoon.
Van’s thumb rubs up and down, hot even over the layers of Alice’s shirt and sweater.
Alice can see the last vestiges of the candles still burning in the windowsill.
She lets herself sink into Van, her right side pressed into Van’s body from shoulder to ankle, the front of her shirt lightly dusted with sugar.
When the movie ends, Alice realizes that her hand is on Van’s thigh.
She doesn’t remember putting it there, but she knows that it feels right.
—
An hour later, after the credits have rolled and the candles have gone cold, Van stands up and reaches toward the ceiling to stretch.
“Okay,” she says, as Alice pointedly doesn’t look to see if there’s a strip of stomach visible under her sweater.
“Alice, I can take you home. Mom, I’ll be back in thirty. ”
Alice tilts her head, confused. “Wait, you’re coming back here?”
“Yeah, I’m gonna crash here tonight,” Van says, holding out a hand to help pull Alice out of the comfortable nest of a couch.
“Easier to leave Frank here in the morning than to schlep him up north and then come back here before hitting the hospital. And I usually don’t like to drive at night, but your place isn’t too far. ”
But Alice is shaking her head. “If you’re staying here, why would you drive me home?”
Van looks kind of amused. “Well, Mom’s drunk, Dad’s asleep, and you definitely don’t want to experience Aunt Sheila driving in the dark after two glasses of wine.
” Alice literally shudders at the thought, and Van laughs.
“So you’re stuck with either me or Marie, and we’re both staying here tonight. ”
“You should stay too,” Marie says from the couch, her head pillowed on Frank’s side. “It’s late.”
“Yes, Alice, honey, please stay,” Babs says from where she’s shoving the Snuggies back into their box. She’s had a lot of wine, so she’s more balling them up than folding them. “I’d feel so much better if none of you girls had to venture out tonight. The streets must be frozen by now.”
“You haven’t lived until you’ve had leftover latkes for breakfast,” Marie says. “Dad always fries ham and eggs—sorry, Moses—and it’s like a latke breakfast sandwich. Truly a transcendent experience.”
Alice quickly runs a pro/con list about staying in her mind.
Pros: She’s exhausted, and her tiny, freezing studio holds very little appeal after tonight.
It’s really late, and the sooner she can get to sleep, the less exhausted she’ll be tomorrow at work.
Post-Chanukah breakfast sounds like a wonderful way to develop heart disease.
More time with Van and Marie. Not having to pay for an Uber.
Not forcing Van to drive her all the way home and back in the freezing rain after midnight, when the streets are probably slick with ice.
She can take the bus directly to work from here in the morning, which will be faster than coming from her apartment.
Cons: She’ll probably have to leave before latke breakfast, actually, because her shift starts so early.
No change of clothes. No toothbrush. More time with Van.
The pros have it.
“Sure,” Alice says. “I’d love to stay.”
Twenty minutes later, Alice bites her lip. This’ll teach me not to make a pro/con list without all the facts, she thinks, staring down at her bed.
Or, well. Down at the bed she’ll be sleeping in.
With Van.
Babs and Steve are upstairs in their bedroom, and Aunt Sheila has already made her way up to the futon in the storage room attached to the costume closet.
Marie’s childhood room downstairs has only a narrow twin bed, the couches aren’t comfortable for a whole night, and Babs would rather die than make her guest or her (possibly unhealthy?) daughter sleep on one.
The only viable option is the double bed in the second downstairs bedroom.
It makes sense for Alice to bunk in there with Van.
It’s the only thing that makes sense, according to Babs and everyone who doesn’t know about Alice’s raging hormones.
The only possible solution for this slumber party Tetris clusterfuck is for Alice to spend the night, in the dark, alone, under the covers with Van fucking Altman.
It’s the sensible thing for Alice to breathe in the scent of Van’s cologne all night, for them to be tucked together in what has to be the world’s smallest double bed after touching each other way too much during the movie.
Alice is pretty sure that this is one of the biggest mistakes in human history, slotting in right after “let’s try this capitalism thing,” but before low-rise jeans.
Marie’s loaned her sweatpants and a T-shirt to wear.
The shirt is cobalt blue with white writing that says Grant High School Varsity Drama.
It had made Alice smile when she first saw it, but now that she’s wearing it, it seems a little less funny.
She’s one hundred percent living a varsity drama right now, and it’s much more confusing than it should be.
She’s chosen to keep her bra on underneath the shirt, which won’t be at all comfortable, but the thought of being braless in bed with Van is several thousand bridges too far.
She hates sleeping in pants too—shorts or underwear are the only acceptable bottoms—but lord knows she’s not shucking them off.
She’ll deal with being overly hot and claustrophobic any day over being in her fucking undies in bed with Van.
“Hey,” Van says softly from the doorway. “You good?” Alice looks over at her and then immediately regrets it. She absolutely cannot handle the sight of Van in boxers and a soft black shirt. No. Absolutely not. No thank you.
Or, well. Yes please, but also, and more urgently, no thank you.
“Yeah.” Alice’s voice is pinched, and she wishes that, for once in her goddamned life, she could play it cool.
“Good. Just, um…” She crosses her arms over her chest, even though Van’s seen her in a T-shirt before.
Right? Or has she always been wearing a sweater?
Fuck, should she put on a sweater? Are there, like, sleep parkas or something, and if not, why hasn’t someone invented them for this specific situation?
She clears her throat. “Wasn’t sure which side you wanted. ”
Van blinks, and then pointedly looks over to the right side of the bed. Frank’s bed is nestled between that side and the wall, and Van’s phone is on that nightstand, already plugged in.
“Right,” Alice says, laughing way too nervously.
“Sorry, I’m…” She trails off, all of the truths swimming to the surface of her mind.
I’m distracted. Confused. Super horny. Lying to you and your entire family.
Very aware of the extra pounds around my stomach that I hate. Anxious. Excited. Overwhelmed.
She says the only thing she can: “Tired.”
“One good solution for that,” Van says, pulling back the covers.
She seems so chill, like she spends many nights cuddled up to her brother’s girlfriends after gently caressing their arms under a blanket for an hour.
Like contemplating sharing a bed with someone she’s been having… moments…with is no biggie.
And they have been moments, right? Alice is pretty sure they’ve been moments.
Van was so mad at Cherry/Kerry, and told Alice that she would choose her over Cherry/Kerry.
Right? At her house, she said Nolan didn’t deserve Alice—that meant something, didn’t it?
The long gazes, the constant heat between them, the way she looked at Alice in her own living room, the confessions out on the balcony at the hospital, those were all moments, right?
Alice isn’t alone in this, is she?
Well, she’s certainly not alone in this bed anyway.
Van is under the covers now, and the weirdest thing Alice could do is keep standing there, staring, so she forces herself to get in.
She lies on her back, looking up at the ceiling, unfortunately reminding herself of the way Nolan is currently lying in his hospital bed.
She hears the sounds of Frank’s feet clicking on the hardwood as he circles the room a few times before curling up in his bed and settling with a loud, long sigh.
“Good night, Franko. Love you.” Van’s voice is so impossibly soft and loving that Alice’s ribs collapse, her heart flattening and oozing up to the surface to offer itself to Van.
“Good night, Frank,” Alice echoes.
“Are you comfortable?”
No. It’s too hot with both of them under the covers and these thick-ass sweatpants, and Van smells way too good and this is the first time Alice has seen her bare arms and legs. She’s like a randy Victorian man, turned on by a scandalous flash of elbow.
“Yep,” Alice lies. “I’m great.”
“Cool,” Van says. She rolls over and clicks off the light, and the room is plunged into darkness.
Alice doesn’t move, and slowly her eyes adjust, the dim orange from the streetlights filtering through the closed blinds enough for her to make out the ceiling, the dark dresser in the corner, the contrast between the white sheets and the blood-red comforter.
It’s quiet for a long time. Alice assumes Van’s asleep.
She wants to roll over but she’s afraid to wake up Van, to shake the bed, to accidentally get too close.
She feels like a prey animal, like if she doesn’t move a muscle then maybe everyone will forget that she’s here and nothing bad will happen to her.
But after what must be at least half an hour, Van says something from the darkness next to Alice.
“Do you love him?”
Almost against her will, Alice turns her head. Van isn’t looking at her. She’s flat on her back too, and her eyes are closed. Pinched closed, Alice is pretty sure, like she’s screwing them shut, like she can’t bear to see Alice answer the question.
Something in the middle of Alice’s chest, deep below her sternum, clenches and throbs. She tells the truth into the thick darkness.
“No.”
“I should want you to,” Van whispers, still not looking.
Alice takes a deep breath, holds it for three, and then lets it out slowly. “Do you want me to?”
Another long pause, and then, “No.”
She can’t help it. Alice rolls toward her. “Van,” she breathes, reaching out to brush the back of her hand down Van’s arm.
Van rolls too, and only once she’s facing Alice does she open her eyes.
Her hand comes up, and Alice doesn’t move out of the way, letting Van tuck a piece of her hair back behind her ear.
Van’s fingers are so gentle, her face so tender in the darkness, that now it’s Alice who has to shut her eyes for a few long seconds.
“We can’t,” Van whispers as Alice finally looks at her again, and Alice nods against her pillow.
“I know.”
But Van doesn’t take her hand off Alice. She cups Alice’s face, running her thumb softly across Alice’s cheek. “But I want to.”
Alice lets her eyes flutter shut. She can’t. They can’t. She knows it. But for once in her fucking life, she can be honest about what she wishes was true.
“Me too.”