Chapter III #2
Catty calls from Sheffield, Leicester, Cambridge.
Every time she is a little farther south.
And every time, Alice reminds her that she can come home.
And every time, Catty says, “Now why would I do that?”
Days turn into weeks, and in some ways, life stops, and in others, it goes on, and the worst part isn’t the missing, but the fact that it gets easier. She is still worried, of course, so worried, but the fear dissolves into something worse:
Relief.
Because those weeks are, in their awful way, the easiest in memory, without the eggshells, and the broken glass, the poison words and the land mines of her sister’s temper.
Alice is making popcorn when her cell phone hums inside her pocket.
(She’s learned to keep the ringer off, so Dad won’t try to snatch it from her.)
He and El are in front of the TV, searching for a film, and Finn is going round the house, getting pillows for a fort, and the house smells of butter and feels as soft, as warm, as Alice answers.
“Hey, Bones.” Catty’s voice frays in her ear. “Guess where I am?”
“Hold on,” she says, tugging the bag of popcorn from the microwave, hissing as the steam burns her fingertips. She leaves the bag on the counter and slips out the side door, into the dark.
Catty hasn’t stopped talking.
“Made it all the way to London. Can you believe it? I’m sitting on the steps of that big fountain in Trafalgar Square, just like Mum was in that one photo.”
(“Do you remember?”)
Sometimes Catty sounds groggy, and other times she talks so fast, Alice can barely keep up. Tonight her voice is dreamy, far away. But there’s something off about it. Far away, as if the distance has gathered up like wool between them.
Alice frowns. “Are you okay?”
It’s freezing out, and she wishes she’d put on a coat, even as she forces herself forward, across the damp ground, away from the house, so they won’t hear her on the phone.
“Me? I’m grand,” says Catty. “Just wish you were here to see it, too.”
Why couldn’t you wait? Alice wants to snap. But what she says is, “We can go back. You can show me everything.”
“It’s so big,” drawls Catty. “The world is so big.”
Just then, the door swings open. Butter-yellow light spills out, and Finn is there, in his footy pajamas, his favorite pillow to his chest.
“Alice?” he calls, searching for her in the dark. And for the first time in her life, she feels the rope Catty always talked about, pulling her back toward him.
“Hey Catty—” she starts, but her sister gets there first.
“Gotta go. Phone’s almost out of minutes. Miss you, Bones.” And then she’s gone.
“Alice?” Finn calls out, sounding worried now.
“Coming!” she calls back, shivering a little as she hurries—
Back toward the house—
Eager to get out of the cold.
By the time they get where they’re going, Alice has almost forgotten that Lottie’s warmth, her charm, is just a ruse. She is so good at playing her part, but then, she’s had so long to play it.
As for where they’ve ended up, it seems to be a club.
Not the kind of place she found herself last night (which feels at once like a lifetime ago and the measure of a single blink).
There’s a line out front, a red velvet rope, two dozen young, pretty people waiting to get in, and dressed in less than Alice is, despite the cold, but they don’t join the queue.
Instead, Lottie locks a hand round hers, pulls her toward the door, and the woman with the clipboard there, and if compulsion is the work of confidence, she has it in spades. The bouncer doesn’t even hesitate when Lottie meets her gaze and says, “You’ve been waiting for us, haven’t you?”
And just like that, they’re through, into the heaving space beyond, which must have either been a warehouse or a church in its past life, and is now a hollow cavern, lights playing on the vaulted ceiling, people tangled up beneath, dancing on the concrete floor.
The air is filled with bright, electric pop.
Steel stairs run up to railings overhead, and a DJ on a balcony, his edges traced with neon light, and it’s loud, too loud, not just the thumping music but the heavy beat of two hundred hearts, two hundred minds, two hundred bodies, taking up space, so overwhelming that Alice wants to put her hands over her ears, wants to escape back out into the open night, but Lottie is there, dragging her into the throng.
And Alice thinks that there’s no way Sabine will find them here, surrounded by so many people, starts to scan the massive crowd, but Lottie’s hand tightens and she pulls Alice hard enough to spin her round, into the circle of her arms.
“Don’t worry about her,” she says, “just dance with me.”
Alice wants to say that she can’t think, can’t breathe, it’s too hard, too much, but Lottie grabs her waist and pulls her close, and Alice looks into her eyes, which say, With me, with me, and somehow, the club noise begins to fade as Lottie smiles and pulls their bodies flush, a tiny pool of silence in the pounding beat.
They move together, hip to hip, and limbs entwined, and soon the world feels like it’s reversing, time rewinds, and it is Saturday night and Alice Moore is leaning up against the green wall in the Co-op, and Lottie is there, asking her to dance, and they are tangled, growing together in the center of the room, and the smoke alarm never goes off, and the party never spills out into the street, and Alice is never standing in the rain and they are never running hand in hand back to the dorms, never tripping up the stairs in storm-wet clothes, never stripping in the dark, and crashing down into her bed, and Lottie never leaves, and Sabine never comes.
They are just two girls, dancing.
And they have their whole lives ahead.