Chapter 36
ALICE
I crunch on a Pringle and reach for a swig of beer. ‘I found out that Michael’s dad died in ninety-eight, his mum’s still alive though, but I haven’t been able to find anything on her other than a Facebook account that’s been inactive for a decade.’
‘So, it’s Kate we’re going to see?’ Spence asks, pushing his glasses up his nose and checking his phone for the hundredth time.
‘I’m hoping so.’
‘Hoping?’
I squirm a touch. ‘I found a fruit and veg shop in the same area and the website says it’s a family-run shop owned by a Kate Porter.’
‘Hold on, we’re going all that way without knowing it’s her? Why don’t we give her a call at least? There must be a number on the website?’
‘I tried, but couldn’t get through.’
Spence frowns and taps a message out.
‘She OK?’ I ask gently nodding at his phone.
‘Yeah…’ He turns the screen around to show me a picture of Heather and Georgia wearing bright pink face masks. ‘Christ. I didn’t think it would be this hard…’
‘Letting her go to Scotland?’
‘All of it.’
He reaches for his beer and takes a long pull. ‘I’d better get going,’ he says shifting.
I reach over and place my hand on his arm. ‘You can stay here, if you don’t want to go back to an empty house?’ He pauses, the bottle halfway to his mouth.
‘I have an idea.’ I grin. ‘Why don’t we get off our tits on picky bits and watch a film?’
‘Off our tits on picky bits?’ He smirks.
‘Yeah!’ I get up and walk into the kitchen, swinging open the fridge door.
Spence follows me, leaning on the counter.
‘I’ve got dips, sausage rolls, ooh and those little chicken-on-a-stick things you love.
’ I swing back, wiggling my eyebrows. ‘Come and have a look, see what you fancy.’ He hits me with a lopsided grin and leans into the fridge.
I find my eyes taking in the band of bare skin between the top of his jeans and his white-T-shirt.
‘What?’ he asks, straightening, catching me. I can feel a blush crawling up my chest.
‘Nothing. It’s hot in here, isn’t it hot?’ I reach over and flash open the window.
Spence cocks an eyebrow. ‘I guess?’
Half an hour later and we have a tray of picky bits laid out in front of us, another bottle of beer in our hands and The Princess Bride playing on the screen.
I pop an olive into my mouth. ‘God, how many times have we watched this?’
He leans forward, loading a tortilla with salsa. ‘Dunno, twenty at least,’ he replies while he chews.
We both start repeating the lines, complete with a speech impediment: ‘Mawidge, is what bwings us together, too-day.’
He brushes off his hands and stretches, the movement, showing the plane of his stomach. My eyes still. ‘Been working out?’ I say as he catches me looking.
‘No.’
I give him a disbelieving look.
‘Maybe.’
‘Before or after Heather came back on the scene?’
He gives me a sardonic look. ‘Before. Helps me think.’
I snort, trying for gentle humour but the BBQ flavour from a Pringle burns the back of my throat.
‘Well, I’m sure she appreciated the effort, just the same.’
‘It’s not like that…’
I wait for him to tag on the word ‘yet’.
‘We’re just…’
I put on a stupid teasing voice, even though the idea of Spence and Heather together again brings back the hurt I’d felt on prom night.
The way he’d dismissed me to his friend.
Me and Alice? No, man, we’re friends. Nothing more.
She’s like my little sister. I deflect. ‘Have you…’ I make silly kissing noises.
He laughs but then looks away. ‘Spence?’ My heart trips, like I’ve miscalculated the number of stairs and have to right myself.
‘Oh. My. God. You have, haven’t you?’ the words blast out.
‘No!’
‘You’re going awfully red for someone saying they haven’t.’
‘We haven’t.’
‘But…?’
‘There was a moment… It’s, it’s nothing.’
‘Oh no, you don’t get off that easily. What kind of moment?’
‘We were watching Georgia asleep and… I don’t know. It felt…’
‘Like it was normal?’
‘Yeah. Something like that.’
Memories of the nights we’d spent together with Georgia asleep between us career through my mind.
The way we’d talk about her little fingers stretched out like a pianist. Moments where I would come home from uni and get up in the night to read her stories when she couldn’t sleep.
The weekend I came home and missed my graduation party because they’d both had a sickness bug.
All the moments stack against themselves like a house of cards.
But now Heather’s come back… and knocked them all to the floor.
‘I’m pleased for you.’ I smile, but I have to focus on making the muscles in my face work. We grow quiet, sleepy, as the film continues. I reach for the controller, flicking off the screen, the nostalgia and familiarity of the film fading.
‘We’d better get some rest. Long drive tomorrow.’