Chapter 24 #2
Alice nodded. ‘We can enlist Freddie, Sierra and Cook too. The kids are so much better behaved than the first session, we can do with less coverage. I think they could smell our fear.’
‘Like sharks,’ Noah agreed.
Harper looked up at him. ‘That’s blood, not fear, babe.’
‘Thanks for taking my plan in stride.’
‘Oh, there was a choice?’ Harper deadpanned. Noah nudged her with his elbow. ‘Kidding!’
‘If this is about apologizing,’ Noah said, gesturing toward where Briar was trying not to be obvious about observing them, ‘I don’t think you need to anymore. I feel confident that you’re forgiven.’
‘It’s time!’ Briar said cheerily, intercepting Alice as she was making her way back to their cabin after a clandestine party planning meeting with Noah, Harper and Cook.
‘Huh?’ Alice said, feeling caught out. ‘I was just… walking!’
‘Yes, I can see that,’ Briar said. ‘Are you ready to prep?’
‘Oh. The interview.’ Briar had been insisting they make time for it for the past week, but Alice had been procrastinating. ‘Maybe tomorrow?’
Briar linked her arm with Alice’s, pulling her toward the mess hall. ‘First, fuel.’
Once they had raided the kitchen, Briar laid out a series of index cards on one of the mess hall tables. Alice stared at her in wonder.
‘I still do this when I prep for job interviews,’ Briar explained. ‘The Alice Hughes Method, patent pending.’ Alice felt her cheeks go pink. ‘Now, write out your responses to each question while I make popcorn.’
Briar disappeared and Alice got to work writing responses.
‘Ready?’ Briar asked, returning. She collected the cards, shuffling them and then sitting across from Alice. ‘Tell me about yourself.’
Alice cleared her throat. ‘I’m entering my final year of a DPhil in mycology at Oxford University.
I’ve been Dr. Jeremy Beecham’s research assistant for the past three years.
Prior to Oxford, I graduated with a degree in biology with first-class honors from St. Andrews.
’ It was an easy recitation of her resume, something Alice had done thousands of times at networking events.
Briar cocked her head to the side. ‘Why mushrooms?’
Alice blinked. ‘That wasn’t on any of the cards.’
‘Gotta be able to think on your feet,’ Briar chided.
‘I spent a lot of time in the woods as a child,’ Alice said wryly, since explaining this to Briar felt like the most pointless exercise in the world.
‘I grew attached to the forest floor, playing in the dirt.’ Getting dirty had been a novel experience for Alice.
So much of her life was pristine: the sterile house she shared with her mother, the platinum blonde hair she meticulously maintained and the grades she received.
Having one sliver of mess in her life was her only rebellion.
‘I came across a beautiful mushroom one day, and I showed it to my camp counselor. She opened a new world to me, the world of decomposers. I was fascinated with the way that something could become nothing, all because of this small and seemingly innocuous thing.’
‘What’s camp?’ Briar joked.
‘Fair point,’ she said. ‘I’ll just say it was for school or something. Tell him I found a picture of a mushroom in a book and was taken by it and asked my teacher what it was.’
The thought of encountering a mushroom for the first time in a classroom felt wrong, a betrayal of the girl who had sat in the dirt studying them her whole childhood, but she pushed that aside.
Briar nodded, flipping to the next card. ‘Why do you want this job?’
Alice’s mind went completely blank, forgetting everything she’d written down. The only thing she could think of was how it would feel to tell her parents about it. Her mom would congratulate her on a job well done, and her dad would return her email with encouragement.
‘This job aligns perfectly with what I’ve envisioned for my career,’ she said, reciting the words that Jeremy had put in his email to her.
‘The Royal Botanical Society will give me the resources to put more time and energy into my research. I’ll be at the cutting edge of the field, not just citing others but being cited. ’
It wasn’t as gratifying a thought as she had expected it to be.
The citations would mean something to her parents and her peers, but the job itself would mean even more hours poring over books, working with men who would never fully respect her, presenting at conferences to bored academics.
It would mean less time outside. It would be a life like the one she’d left behind in London, a life she now realized she hardly missed at all.
‘You missed a few points on that one,’ Briar said, oblivious to Alice’s racing thoughts. ‘You’ll want to make it more personal and grounded in your day-to-day, so your passion comes across. Obviously, it’s not all about the prestige for you.’
Alice nodded. ‘That makes sense.’
She was overwhelmed by the thought of more prep.
She hadn’t left herself the time, hadn’t even thought of the interview when she’d had the idea to fix up Susan’s house.
Camp had taken away some of her edge, softening her in ways she hadn’t known she’d had to look out for.
To go back to academia, she would need to sharpen up again.
Briar flipped to the next card. ‘What accomplishment are you most proud of?’
Again, Alice couldn’t remember the words she’d written.
Looking into Briar’s hazel eyes, she felt proud that she’d stuck around when she’d wanted to leave midway through the summer.
She felt proud that she was going to be able to take some of the burden of fixing up the house off her.
She felt proud of Robin for making friends.
She felt proud of herself, for introducing him to what she hoped would be a lifelong love of decomposers.
She searched desperately through her academic accomplishments, her research, trying to think of an anecdote to answer the question.
She recited a story about winning departmental honors for a project she’d worked on with Jeremy.
The interview didn’t leave Alice’s head for the rest of the day and into the night. As she listened to Briar’s steady breathing, she hated her brain for not being able to shut off. She needed to do something, to talk to someone. But it would be too early for Tess.
She found herself at the phone, dialing her dad’s number, before she realized what she was doing.
She’d done it in high school sometimes when her insomnia had made her lonely, picking up the phone and talking to him about school, about her assignments.
It had been years since she’d called him this late, but she doubted his routine had changed much.
‘Hello?’
Alice couldn’t remember the last time she’d heard his voice; it had been at least a year. ‘Hi, Dad. It’s Alice.’
‘Oh,’ he said, and she could tell she had startled him. ‘Is everything alright? What number are you calling from?’
‘Everything’s fine,’ she said, though it felt like a lie. ‘I’m at Camp Lakeside. Where I used to go?’ It came out as a question; she couldn’t be sure her father remembered anything about her life.
‘Oh?’ His tone was distracted.
‘I’ve been helping out this summer. Because Susan died.’
‘I’m sorry to hear that.’ Alice hated how she couldn’t tell if he knew who Susan was or if he was just humoring her. ‘You’re not in London?’
‘I’m going back in a couple of weeks.’ She squeezed her eyes shut. ‘I’m interviewing for a job when I go back. It’s a prestigious one, at the largest research organization for mycology in the UK.’
‘So, you’ll be staying in London, then,’ he said, not a question but a statement.
Alice blinked. He almost sounded sad. ‘I suppose so, if I get it.’
‘What does that mean for the wedding?’
And then his concern made sense. ‘Oh, nothing.’
Her dad sighed. ‘Your grandparents have been asking about you. And I think it would be good for people to see you there.’
‘Good for people to see me…’ Alice repeated slowly.
He meant he wanted the opportunity to play at being a good father, to explain her existence as the distant but doting daughter, rather than the truth: that she hadn’t seen him in half a decade.
‘Is it not enough for them to see your other children?’
There was silence on the other end of the line. Alice had never spoken like that to him before, and she didn’t know if it had made her feel better or worse.
‘I’ll give you some time…’
‘I don’t need time,’ Alice said. ‘I’m not coming. And you can give people whatever excuse you want.’
‘I guess there’s nothing I can say to that, is there?’
‘You could apologize,’ Alice said, feeling bold.
He sighed again, as though Alice were sucking the life from him by asking him to do anything at all. ‘Would it make a difference?’
For years, she’d waited for him to come visit her in DC, to take her out to lunch, to tell her that he knew what he had done had been wrong. To admit that he hadn’t just betrayed her mom, but had ruined Alice’s life in the process.
For years, she’d wondered if she was exactly the same as him, destroying everything she touched, leaving a wreck in her wake.
‘I don’t know,’ she admitted quietly.
‘Good night, Alice.’
‘Good night.’
She sat, staring at the phone, unsure of what she had just done.
It wasn’t clear to her if she had altered the trajectory of her relationship with her dad forever, or if the thing it had always been was now just out in the open.
She’d been the perfect daughter her whole life and had destroyed it in a second.
She walked out of the cabin and down the path towards the mess hall, thinking a cup of tea might help. But when she entered the kitchen, she was surprised to see Harper already standing over the stove.
‘What are you doing here?’ Alice demanded, annoyed that she couldn’t sulk in peace.
Harper started, turning. ‘Making hot chocolate. What are you doing here?’
Alice sighed, dropping into a chair and rubbing her eyes. ‘Tea.’
‘Couldn’t sleep?’ Harper asked, her tone softer. When Alice looked up, she saw that Harper was pouring boiling water into two mugs. ‘What kind of tea?’
‘Peppermint, please. It’s in—’
‘I got it,’ Harper interrupted, opening Cook’s tea drawer as though she’d done it a thousand times before.
Alice’s eyes narrowed. ‘When did you become so familiar with this kitchen?’
Harper pursed her lips. ‘When are you going to stop thinking everything I do is some sort of plot against you?’
Alice huffed out a breath. ‘I guess you haven’t done anything that terrible to me this summer.’
‘Nothing that terrible?’ Harper repeated incredulously. ‘I’ve saved your ass. Multiple times.’
‘Yeah, okay,’ Alice admitted. ‘I’m sorry.’
Harper eyed her suspiciously for a moment more, as though Alice was going to say something mean.
‘Apology accepted,’ she said, sliding the tea to Alice.
‘Why are you being nice to me?’ Alice asked, watching Harper prepare her hot chocolate.
Harper snorted. ‘Why would I be mean to you?’
‘You were pretty mean in high school,’ Alice said.
Harper didn’t answer immediately, busying herself with wiping cocoa powder off the counter.
‘It wasn’t that deep,’ she said finally. ‘I was sixteen and jealous.’
‘You were jealous of me?’ Alice asked, incredulous.
Harper had never once given her the impression that she had looked upon her with anything other than disdain.
She’d made Alice feel like she didn’t belong in their group, like she was missing some innate social knowledge that every other person had.
It didn’t make sense for her to have been jealous when everyone had liked her and no one had liked Alice.
Harper cocked her head, sitting across from Alice. ‘You’re at Oxford and you didn’t put together that I had a crush on my fiancé when you were dating him?’
‘I mean…’ Alice said, blowing on her tea, ‘I guess I knew, yeah. I just thought you separately hated me for unrelated reasons.’
Harper let out a surprised laugh. ‘Well, it didn’t help that you were smarter than me.’
Alice shook her head. ‘I wasn’t smarter. I just studied more.’
‘No, you definitely were.’ Harper hummed thoughtfully. ‘It used to really piss me off. I’d get a 96 on a test and you’d get a 98. It was like no matter how good I was, you were always better.’
Alice shrugged, not sure what to say to that. ‘Sometimes I felt like it was the only thing I had going for me,’ she admitted. ‘You were popular. I wasn’t.’
‘Are you being nice to me now?’ Harper asked, feigning shock.
‘Only for now. You haven’t said why you know where the tea is, so I’m still suspicious.’
‘I’ve come in here a few times when I couldn’t sleep,’ Harper said, staring down at her mug.
‘Something wrong?’ Alice asked.
‘No,’ Harper said quickly. Then, looking at Alice’s face, she added, ‘Weddings are messy. Anyway, why are you awake?’
‘I called my dad.’ Alice couldn’t explain it further.
Harper considered her for a moment. ‘He’s a dick, right? Left your mom?’
‘You remember that?’
‘Know thy enemy,’ Harper said.
‘Yeah, he cheated on her,’ Alice said. She thought back on how harsh she’d been with him, but no longer felt bad about it. ‘I asked him to apologize.’
Harper nodded. ‘I get it. I’ve tried to get my parents to apologize for a lot of things.’ She grimaced. ‘It never goes well.’
‘They’re still together?’ Alice asked.
‘Unfortunately,’ Harper replied, running her finger over the lip of her mug. ‘I think they thought staying together would be better for me. But it was a lot of pressure. Like I needed to succeed to make it worth it for them.’
Alice wondered if her parents would be happy now if they’d stayed together. She couldn’t picture it.
Harper sighed. ‘It was better when I went to college. No, actually, it was way worse, but then it got better. Having Briar and Noah was good for me.’
‘Yeah,’ Alice said. She knew what it felt like to be surrounded by people who cared about her. It was something she’d spent the last decade of her life convincing herself she no longer needed.
‘They remind me that I didn’t have to be anything more than myself,’ Harper said. ‘Is that corny?’
Alice smiled. ‘Only a little.’
Harper shrugged. ‘Whatever. They’re my best friends. I can be corny for them.’
Alice’s chest ached at the declaration. It was a glimpse into what her life could’ve been if she’d never left; it was another reminder that no matter what happened this summer, she would leave again. She reached over and squeezed Harper’s hand. ‘I’m really glad that Briar has you.’