Chapter 23
Alice truly looks like the type of person who has never taken a shit in her life. She looks so clean and shiny. Like a hairless puppy. She is almost inhuman. Ambrosial in her smoothness. I feel my neck tilt upwards to meet her eye.
It devastates me to realize that alongside all this corporeal perfection, her vibe is immediately warm and likeable. She offers me a big smile.
‘Oh, I’m sorry!’ She grins uncertainly, checking the number on the front door. ‘I was looking for Naomi.’
‘Are you a friend or … workmate?’ I offer, playing the total innocent.
‘Oh, wait, are you Irish? That’s pretty cool. I went to live in Dublin for a semester in college. It’s such a beautiful city. And the beaches?’
Stop. Being. So. Fucking. Nice. Her friendliness, meted out to seemingly everyone and anyone, is upsetting.
‘Do you want to come in and wait for Naomi? I don’t think she will be long. I’m her housemate, by the way. Esther.’
‘I didn’t realize she had a …’ she starts, evidently coming to a very rational conclusion: why would a wealthy woman in her late forties have a housemate to begin with? ‘I’m Alice.’
‘Please, do come on in and wait for her here. I’m making matcha lattes in the kitchen.’
‘Oh no, I won’t disturb you,’ she says, waving her hands and moving away.
I want to tell her that coming in will not disturb me in the slightest, and in fact it would be of incredible importance to me to get to know her, and about her situation, and how exactly she knows Naomi, and Naomi’s step-brother.
I study her impeccable soft hands with their ballet-pink nails, imagining them all over Ted.
She is sun-kissed and freckled, no doubt from those many weeks as a movie groupie in California.
‘No! Please come in, I insist,’ I say. ‘It’s not often I get to meet people here that have even been to Dublin.’
‘I stayed in a place called Ranelagh.’ Goddammit. She says it the right way and everything.
‘Oh, very posh,’ I say lightly and she laughs.
‘I don’t think so,’ she sings. ‘It was a studio apartment the size of my suitcase. The shower never worked.’
I put the kettle on in the kitchen, if only to have something else to concentrate on. ‘So, you’ll have a matcha latte?’
‘Is that the stuff that tastes a bit like grass?’ she asks, making a face. She’s even cooler than I gave her credit for. Keeping my breath steady is taking work.
‘How about tea?’
‘Regular, if you guys have it.’
‘So how do you know Naomi?’ I notice that she hasn’t answered the question from before.
‘Well, to be honest, I just know her a little, from a couple of emails. I just have something I need to discuss with her, y’know, just … family stuff. Ughh, it’s boring.’
‘If anyone can help, it’s Naomi,’ I tell her. ‘I’m one of her very good friends, and she’s always been great whenever I’ve had to work through something, so I can tell you right now that you’ll be in safe hands. Unless you feel like offloading to a perfect stranger?’
Alice hesitates in the glare of the sweetest smile my face can fashion. ‘Y’know, it’s kind of a private thing? Sorry. I don’t mean to be … but you know …’
Bah and frig and shit. ‘Lookit, no problem at all!’ I reply, placing her tea on the table, seeing in my mind’s eye my hand flinging the entire thing in her perfect face. Her eyes don’t seem as cross-eyed as I thought they were.
Alice seems uneasy. ‘Look, I don’t want to keep you from work or whatever you need to do. I’m just happy to hang out here and wait for a while.’
‘No, it’s fine. I pretty much keep my own hours. I’m a screenwriter. I’m doing a script for a show back in London.’ The lie keeps shapeshifting in my head, and as I struggle to keep up with it, I hope no one else notices too much.
‘That’s cool,’ she murmurs, a lot less impressed than I thought she would be. I guess she hears this all the time. Maddeningly, she doesn’t ask me anything about it.
‘So how long have you lived here with Naomi?’ she says at last, stirring her tea with tiny circles.
‘Wow, almost three months, I think?’ How can I have been here so long?
‘It’s just for now. I just wanted a change of scene from living in London.
I’ve found it can help with creativity, just changing up the backdrop.
’ I say it so naturally that I’ve almost convinced myself it’s true.
‘How about you? Do you live nearby?’ My throat starts to itch with the sheer effort of seeming casual.
‘Oh, I’ve a place across town. Just a small place. It’s only a tiny bit bigger than what I had in Ranelagh, but the shower is at least operational this time,’ she offers with a warm smile.
Does she know I am wrestling with various thoughts all at once? Can she see it in my face? That I want her living with her perfectly working shower in darkest, wildest Antarctica, but, equally, that I also want to be one of her very best and closest friends?
‘And who do you live there with?’ I ask.
This one question appears to set her on edge and, as she stiffens, I realize I’ve come in too strong.
‘Just … by myself,’ she says. If she recognizes me from Twitter as the person who described her as having a face like a dropped pavlova, she certainly doesn’t let on.
Although why would she? I reason. My profile photo is two cute cartoon elephants.
The front door opens, and with it there’s a break in the atmosphere.
I haven’t seen Naomi for a couple of days – she has been staying at Stevie’s, her ardour in no way dampened by anything I’ve had to say about him.
Naomi does a theatrical recoil when she sees Alice in her living room, smiling sweetly up at her.
‘Oh my God, she’s even more beautiful in real life, it’s just not fair, right? ’ Naomi exclaims, smiling over at me.
The two women move together for an embrace, leaving me to realize that this might just be the first time they’ve met in person. I wonder exactly how long Alice has been seeing Ted. I also remember that warmth from Naomi when we first met in that wine bar.
‘Thank you so much for allowing me to come meet you,’ Alice says, tearing up a little. ‘It’s just been, you know … a lot to deal with.’
Naomi gives her a matriarchal pat. ‘Oh, honey, don’t I know it,’ she tells her. ‘I know the drill well, believe me.’ I try not to move a muscle, to blend into the wall. Don’t make me leave, guys, not now.
Unfortunately, I am noticed, and Alice puts a momentary halt on her crying, throwing an eye in my direction.
Naomi notices this, and in one smooth move she picks up her car keys.
‘I think what this afternoon needs is a dark bar and an open tab,’ she tells Alice, who nods gratefully. I wait for an invite that doesn’t come.
‘Really great to meet you,’ Alice says as she exits the house in a graceful sweep, with Naomi right behind her.
I spend the afternoon looking for pictures of Alice, trying to square the 2D beauty online with the breathing, living person in the kitchen earlier.
When Naomi arrives home alone later, I have worked myself into a dreadfully sour state. I am slamming drawers in the living room and flinging the remote control, waiting for her to notice that I’m a bit colder with her than usual.
‘Are you pissed at me?’ she eventually asks, incredulous.
‘You probably shouldn’t have gone out for a drink with the car,’ I tell her.
‘Honey, I parked over at Spadina, what of it?’ she says. She appears irritated at being taken to task over this.
‘I could have driven you over! At the very least, I probably could have used a drink too.’ I find myself pouting.
This is all a bit new to Naomi, who has only ever seen the accommodating, amiable side to me.
‘Well, we could have one now,’ she says, heading uncertainly for the fridge.
The last thing I want to do is to have yet another boozy night with her, full of tears, snot and her vomiting up her feelings. I want to stew in my own shitty feelings for a bit.
‘Your friend is really pretty,’ I say quietly.
‘Alice?’ She chuckles. ‘She’s not really a friend as such … She dates my step-brother.’
FINALLY. Some actual concrete detail. I feel my phone buzzing in my jeans.
‘Oh, that’s nice. How long have they been together?’ The other questions bouncing around in my mind will just have to wait their damn turn. So will my phone, which seems to have taken on a life of its own against my thigh.
‘A while, I guess. He can be a bit difficult when it comes to dating. She just wanted some advice on how to steer him a little, you know?’
‘How do you mean?’ I almost whisper it, trying to sound noncommittal. I’m afraid it will seem too intrusive.
‘She’s way too good for him,’ Naomi says, almost to herself. ‘And he can be such an asshole.’
She moves across the room to pick up her glasses and paperback, which I read as a sign that she is retiring for the night. Please stay, I want to shout out. Now that you’re finally talking about Alice, give me more. Tell me what I came here to find out. Don’t leave me now.
‘G’night,’ she sing-songs instead, wobbling off to bed.
My phone is still vibrating inside my jeans. This is what people mean when they say their phone is blowing up. My eye takes in several notifications, settling on one message from Violet.
‘LAYLA ISN’T THE PERSON THEY MADE THEMSELVES OUT TO BE,’ Violet writes. ‘We are being taken for idiots by a full-grown fucking MAN.’