Chapter 25 #3
I quietly make my way to the bathroom, where I stand with my head between my legs and push the walls of the cubicle until my wrists ache.
I then decide to message Violet. ‘I have met Ted, finally! We’re at some industry party.
I’m pretty sure I’ll get to meet him again in the next few days.
Alice is actually really cool. I think you would like her. ’
By the time I re-emerge about thirty minutes later, Naomi is nowhere to be seen. ‘She told me to let you know she’s gotten a cab back to the house, and she won’t wait up,’ Alice tells me. ‘She’s probably had enough of the bullshit, and I don’t blame her.’
No harm, I think to myself. ‘Right, what are we at?’ I say, clapping my hands together, all business now. ‘And what are we at later?’ Me walking into a club with Ted. May the heavens burst into song right here.
‘Well, I don’t know,’ Alice says, scanning the room. ‘I think I’ve been abandoned too.’
A cry nearly escapes me. ‘It’s only nine p.m. for fuck’s sake!’ I shout.
‘Don’t know about you but I could use some real food,’ Alice says.
I don’t tell her that I’d eat microwaved camel shit if it means getting to talk to her and stay a little while longer in this life.
I shrug amiably in assent, the effort of playing it cool starting to create a callus on my soul, as I follow her out of the door.
One thing you need to know about walking next to Alice Andre in public: you’re going to feel like you’ve walked into a hall of mirrors and found the ‘compressing’ glass.
I look positively squashed down next to her.
As Alice takes casually mammoth vaults down the street, I struggle to keep up, the scurrying little sidekick in a kids’ cartoon.
Guys aren’t quite walking themselves into the lampposts and getting concussion when they see her, but the effect is not far off.
They very much notice her, letting their eyes rest gladly on her.
Women in groups approach us and glare at her, slightly thin-lipped while wrapping their coats and cardigans tighter around themselves.
Whether Alice sees all this, or ever did, it’s impossible to tell.
‘To be honest, I was kinda glad to get out of that room,’ Alice tells the top of my head.
‘Jesus yeah,’ I agree. ‘The whole vibe was very I’m-the-dude.’
‘Right?’ she says, laughing.
‘Yes!’ I say, warming up. ‘If half of them were ice-creams, they’d feckin’ lick themselves.’
‘Man, I miss the Dublin humour.’
‘I wouldn’t worry. You probably get plenty in the way of humour at home, comedy actor and all.’ I feel I can say this now that I’ve met Ted, but Alice closes up again, sighing in something approximating agreement.
We enter a Formica-and-check-tile diner where the portions are the size of Volvo hatchbacks. To my surprise, Alice sits down and asks for home fries and pancakes.
‘Where do you put it,’ I say almost to myself, scanning her long, minimalist limbs.
‘Do they still have Charlie’s in Dublin? I used to love that place.’
‘I couldn’t tell you. But you can’t beat a proper dirty Chinese, that much I know.’
‘Dirty, but in a good way, right?’
Are we becoming friends? I’m warming to Alice, while also realizing that she is a roadblock to be gently but decisively pushed to one side. The fact is, she is not right for Ted. They just don’t make any kind of sense as a couple.
I notice a tattoo on the inside of Alice’s wrist. ‘I like that,’ I say. ‘What does it mean?’
‘Just … something I got to remind me of an important moment in my life. It’s Latin. It reads, “It’s later than you think”.’
‘Yeah, cos I thought it said “Charlie’s”, so I’m glad you cleared that up.’
She laughs. ‘Sometimes things happen in life and you need to carry it along with you, and keep it close, like right in your eyeline.’
I think of the elephants etched on my hip. I can’t bring myself to mention them, or talk about what they mean.
‘My theory is, if you’ve had the kind of life moments where you feel you need to commemorate them on your body permanently, you’re probably doing something right,’ Alice adds as I nod mutely.
While we wait for our food, I head to the bathroom.
A small fantasy floats into my head as I sit on the toilet, the seat warming under me.
The real-life Ted I just met earlier is pretty different to the oversized fairground toy-man that has been living in my imagination, but I can still just about conjure him up.
‘What are we going to do about the Alice thing?’ I’ll ask him.
‘You don’t worry about her,’ he will say. ‘You and I are meant to be together, and once we realize that, everything else is just background noise.’
‘I know, but I really like her,’ I’ll say. ‘I don’t want her to get hurt in all of this.’
‘But I love YOU.’ Ted will cup my face in his oversized hands, making me feel as girly and delicate as a Kewpie doll. ‘This is the right thing. We will find a way through.
‘Love, I mean the love that we have, is rare,’ he’ll continue. ‘I’m not going to let it go for anything, I swear.’ We kiss in a way that makes both of us nearly breathless. ‘Alice will always be OK,’ he’ll say. ‘Girls like that always are.’
When I return back to the table, Alice is scrolling through her iPhone fretfully. Disturbed, she shakes her head softly as if in disbelief. She can’t seem to stop, though.
‘Bad news?’ I ask her.
She puts the phone down decisively. ‘Just … don’t ever get a Twitter account,’ she says softly.
Shit. ‘Oh,’ is all I can say to that.
Alice takes a huge forkful of pancakes as maple syrup escapes and dribbles a little on her lips. She keeps stealing sideways looks at her phone, lost in her own thoughts.
‘Can you believe that people can be this awful?’ she says. ‘To people they’ve never even met?’
‘What are you going to do?’ I ask.
‘Huh.’ A brittle laugh escapes. ‘If I were to do anything, I’d be here until next summer. So nothing.’
Her sadness rips something open in me. ‘Genuinely, fuck them,’ I tell her, pushing the thought that I am part of the problem far from view.
‘That sort of stuff only works when you look at your phone. So put down your phone for now. Avert your eyes. Pretend it’s not even happening.
Don’t read it! Then it ceases to exist.’
She nods in a way that says, ‘I wish you were right.’ She takes a swig of her water, laughing sadly.
‘See, Aquarians are hyper-sensitive. You lot take everything to heart.’
She thinks about this for a second. ‘How did you know I was an Aquarian?’
I briefly entertain the thought of telling her that she told me about her birthday before, but we’re not that close. ‘Well, I didn’t, but guessing people’s star signs is kind of a gift of mine. I don’t know how I do it, but I’ve got like a ninety-five per cent hit rate.’
‘I’m not sure I believe in any of that stuff,’ she says. ‘Like, are we meant to believe that a twelfth of the population have the exact same personality traits? Or that people born in the same month are gonna have the exact same thing happen to them tomorrow?’
I shrug. Well, maybe.
‘OK, well, tell me more about Aquarians.’
‘Hmm. You’re very creative. Altruistic. Keen to help others. You’re also the oddballs of the zodiac, so a lot of the time with Aquarians, you don’t like them the first time you meet them. They sort of grow on you.’ If only she knew how true that is here.
‘Huh.’ Alice lets all this sink in, trying some of it on for size. ‘What sign are you?’
‘Gemini. We’re intellectual. Curious. But can be sort of two-faced.’ I laugh, although the reality of that makes a slight cigarette burn on my mind.
Alice laughs too. ‘What about … Scorpios?’
I already know this to be Ted’s star sign. ‘I don’t know how compatible Aquarians and Scorpios are,’ I tell her. ‘Scorpios are possessive and jealous. Aquarians are more free-spirited and this drives them nuts.’ Is this even true? It sounds true, even if it maybe isn’t.
As Alice’s face darkens a little, I add hastily, ‘Scorpios are also the most passionate and sensual star sign of the zodiac, so there’s that.’ Any details about Ted and passion, she keeps to herself.
That night back in Naomi’s house, I vibrate under the bed covers, keeping an eye fixed on the ceiling to avoid shrieking out into the darkness with happiness.
My heart feels so unbelievably full. Ted is officially in my life, in my circle.
I’m friends with a model, which somehow makes me a cooler and better person by proxy.
I feel the first wave of romance warming my cheeks.
I’d forgotten all about the first flush, how it runs through the body like an electrical current. It’s splendid.