Chapter 13 Alice #2
“Too bad I’m only here for the summer,” she says, the end of her sentence trailing like she regrets the words coming out of her mouth. She squeezes my hand, but the air still feels a little more tense as our pace slows.
She thinks she’ll only be here for the summer because that’s how long her research grant is supporting her. I wonder if she’s waiting for me to ask what comes after. If we’ll keep in touch. If we’ll see each other again.
She could be dead in a few weeks. So could I.
And even if we both live, there’s no next summer for us.
The fantasy that I’ll buy a phone just so I can talk to her, the dream that she’d ask me to come with her wherever her research takes her next—none of that is possible.
So I keep my mouth shut and squeeze her hand back.
For the first time, I regret my mithridatism. It would likely be easier to let the poison kill Ilya and I at the same time, so I didn’t have to live with the guilt, so I didn’t have to live in a world without her.
As we walk, I allow myself to imagine a best-case-scenario.
Ilya comes, because my father would never deign to leave his stronghold for something as unimportant as his wayward and traitorous daughter.
Ilya doesn’t kill anyone to get to me, but waits until I’m alone in my apartment.
He might even keep me here for a while, to get his revenge for embarrassing him by faking my death before bringing me back to Russia.
I could kill him here. Let him die a slow, painful death from the poison. Find a way to get his body onto one of Jimmy’s boats and dump him at sea.
I could live. Emily could live.
But what comes after that? There’s no world where my father would let me be.
Being a traitor, faking my death, running from him—those are all betrayals he needs to avenge, certainly.
But killing his successor? Ensuring he doesn’t have anyone to pass the family business to?
He would have no choice but to respond, publicly and violently.
I won’t pretend I have any hope of surviving my father’s retribution, whether it be an execution or imprisonment in his world. I certainly will attempt to take him down with me, but I know the chances are slim. I will die, or find myself back in his clutches with no chance of ever escaping again.
I can’t subject Emily to that. I’m already putting her at enough risk, doing it twice would be nothing short of cruel.
If I survive Ilya, I’ll go into hiding once more. And Emily might remember me fondly. Maybe the person I really am will live on in her.
“Why does this bar look closed?” Emily’s voice jars me out of my silent spiral, and when I look up, we’re outside Bait, one of the two bars in town.
“Probably because it is,” I say, peering into the dark windows. “Paul owns this place, but he also manages the pawn shop. So he can only bartend after the shop closes.”
“There really are no people here, huh?” she replies, the question rhetorical.
“When I got here, there were about four hundred, but most of them are retirees who wanted to get off the grid,” I say, remembering what Luanne taught me once she realized I was staying longer than the tourist season.
“There are a few people who pick up bartending shifts on weekends, and I think the owner of the pawn shop comes into town from Bend every once in a while, but there are so few patrons it’s hard to justify paying people. ”
“How do two bars stay afloat, then?” she asks as we make our way past an empty and defunct diner, the linoleum peeling from the floor and the formica counters sun-bleached.
“The other one is basically only for locals. Bait serves some basic bar food, so families come to eat there after whale watches, but Wayne’s doesn’t. Genevieve bartends at Wayne’s, she’s basically the only person close to our age around here.”
“Are you friends?” Emily asks as we pass the lot for the church. I’ve heard this is a cliche in small American towns. Each one has at least one church and at least two bars.
“Not really, we both keep to ourselves. Last I heard, she’s taking online classes, trying to get out of here.”
Plus, until I met Emily, I did my best to distance myself from everyone in town. I avoided anything more than casual conversation with everyone I could, hoping it would keep Ilya or my father’s eyes off of them.
“You think you could sneak me in? Vouch for me, as a local?” she asks, winking at me as we step over a broken area of sidewalk. The floating feeling is back in full force.
“We’ll see,” I say noncommittedly, wondering how much I’d regret being hungover on the boat tomorrow morning, and how much I really care.
“The next time you have a day off,” she offers, possibly reading my mind, which I find oddly comforting. I’m contemplating something charming to say back when I’m stopped in my tracks in front of the pawn shop windows.
I’ve been here dozens of times. Paul is surly, and the quality of the food at his bar makes my stomach clench, but he’s been a fair negotiator the few times I’ve purchased things from him.
The store is called a pawn shop, but realistically half of it is a thrift store, with piles of clothes in bins labeled dollar or less lined along the back walls.
That’s almost always what I come here for, avoiding the cases of watches and baseball cards and knickknacks, knowing there’s no point in buying anything it would be difficult to quickly pack and run with.
But sitting on an acrylic stand in the window is a viola. It’s old and a little beat up, the horsehair of the bow frayed and loose in its setting. But all of the strings are there, and the wood still shines like someone once polished it. Cared for it.
I haven’t thought about playing in so long.
Years before I faked my death and fled my father’s home.
Once Ilya had a ring on my finger, the golden shackles around my wrists became much tighter.
I think he knew about my minor rebellions, about my infrequent episodes of sneaking out of my father’s villa and playing music in wine bars and underground clubs.
For a while, I turned to more classical pieces, playing in my room or the gardens under the careful watch of my father or Ilya’s men.
But soon the experience became bitter. Playing music was about freedom. It was the one small avenue of self-expression I had. Trying to continue when I lacked that autonomy felt like a bird singing in a cage for no one to hear.
I didn’t even consider bringing my instrument when I left. I haven’t seen one since.
“Are you okay?” Emily asks, and I realize I’ve dropped her hand. I meet her eyes in the window’s reflection, filled with concern for me. Probably because I’m crying.
“Yes, I’m sorry,” I say, wiping my tears away hastily. “I…I used to play.”
The admission feels strange. Obviously I haven’t lied to Emily about everything in my life. But this truth feels bigger. It feels like a piece of my soul.
“Oh,” she says simply, her fingertips dragging over the back of my arm. “Do you want to go in and see it?”
I can’t. If I do, I’ll want to touch it. To play again. And if I do that, I’ll want to keep it. And apart from the cost, and the likelihood that it will be left behind when Ilya comes for me, I can’t be her again.
Other than my need to get my revenge on the men who have hurt me, I have worked very hard to shed everything that defined me as Alisa.
The way I talk, think, move. The clothes I wear, the food I eat.
Over the past half decade, I’ve forced myself to not seek comfort in the familiar, so I don’t grieve the life I lost.
“Yes,” I answer. Even though I shouldn’t. Even though I can’t. I do.
The little bell rings overhead as we walk in.
Paul’s head pops up from where he’s reading behind the glass cases, ignoring us once he realizes it’s a local and not someone he can upsell to.
Emily hovers her hand gently over the small of my back, like she’s ready to hold me up if needed. I must look as shell-shocked as I feel.
She’s prettier up close. The little knicks on the ribs, the worn finish on the scrolls, all her tiny imperfections making her more perfect.
There’s no chin rest, no faded spot where one once sat, and I wonder how long it’s been since she’s been played.
This wasn’t a display piece, I know that for certain. Someone loved this instrument.
“How long has it been?” Emily asks, her voice so soft it doesn’t even startle me.
“Since I was seventeen,” I admit, feeling and hearing the shake in my voice as I lift my hand, hovering it over the neck but unwilling to touch it.
“Why did you stop?”
“I was engaged once,” I say, physically unable to lie anymore. Not to Emily. Not in front of the instrument that once allowed me to pour all my grief and joy out without saying a word. “He found it childish.”
I remember his letter. The list of things that he would not allow in his home, including some of my favorite dresses, the painting from my mother’s dressing room that hung above my bed, and my viola, amongst many other beloved items. When I approached my father, he said I should learn to love the things Ilya loved, to be a good wife.
That what came into my husband’s home, including me, was at discretion.
It was the first moment it occurred to me that I wasn’t a person to either of them, but an object. Like a painting or an instrument or a piece of jewelry, I was an accessory. Objects were inherently inanimate, and I was expected to be the same.
I thought my father had loved me as a daughter.
But over the following months and years, I started to realize that all the moments he showed pride in me were those where I was smaller, quieter, less.
I smiled demurely on his arm, or Ilya’s, at a party?
Approval. I laughed too loud at a joke? Distaste.
I made it through a whole meal only speaking when spoken to?
A new dress would appear in my wardrobe the next morning.
I asked for leniency, requested independence? Open scorn.
Or in Ilya’s case, threats of consequences. Hands on my body. Bruises.
I’m so lost in the memories, staring at the viola like it will transport me back in time if I touch it, that I barely notice Emily leave and return. When she does, she interlaces her fingers with mine.
“You can pick it up,” she suggests gently, trying not to spook me. I can’t look at her and see the pity in her eyes, so I shake my head.
“I don’t want to break it, it looks fragile,” I say, a poor excuse. It looks so sturdy, I can almost feel the weight of the wood on my fingertips.
“Break it if you want, it’s yours.”
My whole body locks, air trapped in my lungs and blood frozen in my veins. Emily’s thumb draws smooth, calming circles on my hand.
“No,” I say, unable to get more words out.
“I know this is overstepping. And if you really don’t want it, I’ll take it and hold it until you’re ready. But it’s clear you once loved this, and you deserve to love it again.”
It’s too much. There’s no oxygen in my body, and I can feel the corners of my vision blur with haze and tears. I might break down, I might pass out. I might stand here for the rest of my life and let the world wither around me.
I wonder if Emily would stand here with me.
“You didn’t have to…” I trail off, feeling her shrug beside me. Saying things we don’t have the words for.
I lift the hand not attached to Emily and once again try to touch the viola. I don’t fear much, but it feels like the moment I touch the strings, a bubble will pop and I’ll be back in my father’s home, putting my instrument in its case for the last time.
But I do it. I touch the strings, their coiled pattern so familiar and beautifully grating against my skin. The wood of the neck is cold, but it warms quickly. Emily’s hand is still around mine, grounding me.
“When you’re ready, if you ever are,” she whispers next to me as I pick the instrument up by the neck one handed, unwilling to let go of her hand. “I’d like to hear you play, Alice.”
Alice. Not Alisa. Alice, with the weight of a viola under her palm again. Alice, holding hands with someone she chose. Alice, being strong and brave, and loving something lost once again.