“I’ve been trying to reach you for hours,” she play-scolds, setting out a tray of sliced cheese. “Alice and Eleanor were able to come next door for dinner on short notice. Wonderful, yes-yes?”
Alice beams at me, dumbstruck in the back doorway. Mrs. Mincus casts a sly smile, like she knows about the sketches in Liv’s eaves. Like she knows I was peeping at something vaguely dirty.
“Yes. Yes!” I say. “But I have to show you something funky my car is doing. Two seconds?”
“Just two,” Mom sings, following me out to the garage. The door shuts behind her, and I launch in.
“What would ever make you think it was a good idea—rephrase, appropriate idea—to invite Alice over? This is beyond weird, Mom.”
“Not just Alice. Her mother, too. It’s been a long time. You were best friends. I really think you could use a friend in your corner right now, someone not connected with the incident. Dr. Ricker agrees. A new addition to your circle of trust, so to speak.”
“Yet another reason why I’ve recently ousted Dr. Ricker from my circle of trust. But apparently I don’t need Ricker, because Alice is here to heal me with the balm of friendships past.”
“Sarcasm is not useful—”
“To my healing. Right,” I interrupt. “Well, you may have created this uncomfortable debacle, but we do not have to sit under your creepy microscope so you can supervise our playdate. I’m taking Alice out.”
Mom’s pretty eyes pop.
“Leaving. Not killing. I’m leaving with Alice.”
Mom sighs, a ragged noise. “Fine. I’ll catch up with Eleanor. You come back in an hour.” She turns to open the door to the kitchen and pauses. “Maybe more. I didn’t time the chicken so well.”
“Did you remove the giblets?” I ask.
She presses her knuckle to her top lip.
“Just order takeout,” I say, sliding past her into the kitchen and tucking myself into my still-warm jacket. “Alice, c’mon. We’re out of here.”
Alice pushes back her headband and leaps up. “Where are we going?”
“Running,” I say.
Mrs. Mincus buries her chin sideways into her chest, as if to say You’ve got to be kidding. I can’t blame her, since running hasn’t always turned out so well for me, but her expression is unflattering, and she should stop.
“Exercise. We’ll run around the track.” Before Mrs. Mincus can excavate her neck and object, I slip back into the garage and jam the door opener with my fist, Alice chasing after me.
“But Julia, it’s dark!” Alice cries.
“It’s dusk. Dusk and dark are different. Know your gradations of black.” I slip into the driver’s seat of my car. “Besides, the track is lit.”
“We’re not dressed to run.”
“It’s an excuse to get away from our mothers, Alice.”
“Right. Of course. So we can gossip.”
“Something like that.”
She slides into the passenger seat and takes a deep breath through her nose. “Mmm, new car smell.”
We drive across Shiverton proper in the waning late-autumn light, past mums lining walkways, past Saint Theresa’s church, and past Shane’s house, the neatest of them all, with mint-green vinyl siding and a Thanksgiving pumpkin on every step, his muscle car nowhere in sight. Alice blathers the whole way, excited to be in my car, my coolest-ever car, with its electronics that do stuff. And how great is it that Mom invited them over? They almost couldn’t come, big goings-on at the church tonight, but Mrs. Mincus made an exception because she knew how much Alice would want to, and the boys could feed themselves.
I look over at Alice, feeling like an adult taking her kid on a Sunday drive. Alice with her Mary Jane sneakers, her Hello Kitty sweater with yarn appliqué. Alice with her headband.
“I know it’s been a while since we’ve hung out. But I want you to know that my parents and I prayed for you every hour you were gone,” Alice says.
Alice with no filter.
“I guess it worked. Thanks?” I say.
“You’re welcome,” she chirps, overly bright. “There’s something I’ve been wondering. Did your mother get closer to God after last year? Considering the miracle of your return, it’s hard to imagine that she’s still an atheist.”
“My mother isn’t an atheist. She’s agnostic.”
She shrugs. “Six of one.”
“Tomato tomahto.”
“Exactly,” Alice agrees, looking around. The new track is dead and dark with waves where it buckles, as though the town was in a rush and tarred it too soon. We walk for a while until Alice complains, and we plant ourselves on the bleachers, swinging our legs to keep warm. It brings back not unpleasant memories of playing outside with Alice when we were little until the streetlights came on. “I want to show you something.” She shoves her coat sleeve above her elbow. The lights cast a lurid glare on her pale arm. Below the crease in purple Sharpie is scrawled WWJD?
“Nice tat. New boyfriend?”
“You could say that.” She regards her arm for a moment. “I don’t take it that far.”
“Alice! JD—that’s a big deal. Are you dating a lawyer?”
She kicks my shin. “It’s an acronym, dummy.”