“Well, stop. Okay? Just stop.” Alice tosses the towel into a woven basket. “Because you’re ruining my fucking life.”
“That’s an awful thing to say.”
“Oh, stop acting so surprised.”
Someone tries to open the bathroom door, rattling it a few times on its hinges.
Eloise pushes herself away from the sink. “I can’t win with you, Alice. Do you know that? I can’t ever win. I try, and I fail. I try, and I fail.”
“You’re breaking my heart.”
“You know what? Fine. Just … fine. You can go to hell.”
The rattling against the door continues, punctuated with brief, nervous knocks.
“You don’t get it,” Alice says. “You just don’t fucking get it.”
“You’re right,” Eloise says, throwing up her hands and heading for the door. “I don’t. Unfortunately, though, I’m starting to suspect you’re the only one who does.”
*
Minty flicks the butt of her cigarette into Regent’s Canal, and Alice watches as the thing bobs in the gray-green water. Two hours ago, she wouldn’t have pegged any of these women as smokers—now, though, it’s a rarity to see any of them without a cigarette, save her sister, who Alice knows wouldn’t be caught dead with one. In some respects, it makes her feel better, seeing them let their hair down, seeing them act uncouth. At the restaurant, she had a minor panic attack deciding what fork she should use to eat her salmon, but now here’s Minty, nearly stumbling over the railing of the long, skinny barge that they’ve rented—a barge that’s meant to comfortably host twelve people, but that obviously isn’t big enough for the five bitches currently patrolling its decks.
They boarded the boat in Little Venice, just east of Paddington Basin. From there they floated through Maida Vale, past the neighborhood’s hodgepodge of old Edwardians and Victorians, aligned like hordes of sleepy, constipated sentinels. Each side of the canal is lined with trees whose leaves blend together to form a canopy that’s not quite thick enough to provide shade; when they emerge from the Lisson Grove Tunnel, an errant branch nearly smacks Alice in the face. As they inch along, Minty lights a fresh cigarette and Alice watches commuters ride their Boris Bikes along the paths that rib the canal. They mostly look absurd, with their knobby knees jutting outward in sharp, uncoordinated angles. While the barge is waiting to pass through the Hampstead Road Lock, Flossie complains about having to spend an intolerable amount of time in Camden (“anything longer than a cigarette”), and Alice finds herself suddenly missing Los Angeles. She’d trade anything, she thinks, to be stuck in traffic on the 405, or waiting in line behind some Beverly Hills housewife at Gelson’s. Anything to be back in a world that’s filled with things that she knows how to hate.
She considers calling Jonathan. It’s been two days since they’ve spoken (she tried phoning him yesterday—twice—but each time her call went to voice mail) and right now, especially right now, she thinks that she’d give about anything just to hear his voice. But then, what would she say to him? That Eloise is trying to get her to move to London? That she suspects her half sister’s actions are as guided by her own selfish generosity as they are by guilt over not having been there five years ago, when Alice lost her child in Mexico and she needed Eloise the most? That all these awful details about her past she suddenly wants Jonathan to know? Wants to tell him how when the doctors removed her little girl and the baby didn’t cry—didn’t blink, or breathe, or grasp at the world—Alice convinced herself she was just sleeping, and that any moment she’d wake up? That she’s currently sitting in some backwater channel of London, watching grown women—women who’ve mastered the art of making her feel small—flick cigarettes at feeding ducks?
The barge glides under the Kentish Town Bridge. A breeze robs a nearby cherry tree of its blossoms. Alice won’t call Jonathan, she decides. He’ll call her back—she knows he will—and she’ll tell him everything then.
“Alice.”
Eloise wraps her arm around Alice’s waist and rests her head on her shoulder. She smells like expensive shampoo and champagne and exhaust.
“Alice, Alice, Alice.”
An errant strand of Eloise’s hair floats into Alice’s mouth. She removes it.
“What, Eloise?”
“I’m sorry.”
“You’re drunk.”
“I am not.” She giggles. “Okay, maybe I am a little. But that doesn’t mean I’m not sorry about what I said.”
When Alice doesn’t respond, Eloise lifts her head and says, “Did you hear what I said? I said that I’m sorry, Alice. Please don’t be difficult.”
“I heard you.” Alice swallows. “Thank you.”
Eloise relaxes and replaces her head.
“Are you having a lovely time?”
“The loveliest.”
“I’m glad to hear that. My friends adore you.”
“That’s a load of bullshit.”
“It is not.” Eloise sighs, exasperated, and Alice feels her breath, warm and sticky, on her shoulder. “I know they may seem like a handful,” she says, “but they really are good people.”
Alice opts against pointing out the obvious to her sister: that if you have to describe a person as good, then chances are she’s not. And yet, she finds little comfort in knowing that she’s likely lived her life without earning such a characterization.
“Anyway,” Eloise says, “I wanted to tell you something.”
“That you’ve somehow entered me into the running to be Britain’s next prime minister?”
“You’re awful.” She pinches Alice’s thigh.
Flossie hollers something at two men jogging along the canal. They both flex their underfed biceps, and Henny shakes her head, disappointed.
“What is it?” Alice says.
“I just … I feel like there’s been a wedge between us or something, and it’s because I wasn’t there for you in Mexico five years ago. And it’s something I’ve been meaning to bring up to you for a long time, and I’m sorry that I’m just doing it now.”
She’s known the entire afternoon that this moment was looming, ever since Eloise grabbed her knee beneath the table at lunch and saved Alice from laying bare her sadness to the circling pack of wolves. She knows she should be thankful. She knows she should have reached down and taken hold of Eloise’s hand, and squeezed it in return. Done something to signal that she recognized and appreciated how her sister had just saved her. She didn’t, though; her body didn’t let her. Her rage toward Eloise’s perfection, toward her kindness, was too all encompassing. Instead, she brushed her sister’s hand away and crossed her legs.
They reach St. Pancras Lock, and the boat stops. Gates close, and water spills on all sides of them. Alice feels as if she’s rising and falling at once.
“Don’t worry—” she begins to say, but Eloise cuts her off.
“Because I feel awful about it. I’ve told you that before, but I want to say it again. I let you down, and I’ve never stopped feeling awful about that.”
The boat lurches, and Eloise stumbles back. Alice grabs her wrist to stop her from falling.