Alice stretched a pale hand out over the darkened desk, straightening the kinked phone cord absently, letting her eyes scan the items scattered on the desktop—stapler, tape dispenser, an old Disney world mug filled with all colors of pens and highlighters … Her pale blue eyes came to rest on the Post-its, gazing at the illegible figures scratched onto their colorful surfaces. She screwed up her fair brow and bit her lip, trying to make sense of what she saw. Finally, with a sigh, she blinked and turned her attention back to her dusting, an activity she knew well and performed better than most.
Everything about Alice was pale—her eyes, her skin, her razor-straight hair, even her lips were of a dull, faded baby pink, giving her face a slightly out-of-focus, washed-out sort of look. She was extraordinarily quiet, which was a major advantage in her line of work. No one likes an intrusive cleaning lady.
She moved quietly from desk to desk in the bizarre half-light of the abandoned office. Cubicle after cubicle awaited her, row upon row of family photos, children’s drawings and trinkets gathered from trips abroad. She looked at the pictures with only vague curiosity, having seen them all before, taking only passing note of the new baby picture that graced one usually empty desk and wondering if the baby belonged to the employee or perhaps to someone else. She moved along the row of desks, dusting gently. When her rag accidentally pushed a frame a few inches to the left, she paused to push it back into its place, blinking at it for a moment to make sure it was just right, but not making much of the image held in the frame itself. A family or a friend, or a happy couple—it was all the same to her. She moved along, only stopping when she caught sight of another post-it or notepad with words scribbled across it. Then she would stop, and sigh, and screw up her brow again and squint at the lines and circles in wonder and awe and just a little indignation.
Every evening, when Alice came into the office building, pulling her old gray cardigan tighter against her thin frame, passing the last few stragglers—the employees who’d stayed late doing their due diligence or perhaps partaking of a late-night dalliance—she kept her eyes low, and never greeted nor was greeted by the few people she passed. As quiet as a ghost, she moved into the elevator to the third floor where her little cart and apron awaited her. She would tie on the apron with her delicate fingers, and then push out the cart laden with brooms, mops, rags and all manner of bottles and sprays, starting her rounds. Sometimes she would run into John, the old man with hair like fluffed cotton, who’d been kind enough to hire her last summer and always had a ready smile for the quiet young woman, and a random phrase of wisdom.
“Remember this, sweet Alice,” he’d say, his dark eyes twinkling, his creased face bursting into a knowing smile. Alice would pause and turn her pale eyes to him, awaiting today’s morsel. “‘A satisfied soul loathes the honeycomb, but to a hungry soul, every bitter thing is sweet.’ That’s from the book of Proverbs, chapter 27 verse 7.” He furrowed his white brow and looked very solemnly at Alice’s pale face. “Ever been so hungry even something nasty tasted good?” She pondered for a moment, her eyes distant. After a few moments she raised her sad eyes to John’s and said that she had, once. He’d given her a solemn little bow and then smiled. “Wise man, that old King Solomon, eh?”
Alice would let her lips slide into a small smile, her pale eyes brightening, and she’d nod. Even when she didn’t quite understand what his proverbs meant, she smiled and looked pleased at John’s words, his kind smile and his attention. She’d nod and smile and say words like, “Amazing,” and “Brilliant,” and “I didn’t know that!” in her soft, low voice with its rolling Cajun accent. And John would seem proud of himself and smile all the more.
“‘A woman of valor, who can find? Her price is far above rubies,’” he’d said tonight, and Alice had blinked at him, the words ringing in her ears. They sounded vaguely familiar, like words from a song heard in a dream dreamt long ago.
She thanked him for tonight’s wisdom and made to hurry off, pushing her cart with a force that made John give a little jump.
“In a hurry tonight, Alice?” he chuckled.
She caught her breath and stopped pushing the cart, looking up at him with her faded eyes. “I’m sorry, John,” she murmured, “but I’ve got a lot of work to do, and…” Here she hesitated, her eyes darting down to her hands on the cart’s handle, her breath coming up short. “My son is sick.”
“I’m sorry to hear that!” John said gently. “I didn’t know you had a son! How old’s the boy?”
“He’s four,” Alice said softly, raising her eyes briefly to John’s face. “My sister’s keeping an eye on him, but I rather not leave him there all night.”
“Of course not,” John nodded. “Then you just go on and do a quick job tonight. It’s not like no one will notice, for all the difference one night’s cleaning does round here!” He laughed, but his eyes were tender. “Go on, then.”
Alice began pushing her cart away, more gently this time, with a small fragile smile for John and a deep sigh. She said nothing more, but concentrated on the work at hand, entering one department after another, places she couldn’t imagine in the daytime, with the fluorescent lights blazing garishly overhead and the bustle of phones, chatter and work being done electrifying the conditioned air. She entered and cleaned, vacuuming, sweeping, dusting, emptying trash bins and ignoring the familiar photographs.
She lingered at one desk tonight. On it sat a small white cube of paper with the company’s logo in blue around the edges, so if you picked it up and fanned the cube out the logo widened and came apart before settling back into one solid-looking piece. She picked up the cube and did just that, fanning it out with her fingers, watching as the logo came apart and then magically pulled itself back together. She saw black scratches etched onto the little white pages near the top, and after two or three times of opening and closing the little cube, she set it down and looked intently at the strange words on the first page.
The first letter she didn’t recognize, but after a few minutes she decided the second letter was very clearly an E. She remembered sitting with her little Luke and watching as Big Bird magically traced the letter on the screen with his big felt-covered yellow finger. Luke had giggled in delight, but Alice had screwed her face up and tried to memorize the letter, lock it away for just this moment where she leaned against some unknown person’s desk and struggled to make out the etchings on a notepad. Now she smiled in spite of herself, still uncertain what the other letters stood for but thrilled to realize she’d recognized an E, right there, on that paper. She traced the letter with the tip of her finger, as Big Bird had done, and smiled.
She spent the rest of her evening seeking out E’s on every shred of paper she stumbled onto, and smiling to herself, her heart bobbing upwards and her face brightening each time she identified the letter. She took longer than she’d anticipated, and when she looked down at her watch she realized it was nearly eleven. She set down the post-it where she’d found it, on the very corner of the computer screen, and swiftly dusted the remaining two desks. She tossed the rags into the cart and pushed it quickly out the door, expertly maneuvering the narrow hallway to the elevator.
“Headed home, Alice?” John called as she pushed the button, twice, three times. She raised her eyes to his hefty figure lumbering down the hall toward her.
“Yes,” she said with a nod. “I didn’t realize how late it is!”
“You better get home to that boy of yours!” John smiled.
The doors opened and Alice said a quiet goodbye before pushing her cart into the elevator. She tore off the apron right then, and rushed out as soon as the doors slid open on the third floor, suddenly desperate to get to her sister’s immediately. She felt a strange mix of elation and desperation, exhaustion and exhilaration that she couldn’t control and which left her feeling like her head was spinning. She stumbled out of the building, pulling her cardigan close around her and holding her purse tightly. She half-walked, half-ran to her car, and once inside drove as swiftly as she dared down the nearly empty streets from Downtown Miami to I-95 and down to Kendall with its sleepy suburban streets and flashing traffic signals.
“What took you so long, Alice?” was her sister’s harsh greeting as Alice pushed through the door, breathless and nearly falling over herself. Suzanne had her thick hands on her hips, her blonde hair was tousled and falling into her eyes. Her face was pink, as though she’d rubbed it much too hard while washing, and gave her a slightly piggish quality. To see the two women side by side, one would never guess they were sisters. Where Alice was tall, all long arms and legs, Suzanne was stocky and thick-waisted, her eyes dark and always flashing with something like anger or resentment.
“A lot of work,” Alice mumbled, and pushed past Suzanne and into the living room, where little Luke was curled up on the ratty old couch. He lifted his little blonde head and gave his mother a sweet smile, and Alice felt her heart lighten.
“He’s been a terror tonight,” Suzanne said. She glared at her nephew, who had crawled up into his mother’s arms as soon as she’d lowered herself onto the couch.
“I missed you, mommy,” Luke whimpered, and buried his face in Alice’s neck.
“He’s still got a temperature,” Alice said softly, laying a long-fingered hand on her boy’s forehead. She glanced up at her red-faced sister. “Didn’t you give him the Tylenol?”
“He didn’t want it,” Suzanne shrugged, and turned toward the kitchen.
“Luke, honey,” Alice said gently, raising the boy’s pale face to hers. “The medicines are gonna make you feel better.”
“They’re yucky!” he cried, and buried his face in her neck again.
“Won’t you take them?” she sighed. “For mommy?”
The boy looked up at her then, at first slightly suspicious, but upon seeing his mother’s tender face, his own brightened with an overwhelming passion. It was apparent to anyone who saw them together that the boy was undeniably, absolutely enamored of his mother, and the mother—though often unsure of most things in her life—had no doubt whatsoever of her boy’s adoration, and in fact thrived on it.
Alice had been very young when Luke was born, not yet nineteen, and abandoned by the boyfriend that had knocked her up. Upon learning that she was pregnant, Alice had wept, more for joy than for fear, for who was there to punish her indiscretion but her sister Suzanne? Ten years her senior and prone to violence, but unwilling or perhaps unable to cow the little sister that towered almost a full head over her, Suzanne had long ago given up on attempting to raise Alice right, and mostly left her to her own devices, so that when the pregnancy was confirmed, and the boyfriend had disappeared, Suzanne huffed and puffed but said nothing. Indeed, when the boy had been born, Suzanne was actually pleased with the writhing little pink creature, and had even kept Alice in her home for most of the boy’s first year. By then, Alice had found herself a job cleaning a rich family’s home in Coral Gables, and the money was decent for a change.
It was when Luke had developed pneumonia at three years old that Alice lost that job, unable to leave the boy alone in the hospital, so that Mrs. Meyer had finally called her and told her they’d found someone else to tidy their massive and nearly empty home twice a week. Alice was heartbroken—she had come to enjoy wandering the silent halls of the Meyer mansion, gently dusting the beautiful trinkets, polishing the marble floors lovingly. She never paused to imagine herself living in such a home—she knew her place, and had learned long ago that dreaming too far can only bring heartbreak—but she loved to be amongst such beautiful things, her dull soul brightened by the very nearness of such marvelous wealth.
Now she looked at her boy, his cheeks blazing pink with fever and love, and her heart ached. She fed him the liquid Tylenol and he grimaced, but still managed to smile at his mother. Alice wasn’t sure of much in her life, but her son’s love was a certainty which she never could doubt.
“Are you gonna get going?” Suzanne barked from the kitchen.
Alice sighed and pushed Luke’s too-long hair out of his eyes. “Yeah,” she said at long last, pulling the boy closer and enveloping him in her long, thin arms. “Just let me get Luke ready.”
Alice could smell the remnants of the chicken dinner Suzanne had cooked up for herself and her husband Tom and their son Tommy, but she only shut her eyes and forced herself to ignore the growling in her own stomach. Suzanne would never offer her a plate, and if she had, Alice wasn’t sure she’d consider taking it.
She bundled Luke up against the cool December air and made her way out, thanking her sister for kindly caring for the boy. Although Luke was four and long-limbed, just like his mother, Alice pulled him up and perched him on her hip, pulling his sweater tightly against his little frame as she made her way to the car. Suzanne stood by the door only as long as it took Alice to walk out, then promptly slammed the door shut behind her, without so much as a good night.
Alice carried the boy to her old Corolla, settling him into the passenger seat and strapping him in before rushing around to the driver’s side and heading out. She glanced at him every couple of minutes, his head lolling against the seatbelt strap as he struggled against the sleep that threatened to take him over. Alice sighed, squinting at the oncoming headlights and flashing streetlights, wishing Suzanne had given him the Tylenol earlier, wishing Luke was better already. She thought of how much a trip to Doctor Smith would cost, and shuddered. She drove on.
For days, Alice left Luke with Suzanne as she went off to work, each night struggling to recognize a new letter, first an S and later a P and the next night an A. On the night when she looked down at a Post-It and recognized the word “Call” she let herself settle down into the uncomfortable ergonomic chair and felt a pricking at her eyes. Earlier tonight, John had smiled to see her, and rattled off another verse of wisdom, this one about wisdom being the mother of something or other… And now Alice had held her sides and bit her lips, smiling against the stinging in her eyes and rereading the word Call time and again.
That night she stopped at the 24-hour Winn Dixie and picked up a cheap little cake, and left it in the car as she fetched Luke, and only brought it out after she was home, and Luke had opened his eyes as his mother carried him into their tiny one-bedroom apartment. He grinned broadly to see the sweet laid before him on the rickety dining room table, and glanced up at his bright-faced mother and asked what it was for.
“Is it my birthday?” he piped up, looking up at Alice with an expectant grin.
“No,” Alice smiled. “Mommy has reached a new level.” Luke blinked up at her, still bright-eyed and thrilled at the idea of a cake no matter why it had appeared. He reached a long finger into the white icing and brought it up to his lips.
“Yummy,” he said with a defiant grin, and Alice let him taste the sugar icing without a word.
After he had tried it and licked his pink lips, she finally spoke up. “It sure is,” she nodded.
For weeks, Alice pieced simple words together, her heart soaring as letter after letter came together to create familiar words and unfamiliar names. She found herself taking longer and longer to fulfill her duties each night, as she paused at each desk and scanned the colorful post-its for her nightly reading lesson. She came home, her limbs heavy with exhaustion, but her mind racing. Luke awaited her, sometimes wide awake but more often already asleep or nodding off on Suzanne’s couch, his belly full and his eyelids drooping with slumber. His face would brighten upon seeing his mother, and Alice would gather him up into her arms and thank her sister, still beaming, which made Suzanne’s pink face pinker with disdain. How dare her good for nothing little sister be so pleased with herself?
Still, Alice came home soaring, even after her less-than-pleasant encounters with Suzanne and the boring, slightly treacherous drive to her apartment down the more desolate streets of Kendall. She’d tuck Luke into the bed they shared, and after watching his peaceful slumber for a few long minutes, she’d wander out to the living room and pick out one of his books from the pile on the old wooden dining table and open it, a happy Pandora unable to resist unleashing the adventures of Little Red Riding Hood and the Puss in Boots. She paused, the oversized book held tightly in her long-fingered hands, to rub her eyes and try to remember her mother, the only one who’d ever bothered to read to her. Her mother’s face was faded, a pale shadow in her memory, with only her tumbling blonde hair and tender smile remaining intact after twenty years. She wondered where her mother was now, where she’d gone after her burial. As a child, she’d fancied her mother still hovered over her bed at night, a guardian angel with tumbling blonde hair and tender hands to watch over her as she slept. It had been many years since she’d believed that. Now, suddenly, the image of her mother hovering over her, great white wings beating slowly and silently, came rushing back and filled Alice with a warmth that was almost violent. She swallowed hard and looked up despite herself, and found herself vaguely disappointed to see only the cracked white ceiling. She blinked and looked back at the book with its brightly colored drawings and big bold letters. She squinted at the letters, sounding out one word after another for nearly an hour until the story was done, and finally set the book down on the table again with a satisfied sigh. She smiled to herself and looked around the nearly empty apartment at her rickety old couch with the worn plaid fabric, the old rag rug covering only a fraction of the cold tile floor, the ancient wooden rocking chair that had sat in her own nursery twenty years ago and where she’d so often rocked Luke to sleep as a baby—and still did, from time to time, when he was feeling exceptionally vulnerable, after a nightmare or during an illness. She sighed again and looked at the clock on the VCR. It was nearly 2 AM, and she needed to get some sleep.
She stood and stretched, her back arching almost unnaturally, her pale arms stretched to the ceiling, her shirt rising up over her smooth white stomach, where goose bumps suddenly blossomed in reaction to the cold that seemed to permeate the very walls of the apartment. Winters in Miami were milder than in Louisiana, but when the cold snaps hit, there seemed no escaping the chill, and tonight was one of those nights. She pulled her shirt down and crossed her arms tightly, and shuffled off to snuggle in with Luke in the big warm bed. She pulled herself close to the boy, tucking one long arm under her head and draping the other gently over the boy’s little body. He instinctively snuggled closer, until she could feel his short warm breath on her breast and see the flickering of his eyes under his delicate eyelids, the infinitesimal fluttering of his pale lashes against his cheeks as he dreamt. She gazed at him until her own eyelids grew heavy, and then she gazed no more.
One night, Alice hovered over a desk, admiring the smiling family in the shining silver picture frame and glancing over her shoulder as she grasped a bright yellow post-it that clung to the corner of the computer monitor. She held the note under the lamp and squinted at it. It was an address, she realized after a few minutes—she recognized the name of the street: Kendall Drive—it wasn’t all that far from her own home! In fact, as she gazed at the numbers she realized it was only a few blocks away. Her heart began to race as she scanned the note. It had a date and time scribbled in one corner and at the top said “Carlos Party!”
A dinner party? Alice felt her heart grow cold. She glared at the woman’s face, suddenly too bright, too cheery. A rage she couldn’t control began rising in her chest, heat flushing across her face.
She blinked rapidly as the information began to make sense in her mind, her heart in her throat. This was a fact in someone’s life—a party, this Saturday night, at 8pm, just a few blocks from her own home. She glanced again at the smiling family and tried to imagine who had written this note—the husband or the wife? Would the children go to this party? Suddenly she shook herself and furrowed her brow. Why should she care? These people were nothing to her. And yet, she held onto the note, staring at the information. Saturday night, 8 o’clock. Someone named Carlos, having a party at a house on 95th and Kendall drive. She thought she knew where.
She set the note back and moved along the row of desks, breathless and flushed, dusting haphazardly and knocking over a pewter wizard figurine that graced one desk. She reached out a hand swiftly, catching the little guy before he hit the floor, and sending her heart racing even faster. 95th and Kendall. Saturday night.
She couldn’t remember the last time she’d been to a party. It was before Luke had been born, for sure, maybe it was even before Suzanne got married ten years ago. Lord knew that Suzanne’s wedding had felt more like a funeral than a party, and when their father died two days later, whatever celebration there may have been had fizzled into the grayness that hovers over a house of death. Alice couldn’t recall crying when their father died, but only stared at his pale, gummy face in the coffin and tried to imagine him smiling, tried to imagine herself missing the man who had served more as a dictator than as a father to them both. Suzanne, for her part, had stood impassively at one side of the coffin, solemnly greeting the two dozen or so others that had come to mourn their father, dutifully playing the role of the strong, heartbroken daughter. Alice had had to bite her cheeks to keep from laughing. Had she laughed, had she given in to the absurdity of the situation, Suzanne may have had her taken away, locked up in some white-walled room where she could fade away. But she had stayed calm. She hadn’t laughed and she hadn’t cried, but had hidden amongst the wreaths of carnations and waited out the quiet storm until all the mourners had gone, and the next day she stood quietly by Suzanne’s side as their father’s coffin was lowered into the ground. It had been a cold, bright day in January, and the sky had a blueness about it that only comes on the chilliest days in the south. Alice’s eyes had wandered away from the shiny wood coffin, up into the branches of a nearby pine and beyond to the clear skies. For a moment she’d wished she had wings. Then Suzanne had dug her nails into her forearm and her eyes dropped to the lowering coffin. She watched her father go and felt nothing but the scales growing thicker over her wings.
A party. She returned to the desk and eyed the family portrait, suddenly jealous of the four beaming faces, the dark-haired wife seeming suddenly intensely beautiful, the husband nearly handsome, the children raven-haired little angels. She clenched her jaw and looked at the post-it again. 9520 Kendall Drive. She stared at it, willing her brain to remember.
“Where are we going, mommy?” Luke’s voice rang clear and bright through the crisp night air. She lifted him into the car seat and buckled his seat belt.
“Burger King,” she said tersely.
“McDonald’s?” he offered in return, his eyes dancing. She caught his gaze and sighed.
“McDonald’s,” she nodded, and slammed the door as Luke squealed in joy.
She drove thru, ordering the boy a cheeseburger Happy Meal and feeling her heart lighten as he tore into the box, his little fingers searching out the new toy. She knew the food would soon be forgotten in favor of the trinket, but for the moment she urged him to eat, stealing a few French fries for herself as she did so. Once the boy began munching this impromptu supper, she drove off, turning east on Kendall and moving slowly as she crossed 97th. Her eyes scanned the row of houses on the left, the apartment buildings on the right. Finally she saw it.
One house was brightly lit, and cars were clustered in every available bit of sidewalk and lawn. There was a party going on. She swerved left across three lanes and then slowed down, ignoring the angry horns of the cars she’d cut off. Luke chewed a French fry and looked inquisitively at his mother. She held the steering wheel tightly, leaning forward to see the revelers that were still arriving. Her pale face was suddenly flushed, red spots blazing in her cheeks, the tips of her ears pinking. She stared at the party, wide-eyed.
She turned onto 95th and then directly onto the access road that rang alongside Kendall Drive. She slowed the car to nearly a crawl as she neared the house, still leaning forward, her breath coming in rapid little gasps. 9520—that was the house. It was a large, cream-colored house with Spanish roof tiles and stuccoed walls. Outside a Lexus SUV was parked in the driveway and a horrible manatee statue held up the mailbox near the curb. She pulled up across the street and turned off her engine, waiting, the blood thumping in her ears, her breath coming in short gasps. Would the intensely beautiful woman be here tonight? Luke blinked at his mother and then looked at the bright house, then back at his mother.
“Who lives here, mommy?” he asked, and Alice felt herself shatter. She blinked and leaned back, glancing at her son’s big bright eyes.
“Someone from work,” she said softly, and pressed the accelerator. The car lurched forward. Then she caught sight of the intensely beautiful woman from the portrait, and she stopped. The woman turned her bright face to Alice and smiled, a throwaway smile thanking Alice for stopping so she and her husband could cross the road and join the party. Alice watched them, breathless, a picture made living, breathing reality. For a moment she considered jumping out and running after them, but instead she chose to watch as they went to the door and rang the bell. They waited for only a few moments before the wide front door swung open and a man came out to greet them. She watched them cross and get swallowed up into the garish brightness of the party, disappearing beyond the parked cars on the lawn and smokers gathered on the porch.
Alice squinted at the party one last time and felt her heart stop quite suddenly as she took a good look at the host greeting his guests. She blinked and rubbed her eyes. His hair was shorter, and his ubiquitous leather jacket was nowhere to be seen, but she’d have known Joe from a mile away. His smile was still bright as a 1000-watt light bulb, and even from this distance she could see the puckish sparkle in his eye, and the dimple in his left cheek that had knocked her over like a leaf blown for miles by the wind and which Luke had inherited, by some quirk of fate or genetics. Joe. Here. Her breath caught in her throat, and for a moment, nothing moved.
Alice swallowed hard, straining to keep them in her gaze, but they had melted into the crowd. She blinked and turned her face to Luke, who was now creating an imaginary battle between his new little robot and an especially long French fry. He paused, the robot in mid-air, and raised his eyes to his mother’s face, scrutinizing it with eagle-eyed precision, so that Alice blushed and looked away.
They all disappeared into the brightly lit hallway beyond the door, and then the darkness surrounded her again. Alice sat, her knuckles white around the steering wheel, unable to breathe or even move. She stared at the now-empty doorway, her heart somewhere around her navel. Joe. She hadn’t thought of him much since Luke had turned two, when she’d finally given up on his ever returning to watch his son grow. Still, his spectre had hovered in the back of her mind, taunting her from wherever it was he had hidden himself after he’d left her, after he’d refused to return her phone calls, refused to even acknowledge that he had a son by her. To this day, he had never laid eyes on Luke, and now Alice wondered if she’d ever allow Joe to see him even if he insisted. She remembered the look of horrified indignation when she’d told him she was pregnant, and felt her stomach churn at the memory. How he had wound up in Miami was beyond her. She had left him in Louisiana nearly six years ago, when Suzanne and Tom had dragged the whole family—Alice included—down here for Tom’s job. Alice had been all too glad to leave the swamps for the comparatively big city, and relished the idea of leaving Joe and her past behind and starting from scratch with her as-yet-unborn baby.
Now he was not only in Miami, but settled and apparently doing quite well for himself. She eyed the Lexus in the driveway and clenched her jaw, thinking of the little apartment she could barely afford, where her son shared her bed and his drawings served as the only artwork adorning the walls. She glared at his house for several long, agonizing minutes until she turned the key in the ignition, tears threatening to blind her completely. She took a deep breath and struggled to calm her racing heart, then slammed her foot onto the accelerator and swung the car around to rejoin the traffic on Kendall drive and make her way home.
For days, Alice moved like a ghost, going through the routines of her life, dropping Luke off at Suzanne’s, cleaning out the offices with mechanical precision, eyeing the post-its with disinterest. She saw a few on the intensely beautiful woman’s desk, more appointments for Jordan, no more dinner parties. One night she lowered herself into the desk chair, dropped her head into her hands and let the tears come. She sobbed for what seemed like a small eternity.
When she finally stopped shaking, she stood up, straightened her skirt and squared her shoulders. She left the cart where it was and walked out, her mind alternately dull and whizzing with clear, bright thoughts. She drove back down to Kendall in the drizzle of an oncoming cold front and soon found herself parked outside Joe’s house as the droplets continued to fall. After a few long moments she got out of the car and stumbled toward the house, the raindrops growing fatter and thicker. Alice felt the wet seeping through her hair to her skull, felt a thick cold drop trickle down the warm skin of her scalp to her ear. She stood in front of the porch as the rain began to fall in earnest, staring at the shining mahogany of the door, the sparkle of the crystal light fixture next to it.
Finally, as though moved by some magnetic pull, she found herself on the porch, her finger pressing the doorbell. It chimed out a tune over and over as she kept her finger on the button, until the door at last swung open.
A beautiful, raven-haired woman with startling blue eyes stood there, her pale face flushed with confusion. She peered at Alice, her mouth held frozen in time and space. She was petite, soft and delicate as a china doll. She blinked and her face burst into a bright hostess smile.
“Hi?” she offered. “Can I help you?”
“Is Joe here?” Alice muttered, glancing past the woman at the toddler that teetered down the hall toward the door.
“I—” the woman stammered. The toddler suddenly grasped onto the loose velour of the woman’s track pants, and the mother glanced down at her child and then back at Alice. “Are you a friend of his?” She still held her false smile, almost convincing were it not for the suspicion in her eyes.
“You could say that,” Alice nodded. “Can I see him?”
“Of course,” the woman said, reaching for the child’s hand and taking a tentative step back to allow Alice inside. “Come in, please. You must be freezing!” She swung her arm in a wide arc, ushering Alice into the immaculate tiled hallway. Alice stumbled inside, shivering despite herself. “Wait in here,” the woman said, shutting the door and pointing to a room directly off the wide entrance hall. “I’ll bring you a towel.”
Alice nodded and followed the woman’s gesture. She crossed the threshold into a den of sorts, with an overstuffed couch and bookshelves lined with books, the likes of which Alice had never seen in her life. She swallowed hard and stood before the bookshelves, trying to make out any titles that she could, holding her arms tightly across her chest and trying hard not to shiver in the achingly cold air conditioning. She heard the tense murmur of voices from somewhere else in the house, and shuddered when she heard the deep rumble of Joe’s voice in the distance.
“Here you go.”
Alice nearly jumped out of her skin. She turned quickly to find the woman holding a sky blue towel at her. Alice reached for it and gave her a small smile.
“I’m Carla,” the woman said curtly but with a hint of attempted friendliness.
“Alice,” she said with a nod. “Thanks for the towel.”
“How do you know Joe?” Carla asked, struggling to keep her voice level.
“I knew him in Louisiana,” Alice said softly, rubbing her hair with the towel.
“Really?” Carla said, her head cocked. “Did you go to school with him up there?”
Alice stopped toweling her hair and raised her eyes to Carla’s. “Not exactly.”
“Mom!”
The two women jumped at the sound of the small squeaking voice. A child of about four or five padded into the den in red-striped Minnie Mouse pajamas, her thick, pink little hands grasping for Carla’s thigh.
“Joey took my Leapfrog!” she cried.
Carla glanced at her dark-haired daughter, then back at Alice. She seemed unwilling to be led away, but clenched her jaw.
“Kids, huh?” Alice offered as jovially as she could muster.
“Mom!” the little girl insisted, her voice raising a few adamant notes, her fingers clasping onto Carla’s carefully manicured hands and pulling downward.
“All right, all right,” Carla sighed, and glanced at her daughter then back at Alice. “Excuse me.” Alice nodded. Carla let herself be pulled from the room. Just as she reached the door she tossed her head back. “Joe will be here in a second.”
“Thanks,” Alice called after her.
She dried herself as best she could and then folded the towel carefully, placing it on the arm of the overstuffed camel-colored couch. She didn’t know whether to sit or stand, and so wandered around the room with her arms crossed tightly in front of her, glancing at the collection of elegant picture frames gathered on the old-fashioned polished wood sideboard. The children were there in various stages of growth, the toddler as a baby with the little girl just out of diapers and hovering over him with a forced smile that belied her natural jealousy. There were Joe and Carla smiling out of their wedding portrait, his big strong hand holding her firmly by the waist, Carla radiant in her blazingly white bridal gown. Alice bit her lip and wondered how she might look in such a gown. Once she had imagined she might actually wear one, at Joe’s side. That was a long time ago.
Her reverie was interrupted by his deep, resonant voice. “Hi there,” he said, and she jumped. She spun around and was suddenly face to face with him, and the moment she had fantasized for the past six years was unexpectedly made reality. For a moment, she didn’t move, couldn’t even breathe, and felt her chest throbbing with the pain of it.
Finally she blinked and clenched her jaw. She cleared her throat and straightened up, taking a deep breath and deciding not to smile—yet. “Hi, Joe,” she said curtly.
“Wow,” he sighed. He shook his head as though bewildered, his eyes wide. “Wow!” He let out a too-loud laugh. “Alice, I mean… wow!”
“Yeah, I got that,” Alice said with a nod.
“Have a seat,” he said, motioning to the couch.
Her eyes flickered to the couch and after a moment’s hesitation, she moved to it and lowered herself onto it, perching gingerly at the very edge of the cushion.
“How are you, Alice?” he said jovially, dropping onto the other end of the couch and crossing his legs so casually that Alice felt a rush of heat race up her spine to her ears.
“Not so bad,” she said, her jaw clenched.
“Oh, I’m so glad to hear that!” he said, and she didn’t believe him. “How’s the kid?”
Alice closed her eyes for a long moment, feeling her cheeks flushing, her heart racing wildly in her chest. In that moment she felt the irresistible urge to lurch across the couch and scratch Joe’s eyes out, tear his heart out with her very fingernails and show it, still pumping and spurting blood, to his wife and kids. She clenched her jaw so tightly that her temples began to pulse. It took all she had to swallow hard and pry her jaw open again. Rage makes even the wise man foolish, sweet Alice. She snapped her eyes open and locked gazes with Joe.
“His name is Luke,” she hissed. “And he’s doing wonderfully, Joe—no thanks to you.”
He sighed then, and looked around aimlessly, finally letting his eyes rest on Alice’s forehead. “Not this again, Alice!”
“What in god’s name—?” Alice began, launching herself up out of the too-soft couch and towering over Joe until he followed suit and was suddenly in her face.
“Don’t tell me you came all the way down to Miami to try to make me take responsibility for that kid!” he muttered through clenched teeth.
“His name is Luke!” Alice cried. “For Christ’s sake, have the decency to call him by his name, Joe!”
“Keep your voice down, will you?” Joe hissed, his face only inches away from Alice’s.
“Why?” Alice laughed bitterly, turning away from him and shaking her head. “Don’t want wifey-poo to know about your fuck up?”
At that, Joe rushed to her side and grabbed her arm, turning her violently to face him. “Alice, why are you here?” His face was no longer jovial, but had gone steely, his flashbulb smile nowhere to be found. “What do you want?”
Alice met his flinty gaze. “Nothing,” Alice said, shaking her head.
“I’m supposed to believe that?” he growled, his grip tightening on her arm. Alice winced, but didn’t try to pull herself free.
“I don’t care if you believe me,” she shrugged.
“So you just showed up on my doorstep because…?” he asked.
“I found you by accident,” she said. “I just couldn’t believe it was you.” She let her eyes wander his face, noticing the little crow’s feet that were blossoming in the very corners of his eyes, the stray gray hairs that had somehow crept into his dark locks. “I had to see for myself.”
“You followed me to Miami—”
“I didn’t follow you anywhere, Joe,” she laughed. “I live here.”
“Since when?” he said, suddenly throwing her arm loose.
“Since before Luke was born,” she said. Her eyes flickered to the baby pictures on the sideboard. “I bet your little girl is the same age as Luke. What’s her name?”
“Angelica,” Joe sighed.
“What is she, four, five?” Alice said, her eyes still on the pictures.
“Five,” he said softly.
“So was she already born when I got pregnant with Luke?” Alice asked, turning her gaze sharply onto Joe’s face. She saw a flicker of something there, something like pain, and felt a rush of satisfaction. “She was, wasn’t she?” She smiled. “And you were already married?”
He sighed and raised his eyes to hers. “Yes,” he whispered.
“No wonder you keep denying Luke!” she said in mock wonder. “I should have known.”
“Look, Alice,” he said, his voice low and rapid in her ear, his eyes darting all over as he spoke. “Please, I beg you, don’t breathe a word of this to Carla. I was young, I fucked up, but I don’t want to ruin my marriage, okay? That was years ago, I was in college, and I already had a baby on the way when you came around, and you were so…” He paused, letting his eyes rest on Alice’s pale face. “So beautiful and so simple, so uncomplicated…” He shrugged.
Alice swallowed hard and stared at him for a moment. “I’m not simple anymore, Joe.”
He looked at her, taken aback by her comment. He blinked.
“I’m going home, Joe,” she said wearily. “I probably shouldn’t have come here at all, but I was just curious.”
“Alice—” he said.
“You have a beautiful home, and a beautiful wife and beautiful kids,” she said, waving her hand aimlessly around her. “Congratulations on your great life, Joe.” She turned around and headed for the door, suddenly in a rush to get out, her heart aching but her emotions strangely in check.
“Alice,” he repeated, more firmly. She stopped and turned to him. “Would it be all right if I come by sometime to see Luke?”
She looked at him for a long moment, seeing for the first time a tenderness she hadn’t seen in his eyes for nearly six years. For one excruciating moment she felt her heart leap to her throat, as her stomach churned and her chest throbbed with all the old passion she had felt for him, all the sway he had held over her. She swallowed and then raised her head high, squaring her shoulders and meeting his gaze with her own, looking steadier than she felt.
“No, Joe,” she said, shaking her head slightly. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.” She gave him a small smile. “Goodbye, Joe.”
With that, she turned and walked out the door as calmly and quickly as she could, her hands balled into fists to hide her trembling fingers. A woman of valor, who can find? Alice’s breath came in short gasps as she walked to her car, still feigning a calm that she didn’t feel as she knew Joe stood watching her from the window. When she was at last across the street and in the safe haven of her car, she collapsed back into the seat, all of her breath rushing out at once and tears finally blurring the front of Joe’s house.
The next night, Alice took Luke with her to work, letting him spin himself round and round on the office chairs as she haphazardly dusted and vacuumed the offices. When she reached the desk of the fiercely beautiful woman, she paused, looking long and hard at the familiar family portrait, and wishing she could speak to them directly. She stared at the photo for a long moment, then raised her eyes to her own boy, spinning round and round and giggling at the top of his lungs.
“C’mon, Luke,” she said, and the boy reached out a hand to stop himself against the desk, raising his wide, unfocused eyes to his mother’s radiant face. “Let’s go home.”
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