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thirty-one
Wrenlee
Alice sits back in her chair with her latte—from the same place that mine had been poisoned from—and takes a sip. It’s as she’s licking red-painted lips that I say, “I can’t believe you can still drink their coffee.”
Her eyes drop to the cup before lifting back to me. “They caught the psycho poisoning people. Can’t hate the coffee house for someone else’s crime, right?”
I clear my throat and fight a chill. “I just can’t.”
She takes another sip. “Youwerepoisoned. I probably wouldn’t be able to drink it either,” she peers at her cup. “If I went through what you went through.”
“Yeah.” I agree, fighting another shiver.Just looking at the cup with the logo printed in mocha brown gives me the heebie jeebies. As it is, I have to fight flash backs to the moments of delirious sick whenever I see Alice with one of those cups. The idea of actually putting aside my fear and drinking from one—no thanks.
Alice studies with me in the library every Wednesday evening. She’d been horrified when she learned what had happened to me and the other patrons of the near campus café. She’d been horrified, but not horrified enough to stop frequenting the café for a hit of her favorite drink.
Alice is an odd cookie, but I like her. I think she’s lonely—that she needs a friend. I’m happy to fill the roll.
“So…” Alice waggles her brows at me. “Are you and your man doing anything special for Thanksgiving?”
“I think we’re just hanging with friends. Nothing big.”
“You’re not going home to be with family?”
“No. I’ll be spending Christmas at home, so I’ll just wait until then.”
She peers over the white lid of her cup at me. “You should go home while you have the chance. You never know what might happen—what might stop you from returning.”
My blood chills a degree. “What do you mean?”
She straightens in her seat, the fingers of the hand holding her cup tapping one after the other on the disposable material. Bright red nails clicking eerily. “I just mean anything can happen. Take the latte insanity. Who would have thought they could be poisoned from a latte at a super popular joint? That’sFinal Destinationshit, right there.” She leans in to whisper, “Did you hear that one lady died in hospital?”
“No!” I gasp, shaky hand lifting to cover my mouth, heart already cracking wide. “She had kids.”
“See, anything can happen. To literally anyone.” She shrugs. “I vote go home.”
Pulling the bandage around my aching heart for the family of the woman who was lost to such senseless malice, I try to change the subject, if only a little. “What about you? Are you going home for the holiday?”
“Me?” She laughs, but it’s the pained, bitter sound that I’ve come to understand accompanies Alice’s loneliness and heartache. I suddenly regret asking the question. “Girl, I have no family.”
“None?”
“Well, I’ve got a sister.” She waves a hand. “But she just moved.” She rolls her eyes and pops her lips defensively. “Over a man, can you believe that?”
“I’d move for a man,” I tell her honestly, hoping to ease the pain and betrayal I sense swells in her heart at being left behind. “If I loved him enough.”
She takes another drag from her coffee. Either she’s entirely oblivious to the discomfort it gives me seeing her drink from that cup, or she just doesn’t care. Knowing Alice, I can’t say with confidence it’s one way or the other. Alice is oddly the kind of woman who seems to take pleasure in making others uncomfortable. I’ve seen her catch the eye of someone checking her out, but she doesn’t look away. She holds their gaze, almost challenging them. Sometimes I think she says things just to see the reaction she’ll get. Other times, I think she’s so much her own person that she doesn’t give a crap what other’s think of her. She walks to her own tune, screw the world.
Those wing-tipped eyes land on me again and she pushes a long blonde curl back as she studies me. The thing about Alice is she can strip you bare with her eyes alone. She does it often, so often, I’m not sure she knows what she’s doing. The affect she has on people. It’s discomfiting, but it’s Alice. As I said, she’s an odd cookie.
Finally, she says, “You would be that kind of girl.”
“What kind of girl?”
“The kind with the soft heart. The one who sacrifices it all for the guy.”
“If he’s a good guy, it won’t be a sacrifice.”
She points one of those dagger pointed red nails at me. “See! That’s what I’m talking about. Thatheart.”
