The Liberation of Alice Love

by Abby McDonald

  “Anytime.”

  There was something intimate about standing there in the dark, and his murmured reply, that made Alice flush and quickly disentangle herself. The sun-baked terraces of Positano were an ocean away. They were home now.

  “So. I’ll…see you.” She grabbed for her case, almost tripping on the curb in her haste. The night before, she’d been coolly stripping in a stranger’s bedroom, and now she felt utterly thrown by a single embrace. Alice backed away. “I mean, of course I will.” She exhaled, embarrassed. “I need some sleep, clearly.”

  “Take care.”

  She turned and hurried toward the house, forcing herself not to look back, not until she heard the engine of the taxi again and could watch it disappear, out of sight, around the corner.

  The adventure, it seemed, was over.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Flora was asleep when Alice let herself in—curled on the sofa with the television on, waiting up for her, perhaps. Alice covered her in a blanket and slouched up to her room, relieved at least, that her stepsister’s wide-eyed inquisition would wait until after she’d had some sleep. The next morning, however, her respite seemed altogether too brief.

  “Ohmygod, you’re back!”

  Alice barely had time to struggle awake before she was smothered with Flora’s panicked affection. “Are you OK? Did they hurt you?” she bounced onto the bed, gripping Alice fiercely as she searched for signs of abuse. “God, I can’t even imagine what you’ve been through! What do you need—tea? Breakfast? Did you eat on the plane?”

  “I’m fine,” Alice protested tiredly, as she squinted at her bedside clock. Eight a.m. Oh, too soon. “Really, I just needed some sleep.”

  “You poor thing.” Flora ignored her, producing her homeopathic medicine box. Reaching for the first bottle, she shook several tiny white balls into the cap. “Here, open your mouth. This should soothe your nerves.”

  Alice thought perhaps that she wasn’t the one in need of soothing, but she stuck her tongue out obediently nonetheless.

  “Take them every hour until you feel better.” Flora pressed the bottle into her hand. “Now tell me every—Oh! The tea!” She bounced back off the bed. “I found your favorite chamomile brand, or do you want something else? Because I could—”

  “Flora!” Alice pulled herself out of bed. She felt disorientated—almost jet-lagged—but of course, there had only been a tiny time difference involved, however far the theoretical distance between those polished bedrooms in Rome and her own rumpled sheets. “I’m all right, really.”

  “But everything that happened!” Flora edged closer, staring at Alice in distress. “I don’t understand how they could do something like that.”

  “It was just a mix-up,” Alice reassured her, pulling on her dressing gown. “And the police were fine: scary, but professional. It wasn’t as if I were stranded in North Korea or anything. Now, how about that tea?”

  She made her way downstairs, slipping free from the hazy blanket of sleep. She could have used another eight hours of blissful rest, but the world—and the Grayson Wells Agency—was waiting, regardless. Flora followed her closely, still no doubt alert for signs of posttraumatic shock. “Well, if you’re sure…”

  “I am,” Alice insisted. “Really, all I needed was sleep. I’ll be fine for work today…” She walked into the kitchen, bright with early-morning sun. There were fresh raspberries in the fruit bowl, and, mmm, peaches too. Alice selected some and found herself a bowl. “Is Stefan back yet?”

  Flora shook her head, perching on one of the side chairs. “He’s in Stockholm another night.”

  “Oh, I wanted to thank him in person. That man really is amazing.” Alice began to fill the kettle. “He sorted everything out for me. You really shouldn’t have worried.”

  “I didn’t.” Flora’s voice was small.

  “What do you mean?” Alice bit into her peach. Now, plans: she could pack some of the fruit to eat at work, and was that cold chicken in the fridge for a sandwich?

  “I didn’t know to worry—I didn’t know anything at all,” Flora replied with a petulant note. “Stefan only told me what happened when you were on your way back.”

  “Oh.” Alice looked up. “Well, that’s good, right? You didn’t have to get worked up about something you couldn’t control.” If Flora had been this worried after just a few hours of waiting, Alice could only imagine the weeping and wailing that would have ensued from whole days of angst.

  But Flora didn’t seem to be pacified. “Why didn’t you call me?” Her lower lip began to tremble. “I shouldn’t have to find out this stuff later. I’m your sister!”

  Alice blinked in surprise. “It’s not like that. They hardly gave me any time with the phone, and I just thought Stefan would be able to help. You know how he is about sorting things. I didn’t call Dad or Jasmine either,” she offered, hoping to mollify her.

  It didn’t work.

  “But I could have helped!”

  Alice’s expression must have betrayed her thoughts because Flora shot up. “I could have!” she cried. “I could have even come with you to Italy! But you didn’t even think of that, did you? You just left me that stupid note.” Her face crumpled. “You all just leave me sitting around, like I’m some kind of child. ‘Oh, let’s not worry Flora,’” she mimicked. “‘She’ll just get worked up over nothing. She won’t be any use.’ Well, I am. I can be!” Flora swiped angrily at her damp cheeks.

  “Flora, calm down.” Alice was bemused. She was the one who went through all that peril, yet somehow, it was Flora shaking with self-indulgent sobs instead. “It’s OK. Everything worked out in the end. I’m fine, see?”

  Flora sniffed loudly. “I’m just saying…You could have called.”

  “Fine,” Alice agreed quickly. “I could have. And next time I get locked up in some foreign prison, you’ll be the first one I contact, I promise.” She patted Flora carefully, waiting until the tears subsided. “There, now do you want some of this tea?”

  Flora nodded.

  “And how about some breakfast—muesli, or something?” Alice fetched down a bowl and poured out some of her favorite brand, steering Flora back to the table and handing her a spoon before turning back to her own lunch preparations. And she wondered why nobody called on her in a crisis.

  Alice stifled a sigh, thinking again of those angry portraits, and Flora’s insistence that everything was fine. She snuck a look at her stepsister, now carefully picking raisins out of the bowl, looking pale and delicate. Everything wasn’t fine—that much was becoming clear, but they were adults now, and if Flora didn’t want to confide in her, then Alice wasn’t quite sure what she should do.

  “Have you got plans today?” she asked casually, sealing up a Tupperware container of salad for lunch. Somehow, she didn’t think Flora should be left drifting around the house alone another day.

  Flora looked up. “Oh, yes…I have to go to the gallery and look over the final plans for the show. You’ll be there, won’t you?” She looked anxious. “On Friday?”

  “I wouldn’t miss it,” Alice reassured her. “Are Dad and Jasmine coming up?”

  Flora shook her head. “They’re in France, remember? At the cottage until September.”

  “Oh, right.” Alice remembered the summer holidays of her youth, complete with rickety caravans and outlandish mileage plans. “But you must be getting excited about it, hmm?”

  Flora gave a weak smile. “Of course. It’ll be fun.”

  Alice wasn’t entirely convinced, but she was already running late. “Great. I have to dash now, but how about we get some takeout tonight, and I’ll tell you everything that happened in Rome?” Well, almost everything.

  Flora brightened. “Like a girls’ night in?”

  “Sure,” Alice agreed, imagining the rom-coms and toenail polish that awaited her. “Why not?”

  It wasn’t until she arrived at the office that Alice realized Flora was the least of her problems. Despite the fa
ct her weekend had been full of adventure, as far as the rest of the world was concerned, nothing had changed in the slightest. The morning post was piled high in the entrance hall and the phone blinked angrily with messages. Alice surveyed the mess with a sigh. She could make short work of the backlog, she was sure, but slogging through the same tedious organization seemed, on this particular morning, to be a personal insult.

  She felt rebellion spark in her veins.

  Meandering past the front desk, Alice made her way back through the silent office rooms, passing empty workstations and forlorn desk chairs until she reached the notice board.

  Kieran Bates and Julia Wendall—Alice ran her finger down the list until she found them. She’d plucked their names at random to throw at Vivienne the previous week, but now that she was back, they seemed full of new possibility. Just as she’d remembered, their list of auditions was painfully slim. Kieran was a gangly, sharp-eyed boy in his late teens whose strange intensity should make him a sure thing for the catalog of damaged serial-killers-in-the-making that those gruesome crime dramas demanded, but who had been sent instead to read for an ever-thinning list of bumbling comedy roles in second-rate soap operas and (Alice blinked at the print) children’s shows. Julia, on the other hand, faced the opposite problem: she had been relatively successful as a child actress, but now faced the challenge of overcoming her babyish looks and finding adult work. Alice had seen her in the office a few times, and had had little doubt that some fresh braids and an audition wardrobe that didn’t feature logo T-shirts and skintight jeans might go a long way to helping her career, but of course, it had never been her place to say.

  It still wasn’t, but that didn’t stop her scribbling a few details from the other agent’s charts, or accessing their client files from the database once she was settled up in her office. Alice had long kept the list of master passwords in her drawer, so it was no trouble at all to log in to the agent area and download the lists of current casting notices and internal memos that kept everyone up to date on available jobs.

  Alice stared at the data thoughtfully, jotting brief notes as the ideas came. The problem wasn’t that Vivienne was a terrible agent—or any of the others there at Grayson Wells—but more the simple facts of their industry as a whole. Clients had a limited time to be the new, fresh face on the scene, but once that glow of novelty faded and other, brighter prospects came along, it was easy to be shuffled to the bottom of the priority list and overlooked for easier, larger commissions. Alice had little doubt that with the full force of Vivienne’s talents now behind him, Nick Savage would quickly ascend the ranks, but it was what happened next, after those few early breaks had been forgotten, that really determined an actor’s career—or hers.

  Alice felt a sense of possibility grow the longer she considered their files. If she knew Vivienne, then neither Kieran nor Julia had received more than an emailed list of appointments for months now. Surely they would leap at the chance for some personalized attention, particularly if it came under the Grayson Wells brand name? The only real challenge, then, as far as she could see, was the small matter of how to become their new agent without the knowledge or support of their old one.

  “Alice?” After an hour of strategic planning, her intercom buzzed to life. “Alice, it’s Tyrell. We need you down here—Vivienne’s out, and Saskia hasn’t showed up yet.”

  Of course she hadn’t. “Fine, I’ll be right down.”

  She pushed her notebook aside with regret. The moment she descended those stairs, her whole day would be gone—she knew that from experience. There would be phones to answer, and deliveries to sort, and clients requiring coffee and small talk—and her own work would still be there, waiting, when she returned. It wasn’t until Alice was halfway to the door that it struck her. Tyrell hadn’t even bothered to climb two flights of stairs and ask in person; he’d just buzzed and expected her to come running. Like she always did.

  She stopped.

  “Hi, Tyrell?” Alice returned to her desk with a new sense of determination. “Yes, I’m afraid I can’t do it. I’m buried up here.”

  “But the phones are going crazy.” Tyrell sounded confused.

  “Then call a temp in,” she replied, strangely unmoved. “The agency number is on a blue Post-it, by the copier.”

  Alice hung up before he could object. Whoever it was who had talked about the power of no was clearly on the right track, she decided, wondering for the first time why she hadn’t simply refused their appeals before. It had always just been easier to keep things running herself, but now, it struck Alice as a rather self-defeating strategy. The more she did, the less any of them expected to do, until the sight of a missing receptionist sent them into a panicked frenzy. Well, no more. Alice set her intercom to silent and swiveled back to those restricted internal files. She had some future clients to woo.

  ***

  “Once more everybody, and this time, really hit it!”

  Alice stifled a groan as the thumping R&B track cued up to the intro. There were still ten minutes until the end of her Wednesday class, but already her workout vest was sticking to her body in damp patches, and her neck ached from attempting to mimic the diva’s head-tossing moves. Alice wasn’t sure quite what elastic limbs enabled half the class to swing their hips so, but whatever it was, she was still sorely lacking.

  “If I die, can you tell my family I went doing Pilates and not a Beyoncé routine?” The murmur came from just behind her, where Nadia, the freckled woman from her other classes, was breathing heavily, clearly worn out.

  Alice smiled with what little energy she had left. “Come on, it’s a worthy cause. Who wouldn’t want to die trying to get that circular hip-thrust thing just right?”

  Nadia grinned back. “Right. Keep your eye on the prize.”

  “Quiet ladies!” Their petite instructor barked, terrifying in her lurid pink vest and Lycra hot pants. “Less chat, more dance. And five, six, seven, eight!”

  With a last burst of energy, Alice lurched into the routine. Well, less lurched than lunged—her weeks of training were providing some improvement, at least. Alice found herself relishing the more aggressive style of the movement, feeling a now-familiar rush of endorphins as she threw herself into the steps. She hit the last pose with considerably more precision than she’d ever mustered before.

  “See, I told you it gets better,” Nadia managed to enthuse, once they’d stretched to warm down and were gulping from bottles of water en route to the changing rooms.

  “I don’t know about better…” Alice felt the ache still pull in her muscles. “But marginally less terrifying, sure.” She found her locker and sank down on the bench for a moment, too exhausted even to peel off her trainers. But it was a satisfied sort of exhaustion, the kind that kept her coming back here, long after it became apparent nobody had any information about Ella.

  “Ella? Ella?”

  Alice finally glanced up to find Nadia looking at her expectantly. “Oh, sorry—I was spaced out there,” she hurriedly covered, beginning to hunt through her gym bag for her towel.

  “No problem, I get like that too after class.” Nadia reached to scoop her hair up into a messy bun and began to undress. “Sometimes I just kind of drift home, without even paying attention to the bus route or anything.”

  “And then you wake up and wonder why you’re not in Walthamstow,” Alice agreed. “It’s muscle memory, I suppose. Like with the steps.”

  “Speak for yourself.” Nadia took off her thin glasses and propped them on her locker shelf. “My muscles aren’t remembering anything at the moment.” She gave a dramatic sigh. “Oh well, if I wanted life to be easy, I’d be doing beginner’s yoga.”

  Alice smiled, remembering her own ill-advised brush with the yogic arts. “Good luck with that. Anyway, see you next week!”

  “Yup!” Nadia paused by the shower area, arms full of shampoo and gel bottles. “Hey, I’m getting together with some friends for a drink when I’m done here. Do you want t
o come along?”

  Alice looked over in surprise. “Um, I have plans, actually. But maybe another time?”

  “Sure.” Nadia grinned. “Have fun.”

  ***

  Alice thought that she would, but when she arrived at the busy Soho pub to find Yasmin tight-lipped at a corner table, she couldn’t help but wish she’d taken Nadia up on her offer instead.

  “Hi,” Alice began brightly, sliding into a seat. “Sorry I’m late, the class ran over and then the Tube…Well, you know how it is.” She gave an apologetic smile, even though Julian’s invitation had said nothing about Yasmin joining them. She had, it seemed, ascended to the ranks of automatic inclusion, a rare feat indeed. Alice scooped a handful of chips from the bowl in front of them, reminding herself to be friendly. “So, how have you been?”

  Yasmin wet her lips. “Oh, fine.” She shrugged vaguely, glancing back toward the bar. “Work, the usual.” There was a pause. “And, you?”

  “I’ve been great.” Alice dunked a chip in ketchup and savored the crisp, greasy crunch. For some reason, she always craved salt and fat after her gym workouts, even though it must cancel out all her health points. “Things have been hectic what with—” Alice caught herself. “No, I better wait until Julian gets back, save you hearing everything twice.” She looked around. “Where’s he disappeared to?”

  “He’s just getting our drinks.” Yasmin shifted in her seat. She looked uncomfortable, more so than usual.

  “So…” Alice searched for noncontentious topics. “Work going well?”

  Yasmin gave a tiny shrug. “Same as usual, I suppose. Busy,” she added, twisting her watch strap.

  “Oh. Well, that’s good.”

  In the absence of any more small talk, Alice reached for another chip, smothering her disappointment with more starch and fat. She’d been looking forward to an evening with Julian like the kind they’d used to share: relaxed and easy, stretching over hours and a bottle of wine as they caught up with news and future plans. She’d wanted some time alone for a change, to tell him about her adventures in Italy, and all—