Mimi glared at her. Alice could almost see the thoughts come in and out of her head: I’m sure she’s up to something, but I can’t figure out what it is. I’d better yell at her anyway, just in case. “Go back in the store,” she finally snapped. “It’s almost closing time, and I want someone in there at all times during the party. Brittany will take over your duties.”
Alice handed Whitney her box, and when Whitney opened her mouth to protest, Alice shook her head almost imperceptibly. “I’ll be in the shop if you need me,” she said quietly. “And that includes helping Brittany with her ‘duties’.” Whitney just rolled her eyes and sighed even as Brittany and Mimi gathered around her to gossip about Adam.
The shop was blessedly quiet for the next several hours, save for the odd shopper that Lewis ushered through the back door. “This is the best time to order,” he whispered as the latest customer slipped out, his eyes dancing with mischief. “Mimi will be outside until Adam leaves, and Brittany has him cornered. Whatever you think about the guy, he’s too polite to tell a woman to get lost.”
“Thanks, Lewis. I’m guessing you’re trying to tell me that I’m not as sweet as he is.”
“Hey, I never said that. You have your reasons for not going out with him. I just think you should have shared them with him. Now he thinks you hate his guts.” Alice was pretty sure Lewis was exaggerating a little there, but he was gone before she could make a retort.
Did Adam really think she hated his guts?
She sure hoped not.
***
The party finally wound down around one o’clock, and Alice was packing up the remnants of the feast, knowing that if she could swing it, she’d smuggle the food to the soup kitchen several blocks away without Mimi ever knowing.
“And this is our little home away from home.” Brittany’s shrill voice filled the empty store, and Alice shoved the box she’d been packing under the counter. It stuck out at an awkward angle, and she tried to position her body so that no one would notice it. All she managed to do was look even more obvious than the box did.
“I’ve been here before.”
Alice froze at the sound of Adam’s bland voice. Why hadn’t he already gone home?
“Hello, Alice.”
Her eyes flew up to his only long enough to see his serious expression. He looked even more tired than he had before, if that were possible, and she had an insane urge to hug him. Heaven knew he needed it; he’d been with Brittany for the better part of three hours, if Lewis had been right.
“Hello, Adam.”
“You two know each other?” Brittany sounded irritated.
“Only briefly.” Alice winced as the words left her mouth, but she glanced back up at Adam’s now stony expression and shook her head slightly. If he said anything about their date, or any part of their dealings together, she could kiss her freedom goodbye.
“Yes,” he said slowly. “I visited your store the day I arrived in Michigan. You were here; don’t you remember?”
Brittany pressed a hand to her chest, covering a fair amount of skin that would have been better covered by her too-tiny tank top. What was she doing, wearing that kind of top outside in April? Alice couldn’t figure it out. She had to be freezing–literally. “I remember,” she cooed. “It was the day I bought the red dress, you know, the one with the sparkly bustier.” She giggled and batted her eyes. “Oh, I guess you don’t know yet. I got it for a special occasion.”
If this was the way to win a man’s heart, Alice thought drily, she’d gladly die an old maid.
Adam glanced over at Alice and cleared his throat. “That’s nice.”
Alice rested her side against the cash register. “What’s in the box, Alice?”
Trust Adam to find the one thing in the entire place that she wanted to hide. It was probably too much to hope he’d notice the lack of screeching music instead. “It’s just the leftovers,” she said, her voice sounding as tired as he looked.
“You should just have thrown them away,” Brittany said, inspecting her nails. “You’re wasting your time on that. Wait until Mother hears about this.”
“Hears about what?” The door banged open and Mimi strode in, cheeks rosy from the cold. With her red face and squeaky voice she could pass for a six-foot Elmo.
“The box Alice’s been packing. She’s got the food from the party in it.”
The Walkers looked down at her, and Adam cleared his throat again. If he kept this up, Alice thought, he’d lose the use of his vocal cords. Maybe he could give lessons to Mimi. And Brittany.
“I’m sure Miss Riverton has a reason,” he said mildly. “I don’t think she’s the sort of person to laze around and waste time.” He looked at her expectantly.
“I was going to take it to the soup kitchen.” She was surprised by how steady her voice was.
Mimi and Brittany both made quacking noises in their throats. “That’s a very generous thing to do,” Adam said smoothly. “It’s very nice of you, Ms. Walker, to let her do that. I’ll be sure to tell my father about it when I talk to him next week.”
Mimi opened and closed her mouth several times before plastering a grimace–was it supposed to resemble a smile? “Of course, it was my idea in the first place,” she said, ignoring the fact that not thirty seconds before she was ready to change Alice’s status from employee to indentured servant.
“Then I’m sure you won’t mind if I take this out to Alice’s car for her, and see her on her way.” The smile Adam shot at Mimi was brilliant in its sneakiness. “I’m sure I’ll see you all in the morning.” With that, he bent over, grabbed the box, and waited for a flustered Alice to grab her coat and hold the door open for him. They headed towards her car.
“You didn’t need to do that,” she said as she unlocked the trunk. “But I appreciate it anyway.”
Shrugging, he dropped the box in her car and dusted his hands on his trousers. “You looked like you needed a good night’s sleep, and I was desperate for a way to shake off Brittany. I was pretty sure she wouldn’t want to step foot in a place like a soup kitchen.”
Alice had to smile at the way his thought processes worked. “You nailed her.” She sighed as she noticed all the work that still needed to be done outside. “I’d better get started on the clean-up before I leave. Mimi and Brittany aren’t likely to stick around to do it.”
“What about the soup kitchen?”
“It’s one thirty in the morning,” she reminded him. “I really don’t think they’re open right now. I’ll drop it off tomorrow on my way to work.”
Adam just grunted and walked with her to the side of the building, where Lewis and Whitney were silently gathering trash. “I had no idea I had such messy tenants,” he said without sounding surprised at all.
“At least the caterers took the tables and chairs with them.” Lewis grabbed an empty can and lobbed it toward a trashcan at the other end of the parking lot. He groaned when it hit the edge and clattered to the ground. His crestfallen expression made Alice laugh.
“It’s okay,” she said, patting him on the back. “It’s too dark out here to see anything properly.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” he grumbled good-naturedly. “Come on, I’ll help you tear down the tent and we can all get out of here.”
Adam was slowly dragging several garbage bags to the dumpster when Alice turned around to look. He didn’t look particularly happy.
***
Alice was in the middle of a very imaginative dream involving Elmo and a Mack truck when a distant thud made her eyes crack open and blink at the alarm clock. It must be too early to get up, she thought hazily. The heat hadn’t clicked on yet.
But when the thudding continued a few moments later, she knew she was either being robbed by a particularly inept burglar or there was someone at her door.
So she threw on her robe, grabbed the baseball bat from its hiding spot under her bed, and made her way down the hall to open her front door.
The bat dropped to the floor
when Whitney’s face peered at her through the peephole. When she threw open the door, Whitney just stood there, shivering in her too-thin–but designer–coat. “Whitney?” Alice asked, rubbing the sleep from her eyes and wondering if she was having a very realistic dream. “Are you okay?”
Whitney’s eyes were flashing when she finally looked up. “I think I want to kill my mother.”
Alice stepped back wordlessly and held the door open for her. “I have a mug of hot chocolate in the kitchen with your name on it,” she said. “Come on in.”
Ten minutes later, they were leaning back on the couch in the family room, several quilts tucked around their laps. “So what happened?” Alice asked. She couldn’t ever remember feeling this curious about something. Well, there was the time she’d kissed Lewis back in college, but that was hardly the same thing.
Whitney took a deep, deep breath. When she expelled it, her eyes were even fiercer than they’d been when she’d stood on the front porch. “When we got home tonight, Mimi and Brittany started scheming.”
“That’s hardly unusual.” Alice sipped her hot chocolate and made a face. Too much peppermint, she decided. Maybe she should have measured before she dumped it in.
“Well, yeah. But this time they were scheming about getting on Adam’s good side. By letting him think that the whole party–planning, executing, even the idea–was Brittany’s.”
Alice shook her head. “He wouldn’t believe that. He was there when you and I were talking about it, remember?”
“I know that, but it doesn’t really matter what Adam thinks. The fact that my own mother was willing to sell me out to make her precious Brittany look better than she ever could, made me so mad I just left.” Whitney sat fuming for a few minutes while Alice finished her hot chocolate. She’d never expected the quiet, unassuming Whitney to crack like this.
“I’m sorry I arrived on your doorstep at three in the morning.” Whitney’s voice was quiet again when she broke the silence. “But I couldn’t think of anywhere else to go, and I couldn’t really pay the cab driver to sit in your driveway for three hours.”
“You came in a cab?” Out of all the things Whitney had just said, that’s the one that surprised Alice the most.
Whitney blinked at her. “Well, yeah. It’s not like I could drive.”
“Why not? Did Mimi take away your keys?”
“She didn’t have to. I can’t drive.” Her tone was matter-of-fact, like she’d had a lot of practice saying this over the years, but her face was pink.
Alice carefully leaned over and placed her mug on the coffee table. Then she folded her hands on her lap and studied Whitney for a long time. The other girl’s shoulders straightened under the scrutiny, and she looked back steadily. Alice didn’t get the impression that Whitney was daring her to look away first, but was, for the first time, letting Alice see her properly. And the Whitney that Alice saw was different. She couldn’t exactly put her finger on it, but something significant had changed.
“I have a spare room. You’re welcome to stay here for as long as you want.”
Whitney inhaled quickly. “Really? I wouldn’t be under your feet?”
Laughing quietly, Alice waved a hand around the apartment. “I have a lot of room here,” she said. “Besides, I’m hardly here anyway. I spend most of my time–”
“At the store. I know.” Whitney grinned and threw the quilt off her legs. “I happen to have a suitcase outside your front door,” she said. “I was hoping I could at least crash here for the night. Thanks, Alice.” Then she leaned over, placed her mug next to Alice’s and threw her arms around her.
When they parted, Whitney’s eyes were damp. “I can’t tell you how much I appreciate this.”
Alice just smiled at her and hugged her again. “Welcome to the fun side, roomie.”
***
Adam groaned when the phone buzzed, but he leaned over and grabbed it before the third ring anyway.
“What?” he croaked.
“Adam, this is your mother. What are you doing?”
He sat bolt upright in bed, panicked. “Have I missed the meeting? Oh, crap. Dad’s going to kill me.”
“Your father is still safely asleep upstairs. Calm down; you haven’t missed anything.” Jillian paused. “And watch your language, young man.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Adam slumped back against his pillows and yawned. “What time is it, anyway?”
“I don’t know, exactly.” If Adam had been more awake he would have picked up on her evasive tone, but as it was, he was still too groggy to notice much of anything. “I was calling to see how things are going with that girl. You know, the one that wouldn’t tell you her last name. By the way, did you ever get her to tell you?”
“Riverton. Alice Riverton.”
Jillian laughed. “This is why I call you so early in the morning,” she said. “You’ve never been able to keep your mouth closed when you first wake up.”
Adam groaned and rubbed his face with his hand. “Mother…”
“So how are you and Alice doing, anyway? When you hung up on me last week I was sure she’d either shown up on your doorstep with a rose clenched between her teeth or you’d remembered something important.”
“The latter.”
“Well, I’m glad. I’m not sure I could respect a woman who gave in to you so quickly. Adam? Are you there?”
Adam, who’d been having a hard time concentrating since Jillian had unwittingly planted a picture of a rose-toting Alice in his head, jerked to attention. “Huh? Oh. Right. She hasn’t given in to me at all, actually. I thing she hates my guts.”
“What on Earth did you do to her?”
He felt mildly insulted. “Mother, I’m your son. Why are you automatically assuming I’m the one that did something wrong?”
Jillian sighed. “Because you’re male, son, and you’re your father’s offspring. I have a long history with men screwing things up. Why don’t you tell me what happened?”
So Adam, clad only in his boxers and socks–how had he managed to forget to take them off?–told his mother exactly what the problem was. “I have no idea. We went out to dinner; she had fun, I think. And then I helped her clean a property for her ridiculous boss, and she didn’t run screaming from the mall in horror. She did spray me in the face with Windex, though.”
There was a long silence on the other end of the phone. “Is this some sort of dating ritual that I don’t want to know about?”
If only, Adam thought. “Not that I know of.”
“So what’s the problem? You seem to be getting along just famously.”
Sighing, he leaned his head back against the headboard and stared up at the ceiling. “When I went back the next day to ask her out properly, she turned me down flat before I had the chance to get the words out of my mouth.”
“And you’re sure you didn’t do some horrid man thing?”
“Mother, please. I don’t do things like that.”
“True.”
They were quiet for a while. Adam had started to drift back to sleep when his mother barked, “Wake up, Adam! Is this girl important to you?”
He was so surprised by the question that he toppled over onto his pillow.
“Adam Harvard Wentworth! Pay attention!”
“She is!” He said the words without really thinking about the consequences.
“Then figure out how to fix this! She must have a friend or two that she confides in. Weren’t you the one that wanted to be a Hardy Boy when you grew up?”
“That was a long time ago, Mom,” Adam said drily, and finally glanced at the clock. It was only 6:15 AM.
“You’re not that old.”
Adam walked out of the hotel an hour later with the beginnings of a plan in his mind. He decided that when Lewis Hughes drove up to the mall in some wretched excuse for a car, Adam would pounce on him. And then, halfway between the mall and Lewis’s car, he froze.
What was he doing? You know what you’re doing, he rem
inded himself. He wondered how he’d come to a point where he was having a discussion with his own head. You’re preparing to ask the man who could be Alice’s boyfriend, why she wasn’t talking to his potential rival. I must be the most dim-witted person in existence.
By this time Lewis had noticed him and there was no turning back. “Mr. Hughes?”
Lewis popped the hood of his car and walked around to stare at its contents. “Yeah, that’s me.”
Adam stared at the engine with him. The car wasn’t quite as ugly inside as it was outside. He hadn’t thought that was possible. “I need to talk to you,” he said without looking at him. “I was wondering if…”
Lewis poked a finger at the engine and scowled when it came back dirty. “You want to know if Alice and I are an item.”
Well, thought Adam, this was going better than he expected. “Something like that.”
“Why don’t you ask her?”
“I would, but she’s been treating me like I have a deadly disease and won’t get within thirty feet of me.”
“And I’m your other option.” A gleam came into Lewis’s eye. “Well, it seems like you have more than one problem on your hands.”
Adam just glowered at Lewis. He knew how many problems he was facing and didn’t particularly care to be reminded of them. “Well, Mr. Tall, Dark and Persistent, if Alice isn’t going to tell you the sordid details of her love life, I don’t see why I should.”
Taking a deep breath, Adam turned to look him in the eye. “Do you care if I ask her out?”
Lewis just shrugged. “That seems to be a moot point, since you just told me she’s avoiding you. Last time I checked it was kind of hard to go on a date with a person that won’t let you talk to her.”
Could this guy be any more infuriating? And why hadn’t Princeton made him take a class on how to deal with people who got more infuriating the more you interacted with them? He was sure a college course like that would be wildly popular–and useful. “I’ll worry about that, thanks. Just answer the question, Hughes.”
Alice in Glass Slippers Page 10