Whitney didn’t say anything, a fact for which Alice was entirely grateful. She took a second to breathe in the cool night air. So she loved Adam. She’d been wondering, and somehow, the actual verbalizing of the sentiment made it that much more real. Her heart grew a little in her chest and she grinned and gazed up at the stars. It wasn’t an entirely unpleasant feeling, this being in love business–heart palpitations and all. But yet…“And that scares the hell out of me.”
They stopped swinging several minutes later and headed inside. Whitney examined Alice’s face for a second, then squeezed her arm gently and whispered, “It’ll all work out somehow.” It wasn’t until Alice closed the door firmly behind her that she noticed how quiet it was outside. She wondered exactly when the music from downstairs had stopped.
***
Adam sat in his kitchen on Friday morning, and stared out the window as Alice wrestled the lawnmower out of the shed.
He got to his feet to help her, but as soon as he reached the back door, Lewis emerged from around the side of the house, shook his head at Alice, and hip-checked her out of the way. Alice scowled at him in good nature, but relinquished the mower and made her way back toward the house. Adam ducked around the doorjamb so she wouldn’t see his stalker-ish tendencies.
It wasn’t like he was doing it on purpose, he argued with himself as he loaded the dishwasher slowly. After all, it was hardly his fault that his kitchen window overlooked the back yard.
Or that it was directly under her deck, where, evidently, she liked to have heart-to-hearts with her roommate while he happened to be in working. With his window wide open.
If he thought ‘happened’ one more time during this interior monologue, he was pretty sure his eyes would pop out.
He sat back at the kitchen table and tried to look over all the notes he’d taken during the last week’s round of interviews. But his gaze kept drifting outside, and he found himself watching with glazed eyes as Lewis made his way slowly around the grass. Adam chuckled to himself. It was funny to see the guy doing something besides measuring lace, polishing that thing he called a car, and mooning over a certain blonde upstairs.
Not Adam’s blonde, thank goodness. He shuddered just thinking of it. Lewis finally closed the shed door and trudged across the lawn and into Adam’s home. “Hey, man,” he said before he flipped the faucet on and ducked his head under the cold spray. “I see you haven’t done anything about that stalker business yet.”
Since he’d just spent the past half hour convincing himself that he was perfectly innocent, Adam didn’t feel a burning desire to respond. “Do you usually mow the grass here?” he asked instead.
Lewis pulled his head out of the sink and rubbed his eyes dry with the hem of his shirt. Adam noted drily that he didn’t seem too bothered by the water currently dripping off his hair and onto the floor. “Not usually,” he said, “but before he left, Arthur asked me if I’d keep an eye on things.”
“Ah.” Adam watched as Lewis took a can of soda out of the fridge and plopped down at the table next to him. “Make yourself at home,” he added sardonically.
“You’ve been kind of quiet lately,” Lewis noted, glancing sidelong at his co-conspirator. “What’s up?”
Adam lifted a shoulder and started to gather his papers. “Not much.”
Snorting, Lewis gave Adam an unbelieving look. “So now you’re Mr. Tall, Dark and Mendacious?”
“What does that even mean?”
Lewis peered at Adam over the top of his can. “I thought you went to an Ivy. Your parents’ hard-earned money didn’t go as far as they were hoping. Didn’t they teach you anything?” Adam closed his eyes, wondering why he even bothered. “It means lying, untruthful, dishonest, deceitful–”
“I get it. And I wasn’t being mendacious, exactly.”
Lewis snorted again, and Adam wordlessly handed him a box of tissues, which he ignored.
“Do you have a thesaurus?”
Adam was pretty sure he knew where Lewis was going with that. “All right, all right. I’ve been thinking, that’s all.”
“About Alice.”
Why was he so transparent to everyone but the person who really mattered? And why was this so difficult to admit? Here he was, in the same room with the girl’s best friend since they were in diapers, most likely, and all he had to do was tell him he had no idea what he was doing.
“Spill, man. I don’t have all day. I have a hot date at a festival in like two hours. Time’s a tickin’.”
“It takes you two hours to get ready for a festival?”
Lewis shoved his shoulder none too gently. “If you don’t open your trap I swear…”
Maybe Whitney and Lewis were more alike than he’d originally thought, Adam mused. They seemed to share the same gift of pulling information out of unwilling bystanders.
So he opened his trap, as Lewis had so eloquently stated, and the story came tumbling out, finishing off with, “…And then the wretched event planner called, and I missed the end of the conversation.”
“Your event planner called that late at night?”
“Some problem with the fortune teller,” Adam muttered absently. He had the nagging feeling that Alice had said something important while he was listening to someone rattle on about staffing issues.
Lewis sat back in his seat and folded his arms across his chest. “You’re an idiot, aren’t you? Why don’t you just tell the woman the truth. That you don’t know how long you’ll be in Michigan but if she doesn’t at least try the whole long-distance relationship thing you’ll feed yourself to Mimi on a silver platter?”
Adam twitched involuntarily. Some things just didn’t bear even joking about. “She’s already said–”
“Oh, Alice doesn’t know what she’s saying half the time. Especially when her heart’s involved.”
Adam somehow didn’t believe that was true, but he had nothing else to go on.
Lewis was lounging in the family room watching television when Alice emerged from her room. “Are you here for Whitney?” she asked before narrowing her eyes at the screen. “And what in the world are you watching?”
He patted the cushion next to him. “Sesame Street. I’m waiting for Bert to go postal on Ernie.”
Alice watched with him for a few seconds, and then started to laugh. “It’s been forty years,” she said. “If they’re both still standing now, there’s a pretty good chance that’ll stay that way.”
He leaned forward to watch more closely. “No, I think this is it. Just wait. He’s going to stuff that drum stick where the Sun–”
“Lewis?”
The remote dropped to the floor as Lewis bounded to his feet. “Hey, Whit. Are you ready to watch my carnival game prowess?”
Whitney looked at him appraisingly. “I bet I could beat you,” she said. Her lips pursed mischievously.
Lewis’s eyes widened. “Bring it on,” he breathed. “Come on, Alice. You’re coming with us.”
“I can drive,” she objected.
“I know that, and you know that, but your lover-boy downstairs had to rush off to fix some staffing situation at the festival and couldn’t offer you a ride himself. So he sent me to the rescue. I secretly think he’s doing it so he has an excuse to keep you all to himself.”
Whitney caught Alice’s eye and gave her a knowing look that made Alice’s cheeks warm. “Okay,” she told Whitney. “I can do that.”
Lewis looked between the two women, obviously confused, but they both ignored him. A slow, knowing smile appeared on Whitney’s face. “Good,” she said. “Let’s go.”
***
The field behind the mall had been transformed overnight, and Alice stood in the parking lot in a slight state of shock. “Wow,” she muttered under her breath. “When the Wentworths decide to do something, they do it right.”
“Did you expect anything less?”
Alice tilted her head up and squinted into the early afternoon Sun. “No, Adam. I guess I didn’t.”
He looked down at her with a satisfied expression. “I’m glad you finally realize that,” he said. “Shall we go?”
They walked side by side, and Alice waved to a girl who worked in the jewelry shop across from The Glass Slipper. “You know a lot of people,” Adam commented, watching in amusement as the young woman turned to her companion and whispered furiously.
Alice’s pace slowed as she followed his gaze. “Oh, boy,” she said, rolling her eyes. “Pretty soon the whole mall population will know that we were walking in the same direction.”
Adam laughed at loud. “Heaven forbid. She’s probably wondering how in the world you managed it.”
“Yes,” Alice said, “especially since you never bought me lunch.”
Adam slowed down even further. “Speaking of lunch,” he said, and then cleared his throat. “I was thinking I should remedy that.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Lunch. I’ve bought lunch for five million people over the past two weeks, and I think it’s high time I did the same for you.”
“But you already interviewed me.”
He leaned in close to her ear. “No one knows that but you and me,” he whispered. “What do you say? Are you free Monday around noon?”
Alice stared up at him. Her brain was now waltzing in a meadow filled with butterflies and bluebirds. Curse Whitney and her penchant for listening to Disney songs, she thought irritably. Now they’re affecting my subconscious. “Um…”
Adam beamed down at her and grasped her hand in his. “Excellent. I’ll clear my schedule for the entire hour. Now, what would you like to do first? Learn to juggle? Get a clown nose? Eat something deliciously deadly?”
Alice had to blink a few times to clear her head. “Whatever,” she said faintly. She felt oddly like she’d been dumped into a pool from the high dive and had landed in a pile of something unexpected, like glitter. “Lead the way.”
An hour later, Alice was laughing so hard she had to bend over and clutch her knees so she wouldn’t fall on the ground. Adam stood next to her, a pained expression on his face as they watched a triumphant Whitney hand Lewis the largest pink gorilla anyone had ever seen.
“What’s wrong with you, Hughes?” he fairly shouted. “You just got schooled by a girl! At a carnival game!”
Finally catching her breath, Alice straightened up and glared at him. “Are you implying that girls are inferior to boys?” she demanded, narrowing her eyes at him.
Adam took a step back. The elephant ear in his hand drooped to his side, and powdered sugar drifted onto his shoe. “No… I didn’t mean… that is, he should have–”
“Stop while you’re ahead, Wentworth,” Lewis advised. He didn’t look bothered in the slightest by the fact that his winnings had been earned for him by Whitney. “My woman has skills. Skills, man. That’s why I love her.”
Whitney stared up at him, a shocked expression on her face.
“That’s right, Miss Whitney,” Lewis grinned. Alice had never seen him so excited. “I am in love. With you.” And then, the gorilla’s head tucked firmly under one elbow; he swooped her into his arms and kissed her, long and hard. Alice was fairly sure they both got a mouthful of pink fur, but neither one of them complained.
Someone wolf whistled and Lewis finally pulled away, a rosy Whitney hiding her face in his neck. “Now, if you’ll excuse us,” Lewis said, not taking his eyes off of her, “we’ll be on our way.” And with an enormous amount of dignity, considering that he had the world’s largest and most ridiculous carnival prize trailing on the ground behind him, the two of them ambled down the aisle of booths and out of sight.
Adam kicked the toe of his shoe on the ground in a futile attempt to rid it of his snack. “Well,” he said mid-kick, “I must say he’s got style.”
“That he does.”
Alice had been staring off into the distance again. Someone was going to think she’d lost her ability to multi-task pretty soon. She seemed to be doing a lot of mindless staring since Adam came to town. Adam’s quiet voice interrupted her thoughts. “What are you thinking about?”
“Oh,” she said vaguely, “Lewis, I guess.”
“Care to expound on that?”
Alice shook herself internally and focused her eyes back on Adam. “There’s too much,” she told him, smiling shakily. “The first thing he ever said to me was that my hair ribbon didn’t match my shoes.” She laughed. “I should have known then what he’d end up doing with his life.”
“You guys have been best friends for a long time.”
“We have.” For some reason, she needed a hug.
When she glanced up at Adam, he was watching her steadily. He reached his arm across her shoulder and drew her to him so her head rested on his chest. Her hand snaked around his waist in a very comfortable one-armed embrace. They stood that way for what felt like a long time before she sighed and looked back up at him. “Thanks,” she said quietly. “I needed that.”
“Things are going to change in your world, aren’t they?”
“That they are,” she sighed again. “That they are.”
Adam spent the next hour trying to make her laugh, and she was surprised by how successful he was. “You’re entirely too good at this,” she said at one point, when he’d given up trying to learn how to juggle after nearly hitting himself on the head for the fourth time.
They started walking aimlessly. There seemed to be fewer people down this row of booths. “Too good at what? You can’t mean the juggling.”
“Making me smile.”
His sudden grin was infectious. “And that’s bad because…”
“Because I could get used to it.”
The words hung in the air between them until Alice cleared her throat uncomfortably and shifted her weight back and forth. She needed to change the subject. “You never told me what big staffing emergency you had to fix this morning,” she said, hoping her tone was lighter than it sounded to her ears.
Adam’s eyebrows lifted, like he knew what she was trying to do but was willing to let her have her way this time. “Our fortune teller got food poisoning late last night and the event planner was having a fit,” he explained. He placed his hand on the small of her back and they drifted on, not really paying attention to where they were going. “She wouldn’t leave me alone until I told her just to put a ‘closed’ sign on the tent and not to worry about it.” He grimaced. “She wouldn’t believe me until I hung it up myself. There it is,” he said, nodding to their left.
Sure enough, there was a small purple tent off to the side. “Why does it look different than all the other vendors?” Alice asked, curious.
“According to Susan, the planner, it makes it look more authentic.”
Alice stared at the tent dubiously. The large white stars and moons that had been painted on the fabric gave the impression that someone had set a three-year-old loose with a white crayon and a purple wall. “If you say so.”
Adam laughed. “It’s better inside. Come on, it’ll be fun.”
“Lewis said the same thing to me right before I fell out of a tree and broke my arm.”
His eyebrows rose at that, but he shook his head without saying anything and pulled her in behind him.
The small space was very… dark. And it smelled funny. “Incense,” Adam explained when she sniffed the air, and he switched on a small lamp in the corner. “Or so Susan tells me.” He sat down on a low stool and watched as she explored the rest of the room.
“I’ve always wondered what I’d look like with dark hair,” she remarked as she fingered a long black wig.
Adam rested his elbows on his knees and smirked at her. “Try it on, but don’t get any ideas in that pretty head of yours,” he told her. “I like it just the way it is. No alterations allowed.”
Alice was grateful for the dim light in the room as she twisted her hair up. “How’d you do that?” Adam asked. He sounded fascinated.
Eyeing him strangely, Alice tugged
the wig on and smoothed it down. “Do what?”
“That thing with your hair. One second it was down your back and the next it was sitting on top of your head.”
She smirked at him. “It’s a girl thing.”
The sound he made was a cross between a croak and a rooster crow. “I can see that.”
Alice watched him watch her until she started to get self-conscious. He was staring at her so intently she was sure he could see her eyelashes grow, and she darted her eyes away, swinging her leg back and forth nervously.
And then her foot hit something hard and round.
She was grateful for an excuse to get away from his never-ending stare. Didn’t the guy ever have to blink? Maybe she should put ophthalmologist on the top of her list of recommended doctors. She bent over and picked up a crystal ball. One end was slightly flattened out, so it wouldn’t roll off a table, and right next to it was a switch. When she flipped it, small lights illuminated inside. “Groovy,” she breathed.
“Did you just say ‘groovy’?” Adam’s tone was slightly amused.
“It seemed appropriate, given our surroundings,” she told him loftily.
Adam raised his eyes to the ceiling. “I could have sworn they outlawed that word in the seventies.”
“Shut up and let me tell your fortune.” Pulling a small table that was really a milk crate in disguise between them, she placed her ball on top and gave him her sweetest look. “It’ll be fun.”
“I hate it when people use my own words against me,” he grumbled, but gazed into the ball with her.
“Are we supposed to see something in there?” he whispered after several long seconds.
She shrugged. “Beats me. Do you have anything you want to know?”
His head shot up. “Oh, I do, but I hardly think this is the place to ask those questions, Miss Riverton.”
It’s now or never, Alice thought. At least he couldn’t see her blushing. She hoped. “Try me.”
Adam’s eyes widened and then narrowed. “All right. I want to know why the object of my affections won’t tell me what’s going on in her shop.”
“That’s not a fair question,” she snapped.
Alice in Glass Slippers Page 23