Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Summer is in full swing in the valley. The harsh late afternoon sun glares down across fields of drying grasses, blowing in the wind like the fur of some wild beast. A rusty little blue pick-up bounces down a two-lane highway, winding along between mountains and orchards, kicking up a storm of dust behind it as it goes. The truck whizzes past an overgrown green road sign, which states: Pelican Town, 10 miles.

“Almost there,” Mel says, one hand tightening on the steering wheel as the other reaches up to flip the sun visor down above her head.

The teen girl sitting next to her on the cracked vinyl bench seat doesn’t respond, and Mel takes her eyes off the road to dart a quick look over. The girl has her knees pulled up to her chest, a set of bright orange foam headphones over her ears, make-up-smudged eyes shut tight, mouth partly open, asleep. Mel smiles to herself at the image. She wishes she could reach her Polaroid camera, but it’s packed away with all the rest of her life.

An extended, bone-shaking honk reverberates through the valley, more like a foghorn than a car horn, and Mel’s eyes snap back to the road. She’s met with bright headlights, and the front of a huge red 18-wheeler barreling towards them at full speed.

“Oh, fuck fuck fuck,” Mel mutters, gripping the wheel tight and swerving to the right, back into her own lane at the last second. In the bed of her truck, a ridiculously stacked load of boxes teeters precariously, threatening to tip over as the truck careens around another bend, before settling back into place as the road straightens out.

“Holy shit! Are you trying to kill us?” The girl, now very much awake, yelps from the seat next to her, her headphones pulled down around her neck.

“I don’t know where that asshole came from! He just materialized there, I swear,” Mel says, her face red and her heart racing. “Also, language, Alice. A dollar in the swear jar when we get there.”

“You said fuck, like, five times when that truck was coming towards us,” Alice points out.

“First of all,” Mel says, “that’s another dollar. Second of all, I don’t know what you’re talking about. And even if I did, I’m sure that would be a very different situation, on account of me, you know, thinking we were going to die.”

“This is bullshit,” Alice says.

“Three dollars now. You better find a part-time job ASAP if you wanna keep that up.”

Alice grumbles to herself and pulls her headphones back on. She slides the volume up on her Walkman until even Mel can hear her music, before leaning against the window and watching the scenery pass by.

By the time they steer off the highway and onto an even smaller, more treacherous dirt road, the sun is starting to dip behind the mountains. Mel flips on her headlights, guiding the truck expertly down a tiny, overgrown road that Alice would decidedly call a path. The truck passes under a rickety wooden archway, complete with an ox skull and a sign that reads, “Crescent Lake Farm,” and then Mel spots it—just off to the right, a small farmhouse, plucked right out of her childhood memories. Well, farmhouse is maybe putting it nicely. Alice will probably call it a shack, and Mel will be hard-pressed to argue with that assessment.

Mel pulls the truck to a stop just next to the house, then hops out and marches up to the front steps. Up close, the house has definitely seen better days. The yellow paint is peeling away from water-stained wooden siding, there are a few spots on the roof where shingles have seemingly fallen away, and the porch looks like if you stepped too hard on it, it might just collapse in a pile of ancient dust. Yup, it’s definitely a fixer-upper. But it’s a house, and Mel owns it, and she can’t help the smile that spreads across her face as she looks up at it.

“Well, what do you think?” Mel asks over her shoulder.

Alice has hopped out of the car and wandered over next to her, gazing at the house with some mixture of fear and absolute repulsion.

“This is the place?” Alice asks, the derision clear in her voice.

“Home sweet home,” Mel says, smiling widely.

“It looks like you asked a blind person to draw a house,” Alice says. “And then you used that drawing as the basis for the blueprints, and hired a group of blind contractors to follow those diagrams.”

“What?”

“Translation: it looks like shit.”

“So it needs a little work!” Mel says.

“A little?” Alice says, incredulously.

“Okay, maybe a lot,” Mel admits. “But it has a roof! And it’s ours. Just ours, Al.”

Even Alice smiles at that. “Ours?”

“Ours,” Mel nods.

The inside of the house is in much better condition than the outside, and despite it having been almost twenty-five years since she was last here, it looks just how Mel remembers it—the lack of furniture and addition of a thick layer of dust that covers every surface and left-behind knick-knack notwithstanding. There are two bedrooms, one of which is actually a renovated attic, a miniscule kitchen, a central room with a fireplace and room for a table and chairs, and a single bathroom with barely enough room for one person to stand. It’s cozy, and quaint, and the styling is about fifteen years out of date, but Mel feels like it could be a good home, after some cleaning.

Of course, it’s not without issues. The first of which is that none of the electricity seems to work, and Mel silently curses herself for not calling ahead and getting utilities set up.

“No lights,” Alice says, unhelpfully flicking the light switch by the door up and down repeatedly.

“Yeah, I have eyes, thank you,” Mel says. “Grandpa used to keep some candles around here for emergencies. Gimme a sec.”

She rummages around in a cabinet under the kitchen sink, eventually producing a couple long white candlesticks in little steel holders. She grabs a box of matches from the back of the cabinet and slides it open to find it empty.

“Damn it,” Mel breathes. “Figures.”

Alice, who has appeared again by her side, holds out a silver zippo lighter towards her. Mel looks at it, surprised, then looks up at Alice, who looks sheepish. Her eyes keep darting around, refusing to look Mel in the eye.

“I don’t even want to know why you own that,” Mel says, taking the lighter.

“Would you believe me if I told you it was for emergency candle-lighting scenarios?”

Mel laughs dryly. “Nice try, but no.” She lights the candles, and hands the zippo back to Alice. “Thanks.”

Despite the inconvenience of working by candlelight, they spend the evening carrying things in from the truck, starting to organize things slowly, but surely. Once everything is inside, Alice quickly claims the attic bedroom, stomping up the steps with her arms full of luggage, and disappears for the night.

Mel heads into the kitchen, thinking she would make a cup of tea. Of course, no water comes out of the tap, and the gas isn’t hooked up to the stove. She makes a mental note to talk to someone about utilities tomorrow, but she’s not sure how, considering the phone likely isn’t hooked up either. She thinks there must be someone in town, and that it would be a good idea to get a lay of the land anyways, so she decides that tomorrow morning, she’ll walk the pathway into town and see if she can find a solution.

As she climbs into bed that night, (Or what she’s calling a bed—it’s really just a nest of blankets and a pillow on the hardwood floor. She let Alice have the only mattress they own.) she can’t help but take a peek out the window. It’s just a big dark field, but she can’t shake the strange giddiness that overtakes her. The night air feels thick with possibility. Like a new start waiting to happen. She blows out her candle and drifts to sleep, hopeful for this new path, however uncertain it may be.

– – –

While the cool shadow of the night had made the farm feel mysterious and full of possibility, the severity of the morning sun illuminates the truth of the matter. Mel steps out her front door, dressed in her best approximation of what a farmer should wear (a blue flannel and brown overalls), and stretches her aching bones. The floor was even less comfortable than she expected, and her neck is tense and it hurts to turn her head too quickly. She decides that a mattress will be her first purchase once she makes some money here. Taking in the sight of the farm in daylight, Mel is quickly humbled by what greets her.

The fields that make up the farm are completely overgrown with weeds and brambles, and any places which aren’t are simply big tan patches of cracked earth. If Mel had planned ahead, they would have moved in the spring. By this far into summer, the ground is already dry and the sun is unforgiving. Not the best time to take up farming. She’s going to have her work cut out for her.

With a sigh, Mel trudges down off her porch, wading through waist-high grass on her way to the little cobble path that runs east a half mile into town. The path is much better maintained than the farm, and she follows along a rustic wooden fence lined with wildflowers. Eventually, she passes a bus stop with a “No Service” sign posted, and not long after that she passes through a copse of oak trees, and the wilderness path opens up to a small town square.

Completely exhausted from the full day of driving yesterday, Mel had accidentally slept in until her watch read eleven a.m., and after the walk, it’s just about noon, and the town is bustling. Well, as bustling as a tiny seaside village can be. Mel watches from the edge of the square as stranger after stranger wanders by, each one greeting another as they do so, chattering happily amongst themselves as they walk, and she feels her chest tighten. She forgot how much of an outsider she would be. Everyone knows everyone in a village this small. They’ll be able to take one look at her and know she’s out of place. She does her best to shake the feeling and marches forward into the square, ignoring the lingering glances from curious strangers.

The first of Mel’s errands go as smoothly as one could hope, and after a quick—yet terse—meeting with the mayor, who was exceptionally surprised by a new face in town, the utilities have been arranged for the farmhouse and the landline has been reconnected.

“One last thing,” she says, stopping in the doorway of Lewis’s manor. “I need to have some repairs done on the house. Is there a contractor in town?”

“You’re looking for Robin,” Lewis says. “She lives up in the mountains. If you follow the northern trail from your farm, it’s just over a mile.”

“Thanks,” Mel says, smiling at him.

Lewis grumbles something and turns back to his newspaper, and Mel leaves him behind, already on to the next thing on her list.

Mel takes her time making her way through town, stopping frequently to take in the sights and listen to the wind whistling through the trees. It’s so different from the city. So much more peaceful and serene. She finds herself admiring every little part of town, even the imperfect pieces. The ornate antique street-lamps, dark green paint chipping away to reveal cold steel beneath. The way the cobble roads crack and bend, grasses and weeds and other enterprising plants emerging from the gaps between them, desperately vying for the sun. The old stone tavern in the middle of town, looking ripped straight out of one of her fantasy novels, the grey stone walls covered in ivy, a small wooden sign swinging in the wind above the front door. She makes a mental note to see what the inside looks like, once she’s better settled.

By the time Mel has paid Pierre—a very grumpy man with glasses—for her groceries, her watch reads as four p.m., and her empty stomach gurgles indignantly. She sets off back down the path towards the farm, her new wagon full of groceries and gardening supplies in tow.

In the farmhouse, she’s happy to find the lights, stove, and water working without issue, and quickly gets to work in the kitchen, tossing together a simple dinner. When her final timer goes off, she wanders down the hall to the steep stairs that lead to the attic, where she can hear Alice’s music blasting from her boombox.

“Dinner!” she calls out, and heads back to the kitchen to plate the food. A moment later, Alice emerges from down the hall, rubbing her eyes sleepily, a pair of flannel pajama pants and an oversized band tee hanging off her small frame.

“Smells good,” Alice murmurs, padding over to the kitchen counter to join Mel. “What’d you make?”

“Just some pasta, nothing fancy,” Mel says, handing Alice a plate. There’s some broccolini on the stove too, you should have some.”

Alice takes the plate, and peers at the broccolini on the stove, wrinkling her nose with distaste. Mel notes her face and says, gently, “Come on, it’s good for you.” Alice sighs, gingerly picks up a single piece of broccolini, squirming a bit as she deposits it on her plate. Mel lets out a breath that’s almost a laugh, and puts a generous helping of vegetables on her own plate.

The farmhouse is still bare, so Mel and Alice sit on the floor of the living room, using a few cardboard boxes pushed together as a makeshift table. They eat the first half of their meal in silence, and Mel decides that if she wants conversation, she needs to be the one to start it, and after swallowing a bite, says, “So, how was your day?”

“Fine,” Alice says, shoveling pasta into her mouth. She always eats like it's a race, like if she takes too long, someone is going to take her food away. Mel knows it’s an old habit that won’t die easily, so she bites her tongue and stops herself from telling Alice off.

“Did you do any exploring?” Mel asks instead.

“No.”

“You didn’t hide in the attic all day, did you?”

Alice pauses, shifting uncomfortably, and Mel can see her shoulders tighten. “No,” Alice says, a moment too late.

“Al…” Mel starts, her concern evident. “The town really is beautiful. It might do you some good to get out of the house.”

“It might do me some good?” Alice shoots back, her tone suddenly hostile. “Jesus Christ, since when do you care what would do me some good? It would have done me good to stay in Zuzu city, where I had a life. Where I had friends. You really expect me to just start over, all chipper, day one?”

Mel opens her mouth to respond, but Alice cuts her off, still ranting. “I’m happy for you that you love it here so much, really, I am. Good for you that your life back home was so fucking empty that this huge change doesn’t feel like the end of the world. That’s great. Sorry I’m not as big of a loser as you.” She slams her fork down, her plate half-finished, and marches off back to the attic.

Mel finishes the rest of her meal in silence, picks up both plates, and scrapes the rest of Alice’s dinner into a plastic container, which she stacks in the fridge. She makes herself a cup of tea and sits on the front steps of the house, wrapped in a cardigan, sipping slowly.

In the attic, Alice has turned her cassette player to max volume, blasting something that Mel doesn’t recognize. It’s something angry, and the vocalist whines more than sings, the guitar almost drowning him out. The music is loud enough that she can hear it from the porch, and she contemplates telling Alice to turn it down, before deciding that she would rather not withstand another verbal lashing by a moody teenager. As she sighs into her cup, her bones feel heavy as lead. This is going to be harder than she thought.

Chapter Text

Early morning has always been Mel’s favorite time of day. She often wakes up at four a.m.—that sleepy hour right before the sun starts to rise, right before the world starts to wake up, where everything just feels still. It’s a habit she can’t seem to break, a holdover from when she worked the morning barista shift in her early twenties. Nowadays, the only person she’s making coffee for is herself. Alice wouldn’t touch a cup of coffee with a ten foot pole, and besides, she won’t be awake until several hours later anyways.

Before yesterday, those early mornings before the city came to life were sacred to Mel. It seemed to be the only time of day she was ever truly alone. It was the only time the city was ever quiet, the only time she could hear herself think. If she thought mornings in Zuzu city were peaceful, they are nothing in comparison to the absolute tranquility of a morning in the valley—the soft dew decorating the grass and tree leaves; the warm glow of the sun at the horizon, turning the sky pink; the stillness in the air broken only by the buzz of bees or the sweet chirping songs of birds she cannot name. Today, Mel sits on the porch, basking in all of it, and she is overcome with a strange sense of motivation. Things feel right in the world today, like the spirits are on her side, and before she really realizes it, she’s got her boots and leather gloves on and is out in the field, ripping up brambles and weeds by the armful.

By the time the sun has risen over the mountains, the back of her tee is soaked through with sweat, the knees of her jeans are dark and streaked with earth, and there’s an area maybe forty by thirty feet cleared out in front of the small farmhouse. It’s not much, but it’s a start.

A dull rumble in Mel’s gut reminds her that she hasn’t eaten yet, and she heads back inside to cook breakfast. She makes a scramble with cheese, spinach and onions, and eats half of it straight from the pan, too hungry for a plate. It turns out, working in the field is hungry work. She’s about to eat the rest of the scramble when she remembers Alice upstairs, and since there’s basically nothing else in the fridge, she leaves the scramble on the stove, despite her stomach’s protestations. After a quick wash of her hands, she throws on a thin linen button-up and heads out the door, beating her way through brambles and grasses until she finds the mountain path hidden behind the farmhouse.

The path, like the farm itself, is densely overgrown, bordering on disrepair. It’s clear no one has come this way in years. Mel pushes her way gingerly through the plants crowding the path, making a mental note to clear this path better, her chore list growing ever bigger.

The path feels winding, and endless, and there are a few times where Mel thinks she must have certainly taken a wrong turn, but it is also incredibly beautiful. From up here in the mountains, she can see out over her entire property, all the way down to the forest on the southern edge. She can see her house in the distance, a small glow in one of the dormer windows telling her that Alice has awoken. Out to the west, past her fence, nestled in the foothills, she can see the crescent-shaped lake that gives the farm its name. The sun is no longer hiding behind the mountains to the east, and the valley is bathed in a warm golden glow, giving everything a fuzzy and almost dreamlike quality.

One of Mel’s favorite parts of life in the valley so far is the abundance of foliage, no matter what direction she turns in. The path is overgrown and difficult to navigate, sure, but there’s a strange beauty to the plants obscuring the pathway, knitting together into a dense green mesh that covers the side of the mountain. It’s like a flood of green on the senses, but then— tucked away in the underbrush, so small Mel almost missed it—a tiny flash of violet. She bends down and pulls back a fern, and there it is, a small purple and yellow flower. She thinks it might be a sweetpea, but she’s not sure. Her grandpa used to bring her foraging in the woods when she was a child, but most of what little knowledge he passed on to her has been lost to time.

Without fully being sure why, other than because it seemed like the thing to do, Mel reaches down and gently plucks one of the blossoms between her fingers, snapping the stem softly. She holds it gingerly, like something to be treasured. The flower smells grassy and vaguely like honey. It brings back memories of searching for four leaf clovers as a child, her pale knees stained green from crawling on all fours across the yard of her schoolhouse, and Mel finds herself smiling softly to herself, alone in the middle of the mountains.

Eventually, the path opens up, and Mel finds herself in a mountain clearing, a large log cabin towering before her. There’s a big satellite dish on the blue roof, and a weathervane that creaks as it spins in the wind. She’s about to knock on the front door, her hand in midair, when the door swings open, and she’s face to face with a young woman with ginger hair pulled into a braid over her shoulder. She has a small bundle of hardwood tucked underneath one of her pale arms. Her eyes meet Mel’s, and there’s a flash of surprise, before her eyes soften and her face breaks into a wide smile.

“You must be the new farmer I’ve heard so much about!” the woman says.

“Oh, I— Yes, how did you know?” Mel asks.

“News travels fast in Pelican Town. Not many fresh faces around here.”

Mel smiles awkwardly at this, unsure what to say.

“It’s good to have someone new in the community, don’t get me wrong,” the woman continues. “I moved here about a year ago now, and there hasn’t been anyone new since. How are you liking town so far? I know it can be a bit strange trying to fit in, when everyone’s known each other for so long. But really, most everyone is so kind, you’ll fit in in no time!” She says this all very fast, and Mel can’t help but be a bit overwhelmed.

“Um, yeah, it’s nice so far,” Mel says. “I haven’t had a lot of time to explore yet, still getting everything unpacked. Beautiful town though, really.”

“Totally, totally. Well, I’ve gotta run. You should come by the saloon tonight, meet everyone. It’s always a hoot. Oh, Yoba, where are my manners? I’m Leah.” She adjusts her grasp on the wood bundle and offers her hand, which Mel shakes.

“Mel.”

“Wonderful meeting you, Mel. See you tonight?” Leah doesn’t wait for an answer before she’s off down a small stone path south towards town.

The inside of the house is warm and cozy, with dark wood paneling up and down the walls. There’s a counter in the corner of the room, and a green patterned rug on the floor. A bell on the door rings as Mel enters, and she hears a woman’s voice call out from somewhere deeper in the house, “I’ll be right there!”

Mel paces awkwardly around the room, pausing to admire a small gallery wall of photos on the far wall. The first one is of a young woman, with short auburn hair, a dark-haired boy no older than three in her arms. Mel is struck by how young the woman looks—barely older than a child herself, to be honest. They’re posing in front of the Lopez Tower, a famous building in Zuzu city. The boy has a smudge on his cheek and they are both laughing. In the second picture, the boy is older, maybe five, and he’s peering adoringly into a crib, where a brown baby with plump cheeks is swaddled in purple fabric. Mel is about to move on to the next photo when she hears footsteps in the doorway, and then the same voice from earlier.

“What can I do you for, stranger?”

Mel turns quickly, feeling as if she’s been caught snooping where she shouldn’t have been. The woman standing in the doorway is the same woman from the picture, but if Mel had to guess, it’s been more than twenty years since that picture was taken. She stands in front of Mel now, leaning easily in the doorway, arms crossed, one hand holding a cup of coffee. Her auburn hair must be longer now, but it’s pulled back into a bun. She’s looking at Mel in a quizzical way, and Mel steps away from the gallery wall sheepishly.

“Hi! I’m Mel, I just moved into the farm down the hill. I’m looking for—”

“I know who you are,” the woman responds, moving to stand behind the counter. She sets her mug down and drums her fingers on the table. When she sees Mel’s face, struck by confusion, she elaborates, “Lewis rang last night, said you might be stopping by. I’m assuming you’re looking to get that old shack cleaned up?” So this woman must be Robin.

“That’s right,” Mel says. The interior’s mostly fine, but the outside of the place is totally busted.”

“Totally busted?” Robin smirks a bit at this phrasing. “You sound like my son.”

“I just mean to say, the roof is falling apart. And it could really use some new siding. Not to mention the porch. I swear one step in the wrong spot and your foot might just go straight through.”

“I get the picture.” She pauses, flipping through a logbook on the counter in front of her. “New roof’s gonna be a thousand. Siding’s cheaper, less dangerous. I can do that for three hundred. Porch is gonna depend, you want railings on this thing?”

“I mean, yeah, probably.”

Robin nods thoughtfully. “I can do it all for two thousand, how does that sound?”

Mel gulps. Two thousand dollars. That’s gonna eat up most of her savings, but it’s kind of a necessity. She’ll make the money back. She has to. So she nods. “Two thousand sounds good.”

“Beautiful, I’ll start tomorrow morning.” Robin smiles at her, laidback and disarming, and reaches out a hand palm up towards Mel. Unsure what to do, Mel high fives it, and Robin laughs. “Come on, shake on it, stranger.”

“Oh,” Mel mumbles, her face suddenly warm. She shakes Robin’s hand, and can’t help but notice the callouses on Robin’s palm as her firm grip engulfs Mel’s hand. “Um, also, is check okay? I don’t generally carry that much cash on me at once, you know.”

“Check sounds great. I usually do half up front, half when the job is done. How does that sound?”

“Yeah, that sounds good. Just give me, um, one second.” Mel sets the sweetpea flower, which she had forgotten she was carrying, on the counter in front of her so that she can dig through her bag.

“For me?” Robin says. “You shouldn’t have. Bribery won’t make me lower my price, you know.” It takes a moment for Mel to realize she’s joking. She’s been so all-business so far.

“You can have it,” Mel says. “Even if you won’t lower the price. Consider it a tip.”

Robin picks the flower up, twirling the stem between her forefinger and thumb. She looks thoughtful. Mel produces a ratty checkbook from her satchel and starts to write one out. “Here you go,” she says, sliding the check across the counter to Robin, whose eyes snap up, as if she was shaken out of a dream. She pockets the check, then holds out the flower towards Mel.

“You should keep it,” she says. “Put it in your hair. It’ll suit you.” There’s something soft behind her words now, and Mel does her best to ignore it. When she reaches out to take the flower, she pretends not to notice how their fingers brush, or how Robin pulls her hand away, as if shocked.

“Pleasure doin’ business with you,” Robin says, her voice back to business mode. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

Mel turns and leaves, but not before tucking the sweetpea into the chocolate brown hair behind her ear.

– – –

When Mel gets back to the farmhouse, she’s pleased to see that the rest of the scramble has disappeared from the stove. There’s no sign of Alice, but she can hear vague voices upstairs. She smiles at the idea of Alice having made a friend already, and doesn’t disturb her.

Mel carries her radio out to the porch and when she turns it on, some folk-y song that sounds like it came out in the sixties comes on. She hums along as she works more in the field, tilling the soil and mixing in some fertilizer she picked up at Pierre’s. She plants some tomatoes, summer squash, and radishes, patting the soil over each seed and whispering sweet words to the plants as she goes. When she’s finally done watering the field, her watch tells her it’s six p.m.

Wiping sweat from her brow with a handkerchief, she heads inside, and is surprised to see Alice sitting on the floor at their cardboard coffee table, reading a book and eating a slice of toast. Alice smiles at her as she comes in, but keeps reading. Mel fills up a glass of water and is even more surprised to see the dishes from breakfast stacked neatly on the drying rack by the sink.

“Did you do the dishes?” she asks, leaning against the wooden counter.

“Yup,” Alice says.

“Thanks.”

“For sure. Thanks for the eggs. They were tasty.”

“Of course,” Mel says. “Hey, I heard voices earlier. Did you have someone over?”

Alice looks blankly up at her.

“Because it’s totally okay if you did! I just, you know, was wondering. I’d like to meet your friends.”

“I was on the phone with Suzie,” Alice says, taking another bite of her toast. “She was catching me up on everything in Zuzu I’m missing.”

“Oh, how is she?”

“Good.” Alice chews for a moment. “Not really, actually. She dumped Mark. I guess he was cheating on her with Courtney the whole time. Roxy saw them at the mall today making out and literally ran to tell Suzie. She’s pretty broken up about it.”

“Yoba, what a pig,” Mel says. “I hate men so much.”

“Yeah, he’s an asshole.”

“Isn’t he friends with Henry?” Mel asks, as delicately as she can. Henry is Alice's boyfriend. They've been going steady since her junior year of high school.

Alice glares up at her. She knows what Mel is getting at. “Henry’s different. He would never do that to me.”

“Okay, but hon, usually men like that will stick together,” Mel says.

“He’s not like Mark.” Her words are stubborn and final. This is not a debate.

“Okay,” Mel says. “I believe you.”

Alice takes the last bite of her toast, then licks some jam off her thumb.

“One of the locals invited me into town for dinner,” Mel says.

"What, like on a date?" Alice asks.

"I don't think it was like that." Mel shrugs with one shoulder. “You wanna come?”

“Not really, no.”

“Come on, I don't wanna go alone.”

“You could always stay here and watch a movie with me instead,” Alice says. “I got the VCR set up in the attic.”

“Yeah. That sounds great. As long as it’s not horror again.”

“Ugh. Fine. Action?”

Chapter Text

Mel is just pouring her morning coffee when she hears a soft knock on the front door. The sun isn’t even up yet. For a moment she thinks she’s hearing things, until, a little bit more confidently, that same rap rap rap echoes from her door. She sets down the French press and pads over.

On the other side of the door is Robin, in a fitted cream-colored tee, a tool bag slung over one shoulder. She’s staring back over her shoulder into the field, but when Mel opens the door, she turns back quickly and smiles.

“Oh Yoba, I didn’t wake you, did I?” Robin says, her cheeks pinkening, and Mel quickly becomes aware of how she looks: shoulder-length hair disheveled and tangled, bleary-eyed, and still in her pajamas—which, in the heat of the summer, is an oversized t-shirt over whatever underwear she wore the day before. “I can come back later.”

“No, no, you’re okay,” Mel says, rubbing the sleep away from one of her eyes. “Here, come in.”

She steps aside and Robin enters, looking around the small living room/kitchen combo.

“I really can come back another time,” Robin says, avoiding her eyes.

“You’re fine, I swear. Let me, um, put some pants on. I’ll be right back.”

Mel heads down the hall to her bedroom, where she pulls on some linen drawstring pants and exchanges her pajama shirt for a plain green camisole. She runs her hands through her hair like a comb, checks herself out in the mirror briefly, and, deciding she looks acceptable, rejoins Robin in the living room.

When she returns, Robin is standing in the middle of the barren room, inspecting seemingly every inch of the wooden floors and the wood paneling on the bottom quarter of the walls. Mel can only imagine that she must be making a laundry list of all of the things that need fixing or renovations.

“Can I get you a coffee or anything? Water’s still hot if you’re a tea person.”

“Coffee sounds great, thanks.” Robin smiles at her, and Mel pours her a mug.

“Cream or sugar?” she asks as she stirs both into her own drink.

“Black is fine.”

Mel thinks she does a good job hiding the face she makes at this, but apparently not as good of a job as she thinks, because Robin laughs and says, “You disapprove?”

“No, no, drink your mud water, it’s cool,” Mel says, handing her the mug.

“Mud water!” Now Robin is really laughing, and Mel likes the sound quite a bit. “Okay, I’ll bite. How should I be drinking my coffee?”

“Easy. Flat white.”

“Flat what?”

“It’s two shots of espresso, with steamed milk.”

“Like a latte,” Robin says, nodding.

“Kind of.”

“It sounds just like a latte.”

“It’s not,” Mel says, laughing now too. “If I had my espresso machine I would make you one. They’re really good.”

“What happened to your machine?”

“Oh, it broke,” Mel lies. I sold half my belongings so I could afford to move here feels a bit too embarrassing for a second meeting.

Robin takes a sip of her coffee now, and she makes a soft pleased sound when she tastes it. “Well, it’s too bad you don’t have that machine, because if this is how good your French press coffee is, your espresso must be something special.”

Mel feels a barely-there blush on her cheeks at the praise and mutters an awkward thanks. A strange quiet settles between them, and Mel struggles to think of a change of subject. “So, what do you think of the place?” is what she lands on, and she cringes internally at the bumbling transition.

Robin looks around the room, then says, “It’s… sparse in here,” and Mel can’t help but laugh.

“All of Grandpa’s furniture is in some storage unit in Grampleton. I was gonna take the truck out there today to get the first load.”

“Richard was your grandfather?”

Mel nods. “You knew him?”

“Everyone in Pelican Town did,” Robin says. “I guess he was what you would call a social butterfly. Every festival, every market, they felt like they didn’t really start until he showed up.”

“That sounds like him,” Mel says, smiling softly.

“Did you visit him here before he…?” She trails off. “I don’t recall us crossing paths before.”

“I did, but it was a long time ago. My mother and I lived in Grampleton when I was young, and we would visit all the time. About twenty-five or so years ago, we moved to Zuzu City, and slowly we just…stopped making the drive.”

“That explains it,” Robin says, nodding. “I moved here not long after you left, it sounds like. We must have just missed each other.”

“Must have,” Mel says, shrugging one shoulder in a lopsided way that she often does. “Can I make you breakfast?”

“Oh, you really don’t have to do that.”

“I want to. Come on. Eggs?”

– – –

Alice, unlike her older sister, is a night owl. She likes to stay up late, and sleep in even later. It’s not uncommon for her days to start in the afternoon and last until the early hours of the morning.

Last night after dinner, she and Mel rifled through her VHS collection.

“Anything but Speed again, please,” she had whined.

“Speed is a modern masterpiece, okay?” Mel declared. “And I thought you liked Keanu Reeves.”

“He’s fine.”

“Okay, well I am not watching another one of your weird horror movies,” Mel said. “I had nightmares for weeks after The Thing.”

“Oh my god, you are such a baby.”

In the end, Alice finally won out and convinced Mel to watch Beetlejuice, under the claim that it was a comedy. Which it is. Mel still screamed a few times. (“Yoba, how did they do that to his face?!” “It’s called special effects, Mel.”)

Mel went back downstairs after the movie, but Alice stayed up even later, listening to her tapes and drawing in her sketchbook. It was almost three a.m. before she fell asleep, and she would like nothing more than to sleep all day. Unfortunately, she was startled awake thirty minutes ago by the world’s loudest banging, coupled with the sun filtering in through the little round window, aimed straight for her eyes like some vengeful kid with a laserpointer. She pulls a pillow over her face, attempting to fall back asleep, but the banging is showing no signs of stopping, and so, sullenly, she climbs up off of her floor mattress and tugs on the first clean t-shirt she can find. Every once in a while, the banging will pause and be replaced by a terrible grinding sound, like a tiny motor that needs to be oiled.

Alice stomps her way down the narrow stairs, determined to find Mel and demand that she stop whatever is causing that terrible sound. It seems to be coming from outside. She marches down the hall, through the kitchen, past the dirty coffee cups and breakfast dishes stacked by the sink, throws open the front door, and just about steps off a two-foot drop where the porch used to be, before catching herself on the door frame.

“What the fuck!” she yells, at no one in particular. A middle-aged woman Alice doesn’t recognize pops her head up from where she is crouched, measuring planks. Her pink face is sweaty and shocked.

“Oh, hello!” the woman says.

“Who the hell are you?” Alice demands. “Are you stealing my porch?”

“I’m Robin. And I’m not stealing your porch. I’m here to fix it. And the roof.” And then, after a pause, she adds, “Your mom didn’t tell me anyone else was in the house.”

“My mom?” Alice says, even more confused, before she realizes the stranger must mean Mel. It’s a common mistake. Strangers will see that they look similar—the same hair color, the same nose, the same half-cocked smile—and just assume, because of the age difference, that Alice must be Mel’s daughter. She’s dealt with this her whole life. “Fucking—of course she didn’t.”

The woman—Robin—smiles at her, unsure, and they sit in an awkward silence.

“For the record, she didn’t bother telling me anyone was coming to work on the house, either,” Alice says. “I would have put ear plugs in before going to sleep if I had known.”

Robin scrunches her face. “I’m sorry for waking you. Not the most pleasant sounds, I know.”

“It’s—” Alice is about to say something rude again, but catches herself. “It’s fine. Thanks for fixing the porch, or whatever.”

Before Robin has a chance to continue this terrible conversation, Alice shuts the door again and wanders back inside. A moment later, the grinding sound, which Alice realizes must be some sort of motorized saw, starts back up again. She sighs and presses her palms to her eyes. “This might actually be hell,” she mutters to herself.

Alice returns to her attic bedroom and puts her headphones on, turning her Walkman to maximum volume, attempting to drown out the noise with very little success. She only lasts another fifteen minutes before she decides she’s had enough, and, grumbling to herself, pulls on a pair of jeans, ties her choppy hair up into pigtails, and tugs on a pair of beat up green Converse. She grabs a little corduroy tote, shoving her sketchbook, a novel, and a few tapes in before rushing back down the stairs and out the door, past Robin, who is saying something she can’t hear over her music.

She’s not even sure where she’s going. This is Alice’s first time out of the house since they arrived, and she never visited the farm as a child. She was born after Mel and their mother moved to Zuzu, and so she never even met Grandpa Beaumont.

Despite the uncertainty, Alice picks a path and marches forward, through the underbrush and brambles. Soon she passes a decrepit wooden fence that she assumes is the border of the property, and the dried grasses slowly give way to lush ferns and towering trees. The path twists and turns, heading seemingly downhill, further into a deep forest. The trees around her are gnarled and ancient-looking, and lichen-covered branches droop in front of her, and she has to duck down below them to get past. Before long, she is completely turned around.

Eventually, the trees start to thin out a bit, and she is met with a stunning view of a river, the surface sparkling like gemstones in the sunlight, flowing along through a grassy green dell. The view completely takes her breath away. She can see a small island in the center of the river, lush grass speckled with wildflowers, happy little bees buzzing from bud to bud, and she immediately wonders how to get there. She walks upstream along the winding bank of the river, and as she rounds a curve, the answer to her question is revealed to her: a slender part of the river with a fallen tree bridging the gap to the island.

Excited, she runs over and presses on the tree trunk with her foot, testing it out. It seems sturdy enough, and so she steps up onto it, arms out to either side like a T to keep her balance. As she walks across, the slippery tree bends a bit under her weight, and she speeds up, almost falling as she rushes to the other side. She lands on the dry ground on the other side and lets out a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding.

From this side of the water, the island is a lot bigger than she thought. It continues out ahead of her, dotted with trees, meandering and hilly in a way that keeps her from seeing exactly where the thing ends and the river begins again. She wanders through the meadow, letting her fingers drift through the tall grass and wildflowers as she goes. Butterflies and bumblebees flit around her, and she finds herself in awe of the valley’s majesty. Eventually she gets to a small clearing, with a fallen log that looks old and weatherworn, stripped of bark and pale from years in the sun and rain.

She brushes a thin layer of dirt from the log and sits down, before taking off her headphones and closing her eyes. The woods are quiet, except for the distant flowing water and the fluttering of tiny wings, and the sun feels warm and golden on her skin. After a few minutes of deep breaths, she opens her eyes and switches the tape in her Walkman for something a bit quieter. She puts her headphones back on, takes the sketchbook from her bag, and begins to draw.

It’s been a long time since Alice has drawn a landscape. She usually just doodles in the margins of homework, or in her journal. Mel thinks she needs a hobby other than music and movies, though, so lately she’s been trying to draw more to humor her. Drawing the meadow is fun, but challenging. The way the sunlight filters through the tree branches is almost impossible for her to capture in graphite, and she finds herself getting increasingly frustrated by all of the erasing and redrawing and erasing she’s doing. She’s about to rip the page out of her sketchbook and crumple the thing when a voice, barely audible over her music, speaks up from next to her.

Startled, Alice looks up to find a pretty young woman with long red hair pulled out of her face by a green bandana peering down at her with kind-looking eyes. Alice pulls her headphones off and says, “Sorry, what was that?”

“I said, what are you drawing?” the woman says, tilting her head to try to sneak a glimpse of Alice’s sketchbook.

“Nothing,” Alice says, instinctively clutching the book to her chest. “Mind your own business.”

The woman laughs—a sweet, floral sound—and sits down on the log next to her. Alice scoots away automatically. “Yoba, do you mind, lady?”

“I didn’t realize anyone else came out here,” the woman says, ignoring Alice’s protests. “I was going to draw, but I guess you had the idea first.” As she says this, Alice realizes the woman is carrying a small leatherbound sketchbook and a canvas pencil pouch in her hands.

“Are you for real? Can you not find anywhere else in the woods to sit? You have to draw right here?”

“Well,” the woman says with a mischievous smile, “you are basically in my backyard.” She gestures over her shoulder, and through the trees, across a small wooden bridge, Alice can see a little wooden cottage she hadn’t noticed before, nestled in the woods.

“Oh, shit,” Alice says with an awkward chuckle. “Um, sorry. I hope I’m not like, on your land or whatever. I can leave.”

She starts to stand, grabbing her bag from the ground next to her, but then a soft hand is on her wrist, and the woman is saying, quietly, “You can stay.”

Alice looks back at the stranger in surprise. The woman is staring intently up at her, purple eyes crinkling slightly as she smiles, and something in the way she looks at her compels Alice to sit back down. The woman takes out her sketchbook and starts to draw. Alice tries to see what she’s drawing, but the woman is angled in such a way that she can’t get a look.

“Do you have a sister?” the woman asks out of nowhere, looking over at Alice.

“Y-yeah,” Alice says. “How did you know that?”

“I’m a psychic,” the woman says, grinning. “Kidding. I think I met her yesterday. Mel, right?”

“Yeah, that’s her.”

“And you are?”

“Alice.”

“I’m Leah. I would shake your hand, but um—” She holds up her blackened hand, fingers covered with charcoal dust from drawing.

“That’s okay,” Alice says, chuckling. She slips her sketchbook out from under her arm and continues her drawing, making sure that the page is angled so Leah can’t see.

“I invited your sister to dinner last night,” Leah says a moment later. Alice looks over at her, eyebrows raised slightly.

“That was you?”

A shy smile plays across Leah’s lips, and her eyes won’t meet Alice’s. “She mentioned it? I thought maybe she just forgot.”

“She’s, um—not the most sociable, my sister.” There’s an awkward pause where Leah doesn’t say anything. “I hope she didn’t hurt your feelings.”

“No, no, nothing like that,” Leah says, shaking her head emphatically. “She just seems cool, that’s all. And I know what it feels like to be new in town.”

“Cool?” Alice says, incredulous. That’s the only part of the sentence she really caught. “You think Mel seems cool?”

Leah laughs again, that same floral, honey-sweet sound. “You beg to differ?”

“I mean…” Alice trails off.

“Point taken.”

They drift back into silence, both of them working on their respective drawings. Every once in a while, Alice sneaks a glance at Leah and finds her brows furrowed in concentration.

Leah is the one who breaks the silence again: “So, Mazzy Star, huh? I like them too.”

“How did you know I—?” She wasn’t listening to her walkman that loud, was she? “Were you serious about being psychic?”

“I guess you’ll never know,” Leah says, her eyes flashing as she scrunches her nose at Alice playfully. “Kidding. It’s on your shirt, silly goose.”

“Oh.” For some reason, Alice’s cheeks have begun to feel hot. Is she getting a sunburn?

“What’s your favorite song by them? I think mine’s Be My Angel, but I like Blue Light a lot too.”

“Probably Bells Ring. But really all of their songs are great.”

“I think my drawing is done,” Leah says suddenly. She flips her sketchbook around, revealing a detailed portrait of Alice in profile, legs curled under her, headphones around her neck, leaning over her own sketchbook , scribbling furiously. Yeah, Alice is definitely getting a sunburn.

“Holy shit,” is all Alice can choke out.

“Do you like it?” Leah asks, uncertainly, chewing on her bottom lip.

“Do I like it? Dude, this is insane! You drew that in like, thirty minutes!”

Leah glows under the praise, her smile wide and toothy. “I’m glad you like it.” She rips the page from her book, then holds it out to Alice. “Here. It’s for you.”

Alice takes it, cradling it gently in her hands. “Thank you,” she stammers, gingerly tucking it into her own sketchbook for safekeeping.

Leah stands from the log, stretching her arms up over her head. “Well, I’m off. Almost lunch time.”

“Bye, Leah,” Alice says.

Leah opens her mouth to say something, then closes it, then opens it again. “If I invite you to come along, are you gonna blow me off like your sister?”

“What?”

“I said, do you wanna come for lunch?”

Alice stands up from the log, smiling as she grabs her bag. “Lead the way.”

Chapter Text

Inside the saloon smells like cigarettes, stale beer, and greasy food. The lights are low, even now in the early afternoon, and Alice finds her eyes adjusting slowly. Every inch of the room seems to be covered in warm brown wood, and the whole place feels straight out of the old west. Leah leads her past the bar, waving playfully at a blue-haired woman who beams at her from behind the counter, to a little booth crammed in the back corner, halfway obscured by a giant chainsaw-carved statue of a grizzly bear. Alice slides into the peeling black vinyl bench seat, which creaks under her weight, leaving her a few inches shorter and feeling a bit like a child at the grown-ups’ table. Leah slips into the seat across from her, smiling reassuringly.

It’s not yet one p.m., and the saloon is still pretty empty. There’s only two other customers in the place, as far as Alice can tell. There’s a sixty-something year old man with a tangled beard and a tattered hat pulled low over his face at the far end of the bar, chainsmoking cigarettes and sipping on some amber-colored liquid in a short glass. In between sips of his drink or drags on his cigarette, he hums along to the song playing on the jukebox in the corner, eyes closed and a smile on his face. On the closer end of the bar is a younger man, maybe in his early thirties, drinking a beer. He looks like he could use a shave, a shower, and a good night’s sleep. The blue-haired bartender says something to him and he laughs, a sharp sound that makes Alice’s hairs stand on end. She already knows she doesn’t like him.

“What do you think?” Leah asks, watching Alice’s reaction intently.

“I don’t know what I was expecting,” Alice starts, a bit unsure. “It’s cute, though. In that small-town charm sort of way.”

“Kind of rustic, right?”

“Yeah, it feels almost vintage, like something out of—”

“Leah, my darling, my muse!” a man calls out from the entrance, interrupting Alice. He is tall and handsome, with tanned skin, a square jaw, and long, flowing golden brown hair, wearing a loose-fitting white linen shirt with flouncy sleeves. He looks like he belongs on the cover of one of the romance novels Alice’s mom always used to read. At his words, Leah jumps out of the booth, squealing with delight and wrapping him in a tight hug. He squeezes her back, lifting her from the ground and pressing a kiss to her cheek. “Oh, I am so happy to see you,” he says into her hair.

“I thought you weren’t coming back until tomorrow!” Leah exclaims as he sets her down.

“I wasn’t due til tomorrow, that is true,” the man says. “But I simply couldn’t bear the thought of being apart from you another day.”

Alice watches all of this with thinly veiled horror. This mystery man is disgustingly over the top, and for some reason Leah seems to be into it? Until Leah bursts out laughing, punching the man in the shoulder, and says, “Yoba, Elliott, gag me with a spoon.”

Elliott laughs back, and then says, “The train company called last night to say that tomorrow’s train was cancelled, but that there was room on board today’s, so I came home a day early. Which I’m sure you are grateful for.”

“But of course,” Leah says, putting on a faux-British accent and pretending to swoon. “I missed your company most terribly!”

Both of them laugh raucously at this, before Leah grabs his hand and drags him back towards the booth, saying, “Come, come! Sit down. Tell me everything!” When they arrive at the table, Leah gestures towards Alice, “Elliott, meet Alice. Alice, Elliott. Elliott was just at a writer’s residency program in the Calico Desert. ”

Alice stands awkwardly, unsure of what to do. “Um, nice to meet you.” She sticks out a hand for Elliott to shake, and he takes it softly in his, then leans down to kiss it like some sort of old-fashioned gentleman. It takes all of Alice’s willpower not to laugh.

“Charmed,” he says. “It’s not every day you find a new face in our humble town. Have you been here long?”

“No, um, just a couple days now.”

Elliott and Leah have slid into the booth now, and Alice follows their lead and sits back down.

“Was the residency, um, fun?” Alice asks.

Elliott makes a small so-so motion with his hand, frowning halfway, then says, “It was fine. But I would much rather talk about you. A new friend is much more exciting than a bunch of stuffy writers in an old pueblo church. How are you finding the town? Is it half as dreadfully insipid as one imagines you might find it?”

“Pardon?”

“He means to say,” Leah says, putting a hand on Elliott’s arm as if to stop him from continuing, “Are you liking Pelican Town so far?”

“Oh,” Alice says, her cheeks feeling warm at all of the sudden attention and the new feeling of dumbness that has settled within her at Elliott’s word choice. “It’s fine, I guess.”

“Where are you from, Alice?” Elliott asks.

“Zuzu City.” She bites her nail nervously, then realizes how childish it makes her look and forces herself to clasp her hands together on the table in front of her. “I just moved onto the old farm out west of town.”

“The farm?” Elliott says, raising his eyebrows. He turns to Leah, whispering something. Alice can’t make out any of his words, but she can see Leah’s cheeks darken a shade as he speaks. As soon as he’s done, Leah smacks his arm, whispering something back. This time, Alice can make out two words: “Her sister.” Elliott nods understandingly, with an audible, “Ahhh.”

He turns back, fixing Alice with a megawatt smile. “Apologies. Just clearing up a bit of confusion.”

Alice shifts uncomfortably in her chair, training her eyes on her hands. Her right thumb has a hangnail that’s starting to bleed where she bit it. A thick silence has fallen over the table, and Alice can’t bring herself to be the one to break it.

Luckily, she doesn’t have to make that decision because a moment later, Leah says, “El, what do you think about getting us some drinks? And maybe a snack or two?”

“Libations! A wondrous idea,” Elliot says, standing up. “What would you like? Beer? Wine?”

It doesn’t register for Alice at first that he’s asking her, until Leah nudges her foot under the table— “Earth to Alice. Hello?”—and Alice snaps back into her body, looking up at Elliot, who has a bored, yet amused look on his face.

“Um. Beer,” she says, hoping that he won’t ask for her ID. She puts on her best I’m-an-adult affect, lowering her voice a bit, trying to appear casual. “Beer is good.” Apparently she was convincing enough, because he nods and wanders off towards the bar without another word.

“I’m sorry about Elliot,” Leah says softly once he’s out of earshot, kicking Alice’s shoe gently under the table. “I know he can be a bit of… an acquired taste.”

“No, no,” Alice says. “He’s cool. It’s cool, I don’t mind, really.”

Leah smiles at her, lopsidedly, a smile that says plainly, I don’t believe you, but okay. “You don’t have to pretend,” Leah says. “If you don’t like him, I won’t be mad. He did kind of crash our lunch.”

“Okay, maybe I don’t like him very much,” Alice says, and Leah smiles at her for real now. “Yet. But I reserve the right to change my mind on him as I get to know him better.”

“Deal. And I’ll tell you what, if he gets to be too much, or you really just want to leave, for whatever reason, just cough twice, and I’ll walk you home, no questions asked. It can be our secret code. What do you think?”

Alice thinks that they’ve hardly known each other for two hours now, and isn’t it a little early to have secret codes? But instead she smirks and says, “Okay. Two coughs, and we bounce.”

Elliott brings back two beers,—one for Alice and one for himself—a glass of red wine for Leah, and a basket of deliciously greasy onion rings. He says they have actual food coming soon, and that someone named Gus is working on it. Elliott seems to mellow out a bit after returning, and Alice can’t help but like him a little bit more since he bought her a drink, no questions asked. She quickly learns that Elliott loves beer almost as much as he loves talking, and finds herself struggling to keep up with him. The ale he brought back to the table is a lot more bitter and floral-tasting than the bread-flavored water Alice is used to from house parties back in Zuzu, and it makes her head feel fuzzy quicker than she’d like to admit. Maybe that’s the reason he’s starting to grow on her. He’s actually sort of fun when you get past his ridiculous vocabulary and overly-embellished stories.

Multiple hours later, after listening to one too many of Elliott’s stories—with frequent interruptions, corrections, and clarifications from Leah—Alice feels like she might finally be overstaying her welcome. Elliott is more than a little bit drunk at this point, and is in the midst of lamenting loudly about his latest case of writer’s block, slumped dramatically over the table like a fainted noblewoman. Leah is rubbing his back in soft circles as he whines, and the whole scene is just a little bit too much for Alice to handle. She tries to think of a good excuse to leave, racking her brain for anything she could use. Goodbyes have never been her strong suit.

She clears her throat, trying to get their attention. Elliott doesn’t stop his rambling, and Leah’s eyes are still trained on him, nodding understandingly with every word he says. Alice tries clearing her throat again, a bit louder. This time, Elliott stops, lifting his head halfway from the table, his face halfway obscured by a curtain of hair falling in front of it. He has a disdainful glare across his brow, as if taken aback by her audacity to interrupt him. Leah’s gaze flicks to her as well, looking almost like she’s forgotten Alice was there altogether.

“Yes?” Elliott says, when Alice doesn’t make a move to say anything herself.

“Um,” Alice says. “Sorry. I’ve just got to run. I’ve got to—” A good excuse has still not come to mind. Shit.

“Duty calls on the farm?” Leah asks.

“What? I— Oh. Yes!” Alice says, realizing the lifeline Leah is throwing her, even if Leah herself is unaware. “Yes, that’s exactly it, Mel needs help with the um… with the chickens.” Why did she say chickens? They don’t even have chickens.

Alice scoots towards the edge of the bench seat. “So sorry to run off like this. It was great to meet you both, really.”

“Will you be able to get yourself back home?” Leah says, her eyes flicking down to Elliott, who has collapsed back on the table, in a way that seems to say I can’t just leave him like this.

“Oh yes, I’ll be fine, really,” Alice says. “Thank you for lunch.” Then, realizing they had never discussed payment: “Shit. Um, here. Let me pay for mine.”

She rummages around in her totebag, looking for any pocket change she might have. Her bag is a mess, full of tons of things she doesn’t need to be carrying around, and distinctly lacking a wallet. She knows she has some cash somewhere in here. She starts pulling out random things from her bag: a tube of berry-flavored lip gloss; a small collection of tapes; a wrinkled stack of receipts, some with song lyrics or shopping lists scrawled on them; a button that popped off the cuff of her favorite flannel and has yet to be reattached; and, embarrassingly, a condom that her health teacher gave her sometime after she discovered that Alice and Henry were dating, which they have never used and has since expired. At the bottom of her bag, next to some dryer lint and granola crumbs, is a crumpled handful of dollar bills, which Alice does her best to smooth out and count inconspicuously. Six dollars. She holds it out to Leah, who looks entirely taken aback.

“Sorry. I know it’s not much.” Alice can feel that heat in her cheeks and tightness in her throat that she knows to be symptoms of shame. “I— I’ll pay you back, the rest of it, the next time I see you, I swear. I just—”

“Alice,” Leah interrupts. “It was our treat. Keep your cash.”

“But—”

“Really,” Leah says, smiling. “Housewarming gift, how about?”

“Thank you,” Alice mumbles, suddenly feeling very small.

“Don’t mention it. Get home safe. Don’t be a stranger.”

Alice shovels everything back into her purse, and tucks the cash into her jeans pocket for safe keeping. The fact that she might be drunk hasn’t even crossed her mind until she stands, and suddenly the room feels like it’s spinning on a tilted axis. She does her best to appear sober as she walks towards the door, only halfway tripping over her feet, double-checking over her shoulder that she hasn’t left anything behind in the booth, gets momentarily distracted by Elliott, who now appears to be sobbing into Leah’s blouse—and walks headlong into some girl.

“Hey! Watch where you’re going, how about?” a shrill, indignant voice exclaims.

Alice turns to apologize, and finds herself face-to-face with a blonde bombshell glaring at her with the strength of a thousand suns. She looks just like the type of superficial cheerleaders that used to bully Alice in high school.

“Oh, I—” Alice starts.

“Oh, I— I—” the girl mocks. “Yoba, are you a simpleton? Remove head from sphincter before walking.”

Alice rolls her eyes. “It was an accident. You don’t have to be such a bitch about it.”

“I’m sorry, who even are you?” The girl gives her a head-to-toe once-over, her nose wrinkling distastefully at Alice’s scuffed-up, dirt-streaked Converse. “No wait, let me guess. This can be fun! Unwashed band tee, hand-me-down flannel, jeans with patches that look like a one-handed child sewed them on, and back there it took you, like, ten whole minutes to find any money in that behemoth of a bag you carry with you.” Yoba, was this girl watching all of that? “Putting all that together, you’re an orphan that has no home and you hopped on the latest train to Pelican town, hoping that some good-natured country folk will take pity on poor, poor you. How’d I do?”

Alice can feel the blush extending all the way down her neck, that familiar tightness back in her throat and chest. The girl’s guess was far from correct, but there were too many bits of truth, too many pieces that struck a nerve, for Alice to say confidently that she’s unaffected.

“I just moved to town. The old farm out west,” is all Alice says, her voice softer, shakier than she wishes.

“Aren’t you a little young to be a farmer?” the girl says, raising an eyebrow judgmentally. Who does this girl think she is? She can’t be more than a year older than Alice.

“I’m not the farmer, actually. That would be my sister. I just—”

“I’m sorry, why are you still talking to me?” the girl smiles at her, sickly sweet. It makes Alice want to shove her face into dirt.

“Whatever,” she mutters, shouldering past the blonde, who gasps indignantly when they touch. “See you around, Barbie.”