“We need another bottle of water.” The woman at table seven gave Alice the empty bottle.
“Absolutely. I’ll be right back.”
Alice hip-swiveled her way between the closely set tables. When she was halfway to the bar, someone grabbed the back of her T-shirt.
“We’re ready to order. We’ve been ready for ten minutes.”
Get your hands off me, you fat, ugly pig. “Excellent.”
Alice didn’t point out that their menus were still wide open, which signaled to her they were still prevaricating. Nor did she mention she was on an errand for another table and she’d be back in a minute—she’d learned it was faster to just take the order. Then she’d deliver it to the kitchen, collect table seven’s water and return. Waitressing, she had down pat. It was the rest of her life that was a shambles.
Her nose tickled in a raft of irritation and she sneezed into her shoulder.
The customer leaned back, his face aghast. “We’re on vacation. We didn’t come here to get sick. Should you even be working?”
Probably not, but she didn’t have the luxury of not working today. No one in Kurnai Bay did. They had four months to earn a year’s income so they could survive the slower winter months. Once Easter was over, the town returned to the sleepy fishing village it had been since whalers and sealers plied their trade, the sea had been the highway to Melbourne and Sydney, and Canberra wasn’t even a twinkle in Australia’s eye.
Released from work a few hours later, Alice slumped on the same couch she’d lain on as a child—albeit reupholstered—only unlike when she was a kid, no one was home to fuss over her, stroke her forehead and tell her a favorite story. Although it had been years since either Karen or Peter had recounted the story of her birth—her surprise arrival twenty minutes after Libby’s—it was part of the Hunter family’s folklore. Not once as either a kid or an adult had Alice ever begrudged Libby her first-born status. Her theatrical soul preferred the story of her more exciting birth.
Her parents were out of town on their annual Melbourne vacation. They maintained that the big city in January was far more peaceful than Kurnai Bay, and they had a point. In previous years, Karen and Peter had stayed with Alice in her beloved Victorian terrace house in leafy Albert Park. This year, they’d rented a two-bedroom apartment in Docklands through Airbnb. They’d wanted Alice to come with them and although part of her appreciated their invitation, she’d rather walk over shards of glass than visit Melbourne. It hurt a little that her parents didn’t understand that.
Alice’s bug, which had been busy lobbing its fever and energy-stealing weaponry on her body, finally reached her mind. It easily breached the defenses she’d spent months bricking into place. Helplessly, she felt herself tumbling back into the quagmire of despair that had claimed her once before and she’d fought so hard to leave. A sob rose to the back of her throat and combining with her snot-clogged nose, she choked. Coughing violently, she sat up fast. Tubby, the family’s elderly cat, meowed indignantly and sank his claws into Alice’s thighs to stall his slide off her lap.
“Ouch! Play nice, Tubby.” She leaned over the cat and grabbed tissues before lying back on the cushions. So, this was what her wonderful life had been reduced to? She was thirty-three and a half, ambivalently single, back living under her parents’ roof, working minimum wage jobs, and so full of goop she couldn’t cry and breathe at the same time. Hell, she couldn’t even be sick right.
Her phone rang and she snatched it up. “Hi, Libs.”
“You sound like death warmed up,” her twin said.
“Summer cold.”
“Poor you. It’s going around. Thank God, I’m on a half-day. The clinic’s been full of sad-sack tourists for two days and I’m over the monotony of doling out tissues and sympathy. By 11:00, I found myself daydreaming about broken bones and chest pain.”
Alice laughed, immediately coughed and imagined Libby holding the phone away from her ear. She managed a strangled, “Sorry.”
“I was calling to invite you for dinner. Nick’s barbecuing and Jess is coming, but it sounds like you need to stay in bed.”
Libby didn’t say, “and not infect the rest of us” but it was there in her doctor’s tone. Her twin had always been direct and never put up with any nonsense—not even when they were children. Unlike Alice, Libby had always known exactly what she wanted and set out to make it happen. When Alice was compared to Libby’s single-minded determination and competitive streak, she came across as dreamy, vague and aimless.
“Do you need anything, Al? I’ve got some soup in the freezer I could drop-off.”
“Thanks, but I’m fine.”
“If you’re sure. Yell out if you change your mind. I’ll call tomorrow.”
The line fell silent and Alice lay picturing tonight’s dinner. Her nieces and Jess’s little boy would charge around playing on the soft Santa Ana lawn while Nick cooked and kid wrangled. He’d pour Libby and Jess a glass of wine and insist they relax and “catch up,” as if the two women rarely saw each other. The reality was Libby and Jess talked every day and met face-to-face at least three times a week.
A pale green snake slithered through Alice, although she didn’t know if it was headed toward the children, Nick—a prince among men—or Libby’s twenty-year friendship with Jess. Didn’t all the twin studies prove that twins are each other’s best friend? And yet, she and Libby were
