The Liberation of Alice Love(63)
Author: Abby McDonald

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

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

“I didn’t.” Flora’s voice was small.

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

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

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

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

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

It didn’t work.

“But I could have helped!”

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

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

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

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

Flora nodded.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

She felt rebellion spark in her veins.

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

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

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