This Side of Jealousy by Lili Peloquin

Author:Lili Peloquin
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Young Readers Group
Published: 2013-07-24T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Bright and early the next morning, Alice was staked out across the street from the pretty, white-picket-fence house that doubled as Dr. Rose’s office. It was the final day of the holiday weekend, but it was also a Monday, so there was a chance he’d be working. More to the point, there was a chance Nick would be working. She’d barely slept but she’d drunk cup after cup of coffee and was agitated besides, so was wired to the point where she could hardly blink.

Tommy had called several times last night. Sent a bunch of text messages, too. So far she hadn’t responded. How could she? What could she possibly say? She couldn’t justify her behavior, or explain it. Not without being totally and completely honest, which she had absolutely no intention of being. She knew that she’d have to speak to him at some point, but she needed more time to figure out the best way to handle the conversation, the most advantageous strategy to adopt. Until then, she was in full avoidance mode.

Alice picked up The Magus, began reading. Almost immediately she fell back into the plot. Stayed fallen until something streaked past her window. Startled, she looked up: a guy on a bike. The guy was in a dark suit and tie and wingtips. His bike was the old-fashioned kind, wide handlebars and a leather saddle and a basket in front. He looked out of place on it in his formal clothes, like the subject of a surrealist painting, a Magritte maybe. He braked just before hitting Dr. Rose’s driveway, dismounting and removing his helmet in a single motion. Nick. He lowered his kickstand, reached into the basket for his briefcase, pulling out a lock. As he was spinning the combination, Alice jumped out of the car, ran over to him. He moved so quickly and decisively she was afraid he’d disappear inside the house, be unavailable for the entire day, if she didn’t move just as quickly and decisively.

“Nick!” she called out. “Nick!”

He looked over his shoulder. “Oh, hey, Alice,” he said casually, like he wasn’t surprised in the least to see her at this hour, in this context.

“Can I talk to you?”

“Right now?”

“Well, yeah.”

He handed her his briefcase, dropped down and began winding the thread-y part of the lock through the back wheel of his bike and then around the trunk of a thin birch tree. “Now’s not so good. How about later? Like after six?”

“Six?”

“Yeah, like at the end of the workday. Remember, I’m not on summer vacay. I have a j-o-b job.”

“This won’t take long.”

He straightened. “It really can’t wait till tonight?”

She hesitated, unsure of how much of her desperation she should reveal. Finally she said, “Maybe it can, but I can’t.”

Sighing, he folded his arms across his chest, looked at her expectantly. Now that she had his attention, though, she couldn’t speak, the words rushing to get out of her mouth, so many of them, so fast, clogging in her throat, creating a block.

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