Paper Alice (21 page)

Afterwards as we were all wandering out, Andy was suddenly there beside me.

‘So,' he said, ‘did you find her – Wilda?'

‘Yeah . . .' I gave a little laugh. He was looking particularly rumpled today, but his eyes were as blue as ever. ‘Yeah, I did actually! It's a long story, but–'

He looked at me.

‘But–?'

I waved a hand. ‘No, it was great – such a relief to finally meet her. But so . . . weird!'

‘What was weird?' asked Lily, catching up to us.

‘She met up with that double of hers,' said Andy, ‘that day, after you bumped into her.'

‘Oh!' she cried. ‘Wow!'

They both looked at me, waiting for me to go on.

‘So,' Andy started again, a smile hovering at the corners of his mouth, ‘did you establish a long-lost connection?'

I shrugged.

‘Not really . . .' I paused. ‘Except–'

‘Except what?' they said, practically together.

‘That was what was weird,' I said. ‘It really did feel as though there was some kind of – connection between us. Like – we'd had completely different lives and stuff, but there was still something incredibly the same.'

‘As in – you look practically identical!' said Lily.

‘Face it, kid.' This was from Andy, that little grin still there. I could drown in it, I thought suddenly. ‘She's your doppelganger, turned up from another life, to haunt you.'

I made a face – to stop myself beaming idiotically back at him. It was so awkward the way he flirted in front of Lily like this.

And there was that word again – doppelganger. I hadn't even been able to bring myself to google it.

I turned around to look for Milly. She was standing in the doorway, deep in conversation with Chet.

My notebook was certainly needed the next afternoon, at the first rehearsal. As we ran through the skits with the actors reading from their scripts, Chet or Andy and sometimes May would call: ‘Can you make a note of that, Al?' I ended up scribbling pages and pages in the way of props and scenery requirements, script alterations, et cetera, et cetera. This job was certainly going to involve way more than just turning up to rehearsals.

Still, my mind was working reasonably efficiently. I was engrossed in it all and, dare I say, beginning to enjoy it. That is, until a break in proceedings, when Lily came and plonked herself down in the seat beside me.

‘Whew!' she said, stretching her legs out in front of her and pretend-fanning herself with her script. ‘Full-on, eh?'

I laughed. ‘Yeah . . .'

Except that there'd already been quite a bit of clowning around and sidetracking, from guess-who and others. I thought I'd die laughing, for example, when during one sketch featuring Andy and Milly – about a twitty woman taking her dog to the vet – Andy the straitlaced, deep-voiced professional suddenly morphed unscripted into a drag queen, rendering us all helpless with giggles, with further funny contributions from all sides. When the hilarity had finally died down, Chet called over his shoulder, ‘Script change, Al – vet now gender-challenged,' and that's how it stayed. Most of the items got embellished and/or changed during rehearsals; hardly any of them stayed as they had been in the beginning.

Now I glanced at Lily.

‘You look nice. Going somewhere special – afterwards?'

There had been talk of everyone going to the pub, but she'd gone the extra mile, with proper make-up, dangly earrings and a beautiful cable-knit cream jumper which showed off her dark hair to perfection.

She laughed, flushing slightly.

‘To the airport, actually, to meet my boyfriend. He's been away for six months, in the States, on exchange.'

So, what kind of dumb bunny was I? Later on I tried to think about how it was I'd come to assume that she and Andy were an item, even after I knew that it was Lil, his grandmother, he lived with, not Lily, his old and very dear friend.

Because that's what Andy and Lily were, and always had been – practically best mates since primary school.

I was still trying to hide my shock while she filled me in on the boyfriend. His name was Rob and he'd been finishing off his engineering degree at a university in Chicago.

‘I . . .' I trailed off, then cleared my throat. ‘For a while I thought you and Andy –'

She stared at me.

‘
Andy
?'

We both glanced across to where he was, explaining something to one of the actors. He said something; they both laughed.

‘Him?' she went on, rolling her eyes and scoffing fondly. ‘I can't think of anything worse! It'd be like . . .
incest
– like going out with some crazy brother!' She laughed again and shook her head. ‘Much as I love him, he's just not my type. Give me solid and dependable, any day!'

I envisaged solid, dependable engineer Rob, big and bearlike, with blond hair and a surfie tan, lifting Lily off the ground with his hug. The complete opposite of her.

Then I pictured my type. Though I didn't dare look his way. Excitement and a kind of panic was starting to fizz in me – like coke in a shaken bottle.

I was suddenly desperate to keep a cap on it. I hoped I wasn't going pink. I shrugged and made a noise somewhere between a laugh and a grunt.

‘Anyway,' I mumbled finally, looking down at my notebook, ‘what scene are we doing after this?'

‘Wouldn't have a clue – you're the stage manager!' Her laughing, teasing eyes on me suddenly felt uncomfortably sharp.

‘You still going out with your boyfriend?' she asked, after a moment.

I stared at her blankly. I couldn't remember mentioning Dunc in her presence. Had she and Andy been talking about me?

I shook my head.

‘Nup.'

‘Oh, that's too bad . . .'

It was more of another query than a comment, the bright gaze still pinning me like a helpless, upturned beetle.

I gave another little shrug and swallowed – what felt like a tennis ball.

‘We . . . we'd kind of outgrown each other, really.' I rolled my eyes. ‘Been going out since school, after all!'

Now I really was going pink.

Lily grinned.

‘Well, well,' she said. ‘That is interesting!'

You can imagine how good a job I did for the rest of the rehearsal. I apparently did take more notes, because they were there when I looked later. Though some of them I couldn't make head nor tail of at all.

I'd suddenly become hyper-aware of someone else – what he was doing and who he was talking to. It must have been the old eyes-in-the-back-of-the-head thing, because I could barely bring myself to actually look at him, even when he called out a note to me. He was
carrying on just the same, completely absorbed in what he was doing – watching and listening to the actors, scratching his head, making wisecracks, taking part in a couple of sketches himself . . .

And then it was over and, as planned, everyone repaired to the pub. Except Lily, who'd peeled off to the airport.

We wandered up to King Street in the usual big straggle, me near the front with Chet, Milly and a couple of the others. I don't know if I looked as distracted and tense as I felt, but I barely took in the talk going on around me. Something about comedy writing and humour, which I normally would have been interested in. I did register that Milly seemed very relaxed and into it; not at all in Silly Milly mode.

But my attention was mostly elsewhere. Two or three metres behind, in fact, trying to catch the odd snatch of conversation that came floating forward.

Once or twice I glanced back over my shoulder. He was walking beside Tess, one of the actors. I felt an instant, massive lurch of anxiety – did he fancy her? She was quite pretty, after all, with a roundish, sweet face and a good figure. And a good actress . . .

I marched along, my armpits growing clammy, my heart going at about ten times the rate of my feet. Trying to remember the rehearsal – had he singled her out for special attention?

But when we got into the pub, he came and sat with me.

He pulled up a stool right next to mine and turned to face me, our knees almost brushing as we perched our feet on the foot rests. I barely noticed someone
passing us our drinks. I was suddenly floating, bobbing on some bright and lovely sea.

He grinned at me; I felt myself grinning stupidly back.

‘So Alice,' he said, taking my little finger in his fingers, his eyes still teasing mine. ‘I'm not going out with Lily, and never have been, and you've broken up with Lover Boy–'

‘Oh,
what
?' I gasped, laughing. ‘That
Lily
–'

The end of rehearsals – she must've made a beeline for his ear.

‘That's what friends are for,' he said, ‘aren't they?'

‘I guess . . .'

I don't remember how the conversation went after that, since conversation wasn't really the point. We'd put our drinks down by now, practically untasted, and had started playing handies – fingers intertwining, hands clasping and unclasping, which made me feel as though I was going to melt, right there and then. Laughing into one another's eyes and talking nonsense, the chatter going on around us just a hum of background noise.

At one point I glanced vaguely in Milly's direction, to spy her positively beaming at us. I smiled vaguely back and she gave me a tiny thumbs up, but I did register that she was sitting next to Chet. I was, however, too tied up to worry about her. Milly was a big girl; she'd just have to look after herself.

After a couple of rounds – though I think our drinking speed was about half that of everyone else – Andy put his hands on my knees.

‘So,' he asked with a little smile, ‘wanna split?'

I smiled back. ‘Yeah, why not . . .'

I slid off my stool and hoisted my bag over my shoulder. Andy turned to everyone; raised a hand.

‘Bye all,' he called cheerfully. ‘We're off.'

Various faces turned towards us, registering my hand in his.

‘Oh, bye–'

‘See ya . . .'

‘Remember, same time tomorrow for rehearsals,' I chirped, making a feeble stab at my official role. Though right at that moment I really couldn't have given a rat's about the revue.

It was only later that I remembered about poor Milly and her ride home. And true friend that she was, she certainly hadn't reminded me.

We walked out the door and up the street, through the Saturday evening throng, faces looming up and ducking past. Usually I love taking in all the Newtown crowd, but this time I barely registered any of them. I was only conscious of the boy beside me, and the warmth of his body as we slipped our arms around one another.

We swung into the first side street we came to, took about three steps, and then we were kissing. And kissing, arms entwined around one another's necks and waists and hips, bodies pressed together against a graffitied wall. Passers-by ducked around us on the narrow footpath; some wit telling us to get a room.

When we finally drew breath, our foreheads touching, our eyes smiling into one another in the shadows, Andy murmured:

‘Well, Miss Alice, what d'you wanna do now?'

We looked at one another and laughed. Silly question!

‘I mean,' he said, ‘are you hungry? D'you want a pizza or something . . .'

I shrugged. ‘OK, if you do . . .' Though food was actually the last thing on my mind.

We hit King Street again and wandered along, arms wrapped around one another, smiling and laughing, until we found a rather unappetising joint that had some free tables.

‘This looks unpromising,' he said, ‘but it'll do.'

Luckily we discovered before we ordered that we only had $14 left between us, as the place was cash only. Anyway, our shared small Matriciana turned out to be pretty disgusting – no wonder the place wasn't full. Not that we could really have cared less by that stage.

‘Come on,' said Andy, smiling, pushing the half-empty plate towards me. ‘Eat up!'

I shook my head and made a silly face, unable to drag my gaze from his. Our knees touching lightly under the table.

‘Not hungry,' I laughed.

‘Me either, really . . .'

There was a pause; I took a breath.

‘We could get the car and go back to my place,' I murmured, smiling down at his fingers as I touched them on the table. Our palms automatically moved up against one another, as though in prayer. I looked up again, into his eyes. ‘Mum and Dad have gone out, I think.'

So forward!
came a faint voice from inner, rational Alice.
On your first date
. . .

Then the voice went dead. Because, I have to say, I didn't feel one skerrick of guilt – not with him.

Andy's other hand met mine; our eyes did a blissful little dance.

‘What a good idea,' he murmured, smiling. ‘But it'll have to be a cab, remember? We don't wanna be picked up by the breathalyser; spend our first night together in the clink.'