Predicaments of Envy Unfinished

Predicaments of Envy

Predicaments of Envy

Chapter One

Alice

The sun rose to a watery mess on the horizon upon which it felt inclined to clean, doing so with an array of rosy pinks, deep oranges that stretched fingers so distantly the edges remained unseen. I was carefully measuring coffee grounds in view of this, standing flush to the kitchen window; it was newly spring, and I could hear the birds as they returned once again to sing, the gentle hum of a lawn mower streets away. I poured the grounds into the filter, shook it until they lay even, a flat, satisfying edge. My parents would stir soon, jarred awake by the suggestion of caffeine in the air, and they did not yet know what I knew.

Barbara and I had gone for dinner last night in lieu of preparing notes for our joint history presentation – she declined a water and asked for a scotch instead, neat. I took note of her slender fingers twisting tightly into her long hair, the disturbing way in which she continued to peer into the darkened booths that lay assembled around us, checking her phone after the passing minutes heightened her apparent paranoia. Eventually, I had to ask her if anything had happened.

"Are you alright, Barb?" I finally inquire, and she looks up fast, startled. "I mean, you seem a little on edge," I offer, and her expression cools, once again becoming pointed.

"I'm fine," she assures me with a passive wave of her hand, "I've just felt weird today." Her eyes are cast downwards as she offers this fragment of explanation, and I know she is lying.

"Weird how?" I ask, but my question evades her – a knot of people hovers at the door and she appraises each of their faces individually, as though looking for someone in particular.

Our food arrives and she slowly tilts her fork into her bowl of spaghetti, pulling at the noodles without consuming any, as if transfixed. She had finished the first glass of scotch and was quick to order another, tossing the lime and tilting her head back to drain it. I watched with concealed apprehension.

"Come on, Barbara, just tell me what's going on," I plead, and she looks at me with naively blinking eyes, feigning innocence. "Is it Bradley?"

Bradley was her boyfriend of the better part of two years – they met in their senior year of high school when he was a transfer student and she had been mandated to tutor him in their AP physics class. Needless to say, there was a lack of studying and a quickly generated disapproval from administration as his grades did not improve, and the two engaged themselves in an immediate love affair. Barbara was soon removed from her tutoring position, prompting the pair to evade themselves of their respective classes, choosing instead to veer through the hallways unnoticed, meeting in confined corners, concealed alleyways in which they could smoke cloves, rolling on the ground. They nearly refused to separate, moving into a neglected bungalow just weeks after graduation, rent bills compiled into neat boxes, envelopes dating back months. However, the simple aspect of their own persistent love dominated any worries they may have had – they assembled pots squarely beneath the holes that distributed water on the stormy days, they lay closely knit in steaming baths when the heat went out amid the snap of winter, both trapped in the middle of the night. Lately, however, the two had become less than inseparable; the first year of college found their struggles which had been deeply rooted, left entirely undetected by either party as they both succumbed to ducking beneath the veil of reality, and the second year had engaged them in serious thought regarding one another. Bradley was not trustworthy and Barbara lacked patience, he was stubborn and defiant, she was calmly angry. The two had begun to take notice of their differing qualities on more than one occasion, their perspectives skewed as they unearthed their genuine dislike.