Aliens on Aventine Hill

Alice [Part 3]

"Put that out, will you?"

Rachel tapped her cigarette on the edge of the ashtray. Her eyes rolled balefully up to her sister, who paused in her bustling around the kitchen to return the look. Snubbing out the cig, Rachel rolled her eyes, "Something bothering you, Helen? More than usual, I mean?"

"It's just been a long week, I suppose," her sister sighed, setting the sheet pan down on the cooling rack and pulling off her oven mitts. "Harvey's been so busy with work, and Alice spends all her time locked up in her room sulking. The only thing I wanted out of all this was to have a nice family dinner and neither one of them showed."

"I'm here."

"Yes," Helen sat down with heavy sigh, "You're here. Thank you."

"Now, I don't know what to tell you about Harvey," Rachel sighed, "except, of course, that you were the one who married him."

Helen stared longingly at the cigarette smoldering. Rachel frowned and dumped the ashtray out in the trashcan, "Alice will snap out of it. It's a big adjustment moving from a place like Portland to a small town like Aventine. All she needs is a little time."

"I can't help thinking that I made a mistake, Rachel," Helen put her head in her hands. "I loved it here, but all Alice seems to see are the bad things."

"You forget that we grew up here," Rachel shook her head. "You forget how it looks to an outsider. You were the same way when the first time you came back."

"And you never left."

Rachel sighed as she leaned back in her chair, "Sometimes I wish I had."

"Sometimes I wish I'd never left," Helen crossed her arms, bracing herself on the table. "Driving around, everything still looks the same. There's the library, and the grocers, and D'Angelo's and Milton's. Nothing's changed except the faces, but something just feels... different."

Rachel shrugged, "Things are different, Helen."

Her sister shifted uncomfortable.

"You're different," she shook her head. "You're a married woman with a daughter the same age you were when you left."

"God," Helen blushed, "I would've been so disappointed to know I became a housewife!"

"Ain't nothing wrong with being a housewife," Rachel laughed. "Believe you me, I'm starting to come around to the idea myself."

"You? No!"

Rachel forced up a smile, "But I know what you mean. It's different without Rhea around."

"I keep thinking if only I'd moved back sooner," Helen bit her lip, "then Alice and Grayson would've grown up together and I would've been able to help Rhea and protect her from Martin..."

Rachel gritted her teeth, "She could hold her own against Martin. I know it's hard to believe, but he was different with her."

"If you say so..." Helen looked away. "Did they ever figure out what exactly happened?"

"Not that I know," Rachel sighed.

Helen gave in to her desire, motioning at her sister for a cigarette, "I don't know. Maybe Alice is right about Aventine..."

Rachel shook her head, "Listen, let me see if I can talk Alice into going down to Milton's with me tomorrow. That's a place that can change your mind, and," she folded her arms on the table, "perhaps she'll meet some new friends."

"That sounds lovely," Helen nodded appreciatively. "All you'll have to do is convince her."

Rachel laughed, glancing towards the staircase, "Don't you worry about that."

Behind the door at the top of that staircase, Alice Turner flipped through her collection of Polaroid photographs. Her friends—friends she would never see again—stared up at from the film without a care in the world. Their smiles were so happy; hers was sad as she read the notes she'd written on the back.

At the bottom of her stack was a picture of her with Christopher. His face was tilted towards her neck, but she stared directly into the camera, eyes sparkling. Alice gritted her teeth as she shredded the photograph.

The paper bit into her thumb. She cursed under her breath and shook out her hand as bits of Polaroid littered the carpet. Rolling her eyes, Alice gathered up the pieces and tossed them in the trash before shoving the rest of the Polaroids back in the shoebox.

Satisfied, she stared down at the little bubble of blood on her fingertip.

Soon none of it would matter. She was only a few months short of eighteen. As soon as she reached that day, it was goodbye to Mum and Dad and hello again to Portland, then Seattle, Los Angeles, Chicago, NYC...

And this summer would be nothing more than a papercut.

* * *

A thousand different blurry Polaroids floated around him as Gray studied himself in the mirror. He traced the pale lines across his neck and shoulders and then the scar running from corner of his eye towards the top of his head, carving a canyon through his hairline.

A heavy sigh escaped his lungs as he hung his hands on his neck and leaned against the glass. He could see the desperate expression on his reflection's face. He held those familiar eyes, staring at the imperfection in the left iris—a dark ship on a stormy sea.

Gray covered his face with his hands. His leg ached, but the pain in his chest was greater. All he could think of was Roman's face—Did you kill Arnold? —and way the police officers had studied him, almost as if they too suspected...

It was Joseph's fault. Joseph had sold him out. Joseph...

Gray's gaze lingered on the hall phone as he passed it. He still knew the number by heart. He picked up the handset, took a deep breath and then hung it back up again, slumping against the wall.

Outside, clouds covered the moon, and so Gray sat alone in the darkness, wishing he couldn't hear the sound of the river through the windows—and yet praying it would never leave him.

Sometimes it was all he had left.