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“You don’t annoy me.” I went to sit on the other sofa, near her, but not too near. “I hate to say something so stupid and worn out, but…it’s not you. It’s me. I wouldn’t be good for you.” That was true. I was being honest with her now. “I feel connected to you, Alice, in a pure and long-standing way, and I don’t want to ruin the history we share by exposing you to the relationship Milo, who’s really an asshole.”
“You seem pretty easy to get along with most of the time. I guess I don’t know you, not the way I think.”
She was skeptical. She thought I was bullshitting her.Fix this, I berated myself.
“I love you as a friend and I always will,” I said, and I meant it intensely. “But a relationship between us, a romantic relationship… Well, it would be a disaster.”
She sighed, looking down into her cup, and then gave a little laugh. “You’ve said that same thing, more or less, at least half a dozen times in the last twelve hours. I guess I have no choice but to believe you.”
“You must have tons of men pursuing you. You can’t be that hard up.”
“Hard up? Wanting you is ‘hard up’?” She shook her head. “Whatever. To answer your question, I’m pretty picky when it comes to men. There’ve been a few who seemed promising, but they always disappoint me.”
Because you’re perfect and lovely, and newsflash, I’d disappoint you too. Or horrify you. Or both.
My phone rang again, my dad calling for the third time in fifteen minutes. “I’d better take this,” I said, swiping to pick up. “Hi, Pop. What’s going on?”
My father’s voice sounded rough. “I’m calling about Lala. Alice.”
My mother grabbed the phone, her voice loud and hysterical. “They can’t find her, and she’s not answering her phone.”
My dad broke in. “There was an explosion. They’ve called and called her cell and she’s not answering.”
“Ah, Massimiliano!” I could tell by her voice that my mother was crying. “We were afraid for you too, because you took her home.”
“Wait, Ma. What? What kind of explosion? When?”
“Early morning hours, the whole Michelin building, and half the building next door. Stefan and Freja called us because they can’t reach her. They want you to go check…” Her high-pitched voice dissolved into a fit of sobs, and my father took back the phone.
“There was an explosion,” he said. “A gas line, early this morning. Half the building was blown away, and the other half caught fire. They can’t find her, Milo. No one can find her among the…among the casualties.”
“Papa, stop. Alice is okay. She’s here right now, sitting on my couch.” In fact, she was staring at me, wide eyed. My mind reeled. An explosion early this morning? Holy fuck. “She slept here last night, Pop. In my guest room,” I added, because they were Catholic, and those things mattered even when you were recently afraid someone might be dead.
Alice mouthed, “Is everything okay?”
I didn’t know how to answer that. On the phone, my parents both sounded like they were crying now. “She’s there?” my mother sobbed. “Lala is there with you?”
“Yes. She came up last night to see my Stradivarius. We started talking and it got so late, she slept in the guest room rather than go home. We’re just having coffee. She’s right here.”
On the other end of the line, my emotionally stressed parents repeatedoh my God,Praise God, andThank you, Godseveral times, although it had been Blue, not God, who stopped her from going back to her apartment where she might have been…
Holy Christ. Where she might have been killed in a gas explosion early this morning. It hit me, and I rested a hand on Blue’s head. “Thank God,” I said, just like my parents. “Thank God you wouldn’t let her go home, buddy.”
“Keep her there, Milo,” said my father. “And don’t turn on the news where she can see. It’s a terrible scene. She’ll be upset.”
“Take care of that girl,” my mother yelled.
“I have to hang up and call the Nyquists,” my father said, talking over her. “Tell Lala to call her parents too, they’re hysterical.” With one lastThank you, God, he ended the call.
“What was that about?” she asked.
I looked at her, dazed. “There was a gas explosion this morning at your building. Your parents couldn’t reach you, and they didn’t know where you were.”
“What?”
“An explosion. Some gas line problem, I guess, and a fire. Everyone was in a panic because they couldn’t reach you.”
She grabbed her phone. “Shit. It died last night, and I didn’t have my charger.”
