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“No,” she said. “My step-mom will do it. Well.” She rolled her eyes. “She hired someone to do it.”
Alice’s eyebrows went up. “She hired someone to come move you into your dorm?”
“Mom,” Ginny said, and Alice switched her gaze to her.
“What?”
“Can we go? Charlie has to be done by now.” She opened the door again and stepped out into the hall, Constance right behind her.
“Okay,” Alice muttered. “I guess she’s coming with us.” She wasn’t very happy about that, but she had another child to attend to, and then she’d have to deal with a meal in the city, and then Robin and Duke at the hotel they’d booked.
Her day was far from over, and it didn’t really matter if Constance came with them or not. She and Ginny chattered the whole way over to Charlie’s building, and she texted him that they’d arrived.
He and Duke came down to get them, and then they rode the slowest elevator Alice had ever stepped foot in to the seventeenth floor. Charlie’s room was all made up too, and his roommate sat at his desk, headphones on while he played a game on the Internet. Alice was happy to see her sponsorship for the higher-speed service was already getting good use.
“It looks good.” She grinned at Charlie. “Got your own trashcan. That’s important.” She ran her fingers along the shirts he’d hung up. “Clothes put away.”
Her son grinned back at her, and feeling his energy, all of her doubts about him moving out and going to college evaporated. Sure, he might fail. He might hate it here. He might break-up with Mandie and be miserable.
But…he might not. He might thrive on his own. He might love the vibe of the city and learning what he wanted to learn. He might fall madly in love with Mandie, or meet someone else. The possibilities for both of her children were endless, and Alice could feel how exciting that was for them.
“Where are you from, Constance?” he asked, drawing Alice’s attention away from the way he’d stacked his school supplies haphazardly on his desk.
“The Hamptons,” she said, and Alice’s blood turned to ice. She met Charlie’s eye.
“Oh.” He swallowed. “We’re from Five Island Cove.” He indicated himself and Ginny, and she nodded. Alice wanted to hug them both right there on the spot, but she didn’t want to be the embarrassing mom.
Thankfully, Robin texted in that moment, saying they were done too. “All right,” she said. “Let’s go get something to eat.”
The kids exited the room as Alice responded to Robin, and she looked up at Duke, who stood out in the hall. “Thank you, Duke.”
“Of course,” he said. “Happy to do it.”
“Did you see Mandie’s room?”
“From about thirteen different angles,” he said, smiling.
Alice grinned too. “I’ll bet.”
“My wife is a unique individual,” he said.
“And we love her for it,” Alice said.
Hours later,after dinner, after dropping each person off at the building, and after she, Robin, and Duke had checked into their hotel, Alice lay in bed, utterly spent. She’d told Arthur about the whole day, from the flight to the “death van ride” to the roommates to everything.
A knock sounded on her door, and she knew that would be Robin. She got up to answer it, and sure enough, her best friend stood in the hallway holding a bottle of wine and two glasses.
“Are you trying to romance me?” Alice joked.
Robin grinned and simply went past her and into the room. Once the door had closed, she said, “We’ve earned this.”
“Yes, we have,” Alice said, following her to the small table-for-two in front of the window.
Robin popped and poured, and she handed Alice a glass of red wine. “I think I handled it decently well too.”
“I think you did.” Alice smiled at her and waited for her to finish pouring her own glass. They lifted their goblets into the air, clinked them, and then sipped simultaneously.
Alice sighed as warmth moved through her. “My house is going to be so quiet.”
