Seeing Alice Here or There
Eliza Gentry
“Welcome.”
Clouds of sage smoke floated up from behind her. The lights were dim and had a red tint which draped over everything in the room. The color made it hard for Ben to tell whether her hair was purple or brown, and whether the room felt romantic or eerie. She took a deep breath in and placed her palms on the table between them. “Yes, I’m sensing a connection already. Tell me your name and birthday, please.”
“My name is Ben. I was born February 29th, 1988. Well, it’s Benjamin really. I’m not sure if that matters. See, some of my papers say Ben but some say Benjamin, so if you can’t see my future as Ben you can try Benjamin. I’m not sure if that’s how this works.”
“It’s not. There is no thiiis.” She hissed softly. “I have to connect with you. But don’t worry, it’s good for you to share details, they can help me gain context for the visions I’m experiencing.” She took slow breaths with her eyes closed. When she exhaled she parted her lips slightly, and Ben couldn’t help noticing the way her lipstick had mixed with her saliva and stretched into thin strings when she opened her mouth. With each breath he leaned in closer to observe the mixture that was collecting between her lips, until his face was only a few inches away from hers. “Ok, I have made a connection.” Her talking distracted him from his investigation of her sticky mouth, and he drew his head back quickly, as he hadn’t noticed how closely he had inched his face towards hers. “There is something on your mind. Perhaps a specific person.”
Ben perked up in his chair. “Yes! Her name is Alice.”
“Alice, yes. You are struggling to understand Alice. You are struggling to understand what she is feeling.”
Ben gripped the table for balance. He was excited. Other people didn’t seem to believe in his relationship with Alice, but he knew the psychic would. She had sensed it. And why wouldn’t she? Alice was unforgettable. She was the woman of Ben’s dreams. But she had a way of appearing and disappearing that frustrated him. Each time he told his co-workers stories about Alice they smirked or snickered, and asked for pictures, or suggested that he invite her to an office party. He calmly and rationally explained that they didn’t have any pictures, they liked to keep technology out of their relationship; and he would invite her but she’s busy, so she probably wouldn’t have time for an office party. Truthfully he didn’t want to invite her because he worked as a telemarketer for a medical waste company; so his office parties were decorated with biohazard table cloths and his co-workers didn’t notice when to stop talking. He didn’t tell them this, so he could see the doubt that collected in their furrowed brows. They teased him endlessly about her, said she wasn’t real, and that he was too awkward to even have a girlfriend. But from the first time Ben talked about Alice at work, his co-worker Harrold had spent a collective two hours and fourteen minutes calling to a higher power to ask what in life was real, how Ben managed to find love but not him, and whether it was because his head was too big.
On the day they met he had been standing under a scaffold on the street, gripping his briefcase tightly and taking stiff breaths because he had the intense feeling that he was forgetting something. He couldn’t put his finger on what he was forgetting, but it was paralyzing him at that moment, so he stood on the sidewalk making the crowds of people maneuver around him. Then Alice walked by. She was eating a hot dog and was distracted by a cloud in the sky that looked awfully like a dinosaur, so she didn’t notice Ben blocking her path. They collided, ketchup splattered his shirt, he stumbled backward, and she fell forward with him. At the same time a construction worker on the scaffolding above dropped a hammer that fell in the exact spot where he had been standing before Alice ran into him. She sputtered frantic apologies while Ben noticed the nonchalant sparkle of her blonde hair. Then she rushed away, still hoping to be on time to work. Ben stood in the middle of the sidewalk letting the crowds part around him. He looked down to the hammer still resting on the ground next to him. “Can you believe that she just saved my life?” Ben asked. The hammer just looked at him, jaw dropped in disbelief as well.
The next time he saw her was out of his office window looking down onto a busy New York street. She was walking swiftly by, her blonde hair beckoning to him. He shuffled to the elevator, tapped his foot while he waited, twiddled his thumbs while the elevator went down, and ran out on the street. He saw the swing of her hair as she stepped down the stairs into the subway station across the street. He jumped in between cars and sped down the stairs to catch up with her, but by the time he got to the platform he saw the train rushing by, her hair in the window. The third time he saw her he had planned it. He waited at the entrance to her subway station to say hi to her. She remembered who he was and invited him to have a drink with her; so they went down the subway stairs together and began their first date. First they went to an artisanal soda shop with high ceilings and wide benches. The shop was spread out and open and Ben felt very aware of all the empty space that floated around them. The soda came in fat mugs, which had handles so large they made his hands feel small. As he sipped his soda his feet bobbed beneath him because he couldn’t quite touch the ground when he sat on the tall bench. He and Alice talked and laughed. At one point she went to the bathroom and the waiter walked over to ask if he would like for him to remove the second cup. “Of course not.” Ben said. “She’s only in the bathroom for a moment and then she’ll be back and I’m sure she would like to finish her soda. It’s delicious, thank you.” The waiter looked at him and then at the second cup, nodded his head softly, and walked away. After she came back from the bathroom she told him she wanted cake and she knew just the place; so they left both of the cups though she hadn’t finished her soda. On their way out Ben gave the waiter a quick wave and then gestured towards Alice with his hands. The waiter must not have noticed that Ben was pointing out who the second cup was for because he looked in the wrong direction where there was no one and returned to Ben with a confused look. Ben continued on with Alice, and they went to a very tiny bakery a few blocks away. The door was short so Ben had to crouch to get in, and the chairs were beautifully decorated but too small for his body. He ordered for both of them, a slice of vanilla for Alice and a slice of carrot for him.
“Hungry today?” The waitress chuckled light heartedly.
“What do you mean?” Ben asked and looked at her and then Alice.
“No, I just,” she looked at Alice’s chair and then again at Ben. “Umm, would you like that on two plates or one?”
“Two please,” Ben said and handed her back the menu. The cake came on tiny plates with matching miniature utensils. The tiny fork made his fingers look massive by comparison. He and Alice spent hours in the tiny store, sharing the slices of cake, and laughing about how large the store made them feel.
I’m seeing something else.” The fortune teller smacked her lips together with each word and Ben squirmed nervously in the scratchy chair. “Water,” she said. “Or floating, perhaps falling, open space, could be transparency, it feels dreamy, or—”
“Tea!” He flushed with excitement that she must have been reading his mind.
“Yes!” She nodded slowly. “I’m seeing tea, that is what it is.”
“She loves tea! She loves to invite me over for tea with her friends. They’re expressive people; funky outfits, snappy personalities, strange hats. She used to make cups of tea and leave them in secret places for me at work. She always knew which days I needed them most, and she would leave them at work behind my desk computer or under my chair. Then she would sneak off again. No one saw her come in or go out. But I’m sure it was her because it’s Alice. Alice always makes me feel better.” He scratches his feet into a rug. “But sometimes she stops bringing me tea. And I call but she doesn’t answer. I wait by the subway but she doesn’t walk by. I don’t see her. I don’t understand her. That’s why I’m here. I’m worried that she might leave me!” Ben is squirming now and his words have come out very squeaky. The psychic gives him a puzzled look. “She’s the woman of my dreams. Ever since I met her I’ve stopped getting the feeling that I might be forgetting something.”
The fortune teller picks up a deck of cards and breathes slowly while flipping through them. Ben squeezes his hands so tightly that he feels his pulse in his lap on the prickly chair.
“Hmm. Yes. She seems,” her words crept slowly out of her mouth and floated in between them in curls of smoke, “caught between two worlds.” Her mouth quivered even in the silent pauses. Ben wrung his hands together. “She’s neither here nor there.”
“What does that mean?” he whined. “Will she come back?”
“That, my darling.” She let out a deep breath. “Is all about what you imagine.”
“Why should it matter what I imagine?” He suddenly looked down at his hands and then around the room, considering, for the first time in a while, whether all the things that existed were put there by his imagination.
“Because,” she sighed, “what is more real than what you imagine?”
He called the psychic office two mornings later to say that she had come back to him. “Thank you,” he said. “I love her.” There was a small pause, and when he spoke again he had a new quiver in his voice. “And I’m so happy. So happy and full of love. Because you were right.”
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