*
That evening, Adeline was thinking about all the pieces in her life, of the past, the present, and the future, and the piece that was missing, the one that might tie it all together, when the doorbell rang.
She rose and opened the door, and on her stoop, under the glow of the porchlight, was Nora, standing in a three-quarter length black trench coat, a floral dress on underneath, smiling at her.
“Hi.”
“Hi,” Adeline said. “I wasn’t expecting you.”
An awkward pause passed as Nora stared at her, and Adeline finally swung the door open. “But come on in—of course. Good to see you.”
She wondered if the tension was obvious to Nora.
As the door closed, Nora shrugged. “I figured it was time we talked.”
Adeline swallowed. “About?”
“I thought we could start with all the things we haven’t talked about.”
FIFTY-SIX
Adeline studied Nora’s face. Slowly, terror was growing inside of her. Did Nora know her secret?
Had she finally figured it all out?
Nora must have seen the fear in Adeline’s eyes. She held up her hands. “I just meant that it feels like maybe you and I got off on the wrong foot or something. All these years, the group has become so close, but it’s just—it just feels to me like there’s a gulf between us.” Nora smiled, eyebrows rising. “Am I imagining that?”
“You’re not imagining it,” Adeline said quietly. She knew she was on precarious ground here. Where it led, she wasn’t sure she wanted to go.
“Can we sit?” Nora asked.
In the living room, Adeline took Nora’s coat, and they sat by the fire.
“Do you ever get this sense that everything around us is a slow-motion catastrophe?”
Adeline didn’t trust her voice to speak. She nodded, still wondering if Nora knew more than she was admitting.
“It’s not just this crazy pandemic. It’s closer to home. For Sam and Elliott, the things they love are slipping away. Hiro and Connie are fighting their demons—different demons but both soul-consuming.” Nora took a deep breath. “And then there’s you and me. Two islands in the middle of the storm. Both single women. Career-oriented. It seems like we have a lot in common, but I don’t really know much about you, Dani. And I was sitting at home thinking, why is that? And why don’t I do something about that?”
Adeline swallowed. This was dangerous. The more she revealed about herself, the more likely it was that Nora would figure out her secret. If she did, she might alter the past.
But that was only half the issue. Adeline knew that in seven years, Nora was going to die—possibly at Adeline’s hands. Getting close might make the things she had to do harder. Adeline knew what it was like to lose someone close to her. Instinctively, she knew she was scared of getting close again.
Nora smiled. “Anyway, I was drinking wine—from a box—and I just thought, ‘why don’t I go over and take a chance?’ With the lockdown, I know she’s at home. Everyone’s at home. We can’t exactly go anywhere, but I thought maybe we could talk. Or binge-watch TV. Or just read in the same room. Or play a board game.”
Nora’s gaze shifted to the window. “I probably shouldn’t say this, but I feel like Absolom is coming to an end. Frankly, I can’t see what use our machine that beams matter to nowhere could be to anyone. I know you’ve invested a lot money—and your time—and I want you to get it all back. I really do. Maybe we can license it for research to universities or government labs, but it feels like that will end our involvement in it. And tonight, I thought, maybe this is our last chance to get to know each other. And I was a little sad about that, frankly. Like I had missed an opportunity to get to know someone great—wait, that sounds super weird. I think I mentioned the wine earlier. There was wine involved. If you kick me out, let’s blame the wine tomorrow. Deal?”
Adeline laughed. “I’m not kicking you out.”
“Good. That would be so awkward.”
“We don’t do awkward here.”
Nora laughed, a heartfelt, belly laugh that she physically shook off, her head tossing from side to side. Adeline thought the woman indeed seemed a little drunk.
When the laugh subsided, Nora’s tone was more reflective. “I’ve always been an introvert. But this lockdown has been too much solitude even for me.”
“Same.”
“It works on you,” Nora said. “Being alone. Like every day is a replay of the one before. The isolation has also made me realize some things. It’s like the music stopped on human civilization, and we were all marching around, going through life, mostly unaware of what we didn’t have, and now that I have to sit at home and just think, I’ve finally recognized that I’m truly and utterly alone. But it’s not just being alone. I feel like there’s no one in my life who really understands me.”
Nora swallowed and closed her eyes. “Anddddd… I think my wine-induced soul outpouring just violated the we-don’t-do-awkward policy.”
Adeline laughed. “Updated policy: we do awkward for the sake of soul outpouring.”
Nora held a finger up theatrically. “Wine-induced soul outpouring. I’m blaming wine.”
“Actually, I think wine-induced soul outpouring is exactly what this world needs right now. Even if it gets awkward. It’s totally worth it.”
“In that case, it feels like we’re missing something.”
Adeline smiled and rose and retreated to the butler’s pantry and returned with an uncorked bottle of Chardonnay. “It’s not from a box.”
“I’ll let it slide—this time.”
Adeline poured two glasses nearly to the rim and both women took a long sip.
“What now?” Nora asked. “Do we drink wine and keep complaining and blaming said wine?”
Adeline let her head fall to the side. “Doesn’t quite seem like our style.”
“No. It doesn’t.”
“What does?”
“Board games,” Nora said.
“Yes,” Adeline agreed. “Board games—until we’re too brain-dead to play.”
“Or drunk,” Nora added. “Not saying that will happen.”
“That would never happen to us. We don’t get drunk. We just get tired.”
“Exactly. And when we get too tired to play board games, we—”
“Binge-watch TV,” Adeline said, completing the sentence.
Nora took a long sip of wine. “I like this plan.”
“There’s just one problem.”
Nora raised her eyebrows.
“The potential for a bad binge.”
“A bad binge?”
Adeline nodded with mock seriousness. “It’s a situation that arises when two or more people are binge-watching TV together, and one or more people aren’t into the show—but they’re too afraid to say anything because they perceive that other members of the party are into it. They endure hours of the show, suffering from extreme boredom under the watchful eye of an unknowing loved one, unable to call out for help. It’s what’s formally known as a bad binge.”
Nora paused. “Wait. Is that…”
“A real thing? No. I just made it up.”
Nora threw her head back and laughed. “But it is real—it happens.”
“It totally happens. And needs to be planned for.”
Nora held her wine glass up, saluting Adeline. “That’s why you get paid the big bucks. You think of everything. Always imagining what could go wrong.”
You have no idea, Adeline thought.
“So how do we avoid a bad binge?” Nora asked.
“Mandatory check-ins. At the fifteen-minute mark in episode one, we hold our fists out and do a thumbs-up or thumb-down. Same at the end of episode one and two. We need two thumbs up to continue.”
“It’s a little dorky, but it could work.”
“It will work. And yes, it’s extremely dorky.”
Adeline refilled their wine glasses, and they started the board games phase of the evening, sitting at the table in the dining room, playing Scrabble, music on in the background.