Tree of Life, Part Seven

21 December 2006

We had done some more coordinating by text the next couple days, with Jackie commenting by Tuesday that she’d never seen me look at my phone so much. Alice told me it wasn’t a formal affair, but it was a classy one, so I made sure to wear a nice suit and give it a go with the iron before I headed out. There was a quick stop at a car wash to make sure Alpha was as nice as it gets, and then I picked Alice up at about 5. It took me a moment to compose myself and talk to her once I saw the dress she was wearing. I suddenly felt concerned that I was underdressed, but she insisted that I looked good and we left. Besides, there wasn’t much to do about it now, my closet was two hours away and the party was not.

We arrived at the college, with Alice directing me the whole way, about a half hour later. She seemed surprised I didn’t have a GPS, and I informed her that Alpha was bought out of a field and I’d only had enough money so far to get it running. Besides, I told her, I was way more interested in getting body work and some mechanical stuff done to it than adding new gadgets. She asked about some of the stuff I wanted to do with it, and I told her a couple things I knew were wrong and how I’d like to repaint it and stuff. I didn’t mention that the speedometer is screwy. I’ve found that bit of information is usually best taken while Alpha isn’t moving.

The party was probably the most swanky affair I’ve been to in recent memory. There was a proper punch bowl and everything. I met a number of her friends from class, and we danced some, and there was a whole door prize thing that we didn’t win, and they served one of those dinners where you just picked between chicken, beef, or fish and then they brought you whatever that meant. I picked beef. She picked chicken. We ended up trading.

I slipped out to a balcony for a smoke while she was off talking to some friends, and chatted with a couple other people out there smoking until they went inside. I was looking out toward the rivers and leaning on the railing when I saw Alice lean on the railing next to me.

“Those will kill you, you know,” she said.

“Nah, they won’t.”

“Why do you say that?”

“King and Queen told me that’s not how I die.” She turned and looked out toward the rivers with me.

“You really never get away from it, do you?”

“Away from what?”

“The spirits.”

“Nope.”

“Do you ever wish you could?” I thought about that for a moment.

“It would probably be nice to turn it off, once in a while, I guess. But I don’t think I’d even know what to do if I pulled that off at this point. Would you turn off your ability to see in color, if you could?” She thought about that for a moment.

“Colors don’t almost burn my house down,” she said, jokingly, with a jab at my ribs. I chuckled.

“No, I suppose not.” We stared out at the night while I finished the cigarette.

“Why did you ask some spirits how you’ll die?”

“I didn’t. I was smoking and they were getting lippy and I asked if they were going to tell me the smokes would kill me and they said that that’s not how I die.”

“Is it because you quit before that happens?”

“I…didn’t think to ask that.”

​“Well,” she said, turning me around and hooking her arm in mine, “maybe you should give it a shot.” I told her I’d consider it as we made our way back inside.

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