The first time Grace Chasity can remember meeting Alice Woodward goes like this:
She’s five years old, or so, definitely not in elementary school yet but grown up enough to remember stuff and know that she’s not supposed to be mean to elders, and it’s very early Sunday morning. She’s helping her mom and a few other church ladies set up the church for today’s service, and she has a very important mission — to decorate the kids' area. Which is a tiny, carpet-clad corner in the sermon house, with a plastic red table and a bunch of toys the kids always fight about and Grace is the only one who is trusted with cleaning it because she's so responsible.
She’s five years old and the most important thing in her life is to be a good child of Jesus, do no wrong to others, and never feed her dads’ fish cereal again. (Did you know it makes them really sick? And if they’re really sick, Dad is really sad, because he loves his fish, and she doesn’t want her Dad to be sad.)
She’s in the middle of perfecting the angle of the crayons set up in the box when the main doors open with a loud thud and a sharp pitching sound. (It kind of makes Grace want to run and hide somewhere small and dark until it passes, but Mama said big girls don’t run away, and Grace wants to be a good girl, so she stays.)
“Karen!” A woman’s voice, loud and clear and bright despite the early hour, sounding through the empty chapel.
Her mom’s head perks up from where she’s been hidden beneath a pew. Grace looks up too, from the kids’ corner.
There’s a woman, walking briskly from the main door, holding a little girl — maybe Grace’s age, maybe a little older — in front of her, with a hand on her shoulder. They’re both dressed fancy, much more fancy than Grace and her Mama ever were, but there’s a certain feeling Grace gets looking at them that she can’t quite place.
Maybe it’s the nervous tummy butterflies Mama told her about.
“Peggy!” Mama’s voice is, too, loud and happy, and with a pitch Grace has never, as far as she remembers, heard it have. Like she’s Grace herself, excited for a bouncy house at the church’s Easter party.
Footsteps stumble across the floor, and then, “How many years has it been?”
The woman smiles, shaking her head. “Way too many.” She’s crossed over to Mama, the little girl still right next to her, and she has a hand, covered with golden bracelets, on Mama’s arm. Her lips are perfectly done with a soft red lipstick, and she’s a bag that looks like the very expensive ones her mom says are a sign of lust and greed, so she never buys it. “But at last, I ended up in Hatchetfield.”
“Just like I said you would.” Mama smiles, but from how weird she stands, Grace can tell she’s not very happy.
The woman nods, shaking her arm to adjust the bracelets. “Just like you said.”
The conversation’s volume goes down, and Grace almost completely abandons listening to it, in favor of setting the table up with little juice cups for the grape juice Mrs Sprague makes herself and brings over for the kids to have during the sermon.
“Is that your and Mark’s daughter?” She suddenly tunes back into the conversation at the mention of her Dad, because, that’s her dad, and looks up from where she was separating plastic cups.
“Yeah.” Mama turns around and smiles encouragingly at Grace, fiddling with her fingers, which she takes as a sign to sprint over.
Mama barely catches her before she fully slams into the woman and the girl. She grabs her by the waist and pulls back, putting her arms on her shoulders. (Grace is a little out of breath from the run, and the clips on her hair had slid down a little, but Mama’s fixing it already.)
“Gosh, she’s taken so much after Mark.” The woman says with a sort-of disbelieving tone in her voice.
“My genes didn’t even try to fight back.” Mama snorts. Both her and Dad have always said that, that Grace was just a little Chasity, not a bit of Canabale in her.
“And who’s that little lady here?” Mama’s voice suddenly turns sugary sweet, and her hand slides up and down Grace's shoulder.
“This is Alice.”
Alice stands awkwardly, hands toying with the shoulder strap of her pink Hello Kitty bag, looking up at her mom. She has hair much longer than Grace, in two french braids, and Grace can still hear their moms having a conversation, something about Grace’s dress is being said, but she just can’t tear her eyes away.
She gives a wave and the nicest smile she can put on — the one that got her on her church’s promotion pamphlets last year.
The girl — Alice, she has never known any other Alice — is pretty everywhere. Her hair, two pigtails, is shiny and almost all golden, and her eyes, they’re so pretty too, with long eyelashes and her mouth is slightly open, showing the top two teeth and she can’t breathe, mouth dry and and her hands starting shake, and she’s smiling, Grace’s mouth corners are turning up on their own volition—
“You’re very pretty,” stumbles out of Grace’s mouth without any thoughts, and through the thrum of static in her ears she can hear their moms’ laughs, but the only thing she can focus on is Alice,
Alice,
Alice and the ever–so–slight rise of the corners of her mouth, and how her head tilts to the side when she smiles, and her hands dropping the strap of her Hello Kitty bag.
“I mean—!” Grace starts to back up, panicking, her arms shooting up like they always do when she’s even a little stressed, which makes their moms laugh even louder, and Grace feels like she’s about to melt into a puddle of shame. “I like your bag! It’s very pretty! Hello Kitty!”
Her mom almost roars with laughter. Grace wants to cry.
“You two are such cutie pies.” The sound of Alice’s mom’s voice is like a cold bucket of water splashed over her. Grace's eyes float over to hers, and they’re almost the same like Alice’s, but there’s no spark like in the girl’s. Maybe it’s the heavy mascara over them, her mind prompts. Mama never wears it.
“Maybe you’ll show Lis around, huh?” She continues, and Grace forces her mind to focus back on the words still being said.
“Yes, good idea! Me and Peggy will stay here and catch up.” Mama puts a hand on the back of Grace’s head, and her head turns up to look at her with the brightest smile she can manage, which is not hard, like a sunflower to the sun. “Take care of Alice, will you, Grace?”
Grace nods her head so hard she hears her neck cracking.
She will. She absolutely will.