Something deep inside Alice stirred, tingling faintly. She didn’t know whether to laugh or cry that her body was so hormonally screwed up it couldn’t manage to mature an ova, but it suddenly thought Harry Waxman was attractive. She remembered Harry when she’d first met him: grumpy, disheveled and monosyllabic. The errant and deluded tingle vanished.

“It’s easy. Holly and Hunter are great kids.”

“Yeah.” Harry pulled out his wallet, peeled off some bills and pressed them into her hand. “Thanks again, Alice.”

She stared at the money. It was more than he’d ever paid her for tutoring Holly. “What’s this for?”

“Your time. You shouldn’t be disadvantaged just because Holly’s period came and changed our plans.”

“But I didn’t earn it.” Alice pushed the bills back at him, anger and offense dueling inside her.

Harry folded her fingers over the money. “You’ve earned it ten times over.”

Alice didn’t know whether to feel happy that her mother was completely wrong about Harry expecting something for nothing, or unhappy that she’d misinterpreted her role in today’s family drama and upcoming celebration. It appeared that she wasn’t attending dinner as a family friend, but as a valued employee.

That she felt the distinction keenly made it worse.

Chapter Nineteen

Karen walked into the staff room for a quick cup of tea before her next student arrived. She was back at school for the next few days, helping the Advanced French class students prepare for their oral exams.

“G’day, Karen.” Dan van den Berg was sitting at one of the tables with a stack of papers in front of him.

“Hello, Dan. Grading papers? That’s an unusual sight.”

He laughed good-naturedly, used to the humanities teachers giving him a hard time. “The boss talked me into one seventh grade math class. How are things?”

“Good, thanks.” It was a lie but Karen wasn’t prepared to talk about the big black brick sitting permanently in her chest—the culmination of her worries about Libby and Alice and, more recently, Jess.

“You must be stoked about Alice getting that artist-in-residence gig.”

“Artist in residence?” Karen had no idea what Dan was talking about. “I’m afraid you’ve got an advantage over me.”

Surprise and embarrassment flickered on his face. “I’m sure I read about it in the Gazette.”