13
ALICE
What do you think of Julia Lerner?’ Alice asked.
It was late Saturday morning, and she and Cheri were in the apartment having breakfast: Alice dipping her Chinese doughnut in the soy milk she’d purchased fresh yesterday, while Cheri peeled back the lid on her second Scandinavian yogurt. As she watched her cousin eat, Alice reminded herself that Cheri didn’t deliberately consume her food to be annoying; that over Cheri’s years of cohabitation with a string of high-net-worth admirers she’d grown removed from the payment of necessities such as rent or car insurance. Each month, when Alice calculated and wrote down Cheri’s share of the utilities, Cheri would receive the sticky note in wonder: ‘So interesting,’ she’d remark. ‘Crazy how the electricity costs so much in winter.’
‘Jul
