20
ALICE
The mansion was steel and glass and light, a box of electricity set high in the hills of Los Altos. From the passenger seat of Cheri’s Audi, Alice watched the brake lights of the car in front, a Tesla with a custom green paint job, wink on and off; every twenty seconds or so the car would lurch forward as the inhabitants of another vehicle alighted and went in. It was only when they drew closer that Alice could make out details of some of the guests: a man with blond hair, dressed in loose shorts with a dangling drawstring, clasping the hand of a woman in a red bandage dress. ‘Yes!’ the woman was shouting. ‘f*****g awesome!’
Oh God, Alice thought. Please let me get through this.
It was ten days earlier that Alice had hit upon her idea: how she might resolve the issue of Julia
