Free Maybe This Time by Jennifer Crusie

make dinner.”
    Alice got the blue marker out of her new set, put the headphones to her Walkman back on, and began to draw swirls on the chiffon.
    Half an hour later, Andie came back with two bowls of tomato soup, two grilled cheese sandwiches, and two glasses of milk, and put half on Alice’s bedside table. Alice ignored her and kept making swirls. Then Andie took the rest of the tray in to Carter, who ignored her knock and glared when she came in, closing the new sketchbook he’d been drawing in.
    â€œDinner,” she said, and put the tray on the table beside his bed.
    He looked over at it, picked up a wedge of cheese sandwich, bit into it, and opened the sketchbook again, careful to shield it so she couldn’t see what he was doing.
    â€œYou’re welcome,” she said, and went back to her bedroom to work on the curriculum since she was going to start beating education into them the next day.
    At eight o’clock, she went to collect their dishes and call bedtime.Alice was sitting on her bedspread, her dinner gone, staring at the sequins and the swirls she’d marked all over the chiffon. “It’s bee-you-tee-ful,” she was saying when Andie walked in.
    â€œYes, it is,” Andie said, and Alice looked up surprised, as if she hadn’t noticed she was there.
    â€œBrush your teeth,” Andie said, prepared for a fight, but Alice went off to the little bathroom on her own. When she came out, changed into her too-big Bad Witch T-shirt, Andie said, “Bedtime,” and Alice picked up her Jessica doll, got into bed, and smoothed the comforter under her hands after Andie pulled it up over her knees. “Let me get the scrunchie out of your hair.”
    â€œNOOOOOOOOOOOO,”
Alice began, and Andie said, “We’ll put another one in tomorrow,” and pulled the scrunchie out while Alice was taking a breath to scream again.
    Her white-blond hair dropped around her ears, smooth and silky now. Alice scratched the top of her head and said, “Okay,” in a normal voice and slid down under the covers.
    So far, so good,
Andie thought, blessing her mother for the tip on the sequins.
    Now maybe if they started a bedtime ritual, Alice would start talking to her.
    â€œSo this bedtime thing,” she told Alice. “Is there anything I should be doing for you?”
    Alice looked down at the rocker at the end of the bed.
    â€œGet you a glass of water?” Andie said. “Read you a story?”
    â€œ
Tell
me a story,” Alice said, and Andie thought,
Oh, hell,
and sat down in the rocker.
    Alice froze.
    â€œWhat’s wrong?” Andie said, looking around.
    â€œDon’t sit there,” Alice said, and Andie moved over to the foot of the bed, and Alice relaxed. “Okay. Tell me the story.”
    â€œOkay.” Andie thought fast. “Once upon a time, there was a princess named Alice who lived in a big stone castle.”
    â€œWas there a dungeon?”
    â€œNo, but there was a moat,” Andie said, thinking of the ugly water that surrounded the place. Their very own mosquito breeding ground.
    â€œOkay,” Alice said.
    â€œShe lived there with her brother and her nanny and a cook,” Andie went on, thinking,
This story sucks.
    â€œThe nanny was a Bad Witch,” Alice said, ignoring the message on her nightgown.
    â€œAnd everybody,” Andie went on, ignoring Alice, “loved Alice.”
    â€œThat’s right.” Alice sat back against her pillows, still clutching Jessica. “Because Alice was very beautiful.”
    Andie looked at the plain little girl in front of her, white-blond hair and skin as pale as her pillows. “Yes.”
    â€œWhat did she look like?”
    â€œShe had beautiful blond hair,” Andie said, almost reaching out to smooth the wisps away from Alice’s face, but stopping just in time. Alice would not like it. “And big blue eyes.”
    â€œBlue?” Alice