Free The Alphabet Sisters by Monica McInerney

into town for a long, slow cup of coffee.

Chapter Four
    A t last, at last, at last.” Lola held Bett tight in another hug, then stepped back to look at her again, a wide smile on her face. She had been sitting waiting on a chair at the front of the motel for the past hour. “You had me worried sick. I thought I’d have to start the party without you.”
    Bett was surprised to find herself fighting tears. “As if I’d let the birthday girl down.” Another hug. “Let me look at you.” Bett took a step back, still holding Lola’s hands. She’d felt bones under Lola’s pink clothing. “You’ve lost weight, Lola.”
    Lola was looking at her just as closely. “So have you. Not too much, thank God. I wouldn’t know you without your curves.” She tucked a bit of hair behind Bett’s ears. “And your eyes are as beautiful as ever, your cheeks as rosy, and I like that color in your hair. What’s it called? Chestnut brown?”
    “I don’t know what it’s called. It’s my own color.”
    “Is there such a thing? Imagine that.”
    Bett glanced around her. “Are the—”
    “Others here? No darling. I poisoned them all this morning. I decided it would make for a much more peaceful life if you and I had the place to ourselves.”
    The sound of the front door opening halted any more questions. Bett looked up as her mother and father came out toward her. “Bett! Welcome home!” She was enfolded in hugs from another two sets of arms.
    An hour later, her head was spinning with news of the motel, of the Valley, of the party that night. There had been no sign of Anna or Carrie yet, and no mention of them. Her parents hadn’t asked her too many questions about her life in London either. They knew some of it, of course, from her letters and phone calls, so it wasn’t as if she had crawled in from the wilderness. But she had just got back from three years overseas. Shouldn’t they have had more questions?
    Lola was sitting on the sidelines, watching beady-eyed. Grasping a break in the conversation, she stood up with a groan loud enough to make them all look at her, then crossed to Bett and tucked her hand into her arm. “Now, come on, Bett, I’ll help you unpack. And while we do that, I want you to tell me every little thing you’ve been doing while you’ve been away.”
    Lola was like a mind reader sometimes. “You know it all. It was in my letters.”
    Lola steered her out of the kitchen. “They were a tissue of lies. I know that, and you know that. Come on, darling. You can tell me the truth now. By the way, I’ve organized room six for you, your favorite.”
    Lola and the three girls had been sleeping in the motel rooms rather than the manager’s quarters ever since the family first moved in, fifteen years before. It had been Lola’s idea. She’d decided it was better to use the rooms during quiet times, rather than have them lie idle and unused, getting all musty.
    As they walked out into the sunshine, Bett noticed quite a few rooms had a car parked in front of them. “It’s busy enough for this time of year.”
    “Not bad, actually. Carrie has been working hard. Mostly one-nighters, though room two has been here for two weeks now. An English fellow. He’s coming along tonight, actually. I called on him last week, had a very nice chat. He’s researching a book or something fascinating like that. I’m dying to find out more about it.”
    Bett kept her mouth shut. Many times in the past her mother had asked Lola not to call on the guests like that, but she was obviously still ignoring her. It would be a bit alarming, Bett supposed, to be booked into a motel room and have a heavily made-up old lady carrying a clinking gin and tonic appear at your door asking for your life story.
    With a flourish, Lola produced the key to number six. “Here you are, darling. All yours once again. I actually had to move a couple out that Carrie had accidentally booked in. I said there might be a problem with a nest of