Just an Ordinary Family

a dripping mess of sweat. She closed the laptop and switched on the air conditioner, fanning herself with a copy of the latest edition of the Gazette. It was open on an advertisement for a new resort and the photos showed a family romping on the giant inflatable jumping pillow and swimming in the pool. The three children had curly hair.
The ache inside Alice burned. She wanted children and technically in today’s progressive society she could have a child and raise it on her own without stigma. Women did it all the time, although she had a sneaking suspicion that only a very small percentage—either straight or gay—chose to do it that way. Jess was one of those women and strident in her conviction that she was better off having a child on her own instead of involving a man who, would invariably let her down.
But Alice wasn’t Jess. She wanted a partner—she wanted to be part of a team like her parents, and her twin. She’d watched Libby and Nick in action often enough to know that even with a hands-on partner and grandparents to fall back on, there were times when parenthood was a hard slog. Alice wanted more than just to endure motherhood, she wanted to enjoy it. She wanted to share the experience with someone who wanted it as much as she did.
Whether it was being sick or just the inevitable outcome of circumstances, Alice’s New Year’s resolutions that had defended her single life now fell away, exposing a battered but intact belief. Yes, there were happy women actively choosing to live a single life and Alice admired their convictions. Good for them. But Alice wasn’t one of them. They weren’t her tribe and she’d erroneously hitched her wagon to their cause, thinking it would give her strength and purpose.
The problem was she hadn’t chosen to be single—that decision had been forced upon her. In her fevered state she saw two roads in front of her. The popular and oft-quoted road: “One day when you least expect it, Alice, you’ll meet somebody.” But she couldn’t imagine the odds of randomly meeting The One would be in her favor in a city of four million, let alone in a town of roughly 3,000, even when she factored in the 30,000 summer swell.
The second road was the online match. Why had she been so stridently opposed to it before? She had a vague memory of lecturing some poor bloke at the RSL who’d kindly—albeit misguidedly—tried to make her feel better by telling her about his son who “did the on the line dating, love. Met a lovely girl.” After all, how was using a website to find a match any different from cultures who used a matchmaker? Or family and friends? Most importantly, the website she’d chosen was backed by science!
Social science, not real science.
Alice ignored Libby’s voice in her head and reopened the laptop. She faced the next quiz statement—I am looking for a long-term exclusive relationship.
Absolutely agree.
Then channeling the “fake it till you make it” mantra, she tackled the dreaded profile.
AliceIsWonderland33
I find adventure all around me in the big and little things. The silver flash of a dolphin, the shriek of corellas as they dart across a pink sky and the way a painting can transport me to a different place. I love living the outdoor life on the coast and when I’m not sailing or hiking, I’m enjoying novels and doing the quiz in the weekend papers. Are you up for a trivia showdown? I love robust conversations over cups of tea and debates over red wine. I can’t hold a tune but I don’t let that stop me.
The real Alice was buried in there somewhere.
Libby hung up the phone and chewed her lip. Even when Alice was a hundred per cent well, she didn’t always accept her invitations, but should she be taking her twin at her word that she was fine? Alice hadn’t been fine since that bastard broke her heart and destroyed her dreams. Libby still couldn’t believe what Lawrence had done to Alice, let alone how he’d done it. Against Nick’s advice, she’d texted the scumbag, telling him exactly what she thought of him. He’d replied with an infuriating “Sorry.” It had left her enraged for days. Sorry was so easy. So glib. So not enough. Lawrence wasn’t the one watching Alice barely existing and just going through the motions. Worrying about her. Recently though, her twin did seem happier, but on a scale from devastated to content, it wasn’t that big a shift up the line.
Of course, it could be that right now Alice was frantically paddling under the surface like the rest of the town. The irony of living in a tourist destination was that summer was far from relaxing. It brought sunshine and a shipload of stress for the locals as they created a laid-back environment for vacationers. It didn’t leave much time to think about anything other than the job at hand. Not thinking about things was a new approach to life for Libby, but one she’d been perfecting for almost two and a half years.
It had been a revelation to her how much easier it was to focus on other people’s problems instead of dealing with her own. Thank goodness for patients—they had plenty of problems to keep her occupied. She thought about Jess. Her best friend was far from being a problem—she was a blessing—and her return to the bay had been the lone bright spot in a very dark time. Jess’s company always filled Libby with a mixture of joy and exhilaration. Unlike Alice, who either procrastinated until Libby was ready to scream or acted impulsively, Jess always knew what she wanted and went for it. It was a character trait Libby recognized in herself and she’d admired it in Jess from the first day she’d watched the thirteen-year-old sauntering through the school gates on a hot November morning.
Wearing foundation and eyeliner,