Same Faces Different Places

Blind Date {{FALICE}}

  World:
A Riverdale in which Alice never married Hal and they broke up ages ago already and she's raising their two children practically on her own. The Jones' are new to town.  

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  What the title says...?! Well, kind of anyway... 

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"No" It's not the first time she's said the exact same thing in the last week and she doesn't plan on changing her mind, but her daughter just won't hear it. She needs to be more persistent, she thinks, since it's her last chance to make her daughter see how much she does * not * want to do this.

The Betty had set her up on is tonight and Alice has no intention of going. She hadn't even known she's registered on some dating site until the blonde had come to her last week and told her bluntly that she'll be going out next Friday. She'd been protesting ever since, without much success. She knows Betty and Polly, who's probably in on this, too, only want the best for her and that she won't end up alone but even if she hasn't been dating in a while now, she also hadn't needed her daughters to set her up before that either. And a is just not her thing.

"Come on, mom" Betty pleads one last time. She's tired of this conversation, too, but she's not prepared to give in and cancel on her mother's behalf. "It's * one * date. You don't have to see him again if it turns out bad. Hell, you don't even have to stay if you don't like him, you just ring my phone once and I'll call you back with a made up emergency"

"Yes, because he's definitively never watched a movie before" Alice turns away from cooking dinner, leveling a glare at her daughter. She loves both girls to pieces, but she'd love it even more when they would start minding their own business instead of meddling in hers. "What does your sister say about all this?"

"Polly's set up the dating account, I'm just the one managing the potential candidates" And that is what effectively kills her last way out off this. If one of her daughter's hadn't been good with her dating right now, or even someone she doesn't even know, Alice wouldn't have gone. But both girls ganging up on her, her only way to not go would be to act like a bitch and risk Betty moving into Polly's for a week. It had happened before.

"Alright, where do I meet him?" She's incredibly not happy about it, but she won't let her children down either. She spends the rest of dinner preparations and the following dinner being told what to wear and how to recognize her date and what ever else she needs, but doesn't want to know for tomorrow.

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So it's Friday evening when her daughter shoos her out of the house, after having spend hours helping her pick out her dress and make up. Alice thinks it's way too much and s are, for the most people, the * only * date those two people will ever have with each other. But Betty seems happy and Polly's been by earlier and she seemed happy, too, and so Alice checks her purse again for everything she'd need and leaves with just enough room to get to the restaurant on time.

Alice walks through the door of the fancy restaurant, takes one look around and promptly steps back outside. This is ridiculous. She's neither the type for fancy restaurants, nor s and no matter how happy it makes both her children, she's not going. She feels like a bitch for just not showing up, * she * wouldn't want to be stood up, but she can't do this. This is just too weird and so she takes off the white rose pin Betty had said she needs to wear for her date to recognize her and crosses the street.

She won't be lying to her children and tell them some story about a date that didn't work out; she'll be telling them she didn't go, but she needs a few minutes to herself to prepare herself for the onslaught of questions and looks he'll receive the moment she comes back home just half an hour after having left. The bar across the street looks exactly like a place to do this, and so she enters it without hesitation this time and looks for a seat.