Simply Alice

  But there was no time to talk with her about it. I was going to E-mail her, but forgot, and when I finally sat down at the computer, I found there were two old E-mails from her I’d never answered. The fact was, I often had to go to school early for a meeting of the newspaper staff, and I stayed every day after school to work with the stage crew, and only rode the bus a few times a week.

  When I got on one morning, Pam and Liz were laughing together at some private joke. I took the seat behind them, got up my nerve, and finally leaned over the back of their seat, trying to sound as friendly as I could. “What’s up?” I asked.

  “Nothing. What’s with you?” said Elizabeth.

  “Everything’s going on at once,” I said. “I feel I’m going around in circles.”

  “So we’ve noticed,” said Pamela.

  “You guys want to get together this weekend?” I asked. “Saturday night, maybe?”

  “Busy,” said Pamela.

  “Sunday?”

  “We’ve got Tiddly Winks then,” said Elizabeth.

  “Sunday night?” I offered.

  “Sorry,” said Elizabeth. “I’ve got something going on.”

  “Gosh, I’m not the only one who’s crazy busy right now,” I told them.

  “Yeah,” said Pamela, and turned to look out the window.

  At lunchtime, when I got my tray in the cafeteria, I was heading to the table where I always sit when Molly, at a closer table, waved me over. I looked across at where the gang had gathered, and the only vacant spot was beside Pamela, across from Elizabeth. If the noontime conversation was going to be anything like it had been on the bus that morning, why put myself through it?

  “What’s up?” I said, sliding in beside Molly. And we chatted about the musical.

  “What did you think of the casting?” she asked me, vigorously attacking her ham and cheese sandwich.

  “Ecstatic that Kurt got the lead. He’s perfect!” I said. “The choice for Golde was good, too.”

  “Tzeitel was a surprise, though. Charlene Verona’s the only freshman who got a part. Her voice is great, but a lot of girls in the chorus are jealous,” Molly said.

  She went back and got two ice-cream cups for us, and I was just finishing mine when Pamela and Elizabeth and Brian Brewster walked by, taking their trays to the counter.

  “Hey, Al!” said Brian. “What’s the matter? We’re not good enough for you?”

  I could tell he was joking, and I quickly tried to make a joke of it myself. “No, I’m just too popular, I guess,” I said laughing.

  I saw Elizabeth and Pamela nudge each other as they walked on by. I put my head in my hands. Why did I say that? Why is it that sometimes your mouth says the very worst thing possible, like it’s detached from your brain? I didn’t want to live like this, having to be so careful! It was like walking on eggshells. I had to watch every single thing I did or said or somebody got mad.

  “Headache?” Molly asked.

  “Big time,” I told her.

  I decided I just couldn’t afford to get upset right then. There was too much to do, and I had to turn in the first of my articles to the school paper, not to mention homework which was piling up like mad. My first article would be about tryouts—the hopefuls, the feeling of being left out and stuff. I wouldn’t use any names, of course. But I wanted to get inside the skin of every person who gets up onstage and sings, knowing afterward that you haven’t done your best, that others were better than you, that the director’s comments about your “nice” voice were just that, “nice,” but not too exciting. And yet, it couldn’t be a put-down of the kids who had ended up in chorus. I couldn’t make them sound any less important.

  So I wrote the piece from my own viewpoint—a girl who couldn’t carry a tune, so she was content to work behind the scenes painting sets and gathering props and leaving the glory to others. I wrote it humorously, and was really surprised when Sara and Nick, the editors, put it on the third page of our four-page newspaper. First page is best, of course, but third is next best, because your eye falls on the third page when you open the paper.

  I started out: For a girl who can’t carry a tune, being a member of the stage crew for the spring musical, Fiddler on the Roof, is as close as I’ll ever get to glory… . And I ended with: … so here I stand, paintbrush in hand, while those braver than I, and certainly more talented, sing their hearts out up onstage, knowing that while only a few of them get the coveted roles, the rest of us will provide the backup, the greasepaint, and the props to get this production off the ground.

  I was amazed at the response. Kids came up to me the next day and said, “Loved the article, Alice.” And, “You really can’t carry a tune?” Stuff like that. Patrick stopped me as I was coming out of gym and put one hand on my shoulder. “Enjoyed the article, Alice. Really funny.”

  Mr. Ellis liked it a lot. So did Faith and Molly.

  “You said it for all of us,” said Faith. “Except I really wouldn’t want to be up there onstage. I like behind-the-scenes stuff.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah. You know what I’d like to do? Work for some repertoire company. Be one of the permanent stage crew that dresses all in black and comes onstage to change props between scenes.”

  “Maybe you will,” I said. “Where would you go? New York?”

  “Yeah, that would be best, but I’ll probably end up going wherever Ron does,” she said.

  The two people who didn’t mention the article at all were Elizabeth and Pamela. When I got on the bus that afternoon, they were so busy talking about Tiddly Winks that they had everyone’s attention and ignored me completely. I asked them a question and they answered, but then they went right on talking, their voices unnaturally high and loud, and I knew they were putting on a show just to hurt me. I could hardly stand it. How could girls who liked each other as much as we did suddenly turn on one of their own this way? Couldn’t they see that I was drowning in work right now, but it wouldn’t always be this way?

  I decided that when Elizabeth and I got off the bus together, I would confront her about it. But when we reached our stop and I stood to get off, Liz stayed where she was and I knew she was going on to Pamela’s. I walked home alone, tears in my eyes.

  Why does everything have to stay exactly as it is or somebody gets mad? I knew they resented Molly and Faith, but wasn’t I allowed to have other friends? Did it have to be just “Alice, Elizabeth, and Pamela” forever? I wondered how I’d feel if Elizabeth joined a club I didn’t belong to, and seemed to be spending all her time there. Or if Pamela got a new friend and did things with her that she didn’t do with me. I probably wouldn’t like it, either, but once Fiddler on the Roof was over, we could be closer again. I just had to ride it out, I decided.

  I was still getting compliments about the article on Monday, and could feel my face flush with excitement when anyone praised my writing. Several teachers commented on it, too. I ducked in the rest room once to see if my face looked as warm as it felt, and suddenly my heart seemed to be beating double time because the gold locket I’d put on that morning was gone. There was my face and the white expanse of my sweater beneath it, but no gold locket, not even the chain.

  I panicked. My mother’s gold locket! The only real piece of my mother I had left—her hair. I retraced my steps as fast as possible, all the way back to my last class, but couldn’t find it. I checked my pockets, my backpack. Then, crying, I went to the school office to ask at Lost and Found.

  “We’ll let your homeroom teacher know if it’s turned in,” the school secretary said. I had to get a pass to my next class and went in, my eyes red.

  There was a stage crew meeting again after school, so I was late going home. But when I got to my locker for my jacket, I found a piece of paper stuck in one of the narrow ventilation slots.

  I think you dropped your locket leaving

  class today. I tried to slip it through this

  slot, but the heart was too big to go

  t
hrough. If you’ll meet me at the statue

  at 8:10 tomorrow, I promise I’ll be there

  and will give it to you then.

  Crazy About You

  4

  Behind the Curtain

  I wanted my locket back.

  Could CAY—the watcher, the stalker—possibly have unfastened it somehow? But even as I thought it, I remembered having trouble with the hook that morning when I put the locket on. Maybe it hadn’t been fastened completely. The note said I’d dropped it when “leaving class today.” Did that mean this person was in a class with me? Which one?

  I didn’t tell anyone about CAY this time. I couldn’t have told Pamela or Elizabeth if I’d wanted to, because they didn’t answer my E-mails anymore. We said “hi” to each other in the halls, out of courtesy, but then they turned away or I turned away. As I sat staring out the bus window the next morning, I wondered again how this could have happened to us in the space of a few weeks.

  Deep inside, I knew that what I should do was go over to Elizabeth’s house, invite myself in, and have a face-to-face talk with her. Apologize for anything I’d done wrong. But I was angry, too. I hadn’t done anything except get involved in school activities that didn’t include them. Make friends with girls they didn’t know. Was this the way it had to be when you were best friends with someone—they controlled your life, who you could see, what you could do? Is that what was happening with Faith and Ron?

  They’re the ones who should apologize, I told myself, and so I just stared out the window and thought angry thoughts while Pamela and Elizabeth, sitting behind me, were probably doing the same—all three of us making ourselves miserable.

  At school, I got off first and headed for the corridor where my locker was, but when I was sure they had gone to theirs, I backtracked and went down the stairs to the auditorium. Once again, no one was there—just kids coming from their buses, heading for class. If he stood me up again …!

  I glanced at my watch. Nine minutes after eight. I turned slowly around, studying every person coming toward me, but they all went by. When I turned again, I was face-to-face with a familiar blond guy several inches taller than me, wearing an Eddie Bauer jacket, a backpack over one shoulder. He just smiled and held out an envelope. I took it. I could feel the shape of the locket inside.

  “Thanks,” I said. “I don’t know where I dropped it.”

  He was in my biology class, and had thick blond eyebrows that formed a bridge over his nose, a mouth that turned slightly down at the corners when he smiled. He opened his mouth then, but nothing came out. Instead, he blinked his eyes a couple of times and finally he said, “O-O-On the floor in b-b-b-biology.”

  I kept looking at him. “Are you Cay?” I asked, then felt myself blush when I realized he wouldn’t know I’d been referring to him by those initials. It was his turn to stare now, and then he got it. He grinned and nodded.

  For some reason, we both laughed.

  “You sit over by the window, don’t you? Second table?” I asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “I was afraid you were a stalker. Some creep who was going to follow me around school the rest of the year.”

  He laughed again. “N-Not to worry.”

  I looked at my watch again. “I’ve got English first period.”

  “Me, t-too,” he said. “Mr. Larson.”

  “Worrell,” I told him, and we started walking together. I glanced over at him. “Do you always E-mail girls you want to meet?”

  This time he didn’t look at me, just smiled, his eyes straight ahead. “Just you.”

  I smiled back. “I don’t bite.”

  He laughed then, and changed the subject. “That was a g-great ppp-piece in The Edge.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “It was a lot of fun to write.” We’d reached my class. “Thanks again for returning my locket. It was Mom’s and it’s all I really have of her. A lock of her hair, I mean.”

  He looked serious then. “She died?”

  “Yeah. When I was five. My aunt gave me this locket of Mom’s for my fourteenth birthday.”

  “I’m really sss-sorry,” he said.

  “But Dad’s getting married again this summer. To my seventh-grade English teacher. It’s really wild.” I glanced inside the classroom. “Anyway, thanks … uh … Eric?”

  “Yeah. Eric F-Fielding.”

  “I’ll see you,” I said.

  “See you,” he answered, and walked away. Smiling.

  When I sat down in my chair, I opened the envelope. There was Mom’s locket, and inside, the lock of her hair. No note. Just the locket, as he’d said.

  I slipped it around my neck and made sure it was fastened right this time. He seemed nice. Sort of shy, maybe. Possibly because he stuttered. But at least I knew he wasn’t some creep. Wait till I told Pamela! And then I remembered about Pamela and Elizabeth, and felt hollow inside.

  This wasn’t right! I told myself. I shouldn’t have to feel guilty about making new friends. The problem was that Elizabeth was too wrapped up right now in her own troubles to take on anything else, and Pamela, who had always seemed self-confident to me, had gotten scared off by the competition in high school and wanted to return to the safe little threesome we used to be. In a way, I wanted that, too, but I also wanted more.

  I told Dad and Lester about Eric at dinner that night. Before dinner, actually. Dad was cooking Chinese, and when he does that, Les and I have to get all the veggies chopped and ready to throw into the wok when he wants them.

  “He seems really nice, just shy,” I said. “And he stutters.”

  “You’ve got to watch out for shy, stuttering guys,” said Les, dropping a handful of bean sprouts into the wok as Dad stirred them around in the oil.

  “Why?”

  “They’ll grab a girl’s heart every time because they seem so vulnerable.”

  “Oh, I don’t know. Eric looks as though he could take care of himself very well,” I said. “Were you ever shy?”

  “Was I ever shy? Why, I’d flatten myself up against a wall so tight you’d think I was wallpaper,” Lester said. “If a girl came up to me at a school dance, I’d be looking for the nearest exit.”

  “That I don’t believe for one second.”

  “I was! Timidus Extremus, that was me.”

  “When did you decide to pull out of it?”

  “I didn’t. When I saw how popular it was making me, I milked it for all it was worth.”

  I gave him a look and turned to Dad. “How about you?”

  “I was shy in grade school, maybe even high school, a little. By the time I got to college, though, I figured if I really wanted something, I had to go after it, and after that the shyness took care of itself.”

  “Well, I think Eric’s nice, and not because he stutters or he’s shy, but because he returned my locket.”

  “I’m glad you got it back, honey,” said Dad. “Your mother would have enjoyed seeing it on you.”

  I checked my E-mail that night. There was a message from Eric:

  I’m glad we finally connected and

  you’re convinced I’m not a stalker. You

  lost your Mom when you were five, and

  that’s about the time I started stuttering.

  They’re not the same, I know, but I

  guess we’ve got that much in common:

  A difficult five!

  Eric alias CAY

  I E-mailed back:

  Hi, Eric alias CAY

  Thanks for returning my locket.

  I owe you one.

  Alice

  What happened the next day after school was so unexpected, so shocking, I couldn’t believe it.

  I’d heard some of the people on the stage crew talking about “earning your tattoo,” and a few boys had joked about their own tattoos, but I figured it was a guy thing. Except for some extras who wander in from time to time, the stage crew for this production consisted of Molly and Faith and me, and four guys—Richard, Devon, Harry, a
nd Ed. They’re sort of a combination burly-funky-macho-artsy, and I think they’ve all got a body piercing somewhere. Friendly, though. Or so I thought.

  When we met again the following week to start painting one of the backdrops for the outdoor scenes, I had just walked backstage with a paintbrush to ask where they wanted me to start, but I didn’t see anyone there. Molly and Faith had gone to the home arts room to get the burlap pillow someone had stitched for us, but I was looking for Ed or Devon, who were doing the painting.

  Suddenly the heavy black curtain at the back of the stage rippled, and then a couple of hands grabbed me, pulling me back behind it and down over somebody’s knee. I was on my stomach, sprawled over a guy’s leg.

  “Hey, Alice, it’s initiation time!” Ed said. “You gotta get your tattoo!”

  My first thought was that it was a joke, but then I felt two hands tugging at my jeans, and my second thought was that I was about to be raped. Fingers were fumbling around in front, trying to unzip my fly because my jeans hardly budged, and when I started to kick and scream, I heard Devon’s laugh, and a turpentine-smelling hand went over my mouth.

  “Hey, hey, hey! Be good, now,” Devon said.

  I was struggling and trying to bite the fingers that were over my mouth, but somebody else appeared—Richard, I think—and they held me so tight, I couldn’t move.

  “Hey, guys, cut it out. She doesn’t want it,” came Harry’s voice from the other side of the stage.

  I was practically upside down, like a kid over her dad’s knee, and my jeans and underpants were halfway down my bottom when somebody pressed something cold and hard against my right buttock, and then they let me go.