Dangerously Alice

  I stood without moving. “Is … is he going to live?” I asked.

  “Carol said not to worry, that his condition was stable. But she thought we would want to know,” said Dad.

  I sat down slowly and looked over at Sylvia, who was curled up at one end of the couch, hugging her knees, then looked back at Dad. “Four people I know have had heart problems!” I said shakily. “Mrs. Plotkin died; Uncle Charlie died; Grandpa died; and now Uncle Milt!”

  “Milt’s alive, Alice, and expected to live.”

  “But if it could happen to him …,” I began, and couldn’t finish.

  Dad understood. “Care to sit on my lap?” he said. I hadn’t heard him say that since I was nine or ten. Like a child, I obeyed. I went over and sat on his lap, leaning back against him. My eyes were welling up already. “I know it’s scary,” he said, patting my leg, “and maybe you’re afraid it will happen to me.” I sniffled. “Well, Milt’s been having heart problems for some time now,” Dad went on, “and I’m doing what I can to lead a healthy life. I’m taking blood pressure medicine and watching my cholesterol, so I expect to go on living for some time yet.”

  “But so did Uncle Charlie,” I mewed. “He thought he would go on living so long, he got married!”

  “I know. His death surprised us all. But if I have any say about this, I’ll be here to watch you get married someday and to play with my grandchildren.”

  I swallowed. “Are we going to go to Chicago to see him?”

  “Carol says she doesn’t think it’s necessary. They got him to the hospital quickly after his attack, and the doctors feel they’ve minimized the danger. She’ll let us know if we’re needed. Right now she’s with Aunt Sally, and she’ll stay until Milt’s home again.”

  I was quiet for a while, my head against the side of Dad’s face. “The awful thing about life,” I said finally, “is that we have to die.”

  “Yep,” said Dad. “All the more reason to enjoy every single day we have. Did you have a good time tonight?”

  I got up and went over to sit on the couch beside Sylvia. “Yes, except we were vastly overdressed. I bought some ceramic earrings. …” I took them out of my purse and showed them to Sylvia.

  “Ooh, I may ask to borrow these sometime,” she said. “They’re beautiful!”

  “And we shared a table with some college guys who weren’t very interested in us,” I said.

  “Even better,” Dad said, and smiled.

  “But I don’t think I want to drive to Georgetown again anytime soon,” I told him. “Traffic was awful.”

  “Then that was a good introduction to city driving,” said Dad. “I’ll admit I had some second thoughts when I watched you drive away. But I’m glad you’re home safe. My car, too.”

  When I went upstairs, I lay facedown on my bed for a while and thought about Uncle Milt and Aunt Sally. About Carol and what she must be feeling about her dad. What should I say to Aunt Sally when I called? What should I say to Uncle Milt?

  I wished I could put a magic bubble around each person I loved and protect them always. And then I remembered that once Dad had said the same thing to me. About me. And I loved that he loved me that much.

  12

  Taking Chances

  Tony hadn’t come near me at all on Tuesday, and he didn’t come by my locker on Wednesday morning, either. I knew he was in school because I saw him with some other guys outside the physics lab. My fear that he’d ask me out—ask me over—gave way to fear that he wouldn’t. When I’d seen him on Monday, Miss Goody Two-shoes had opted once again to be the cautious junior, the inhibited Sunday-school girl, the unexciting Alice McKinley. It was like being on a seesaw. You can feel like a child and an adult, one right after the other.

  The weather was freakishly warm for December 5, almost springlike, though we knew it wouldn’t last. After geometry I sat by the window in World History, the sun warming my arms, eyes half closed. Patrick slid into the seat next to me and glanced over.

  “What’s this? Hibernation?” he joked.

  “Yeah,” I said dreamily. “Wake me when it’s spring. This sun feels so good!”

  “Heard you went to Edgar’s last night,” he said. “Pamela was talking about it before school this morning. Have they got the same band—Blood and Tonic? I heard them once, and they were great.”

  “Yeah, same band,” I said. “I didn’t know you took time to do anything fun, Patrick.”

  “Hey, a guy’s gotta live!” he said, and then the teacher started talking, and the class began.

  Later, as Pamela, Liz, and I went down the corridor to the cafeteria, we saw that kids were taking their lunches outside and eating on the steps. Sitting on the walk.

  “Yes!” said Pamela. “Let’s sit on the sidewalk and bake in the sun.”

  Up ahead we saw that one of the office staff was taping up photos of all the couples who’d had their pictures taken at the Snow Ball. They were arranged in two long rows, one above the other, with a sign that said you could pick up your copies in the office.

  “Omigosh, let’s look!” Pamela squealed as we walked along the rows of smiling couples.

  The office secretary taped up the last one and took her empty box back to the office.

  “There’s Jill and Justin,” said Liz. “My God, look at that dress! And Karen!”

  “Here’s me and my date,” said Pamela. “Not bad!”

  “Lori and Leslie,” I said, moving on. “Penny and Mark. …”

  Some of the couples looked a little geekish, but most were more glamorous than we’d ever thought they could be. And then, right in the middle of the second row, was the photo of Amy and me, my face the color of sunset, Amy looking pleased and proud.

  “Alice?” Pamela said, coming to a dead stop. “What happened? Where’s Tony?”

  I glanced frantically around. The photo of Tony and me was farther down, separated by eight or nine pictures. If anyone missed it, they’d think I came to the Snow Ball with Amy. I could feel my face burning all over again.

  My first impulse was to take the photo down, but then it would be obvious one was missing. “Amy came alone and begged me to be in her picture with her,” I explained tersely. “Come on. Let’s get lunch.”

  Blindly, I made my way over to the cafeteria line, paid for a sandwich, and went outside with Liz and Pamela. I found a space on the concrete wall by the steps and hoisted myself up, wishing that the sun could evaporate me, that I could just disappear. It was chilly without a jacket, but the sun felt delicious, and I let my legs dangle, face turned toward the sky.

  There was a low roar in the distance, gradually getting louder as a motorcycle came into view and careened slowly up the curved driveway in front of the school, a definite no-no.

  Tony and a bunch of guys went over to look. A few girls, too. The cyclist seemed to be a friend of Tony’s, because Tony gave him a slap on the back. It was a sporty-looking cycle, a Kawasaki Ninja, bright yellow with orange streaks and a black seat.

  “Looks like it belongs in a circus!” Liz commented from the steps below.

  Tony turned around to call to a friend, then saw me sitting on the wall.

  “Hey, Alice!” he yelled. “Come and get a look at this.”

  My heart began to race. I put down the rest of my sandwich and slid off the wall.

  “Alice …?” Liz said, but I kept going.

  At the curb Tony introduced me to his friend Steve. “Hey,” Tony said, “how about taking her for a ride?”

  Steve grinned at me. “Sure,” he said. “Hop on.”

  Everyone was looking at me.

  “I—I don’t have a jacket,” I said.

  Tony slipped off his leather jacket and put it on me. It was too big, and I had to shake my fists to get my hands out. But I put one leg over the seat behind Steve, clutching his shoulders, and sat down.

  “Hug me around the waist,” he said, and I had barely put my arms around him when the motorcycle roared off, tipping so far to one side
that I was sure we were going to fall over.

  If Steve was saying anything, I couldn’t hear him. Anytime I tried to look around him, the wind blasted my face, and I had to bury my forehead against his back to keep things out of my eyes. I felt as though my hair were flying off my head, and my fingers had a death grip on the sides of his jacket. I didn’t know where we were headed—Georgia Avenue, maybe—but every time the cycle leaned to one side, I tried to lean the other way to keep us upright.

  “Relax!” Steve yelled when we stopped at a light. “Just go with the flow. You like it?”

  “Uh … yeah!” I gulped. “Great bike!”

  “Got a twin-cylinder four-stroke engine with dual overhead cams,” he said.

  “How long have you had it?” I asked.

  “’Bout a month,” he said, and I lost the rest of the sentence because the light changed and we were off again, weaving in and out of traffic. I wondered if he could feel my arms trembling on either side of him.

  “Aren’t I supposed to be wearing a helmet?” I called.

  “What?” he yelled.

  “A helmet!” I called back. “Aren’t I supposed to be wearing one?”

  “Yeah, but I left my extra at home. You enjoying this or not?”

  I guess I wasn’t sounding positive enough. “Love it!” I lied. “Great day for a ride.”

  “Yeah. We’ve got an event coming up New Year’s Day, if it don’t snow. I know a fella you could ride with!” he shouted.

  “Oh, sorry! I’ll be out of town,” I lied again.

  At the next light he said, “Well, I better get you back,” and when we got the green, he careened around a corner. I don’t know if our feet scraped the ground or if I only imagined it, and by the time we got back to school, the bell had rung and people were going inside. Tony was still waiting at the curb.

  “How was it?” he asked, helping me off the cycle. I took off his jacket and gave it back.

  “Great!” I said. “Terrific motorcycle.”

  Tony and Steve gave each other a sort of salute, and then Steve took off again.

  “So! Decided to live dangerously for a change, huh?” Tony asked me, giving my waist a quick, almost impatient tug.

  “Hey, life’s always dangerous,” I said.

  “You only live once. Gotta do what the spirit moves you to do,” said Tony. And when we got inside, he said, “See you at the staff meeting after school.”

  I guess, just like me, Tony had two sides to his personality, maybe more. Once when he drove me home from a staff meeting, he’d just wanted to talk—about how he feels he’s a disappointment to his dad, who’d hoped he’d be a big sports hero or something. But because of his heart defect, he has to settle for being a sportscaster or sportswriter, and maybe he won’t even get that kind of job. This week he’s Mr. Hot Stuff, the Wandering Hand Guy, friend of Motorcycle Guy. Which was he, really, or was he both? Would the real Tony Osler please stand up? And then, the bigger question: Who was I?

  In speech that afternoon Mrs. Cary faced the class. “Most of you did a pretty creditable job of choosing a topic you strongly believe in and giving a persuasive talk,” she said. “A number of you backed up your talks with excellent research. We heard sales pitches, you might say, against the death penalty, for lowering the drinking age, for spreading democracy in the Mid-East, against using animals in research, pro-abortion, against gay marriage—we covered a wide range of topics here in class.”

  We basked in her praise.

  She continued: “Most of you are taking this class because you want to be able to stand up before a group and speak easily, naturally, without too much nervousness.”

  “I took it because I couldn’t get mechanical drawing for my elective,” some guy said, and we all laughed.

  “Well, that’s legitimate,” Mrs. Cary said. “But to be a good communicator, you also have to be a good listener. You have to be able to sift through what you’re hearing to sort out the logical from the irrational. So here’s your next assignment: I want each of you to take the same subject you chose before and give another three-minute talk, this time taking the opposite point of view.”

  There were surprised groans and protests, but she went on: “So if, for example, you argued against capital punishment, now you have to defend it to the best of your ability. And once again, you’ll be graded on how well you research your argument and how persuasive you are in presenting it to us.”

  “You should have told us about this assignment before we decided on our topics!” said the girl who had argued in favor of chastity before marriage. “This isn’t fair!”

  “Not fair to examine some of your beliefs?” asked Mrs. Cary. “I’m not asking you to change your minds. But teaching you to think is more important than teaching you facts, in my book. The assignment is meant to help you examine a topic from another perspective.”

  I picked up my books at the end of the period and stalked out of the room. After all I had read about the suffering and torture of animals used in medical research, I now had to defend it? Brian and I practically collided going out the door. He had to give a three-minute talk on why we should not lower the drinking age.

  Amy Sheldon caught up with me halfway down the hall.

  “Alice!” she called, and came running alongside me. “I’ve been meaning to ask you a question.” Her voice was particularly loud and irritating.

  “Yeah?” I said, not even slowing down.

  “Do you think there’s something wrong with me because I’m fifteen and I still haven’t started my periods?” she asked.

  “How should I know?” I said impatiently, rudely. “Talk to your mother! Ask your sister! Ask your aunts! I’m not a doctor.” And I shoved through the glass doors at the end of the hall and clattered on down the stairs to my locker.

  • • •

  By the time I got to the staff meeting, Tony had seen the photos in the hall, and he wasn’t happy about the one of me and Amy.

  “I took it down, what do you expect?” he said.

  I was relieved, to tell the truth, but what I said was, “Amy will be disappointed. She’ll be looking for her picture.”

  “Then she can go to the office and buy a copy,” he said. “That made me look like a jerk. What d’ya want people to think? We went as a threesome?”

  The staff was debating which photos from the Snow Ball we should publish in the next issue of The Edge. Not the photos taken by the professional photographer, but the candid photos caught by Sam and Don. We obviously couldn’t use them all. Scott suggested selecting a few of seniors with seniors, since this was their last year to attend the dance, but after that was settled, he still seemed unhappy with the paper.

  “We’re just doing the same old stuff, month after month,” he said. “We need to come up with something different. A real story. An exposé or something.”

  “About the Snow Ball?” asked Jacki.

  “Forget the Snow Ball. Something that’ll get attention. Make waves.”

  “Like what?” asked Don, who looked like a linebacker. “Follow a teacher after hours and report on his nightlife?”

  “Something offbeat but with a purpose,” Scott said. “Everybody think about it. If you get any ideas, call me. There’s still a big hole in the paper we need to fill by the deadline on Monday.”

  Tony drove me home after the meeting in his Toyota. When we got to my street, he pulled over to the curb and parked a block away. Then he reached for me across the gearshift, which was awkward enough, and kissed me. His right hand slid under my jacket, felt its way up my side, and cupped my breast, squeezing and stroking.

  “See you, baby,” he said, letting me go, and as soon as I was out of the car, he rode off.

  I don’t know when I’d felt so down on myself. Tony … the picture of Amy Sheldon and me together at the dance … the MGT and DD tags that Jill and Karen had labeled me. … People might even drag up stuff from last semester—how I’d taken a sex ed class at my church! I felt de
pressed and angry and confused and sad—a whole soup of emotions, all at the same time.

  At dinner I heard myself saying, “Why hasn’t Lester been over for dinner lately? It’s like a morgue when he’s not around.” I was instantly sorry because it really wasn’t true.

  Dad looked at me sharply. “Excuse me?” he said.

  “I’m sorry,” I apologized. “I just miss his jokes.” And then, when neither Dad nor Sylvia replied, I added, “I’ve had sort of a bad day.”

  “Well, so have I, so don’t take it out on us, please,” said Dad.

  I swallowed the bite of potato I’d just taken and looked around the table. “Uncle Milt’s not worse, is he?”

  “No, Sal said his surgery today went off without a hitch. We should know more in a few days. But our plans to rent the store next to us fell through, and I really wanted that space for an annex,” said Dad.

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” I told him, and we continued eating in silence.

  Finally I said, “Do you think the owner would reconsider?”

  “We don’t think so,” Sylvia said. “He’s going to rent the space to a restaurant.”

  That sounded interesting, and I wanted to ask what kind of restaurant, but that didn’t seem appropriate. I knew Dad’s heart was set on expanding the store. After dinner he said he had a headache and went upstairs to lie down.

  “I’ll do the dishes,” I told Sylvia.

  “Oh, I’ll help. Sometimes it’s good just to be doing something with my hands instead of my brains,” she said.

  I carried plates and silverware to the sink while Sylvia rinsed them off and placed them in the dishwasher. Finally I said, “Did you ever feel like saying, ‘Will the real Sylvia Summers please stand up’?”

  Sylvia looked at me and smiled a little. “About once a day in high school. In fact, a few times in college, as I remember.”

  “It’s sort of what I’ve been feeling lately,” I told her. “Like sometimes I don’t even know myself.”