Dangerously Alice

  “Want to talk about it?” she asked.

  “Not particularly,” I said.

  “Okay.” She went on stacking plates.

  “Anyway, that’s why I’ve been sort of irritable, I guess,” I explained. “Sort of uncertain.”

  “I know the feeling,” said Sylvia. “Sometimes when we try to please too many people, we get caught up in things that just aren’t us.”

  “Well,” I said quickly, “I don’t plan to repeat what I did today, that’s for certain.”

  Sylvia looked at me intently. “Well, whatever it was, I’m glad,” she said.

  13

  The City at Night

  There’s one cure for feeling so completely lousy and low that I can barely stand myself. That’s finding someone who’s a lot worse off than I am and concentrating on her for a while. The first person who came to mind, other than Amy Sheldon, was Molly, so I drove over there after dinner.

  The thing about Molly Brennan is that she’s always lived “in the moment,” whatever it was. As a member of stage crew, Molly gave one hundred percent to each performance. She was one of those girls who, when she was talking with you, made you feel like you were the most interesting person in the world.

  She’d never had a boyfriend, never had a date, never been kissed, but was simply too busy to care. “It’ll happen when it’ll happen,” she’d tell us. “I’m ready!” Meanwhile, she joined clubs, worked on committees, took flute lessons, learned to scuba dive, got good grades, had a zillion friends, and … got leukemia.

  The hard part about visiting someone who’s seriously sick is you feel you have to say something encouraging. Something cheerful. Something funny. And if you don’t feel encouraged or cheerful or funny, you wonder what good your visit will do. And then you find out that just being there is what’s important, even if you don’t say anything. If you don’t do anything but hold somebody’s hand, it’s something.

  “She’s had a rough week,” Mrs. Brennan said when she met me at the door that night. “She’s made it to only a few classes this semester, and she’s really too sick to go at all. She’s discouraged.”

  “Shall I go on up?” I asked.

  “Go up and ask if she wants you to stay. She’ll be honest. At least she’ll be glad you cared enough to come by,” Mrs. Brennan said.

  Molly was asleep when I came in. I just sat by her bed and watched her sleep. Sat looking at her bulletin board—at her blue ribbons and trophies and pictures and photos and notes and silly little mementos—what a full life she’d had before.

  She stirred and sighed, flopping one arm over the edge of the bed. Her eyes fluttered, opened slightly, closed, then opened wider, staring at me.

  “Hi,” I said. “Just wanted to come by and say hello to Sleeping Beauty.”

  She smiled. “My mouth tastes like gym socks,” she said, her lips dry, sticking together.

  “Day-old socks or week-old?” I asked. She closed her eyes again.

  “I feel yucky,” she said finally.

  “I know,” I told her.

  “My bones ache and my gums are sore and I feel like I’m going to upchuck and I have no energy at all.”

  “We all knew it was going to be rough, but I guess you’re the only one who can tell us just how rough,” I said.

  “Yeah,” she said. “This morning I was thinking about all the lousy times in my life: the time I got stung by a nest of hornets and my face was swollen for a week, and the time I lost my best friend’s key chain … the bone I broke in my foot … the usual miserable things that happen to a person in a normal life. … And I would gladly relive them all just to trade in what I’ve got now.”

  “I can understand that,” I said.

  She was quiet for a while. Then she asked, “What are they saying … about me at school?”

  “That you’re sick and you’re getting treatments and that you’re a fighter,” I answered.

  Molly’s mouth turned down a little at the corners. “I always thought I was too, but now I’m not so sure.” A single tear rolled down her cheek.

  I reached over and stroked her hand. “I’m sure, Molly,” I said. “You’re going to give this old thing everything you’ve got.”

  I didn’t feel any better when I left Molly’s, but I saw life with a little more perspective. I called Gwen, though, and told her how afraid I was for Molly.

  “You don’t think she’ll die, do you?” I asked shakily. “I thought you said the doctors were optimistic.” Gwen had had a high school internship with the National Institutes of Health last summer when Molly was sent there for evaluation, so she knew some of the inside stuff.

  There was too much quiet at the other end of the line.

  “Gwen?” I said.

  “I don’t know,” she answered. “Maybe I was wrong.”

  I stared blankly at the wall. “What do you mean?”

  I heard her sigh. “You know how they tell you that when you’re sick and you go for the results of your tests, you should always take someone with you?”

  That was news to me. “No …,” I said.

  “Well, you should, because if it’s serious, they’ve found, you’ll only hear about thirty percent of what the doctor tells you.”

  “And …?” I said.

  “When I saw Molly in our lab and she told me she had leukemia, I asked the doctors afterward just how serious lymphoblastic leukemia is—the kind she has. What they said was that usually this is a disease in younger children, and the cure rate for them is especially high. What I heard was that the cure rate is high. What I blanked out was that the cure rate for people Molly’s age maybe isn’t that good.” I heard Gwen swallow.

  “Gwen!” I gasped. “How long have you known this?”

  “Since September,” she said in a small voice. “I’ve been doing some reading, asking questions. …”

  “You never told us!” I said accusingly.

  “I know. I got everybody optimistic, and there are still a lot of reasons to be optimistic for Molly. But I thought she’d only be in treatment for a year, and it’s the first big block of treatment that can last for a year. She’ll be in different stages of treatment for two or three years.”

  “Oh, Gwen!”

  “I feel awful,” she said. “Guilty and sad and everything that goes with it. I had no business saying anything at all. But there are things in her favor. Technical things …”

  Just like Gwen said, my brain didn’t focus on “things in her favor.” It focused on “two or three years.” I started to cry.

  “It’s just hard … to know what to say to her anymore,” I wept.

  “Tell her she’s in the best possible hands, which is true,” Gwen said. “Tell her that her doctors are experts at this stuff. Tell her that if one drug doesn’t work, they’ll try something else. And hope, Alice. Hope is powerful medicine.”

  “I want her to live, Gwen,” I said.

  “So does everybody. Have you ever met one person who doesn’t like Molly Brennan?” Gwen said.

  The more I thought about Molly, the more I thought about life and making every day count. And making every day count meant taking chances. Maybe I didn’t take enough chances. Maybe that’s what got me the MGT image with Karen and Jill, not that they were my role models. What if I had run away for a while that night I was so mad at Sylvia? In fact, what if I’d called Liz to go with me, and we’d both disappeared for a day or so? We sure wouldn’t be DD after that!

  Suddenly, without even running it past the automatic censor in my brain, I picked up the list of staff members for The Edge and called Scott.

  “Whuzzup?” he answered. I could hear his TV in the background.

  “It’s Alice,” I said.

  “I know,” he said.

  “Busy? I could call back.”

  “No. It’s okay.” I heard the TV cut off.

  “I was thinking about a story we could do for the paper,” I told him. “Why don’t I go out some night with another girl an
d pose as runaways in Silver Spring. No money. No ID. Then I’ll write up the story.”

  “You want me to get expelled?” said Scott. “I couldn’t assign something like that. You could get beaten up or worse!”

  “Then send some guys along to keep an eye on us—take photos,” I said, my mouth running on ahead of my brain, hoping that Scott would volunteer.

  There was a pause. “I don’t know …,” he said. “What exactly would we be trying to say?”

  “Well, a lot of kids have miserable home situations, and even if they don’t, I’ll bet everyone’s had a big quarrel or something where they just really wanted to take off for a day or two,” I said. “We could show the reality of what it’s like being out in the city at night with nowhere to go. Or we could show what resources are available without getting the police in on it.”

  “Wow,” Scott said. Another pause. Then, “Who would you get to go with you?”

  “Oh, I know someone. She’ll do it!” I chirped hopefully.

  “Let me think about it, and I’ll call you back,” he said.

  Yes! I thought, my heart pounding, and immediately phoned Liz.

  “Listen, DD,” I teased.

  “Don’t call me that,” she said.

  “Well, that’s the way some people think of us,” I told her. “So … you want to do something wild and get your picture in the newspaper?”

  “And get grounded for the rest of my life? Not particularly,” she said.

  “Okay. Without your folks knowing about it, but showing everyone at school just how gutsy we can be?” I said.

  Now she was interested. “Doing what?”

  “It’ll be an article for The Edge, but they won’t use our names. Two girls sneak out late at night and, watched over at a distance by two guys to keep them safe, pose as runaways. We won’t have any identification or money on us, and we’ll see just what help is available to two girls at night in Silver Spring.”

  There was a three-second pause. “I’ll do it,” said Liz.

  “You will?”

  “It’s wild and exciting and fun, and we’re doing it for a purpose,” said Liz. “When?”

  • • •

  When Scott called back, I could hear the excitement in his voice. “Here’s the deal,” he said. “I didn’t even check with Miss Ames because I can guarantee she’d say no. Too dangerous, and the school would be responsible if anything happened. So you’re on your own. I’ve called around, and Don and Tony have agreed to be your backups—keep an eye on you—and Don’s going to get some night photos if he can, silhouette-type. We’ve got to keep you anonymous. I can’t actually assign this—can’t condone it. All I can say is that if you turn in a good story, we’ll run it, with a statement saying we didn’t give our permission but felt it was worth publishing.”

  “Deal!” I said excitedly.

  “The guys’ll call you and set it up for Friday. If you can turn in the copy Monday morning, we can get it in this edition. And, Alice,” he added, “be careful.”

  The dead bolt on our front door makes a loud click when you turn it, so we didn’t lock it after us. Liz and I went down the steps in the darkness. She had come over to spend the night on Friday, and we’d carefully prepared our “look.” Old baggy jeans that looked as though we’d slept in them, because we had, in preparation. Wrinkled T-shirts. Smudged jackets, dirty sneakers, dirty hair, no makeup.

  Dad and Sylvia had gone to bed around ten thirty, so we called Tony on my cell phone one hour later and told him we’d meet him and Don at the corner.

  “Ready?” I asked Liz as we checked ourselves one last time in the mirror.

  She put a folded piece of paper on my bed.

  “What’s that?” I asked.

  “Just in case,” she answered.

  “Can I read it?”

  She didn’t say no, so I picked it up.

  Dear Mom and Dad,

  If anything happens to me, I did this to be helpful to any girl who’s alone in the city at night.

  Love,

  Liz

  I decided that Liz’s letter was explanation enough if we disappeared, and we crept noiselessly down the stairs.

  Tony’s Toyota was parked at the corner. “Where to, girls?” he asked when we climbed in. “Where’s this undercover operation going to take us?”

  “Let’s say we hitchhiked here from some other place in Maryland, and they let us off in Silver Spring,” I said. “I think the first thing we’d need is a restroom.”

  “Alice the Practical,” said Liz.

  “Okay. There’s a twenty-four-hour Texaco just off Georgia, I think,” Tony said, and off we went.

  There’s not a lot of activity at midnight in Silver Spring, I discovered. Tony parked a block away from the gas station, and we all got out. The guys stayed about twenty yards behind us, and Don had his camera set for night photos.

  Liz and I went inside the Texaco. A young man was sitting behind a bulletproof glass enclosure and looked up when we entered.

  “Could we have the key to the restroom?” I asked.

  He studied us for a minute, a small bulge between his lip and his cheek where he’d tucked his tobacco. “Water’s off,” he said. “Sorry.”

  I could tell right away he didn’t want us using his restroom.

  “Aren’t gas stations supposed to be available for travelers?” I asked.

  “You got a car?” he asked.

  “No, we’re walking, but look, we’re not going to sleep in there,” I told him.

  “Or use drugs,” put in Elizabeth.

  “We just want to clean up a little and use the toilet. And we really, really need to go,” I told the man.

  He reluctantly took a key down from the wall and slid it through the change slot in the glass wall. “Five minutes,” he said. “You’re not out in five minutes, I’ll use the master key.”

  Liz and I went to the bathroom. Of course there was water. When we brought the key back, I said, “Do you know anywhere we could stay for the night? Any shelter for women?”

  “Don’t you got no place to sleep?”

  “No,” Liz told him. “And we haven’t eaten since this morning.”

  “Well, I don’t know where you could sleep. But here …” He pushed a package of peanut-butter cheese crackers through the slot, and I think that Don, outside, got a picture. We thanked the man and started off again.

  “You taking notes?” Tony asked.

  “Mental notes,” I told him. “Liz will help me remember the details.”

  “I’m hungry,” she said. “What if we really hadn’t eaten all day? Let’s go to the all-night diner and ask if there are any leftovers we could have.”

  We walked the five blocks to the diner. There were a couple of workmen eating the blue plate special and an elderly man with a piece of lemon pie.

  “Help you?” asked the middle-aged woman behind the counter.

  “We don’t have any money,” I began, “and—”

  The waitress cut me off. “Sorry. We don’t give food away.” She took another swipe at the counter with her rag, her face in a frown beneath the hairnet.

  “Well, we were wondering if we could wash dishes, maybe, for a sandwich. We haven’t eaten since this morning,” Liz told her.

  “We can’t allow customers behind the counter. Insurance regulations,” the woman said.

  “Could we wipe tables, then? Stack trays?” Liz wouldn’t give up.

  “You see any tables need wiping? See any trays?” she asked. “You girls don’t look very malnourished to me. I suggest you go back home and get your act together.”

  It was embarrassing. It was as though she saw through us. As we left the diner, Don got a photo of us, the woman glaring after us in the background.

  It was almost one now, and a light rain was starting to fall. Liz and I huddled together in the doorway of a store, and the guys stood on the steps of a building across the street.

  “What exactly are we doing now?”
Liz asked.

  “Keeping out of the rain,” I said.

  A police car came by. The cop in the passenger seat looked over at us, and the car slowed. It turned around in the intersection and cruised slowly back again. The driver rolled down his window.

  “You girls need any help?” he called.

  “Should we ask him if he knows of a shelter?” Liz whispered.

  “No. We’re minors. They’d take us in,” I whispered back.

  “We’re okay,” I called. “Just keeping out of the rain.”

  “It’s late,” the officer said. “Really shouldn’t be out on the street like this.” He nodded toward Tony and Don on the other side. “There are a number of people around who would probably like to know you better,” he warned. “I’d go home if I were you.”

  “Oh, those guys are okay. We know them,” Liz said.

  “You know those fellas over there?” the policeman asked.

  “Yeah, they’re friends of ours,” Liz said.

  “They’re just keeping an eye on us,” I told him. This time the driver turned off the engine, and both police officers got out of the car.

  “Omigod!” I said to Liz. “They must think we’re hookers and that Don and Tony are our pimps!” I stood up and ran toward the cops, who were now walking across the street. “They’re okay! They’re okay!” I called. “It was all my idea!”

  The policemen looked at us, then at the guys. The camera didn’t help. I had to explain how we were researching an article for the school paper and the guys were along for protection. Don and Tony had identification as staff members on The Edge, but Liz and I had nothing and wouldn’t give our names.

  “Well, I’ll tell you what. This sounds just crazy enough for me to believe you,” the first policeman said. “But there’s been some gang activity going on that we’re watching out for, and I wouldn’t want you getting involved in that in any way, shape, or form. You kids call it a night and go home, and we’ll let it go.”

  “Okay,” said Don. “Thanks.” We walked down the block and all got in Tony’s car.

  “I guess that about does it,” said Tony.