Dangerously Alice

  “I guess I’ve been pretty mad at you too,” I said. “I mean, now and then. Off and on.”

  “Yeah?” said Sylvia. She propped her feet up on the coffee table beside mine. “So … tell me about it.”

  “You’re my analyst now?” I joked, and she laughed.

  “The only thing I have to throw at you is popcorn, so you’re safe,” she said, and began to eat again.

  I took a deep breath. “Well, like you said, it’s hard for us, too—for me, anyway—to have someone come in and join the family. We just do some things differently from you, that’s all. Sometimes you seem angry, and I can’t figure out what I’ve done. Other times … other times you don’t seem to be thinking of me at all. You just barrel on with your own plans—about the remodeling of the house, for example—like you … like you’re taking over.”

  “Hmmmm,” Sylvia said. “I guess I do get excited about things, and assume everyone else feels the same way. Ben’s such a sweetheart that he doesn’t usually object, and I just go sailing along.” She looked over at me. “Anything else?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Why haven’t you ever yelled at me about riding that motorcycle?”

  Sylvia looked startled for a moment. “Someone’s been talking,” she said.

  “I wormed it out of Marilyn,” I told her, “so I know you saw me that day. Why didn’t you ever say anything?”

  “Because later that day you told me that you had done something you wouldn’t do again, and I guessed you were talking about that motorcycle ride. I wanted to give you the benefit of the doubt. And Ben’s had so much on his mind lately, I didn’t want to add that as well.”

  I told her then how it had happened.

  “I guessed it was something like that,” she said. “I think I know you that well. Anything else? Anything at all?”

  “I can’t think of anything at the moment,” I answered. “But if I do, I’ll let you know.”

  “Promise?” she asked.

  “Promise.”

  She sighed contentedly and leaned her head back. “This is the best dinner I’ve had all week,” she said. “I’ve got to remember this when I’m too tired to cook.”

  Our stocking feet were touching now, and Sylvia rubbed her toes against mine. “Let’s think about dessert. What would taste good after eight cups of popcorn?”

  “A caramel sundae?” I suggested. “With chocolate ice cream, of course.”

  “Of course,” said Sylvia. “Whipped cream?”

  “Naturally. And a maraschino cherry,” I told her. “No nuts.”

  On Tuesday, I saw a small cluster of kids standing in front of the glassed-in bulletin board in the front hallway.

  “Hey, Alice!” Sam called to me. “Come and look.”

  I walked over. He pointed to the story that had appeared in the Washington Post on Saturday, second page of the Metro section, with a picture of the demonstration outside the school. STUDENTS CHOOSE CONTROVERSY was the headline.

  The reporter had written that fourteen students from Mrs. Cary’s eleventh-grade speech class had demonstrated in support of her controversial assignment to examine both sides of an issue that affects them emotionally.

  “An irresponsible and dangerous precedent,” said the objecting parent, Marsha Shoates, who is considering removing her daughter from the Montgomery County Public School System and enrolling her in homeschooling instead. “It’s unfair to ask students to reveal some of their most deeply held beliefs and then demand that they challenge them.”

  The article mentioned some of our signs, quotes from us, and then one from our principal:

  “We’re proud that our students take their assignments seriously,” he said. “We’re aware that it’s difficult to examine an issue one feels strongly about, but the object here is not to change an opinion necessarily, but to help students learn to study a controversial subject from many viewpoints—the hallmark of an educated person.”

  Scott came up to me then and gave me a hug. “Hey! You did it! You made the Post!” he said. “This gives me some ideas about a story on censorship when we get back from winter break. Don got some great photos.”

  I probably clung to him a nanosecond longer than he clung to me, and then … I couldn’t resist. It was either now or never. I reached up and kissed him on the cheek. He looked down at me, puzzled, but only smiled and turned to someone else. Embarrassed, I bleated, “We all did it! The power of the press, huh?”

  I’d thought he at least liked me, and I suppose he did. But it wasn’t the way I liked him. I thought of going up to him sometime in private and saying, How do you get over someone you’re crushing on? Someone who doesn’t feel the same way about you? just to let him know what I was going through. But I couldn’t. If I’d been at his house instead of Tony’s? If it had been Scott who had nudged me onto the bed? Would I have resisted? Maybe not.

  We got our PSAT scores that same day, but I didn’t open mine till I got home because I wasn’t sure what to expect. Dad has never pressured me to get all A’s or worry about whether a grade has a plus or minus beside it. “Just do the best you can, Al,” he always said, and I tried. I get more B’s than A’s, but I don’t get many C’s, except in math, so I guess you could say I’m a B+ student. Still, the PSAT sounded so official. Like, whatever I might have thought of myself before, the PSAT was the real McCoy. The PSAT was truth; it was my future. Pass or fail, sink or swim, what would it be?

  My heart was actually racing as I opened the envelope. I read that the test measures three things: critical reading skills; math problem-solving skills, and writing skills, on a scale of 20 to 80, with 80 being the highest score you could get. The halfway point between those two numbers would be 50. I turned the page to see my scores:

  Critical reading skills:

  74

  Math skills:

  48

  Writing skills:

  77

  I guess I did better than what I’d expected in reading and writing and about what I’d feared in math. The total of my three scores was 199 out of a possible 240, and the report said that the average for high school juniors was 147. I wasn’t so dumb, then, except in math. I would go to college! I wouldn’t have to clean public restrooms or Porta-Johns. I put my report on the little stand beside Dad’s chair and treated myself to a handful of M&M’s.

  Brian came back to school on Thursday, one hand bandaged up, a bruise on the left side of his face. His court date was three weeks away, and he wasn’t supposed to talk about the accident, but he did. We gathered around him in the cafeteria.

  “Yeah, I had a few more beers than I should have, but the thing is, the other guy had been drinking too, we found out! They said I was speeding, but he’s the one who ran the stop sign.”

  “Brian, what about the people in the other car?” I asked. “Was anyone killed?”

  “No. The driver’s mostly okay, and the older sister didn’t get hurt much. It was only the kid in the backseat who got thrown, and if she’d had her seat belt on, she’d probably be okay,” he said.

  “But how is she?” I demanded.

  “You think they’d tell us anything?” he complained. “Dad finally called the hospital and got someone to give us the story, but it wasn’t too bad. Broken pelvis or something. I feel bad about that, but she’s going to be okay.”

  Gwen and I looked at each other in disbelief, then at Pamela and Liz.

  “Brian, it’s possible that the little girl is going to have some physical problems for the rest of her life,” Gwen said.

  “Maybe, but you don’t know that!” Brian protested hotly. “Bones can heal. But if they take away my license for a year, what am I supposed to do?”

  We could only stare.

  “What you’re supposed to do is suck it up,” I said. “That’s what you’re supposed to do.” I wadded up my sandwich wrapper, picked up my tray, and left the cafeteria.

  Gwen and Pamela and Liz followed me outside. I felt so hot, I literally had to cool off. I s
at down on the stone wall, the same wall where I’d been watching Tony and his motorcycle friend when they’d called me over. I just felt … I don’t know … like … like I was leaving something behind. But it was Liz who put it into words.

  “The old gang just isn’t the same anymore, is it?” she said.

  I looked out over the street where cars were moving—the traffic pattern constantly changing. “Is that it?” I asked. “I’m feeling so … split! I’m just so furious at Brian and how he doesn’t even seem to care! After all that, it’s still all about him. He’s changed.”

  “I don’t know, has he really?” asked Pamela. “Or was he like this all along? Maybe we’re the ones who have changed.”

  “It’s not just Brian,” I said. “I don’t even like Jill and Karen anymore. They used to just puzzle me. Now … they don’t like me either, and I’m not sure I care.”

  Gwen sat down on the wall and put her arm around me. “Hey, girlfriend,” she said. “We still like you.”

  “You’re one of the newer members of the group, Gwen. What do you think?” I asked. “How do we seem to you?”

  She appeared to be thinking it over. “I guess I’ve never expected people to stay the same,” she told me. “Sometimes we change for the worse, sometimes for the better. There were some things I liked about Brian, some things I didn’t. But, hey! There were even things I didn’t like about you after I got to know you.”

  “What?” I said, turning to face her. “Like what?”

  I couldn’t tell if she was laughing or frowning. “I don’t quite know how to say this, Alice, but did anyone ever tell you that you can’t sing worth a darn?”

  We all broke into laughter. I bumped her with my elbow. “Hey, just because you sing in a church choir, you don’t have to be so uppity about it,” I said.

  “Let’s go,” said Liz. “I’m freezing.”

  The bell sounded, and we went inside.

  17

  Lester’s Goof

  Snow. Beautiful snow. Our last day of school before the holidays, and I woke to a four-inch snowfall. Schools were opening two hours late, so I ate a leisurely breakfast in my pajamas beside the kitchen window.

  The blanket of white covered the piles of lumber, the bricks and cement blocks of the construction crew. It frosted every branch, every twig of the azalea bushes and the maple. I felt as though it buried all the mistakes and quarrels of the past few months and gave us all a fresh start. If only.

  Pamela called and suggested we put on boots and hike the mile and a half to school, just for the fun of it. I called Liz, and she said she’d do it. So forty minutes before school began, the three of us set out with wool caps pulled down over our ears, scarves whipping about in the wind. Other kids were doing the same, and we called to each other in the frosty air, the sun almost blinding as it reflected off the snow. It was intriguing to be the first to make an imprint in the soft white stuff, and yet, looking around, I felt guilty about mucking up the landscape. If only the mistakes we make could leave no imprints at all.

  “What are you doing for Christmas, Alice?” Pamela asked.

  “Not much,” I told her. “Not with all this renovating going on.”

  “I suppose I’ll spend Christmas with Mom and New Year’s with Dad and Meredith. We’ll probably go out to eat,” Pamela said.

  “Have they set a wedding date yet?” Liz asked, remembering that Pamela’s dad and girlfriend had gotten engaged over the summer.

  “No, I think maybe they get along better when they only see each other a couple of times a week,” Pamela said. “It works, and that’s fine with me. I hate quarreling. If I ever marry, we’ll have to sign a prenup agreement saying that whichever one of us starts a fight has to apologize first.”

  “Yeah, right,” I said.

  “We’re going to my aunt’s house,” said Liz. “She’s got kidney disease and wants to have Christmas there while she can still do the cooking and decorating and stuff.”

  “I hate sickness and death and dying!” I said loudly. “I want it to stop right now!”

  Liz laughed. “Me too. Throw in war and global warming while you’re at it.”

  “I wonder what kind of Christmas Molly’s going to have,” I mused. “It’ll probably be the worst Christmas of her life.”

  “Let’s take her some snow!” said Liz.

  “What?” I said.

  “Snow. Let’s go visit her tonight and fill a plastic container with snow, seeing as how she doesn’t get out in it.”

  We laughed. “Deal!” I said.

  It was a good day at school. The teachers were easy on us and didn’t pile on a lot of work for the holidays. Most had given us long-term assignments in advance, and it was up to us whether we wanted to do them over Christmas.

  The cafeteria was noisy—everyone talking about where they were going over the holidays. Tony and I were still politely avoiding each other, and that was fine with me. I was totally relieved that that was over. I heard from someone that Patrick had already left town with his parents for their usual skiing in Vermont and wouldn’t be back until after New Year’s. Gwen had a ton of relatives coming. Everyone had something fun to report except Brian, who didn’t want to talk about the holidays. He was furious because the insurance company wouldn’t go along with his claim that his car was totaled. Not only were they not paying him all he thought he should get for repairs, but they had upped his rates as well.

  I made a point of searching out Amy Sheldon as the others left the cafeteria, and I sat down with her as she was finishing her sandwich and a carton of milk, sucking noisily on her straw when she reached the bottom.

  “You were mad at me the other day, weren’t you?” she asked, staring right at me the way she does. It reminds me of a baby’s stare—the way little kids stare at strangers with no self-consciousness at all.

  “Not really,” I said. “I was sort of mad at the world.”

  “How can you be mad at the whole world?” Amy asked.

  “Easy,” I told her. “I was just having a bad day. I’m sorry I was so rude.”

  “That’s okay,” Amy said. “I was just wondering why I haven’t got my period yet, since I’m old enough and everything.”

  “You’re small, Amy, that’s probably it,” I told her. “You just have a bit more developing to do, and your body will catch up. Everyone’s different.”

  “Yeah, and some are more different than others,” she said.

  “Hey, Merry Christmas,” I said.

  “You too, Alice,” she answered, and gave me a big smile.

  We took the bucket of snow to Molly that evening. Gwen and Liz decided we should carol on her front porch, so Gwen drove us over in a brother’s car. Liz, Gwen, and Pamela—all three—have good, strong singing voices, and I was sure my job would be to stand there holding the plastic container of snow with the big red ribbon on top. I was flabbergasted when Gwen handed me, instead, the metal triangle and stick from a kid’s rhythm set and instructed me to make a loud ping after each phrase.

  I stared at it. “How did you know?” I asked.

  “Know what?”

  “That this is what they gave me in grade school to make me shut up,” I said.

  The others stared at me, and Gwen looked conscience-stricken. I told them how the music teacher had made us sing a song a group at a time, then two at a time, to figure out who was singing so seriously off-key.

  “I’m sorry!” Gwen said. “I only did it as a joke.”

  But suddenly all four of us burst out laughing.

  “Hey, I’m over it now,” I said. “I’ll ping your little triangle. I’ll even tap-dance if you want me to.”

  It was just growing dark as we gathered on the Brennans’ porch. We had told Molly’s mom we were coming so the TV wouldn’t be on. Unless you’ve got a whole choir, it’s hard to compete with a TV set.

  “Silent night, holy night,

  All is calm, all is bright …”

  The girls sang, and I
went ping!

  We were halfway through the second verse when the porch light came on, and Molly’s curious face appeared at the window. Then she broke into a smile and left to open the door.

  “Oh, you guys! You’re the best!” she said. “Come on in!”

  Mr. and Mrs. Brennan were smiling in the background, and two of Molly’s sisters were watching from the stairs.

  We came in, laughing, and handed Molly the plastic tub.

  “What’s this?” she exclaimed, sitting down on a chair in her jeans and sweatshirt. “Ooh, it’s cold!” She lifted off the lid and shrieked. “You nuts! You’re absolutely crazy!”

  “We thought you’d like a little taste of the great outdoors,” Liz said, and I went ping on the triangle.

  The Brennans laughed as Molly playfully buried her face in the snow for a second and came up all frosted. “Put it in the downstairs freezer for me, Mom,” she said.

  “Yes, and when you’re well, we’ll have a snowball fight, no matter what month it is,” said Pamela.

  “I’ve been feeling a little better this week,” Molly said. “My legs don’t ache as much.”

  We had other small gifts to give her, and then we sat and talked for a while. She’d seen the story in the paper about the demonstration—about speech class and about Jennifer Shoates and all the different topics we’d discussed in class.

  “I don’t know, I sort of agree with Jennifer that it’s a raw deal to tell you to choose something personal and then make you take the opposing point of view,” Molly said.

  “But if you knew at the beginning that you’d have to do that, you’d choose a subject you’re only lukewarm about, and what would you learn from that?” I argued.

  “Maybe you’re right,” said Molly. “But frankly, I think Jennifer was brave to stick it out. If my mom had come to school and made a scene, I’d have died of embarrassment.”

  “No, you wouldn’t,” said Pamela. “My mom embarrassed me in New York last spring, and I’m still here, aren’t I?”