Dangerously Alice

  “How’s she doing, Pamela?” I asked, knowing her mom was still bitter about Pamela’s dad’s engagement to someone else, even though they were divorced, and that it was Pamela’s mom who had run off with a boyfriend in the first place.

  “Better. At least we’ve both learned to listen. We’re talking about stuff we couldn’t before,” Pamela told us.

  “That’s what you guys do for me,” Molly said. “You listen. I’m glad you came over.”

  As soon as I got home from the Melody Inn the next day, Sylvia and I set to work decorating the house. We were probably the last ones on the block to get a tree up and the lights on—a wreath on the door and vases of holly on the mantel. There’s not a lot of motivation to decorate a house surrounded by piles of bricks and lumber, but we got in the spirit and even fashioned a wreath to put on the Porta-John.

  The cat sniffed warily at the Christmas tree and brushed her back along the lower branches.

  “Drink it all in, Annabelle,” I told her. “This is as close as you’re going to get to Mother Nature. Thank goodness you’re not a dog, or you’d probably pee on it.”

  I went to the Christmas Eve service with Dad and Sylvia a few nights later and loved walking out through the little woods surrounding the church to the parking lot afterward, in the darkness of the midnight hour, silently, softly, all of us holding lighted candles. I could see these little dabs of color moving through the trees, then each one going out as people got into their cars.

  George Palamas and his fiancée were treating Les and his other roommate, Paul, to dinner at a fancy restaurant on Christmas Eve, so Les didn’t come over to our place till Christmas Day.

  Sylvia had made a wonderful brunch, and we helped ourselves throughout the long and happy present-opening time. We’d stop for coffee now and then, or for another piece of quiche, or perhaps some chocolate or melon. The snow had melted down a little, but a white Christmas is such a rarity in Maryland—southern Maryland, anyway, where we live—that we kept looking out the window, remarking on a blue jay that alit on a fence post or a cardinal, gorgeous against the snow.

  One by one the presents were opened and admired, slipped on to check the size, passed around to enjoy, or set aside for further inspection later on. If we work at it, we can stretch the opening of presents out for an hour or two, with potty breaks now and then or recess for a round of cheesecake.

  Les usually tucks his gifts to us at the very back of the tree, and he did the same this year. There was a joint present to Dad and Sylvia and a separate box for me. Dad opened his gift from Lester, and both he and Sylvia exclaimed over the digital camera he had bought for them, with a promise of four hours of instruction on how to use it.

  “I don’t know that four hours will do it, Les, but this is a great gift,” said Dad.

  “Now you!” said Les, reaching for the last box, which he handed to me.

  It was a beautifully decorated Nordstrom box, all silvery and shiny with a huge, sparkling silver ribbon and bow.

  “Wow!” I said, and slipped the ribbon off one side. Nordstrom is a really upscale store—not quite Saks or Neiman Marcus, but it has very nice stuff. I opened the lid and found a card on top of the tissue paper.

  “‘To heat up those cold winter nights,’” I read, and folded back the tissue paper.

  “What?” Lester yelped, jerking forward. I startled as he lunged for the box, but it was too late. I found myself holding a red bikini trimmed in white rabbit fur.

  “Wow!” I said again.

  Les tipped back his head and howled. We stared.

  “You got the wrong box!” he bellowed. “No! No!”

  My jaw dropped. This was absolutely fantastic! Now I knew what he was giving his new girlfriend, and I tried not to laugh. But Lester was devastated. Dad and Sylvia looked amused too, but they were trying to look sympathetic.

  “What time is it?” Les cried, looking around for a clock. And then, “Quick, Alice! You’ve got to come with me. Put on your shoes and bring the box. We’ve got to get somewhere before three.”

  I grabbed my shoes, pulled on my jacket, and followed Lester out to his car with the box, the lid, the tissue paper, the card, the ribbon, the bow, and the fur-trimmed bikini.

  “Merry Christmas!” Dad called cheerfully from the porch.

  18

  Keeping Warm on Winter Nights

  I slid into the bucket seat next to Les, and he backed out of the drive.

  “Darn!” I said, looking at the fur bikini again. “I would have been a hit at sleepovers!” I had to press my lips together to keep from laughing out loud.

  “It’s not funny,” Les muttered. “She’s got your present instead!”

  “Yeah? So what’s so awful about my gift?” I asked.

  “Nothing, but it’s not right for Claire,” he answered.

  “So what am I supposed to do? Go grab it out of her hands and give her this one instead?” I asked, neatly placing the fur bikini back in the box, folding the tissue over it, and putting it all back together.

  “She’s been at her sister’s house and said she’d be getting back around three or four,” Lester explained. “I left her present—your present—outside her apartment door this morning. I’d swear the silver one was for you and the gold for Claire. The silver ribbon must have been for Claire and the gold for you. How could I have been so stupid?”

  “What does she look like? Really?” I asked.

  “She’s got long brown hair. Straight. Sort of bangs. Medium height, weight. Maybe a little top-heavy.”

  “What’s her apartment number?”

  “Uh, 302.”

  “And you left the package at her door?”

  “Right there on the mat, propped up against the doorframe. You can’t miss it,” Lester said.

  Les was driving ten miles over the speed limit in a business area.

  “Slow down, Lester! We don’t need a ticket!” I said.

  I just couldn’t stop grinning, though. I kept thinking of that note—To heat up those cold winter nights—and it sent all kinds of images swirling through my head. I was beginning to think that Dad was right: that however mature Lester had seemed when he was dating Tracy, there was still a part of him that hadn’t settled down yet, and that twenty-four for a man—well, for some men, maybe—was still a little young for marriage.

  Les turned onto a street just over the D.C. line where there were several blocks of four-story brick apartment buildings. I looked at my watch.

  “What time?” asked Les.

  “Three seventeen,” I told him.

  “Oh, jeez,” he breathed out. “If she’s home, I’m toast.”

  He passed her building and pointed out the door. “Go inside,” he said, “walk up to the third floor, and trade the boxes. Then come down. I’m going to park a block away so she won’t recognize my car.”

  This was better than a spy movie!

  We rode a block farther, and Les parked, then sank down low in the seat in case Claire drove by. I got out with the present under my arm, turned up my jacket collar, and started off.

  Patches of ice had formed on the sidewalk where snow at the sides had melted, trickled down onto the concrete, then frozen. I had to make my way carefully to keep from falling, and I didn’t want to step in the shoveled snow.

  When I got to the right building, I tried to open the outer door, but it was locked. Now what was I supposed to do? Lester hadn’t said anything about how I was supposed to get inside the building itself. I looked around. No one was coming up the walk. No one looked as though they were heading for this address. Lester, you imbecile! I thought.

  Something moved beyond the door, and I could just make out a man coming down the stairs. He came up to the door, opened it, and looked at me curiously, waiting there on the steps.

  “Thanks!” I said, smiling, and put one finger to my lips. “It’s a surprise!” Then I slipped past him and went inside.

  Up the stairs I went to the second floor, with
its two apartments, one on each side. Up another flight to a landing, then on up to the third and the two apartments there: 302 and 304.

  There on the mat was the present, the one wrapped in gold ribbon and bow. I reached down and replaced that box with mine and headed back down the stairs. One flight to the landing, another flight to the second floor. … As I was going down the last flight of stairs to the ground floor, I saw a woman come inside carrying a small overnight bag in one hand, a shopping bag full of presents in the other. She had long straight brown hair, wispy bangs, medium height. …

  I slipped the present I was holding behind me and stared straight ahead as we passed.

  “Hi,” she said.

  “Hi,” I answered, and didn’t stop till I was outside.

  “Did you do it?” Les asked as I slid in the passenger seat beside him.

  “Yes, you idiot!” I said, showing him the package. “But how was I supposed to get in the building? The front entrance was locked!”

  “Oh, man, I forgot!” he said. “How’d you do it?”

  “A man was coming out, and I squeezed by him.”

  “Clever girl!” Les said. “You’re a winner!”

  “And you know who I met coming out?” I asked him.

  Les reached for the key in the ignition, but his hand dropped. “Claire?”

  “Yep.”

  “Did she see you?”

  “Of course she saw me. She didn’t see the box, though. I kept it out of sight,” I said.

  “Did she say anything?”

  “She said ‘hi.’”

  “What did you say?”

  “I said, ‘Oh, you’re the one with the big boobs that my brother’s so crazy about.’” I sighed impatiently. “I said ‘hi’ and kept going, Lester! What do you think?”

  “Did she recognize you?”

  “How could she? Not unless you carry around a picture of me in your wallet and show it to everyone you meet,” I said.

  “Fat chance,” said Lester.

  “Anyway,” I said as he started the engine, “let’s see what you bought for me. From Nordstrom too! And this better not be a mistake for another one of your girlfriends.”

  “I should be so lucky,” said Lester.

  It wasn’t for a girlfriend, that’s for sure. I took off the gold ribbon, folded back the tissue paper, and lifted out, not a fur-trimmed bikini, but a high-neck red flannel nightgown with a narrow white ruffle around the collar and cuffs.

  To keep you warm on winter nights, the card read.

  I could see why he wouldn’t want to give this to a girlfriend, but I couldn’t hide my disappointment, and Les could tell. He glanced over at me when I didn’t react.

  “You don’t like it,” he said.

  “Last year, when I turned sixteen, you gave me a gorgeous silk robe,” I said. “What am I doing? Regressing?”

  “I just thought that with all the renovations going on, the house would probably be drafty and you’d be cold. A flannel gown would feel pretty nice then,” said Lester.

  “It would feel pretty nice if I were a virginal spinster living in Alaska with no prospects of marrying, ever,” I told him.

  “Hmmmm,” said Les. “Now which of those descriptions doesn’t fit? Let me guess—spinster, Alaskan. …”

  I sure didn’t want to have that discussion, so I said, “Would you mind very much if I exchanged it for something else?”

  “Not at all,” he said. “Get whatever you want.”

  “Thanks,” I told him. “It’ll be red, but it won’t be a granny gown.”

  His cell phone rang just then. Les reached in his jacket pocket. “Don’t you make a sound,” he warned me. And then, into the phone, “Hello?” He immediately turned his head away from me. “Hi, baby,” he said. “Merry Christmas.”

  I grinned and leaned back against the seat.

  “… Glad you like it,” Les was saying. “Yeah … Yeah … Well, I can’t wait to see you in it. Listen, my sister just came in, so let me call you back. … Sure thing. Bye.”

  “I don’t know why whatever you had to say couldn’t be said in front of your sister,” I teased. “I mean, you’d think you were going to spend the night with her or something.”

  “Or something,” said Les, and we laughed as he turned the car toward home.

  I wondered if it was the same for Lester as it was for me—that sometimes you know you’re just treading water, passing the time, and that your real self is just waiting for the right moment, the right person, the right you.

  • • •

  We got our usual call that afternoon from Uncle Howard and Uncle Harold down in Tennessee, wishing all us McKinleys here in “Silver Sprangs” a Merry Christmas. They told us how different it was not having Grandpa McKinley around anymore to supervise the decorating of the tree, as he always did from his La-Z-Boy recliner, and we talked to my three aunts, too, and wished them all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

  Sylvia called her sister Nancy in Albuquerque and her brother in Seattle, and then we called Aunt Sally and Uncle Milt. It was Uncle Milt who answered the phone.

  “Milt, so good to hear your voice!” Dad said. “How are you, and Merry Christmas!”

  The rest of us couldn’t hear Uncle Milt because his voice is soft compared to Aunt Sally’s, but we could tell from Dad’s end of the conversation that Uncle Milt was doing much better. Sylvia talked to him next, then Les, and after I told my uncle how glad I was to know he was feeling better, he handed the phone over to Aunt Sally.

  Aunt Sally wished me a Merry Christmas, like she always does, but something was different. Something was wrong.

  “Did you have a nice Christmas?” I asked her.

  “Well, yes and no,” she said. I heard Uncle Milt in the background saying, “Now, Sal, don’t begin. …”

  “What happened?” I asked.

  “Well, Carol said she was having trouble with her telephone for a month now, which is why I couldn’t reach her at her apartment, so I drove over there last week with some cookies and a mince pie, just so she’d have a little something to nibble on before Christmas, you know.”

  I knew what was coming even before she told me, and I realized I hadn’t reported back to Aunt Sally after Thanksgiving as she would have liked.

  “And I got the shock of my life, Alice,” Aunt Sally said. “A woman came to the door whom I’d never seen before and told me that Carol doesn’t live there anymore. My daughter has moved in with her boyfriend and didn’t even tell her own mother! Why is the mother always the last to know?”

  “Probably because she loves you the most and didn’t want to hurt you,” I said. Sometimes my answers positively amaze me.

  “But … we were always so close!” Aunt Sally said, which wasn’t exactly true, and now she was weeping a little.

  “All the more reason not to hurt you,” I said.

  “You’ve met him, Alice,” Aunt Sally went on. “They were there for Thanksgiving. What did you think of her boyfriend?”

  “We liked him a lot,” I said. “If Carol’s happy, then you should be happy for her.”

  She sniffled. “Well, I’m going to try to do that. I’m going to try not to judge her.”

  “Good idea,” I said.

  “But you know what they say, dear,” Aunt Sally said. “If you can get the milk for free, why buy the cow?”

  “What?” I said.

  “If a man can get sex for nothing, why should he bother to marry?” she explained.

  “You’re not suggesting she charge, are you?” I said, trying not to laugh.

  Aunt Sally gasped. “No, no! I just think that if Carol has marriage in mind, she should hold out till then.”

  “You and Mrs. Shoates would get along great,” I said.

  “Who?” asked Aunt Sally.

  “Never mind,” I said. “It’s not important. What’s important, Aunt Sally, is that now you know, and now you and Carol can be close again.”

  “How did you get to
be so wise, Alice?” Aunt Sally said. “My goodness, Marie would be so proud of you! She really would.”

  Maybe I’d make a good counselor after all, I thought. I pictured myself in my office at school. During Spirit Week. On Pajama Day during Spirit Week. In red. Red silk pajamas. And I knew what I was going to buy at Nordstrom when I took the granny gown back.

  19

  Call from a Friend

  The construction crew didn’t work between Christmas and New Year’s. The bricks lay undisturbed, the equipment untouched, the Porta-John standing alone in the front yard.

  “Oh, the blessed quiet!” Sylvia said. “I was beginning to hear their constant hammering in my sleep.”

  “Enjoy,” said Dad, “because the real noise begins when the men get back and start tearing down the back walls.”

  “At least these few days will give us time to move everything out of our bedroom and into Lester’s,” Sylvia said. “I still don’t know how we’ll do it. We’ll practically be living on top of each other for a couple of months. I hope we can all keep a sense of humor.”

  “What about the downstairs?” I asked.

  “The back walls in the kitchen and dining room come down too,” said Dad. “All the dining room furniture has to be squeezed into the living room. The refrigerator needs to go there too, and a plumber’s going to set up a temporary sink.”

  “Wow,” I said. I wasn’t sure whether this sounded adventurous or awful. We’d gotten used to the huge sheet of opaque plastic hanging beyond the back door of the kitchen and the windows of the dining room, and for now, anyway, there were walls in front of it that kept out the noise and the cold.

  Sylvia grabbed my hand. “Come on. Let’s go snoop while the workmen are gone,” she said.

  I got my jacket and followed her outside. We made our way around to the backyard, stepping over stray boards and bricks. The frame rose up two stories, with waterproof sheeting tacked to the outside. We got to the makeshift steps leading to a back entrance and stepped inside. It felt strange to be standing inside the skeleton of our new addition.