Dangerously Alice

  “Touchdown! Touchdown!” I screamed. “We got a touchdown!”

  I looked around. No one else was cheering.

  “What?” I said. “What?”

  “Sit down,” said Les. “There was a flag on the play.”

  I stared. The Redskin who had been doing a victory dance between the goalposts suddenly stopped. A referee switched on his microphone and waved his arms, but I didn’t understand a thing he said. All I knew was that the touchdown didn’t count. Turned out it wasn’t even the Redskins’ ball. So what did the players do then? Went into a huddle and talked about it.

  At school the talk was of the PSAT, Halloween, and the Snow Ball. Because Halloween fell on a Wednesday this year, no one seemed to be planning anything. We were simply too busy, for one thing. Too much homework. And we certainly weren’t going trick-or-treating anymore. As for the Snow Ball, I hadn’t been asked to go as a freshman or sophomore, and suddenly, as much as I’d liked going to the Homecoming Dance with my girlfriends, I wanted to go to the Snow Ball with a guy. To be asked by a guy. And not just any guy: a senior. And not just any senior: Scott Lynch.

  I tried to figure out the odds of his asking me.

  Pro: He’d sat next to me for a while at the game.

  Con: He was a popular senior; I was a junior.

  Pro: The way he smiled at me.

  Con: He smiled that way at everyone.

  Pro: He’d squeezed my shoulder once.

  Con: So what?

  When we had our staff meeting on Wednesday after school to lay out the photos and write-ups of Spirit Week, I tried to catch Scott’s eye and see if there was any spark. See if his smile lingered a bit.

  “Hey, Alice!” he called. “Look at this one.”

  I went over to the layout table and stood as close to him as I dared. The photos Sam had taken of Mismatched Day and Pajama Day and Wild Hair Day were lined up across the table. Scott was pointing to a close-up of my legs, the one in red stocking and boot, the other in net stocking and heel.

  “Yeah!” said Tony, grinning. “Let’s use that one!”

  “Sold!” Scott said, smiling at me, that luscious, wide, lip-stretching, teeth-gleaming smile. Then, to Don, he said, “Show me your five best shots of the football game and the Homecoming Dance, and let’s see what we’ve got. We’ll do a double-page spread.” As he passed by me in the narrow space between table and desk, Scott’s fingers rested on my arm for just a moment. I wanted to put my hand over his and keep it there forever.

  Later, as I wrote down my assignment for the next issue, I found I had made elaborate S’s and L’s in the margins all up and down the page.

  I didn’t have Dad’s car that day, so after the staff meeting Jacki Severn dropped me off at the corner nearest our house. She was reciting some of the Halloween parody she’d written, which was funnier on paper, I hoped, than it seemed when she recited it aloud. The gist of it was that it was the one holiday of the year when everything was the opposite of ordinary—when ugliest was best, the grosser the better. …

  “I’ve got this great idea for the Snow Ball issue,” she said just before I got out. “There’s this computer graphic of icicles, and I want them hanging from the top of each page, with pictures of couples dancing on the double-page spread.”

  “Sounds good,” I said. “You going?”

  “Hope so,” she answered. “If the right guy asks me.”

  I felt sure that her “right guy” was the same as mine, and my heart sank. I trudged the half block to my house feeling about as gray as everything around me. The sky looked more like November than October, and the wet leaves clumped on the sidewalk were depressing. I wished I had something to look forward to that weekend. That somebody was giving a party. Anything. It seemed like most of my life now was dictated by something else—namely, school. When to get up, where to go, what to read, what to wear, when to eat …

  I opened the front door and put my books on the hall table. As I hung up my jacket, Sylvia called, “Alice! In here! Come see what I’ve got.”

  “What?” I asked, and walked into the living room.

  Sylvia was standing by the fireplace holding a cat in her arms. It was a white cat with irregular patches of black on it, not especially attractive. The eyes were yellow, and the cat was probably about a year old. Not a kitten.

  I stared at it. Then at Sylvia. After Oatmeal died when I was in fifth grade, I’d made up my mind that when I got another cat—if I got another—it would be what I wanted, when I wanted one. Dad had surprised me with the cat in the first place, and Sylvia was surprising me now. I didn’t want something to love and lose again without having any say in the matter.

  “Whose is it?” I asked, unsmiling.

  I saw a flicker of disappointment in Sylvia’s face at my reaction.

  “Well, right now it belongs to one of the teachers at school, but she’s having a back operation and asked if I could keep it for three weeks.” She bent her head and rubbed noses with the cat. “Her name’s Annabelle.”

  “Oh,” I said, and sat down on the couch, making no move to go over and pet it.

  “The thing is,” Sylvia continued, “Beth—my friend—is going to need a second surgery after this one, and a cat’s a little more than she can handle. If we want to, she’ll let us keep Annabelle. Otherwise, I guess we’ll have to find her another home.”

  “Yeah, a cat’s a lot of work,” I said.

  Sylvia studied me, then sat down on a chair across the room, Annabelle on her lap. “I wouldn’t mind the work,” she said. “I think I like having one more thing to love.”

  “Well,” I said, picking up a magazine and flipping through the pages. “Whatever you want.”

  “It’s not just what I want, Alice,” Sylvia said. “I only agreed to take her because I thought we all might enjoy a pet.”

  “I already had a cat,” I told her. “And I’d sort of like to be in on a decision before it becomes a fact.”

  “Of course,” Sylvia said. “We won’t keep her if you don’t want to.”

  “But see? Now I’m the bad guy!” I protested. “I’m put in the position of saying no, and I hate that!”

  My voice was too loud, I knew. Annabelle’s ears lay back for a moment, then perked up again.

  For a short while Sylvia just sat stroking the cat. Then she said, “You’re right. I’ll see if somebody else at school can take her, and if you’re ever ready for a pet, you can choose it.”

  “Thanks,” I said. I got up and started toward the kitchen to get a snack. Suddenly the cat leaped off Sylvia’s lap and dived for my ankle. I could feel her claws like pinpricks through my sock.

  “Ouch!” I yelled, giving her a little fling with my foot.

  Sylvia laughed. “Oh, she was just trying to catch that long string on the bottom of your jeans,” she said. “It was dragging on the floor.”

  “Well, she grabbed my ankle, not the string,” I said, rubbing my foot.

  “Come here, you!” Sylvia got up and picked up the cat, and I went on out to the kitchen, furious that I had to play the role of spoiler.

  When Dad walked in the door that evening and saw Annabelle, he said, “Well! What have we here?”

  Sylvia came out of the kitchen and said, “I’m afraid I should have asked first, Ben, but Beth, at school, is having back surgery tomorrow and I agreed to keep her cat for three weeks. If you think you can stand one for that long …”

  “I certainly don’t mind,” Dad said. “A cat on my lap might feel good on a cold fall evening.” He looked over at me, and I stuck my nose in my geometry book again, hating myself as I did it, angry at Sylvia for creating the situation in the first place.

  I really didn’t want to be difficult. I hadn’t planned this. But I would like some say in my life. I hate when things just happen to me. Like, deal with it, Alice! So much of my life is planned by others that I can’t even choose my own pet?

  Things were too quiet at dinner. I tried really hard to pretend tha
t nothing had happened. But as I talked about school, my voice sounded unnatural. Sylvia’s was too polite. Dad could sense that something had gone on between us. I looked up once and saw the glance that passed between them and knew right away that when dinner was over and they were alone, she’d tell him everything—like what a snot I’d been.

  I guessed right about Dad and Sylvia. Around nine o’clock, when I was sitting at my computer Googling twentieth-century poets, Dad came to the door of my room.

  “Al?” he said. “Sylvia says she’s not going to keep Annabelle. Is that what you want?”

  I lifted my fingers from the keyboard. “Yes. And …?”

  “Well, I think she’s really fallen in love with that cat. I’m afraid it would break her heart to give it up.”

  “So? Keep it. Why are you asking me?” I said coldly.

  “Because she feels really bad that you’re against it.”

  I whirled around in my chair. “Okay, what do you want me to do, Dad? Just tell me and I’ll do it. Go downstairs and say that I always wanted a cat named Annabelle? Why do you even ask me stuff when there’s only one right answer? Either I cave and say, ‘Great! Let’s keep her!’ or I’m the bad guy and Sylvia’s upset. Do whatever you want and leave me out of it, will you? When there’s a decision to be made where I have some real input, let me know.”

  Dad’s voice was strained and matter-of-fact. “Okay,” he said, turning, and went downstairs.

  That wasn’t what I wanted either. I wanted him to stay and discuss it with me. All my feelings, not just this. Now, no matter what happened, somebody would be mad. Things were just too tense with Sylvia around! Sometimes it seemed as though she didn’t even try to fit into the family. Just went off and did things her way.

  I went in the bathroom, filled the tub with hot water, and soaked awhile, sinking in up to my chin. For two cents, I thought, I’d go to the Humane Society tomorrow and come home with a dog. I had no idea I’d fall in love with a dog like this! I’d say. It would break my heart to give him up.

  I tried to be really nice to Sylvia at breakfast, and I think she was trying to be nice to me. Dad was all business, like he wasn’t going to take sides, and Sylvia and I would have to work it out ourselves.

  Annabelle was batting a spool of thread around the kitchen floor. It pinged against her water dish, then sailed into the dining room. It smacked against the opposite wall and came spinning out into the middle of the floor again, making Annabelle jump. I almost laughed, but caught myself in time.

  Dad kissed us both good-bye when he left. It was a perfunctory kiss on the top of my head, but at least it was a kiss.

  “Life sucks,” I told Pamela that day at school.

  “Don’t I know it,” she said. “What happened?”

  I told her about Annabelle. “It’s not enough that I say, ‘Okay, keep it.’ I have to be happy about it! I have to say I want it! I have to lie!”

  “So lie!” said Pamela. “Here’s the way I look at it, Alice. You give in on this one, and then Sylvia owes you big-time. Someday you’re going to want something from her, and then you can pull out all the stops. All you’ll have to say is, ‘Remember Annabelle?’ and you’ll get what you want.”

  It made sense, but I also realized that if I expected Dad to let me have friends in the car when I drove—to move the date up from December to November—I’d better start making concessions now and quit making waves. But it took some time before I could get the words out.

  Sylvia came home late from an after-school meeting a few days later, and we worked together in the kitchen, cutting up beef cubes and celery for stir-fry.

  “Listen, Sylvia,” I said. “I want to clear the air about Annabelle. She’s not my cat, and this is your house as well as mine. If you want to keep her, I really don’t care, as long as I don’t have to look after her. I mean, as long as we understand that she’s your cat, not mine.”

  “Of course, Alice. But our relationship means a lot more to me than Annabelle. Are you sure of this?”

  “Yeah, I am. Someday maybe I’ll want to choose my own pet and maybe it will be something you don’t want, who knows?” I said. “But it’s okay. You like this cat, and it’s silly of me to object.”

  “All right. And I’ll take the responsibility for her—feeding, brushing, trips to the vet, litter box …,” said Sylvia. “Thanks, Alice. I’m really surprised that I’m so fond of her already.”

  I felt better then. I’d had my say, and even felt I understood Sylvia a little better. Maybe women who’d had hysterectomies and couldn’t have children of their own needed pets more than others, I thought.

  Dad and Sylvia celebrated their first anniversary on October 18. It was a Thursday night, so Dad left work early, Sylvia came straight home from school, and they got all dolled up and went to the Four Seasons restaurant in Georgetown for dinner, with tickets to a show at the Kennedy Center later. I played the part of the magnanimous daughter who babysat an ugly cat without complaint while they were gone.

  Annabelle really was fun when I let myself admit it. I left my bedroom door open, and she sauntered into the room, tail straight up like she owned the place. She meowed a couple of times, then jumped up on my bed and started purring, kneading her paws into my bedspread.

  “Go away, you conceited fur ball,” I told her, scratching her under the chin. “Who made you Queen of the Universe, anyway?”

  It was most fun to watch Annabelle at my window. She was an indoor cat, Sylvia said, never having set foot in the great outdoors. But she quivered and crouched in the pounce position when a bird landed on a branch nearby.

  “You don’t know what you’re missing, kid,” I told her. “There’s a big wide world out there, and you’re stuck inside forever.”

  On Halloween night, I stayed in to study. I told Sylvia I’d man the front door, though, and I wore a tall black witch’s hat. When the doorbell rang, I’d answer with a large bowl of candy in my hands.

  First the Milky Way bars disappeared. Then the Mars bars and the little packs of M&M’s. Tootsie Rolls were the last pieces chosen.

  I was just about to turn off the porch light at nine o’clock, signaling that we were through with the treats, when a group of six rowdy kids came to the door. As I answered, my witch’s hat tipped to one side and fell off. I stooped to pick it up, and in that one moment I saw Annabelle slip through the doorway and out into the night.

  4

  Crushed

  “Sylvia!” I yelled. “Annabelle’s outside!”

  “You let her out?” she cried from the other room, where she was grading papers on the dining room table.

  “I didn’t let her out. She slipped through the door,” I said. The kids, seeing that I was distracted, reached in with both hands, grabbing candy by the fistfuls.

  In the light from the porch, I could see the cat on the sidewalk below, sniffing the air, her quivering tail straight up. But as the children went galloping back down the steps, she disappeared into the bushes.

  “Alice, I told you she’s never to go outside!” Sylvia said, pushing past me in the doorway and hurrying to look over the porch railing. “I didn’t want her to even get a taste of outdoors! Now she’ll always be meowing to go out.”

  “Well, then you should have locked her in the basement or something while the kids were trick-or-treating,” I said defensively, going out on the porch and down the steps.

  “Annabelle!” Sylvia called. “Here, kitty, kitty, kitty!”

  Unless she knew something about cats that I didn’t, I doubted Annabelle would come just because Sylvia called her name. Do cats even know their names, and if they do, do they care?

  Sylvia came down, and we crouched by the azalea bushes, parting the branches with our hands, trying to see into the darkness.

  “Annabelle?” Sylvia kept calling. “Here, kitty! Here, kitty, kitty, kitty!”

  The branches scratched my hands, my cheeks. I knew this would happen, I told myself. This wasn’t my cat, yet
here I was outside in the dark when I had a ton of homework waiting for me.

  We moved along the row but couldn’t see anything. A car was coming down the street a little too fast, and Sylvia jerked upright, staring at it, expecting, I’m sure, to hear the squeal of brakes and the cry of an injured cat.

  “I’ll get a flashlight,” I said, and went back inside, then came out with two of them, handing one to Sylvia. “Let’s check around the side of the house.”

  “She may have run across the street or even followed a child home,” said Sylvia, and her voice had a slight accusatory tone. I didn’t answer.

  We shone our flashlights on the holly bushes and the rhododendron. I got down on my hands and knees and crawled through to the back, shining my light along the base of the house. The ground was wet, and I came back with muddy knees and with twigs in my hair, but not with Annabelle.

  “Oh, Alice!” Sylvia said in dismay. There was that tone again.

  “Well …,” I said, and paused. “I’ve got to turn in a paper tomorrow, and I’m not even halfway done. I’m going back inside.”

  Sylvia ignored me. “She’d walk right in front of a car and not even know what it was. A dog could tear her apart in seconds,” she continued.

  I took a deep breath and held it. “Maybe if we opened a can of tuna, she’d smell it,” I suggested.

  “That’s an idea,” said Sylvia.

  I clumped back in the house and found the tuna. I opened it, then brought it out and handed it to Sylvia. She held it out away from her as though it were a magic wand and slowly turned around and around in a circle, like she was casting a spell or something. But no cat materialized.

  Still another group of Halloween stragglers was coming up the walk, but we waved them off.

  “Well, I’m going back to my homework,” I said.

  “I’ll keep looking,” said Sylvia.

  Inside, I settled down again with my clipboard and reference books. Fifteen minutes went by. Then twenty. Twenty-five. I began to feel awful, and angry that I did. I remembered how terrible it had been back in fifth grade when I found my cat dead on the kitchen floor. But it was almost more horrible imagining what might be happening to Annabelle this very minute. I wondered if I should have stayed out there to help. Then I heard Sylvia’s footsteps on the porch, and she came in. No cat.