Alice on the Outside

  “A little jumpy today, are we?” he joked.

  “Oh, it’s just everything!” I said. “I think I need a new life or a new family or …” I stopped, because I knew what he was thinking.

  I was sure of it when he said, “Darn! Hoped you’d say boyfriend.”

  I just smiled and shrugged and we dropped it.

  He’s nice, I thought. As nice as Patrick? I didn’t know.

  Pamela’s dad was out for the evening, and she invited Elizabeth and me over to make tacos and keep her company. We sat around the table eating supper, and I told them about my row with Dad. How Patrick and I hadn’t been doing anything, really, just trying out a new way to kiss, and Lester’s already talking about “sexually active.”

  “It sounds like I’ve taken up sex as a sport or something,” I complained.

  “Sister Madeline says that what we really have to remember is to keep both feet on the floor at all times,” said Elizabeth.

  “Ha! I’ve got news for Sister Madeline,” said Pamela. “You can still get in a lot of trouble that way too. Keep both feet on the floor and your knees together! Now that’s a challenge.”

  10

  SUNRISE … SUNSET

  MY BIRTHDAY CAME ON A TUESDAY THIS year. There was a huge sale going on at the Melody Inn the weekend before, and another band competition the following weekend, so neither seemed like a good time to have a party. Besides, Pamela was still moping around about her mother, and with one thing and another, no one was in a party mood.

  “I don’t want a party, Dad,” I said. “I’m getting too old for birthday parties anyway. None of the kids I know celebrate their birthdays like that. They just hang out together or something.”

  “What would you like to do, then?” he asked.

  “Just celebrate with you and Lester. Order in Chinese food, maybe. Patrick will probably plan something,” I said.

  “Whatever you want, honey,” Dad said.

  On the one hand, I wanted to be treated like a grown-up. Like a cool fourteen-year-old who didn’t need someone singing “Happy Birthday” for her to know she was appreciated. On the other hand, I expected everyone to remember and do something, though I wasn’t sure what.

  It must have been raining when I awoke on my birthday, because I seemed to have remembered the sound of rain during the night, and it was gray and depressing when I caught the bus for school, even though azaleas were in bloom all over the Washington area.

  Pamela and Elizabeth remembered my birthday, of course, and brought balloons to school. Karen and Jill remembered too. We have this tradition of giving each other one of our favorite pairs of earrings on our birthdays and at Christmas—on loan, of course—and then when the next birthday comes around, we all trade again. So I got earrings from all of them.

  In the cafeteria at noon, Elizabeth stuck a little candle in a chocolate chip cookie for me. Lori came by the table with Leslie and wished me happy birthday too.

  “Your birthday?” asked Gwen, when she walked by and saw the candle. “Your dad taking you out on the town?”

  “No, it’s a busy week. We’ll probably do it up big when I’m fifteen,” I told her.

  What really ticked me off, though, was that Patrick didn’t say very much. He’d wished me a happy birthday on the bus that morning, but he didn’t talk about coming over. Maybe because I didn’t give him any practical suggestions about a present, he simply didn’t buy me one.

  “He takes you for granted, Alice,” Pamela said. “He doesn’t think he has to do anything special to keep you. As though he’s so wonderful, you’ll always be there waiting for him.”

  Elizabeth was more charitable. “The semi-formal’s in two weeks,” she said. “Maybe he’s saving up for that.”

  “Maybe,” I said. “It’s not that I need a present—I just want him to acknowledge that today’s special somehow. To make me feel special.”

  “Of course!” said Pamela.

  Sam remembered, though. He’s my lab partner in life science, and ever since we finished dissecting frogs, we’ve been grossed out examining the lung tissue of pigs. Did you know that a pig’s lungs actually have dirt in them—real, black dirt? You can shake it out! The teacher went on talking about what cigarette smoke does to your lungs, and if anyone wanted to try cigarettes after that, they’d have to be crazy.

  While the teacher was talking, Sam reached over and touched me. I thought he was trying to hold my hand, then realized he’d slipped a small box tied with red ribbon on my lap. I grinned at him and tried to open it without looking down so the teacher would think I was paying attention. Finally, when I felt the lid come off, I slowly lowered my eyes, and then I tried to stifle a laugh: there was a pickled frog’s heart that Sam must have saved from our dissection project, and with it a note that said, I’d give you my own, but I need it.

  The teacher turned around from the blackboard and said, “Something humorous about emphysema, Miss McKinley?”

  “N-No,” I stammered. “I’m sorry.”

  He turned to the blackboard again, and I covered my mouth as I dropped the box in my book bag. Sam and I shot smiles at each other all through class that day, and he walked me to study hall, then went on to gym.

  Well, Patrick, I thought, it’s your fault. You weren’t here and Sam was.

  Something dramatic—traumatic, I should say—happened that afternoon, though, that had nothing to do with my birthday. That morning, in fact, in one of the stalls in the girls’ restroom, I found scrawled on the back of a cubicle door the words Lori and Lesbo, and I realized that somebody else knew about Lori too. I sure didn’t want Lori to see it and think I’d written it. In fact, I didn’t want anyone to see it at all, so I took my ink eraser and rubbed it off the best I could.

  But it was after fifth period that I was walking by the restroom on the second floor with Pamela and heard something going on inside.

  “Go on! Do it!” somebody was saying, as someone else snickered, and when I stuck my head inside, I saw that five or six girls had backed Lori and Leslie into one of the stalls and were crowding around the door.

  “Go ahead, kiss her!” One of the girls laughed and, seeing me, jeered, “They were holding hands at the mall. Trisha saw them. We’re just helping them out.”

  All the girls laughed.

  “Yeah, their coming-out party,” said another.

  Lori’s face was as red as I’d ever seen it. I didn’t know that a human face could be so red. Leslie, though, looked pale, as though she might throw up.

  “Kiss her!” another demanded, pushing Lori and Leslie toward each other, and then they all began to chant: “Kiss her, kiss her, kiss her… .”

  “Stop it!” I stormed into the group, elbows flailing. “Just stop it!” I yelled. I was pushing my way in like a football player. The girls turned and looked at me, but they didn’t move much. I reached out until I had hold of Lori’s arm and pulled her after me, Leslie following, while the other girls jeered again.

  I was angrier than I could ever remember being—far angrier than I’d been with Dad. I’d thought the kids in our school were so tolerant! I’d thought we didn’t discriminate! We just had prejudice of another kind.

  “Didn’t CRW mean anything at all to you?” I went on. “Listen to you!”

  Miss Summers suddenly appeared in the doorway, her eyebrows raised.

  “Hey, we’re not racists!” one of the girls said as I dragged Lori past her. “But we know lesbos when we see them.”

  “She must be one too!” laughed another.

  “What’s going on?” Miss Summers asked, coming into the room.

  “Nothing,” one of the girls said. Two of the others slunk away.

  “A lot,” I said. “A lot of ignorance is going on.” I turned to Lori and Leslie. “I’ve got to get to class. See you …”

  Lori was crying quietly. Miss Summers looked at me and then at her. She put one arm around Lori’s shoulder, staring after the girls who were filing out of the restroom
now. I went on down the hall in the other direction beside Pamela, who hadn’t said a word. If any teacher in the whole school could help, it was probably Miss Summers.

  Pamela looked at me when we were around the corner.

  “Are they?” she asked.

  “Who knows? What difference does it make?” I said.

  She gave a little laugh. “A lot! Do you know what they’re talking about, Alice? Kinky sex. Do you know what lesbians do?”

  I turned on Pamela then. “Do you know what your mother and her NordicTrack boyfriend do? Does anyone ask them?”

  Pamela stared at me. “Alice!”

  “Well, why does everyone jump on someone who’s different? If Lori and Leslie are lesbians, they can’t help it.”

  “Maybe not, but they don’t have to go around flaunting it.”

  “Flaunting it? Patrick and I can walk down the hall right here in school with our arms around each other, we can stop at my locker and kiss, and nobody says a word. But Lori and Leslie hold hands at the mall and look what happens!”

  Pamela started chewing her bottom lip, which is always a sign that she’s annoyed. And I thought, Great! We’re going to have a quarrel right here in the hall because I insulted her mother, and things will get worse and worse between us, and …

  “I didn’t mean to upset you on your birthday,” she said finally.

  “It’s all right,” I murmured. “I’m sorry I said what I did about your mom.” I ducked into history class, but even I knew that part of the reason I’d charged into those girls was because I was already mad at Patrick for not making more of my birthday.

  He wasn’t on the bus that afternoon, and I remembered he had a track meet. I slid onto a seat beside Elizabeth while Pamela hung over the back, telling Elizabeth what had happened in the girls’ restroom up on second.

  Elizabeth turned to me wide-eyed. “You did what?”

  “She charged in there like a mother lion and rescued her cubs,” Pamela said. “You never saw so many jaws drop.”

  “Well, you did the right thing, Alice, even though homosexuality is a sin,” said Elizabeth.

  “Don’t get me started,” I told her. “Not everyone believes the same thing about sin.”

  “What I mean is, being homosexual isn’t a sin, because people can’t help the way they are, but making homosexual love is.”

  “Isn’t that sort of like telling someone it isn’t a sin to be hungry, but it is if you eat?” I snapped. The Birthday Girl was getting madder by the minute. Patrick was off at a track meet, and because of that, everyone who found themselves in my way got run over.

  Pamela got off the bus before we did, and Elizabeth seemed pretty glad when we came to our stop.

  “Well, happy birthday anyway, Alice,” she said cautiously as we separated at the corner and she crossed the street. “I hope you’re doing something special tonight.”

  “Oh, Dad will think of something,” I said, and managed a smile.

  I guess Aunt Sally would say that I gave a Pity Party for myself and didn’t invite anyone. I sat on the couch with a can of Pepsi, staring at the TV, and hardly even spoke to Lester when he came in. I guess the look on my face said that he’d better have a present for me or else, and he must have guessed, because he came downstairs just before dinner and set a gift on the coffee table. That’s where we put presents when it’s a special day, but we don’t open them till everyone’s there.

  Dad ordered in Chinese food and let me pick the dishes, and I didn’t tell them what had happened in the restroom that day because I didn’t want to feel any more depressed than I was. Dad and Lester paid a lot of attention to me, of course, and when we all went into the living room to have cake and ice cream while I opened my gifts, Dad said, “I invited Sylvia to stop by for dessert, Al, but she has parent conferences tonight.”

  “That’s okay,” I said.

  “Sure you don’t want me to call Patrick and invite him over for some ice cream with us?”

  “No,” I answered. “If Patrick can’t remember to do something on his own, then I’d just as soon he didn’t do it at all.” I knew they could hear the quaver in my voice, and I was glad they didn’t say more because I might have started bawling.

  I opened Lester’s present first. He was grinning at me from across the room, and I could tell it was going to be something weird. It was. Out tumbled a fuzzy green octopus with big plastic eyes with black pupils. No matter how you tipped the octopus, the eyes were always pointing in your direction, so it seemed to be looking at you all the time. It was wearing a red patent-leather shoe on each tentacle and a yellow sweater with “Alice” printed on the front in pink—the craziest-looking thing I’d seen in a long time, and I had to laugh in spite of myself.

  “I’ll put it on top of my dresser so its legs can hang down all over the place,” I told him.

  Dad’s present was a gift certificate for the Melody Inn, and for some reason that really upset me. What did it take to give me a gift from a store where he was manager? He didn’t even take time to pick something out? He didn’t even know his own daughter well enough to know what she’d like? I’ll bet he even had Janice Sherman fill out the certificate herself; he hadn’t even taken time to do that.

  “Thanks, Dad,” I said flatly. “It’ll buy a lot of CDs.”

  But as I gathered up the wrapping paper, I could see out the window that the sun had set in a gray sky. My birthday was almost over. All I could think of was, I’m fourteen and all Lester can give me is a stupid stuffed animal? All Dad can think of is a gift certificate from the Melody Inn? And my crumb of a boyfriend doesn’t even show up? This is a birthday?

  I hung around long enough so I wouldn’t seem totally thankless, and then I took my presents upstairs and sat on my bed staring down at my feet.

  If I had a mother, she could do better than this, I thought, swallowing and swallowing so I wouldn’t cry. About nine o’clock Dad stopped at the door of my room. I was propped up on the bed reading a magazine.

  “I’m afraid this wasn’t a zinger of a birthday, Al,” he said. “I’m sorry we couldn’t do a little more this year. Just too many things on my mind, I’m afraid.”

  Yeah, I wanted to say. You’re thinking more about Sylvia Summers leaving than the fact that I’m a whole year older. I’ll be leaving home someday, and how will you feel then?

  But I didn’t say that. “It’s all right,” I lied.

  He waited. “If you’d rather have a gift certificate from another store—the Gap, maybe—just tell me.”

  “No, it’s okay. It’s not you, Dad. It’s Patrick. All he did was wish me a happy birthday on the bus this morning. That’s it. He hasn’t called, hasn’t come over, no present, no card… .”

  Dad leaned against the door frame. “Well, there could be a lot of reasons, Al. People aren’t always going to do things exactly as you want them.”

  “But he’s supposed to be my boyfriend!” I said. “Even Sam gave me something. It was weird, but it was something.” And I told him about the frog’s heart and Sam’s message. Dad laughed.

  “Tell you what,” he said. “Why don’t you just sleep on it, and maybe things will look different in the morning.”

  “That’s what I intend to do,” I told him, and went into the bathroom and brushed my teeth.

  I went to bed at nine thirty. I almost never go to bed before ten—eleven, some nights. But I turned off the light and hated that I could feel tears squeezing out from between my eyelids. Maybe this was the way couples broke up. Instead of one big fight, they just started growing apart, forgetting important things. Maybe this is what happened between Pamela’s mom and dad.

  It’s hard to sleep when you’re angry and disappointed, but finally my eyelids began to feel heavy and I could sense myself drifting off.

  Suddenly my eyes popped open again because there was music coming from somewhere. It sounded like a band—a band playing “Happy Birthday.”

  I threw back the covers and bolted up
, listening, then jumped out of bed and ran to the window in my pajamas. And there on the lawn below, standing around a flashlight propped up on the grass, was Patrick’s combo from school—Patrick on the snare drum, a guy with a French horn, a saxophone player, and a boy playing the clarinet.

  Dad tapped on my door. “Al, I think you’ve got company,” he called, smiling.

  “I know.” I laughed as he stuck his head inside. “Aren’t they nuts?”

  “I think they were waiting for you to turn off your light so they could serenade you,” he said, and left me alone to enjoy the music. I sat on the windowsill, one leg hanging over the edge, probably the only girl in Silver Spring who had been serenaded by the eighth-grade combo on her fourteenth birthday.

  I could see faces appearing at the windows next door. People came out on their porches. I felt I should be tossing rose petals down on the guys, but I just perched there on the windowsill and grinned and grinned. After the “Happy Birthday,” the boys bowed and I clapped, and then they played “You’re the One, Babe.”

  “Surprise me,” I had said to Patrick, and he did.

  The phone rang and Lester answered in the hall, then brought the phone into my bedroom, stopped to pick up a pillow off my bed, and delivered the phone to me on a pillow, like a servant.

  “For the madam in her pajamas,” he said, bowing, and I laughed.

  It was Elizabeth, across the street.

  “Oh, Alice!” she gasped. “It’s the most romantic thing I ever saw. I’m going to hang up and call Pamela and see if she can hear the music over the phone.”

  When the second song ended, all four members of Patrick’s combo threw chocolate kisses up at me, and I tried to catch them, and after a while there were kisses all over the floor of my bedroom. The ones I caught, I threw back and they ate them. Finally, the other boys went on home. I went downstairs and out on the porch, into the warm May night to thank Patrick. Dad left the porch light off.

  It was the first time I’d ever kissed a boy in my pajamas. He backed me up against the wall and gently kissed me, a really tender kind of kiss, and I probably never felt as loving toward Patrick Long as I did right then.