Alice in the Know

  “Now!” shouted Liz, tugging at my arm. “Duck!” She pulled me down. I held my nose, and with her tugging at me from one side, Pamela from the other, I tried to sit on the ocean’s bottom. I could hear the rush of water over my head, feel my body sway with the current, but I wasn’t swept up in it. And when Pamela and Liz pulled me to my feet again, the water around us was calm.

  “It worked!” I said in wonder, wiping the water from my eyes.

  “Get ready! Here comes another one!” shouted Liz.

  Down we went a second time as the next wave washed over us. All I could hear was a roar. This time I stood up laughing, excited, eager for the next one. It was as though it was me against the ocean, and I had won. It could hiss and roar and throw a tantrum, but I was safe as a snail if I kept to the bottom.

  You feel ten feet tall when you do something that had always frightened you before. Between each wave, we hurriedly moved out a little farther, and finally the waves were breaking behind us, and the water ahead of us was calm.

  We floated around on our stomachs, then our backs. The lifeguard—a short, stocky guy in red trunks—blew his whistle when we got too near a rocky breakwater, and we had to swim away from it.

  “You think I should drift over to the rocks again and make him come get me?” asked Pamela mischievously.

  “No. There are riptides,” Liz said. “But you could always lie at his feet in the hot sand and have a sunstroke. That would get his attention.”

  After we’d showered that evening and tried to get every last grain of sand out of our private places, we ate take-out food on the screened porch with Mr. Jones and Meredith. Nobody wanted to cook our first night at the beach. Meredith wanted to watch an Orioles game on TV, so she and Mr. Jones sat on one side of the porch at a card table while we chattered away on the other. We’d planned to spend the rest of the evening on the boardwalk and were hugely disappointed when a steady rain began to fall. We decided to just hang out back in our bedroom and plan what we were going to do the next day.

  Once the door closed behind us, though, Pamela said, “I feel weird.”

  “Weird how?” I asked.

  “Dad here with somebody else. I know he deserves a little happiness, and I’ll be glad if he marries again, but … I don’t know. Weird.”

  “Things happen,” I said. “People change. My dad didn’t plan on losing my mom. Your dad didn’t plan on being single again.”

  Liz sighed. “How do you ever know what’s ahead?”

  “I may not get married at all,” said Pamela. “I’ll be one of those women who’s married to her career.”

  “I want both,” I said. “I want two kids—maybe three—and I want to live near Dad and Lester. I want my children to have aunts and uncles and cousins and grandparents coming in and out of the house all the time. At Christmas. I want two dozen people at my table … and big picnics on the Fourth of July. I want—”

  Somebody’s cell phone was ringing, and we dived for our bags to see whose it was. Then we recognized Pamela’s ring, which sounds more like an ice-cream truck than a cell phone. She checked the number before she answered. “Mom,” she told us. Then, “Hi, Mom,” and held the phone away from her ear so Liz and I could hear. I lay back on the bed.

  “Hi, Pamela. I just wanted to make sure you got there okay. Traffic bad?” came her mom’s voice.

  “Horrible,” Pamela told her. “It took twenty-five minutes just to get over the Bay Bridge because of the backup.”

  “You girls having a good time? What all did you do today?”

  “Well, it’s pouring right now, but it was nice earlier,” Pamela said. “We just walked the boardwalk awhile and went swimming.”

  “Well, it will be warm, anyway,” Mrs. Jones said. “Mid-eighties, the paper said, and …”

  Just then Meredith tapped on our door, opened it, and said, “After the rain stops, we’re going to turn off the air conditioner and—Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t know you were on the phone.”

  “Who’s that?” came Mrs. Jones’s voice over the phone. “Pamela, who was that?”

  “I’ll come back,” Meredith said, and went out again, closing the door behind her.

  Pamela fell back on the bed dramatically, letting go of the phone.

  “Pamela? … Pamela?” came her mother’s voice.

  She put the phone to her ear again. “The landlady,” she said.

  “Pamela, don’t lie,” said her mom.

  “Then don’t ask a question that will just get you upset,” Pamela said.

  “Bill said he was taking you and your friends to the ocean. Did he bring that woman? I can’t believe he would bring her along in front of you girls.”

  “Mom!” Pamela said. “They’re out on the porch watching a ball game. That’s hardly something we can’t see. You are divorced, you know. You can have friends too.”

  “What’s she like?” asked her mother.

  “We’re not having this conversation, Mom,” Pamela told her.

  “I’m just asking a simple question,” said Mrs. Jones.

  “Well, I don’t want to get into this. Have a good night, Mom,” Pamela said.

  Mrs. Jones sighed. “You’re right. I’m sorry! Have a good time.”

  Pamela pressed END and put down the phone.

  The room was quiet a moment. Then she gave a huge sigh. “You know what?” she said. “I’m tired of playing the parent. It’s as though they think they have all the problems and I’m living my life just fine. ‘We’ll dump on Pamela! She’ll know what to do.’ Well, to hell with that.”

  “You did a good job, though,” I told her. “You handled it well.”

  Pamela shook her head. “For the rest of this trip I want to be me. Sixteen, not forty-six. I want to sleep and eat and flirt and swim and shop and not have to think about what Mom’s doing that I can’t tell Dad or what he’s doing that I can’t tell Mom.”

  “Okay, let’s plan tomorrow,” said Liz, and we focused on what we’d wear on the boardwalk.

  13

  Lost

  It was still raining when we woke the next morning, and it was almost too much to bear. We had only three days left, and one of those would be spent driving back to Silver Spring.

  Meredith was scrambling eggs for us and put a platter on the table sprinkled with crumbled bacon. “There’s a movie theater in town and a bookstore. Lots of little shops. You could try those,” she said. I wondered if she’d been here before with Pamela’s father.

  “The theater would be packed,” said Pamela. But we definitely did not want to stay inside all day, so after we’d eaten, we put on the plastic ponchos that hung behind the door and set out, our flip-flops flapping on the sidewalk for three blocks, then on up the ramp to the boardwalk.

  The lifeguards must have been in the shops too, because their stations were deserted. A few solitary figures plodded, heads down, along the shoreline. A girl and guy were making out on a bench, holding an umbrella over themselves, but mostly people crowded inside the stores, the arcades, and ran from doorway to doorway to escape the rain.

  As the wind picked up, we took refuge under the awning of a fudge shop, where a young guy at the front was spinning pink cotton candy at the open window. He grinned at me as I leaned in out of the rain.

  “Great day, huh?”

  “Yeah. And we’ve only got three left,” I said.

  “Bummer. Where you from?” He was deftly holding a paper cone to the side of a large spinning kettle as finely spun sugary strands stuck to the cone until it reached the size of a melon. Then he set it in a holder, picked up another, and began spinning again.

  “Maryland. Silver Spring,” I told him.

  “Silver Springs, huh?”

  “Singular. I don’t know why so many people put an ‘s’ on the end. How about you? Where are you from?”

  “Jersey. I get a job here every summer.”

  “How’s the pay?” asked Pamela.

  “Not as good as waiting tables,
but I like the boardwalk. Hangin’ out with anyone here?”

  “No. Just the three of us,” said Liz.

  He smiled again. “Well, you’ll get a lot of invitations if you do the boardwalk. I mean, guys calling out and stuff.”

  “Yeah? Any parties we should know about?” asked Pamela, interested, I could tell.

  “Margaritaville is a hot one. You can’t miss it. They put out a banner and do the whole bit on a balcony—rubber palm trees, pink flamingos, the works. You go to any of these, just be sure to take your drink from a bottle and open it yourself. Don’t drink anything from a paper cup—no telling what they put in it.”

  “Thanks for the tip. I doubt we’ll be going to any parties, though,” I said.

  “Yeah, my dad’s along this trip,” Pamela said.

  “Bummer,” the guy said again, and laughed.

  Miraculously, the rain turned to a light patter, and the sun was struggling to come through.

  “Look at that!” Liz said happily.

  “So where do you hang out?” Pamela asked the guy.

  “Mostly here. My girlfriend works at the sandal shop. Stop in there and tell her Jerry sent you. She’ll give you ten percent off.”

  “Thanks, Jerry,” we said. “See you around.”

  We never made it, though, because Liz spotted the Lucky Lady Saloon, like a movie set, where you could choose your own costumes and pose however you wanted. The photographer took your picture and produced it in that old-timey sepia shade.

  “We’ve got to do this!” she said, and pointed at the dozens of photos there on the walls.

  At the moment some guys in cowboy costumes, Jesse James look-alikes, were posing as outlaws and were having trouble keeping their faces straight as friends of theirs hooted from the sidelines. Most of the people who had posed for their pictures took on the stern, unsmiling faces of people of long ago, who had to strike a pose and hold it. The photographer took several shots. The guys were dripping with perspiration when they took off their hats and leather chaps.

  “C’mon, girls!” the photographer called to us. “What’ll it be? Dazzle your boyfriends! Surprise your friends! Shock your parents!” The crowd laughed.

  We looked through a book of photos to see what kind of picture we wanted. We rejected the more prim and proper dresses with necklines all the way up to the chin.

  “Showgirls,” said Liz. “We’ve got to be barroom showgirls.”

  “Hey, dig those black net stockings,” I said.

  “I want the strapless gown with the corset top,” said Pamela.

  An employee handed us clothes from off a rack. The colors didn’t make any difference, because they wouldn’t show, but I got a yellow satin with a slit up to here, Pamela got a tight-fitting black number with corset ties holding the bosom together, and Liz got a red dress that looked positively stunning on her. Like the saloon facade, these were only tie-on costumes, open in the back. Over our bikini tops and shorts they looked fine from up front, and that’s all that mattered. The cowboy guys whistled and carried on, and we really hammed it up for the camera.

  I sat on a barstool and crossed my legs, so that the slit revealed everything except my underwear. Pamela leaned back against the bar, holding a long cigarette holder. But Liz decided to pose holding two pistols at hip level and glaring menacingly at the camera. I don’t know how we managed not to laugh, but there we were, with rows of fake bottles on the wall behind us. We each bought a print that cost a fortune, but we didn’t care. It was worth it.

  “Dad’ll float us a loan if we need it,” Pamela said. “Even he’ll get a kick out of this picture.”

  “Look at your legs, Alice! Sex-y!” said Liz.

  “And your boobs, Pamela! You’re practically popping out!” I said. “We’ve got to show these around the next time we go to Mark’s.”

  “I wonder what it would be like to be a real showgirl for a day,” Liz mused. “Do you suppose they lead exciting lives, or do they go home and do their laundry like everyone else?”

  “Do their laundry like everyone else,” I said. “Everybody does laundry, gets zits, gets the flu… .”

  “So what do we do next?” Liz asked, looking around for possibilities.

  “Rent a Jet Ski!” said Pamela. “We absolutely have to ski out on the inlet tomorrow before we leave.”

  We spent the afternoon in the water, then helped make dinner that night. Mr. Jones really laughed at our photos at the Lucky Lady Saloon.

  “Would you look at that pistol-packin’ mama!” he said, pointing to Liz. “Pretty or not, I’d hate to meet up with her in a dark alley!”

  “This is priceless, Pamela. It’s a riot,” Meredith said. We thought so too. It was then that we noticed the small diamond on Meredith’s finger. I think Pamela and I both saw it at the same time.

  “Well, hey!” Pamela said. She looked at Meredith, then at her Dad, who was shucking corn at the sink. “Do you guys have an announcement to make?”

  Meredith laughed and looked at Mr. Jones. “We went and did it! We’re engaged.”

  “Congratulations!” we said, and Mr. Jones grinned at us.

  “Have you set a date?” Pamela asked them.

  “No. We haven’t gotten that far yet,” said her dad.

  It was a festive evening. Mr. Jones boiled the corn, Liz and Pamela and I made a big exotic salad with artichokes and mushrooms and peanuts and stuff, and Meredith fried the crab cakes. I watched her mixing the crabmeat and crumbs and celery and egg whites, forming the mixture into round cakes, and placing them in a hot skillet.

  I wasn’t too sure how I felt about her yet. How Pamela felt about her, which was all that counted. We all wanted the best stepmom we could get for Pamela. If I had to describe Meredith to someone, I would say, Plain, polite, and to the point, I guess. And there wasn’t anything wrong with that.

  “I don’t know if you girls want to do any shopping,” Meredith said, “but I saw some great wide-brimmed straw hats in a shop next to a bicycle rentals place. Ribbons, bands, everything! You might want to check them out. Help keep the sun off your faces.”

  “Where would we ever wear a wide-brimmed straw hat?” I wondered aloud. “Tea party with the queen?”

  “Mark’s pool,” said Pamela.

  “Yeah, at night,” said Liz, laughing, and we decided it was just crazy enough to go for it.

  “Well, except for the rain last night, I’d say we’ve been having fairly decent weather,” Mr. Jones commented.

  “It’s been great,” I told him.

  “It’s been good having you,” he said. “I don’t think Pamela would have enjoyed rattling around the cottage with just the two of us.”

  I wondered how a man who could be so friendly to us could be prejudiced against African Americans. How, if what Pamela said was true, he wouldn’t let Gwen in their house.

  “I’m sure going to miss this breeze,” said Meredith. “We don’t get much of a breeze in Bethesda around the hospital.”

  “Where do you work?” I asked her.

  “Suburban. Orthopedic ward.”

  “Isn’t that near NIH?” I asked. “We have a friend at school who’s doing a student internship there this summer.”

  “A high school student at the National Institutes of Health? She must be one bright cookie,” Meredith said.

  “She is! She helps out in the hematology lab. She’s brilliant in almost everything. I could never have passed algebra if it wasn’t for her.”

  “Is this one of your friends too, Pam?” Mr. Jones asked.

  “Yeah. Gwen roomed with us in New York. She was at camp with us too,” Pamela said, and I’ll bet anything she’d never shown him the pictures we took.

  “Well, maybe some of her smarts will rub off on you,” he joked.

  “I hope so,” said Pamela. “I’ll invite her over sometime.” Pamela made eye contact with me for a nanosecond before adding, “She’s African American and as nice as she is smart.”

  Mr. Jones sto
pped chewing for a moment, but he didn’t respond. I figured that whatever he was thinking, he wasn’t about to say it in front of Liz and me. Maybe he wasn’t about to say it in front of Meredith, either. All he said was, “I think I’ll have another ear of that corn, Liz, if you’ll pass the platter. You girls eat up, now. There’s more on the stove.”

  Was he sitting there wondering how he could retract what he said about Gwen’s smarts rubbing off on Pamela? Or was he examining his own prejudice? Had falling in love mellowed him out? It was hard to say.

  We did buy some straw hats after dinner—wide-brimmed numbers, the kind movie stars wear when they go to the Riviera. Mine was just a hat rim, actually, with a wide black ribbon around it. Liz had a large filmy ribbon at the back of hers, while Pamela bought one with fringe around the edge. We were spectacular!

  We walked the length of the boardwalk, hats in hand, stopping in shops along the way to browse. We even sat in on an auction for a while to watch someone bid on an absolutely awful-looking clock that no one in his right mind would have put on his mantel

  When we finally reached the north end of the boardwalk, we took off our sandals and went down to walk at the water’s edge.

  It was so still down by the ocean. The music and flashing lights and shouts from back on the boardwalk seemed far away. We maneuvered around jellyfish stranded there on the sand, the tide sloshing safely against our ankles, and put our arms around each other’s shoulders, bracing ourselves as we walked with our faces turned up toward the sky. We found the North Star and the Big and Little Dippers before Liz tripped over some driftwood and almost fell down.

  As we started on again, I said, “So, Pamela, what do you think?”

  “About what?”

  “Your new stepmother.”

  “She’s not my stepmother yet. They’ve been going out for a year and a half and have broken up twice, so a lot can happen,” Pamela said.

  “She seems nice,” Liz told her.

  “I guess,” said Pamela. “But you know what I’d settle for right now? Just … knowing. That Dad and Mom’s marriage is definitely over and that Meredith and Dad are really going to marry. That Mom’s going to stay single and that Dad and Meredith are going to stay married. I just want some kind of family I can count on, you know? One way or the other. I don’t want ‘This is my stepmom’ one day and ‘No, she’s not’ the next.” And then Pamela said, “You know who my real family is? You guys. Because you I can count on.”