Alice in the Know

  “Well,” I said, “I hope you can make it over to Mark’s one of these Mondays. We missed you.”

  “Really?” There was a twinkle in his eye. “You too?”

  I felt the slight reddening of my cheeks again. “We all did,” I said quickly, and he just grinned.

  “I’ll go over one of these nights,” he said, and gave me a little tap on the elbow. “See ya.”

  “See ya,” I repeated as he ambled on through the store.

  I guess I still had feelings for Patrick—now and then, anyway. I wondered how I compared to Marcie.

  Well, I told myself as I left the store, we can’t all be brains. And I did have a good time on Monday night with Keeno. But I was also glad that Patrick hadn’t been there, hadn’t been in the car, hadn’t had to sit beside that traffic cone all the way back to my house.

  4

  Extreme Mortification

  The following Saturday we were having an early-bird sale at Hecht’s. I had to be at the store at seven forty-five and was off at four. Liz and Gwen met me after work, and we went down to sit with Pamela during her dinner break outside Burger King.

  “One thing’s certain,” said Pamela. “I don’t want to toss burgers for the rest of my life. My hands, my clothes—even my hair—all smell like hamburger grease when I get home.”

  “And I don’t want to have more than three children,” Liz said, sipping her Coke. “I love the little kids at day camp, but I don’t like six or seven of them all clamoring for me at the same time.”

  I already knew that I didn’t want to work with clothes for the rest of my life, so I said, “How’s it going at NIH, Gwen? What department is it again?”

  “Hematology,” said Gwen.

  “Translation?” said Pamela.

  “Study of blood. Blood disorders,” Gwen told us.

  “Now, that ought to put you in the mood for dinner,” Liz said.

  “Oh, everything I work with is in tubes and bottles,” Gwen said. “If I go into medicine, though, I think I’d like to work with patients, not research.”

  “I wish we had a crystal ball and could see what each of us would be doing ten years from now,” said Liz.

  “You? Married, three kids,” said Pamela.

  “I wish,” Liz said.

  “I’ll bet I know who will be married ten years from now. Five years, even, if she can arrange it,” said Pamela. “Jill. To Justin. She was telling me the other night that his dad made millions in real estate.”

  “And so it naturally follows that … ?” I said.

  “That she’d be marrying into money,” said Pamela.

  “But she flirts with everything in pants!” I said.

  Pamela gave a little laugh. “Jill’s got a wandering eye, but she’s got ‘million-dollar wedding’ dreams. She wants to fly all her guests to the Bahamas.”

  “Spare me,” said Gwen.

  A few years back Justin was new to our group, and he and Liz were a couple for a while. But the romance cooled, and Jill took over. If any girl in our group is a “babe,” it’s Jill. And if any babe ever wanted to be the center of attention, this is the one.

  “Do you ever get the feeling that for a lot of brides the wedding’s more important than the groom?” I asked.

  “Depends on the groom,” said Pamela.

  After Pamela went back to work, Liz and Gwen and I returned to Hecht’s to do some shopping. Gwen was looking for a watch with a bold second hand and timer, and Liz needed a new wallet. I was trying on sunglasses, and for a while we were each at different counters.

  I had just put on a pair with green-tinted lenses when I noticed a familiar-looking man in a light Windbreaker fingering the gold chains in the jewelry section. Then he moved on over to earrings. I finally recognized him as the store detective, playing at being a customer, and then I realized something else: He was following Gwen.

  I put down the shades I was holding. From where I stood, it appeared that Gwen had taken two watches out of their boxes on the display rack and was checking them over. The store detective moved from earrings to a second table of watches, where he could see Gwen a little better. Was I the only one who realized that a man who goes around a store in a light Windbreaker, summer and winter, with a walkie-talkie on his belt beneath his jacket, has got to be a store detective?

  Whenever Gwen looked up, the detective looked down—picked up a watch himself and looked it over. What did he think—that Gwen was going to stick one in her bag? Slip it in her bra?

  At last Gwen put one watch down, folded up the instruction sheet she’d been reading, tucked it back in the carton, and carried the other watch over to the cashier. At that point the detective lost interest and headed for another department.

  “Did you find anything interesting?” Liz asked me when she came over with the wallet she was going to buy.

  I wasn’t supposed to point out security personnel, I knew. So I just said, “Yeah. Really interesting, but I don’t want to buy anything yet.”

  I didn’t tell Gwen she’d been under surveillance. Somehow I figured she was used to it by now. What was it like, I wondered, to know that you were a prime suspect every time you entered a store? That if one out of every five customers was going to be tailed, you were that one? How did it feel to know that your grades, your family, your church—all the things that were important to you—didn’t make a bit of difference when you went shopping; that the thing they could see—the color of your skin—was the determining factor?

  “Find what you wanted?” I asked as she came toward us carrying her purchase.

  “Sort of,” she said. She glanced toward the store detective, who was now staking out someone else. “And about what I expected,” she added.

  I’d heard people say that they almost died of embarrassment or that they wished the ground would open and swallow them up. I’d felt that many more times than I could count, but somehow I thought I was outgrowing it—that the really embarrassing things happen only to middle school kids. And then … there was Thursday. I don’t see how it could have been worse.

  Both Dad and Sylvia needed their cars, so I had to take a bus directly from work to my orthodontist, and then another bus back home. The whole afternoon was a bummer. Getting my braces tightened always gives me a headache anyway. The soreness in my mouth radiates up into my cheekbones, and then my head starts to throb. The family scatters when I come home from the orthodontist, I’ve noticed, and I can’t say I blame them.

  I was wearing a sheer rayon blouse with short flutter sleeves, a white cotton skirt, and sneakers. I know how to dress for work now—cool top and comfortable shoes. And a skirt is cooler than pants. On this particular day I’d been working in the juniors department, picking up after eleven- and twelve-year-old girls who were trying on bathing suits.

  They’d descend on the fitting rooms in groups of four or five, and while one girl went inside a cubicle and locked the door, the others would crowd around outside calling out encouragement and instructions.

  “Tighten the ties on the sides, Mary Ann.”

  “Maybe you need two different sizes for top and bottom.”

  “You might need a bikini wax, Hannah.”

  “Don’t look in the mirror till you’ve got the top on.”

  Then the moment of truth, when their friend unlocked the door. They’d all crowd in, shrieking and exclaiming.

  “Were we ever like that?” I asked the saleswoman out at the cash register.

  “What do you mean, ‘were’?” she said. “I still drag a friend with me when I shop for a swimsuit.”

  It was like leaving an aviary when I caught the bus later—all that chatter and screeching and cawing. I think I had a headache before I even sat down at the orthodontist’s; I was feeling lousy anyway, and his fingers in my mouth didn’t help.

  Just before he got to the last section of wire, I realized what was happening. I was having my period four days early.

  My white skirt!

  “Uhgggh
hhh,” I said with a jolt.

  “That hurt?” he asked. “One more minute here and I’m done.”

  I closed my eyes, but my eyeballs bulged behind the lids. What was I going to do? Stupidly, I didn’t have anything with me.

  Another gush between my legs. A feeling of warmth. Some periods start out heavy like this from the very first day. This can’t be happening! I thought. I could feel the sweat on my palms against the leather armrests.

  “Okay … about … one second more… . Done!” the orthodontist said, backing away. “Looking good, Alice. Call in for your next appointment, will you? There’s nobody at the desk right now. Cheryl’s sick today, and Joan’s doing double duty from back here.” In the next cubicle his assistant was putting an X-ray on the screen.

  I got out of the chair, feeling sticky and moist. Trying to keep my thighs together, I made it to the small restroom in the hallway and locked the door behind me. Lifting my skirt, I found a red spot the size of Texas in my panties.

  I stuffed myself with toilet paper and tried to soak up the blood on my underwear with paper towels. Then I grabbed the waistband of my skirt and slid it round to the front. A bright red spot decorated the back.

  The chair! I thought. The orthodontist’s chair! I’d probably bled on that! I thought maybe I could take a paper towel and sneak back in there before the next patient sat down in it.

  Pulling off my skirt, I ran the spot under cold water. A stream of pink swirled around in the sink bowl. Stupid, stupid, stupid! I told myself. How could I have left home without some tampons or pads in my bag?

  Someone rattled the door handle.

  “Somebody’s in there!” I heard a child complain.

  Then Joan’s, the assistant’s, voice: “I’m sure she’ll be out in a minute.”

  And the kid’s voice: “Mom, I really have to go!”

  Why couldn’t there be an escape button I could press, so that a trapdoor would open beneath me and I could just slide through? I wondered.

  I shut off the faucet and tried to press the worst of the water and stain off my skirt. Now it was a huge wet pink spot instead—the size of the United States—and it looked as though I’d wet my pants.

  “Hey!” the kid said, rattling the door handle again. “Is anybody in there?”

  “Just a minute,” I called.

  I put my skirt on again and, with a couple of paper towels inside my pants, opened the door to face a boy in a baseball cap glaring at me.

  “Hurry up!” he said, pushing past me, and I made up my mind right then that I wouldn’t even try to wipe off the chair for him. Let him explain that to his mom when she did the laundry.

  I went out to the lobby of the building, took out my cell phone, and dialed home. No answer, of course. Sylvia was teaching summer school three days a week. I knew that Liz and Gwen and Pamela were all at work, and Les had a course on Thursdays. Dad? Reluctantly, I called the Melody Inn.

  “He’s not here right now,” David told me. “He and Marilyn are next door looking over the space. We’re thinking of adding an annex, you know.”

  I wasn’t interested in an annex at the moment; I was interested in Kotex. I walked outside, but there was no drugstore in sight and I didn’t have enough money for a cab. It had to be the bus.

  I could see one coming two blocks away and got out my change. Another girl was waiting too, and I could see her staring at my skirt. I kept my eyes straight ahead. A woman came hurrying down the sidewalk to board the bus. As I got on and moved down the aisle to a seat, she whispered behind me, “Use bleach, sweetheart. It’ll get the stain out.”

  I thought I was home free at this point, but when I sat down, the paper towels shifted to one side and I could feel the blood trickling out. I’d had dreams like this, and I always woke up at the worst moment. But now I couldn’t stop the Niagara Falls inside my pants, and it wasn’t a dream. When we reached my stop, I had to walk to the front of the bus in full view of all the passengers. I knew what was on the back of my skirt now without even looking.

  I didn’t look to the left or the right. I am woman! I told myself as the door swung open. I am woman! I said again as I passed some girls playing hopscotch on the sidewalk, their giggling, taunting voices following me when they noticed my skirt.

  At home Lester’s car was parked in our driveway, but I didn’t even stop to talk to him when I got inside. I rushed on upstairs to change my clothes. When I came down again, he was sitting in the kitchen, eating an English muffin.

  “I thought you had a class today,” I said accusingly.

  “I did! It’s over! Am I committing a crime or something?” he asked. “Hey, it’s only an English muffin.”

  “Never mind,” I told him, and took my bloody clothes to the basement. Why couldn’t I have had a sister? I wondered. A lot of sisters, in fact, to commiserate with me as soon as I walked in the door? Guys don’t know how good they have it. It’s not enough that we menstruate five days a month. We don’t even know for sure when those five days are going to be! Do I have to spend the rest of my life wearing Kotex? I asked myself. Do I have to cram tampons in my pencil case to be safe? Do I have to keep pads tucked away in my backpack, my gym shoes, my locker?

  I threw my clothes into the washing machine and took a Tylenol. Is there anything else that could possibly happen to me worse than this? I wondered. What if this had happened at school? What if it had happened when I went out with someone? At a dance? At the pool? Did I always have to live as though any minute I could have another Most Embarrassing Moment of My Life?

  And I guess the answer was yes.

  A half hour later I had set the table for dinner and was waiting for Sylvia when the phone rang.

  It was Gwen. I was about to launch into my account of the Texas-size spot on the back of my skirt when she said, “Molly said I could tell you. I saw her in a lab at work today.”

  “Molly’s working at NIH?” I said, suddenly envious that two of my friends had internships there this summer.

  “No, she’s a patient,” Gwen said. “Acute lymphoblastic leukemia.”

  “Oh … Gwen!” I said, catching my breath.

  “Isn’t this awful?” she said. “We’re not supposed to give out information about patients, but she said I should tell you and Liz and Pamela.”

  I thought about the school trip we’d taken to New York this past spring. Remembered suddenly the paleness of her face that day at Ellis Island. The way she went to bed early the evening the rest of us sneaked out for a night on the town. The times she remarked how tired she was.

  Molly—the hardworking, blue-eyed girl on stage crew, everybody’s friend. We never dreamed …

  “Oh, Gwen!” I said again. “How bad is it?”

  “I asked the doctors. They said it’s possible that after treatment she’ll go into remission and then have a relapse, but they’re hoping for a cure. There’s a high cure rate for this type of cancer, but of course, they just don’t know. Usually it’s younger kids who get this.”

  “Can she have visitors? Does she want us to come and see her?”

  “She’ll be here a few days for more tests. They’ve entered her in a twelve-month protocol—a study. There’s a lot of research going on about leukemia.” I heard Gwen sigh. “It would have to be Molly, wouldn’t it? The girl everybody loves. Will you let Pam and Liz know? I’ll call Faith. Molly wanted me to tell her, too.”

  I didn’t want to call anyone for a while. I went up to my room and sat down by the window, staring at the sky. If I could walk out of the orthodontist’s a hundred times—a thousand, even—with blood on the back of my skirt, I’d do it in a second for Molly. But you don’t get to bargain when it comes to illness. I picked up the phone and called Liz.

  5

  Facing Up

  It was as though my mom were dying all over again, and this time I’d have to deal with it. Mom had leukemia too, but I’d been too young to know what it was. What it meant. I didn’t know she wasn’t coming back and I?
??d never see her again.

  “You said that Gwen told you they’re hoping for a cure,” Liz reminded me after we’d talked awhile.

  “I know,” I said, trying to keep my tears in check. “But it shouldn’t have happened to Molly. Nothing bad should happen to Molly.”

  “Life is so fucking unfair,” Liz said. When Elizabeth says the F word, you know she’s upset.

  When I called Pamela and told her, she said, “We’ve got to do something nice for her, Alice! We’ve got to make her senior year really great.”

  “How are we going to do that?” I asked. “We don’t even know if she’ll be coming back in September.”

  “Get her a boyfriend,” said Pamela.

  With Pamela, there are few things in life that can’t be fixed by a boyfriend. “You’re kidding, of course,” I said.

  “On the contrary. I think it’s one of the best ideas I ever had. She needs someone to call her, take her out, hug her, excite her… .”

  “Pamela,” I said, “have you ever been really, really sick?”

  “I had my tonsils out,” said Pamela.

  “Molly didn’t need a boyfriend when she was well, so now she needs one as a crutch? Is that it?”

  “It couldn’t hurt.”

  I sat for a long time with the phone in my lap and thought about Molly. It was years after Mom died that I even got up the nerve to ask Dad what she had died of. And we’d never had “the talk.” I’d never really asked for details. It was just too scary, as though, if I asked, the floodgates would open. I’d start crying and never be able to stop. As though, if I learned too much about leukemia, it would suddenly start growing in my body. Like cancer and leukemia were voodoo words, and as long as you didn’t say them, they’d keep their distance.

  Les stayed for dinner, and I told everyone about Molly. But I didn’t want to ask about Mom just then. I waited till Lester had gone home and Sylvia and I had cleaned up the dishes. Then I went out to sit on the back porch beside Dad, who was still enjoying his coffee.