13
* * *
Viva la Difference
Patrick always seems taller when I haven’t seen him for a while. He stood at the door in his tennis shorts and T-shirt, his fair skin freckled, his red hair hanging down one side of his forehead.
I think my heart will always skip a beat for Patrick. They say that’s true of your first boyfriend. The big question, of course, was whether his heart still skipped a beat for me. I doubted it. Still, I couldn’t help wondering just how far he would have to bend down to kiss me now.
“So, hi,” he said. “Welcome back.”
“Come on in,” I told him. I noticed he had a notebook under his arm.
Dad was stretched out on the couch listening to music, and Lester was in the kitchen. We took over the dining room table, and Dad waved to Patrick, then closed his eyes again. When he’s missing Sylvia, he always listens to the music they’ve enjoyed together.
“You look great,” Patrick said to me.
“So do you. What have you been doing, besides school?”
“Teaching tennis.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. At day camp. Five afternoons a week. My courses are both in the mornings.” He saw my baby book open to the photo of me just after I was born. “Let me see that,” he said, and I slid the book toward him. He studied it and grinned. “Didn’t have a lot of hair, did you?”
“Bald as a grapefruit,” I said.
He went back to his assignment sheet. There was a series of questions about “firsts,” and I found the right page in the baby book and read them off to him. First laugh? Twelve weeks. First crawl? Eight months. First word? Thirteen months, “ba” for “ball.” First step?…
“Why do you need to know all this stuff, Patrick?” I asked.
“It’s just an exercise in gathering data. It’s not very scientific, and that’s probably what we’re supposed to learn from this assignment.”
“Why not just go through your baby book?”
“That would be too subjective.”
“Okay. What else do you need to know?”
“Social development,” said Patrick. “Did you have any of the following?” He slid a paper toward me. “Just put an ‘X’ in the appropriate box.”
I looked the paper over. “I haven’t the foggiest idea!” I turned toward Dad. “Dad,” I called, “when I was little, did I suck my thumb, throw temper tantrums, exhibit separation anxiety, or wet the bed?”
Lester stuck his head in from the kitchen. “What’s this? Did she wet the bed? Why, she was a first-class, grade-A, government-certified soaker!”
“Lester!” I said, and looked at Dad again.
“Gosh, Al, that’s something Marie would have remembered,” he said. “If it’s not in your baby book, I don’t know. You sucked your thumb till you were three, I remember that, and you cried if we left you with a sitter, but as for the rest…”
“It’s okay,” said Patrick. “I’ll put down two ‘no’s’ and two ‘yes’s.’” He looked over the assignment again. “All right, on a scale of one to ten, one being the lowest and ten the highest, how would you rate your abilities in science and math?”
“Two,” I said.
“I don’t believe it,” said Patrick.
“Okay. One,” I said.
He smiled, shook his head, and wrote down 2.
“Your abilities in social studies—history, sociology, stuff like that?”
I shrugged. “Seven, maybe?”
“Art?”
“Seven.”
“Language arts?”
“Nine and a half,” I told him. Patrick wrote down 9.
“I can’t understand what you’re going to do with all this stuff,” I told him after we’d gone through another fifteen minutes of questions.
“We’re trying to see if there’s any correlation between things that happened to us when we were small and our abilities in high school,” said Patrick. “But I talked to a guy who took this course last semester, and he says what it’s really going to show is all the things that could make for a false correlation. We learn how to do a study right by doing it wrong.”
“Whatever,” I said.
Patrick’s always so far ahead of me that I’m not sure I know what he’s talking about. Maybe he really is the kind of guy who should get through four years of high school in three.
“Take it from me,” Lester called from the kitchen, “She really was a soaker.”
“Lester, will you shut up?” I said. “Go out for the evening or something.”
“I will. I’m just waiting for a babe to call. If the phone rings, guys, I’ll get it,” he said, and it sounded like his mouth was full of potato chips.
“Okay, we’re almost done,” said Patrick. He glanced over at me. “Can I get you anything? Water? Tranquilizers?”
“This is my house, remember?” I said.
“Oh, right!” said Patrick. “This is the last set. On a scale of one to ten, how would you rate your popularity?”
I thought I’d probably check in at about a six or seven, but I wasn’t going to tell Patrick that.
“Eight,” I said. He wrote it down.
“On a scale of one to ten, how comfortable are you with members of the opposite sex?”
“Ten,” I lied.
“How many boys have you kissed in your lifetime, excluding family members?”
“Patrick!” I said.
He didn’t even look up. “How many guys did you kiss at Camp Overlook, and on a scale of one to ten, how would you rate them?”
I laughed. “This interview is over. The whole thing was bogus, wasn’t it?”
He laughed too and closed his notebook. “No. Cross my heart. Except for the last set, which I sort of sneaked in there. Hey, it’s a nice night out. Want to sit on the porch for a little bit?”
“Sure,” I said, and we got up and went to the door.
It was a beautiful clear night out, and it reminded me, with a pang, of the night Patrick and I had that fight and broke up. I almost didn’t want to sit in the swing with him for fear it would take me back to that place where my world… well, my social life, anyway… seemed to revolve around Patrick. Before I got involved with the backstage crew of the Drama Club at school. Before I felt as comfortable with myself as I do now.
But then, there was Patrick holding the screen door open for me, so I followed him out and we sat down a few inches apart.
“Been a while since we did this,” he said, and smiled at me.
“Yeah, it has,” I said, and smiled back. We pushed against the floor with our feet.
“So… are you going out with anyone?” he asked.
“Not at the moment.”
“Me either. I’m girl-less.”
“So I heard.”
He shrugged. “I guess school and band and track and tennis are about all I can take on this year.”
“So… no time for romance, huh?”
“You could say that. Anyway, it was a dumb idea to think you’d like it if I went out with you both. Penny thought so too.”
“Chalk one up for Penny,” I said dryly, then decided to go for it. “So why did you two break up?”
“She was just.… Well, Penny’s a nice girl, but she was way too demanding of my time, and I can’t blame her.”
I didn’t say anything.
“Besides,” Patrick said with a grin in my direction, “she wasn’t you.”
“Well, of course she’s not me,” I said.
He leaned sideways and kissed me lightly on the forehead before he stood up. “Viva la difference,” he said. “See you later. Thanks for your help, Alice.”
Viva la difference? Now what did he mean by that, exactly? I’ve heard Lester say it before when he’s talking about the differences between men and women. Talking about a woman’s curves, for example.
Did Patrick mean that he was glad Penny and I were different from each other because he liked variety? Was he saying he was gla
d that I’m me because he found something missing in Penny? He said she was demanding. Good. At least I’d found something about her to hate.
The fact was, I wasn’t really hurt that Patrick hadn’t stayed longer—that he hadn’t given me a real kiss. That he hadn’t asked me to go with him again. Relieved mostly, I guess. Maybe both of us wanted to see what else—who else—was out there. Besides, did I really want a boyfriend who was more interested in getting through high school in three years than he was in me? I don’t think so.
“Bye, Patrick,” I said to the breeze, and went back inside the house.
Aunt Sally called about ten. Sometimes I think she makes a note on the calendar when it’s time to check up on us. I know she promised Mother to look after Lester and me, and since we moved to Maryland, she feels the least she can do is call. How she and Uncle Milt raised Carol, their only daughter, to be the free spirit she is, I don’t know, but Dad says that talking to Aunt Sally sets him back forty years.
It was Lester who answered the phone. Les always says as little as possible to Aunt Sally because he hates the way she tries to pry personal information out of him.
“Hi, Sal!” I heard him say. “Things are fine here. How are you?” And then, “Oh, I think she enjoyed camp a lot. She’s right here; I’ll let you talk to her.”
“Thanks,” I muttered as I took the phone. Then, “Hi, Aunt Sally.”
“Oh, dear, I just wanted to know how things went at camp. What a wonderful experience for you! The children must have been so grateful!” came her voice.
“Well, I can’t say that, exactly, but I did have a good time,” I said.
She laughed self-consciously. “But not too much fun, I hope.”
I didn’t answer for a moment. I could have told her about skinny-dipping, I suppose. I do things like that sometimes just to hear her flip out. But Aunt Sally’s probably doing the best she can, so I said, “No, it was just right.”
“That’s good,” she said. “I know you’re growing up, Alice, and I try to prepare myself for the day you’ll be a young woman, but I never know quite what to ask. I try to think what Marie would have wanted me to tell you, but I’m just not very good at this. I’m afraid Carol had to raise herself in the sex department.”
I envisioned a store with a sex department between housewares and shoes.
“You’re doing fine,” I told her. We talked then about Sylvia and the wedding being postponed, about how Uncle Milt and Carol were doing, how Carol had just mailed off a box of clothes she thought I might like, and how I was going to spend the rest of my summer. I think this was the closest to a real conversation Aunt Sally and I had ever had. I decided that from now on, now that I was “growing up,” I would try to be a little more understanding of Aunt Sally.
After I hung up, I checked my e-mail one more time. There was a message from Gerald:
Hi, Alice. Just want to apologize for what happened at camp. I knew I came on too strong. I tend to do that. Scare girls away, I guess. Anyway, I wanted you to know that I’m taking your advice and going to audition as a reader for Books for the Blind. I’ll see how well I do and if they think I’m any good, maybe I’ll major in broadcast journalism. Thanks for the support. Take care.
G. E.
Dad insists that I get a checkup at the dentist’s and doctor’s every summer. Most of my friends see a doctor only when they’re sick. But Dad says it gives him peace of mind, so I go. This year, to get it over with, I scheduled them both for the same day.
I went to the dentist first.
“You know, Alice,” he said, “last time you were here, I said you have a little bite problem—the way your teeth come together in front. You might want to see an orthodontist about it. I can recommend someone if you like.”
He had mentioned it, but in such an offhand way that I had put it out of my mind. I felt my shoulders sag. “You mean braces, don’t you?”
“Probably, but I don’t think it’s a serious problem. I’ve seen a whole lot worse.”
“Well, I’m not doing anything till after my dad’s wedding,” I said. “I don’t want to be wearing braces then.”
“Fair enough,” the dentist said. “When’s the wedding?”
“This fall sometime,” I told him, and made up my mind I wouldn’t even think about braces until the wedding was over.
But I was thinking about them anyway—how much I’d hate them—when I signed in at Dr. Beverly’s later. Once inside the narrow hallway, though, I knew the routine. The nurse weighed me and measured my height, then gave me a paper cup with my last name on it and told me to go in the rest room and leave a urine specimen in the cup.
It’s sort of weird, you know? You’re supposed to urinate a little in the toilet, then hold the cup under you and pee into that till it’s about half full—you don’t want it running over and dripping all over the place—and then pee the rest in the toilet. When you’re all through, you open the tiny cupboard door in the wall and set your cup on a shelf lined with a paper towel. On the other side of the wall is another tiny door leading to the doctor’s laboratory. A technician on the other side opens the other door every so often, takes out any cups that are there, and does an analysis of the urine—like living in a nunnery or something, where you can communicate with people only through a hole in the wall.
I flushed the toilet. Then, carefully holding my half-filled cup, I leaned over and opened the cupboard door. At that very moment the door on the other side opened, and I found myself looking smack into the face of a fortyish woman with glasses and a mole on her cheek.
Good grief! What was I supposed to do? What was I supposed to say?
“Hi,” she said.
I was so flustered, I set down my cup and quickly banged the door shut.
Instantly I felt my face flush. Now why had I done that? It just seemed so personal somehow, like I wasn’t supposed to be looking at her. But she wasn’t the one with her underpants down to her ankles! Why couldn’t I have said something funny like, We’ve got to stop meeting like this! When would I quit doing such stupid, embarrassing things? But I already knew the answer to that. Never, ever, ever.
14
* * *
The Big Announcement
“So how are you?” Dad asked at dinner. “Every-thing okay?”
Lester always cringes when Dad asks that, because I used to embarrass him hugely. I’d always have something to tell about what went on at the doctor’s office because… well, who else was there to tell? Family, I mean.
Elizabeth and Pamela are shocked that I can talk to my dad and brother about the things I do, even though Lester says he doesn’t want to hear it, which I don’t believe for one moment. I guess it’s because I don’t have a mother. I started out asking Dad and Lester questions when I was too young to be embarrassed, and once I got started, it just seemed natural to keep on asking.
But by the time I got home, I’d recovered from my embarrassment. Besides, I was getting a stepmom, and I couldn’t wait till Sylvia and I were having intimate conversations. Just the two of us. So when Dad asked how things went with my doctors’ appointments, I replied, “Fine. No problems.” I decided not to even mention braces for now. Dad didn’t need this to deal with too.
“Whew!” said Lester. “That’s good to hear.”
“It certainly is,” said Dad.
“No puddles on the examining table? No gagging when he examined your throat?” Lester asked.
“Nope,” I said. “I’m good for another year.”
“Well, I’ve got news, then,” said Lester.
“Oh?” said Dad, suddenly focusing on Lester.
“I got an offer I can’t refuse,” said Lester.
“Not from a woman, I hope,” said Dad.
“No, and I think even you will agree to this, Dad. The last time I talked about finding a place of my own, you said to at least wait for a while after Sylvia moves in so she won’t feel like she’s breaking up the family, remember?”
“Yes…,” Dad said warily.
“Well, I was playing tennis with Paul Sorenson this morning, and he says that a friend of his father’s—an old-timer named Otto Watts—needs someone to live in the second floor of his house. He’s got one of these big Victorian houses in Takoma Park near the D.C. line. They made the upstairs into an apartment for their younger daughter when she was in college, but she’s out on her own now, and Mrs. Watts is dead. His children think he ought to be in a retirement home, but he won’t hear of it. So here’s the deal: Because he knows Paul’s father, Mr. Watts is offering the apartment to Paul if he’ll get two other guys to share it, with the understanding that one of us will be there evenings all the time in case Mr. Watts needs us. He has an aide come in during the day. We’d have to do all the light maintenance around the place—mow the grass, paint, trim the bushes, that kind of stuff—and pay for our utilities. But other than that, it’s rent-free. George Palamas is going to move in with Paul, and they asked if I wanted to be the third.”
I sat as still as the baked potato on my plate. I was too stunned to even think whether this was good news or bad news. Dad looked surprised too. Lester leaving?
“I know Paul. Do I know George?” Dad asked.
“He’s been here, but you may not remember him. He’s responsible. Works for an insurance company.”
“Well, it certainly does seem like a good deal, Lester. But what about visitors? What about noise? Is he going to complain if you play your CDs or have late parties?”
“He’s deaf,” said Lester. “But he’s sharp as a tack. Funny, too. Paul asked him if we could have friends in, if the noise would bother him, and he said he’d just remove his hearing aid.”
Dad smiled. “Do you think you can keep the promise that one of you three will be there every evening?” Dad asked.
“That’ll be the hardest part, but for a rent-free place, we’re willing to do it. If it were just two of us and we could never go anywhere together, I don’t think so. Besides, anytime Mr. Watts’s family takes him somewhere—out for the evening or on vacation—we can all be out too. It’s not like we’re prisoners forever.”