The first part of the assignment was to bring to class a list of ten things we should put in the capsule, showing what our society was like now. We’d list them all on the board and vote for the final ten. The second part of the assignment was to write a letter to our sixty-year-old selves, to read when we opened the time capsule.
“Sixty years old!” I said to Patrick after school. “That’s older than my dad is now! I don’t know how to write a letter to a really old person.”
“My grandfather lived to be ninety-two,” said Patrick.
“What did he like to talk about?” I asked.
“The World Series,” Patrick said.
At dinner that night, I told Dad about the time capsule.
“What did you suggest putting in it?” Dad asked.
“A Harry Potter poster, a coupon for a Big Mac, a …”
“McCivilization.” Dad sighed.
“What?” I said.
“It’s so banal, Al. So superficial!” he complained. “Where are the great ideas, the music, the architecture …?”
“Hey, I’m only twelve, Dad.”
He smiled then. “I guess that’s it.”
“If you had to put in a piece of your twelve-year-old self, what would it have been?” I wanted to know.
Dad looked a little sheepish. “Twelve years old, huh? Well, let’s see. A ticket from the World Series, a Spider-Man comic book …”
“I’ll bet you weren’t listening to Bach at age twelve, either,” I told him.
Dad gave a rueful smile. “Probably not. My two favorite songs, as I remember, were ‘Yellow Submarine’ and ‘Surfer Girl.’”
“Gotcha!” I said.
The phone rang, and when I answered, a woman’s voice said, “Alice, would you please tell your brother that his sunglasses have been in my car since last summer, and I would appreciate it if he’d pick them up? I’m not about to go to the trouble of mailing them.”
“Crystal?” I said. I’m never sure. For the last year or two, Lester has been dating two different women, Crystal Harkins and Marilyn Rawley, and both have been mad at him since Christmas because he can’t decide between them. He’d finally started dating Marilyn again around Valentine’s Day, but then Crystal was so upset that he sent her a rose, and that got Marilyn mad all over again. I just hate it when they sound angry, though, because I like them both, and would love to have either one for a sister-in-law.
So I tried to keep Crystal on the line until she wasn’t angry anymore. “Crystal, wait. Lester isn’t home yet, but I need some advice,” I said, and told her about the time capsule. “If you had to list ten things to put in it to show what life is like right now, what would you choose? I’m having a hard time deciding.”
“This is supposed to be something that will stay in the capsule till we open it?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“Lester’s car keys,” said Crystal. “Then he couldn’t go anywhere, and maybe it would keep him from breaking another girl’s heart.”
I guess there was just no making up with Crystal. But after she hung up, I had an idea and called Marilyn Rawley.
“I need help with an assignment,” I told her, and explained about the time capsule.
“You’re supposed to think of ten things that are a part of our culture that we might find amusing fifty or so years from now?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“Wrap up Lester and stuff him in the capsule, and I’ll find it very amusing,” said Marilyn.
I figured my brother wasn’t doing so well in the romance department. Did he have anyone to confide in? I couldn’t remember hearing Dad say very much to Lester about his love life, and then I realized that was a mother’s job, one of those Woman-of-the-House things. So when Lester got home from his evening class about nine, I went out to the kitchen to heat up his dinner in the microwave.
“Hey, thanks, Al,” he said, as I put a plate of ravioli, green beans, and cornbread on the table. “Oh, man. I’m bushed.”
He sprawled out in one of the chairs and stretched his legs. “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.”
“That’s just what I was thinking,” I told him.
“That I’m dull?”
“No, that you need a little … um … love in your life, maybe.”
Lester had the cornbread halfway to his mouth, and stopped. “Loretta put you up to this?”
Loretta of the Wild Curly Hair runs the Gift Shoppe in Dad’s store, and she’s been chasing Lester for a couple of months—until we fooled her into thinking that Lester was studying for the priesthood, which is about the last thing in the world Lester would ever do, in my opinion.
“Of course not,” I said. “You can do a lot better than Loretta.”
“Meaning?” he said, taking a bite.
“I just don’t think you’re as happy without a woman in your life, and deep down, you miss Crystal and Marilyn and won’t admit it. You can tell me.”
“It’s nice to know you’re concerned, Al.”
“Of course I am! If there’s anything I can do …”
“There is. Stay out of my business, okay? If I was really pining away for Marilyn or Crystal, all I’d have to do is call, and I’d have a date for Saturday night.”
“Betcha a dollar,” I said.
Lester stopped chewing. “Serious?”
“Serious.” I dug around in my jeans pocket and pulled out my lunch money, laying a dollar on the table.
Lester put a dollar of his own beside mine, then reached behind him for the phone. He dialed Crystal’s number first, I noticed, because the last digit was an 0.
“Crystal? … Is Crystal there?” There was a wait. Then, “Hi, Crystal. How you doing? … This is Les! … What do you mean, Les who? … I know it’s been a long time. That’s why I’m calling; I miss you.… Well, I was thinking about Saturday night.… You do? … The Saturday after? … Oh.”
And suddenly he was staring down into the receiver. “She hung up on me! She said every Saturday is taken from here to eternity.”
“I was supposed to tell you she’s got your sunglasses,” I said, suddenly remembering.
“She can keep the shades. I’ll try Marilyn.” Lester paused long enough to scoop up another forkful of ravioli, then dialed Marilyn’s number. He was still chewing when she answered.
“Marilyn? How are you? …” But when he got to Saturday night, his eyes opened wide and his jaws dropped, and when he hung up, he said, “She’s going out with Crystal! They’re going to talk about me!”
“What did I tell you?” I said, and scooped both bills off the table.
It was then I got the idea; I would secretly invite Crystal and Marilyn both to Dad’s fiftieth birthday celebration. Dad liked them, they’d come for his sake, and it would be a nice surprise for Lester. Maybe at least one of them would decide to start going out with him again. I added their names to the list: Miss Summers, Marilyn Rawley, Crystal Harkins, Janice Sherman, Loretta Jenkins, and Patrick (even though I hadn’t asked any of them yet). I’d invite Loretta and Janice when I saw them at the Melody Inn on Saturday, but it was time to call the others.
I waited until I heard Dad playing the piano, then dialed Patrick’s number and asked if he’d help me make the birthday dinner.
“Sure. What are you going to have?”
“I haven’t decided.”
“How about filet mignon and crème brulée?” Patrick’s traveled all over the world, and he just talks like that sometimes.
“I was thinking more in terms of pork chops and applesauce,” I told him.
“Whatever,” said Patrick.
The next call was a little different. “Miss Summers,” I said, when my Language Arts teacher answered. “Dad’s birthday is on the thirtieth, and I’m having a dinner party for him. Could you come?”
“Why, how nice of you, Alice! I didn’t know you were such an accomplished cook,” she said.
“Well, I’m not, exactly, but a friend’s goin
g to help me. It’s a surprise, though, so please don’t tell Dad.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it. Of course I’ll come,” she said. “Let me know if I can bring anything.”
I put a check mark by Miss Summers’s name too.
The next calls were the hardest. I tried Marilyn first.
“Did Lester put you up to this?” she asked.
“He doesn’t even know I’m calling you.”
“Well, for your father’s sake, I’ll come,” Marilyn said. “I’ve always liked him. But seat me as far away from Lester as you can.”
“Sure, Marilyn,” I told her.
Then I called Crystal.
“Was this Lester’s idea?” she asked.
“No. I’ve invited everyone I think Dad would enjoy having here. Lester doesn’t even know I’m calling you.”
“All right, but only because I want to get rid of his sunglasses,” she said.
I made check marks beside Marilyn’s and Crystal’s names.
“Dad,” I said later. “Les and I want to celebrate your birthday on the thirtieth, so don’t plan to go out, okay?”
“All right, but none of those supermarket cakes, now.”
“I’ll make one myself,” I told him.
I sat down in the beanbag chair in our living room. I was tired already, and all I’d done was the invitations. Now that I was Woman of the House, I’d be doing this for Dad’s and Lester’s birthdays for the rest of my natural life! If I gave birthday parties, what about Christmas and New Year’s? And if I gave Christmas and New Year’s parties, what about Halloween and the Fourth of July? How much was I supposed to do and where did it end?
For about the hundredth time that month, I wished I had a mom.
9
WYOMING
PAMELA GOT HER STATE ON TUESDAY. We were just leaving the cafeteria when Brian Brewster at the last table yelled, “Hey, you in the blue sweater!”
Pamela turned around. I hadn’t realized until right that minute that Pamela had been wearing a lot of sweaters lately. Wearing only sweaters, practically, since the state-naming thing had started. And on this day she was wearing a short-sleeved lacy kind of thing that hugged her tightly, and her long blond hair spilled down the length of her back.
Pamela turned, of course, and Elizabeth and I turned too, just to see what the guys wanted.
“Hey, Wyoming!” Mark Stedmeister called, grinning.
“W-Y-O-M-I-N-G!” the other boys chanted.
Pamela’s face flushed. She smiled her pretty smile, and we walked on, ducking our heads and giggling, until we were out in the hall.
“Wyoming, Pamela! You got Wyoming! Oh, I’m so happy for you!” chirped Elizabeth.
I mean, all this cheerfulness on Elizabeth’s part had to be a lie. Well, half a lie. You’re happy for your friend, but at the same time, if you’re Illinois, you’ve got to feel worse knowing that your friend got Yellowstone National Park and the mountains that go with it, and you’re still one of the plains.
“I’m Wyoming!” Pamela laughed, her eyes wide open in surprise, as though you had just told her she was Miss America or something. “Aren’t you happy for me, Alice?”
“Well, sure … of course!” I was thinking what Patrick had told me. “But you’re still the same person you were before.”
“I think you’re jealous!” she said.
“Me? Jealous? What are you talking about?”
“Alice, for weeks I’ve been awake half the night, worrying about which state I’d get, and it’s finally happened, and I don’t have to worry anymore, and you can’t even think of something nice to say!”
Oh, lordy, I thought. “Pamela, it’s great! Terrific! Okay, so you’re Old Faithful! But I would have gone on liking you no matter what they called you. That’s all I’m trying to say.”
“Oh. Well, now two of us have our states,” Pamela said. “After they name you, Alice, then we can start thinking about other things.”
And then I knew what was worse than being Delaware or Louisiana. Being nothing. Not getting a name at all. Being totally ignored, as though my breasts were so insignificant that they didn’t even deserve Rhode Island.
Dad always says that the quickest way to stop worrying about yourself is to worry about someone else, and when I got to Language Arts the next day, I saw Denise Whitlock with a black eye.
I could tell by the way she was sitting, with her face resting in one hand, that she didn’t want anyone to notice. At the same time, it seemed awful not to say something to her. I realized that I’d seen her sitting this way before, back when we were enemies, but I didn’t suspect until now that she’d been knocked around. So when class was over, and the other kids were piling out the door, I leaned over and said, “Denise, what happened?”
“Nothing,” she said, gathering her stuff together.
“Yes, it did. Who hit you?”
I walked right behind her as she headed for the door, and when we were outside, without looking at me, she said, “Mom.”
“My gosh, what did she hit you with?”
“Her fist.”
Why is it always worse, somehow, when a woman does it? Because women are supposed to be gentle, I guess. At the Whitlocks’, the Woman of the House uses her fist.
“You going to tell anyone? Report it, I mean?” I asked.
“Naw. I probably deserved it. I was giving her lip.”
“Nobody deserves that, Denise.”
“Reporting her wouldn’t do any good,” she said. “She won’t change. That’s the problem—no matter what I do, I can’t win.”
We walked on a little farther. “Someday she’s going to feel really sorry that she treated you like this,” I said.
Denise gave a little laugh. “Try never,” she said.
She glanced over at me suddenly, and for just a moment I thought I saw tears in her eyes, but then she looked away again and shrugged. “It’s okay,” she said, and turned the corner.
* * *
My list of ten things that defined our culture for the time capsule were: a Washington Post newspaper article about global warming, a Harry Potter poster, a DVD of The Lord of the Rings, some Ugg boots, campaign literature about county elections, a SAY NO TO DRUGS bumper sticker, a McDonald’s Big Mac wrapper, an LED flashlight, someone’s old iPod, and a silly band. The problem is that I’m always months or even years behind the times. By the time I catch onto something, it’s on its way out.
Our letters to our sixty-year-old selves were due at the end of the month, and I thought I might do better with that.
“I want you to take your time writing them,” Mr. Hensley said. “They don’t have to be long, but I want you to think carefully about the person you might be at sixty, and see if you can’t connect with that self in your letter.”
What was amazing to me was that Hensley, who is the world’s most boring teacher, came up with something interesting. He probably got it out of a book, but still, he could have assigned us to write about third-world trade deficits or something. All his world studies classes were writing letters to go in the time capsule.
“What are you going to say to your sixty-year-old self?” I asked Pamela and Elizabeth at lunchtime.
“I’ll ask myself whether I made the right choice—marrying or becoming a nun,” Elizabeth said.
“What are you going to write?” I asked Pamela.
She was giggling already. “I’m going to put my bust measurement in my letter, and see how I compare at sixty,” she told me.
To tell the truth, I was getting a little sick of Pamela. Wyoming was really going to her head. In gym, she went to the showers for the first time with her towel around her head instead of her body, just like some of the ninth-graders do, just parading herself in front of everyone.
“I think she’s disgusting,” Elizabeth had said. “Alice, can’t you make her stop?”
“Did you ever try stopping a freight train?” I’d answered. “You don’t have to look, you know.”
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But Elizabeth had looked. We’d all looked. And I’d realized that Pamela had popped out a lot since we started school last September—a long way from tennis balls, but certainly up to Ping-Pong by now.
“Aren’t you tired of waiting to find out who you are?” Elizabeth asked me.
“I know who I am!” I snapped. “It doesn’t matter what they call me.”
I was mad at Elizabeth for asking. Mad at the boys for making me wait. Mad at myself because I was mad at the boys. I felt so helpless, so out of control. Seventh grade makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.
“Pamela got Wyoming,” I announced to my family finally.
“Wyoming what?” asked Lester.
“She is Wyoming,” I explained. “Her breast size, I mean.”
“God in heaven!” murmured Dad. Sometimes, when he says that, it sounds like a prayer.
“What are you?” asked Lester. “Or should I ask?”
“I’m not anything. I’m not even Rhode Island. I think they forgot all about me.”
“I could pick up a West Virginia T-shirt for you to wear,” Lester said. “That should give them an idea.”
“No,” I said quickly, pushing my potato around on my plate.
“A Virginia Is for Lovers shirt?”
“No.”
“I Love New York? Ski in New Hampshire?”
“Les, don’t promote it,” Dad said. “It’s the worst bit of foolishness I ever heard of, and I can’t believe that you even care about it, Al.”
“That’s what Patrick says,” I told him.
“Sensible lad!” said Dad.
I kept digging into my potato. “I asked him to name me after a state himself—suggest it to the other guys, I mean, and you know what he chose? Maine. Because his dad took him float-fishing there, and he liked it.”
“Patrick just flunked,” said Lester.
“But they already had a Maine!” I wailed. “I’m nothing!”
“Al,” said Dad, “your mother told me once that she didn’t really blossom out until she reached the eighth grade.”