“So how’s it going with Sylvia?” he asked after I got into the car beside him and we headed toward the corner.
“Well,” I said, “I just found out she snores.”
Lester glanced over at me. “You’re monitoring their bedroom now?”
“No. Of course not. She was taking a nap on the couch. Lester, I wish you were still at home. It would be so much easier.”
“Two people listening to her snore?”
“I just don’t know how to act around her.”
“Why are you bothering to act at all? Sylvia lies down and snores, and she doesn’t care. Why do your shorts get all twisted when she’s around?”
“I don’t know. I just don’t feel comfortable with her yet, and I wouldn’t feel so weird about things if you were here.”
“Weird? You want weird, try having three people all wanting to use the bathroom at the same time.”
We got to the store about a half hour before closing time.
“So where do we take this thing?” Lester asked.
“Customer Service.”
“What entrance?”
“I don’t know.”
“What floor?”
“I … I don’t know that, either.”
“You don’t know what entrance? You don’t know which floor?”
“All the note said was Customer Service, Lester. I don’t know this store.”
I think he swore under his breath. His lips moved, anyway. We both got out of the car, and Les opened the trunk. He grabbed hold of the bundle, and the tissue paper tore. The mannequin’s left hand fell out. Lester leaped backward and stared. “Ho-ly… !”
I didn’t want him to say no now. “It’s just a mannequin, Lester. Lois borrowed it as a joke.”
“Tell me this,” said Lester. “Is she dressed?”
“No,” I said.
He gave me a look that could wither plants, then pulled the mannequin out and held one end while he tried to juggle the key to the trunk. The tissue paper gave again, and one of the mannequin’s legs slid out.
A middle-aged couple was walking toward us, and I saw the woman suddenly stop and grab the man’s arm.
“Put her back,” Les said quickly. We stuffed her back inside the trunk and closed the lid till the couple passed by, turning once to look at us. Then we tried again.
“You take one end, I’ll take the other, and we’ll carry her like we were carrying a rug,” said Lester. We started off again, walking sideways toward the entrance.
Somehow this seemed to make it look worse. It’s hard to disguise a woman’s body, and the tissue paper was a bad idea. Body parts were sticking out all over the place. Three girls and a man passed us, and I saw the girls stop and stare. One of them gave a little shriek. The mannequin’s left arm had slipped down and was dragging along the concrete. Les grabbed it up again and placed it on top of the bundle where he could hold on to it.
A lady saw us coming and held the door open for us, then gasped as we went through.
“Customer Service Department?” Les asked a clerk, who pointed to one corner of the store. Customers turned to stare.
It was then that I noticed a blue light flashing outside the glass doors where we had entered, and a moment later a security officer came in.
“Excuse me!” he called, hurrying up behind us as another man, a store detective, obviously, approached from the other direction, cell phone in hand. A small crowd gathered twenty feet away.
Lester looked at me. “You die,” he muttered.
“Open the package, please,” the store detective said.
“She’s naked, sir,” Lester told him. The mannequin’s arm slid off again, but this time it came completely off, and it was the officer and the detective who saw the plastic joints in the wrist and fingers. They smiled just a little.
“We’re returning her to Customer Service,” Les said, picking the arm up off the floor.
“Follow me,” said the store detective, and as we started off again Lester reached out with the severed arm and bonked me over the head with it.
But when the second arm fell off, Lester handed it to me along with the tissue paper and, tossing the naked lady over his shoulder, followed the detective. I trailed behind, carrying both arms in my hands like baseball bats. We made our way through the counters of men’s khakis and chinos.
“She just had a little too much to drink,” Lester told one customer who gaped at us open mouthed. And to another he said, “She’s always losing things, this lady. First her clothes, then her arms… .” By the time we got to Customer Service, he even had the store detective laughing.
“We’ve been expecting her,” said the woman at Customer Service, smiling. “I hope you gave her a good time!”
On the way home Lester said, “I hope you’ve had your jollies for the day. Why didn’t you tell me what it was? We could at least have stuffed her in a garment bag or something. But tissue paper!”
“It was the only thing I could think of that would cover her,” I said.
“A paper brain, that’s what you’ve got,” said Lester. “So what were you and Lois doing with it, anyway?”
I told him then about Sylvia’s belly dancer costume and the fraternity party, and at least I got him to smile. “Well, if Dad ever has a dull evening, I guess, Sylvia will know how to liven things up,” he said.
After he dropped me off at home later, I sat in front of my computer and stared at yesterday’s message from Penny:
How much longer are you going to stay
mad at me?
I clicked on REPLY and typed,
I really don’t know.
After I’d sent it, I wondered if I couldn’t have thought of something a little more original and witty than that. I was surprised when a few moments later I got an instant message:
Well, I wish it was soon, because I’m
tired of trying to dislike you.
That was really strange. I typed:
YOU’RE trying to dislike ME? I don’t even
have to try when it comes to you.
Penny wrote immediately.
You must really hate me.
Her openness unnerved me.
Not hate.
Then she wrote:
Okay. I hurt you, and I’m sorry, because I really do like you. But it’s not as though it was all my fault, you know.
Now that made me mad.
No, you were just minding your own business and Patrick suddenly came on to you?
Penny: I’ll admit I liked him, but you can’t hold that against me. We can’t help who we like, can we? And you want other girls to like the guy you’re with, don’t you?
Me: You knew he was going out with me.
Penny: I knew you guys were together, but at first I was just joking around with him, the way I did with the other guys. Maybe I shouldn’t have done that.
Me: Duh!
Penny: Well, what would you do if a guy seemed interested in you but he’d been going out with someone else? Turn your back on him?
Me: I sure wouldn’t have acted like I was available.
Penny: I wasn’t acting like anything. I wasn’t going out with anyone, and everybody knew it. Yes, I knew I could have said something to turn Patrick off whenever we joked around, but I didn’t. And you got hurt. And then / got hurt when Patrick ended it with me.
Me: And that’s supposed to make me feel better? Patrick and I had a good thing going. Then you came along, and now it’s over. And you’re sorry and want to be friends again.
Penny: I guess that’s about it.
Me: Forget it. And in case you think I didn’t know you invited him out the day of Dad’s wedding, I knew.
Penny: Invited him out?
Me: Duh, again.
Penny: I didn’t invite him to go anywhere with me. Dad’s manager of the Pavilion and gets a free ticket to everything. A group was playing there last Saturday night with Patrick’s favorite drummer. I just asked if he wanted the ticket. He sa
id he already had one, that he was going with his dad. I gave the ticket to someone else.
I didn’t know what to say after that. For a while neither one of us wrote anything. Then:
Penny: Look. It’s been five months already since Patrick and I broke up. If you wanted him back so bad, why didn’t you go for him? And don’t tell me Patrick doesn’t want you back, because anyone can tell just by looking that he never stopped liking you.
That really stopped me dead. I didn’t know how to reply. Before I could think of anything to type, Penny continued:
I’ve got a suggestion. Let’s just pretend to like each other for a few days and see how it goes. You don’t really have to like me. Let’s just act like we’re friends again, and if it doesn’t work out, we’ll drop it. Okay?
It was so crazy, I said I’d do it.
Okay,
I typed.
It’s all an act, but we’ll see how it goes.
Penny: Great! Have a good night.
It took more willpower than I thought I had, but I typed,
You too.
I went down to the kitchen about ten thirty to get some graham crackers. Sylvia was there, eating a muffin.
“Where’s Dad?” I asked, as though I was uneasy being alone with her, which I am. Delighted and uneasy both.
“In bed. I wasn’t sleepy, so I read awhile.”
They had only been married a week, and already they weren’t going to bed at the same time? I was sure learning a lot about marriage. About love. About how it’s more like life—it is life—than the movies.
I sat down across from her, and she said, “I saw you working on your computer. Can you do a lot of your homework that way? I’m so illiterate when it comes to computers.”
“Actually, I was having a weird conversation with somebody,” I said. And then, because she didn’t pry, I told her, “There’s this girl at school, Penny, who caused the breakup between Patrick and me and who wants to be friends again.”
Sylvia broke the rest of her muffin in pieces, the sleeve of her lavender robe trailing along the edge of the table. “Yeah? What did you say?”
“I told her I didn’t really know if we could stop being enemies or not.”
She took a bite of muffin. “Well, that’s an honest answer.”
“But I don’t see how I can. Sometimes I feel like I absolutely hate her. She knew Patrick and I had been together a long time, and yet—” I stopped suddenly, horrified at the similarity between what Penny had done and the way my dad had moved in on Sylvia and Jim Sorringer. It was okay for my dad, but not for Penny, is that what I was saying? “I guess I don’t know how a person ever gets over it,” I said.
“It sure can’t be easy,” Sylvia said, and I wondered if she was thinking the same thing. There were two worlds here, Sylvia’s and mine. We could talk about mine, maybe, but I didn’t think I could ever ask about hers.
We were both quiet for a few moments while Sylvia went on eating her muffin. After a while she said, “I noticed you and Patrick dancing at the reception. Is he … well … still in the picture?”
“We’re friends,” I said. “At least we’re back to being that again. But we’re not going out or anything. Neither are he and Penny. That’s what’s so weird. I mean, if I really want him back, why don’t I go for it? It’s like I can’t forgive him either.”
“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe ‘forgiveness’ isn’t the right word here,” Sylvia said. “Maybe you both just need time to back off and see how you feel about each other.”
I thought of the way Sylvia Summers had gone to England for a year to try to make up her mind about whom she loved most—Jim Sorringer or Dad. I took a chance. “Maybe I should go to England for a year,” I joked.
She looked at me strangely, as though I’d caught her off guard. Then she laughed. “I don’t think you have to go that far. But what did you decide to do about Penny?”
“We agreed to pretend to like each other for a few days and see how it goes,” I said.
Her eyes opened wide in surprise. “My gosh! Let me know what happens.”
On the bus the next morning Penny called, “Hi, Liz. Hi, Alice,” when we got on.
“Hi, Penny,” I said, and went to the back to sit with Pamela. She raised one eyebrow at me, looked toward Penny, then back again. I shrugged.
At lunch I forced myself—one foot in front of the other—to carry my tray to the table where Penny was sitting and sit down beside her. I figured at least we wouldn’t have to stare at each other every time we looked up if we were side by side.
“What’s up?” I said.
The guys didn’t seem to notice—well, I saw Patrick look our way—but the girls sure did. Karen nudged Jill, and I figured she’d have the gossip mill going before lunch period was over.
“Same old,” Penny said. “Got a C on that test on the Proterozoic era. There’s got to be someone in the universe who can make rocks sound exciting, but this teacher isn’t the one.”
Pamela kept studying us, wondering what was going on. But Elizabeth is all for reconciliation when possible, and she said, “Alice is going to a Halloween party on Friday—the school newspaper staff—and they all have to come in costumes made out of newspaper.”
“What?” said Penny, breaking into a grin.
“How about a newspaper bikini?” said Mark.
“A thong,” said Brian.
“I think she should go in a muumuu,” said Elizabeth.
“What about a bikini top and a grass skirt made of paper?” said Penny.
“That’s it!” said Pamela. “Do that, Alice! That’s better than a sarong.”
“Yeah, a grass skirt with strips of newspaper for the grass,” said Karen.
Well, maybe, I thought. At least I’d be able to sit down without ripping the paper. “Okay, I’ll do it!” I said.
The bell rang.
“See you,” said Penny.
“See you,” I said.
Pamela walked beside me as we left the cafeteria. “Well, that was a change,” she said. “I thought you two were mortal enemies.”
“No, I decided to grow up,” I said. For a few days, anyway.
11
Party
The problem was that I thought life would be perfect after my dad married Sylvia Summers. If you had asked me that, I would have said of course not, nothing is perfect, but still, in my heart …
The second week after the wedding, for example, I swung back and forth between loving to see Sylvia puttering around our kitchen and resenting the fact that she was in our bathroom when I needed it.
One of the things I like about her is that she’s sort of funky in the mornings. She speaks in monosyllables. Dad might say, “I’m making an omelet, Sylvia. Want one?” And she’ll just say, “Toast,” with her eyes half closed. Or Dad will tell her he’s going in early and he’ll go over his whole schedule for the day. When he’s through, his hand on the door, she’ll just say, “Bye.”
She says it’s because she’s lived alone for so long that she doesn’t know how to act in civilized society between six and eight in the mornings. Sometimes, when she’s trying to read the paper during breakfast, she looks a little cross-eyed, like her eyes aren’t in focus. Dad thinks it’s funny. She reminds us of Lester that way. He’s not a morning person either.
So much of the time, though, it was like I was waiting for a guest to go home, yet this was her home. She had put her house on Saul Road up for sale and was slowly moving her things here. Two new chairs in our living room, a teak buffet in the dining room, lamps, a couple of bookcases and end tables. Our house was looking very nice—comfortable and cozy.
But I would probably never have my dad to myself again, I thought. No long conversations at the table without Sylvia there in the background. Why was I feeling this way? What was wrong with me? I wondered. Dad and Sylvia seemed perfectly content. Yet here I was in this house with a woman I’d always known as a teacher, and I was afraid I’d do something to e
mbarrass either her or myself. I was afraid to be me.
Lester wasn’t living here anymore, a girl I’d hated was being nice to me, Algebra II was even harder than I’d thought, and so far Dad’s marrying Sylvia hadn’t changed any of these things. I got Sylvia for a stepmom, and I still had all the problems I had before, plus some new ones.
As for Sylvia herself, she wasn’t always the glamorous person she was at school, and this really surprised me. When she first got up, her hair was a mess, her face was pale, and she was so long-waisted, I discovered, that her body seemed unnaturally stretched between her neck and waistline. I guess I couldn’t get over the fact that she was a living, breathing person who had the same bodily functions I did. And that Dad loved her even when she looked like she had a headache and toothache, both at the same time.
I decided that I would feel a lot better if I could just finish embroidering those stupid monograms, give them the present, and get it over with. I had made such a mess of one of the doves that I had to start again. A half hour each night until you finish, I told myself.
Pamela and Elizabeth came over Friday night to help me make my costume for the Halloween party.
Pamela took my bikini bathing suit top and prepared to cover it with newspaper. “What do you want over your breasts?” she asked. “The comics, the business section, or the food section?”
“Give her the food,” said Elizabeth, grinning, “in case some of the guys get hungry.”
I swatted at her, and we all took sections of the newspaper and began. Elizabeth cut out long strips of newspaper for the skirt, and I went to work covering a belt with stock market quotes. We’d attach the strips to that. It was amazing how many overlapping strips it took to make me look decent. I was going to wear a pair of black spandex running shorts underneath.