He even knew my name!
“She is,” said Elizabeth, pointing.
Mr. Watts’s eyes twinkled again. “I won’t tell Lester you were here if you won’t tell him I ate lasagna,” he said. “Cholesterol, you know.” And we all sat down at the table. We figured it was better than sitting on the steps in the cold, waiting for Pamela’s mother to come back and pick us up.
“So what are you? Some kind of spy—watching out the window all the time?” Pamela kidded.
“CIA,” the old man said, just above a whisper, and lifted a forkful of salad to his lips. The back of his hand was covered with brown age spots. “Yep. Knew Berlin backward and forward. All hush-hush business, of course. Not even supposed to talk about it now.” He picked up the serving spoon. “Lasagna, anyone?”
As he put some on each plate Pamela said, “I’ll bet you were a dashing spy in a long trench coat, with a woman on each arm.”
Mr. Watts laughed. “All but the trench coat,” he said, the last word ending in a wheeze. And then, while we ate our dinner and sliced the cake (Mr. Watts ate two pieces), he told us how he had almost been trapped by a female named Matilda, who, of course, was spying on him in turn, and how he’d escaped only by crawling through the skylight of a building, which he was able to do because he’d been on the gymnastics team at Georgetown University.
We almost hated to leave when the meal was over, but I noticed after a while that Mr. Watts was nodding off with a cup of coffee still in his hand. It was probably already past his bedtime.
So Pamela called her mom, and after we had used Mr. Watts’s bathroom and come out again, I saw that he had successfully removed all the leftover lasagna from our dish, emptied the rest of the salad into a container of his own, and transferred the remains of the cake to a pie tin and was putting it all in his fridge.
“Got my dinner for the next three nights,” he said. “Awful nice of you girls to come by.” And when Mrs. Jones drove up, he walked us to the door and said, “Next time call your brother first.” He winked. “He may have a Matilda up there himself, who knows?”
We were still laughing about it when we reached the car and told Mrs. Jones the whole story. She thought it was funny too.
“You should have called me sooner!” she kept saying. “I could have come over and had dinner with you.”
Maybe we should have, but we’d wanted it to be our own adventure. It’s hard when a parent is lonely and wants to be all buddy-buddy with you. No matter how hard they try, they can never be one of the gang, no matter how hip they are, and you don’t really want them to.
“Do you girls want to come over and see how I’ve decorated my apartment?” she asked. “It’s sort of fifties-style art deco. I’ve even got one of those metal turquoise dinette sets.”
“Oh, not tonight, Mom. We’re staying over at Elizabeth’s,” Pamela said.
Mrs. Jones didn’t answer for a moment. Then she said, “Well, sometime, then. And I’ll do all the cooking. Anything you want.”
“Thanks, Mom,” said Pamela.
“Darn!” Elizabeth sprawled on her bed in her flannel drawstring PJs with the tiny blue flowers on them. “I thought we were going to have a fun evening with Lester.”
“Me too,” I said. I sat across from her on the other bed, making a braid in my hair. “Gwen was right when she said we can’t just walk in on a bunch of guys. Who knows what they might have been doing.”
“I wonder if that will ever be us, all living in the same apartment together, having people in,” mused Pamela.
“Let’s all go to the same college!” Elizabeth said enthusiastically.
“I may go to a theater arts school or something,” Pamela told her.
“Couldn’t we be together for just one year, all in the same room at a college?” Elizabeth pleaded.
“I don’t think you can choose your own roommates at college,” I told her. “They like to mix people up.”
We looked at each other in dismay.
“Then let’s promise that none of us will get married and move away till we’ve become career women and lived together, someplace, for one year,” said Elizabeth.
I thought that over. “How can we promise anything?” I said slowly. “Remember how we used to think we’d get married at the same time, have our babies at the same time? You can’t control stuff like that.”
We lay on our stomachs on the twin beds, chins resting on our arms. Pamela began to smile.
“I know one thing we could all do at the same time,” she said.
“Do I want to hear this, Pamela?” I asked.
“What?” asked Elizabeth.
“Lose our virginity,” said Pamela.
“Pamela!” Elizabeth said.
“You know. Prom night. Isn’t that when a lot of girls do it? If we’re with guys we like, I mean,” said Pamela.
I looked at her “Just because it’s prom night? In the backseat of a car?”
“No. We could all rent a hotel room. That’s what some kids do.”
“Sure isn’t the way I imagined it,” I said.
“What? You wanted music? We could have music. You wanted wine? We could get some wine.”
Elizabeth looked thoughtful. “Would you turn out the lights?” she asked.
Now I stared at Elizabeth. “You’re considering this?”
“I just want to know the particulars,” said Elizabeth. “Do you take turns in the bed or what?”
I rolled over on my back. “I’m not even part of this conversation,” I said.
“One couple at a time, Liz, of course!” Pamela said. “The rest of us could stand out in the hall or go in the bathroom or something.”
“The bathroom?” Elizabeth said.
“Is there one sane person in this room?” I asked. “You want to go back to school the following Monday and hear the guys talk about who scored? You want to be a score!”
“I’d like something exciting to happen in my life, other than listening to my parents fight,” said Pamela.
I’d already been thinking about this—about how to get Pamela involved in something fun. “You know what I’m going to do? I’m going to sign you up for the Drama Club next semester,” I announced. She’d quit after only a few months last year, but I don’t give up so easily.
“I don’t think I’m good enough,” she protested. “My voice, I mean. In case there’s a singing part.”
“Don’t give me that!” I said. “You’re taking voice lessons. It won’t hurt you to try out.” I looked to Elizabeth for support.
Liz nodded. “You’re as good as some of the girls who were in Fiddler last spring. Alice is right, Pamela. You’d be great.”
Pamela shrugged, then grinned. “I’d be great on prom night, too.”
But I noticed she hadn’t said no. And I made up my mind that if she didn’t put her name on the sign-up sheet in January, I’d do it for her. But Pamela pushes the envelope sometimes, and she just wouldn’t quit talking about having sex on prom night.
“Whether you think you would or not, Liz, you’d better go to the prom prepared, because it’s usually on the guy’s mind,” she said.
“So I’ll go to the prom prepared not to have sex, Pamela. I’m not going to do it just because a guy wants it. That’s the way girls get into trouble,” Elizabeth said.
“Liz, you can go to a party with no intention of getting involved with someone,” said Pamela, “and the next thing you know, some guy has his hand down your pants and—”
“I’ve already thought of that.”
“And?” I said, curious.
“You’ve got to have a backup,” she told us. “The point is never to go anyplace without a friend. Let’s say you’re my backup, Alice, and we go to a party where a guy comes over and tries to push me into a bedroom. We’d have this signal, see. Like, if I blink twice, it means, ‘Things are heating up; keep an eye on us.’ If I crook my little finger, it means, ‘Come over and interrupt.’ And—”
The
cordless phone between the beds rang, and Liz picked it up. All at once we saw her face soften, her lips curve into a pleased smile. Then we heard her say, “Hi, Ross.”
Pamela and I bolted straight up.
Elizabeth smiled and cupped one hand over the phone, turning away from us. “Yes,” she said softly. “Me too … every night. Especially before I go to sleep.”
Pamela and I began gesturing wildly. Elizabeth turned around and looked at us. We began blinking our eyes and crooking our little fingers and panting and—
Elizabeth laughed. And then, into the phone, she said, “There are two insane girls here, that’s all… . Right! Alice and Pamela. How did you guess?”
At the Melody Inn the next day I was rearranging the silk scarves in the display case of the Gift Shoppe under the stairs—the scarves with composers’ signatures making a design on the fabric—but I was watching David, the new employee, helping a customer choose a songbook.
“Does David have a girlfriend?” I asked Marilyn.
“How could he not?” she answered with a wink. “Every female customer who comes in here dawdles when she sees David. Why? You interested?”
“Too busy,” I said. “I haven’t got time for a boyfriend.”
“That I don’t believe for one minute,” said Marilyn.
I just wasn’t sure I wanted to get involved with someone who worked for Dad, though. It would be awkward being in the same store, especially if we quarreled or anything. But I’ll bet Pamela would be interested.
During a lull in business that afternoon, David and I were talking near the back of the store by the watercooler.
“So what do you do for fun, David?” I asked
“Well, I sing in a men’s chorus; I ski; fool around on my computer… . I’m trying to make some life choices, that’s all.”
“Now, that sounds serious.”
“Well, it can be.”
“No girlfriend?” I asked, smiling.
“Not at the moment,” he said, and smiled back.
When I e-mailed Pamela about David later and told her how good-looking he is, she was online and sent me an instant message in reply:
I’ll bet he’s gay.
Me: Why would you think that?
Pamela: Because when the boss’s daughter comes on to him the way you did and he doesn’t bite, there’s got to be a reason.
Me: Well, it could be that he doesn’t have a lot of money, or I don’t turn him on, or …
Pamela: We’ve got to find out.
Me: If I turn him on?
Pamela: If girls turn him on. PROJECT DAVID! Let’s take him out, the three of us.
I forwarded our conversation to Elizabeth.
Elizabeth: Yeah?
she typed back.
Look what happened with PROJECT LESTER. I’ll do it, though.
Me: You guys are nuts,
I told them. But I knew David was in for it now.
I had other things to think about, though. I still had that ugly, stupid, exasperating embroidery to finish, and it was eating at me. I wished I’d never started it. I knew that Sylvia was busy in the kitchen, however, and would be there for a while, so I got out the thread once again to see if I couldn’t finish another flower. But this time I did a petal and a half before I realized I had stitched both sides of the pillowcase together and would have to take out all I had just done.
“Dammit!” I cried angrily, and threw the pillowcase across the room as tears rose up in my eyes. Then I sat breathing hard, trying to calm myself until I got up the courage to try again. I went over and picked up the pillowcase, then pricked my finger on the needle, getting a small bloodstain on the fabric.
“Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!” I wept, thinking what a dumb idea this had been. Why couldn’t I have bought them a silver serving spoon or a teapot or something? Why did I feel I had to make something when I’ve never been very good at handicrafts?
By Sunday night, though, I’d finished. It was an amateurish job, but it certainly showed effort and persistence. I’d managed to wash out the bloodstain, and I pressed the sheet and washed the one pillowcase that seemed most dirty. Then I folded them carefully, wrapped them in tissue paper, and put them in a brown box with an ivory ribbon around it. Dad and Sylvia had gone to bed early, and I decided to give it to them the next night at dinner.
When the phone rang, I picked it up immediately so as not to wake them. It was Lester.
“So when did you start bringing pineapple upside-down cake to Mr. Watts?” he asked.
“What?” I said. “How did you know? He said he wouldn’t tell!”
“Aha! He didn’t. I went down yesterday to check on him and found him eating a piece of pineapple upside-down cake with all the pecans turned on their sides in a circle pattern. Nobody makes pineapple upside-down cake like that except you.” He paused. “Why did you bring it over? All I could get out of him was, ‘My lips are sealed.’”
“It was just a present,” I said, deciding he didn’t have to know more.
“He was eating lasagna, too, Al.”
“So?”
“He never makes lasagna.”
“Maybe he bought it.”
“And a salad with artichokes in it. He picked up an artichoke and asked me what it was. Somebody brought him a whole dinner, Al—all the stuff he’s not supposed to eat.”
I lost it then. “It was supposed to be a surprise, Lester! But when we got to your door, we—”
“My door? Who’s ‘we’?”
“Pamela and Elizabeth and me.”
“When?”
“Friday night. And Elizabeth thought you were having an orgy.”
“What?”
“Because of the woman in her slip.”
“That was a dress, Al.”
“Yeah, I know. I’m just yanking your chain.”
“How did you get over here?”
“Pamela’s mother dropped us off.”
“What were you trying to do?”
“Surprise you! Bring you your dinner. We didn’t know you were having a party.”
“Hey, Al. Call first, will you?”
“I know, I know. I don’t need a sermon from you too.”
I told him the whole story. Lester was quiet a moment, then he said, “Well, it was a nice thought, anyway, and I’m sorry the evening was such a bust for you.”
I didn’t want him feeling sorry for us or I’d feel even more stupid and childish than I did. “It wasn’t a bust, it was fun. We had a lovely dinner, and Mr. Watts told us all about his life as a spy.”
“A spy?”
“S-P-Y He’s been to Berlin, even!”
“Berlin, Maryland,” said Lester. “As far as I know, he’s never been out of the United States.”
“But he’s worked for the CIA!”
“Right! Center for Insecticide Advancement or something like that. Man oh man, did he ever do a number on you!”
“But … but … he said it all had to be secret.”
“He studied infestations, Alice. And naturally, no one especially cares to have that broadcast around.”
“And he almost got trapped by Matilda and escaped through a skylight and—”
Lester laughed long and hard. “Matilda was somebody’s dog!”
“What?” I said. “Then why did he tell us all that stuff?”
“Probably his way of thanking you for the dinner. He entertained you, didn’t he?” said Lester.
• • •
I told Pamela and Elizabeth and Gwen about it the next day, and we had a good laugh.
“If he wasn’t a spy, he should have been,” said Pamela. “He could make anyone believe anything.”
When I got off the bus with Elizabeth that afternoon, we started down the street to her house. I was going to stay over there for a while so we could study for the algebra test when Elizabeth slowed suddenly and asked, “Isn’t that a moving van in front of your house?”
I stared hard as we got a little closer. There
was a huge white truck parked out front, and two men were coming down the steps, each carrying a large carton.
“If I didn’t know better, I’d say it looks like someone’s moving out,” said Elizabeth.
“But there’s no one there!” I said, walking a little faster. “Dad’s at work and Sylvia’s at school and—”
But the front door was wide open, and standing just inside was … Sylvia.
14
More Changes
“Sylvia’s leaving?” I said, aghast. Would she just come home in the middle of the afternoon and clear out before Dad got here? How could this be?
“Did they have a fight?” asked Elizabeth.
We stood transfixed on the sidewalk in front of Elizabeth’s house, and then we saw the two men emerge from the back of the van carrying something in, Sylvia holding the door open for them.
“We’re idiots,” said Elizabeth. “It’s a delivery truck.”
I began to wonder if I was spending too much time with Elizabeth Price. Lately, I’d even begun to sound like her. Maybe that’s what happens when you hang around too long with the same people; you sound like your best friends.
“I think I’ll study at home,” I said. “If Sylvia’s moving stuff around, I’d like to be there.”
“E-mail me later,” Liz said, and went on up the steps, where her little brother was waving at her from the window.
I crossed the street and went inside. The men were hoisting a huge rectangular package up the stairs, the man below supporting it on his shoulder.
“Oh, Alice!” Sylvia said when she saw me. “I came home early because they’re delivering the Christmas present Ben and I are giving each other.”
“Already?” I said, curious.
“Yes. We bought a new bedroom set, and it’s gorgeous. We didn’t want to wait till Christmas to enjoy it. You could help me get it all ready before your dad gets home, if you like.”