“Do you know what it is?” I asked Dad.
“Haven’t the faintest,” he said, settling back with a glass of wine.
It was about fifteen inches square, two inches thick, and I took off the wrapping paper to find a scrapbook that had obviously been hand-covered in tightly stretched blue gingham.
Curiously, I turned to the first page, and there was a typed copy of a poem:
There is a lady sweet and kind,
Was never face so pleased my mind;
I did but see her passing by,
And yet I love her till I die.
Her gesture, motion, and her smiles,
Her wit, her voice, my heart beguiles.
Beguiles my heart, I know not why,
And yet I love her till I die.
Cupid is winged and doth range,
Her country so my love doth change:
But change she earth, or change she sky,
Yet will I love her till I die.
I stared. I couldn’t believe she’d remembered it. When I was in Miss Summers’s seventh-grade English class and believing she was the wisest and most beautiful woman I’d ever seen—the nicest, anyway—she had assigned us to choose a poem that really meant something to us, memorize it, and recite it to the class with feeling. A poem that expressed something about ourselves.
I had found a poetry book of Mom’s on our shelf, with notations in her handwriting in the margins. I’d memorized a portion of one of her favorite poems, Thanatopsis, because I’d hoped it would make me feel closer to the mother I couldn’t remember as well as I’d wanted.
But in going through the book, I’d found another poem that had caught my eye, and every time I worked at remembering the first poem, I’d stop and read the second.
And on that particular day, the day I was supposed to recite Thanatopsis, about death, I realized I was reciting a poem instead about a woman I’d love forever—my mom, of course—and … and I started crying. Right there in front of the class. And I remembered how kind Sylvia was about it. I looked over at her now, sitting beside me.
“I think that’s when I started loving you,” she said.
“You started loving me?” I said, astonished.
She nodded. “I kept that poem—I copied it out of a poetry book of my own—and put it in your student folder,” she said.
I turned to the next page, and there was a picture of me sitting at my desk at school, smiling.
“Remember how I took pictures of each of you the first day of class? I always take photos of my students and keep them in their folders. It helps me associate faces with names,” she explained.
There was an essay I’d written about my father and also an assignment we’d done on personality, where I’d associated all my family members with characters from musicals—Dad, I remember, was “The Music Man,” Lester was “Li’l Abner,” Mom was “Funny Girl,” and I was “Annie.” There was a program from the Messiah Sing-Along when Sylvia first met my father, the ribbon off the first gift I’d given her… . She, Sylvia Summers, the teacher I had worshipped all those years, had been keeping a scrapbook of me!
Only half the book was full. The rest of the pages were blank.
“If you’ll let me be the keeper of the scrapbook, Alice, I’d like to finish it myself with things I would like to remember about you,” she said.
I guess even if you don’t grow in someone’s body, you can grow in someone’s heart. They say that before you are conceived, you are just a gleam in your father’s eye. I guess you can also be a picture in somebody’s scrapbook. I had just found out that even before Miss Summers knew she would marry my dad—before she’d even met him—she had liked me and thought I was special.
I closed the book and handed it back to her. “Yes,” I said.
She looked at me questioningly for a moment.
“Yes, you can keep it,” I said. I put my arms around her and whispered, “I always loved you too. Even before you knew it.”
17
A New Year
Everyone seemed to be busy on New Year’s Eve. I was hoping that Gwen and Elizabeth and Pamela and I could spend the night at one of our houses, but Gwen’s family goes to church on New Year’s Eve; Elizabeth had agreed to baby-sit her little brother so that her folks could go out, and she’s not allowed to have friends in when she baby-sits. Pamela was going to be at her mother’s.
“I have to,” she explained. “I spent Christmas with Dad, so I’ve got to spend New Year’s Eve with her. It’s called ‘appeasement.’”
Elizabeth and I looked at her sympathetically. We were in Pamela’s bedroom, after spending a day at the mall looking for post-Christmas bargains. Pamela rolled over on her back, holding a pillow to her chest. “To tell the truth,” she went on, “I figure if I’m with her, at least she won’t go out and drink and drive and maybe kill herself and a family of seven or something.”
“Has she always had a drinking problem?” Elizabeth asked.
“Not that I knew of. I noticed she was drinking more when I stayed with her for a while in Colorado. That’s one reason I came back.”
I sighed. “Well, I’m going to be alone because Dad and Sylvia are going out. So Happy New Year, everybody!”
“Your dad and Sylvia deserve to have a marvelous New Year’s Eve,” said Pamela. “I hope they go out and dance till three in the morning and drink champagne and come home and make love so passionately, they roll off the bed.”
I laughed, but Elizabeth said, “That’s the thing about New Year’s Eve. You’re supposed to spend it with the one you love. That’s why everybody tries to hook up with someone on New Year’s, so you won’t look like a loser.”
“Where do you get this stuff, Elizabeth?” I asked. “I mean, who decides these things? Who says that if you don’t have a date on New Year’s Eve, blah, blah, blah … ? I mean, is it carved somewhere in stone?”
“Everybody just knows it!” said Pamela, agreeing with her. “I’ve known it forever, practically! And look at us! When we go back to school and kids ask what we did on New Year’s Eve, all I’ll be able to say is that I spent it with my mother.”
“And I baby-sat,” said Elizabeth.
“And I was home all by myself,” I said. “I’ll bet no one asked me out because of my braces. Probably afraid I’d set off a metal detector somewhere. And who wants to kiss a girl with a mouth full of hardware?”
“Oh, stop it,” said Pamela. “Half the kids in junior high had braces.”
“I’m not in junior high.”
“Well, you sound like it,” Pamela chided, and mimicked me: “‘I’ll bet no one asked me out because of my braces.’”
“Call up Patrick and invite him over,” said Elizabeth.
“He went skiing with his folks in New Hampshire. He e-mailed me,” I said.
“That’s all he said?” asked Pamela. “Just that he’s going skiing?”
“And he hoped I’d have an exciting New Year’s Eve, but not too exciting!”
“Ross is going to call me at midnight,” said Elizabeth, her eyes sparkling. And then, “I wonder what Justin and Jill are doing. Karen said they have sex almost every weekend. What if Jill gets pregnant? What if she gets a disease?”
“I can’t worry too much about Jill,” I said. “Jill has always looked out for number one, don’t you worry.”
We spent the rest of the afternoon calling all our friends to see what the other kids were doing. Penny was going to a party at a neighbor’s, Karen’s mom had invited relatives, Brian was going to a party, and so was Mark.
“I think I’ll just go to bed at eight o’clock, pull the covers up over my head, and enjoy my aching teeth,” I told Pamela and Elizabeth before I went home. “See you next year.”
My teeth did hurt too. They’re close together, and every time the orthodontist tightens the bands, it’s murder. But I guess there are a lot worse things that can happen to you. At least I had teeth.
That evening I helped Sylvia ge
t dressed. She was wearing a short black dress with a low neckline, and when I zipped her up in back, she hardly had room to wiggle.
“Wow, Sylvia!” I said, watching her slip on high-heeled sling-back shoes. “You’re going to give my dad a heart attack!”
She giggled as she put on dangling earrings of pearl and rhinestone clusters and I fastened the clasp on her necklace. “Have I overdone it?” she asked. “He’s been promising to take me dancing for about a year, and this time I’m going to hold him to it.”
When Dad came out of the bathroom all showered and shaven, he stopped in his tracks and looked at Sylvia. Then he buttoned the cuffs of his shirt and gave a low whistle. “Ummm. We could, you know, stay home,” he teased.
“Not a chance. You promised me dancing,” she told him.
I smiled to myself. That was his first surprise of the evening. When they got home later, he’d discover she had on black lace underwear. I knew, because I’d zipped her up.
They were going to dinner first, so they left around eight. I promised myself I would not sit around sulking. I would read magazines and eat fudge and play CDs and have a good time all by myself and …
The phone rang.
Ha! I smiled. Just like in the movies! My first thought was that Patrick and his folks had come home early from New Hampshire and he wanted to spend New Year’s Eve with me. Or maybe it was Eric calling from Texas, and never mind Emily.
“Hello?” I said.
“Hey! Whatcha doin’?” said Lester.
He could probably hear the disappointment in my voice. I had secretly hoped it might even be Sam Mayer. I wasn’t in the mood to listen to Lester talk about a gorgeous new babe he was taking out that night.
“If you want the truth, nothing,” I said.
“No kidding? Well, I’ve got some people coming over for the evening, and I wondered if you’d like to come too.”
I could not believe what I was hearing. It was eight thirty on New Year’s Eve, and my brother—my twenty-three-year-old brother—was inviting me to his party on New Year’s Eve?
“What?” I cried.
“What don’t you understand?” said Lester. “P-A-R-T-Y.”
“Well… sure!” I said. “But Dad and Sylvia have already left and—”
“George’ll be over in about a half hour to pick you up, okay?”
“Les, what shall I wear?”
“You’re naked?”
No, I’m not naked! I’ve got on jeans and a shirt.
“That’s fine. See you soon,” said Lester, and hung up.
Oh no! I thought. I wasn’t going to Lester’s looking like a kid sister. I remembered when I’d gone to a lingerie shower for Crystal Harkins before she married and felt out of place the whole evening. That wasn’t going to happen again. I knew how a woman was supposed to look on New Year’s Eve. I’d seen how Sylvia looked, hadn’t I? What should it be? The bridesmaid dress I’d worn for Crystal’s wedding? It was probably a little too tight now across the chest. The dress I’d worn for Sylvia’s wedding?
I ran upstairs and pulled out the backless slip dress I’d worn when Lester took me to the Tony ‘n’ Tina’s Wedding show for my fifteenth birthday. Yanking off my clothes, I put on fresh makeup, fresh deodorant, and then remembered I couldn’t wear a bra with that dress, and my breasts were a little larger than they’d been in May. So what? I said. If models went without bras, I could too.
The problem was, I was freezing. It had been spring when we’d gone to Tony ‘n’ Tina’s Wedding, and this was December. I pulled on a pair of panty hose and the beige flats with crisscross straps that I’d worn with this dress before. Then I stood in front of the mirror.
Oh my God! The dress was a little tight across the stomach! I looked pregnant! And what would I wear for a coat? I grabbed a fleece jacket and got downstairs just as a car turned in our driveway.
When I stepped out on the porch, I saw snowflakes just beginning to fall, floating lazily down in front of the headlights. A stocky man got out.
“Alice?” he said. “Hi! I’m George. Crawl in the backseat there, and Joan and I will drop you off.”
I got in back and could smell the woman’s perfume before I even closed the door. Her face was barely visible, but her earrings sparkled and I was glad I had put on my sparkly earrings too.
“Hi,” she said. “You’re Les’s sister?”
“Yes.”
George got in and backed out of the drive. “The guys drew straws to see who had to stay home for Mr. Watts on New Year’s Eve, and Les got the short straw. He decided to invite some people in and wants you to help keep him company.”
I laughed. “Okay.”
“Aren’t you freezing?” Joan asked me.
“No, really, I’m fine,” I said, and wondered if she could hear my teeth chattering.
We talked about what a good deal it was for George and Paul and Lester to share their great apartment rent-free as long as they did jobs about the place for Mr. Watts.
And then the car pulled in the driveway of the big Victorian house, and George said, “Have a good time, now.”
They weren’t going in, then. I wondered who was going to drive me back home if George and his girlfriend were going out for the evening. But I was too cold to think about that now, so I ran up the side steps and knocked.
I could hear voices and laughter and music coming from inside, and I realized no one could hear my knock, so I just opened the door and went in. I took off the fleece jacket in the hallway so I could make a proper entrance and walked into a roomful of people sitting around in jeans and sweaters and their stocking feet. They all stopped talking and looked at me, and suddenly Lester leaped up out of his chair.
“Hey, everyone, this is Alice. She’s just come from a party and she’s freezing, so I’ll introduce her around after we get her in warmer clothes,” he said.
Before I could even open my mouth, I felt his arm around my shoulders, steering me out of the living room and into his bedroom across the hall.
“Lester!” I choked. “I didn’t bring any other clothes! I thought this was a New Year’s Eve party!”
“I thought I told you to come as you were!” he said. “Look at you!”
I was standing in front of Lester’s mirror, so I looked, and the fact that I was cold, I guess, made my nipples stand out even more. It looked as though I had two pencil erasers stuck under the front of my dress. I could have died of embarrassment.
“Okay,” Lester said, opening his closet door. “You can sit around in my bathrobe all evening or—”
“No!” I cried.
“Then put on these.” Lester threw a pair of his jeans on the bed, a belt, a black turtleneck, a ski sweater, and a pair of wool socks.
“Come on out when you’re dressed,” he said, and went back to the party.
I felt like crying, but I wouldn’t let myself. I took off my dress and panty hose and shoes and pulled on Lester’s jeans, which were about eight inches too long and eight inches too wide around the waist. But there were goose bumps all over my arms, so the turtleneck felt delicious sliding down over my body, thick with Lester’s scent. I rolled up the bottoms of the jeans and was able to pull his belt just tight enough to keep the pants up. Then I put on the wool socks and finally the sweater, which had a row of pine trees woven across the front. The striped socks on my feet looked like something out of a Dr. Seuss book, but boy, was I warm and comfortable!
I gave my hair a few licks with Lester’s brush as I looked around his room. He had the same size bed as Dad and Sylvia’s, a chest of drawers, a computer table in one corner, a desk in another, and bookshelves all over the place.
It was time to join the party, and I took a deep breath. I would not let my goof spoil the evening, I told myself. Lester had covered for me, and now here I was, in my brother’s apartment, in my brother’s clothes, and I was going to enjoy myself.
I padded out to the living room and saw Lester grin at me from across the room. I s
at down on the rug in front of his chair while he introduced me to the others: a married couple with a new baby in an infant seat; two women who worked in the registrar’s office at the university; and a couple of men and a third woman who were classmates of Lester’s.
The strange thing was, none of the women appeared to be Lester’s “significant other.” None of them even looked “romantically inclined” toward him. They just all appeared to be good friends, happy to be together on the last night of the year.
And suddenly I knew what I was going to write about for the newspaper; I thought maybe I’d title it “Who Says?”
Who was it, I’d write, who tells the rest of us what we should do or be or feel? Who says that we are supposed to dress up on New Year’s Eve and that if you’re not with one special person, you’re a nobody? Come to think of it, who says that everyone has to rise when the bride comes down the aisle? That she has to have a diamond engagement ring or that the groom has to wear a tux? That you have to eat turkey on Thanksgiving, or wear a certain brand of jeans, or have your braces off before you’re fifteen? Who says?
Here I was in clothes several sizes too big, not a boyfriend in sight, sitting here with no one I’d ever met before except my brother, and I was happier than a bug in a rug.
The newborn in the infant seat squirmed and scrunched up his face as though he might cry, but his mother said it was only a gas bubble.
“Would you like to hold him?” she said, smiling at me as I leaned over her baby.
“Sure!” I said, and she handed me his tiny warm body, hardly heavier than a kitten.
As I felt him squirm against me, I remembered a time back in fourth grade when I’d held a teacher’s baby against my shoulder—Mr. Dooley’s baby—and he had burped. I patted the little body I was holding now as his parents watched approvingly, and thought how he didn’t know anything about all the “shoulds.” All he had to do was be himself, and he was accepted just as he was. And so should I be accepted for being me. So should Lori and Leslie, just as they were. So should Amy Sheldon and David, if he decided to be a priest.
The baby burped, and I handed him back to his father as everyone clapped.