Including Alice

  When the last student had passed through the receiving line, Sylvia gave a huge sigh and turned, smiling, to me. “Well?” she said, and we laughed together.

  “Mom?” I said, and we hugged.

  “Call me whatever seems natural,” she said. “‘Sylvia’ will do.”

  I’m glad she said that, because I’m not sure I could ever get used to calling her “Mom.”

  Dad just beamed. “Well, are we ready to head off to the reception and do this all over again?” he asked.

  “Why don’t we go on ahead, Ben, and let Alice have a little more time with her friends,” Sylvia said. “Lois is going to look after things here, and she’ll drive her over.”

  “Good idea,” said Dad.

  I ducked in the rest room to check my makeup and see if I still looked as glamorous and adult as I had that morning. I’d just turned toward the mirror when I thought I heard a sob from one of the stalls. The door was ajar, and Lori suddenly emerged, blowing her nose on a piece of toilet paper. She hadn’t heard me come in and quickly looked away.

  “Lori?” I said.

  The tall girl turned back again and faked a smile. “It was a beautiful wedding, Alice,” she said.

  I looked at her closely. “What’s the matter?”

  She pretended to give her hair a quick inspection. “Nothing,” she said.

  “Come on, Lori. What is it?” I persisted.

  And suddenly her face crumpled and she covered it with both hands. “Leslie and I broke up,” she said, and leaned against the sink, sobbing.

  “Oh, Lori! I’m … I’m really sorry!” I said, and gave her a hug.

  “She’s going out with someone else,” Lori cried, backing away then. “We were so right for each other, Alice! We had all these plans… .” She cried all the harder.

  What do you say to someone who has just had her heart broken? What could anyone have said that would have helped me when Patrick and I broke up? Nothing. You have to get yourself through it, that’s all.

  “She was your first real girlfriend, right?” I said, trying to think of something to put it in perspective.

  Lori blew her nose. “Oh, I know what you’re thinking, Alice. That it was only puppy love.”

  “I’m not thinking that at all, Lori,” I told her. “I’ll bet you’re feeling just as bad as I did when Patrick and I split up. All I can say is that there are more loves in your future. You just haven’t found them yet.” It sounded so trite.

  Lori blew her nose a second time. She looked really good in her beige pants and top, as stylish as a New York model. “It’s not as easy for us, Alice.”

  “I guess not,” I said.

  Amy Sheldon came in just then, and Lori dabbed at her eyes with a paper towel. “Go on out,” she murmured to me. “I’m okay.”

  I hesitated.

  “It was just seeing how happy your dad is with Sylvia that made me all the more miserable,” she said, smiling a little.

  “I sure know how that feels!” I said.

  “Listen,” said Lori, “I need a tampon. Do you have one, Alice?”

  “No,” I told her.

  “I do,” Amy called from inside the stall, and when she came out she said, “I always take one with me wherever I go. Here.”

  “Thanks, Amy,” said Lori, and took it into a stall.

  “I figure if I don’t need it, someone else will,” Amy continued.

  “Thanks, Amy,” I said.

  “And see? You were lucky I was here.”

  “Thanks, Amy,” called Lori.

  “If you want another one, just let me know.”

  “Thanks, Amy,” I told her.

  She finally got the message and left. Lori peeked out the door. “Is she gone?” she whispered, and we laughed.

  “Poor Amy,” I said. Then, “Come on.” I grabbed Lori’s hand and pulled her into the lounge, where the kids were now dancing. I was glad to see Amy Sheldon right in the middle of things too, even though she was dancing all by herself.

  I turned Lori around, facing me. “Let’s dance,” I said, and she looked at me, all smiles. Then Gwen and Elizabeth joined in, then Amy, and soon we had a whole group of us dancing together, just us girls.

  Love sure is complicated, I thought. With all that was going on at home and at school, it was a perfect time for me to be going solo, and I intended to enjoy every minute of my sophomore year.

  But a few minutes later when I went out to the water fountain in the hall, Elizabeth followed me and grabbed my arm. “Listen, Alice, you’re going to kill me, I know …”

  I straightened up slowly, water dripping from my chin. Now what?

  She had an agonized look on her face. “Ross called me this morning. His brother is driving to D.C. today to look over George Washington University, and Ross asked if he could come along and see me. He’ll only be here for a short time—a couple of hours, maybe. I didn’t want to tell you before the wedding because I was afraid you’d be upset. Would you be mad at me forever if I skipped the reception?”

  I blinked. The wedding of the century, practically, that we’d all been waiting for forever, and Liz, one of my best friends, wouldn’t be at the reception? And then, in Elizabeth’s eyes, the guy of the century and one of the few chances she had to see him …

  “Of course not, Liz!” I said. “It’s great you can get together. Go ahead.”

  “Oh, Alice!” she said, and hugged me.

  We went back in the lounge, where Patrick was dancing with the others. I went over and started dancing in front of him, grabbing onto his shoulders.

  “Hey!” he said, looking down at me in surprise and smiling.

  “Hey!” I said. “Would you be willing to fill in for one of the girls?”

  “Huh?” said Patrick.

  “I invited Liz and Pamela and Gwen to my dad’s reception, but Elizabeth’s boyfriend is coming to town this afternoon. She can’t go. Will you?”

  Patrick put his hands on my waist and went on smiling and dancing. “Do I have to wear a dress?” he asked.

  I just laughed. “No.”

  “Will there be food?”

  “Fabulous food.”

  “How long?”

  “Couple hours, maybe. You can leave anytime. After you dance with me, that is.”

  “Okay. I’ll have to call my folks and tell them where to pick me up,” he said.

  I smiled after him as he went to find a phone and wondered if I really wanted to go solo my sophomore year or not.

  7

  I Could Have Danced All Night

  The four of us—Patrick, Gwen, Pamela, and me—rode to the reception with Lois. We went into a large private room at the Hyatt, where eight tables had been set for ten each, with tablecloths alternating among royal blue, teal, and ivory. Dad’s composer friend and his ensemble were playing off to one side when I came in, and—mercifully—I’d missed the receiving line.

  People were milling about with drinks in their hands when Lester took the microphone and invited everyone to find their places at the tables. I went up to the head table with Dad and Sylvia and Nancy and Kirk and my two uncles, as waiters went around pouring champagne in all the glasses. Lester tried to get everyone’s attention again, but a lot of people were talking, so Uncle Howard took his fork and tapped it gently against his water glass. Amazing how a high-pitched tapping sound like that can quiet people down.

  “Welcome, everyone,” Lester said again. “I’d like to make a toast to my dad, and I’ll start off by saying what a great choice he made in choosing Sylvia Summers to be his wife.” People smiled and so did Dad. “The ceremony we witnessed this morning couldn’t have happened to a better man.” Everyone applauded. “And I want Sylvia to know that Alice and I welcome her into our family and will do our best to make her feel loved and cherished, as I know she feels with Dad. This is October, but a line from an old Celtic song describes how we feel about Sylvia Summers joining our family: ‘The summer is a comin’ in and winter’s gone away, oh
!’” More applause, more smiles from Dad and Sylvia. Then Lester raised his champagne glass and said, “To Dad and Sylvia, may your life together be as happy as you’ve made the rest of us right now.”

  All the guests lifted their glasses and said, “To Ben and Sylvia.” Aunt Sally cried, and half the people at the tables were tearing up, myself included. I saw Sylvia lean over and hug Lester when he sat back down. Dad had said I could have a little champagne, so I took a few sips and tried not to bawl.

  Then the waiters arrived with platters of food and served each person individually—crab cakes and lobster salad and little sandwiches made with filet mignon. I don’t think Dad and Sylvia ate much because they kept getting up to walk around the room and talk to people. Lester managed to get them back to the table finally so they could eat a little more. At a table in one corner Gwen and Pamela and Patrick began clinking their knives against their glasses, and then we all joined in. We wanted Sylvia and Dad to kiss, so they did.

  At last Mr. Parks, the guys’ P.E. teacher at Sylvia’s junior high, took over the role of deejay for the afternoon.

  “And now,” he said at the microphone, “please welcome the new Mr. and Mrs. Ben McKinley, dancing to their song, ‘All the Things You Are.’”

  I didn’t know Dad and Sylvia had a song! They moved out onto the floor while everyone clapped, and a lot of people began taking pictures of them. The trio played this final song before they left—the rest of the music would come from CDs—and Sylvia seemed to fit in Dad’s arms like fingers in a glove, as though she belonged in those arms and had been there all her life.

  Not only didn’t I know Dad and Sylvia had a song, I didn’t even know the song. But then Mr. Parks started singing it, and I didn’t know he could sing! He had a good voice, actually, and the words told about all the things that Sylvia was to Dad and he was to her—springtime and stars and angel glow—and how happy they would be when they belonged to each other. If I cried any more, I thought, my mascara would be all over my face.

  But somehow I managed to control myself, and soon I was out on the floor dancing with my dad, looking at him smile down at me, while Les danced with Sylvia. After that I had so many partners, I didn’t even keep count. I know I danced with Kirk and Uncle Milt and Uncle Harold and Uncle Howard. I even did a dance with Grandpa McKinley. I faced the wheelchair, grasped the arms, and turned it back and forth in time to the music. At first Grandpa looked at me as though I had risen up out of the sea, but then he started to laugh, and that made us all happy.

  As soon as I could, I went over to the table where Patrick and Gwen and Pamela were sitting to catch my breath.

  “It’s like being back in junior high!” said Pamela. “Look at all the teachers here!”

  “I saw the principal,” I said, nodding toward Mr. Ormand. “And Mrs. Pinotti—she’s so tiny, you blink your eyes and you’d miss her. Who else?”

  “Mr. Tawes, Mrs. Whipple … ,” said Gwen.

  “Oh my God!” I whispered. “There’s Mrs. Bolino. Do you remember her, Pamela? The Our Changing Bodies unit?”

  “Of course. And it was all over school what you did! She said we should be proud of our sex, so you held your female organs diagram to your chest and she said you had to wear it for the rest of the period.”

  “And you wore it all day!” added Gwen. “Everyone was staring at you. I didn’t know you so well then. I thought you were a little crazy.”

  We were all laughing. I could see Patrick’s ears turning pink, so I said, “And you took a look at my diagram, Patrick, and said I had missed the cervix, and I was so embarrassed.” Maybe the champagne had gone to my head.

  His ears were pink. “Yeah, I thought she was a little nuts too,” he said to Gwen.

  “Look!” Pamela said. “Mr. Everett!”

  That really got our attention. I don’t know how we had missed him. He was the handsomest teacher who ever taught junior high. He was our eighth-grade health instructor who won a couple of “best teacher” awards, and he deserved every one of them.

  “I’m going to ask Mr. Everett to dance,” said Pamela.

  “You wouldn’t!” said Gwen.

  “She would,” I said. “Just watch her.”

  Pamela always did like a dare. She got up and made her way around the tables. But just as she got to Mr. Everett, he and Mrs. Bolino started toward the dance floor.

  “Oh, Pamela!” he said. “Say, save the next dance for me, okay?”

  She was embarrassed, I could tell, but as she turned to come back Mr. Hensley stopped her and said, “Pamela, may I have this dance instead?”

  “Uh-oh,” said Patrick. “Horse-Breath Hensley.” It was sad but true—our old seventh-grade World Studies teacher had the worst breath of anyone we knew, and he also spit when he talked.

  Gwen covered her eyes. “Can you hold your breath for three minutes and still live?” she asked.

  It would be terrible to be remembered for your breath, I thought. Mr. Hensley wasn’t the most exciting teacher we’d ever had, but he was fair. And it was in his class that we buried a time capsule out in the schoolyard, and we’re all supposed to come back when we’re sixty years old for the opening-up ceremony.

  As we watched, though, Mr. Hensley proved to be an excellent dancer. Who would have thought? Here he was, retired and boring, and yet he looked as though he was born to be on a dance floor. We could tell that Pamela was surprised.

  “Look at her face!” I said. “She’s absolutely staring at him!” In and out of the dancers they went. I don’t know what dance it was, because I never was a very good dancer. A fox-trot? You couldn’t prove it by me. But they made a great pair! And when the dance was over, Mr. Everett asked Pamela to dance next, and one of the younger men came over and asked Gwen.

  Patrick looked at me. “Guess we’re the only ones left.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Too bad for you.”

  He just reached across the table, put his hand over mine, then stood up. I followed him out on the dance floor, and we were both a little embarrassed when the deejay put on a really slow number.

  Patrick put one arm around me and held my hand up close to his chest. He didn’t say anything, just smiled down at me, and I was astonished at how much taller he had gotten. I swear, he must have grown an inch each semester. Did I fit in his arms like Sylvia fit into Dad’s? I wondered. All I knew was that he was holding me pretty darn close, and I put my cheek against his chest. I knew that Patrick was serious about getting through high school in three years. I knew he had big plans for college, for life. I knew that he didn’t have time for a girlfriend. But I also felt like I was special to him somehow—Patrick in his dark blue sport coat and tan pants and bright red tie. I wanted in the worst way to find out what he had told Penny after she asked him out and whether that was still on for the evening, but I didn’t. Why ruin a wonderful day?

  “Sort of nice to be dancing together again, isn’t it?” he said.

  I smiled up at him. “Oh, it’s probably that old ‘first girlfriend syndrome,’” I said. “You know—you never forget your first love.”

  He grinned. “How do you know you were the first?”

  I laughed. “You mean I wasn’t? How many girls were there, Patrick?”

  He appeared to be silently counting. “Well, there was Grandma, my mom, my aunt…”

  We both laughed. And then, too soon, the music was over. Patrick gave my hand a little squeeze and led me back to the table.

  Mr. Everett came over and asked me to dance. I guess when a teacher knows he’s a hottie, he makes sure to pay equal attention to all his former students; and since there were only three of us younger girls here, he did it graciously enough. I wished I could have danced better. I stumbled over his feet at least twice, and both times he apologized, as though it were his fault.

  “Big day for your dad, huh?” he said to me. Mr. Everett is a giant, practically—six feet five or six. The top of my head only reached his chest, and I had to look way up to se
e him, like sitting in the first row of a movie theater or something.

  “We’ve been waiting for this day for a long time,” I told him. What I wanted to say was, Yeah, we were scared Mr. Sorringer would ruin it, but Sylvia chose the best man.

  “Did Mrs. Everett come too?” I asked. I couldn’t remember if he was sitting with a woman or not.

  “No, our three-year-old has a fever, so Brin is with her today,” he said. “In fact, this is my last dance, and then I have to go. But Sylvia’s one of our favorite teachers, and I really wanted to be here to help celebrate.”

  “And you’re the other favorite teacher,” I said, but he just chuckled.

  Most of the music, I realized, was slow, danceable music—with a partner, I mean. Now and then Mr. Parks threw in a fast number for the younger crowd, but mainly it was the kind of music Dad and Sylvia liked.

  You know what’s really weird, though? At least two more teachers—Mr. Tawes and Mr. Kessler—danced with me. The weirdest feeling in the whole world is to be holding hands with the teacher who taught you math or earth science, his hand on your waist as though you were a grown lady. I decided that if any of them tried to dance cheek to cheek, I would check out of there fast, but none of them did. They just asked me how high school was going and everything. I’ll bet they all envied my dad.

  Marilyn was there too, with Jack, her fiancé. I had hoped I would see sparks between her and Lester. I had almost hoped that Lester would cut in and waltz her right out of the room. But Marilyn danced with her head dreamily on Jack’s shoulder, and Lester spent most of his time with Carol. Some things, I guess, weren’t meant to be. I was having a great time, though, and could have danced all night.

  Except that it wasn’t night, it was afternoon, and the cake was being cut. People were gathering around again, then dancing again, then watching Lester and Carol teach the rest of us a new dance. I don’t know what it was called—the Slither or something—but Les and Carol sort of slunk across the floor sideways like mobsters, Les behind Carol with his hands on her waist in one direction, Carol behind Les going the other way.