Including Alice

  “Wise woman,” Uncle Milt said.

  What surprised me—bothered me, I guess—was that there were five or six pills lined up beside Uncle Milt’s glass of orange juice. I looked at the pills and then at him. When had he gotten so many lines on his forehead? I’d swear they hadn’t been there the last time I visited them in Chicago. Did some people just grow old all of a sudden, or was I noticing things now I hadn’t seen before?

  Up in my room later Pamela, Elizabeth, and I decided to paint our fingernails and toenails with a new polish Elizabeth had bought. In one kind of light it looked cobalt blue. In another, it looked black. All three of us were sitting in a row on my bed, resting against the headboard, our feet propped up on pillows, when the phone rang. I could hear Uncle Milt answering in the hall below, and though I couldn’t make out what he was saying, I knew by the tone of his voice that he was confused. Then he called up the stairs: “Alice? Phone call for Pamela.”

  “We’ll get it,” I said, lifting my feet off the pillow and swiveling around until they were both on the floor. I went out in the hall. “Okay, I’ve got it,” I called back. I took the upstairs phone off the stand outside my door and brought it into the bedroom. I handed it to Pamela as Uncle Milt hung up downstairs.

  We knew the minute we heard the voice at the other end that it was Pamela’s mom. As always, Pamela held the phone out away from her ear so we could hear. I think she feels we don’t believe just how upsetting her mom can be.

  “How did you know I was here?” Pamela said, giving us the look that meant, Here it comes!

  “I just guessed,” her mom said. “Your father said you weren’t there, and even though he lies through his teeth, I figured Alice would know where you were. And, anyway, I knew her dad got married yesterday. How was the wedding?”

  “It was nice,” Pamela said, her voice flat.

  “It’s good to know that someone can find love the second time around,” her mother went on. “I can’t even get your father to believe that I never really stopped loving him and that just because I made a horrible mistake once, I shouldn’t have to be treated like dogshit for the rest of my life.”

  Mrs. Jones does that. She’ll make some reference to a current event and then relate it to everything that’s happened in her own life.

  “Mom, have you been drinking?” Pamela asked.

  “See? See what I mean? A mother can’t even call her own daughter and ask about a wedding, to which the mother wasn’t invited, without people asking if she’s a drunk.”

  “Because, if you have,” Pamela continued, “I’d rather not talk with you right now.” I could tell that Pamela was struggling not to either cry or lose her temper.

  “So you don’t want to talk to me? Your dad’s really sold you a bill of goods, hasn’t he?” Mrs. Jones wasn’t exactly slurring her words, but she sounded different.

  “What I want is for you to treat me like your daughter and not a girlfriend. I don’t want to know what goes on between you and Dad, Mom. I just want to stay out of it.”

  “How the hell can I treat you like a daughter if we’re not even living under the same roof?” Mrs. Jones said. And then her voice softened as she asked, “Pamela, why don’t you come and visit me sometime? I’m right on a bus line. I’ve given you my address, but you’ve never come by.”

  “I thought you got a job at Nordstrom, Mom.”

  “Well, I did, but I don’t work twenty-four hours a day.” I think she belched then. It sounded like a belch.

  “Well, I will sometime,” Pamela said.

  “Promise?” said her mother.

  “I’ll come,” said Pamela.

  Lester and Carol came for lunch. Aunt Sally had been cooking all morning, and Lester claimed he could tell that Aunt Sally was in the house the minute he opened the front door. Aunt Sally is never happier than when she has a whole bunch of people around a table. I think she also figured that whatever Carol had been doing that she shouldn’t, at least she couldn’t do it here.

  Carol herself is glamorous in a New York City kind of way. I’ve never even been to New York City, so maybe I don’t know what I’m talking about, but I’ll bet Carol could be a big-time model if she wanted.

  She’s got Uncle Milt’s arched eyebrows, light shoulder-length hair turned under at the ends, and dimples. No woman should be allowed to be that pretty! I think Lester’s had a secret crush on her since he was a little boy.

  “Mmm. Smells good, Mom. All I’ve had this morning is coffee and half a bagel,” Carol said, giving her parents hugs.

  “Come by for dinner too, and I’ll have a ham ready,” Aunt Sally promised.

  “She can’t,” said Lester, digging into the potato salad. “Carol’s got a heavy date.”

  “That was quick!” said Uncle Milt.

  “Now, Carol, who could you possibly have met in two days that you’re going on a date with?” asked Aunt Sally.

  “Paul Sorenson, one of my roommates,” Lester said. “He and Carol hit it off, and he’s going to show her Washington, D.C.”

  “She already knows Washington, D.C.! She’s seen it with me!” her mother protested.

  “Mom!” Carol chided affectionately.

  “Paul’s a nice guy, Sal. Even you would like him,” Les said.

  “Bring him by for dinner, then, and let us meet him,” Aunt Sally said.

  “I don’t know him that well,” said Carol.

  “I don’t understand dating today,” said Aunt Sally. “How can you know him well enough to sleep in his apartment and go out on the town with him but not well enough to bring him here to meet your parents?”

  “Mom, we’re just going to dinner and a club or two. We’re not engaged! I just met him!” Carol said, and we knew it was time to change the subject.

  Pamela looked Les over. “You looked studly yesterday, Les,” she said.

  “I assume that’s a compliment?” said Lester.

  “He looked what?” asked Aunt Sally.

  “Mature,” said Les, and kissed Aunt Sally on the cheek.

  I’d managed to talk to enough kids after the wedding that I got at least a few suggestions to turn in to the newspaper staff on Monday.

  Things students feel they need to learn before they leave high school:

  1. Learn to pronounce Spanish words correctly even if you can’t speak the language

  2. Put on eyeliner properly

  3. Get a fake ID

  4. Talk to your parents without arguing

  5. Figure out how to tell if you have bad breath

  6. Unhook a girl’s bra

  7. Deal with a teacher who’s sarcastic

  I left the list in the newspaper office before I went to lunch. In the cafeteria everyone told me how great I’d looked in the teal dress, everyone except Penny, of course, who—I noticed—ate at another table. I kept watching her and then Patrick, when he came in later and sat down, to see if I could detect any sign that they’d gone out on Saturday, but I couldn’t tell a thing. Maybe the date had fizzled. Or maybe it had sizzled, and they were keeping it all under wraps. In any case, Patrick smiled over at me and I smiled back.

  Amy Sheldon sat down to eat with us too. I hoped she didn’t think that just because I had invited her on impulse to Dad’s wedding, it automatically made her one of our gang.

  What the girls wanted to talk about, of course, was Sylvia and the dress and the honeymoon. What the guys wanted to talk about was the football game they had watched after they had gone home and whether or not the Terps—the University of Maryland’s team—should keep their coach.

  “Someday,” Elizabeth said, speaking of Sylvia, “that will be one of us coming down the aisle.”

  “Who do you suppose will get married first?” Pamela said.

  We looked around the table with mischievous eyes.

  “Jill!” said Karen.

  “Who will marry last?” said Elizabeth.

  “No,” said Jill. “Who’ll be an old maid?”

  And w
ithout even thinking, I said, “Amy!” Everyone laughed.

  Did you ever say something you instantly wished you could take back? The look on Amy’s face just then …

  “So maybe I don’t even want to get married,” she said, looking down at her Swiss cheese sandwich.

  “Of course,” I said quickly, “she could become vice president of a blue-chip company.” I smiled at her.

  She smiled back, but her smile couldn’t disguise the fact that she’d known exactly what I’d meant.

  Would apologizing make it better or worse? Would inviting her to go somewhere or do something with me erase the insult? When would I discover that there isn’t a delete key to press when it comes to life?

  Sylvia’s sister had already flown back to New Mexico. My uncles Harold and Howard, along with my aunts and Grandpa McKinley, had driven back to Tennessee the day after the wedding. Carol had gone home on Monday, and only Aunt Sally and Uncle Milt were left. They were leaving early Wednesday morning before I went to school, as Dad and Sylvia were coming home that evening. Aunt Sally had already cooked enough to fill the refrigerator so that we wouldn’t have to cook for a week.

  “Good-bye, Alice,” she said a little tearfully when the taxi came to take them to the airport.

  “We didn’t exactly die,” I said.

  “I know. But it’s a whole new life now for you and your father.”

  “We still have the same house, Dad still has the same job… .”

  She kissed me on the cheek. “Things will be both the same and not the same,” she said. “You can count on it.”

  Uncle Milt just grinned down at me before he kissed my forehead. “And some things will be even better. You can count on that, too,” he said.

  I wasn’t sure just what time Dad and Sylvia would be arriving, and I didn’t know whether to have dinner ready for them or not. But I had been home from school only a few minutes that afternoon when the phone rang.

  “Alice?” came a voice I thought I remembered but couldn’t recognize. “This is Lois. Are they home yet?”

  “No,” I said.

  “Good! I’ll be right over,” she said, and hung up.

  Now what? I wondered. Even if she had been Sylvia’s roommate in college, I didn’t think she should be here when Dad and Sylvia came back from their honeymoon. I wasn’t even sure I should be here.

  Only ten minutes later I heard a horn beep lightly in the driveway. When I went to the door, Lois was getting out of her car. She motioned me to come outside, and when I got down the steps, Lois was opening her trunk. I gasped at the sight of a woman’s nude body curled up inside. Then I realized it was a department-store mannequin, and Lois laughed at the look on my face.

  “Ha! Gotcha, didn’t I?” she said.

  “What are you going to do with it?” I asked, puzzled.

  “I had a brainstorm and wanted to make sure your aunt and uncle had gone. Help me carry this up to your dad’s bedroom.”

  “What?” I asked, delighted to be in on the joke, whatever it was.

  “You get the legs, I’ll lift the arms, but let’s get her inside before your neighbors call the police,” Lois said, and up the front steps we went, across the porch, and on inside. The mannequin didn’t weigh much at all, but it was awkward as anything to carry.

  “What are we doing!” I asked, laughing.

  “I’ll tell you as soon as we get her upstairs,” Lois said.

  After we had dumped the mannequin on Dad’s bed, which Aunt Sally had so carefully made up that morning, I said, “I thought everyone had gone home after the wedding.”

  “Everyone but me, I guess. I stayed in town to visit an old friend of mine and got this wild idea. When Sylvia and I were in college, we were invited to a fraternity costume party, and Sylvia went as a belly dancer.”

  “A belly dancer?” I said, trying to imagine it.

  “Yep. And while Nancy and I were looking for something in Sylvia’s closet yesterday morning, I found a box of old college stuff. When Nancy discovered the belly dancer costume, I had to tell her the whole story. And I thought, wouldn’t it be fun to borrow a mannequin from my friend—she’s a department-store buyer—dress it in Sylvia’s belly dancer costume, and have it reclining on their bed when they get back from the honeymoon?”

  “Oh, it would be so funny!” I said, clapping my hands.

  “So we’ve got to get this babe dressed before they walk in.” Lois reached in her bag and took out a black spangled bra and black panties with a filmy blue-and-silver skirt attached. “You do the bra, and I’ll try to get the pants and skirt on her.”

  We laughed all the while we were doing it. I think I twisted the arm wrong, and it seemed to go backward. One leg was definitely backward and had to be reversed.

  “Sylvia actually wore all this?” I asked, inspecting the spangled bra. “To a fraternity party?”

  “She sure did. And every guy there was hitting on her, let me tell you.”

  “And … ?” I asked.

  “And that’s as far as my story goes. If there’s more to it, Sylvia will have to tell you herself.”

  Every so often we were convulsed with laughter when we couldn’t move the mannequin’s limbs the way they should go, her sultry eyes watching us, her mouth in a permanent pout.

  We finally got the mannequin situated just right, resting seductively on the bed, her legs stretched out, one over the other, her cheek propped up on one hand. I even found some glitter to sprinkle in her navel and between her breasts.

  “Done!” said Lois. “Now I’ve got to get back to North Carolina. You’ll have to call and tell me how this went over when they got home. But there’s one little problem. Somebody has to get this mannequin back to the Hecht’s store at Montgomery Mall, where my friend works. I don’t want you to bother Ben with it, and you don’t have your driver’s license yet. Can you think of anyone who … ?”

  “Lester,” I said. “The very one.”

  9

  Message from Penny

  There’s a rule in our house that if we can’t be home in time for dinner, we’re supposed to call—the dinner hour being anywhere between six and seven. So when six fifteen came and I hadn’t heard from Dad and Sylvia, I decided that meant they’d be here for dinner.

  I opened the refrigerator and found a pan of beef stew that Aunt Sally had made, some leftover corn bread, and a cherry pie. Suddenly inspired, I put the stew over low heat, made a salad, then set the dining-room table with a linen cloth and napkins and two white candles. I found one of Dad’s favorite CDs, something by Schubert, and had it ready on the CD player.

  Six thirty came, then six forty-five. I turned off the burner under the stew and put the salad back in the fridge. At seven I went to the door and stared out into the street. Not a car in sight.

  I went upstairs to my computer and answered some e-mails. I found one from Eric, my friend in Texas:

  Hey, stranger,

  How’s it g-g-going?

  He always does that for a joke, just because he stutters.

  Haven’t heard from you in a while.

  You run off and get married or

  something?

  CAY

  I e-mailed back:

  No, my dad did.

  A.

  Eric signs himself CAY for Crazy About You. That’s the way he used to sign e-mail messages to me before I even knew who he was, when he was too shy to introduce himself. I looked at the clock. Seven forty-three.

  I called Lester. One of his roommates answered and said he had just walked out, but maybe he could snag him. I waited while the guy gave a loud whistle and called Les’s name. There was a long pause, the sound of footsteps on wood stairs. A door slamming. Then Lester’s voice:

  “Al?”

  “How did you know it was me?” I asked.

  “Paul said it sounded like a young girl. What’s up?”

  When would I stop sounding like a “young” girl? I wondered. “I think something’s happened,” I s
aid.

  Lester sighed. “Like what? To whom?”

  “Dad and Sylvia.”

  “Why? Did their heads come back in a trunk?”

  “Be serious!” I said. “It’s almost eight o’clock, and they’re still not here and nobody’s called.”

  “When did they say they’d be back?”

  “Wednesday.”

  “Just Wednesday? No time?”

  “No, but…”

  “It’s still four more hours before Thursday, Al.”

  “But we’ve always had this rule, Lester, about calling if we can’t make it in time for dinner!”

  “This isn’t an ordinary day, Al. We’re talking ‘honeymoon’ here. There are probably going to be some new rules. Everything’s up for grabs.”

  “Well, nobody told me that! In fact, nobody even told me good-bye! I’ve got dinner on the stove and a salad in the fridge and the table’s set with linen napkins and candles and everything! Besides, I’m hungry.”

  “So call Sylvia on her cell phone and ask if they’ll be home for dinner.”

  “I forgot to get her number. And even if I knew it, I’m not sure I’d—”

  “Okay, Al. Listen to me and do exactly what I say.”

  I got a pencil ready to write down the number of the state police and all the hospitals between here and West Virginia. “Okay,” I said.

  “Number one,” said Lester. “Go to the kitchen. Two: Put some dinner on a plate. Three: Eat it. Four: Brush your teeth. Five: Go to bed. Got it?”

  “Les-ter!” I wailed. “You’re not helping. You don’t know how much work I did to make things nice for them, and they don’t even bother to call.”

  “Well, nobody told them you would have dinner waiting, and suddenly you’ve got linen napkins and candles and a pout the size of Texas on your face. I’ve got to go now.”

  “Lester?”

  “What?” He sounded in a hurry.

  “Will you do a favor for me and take something back to Hecht’s in a couple of days?”

  “Sure. I’ll pick it up sometime. See ya,” he said.