Reluctantly Alice

  4

  SAVING DAD

  DAD SAYS THAT ALL MY SNEEZING AND blowing is hay fever that I probably inherited from his mother—that sometimes things like that skip a generation. Maybe so, but I don’t know why this one had to skip over Dad and land on me instead of Lester, or how it could be hay fever when there isn’t a barn anywhere near our neighborhood.

  Just standing on the corner waiting for the bus with Pamela and Elizabeth that morning seemed to set it off, and when Patrick got on and passed my seat, he stopped and said, “What’s wrong?”

  “Hay fever,” I told him, blowing my nose.

  “Oh,” said Patrick, and went on.

  “See?” said Elizabeth.

  “See whad?” I asked, my head stuffy.

  “If Patrick was twenty instead of twelve, he would have at least sympathized or something. He wouldn’t just say, ‘Oh.’”

  “The twenty-year-old in my house would have,” I told her. She and Pamela were really getting dopey about older men.

  In Language Arts class, first period, I sat in the row at the back, and was glad because one pocket in my jeans kept getting slimmer as I took Kleenex out, and the other pocket kept getting fatter as I stuck the used tissues back in. I knew I was really irritating Denise, the girl who sat in front of me, because every time I blew my nose, she raised her shoulders and let out a low sigh.

  Over the weekend we were to have made a family tree and to have listed the most important events in our lives up to that point.

  “We’ll be using these charts all semester, class,” Miss Summers told us. “You may want to use one of your relative as the main character in your own original folktale; you may want to choose an event in your own life as material for a short story; and we will be using these charts as outlines when we study autobiography and biography later on.”

  I wasn’t listening as much as I was noticing how Miss Summers’s blue-green eyes matched the color of her blouse. Then I realized she had asked us to hand our papers in, and I had just started to pass mine to Denise when I remembered we were to circle the name of anyone who was dead or absent.

  “Wait a minute,” I said as my nose started running again, and, snatching my paper back, I circled the penciled box that said “Mother,” holding a Kleenex over my nose, while Denise watched impatiently.

  “Oooh!” she said, taking my paper again. “Widdle Alwice don’t have her a mama.” And laughed.

  I didn’t think much of it, because people say stupid things all the time. I took still another Kleenex and blew hard. When I got to P.E., though, I remembered something else I hadn’t done. We were supposed to have freshly laundered shorts and T-shirts, and I’d forgotten to take mine home. In the lineup, the teacher told me that having clean clothes at inspection every two weeks would be part of my grade, and then I heard the large girl somewhere down the line say, “But Widdle Alwice don’t have a mommy!” and some of the other girls giggled.

  “Do you know anything about that girl over there?” I asked Elizabeth at lunch.

  “Denise Whitlock?” Elizabeth said. “She’s an eighth grader, but I heard she’s repeating a couple courses this year.”

  I noticed that Denise always sat with the same three girls in the cafeteria, all older than us, and they always seemed to be looking around, whispering about other people, and laughing. I decided to steer clear of Denise.

  But in World Studies that afternoon, as we went in the door, Patrick said, “I heard you were crying in Language Arts this morning.”

  I stared at him. “I wasn’t!”

  He just shrugged. “Somebody said you were crying because your mother’s dead.”

  “That’s dumb, Patrick! I was blowing my nose because I have hay fever.”

  “Oh,” said Patrick, and this time I wished he could think of a little more to say.

  I took my seat in the first desk in the front row. Word Studies is one of the subjects where I get butterflies in the stomach, because I always know I’ll be called on first.

  Mr. Hensley was talking about Russia and its republics and was pacing back and forth in front of the room. Not only did he have bad breath, I had discovered, but he spewed little droplets of saliva on the people in the first row. I was thinking how funny it would be if I came to school one day with an umbrella and held it over my head—how the other kids would laugh—when suddenly I saw Mr. Hensley stop in front of me.

  “Alice, can you tell us in what ways Russia, before 1861, was similar to the United States before the Civil War?”

  It’s questions that come at me like Ping-Pong balls that unnerve me. My mind goes blank. I could feel my face turn red.

  “Um . . . there were sections of the country that didn’t agree with other sections of the country?” I said at last. I’m not stupid, but I’m not the brightest person in seventh grade, either.

  Mr. Hensley smiled patiently. “Well, yes, but that’s still the case, isn’t it? There are more than one hundred and fifty national groups living in Russia, remember, each with its own language and customs. But why is the year 1861 important? Yes, Patrick?”

  “Alexander II proclaimed freedom for the serfs,” said Patrick. “Before that they could be bought and sold, just like here.”

  “Correct. Alexander II began his reign as a reformer. What else was he responsible for?” Mr. Hensley asked. Patrick named all the accomplishments like the letters of the alphabet. I didn’t relax until the bell rang and I knew I wouldn’t be called on again.

  At home, we try not to save up all our gripes and bring them up at the dinner table. “When I get home from work,” Dad always says, “I don’t feel like eating problems.” But sometimes we find ourselves laying them out on the table anyway.

  Lester started it by coming to dinner in a rotten mood and complaining because we were eating SpaghettiOs. Dad remarked that he was in a foul mood himself and wasn’t up to anyone else’s complaining, and Lester said that whatever Dad’s problem was, it couldn’t be worse than his own.

  “Want to bet?” Dad said. “I’ve invited both Janice Sherman and Helen Lake to a concert this Saturday, but if what Alice tells me is true and Janice Sherman really does think she’s in love with me, it’s a crazy idea.”

  “It’s a crazy idea,” said Lester, biting into his garlic bread like he was attacking it. “Take it from me, Dad, it’s a ridiculous idea. Marilyn told me last night I’ve got to choose between her and Crystal, and it’s driving me nuts.”

  “Hmmm,” said Dad in sympathy.

  We ate in silence for a while, except for the occasional crunch of garlic bread.

  “Well,” I said, trying to divert their attention. “In Language Arts, a girl teased me because Mom’s dead.”

  Dad looked up. “People don’t tease about things like that, Al.”

  “Yeah?” I said. “She did it again in gym.” I explained what happened, and added, “Now it’s going around school that I was crying in class because I don’t have a mother.”

  “Anyone who would tease about that is just plain sick,” said Dad. “Ignore it.”

  “How?” I asked. “I’ve never been good at pretending I’m deaf.”

  “The next time she says something to you about Mom, just look at her and say, ‘Yeah? And your mother wears army boots,’” said Lester.

  Sometimes Dad and Lester are worse than no help to me whatsoever.

  “Of course,” Lester added, “Dad could always marry Janice or Helen, and then you’d have a mother, and that would shut her up.”

  “Shut up, Lester,” said Dad.

  As the evening went on, though, and after I’d found some cheesecake at the back of the refrigerator that Lester had probably hidden from me, I began to feel a lot better. I began to feel, in fact, that Dad’s and Lester’s problems were a hundred times worse than mine. Lester would simply have to solve his himself, but Dad was in a real mess. Unlike Lester, he already knew for sure which woman he liked best, and it wasn’t the one he had to work with every day, which
really made things sticky. I decided to call Aunt Sally in Chicago and see what she had to suggest.

  “Alice,” she said. “It’s so good to hear from you. How’s seventh grade?”

  I’d already decided I wasn’t going to tell her any of my problems, not when I was being charged by the minute, so I said that things were going great with me, but I was worried about Dad.

  There was silence at the other end of the line—the kind of silence when you can still hear someone breathing.

  “What’s he done, Alice?” she said.

  “Nothing! It’s just that there are these two women . . .”

  “What women?”

  “Well, the assistant manager at his store, and then the one he met at the beach.”

  “I knew it!” said Aunt Sally.

  “What?”

  “I knew he’d go crazy with grief after your mother died. All these years he’s been so quiet. . . .”

  “He’s really okay, Aunt Sally. It’s just that he likes this woman a lot, the one he met at the beach, but he’s invited them both to a concert, and—”

  “Why on earth would he do something like that?”

  The thing about Aunt Sally is that to get her to listen, you have to shut her up. I finally explained how he’s always thought of Janice Sherman as his business partner, while she always thought of him as . . . well, something more. I could just tell.

  “And this girl he met on the beach?”

  “At the beach,” I corrected. “She’s not a girl, Aunt Sally, she’s a lady. She owned the beach cottage next to ours.”

  “Well, I’m so glad you called,” said my aunt. “This is the kind of thing that could get your father in serious trouble.”

  “How?”

  “If things go along the way they are, with that Sherman woman thinking he might marry her, he could get hit with a breach of promise suit.”

  I had no idea it was so serious. I had no idea, either, what a breach of promise suit even was. But the way Aunt Sally made it sound, it was like bubonic plague or something.

  “What’s Janice Sherman like?” Aunt Sally asked.

  I tried to describe Janice. I said she wasn’t too short, not to tall, not too fat, not too thin. She was pretty but not exactly beautiful, and she loved music.

  “Aha!” Aunt Sally seemed to be thinking. “Well, I don’t know if Ben wants any suggestions from me, Alice, but I’ve got one.”

  “We’ll try anything,” I said. Not checking with Dad, of course.

  “It worked for a neighbor of mine. His wife died a while back, and some woman was always chasing him every chance she got. If she wasn’t bringing him meat loaf, she was bringing him applesauce. So one day he told her that while he found her very attractive, it wouldn’t be fair to get involved with her because she reminded him so much of his wife.”

  I tried to figure that one out.

  “He said that if they were to get serious about each other, he’d expect her to look and laugh and dress and behave just like his wife.”

  “What happened?”

  “That’s all it took. Once she knew she’d have to live up to what some other woman had been, that poor soul turned on her heels and never knocked on his door again. Not only did she stop taking him applesauce, she never asked for her bowl back.”

  “That’s all Dad has to do?”

  “He should just tell Janice that every time he looks at her, he feels sad. She’ll be grateful to him for telling her, she’ll be flattered that he’s so fond of her, and she’ll understand completely. Believe me, as a woman, I just know.”

  I lay on my bed a long time that evening, staring down at the rug, knowing Dad would never tell Janice that. I wondered how something as wonderful as love could make so many people unhappy, and tried to think if there wasn’t some other way to handle this. Like having Lester take Janice Sherman to the concert while Dad took Helen Lake.

  “Lester,” I said from the doorway of his room, “would you ever date an older woman?”

  Lester looked up from the textbook he was studying. “Older than what?”

  “Older than you.”

  “Depends,” said Lester, and made some notes in his notebook.

  “Just for a single evening?” I went on. “If it would save somebody’s life?”

  Lester put down his pen. “Al, what the heck are you talking about?”

  “Dad’s in a real mess with Janice and Helen. You just know if he takes them both to the concert it’s going to be a horrible evening.”

  “Al, Dad’s a big boy. He can take care of himself. And if you think I’m going to take Janice Sherman to the concert and have both Marilyn and Crystal mad at me, you’re wrong. The answer is no! Nix! Nyet!“

  That was pretty definite. The only thing left to do was to tell Janice Sherman myself just how much she reminded Dad of Mom.

  I went to the Melody Inn the next day after school because I felt that if Janice Sherman wasn’t expecting me, it might be easier to talk. Sometimes, when I rehearse things in advance, the words come out stupid sounding, so I didn’t practice. I decided I’d just say what came naturally and see what happened. What happened was that Janice said, “Alice, what are you doing here on a Tuesday?” and I said, “I want to talk to you about my dad.” I mean, how natural can you get?

  Dad was at the front of the store showing a grand piano to a woman who looked as though she could afford fifty of them, so Janice knew we’d be alone for a while.

  “Sit down, Alice,” she said gently, shutting the door to the office. “What is it? What about your father?”

  I swallowed and sat down. The words seemed stuck inside me, though. What was I supposed to say next? I took a deep breath. “It’s about you and Dad,” I said, and stopped again.

  Janice Sherman was sitting on the edge of her chair, and I had the feeling that if I didn’t say more soon, she’d fall forward right into my lap. So I said, “I think you know that Dad likes you very much.”

  Janice blushed and smiled in surprise. She twisted the chain around her neck. “We do get along well as coworkers, Alice. But . . . other than that . . . well, I guess your dad will just have to speak for himself. I’m very fond of him, of course.”

  “I know,” I said, “and that’s why I want to say something because . . .” Uh-oh, I thought as I saw her stiffen. “Because . . . well, the real truth is that you remind Dad a lot of my mom.”

  Janice Sherman stared.

  “And . . . Dad knows how unfair it would be to you . . . I mean, to fall in love with a woman who resembled his first wife.”

  I could tell that Janice was confused. I was confused. She had to be flattered, though, that Dad was fond of her and that she reminded him of someone he’s once chosen to marry, so she said, real softly, “Tell me about your mother, Alice. What was she like?”

  I wanted to run right to the phone and tell Aunt Sally that everything she said was right. Janice Sherman did understand, and she’d be grateful forever. She might not get Dad, and they’d live their separate lives, but deep inside, she would know that there was this wonderful unfulfilled passion. . . .

  For the first time that day, I felt my shoulders begin to relax.

  “Well,” I said, trying to remember everything I’d ever heard about my mother. “I was only five when she died, so I don’t remember her that well, but Aunt Sally says she had a good sense of humor, she always joked a lot. I think she had sort of reddish-blond hair. She never liked oatmeal; Dad told me that. And Lester says she was sort of tall and always wore slacks, and she sang a lot. Especially songs from musicals. And freckles. She had freckles.”

  I was going to go on but I realized suddenly that Janice Sherman wasn’t smiling anymore. Janice Sherman wasn’t even sitting. She got up as stiffly as if her legs were made of wood.

  “That description,” she said, her chin trembling a little, “fits Helen Lake exactly, and your f-father seems to find her very easy to get along with indeed.” And she headed for the restroom.
br />   I felt awful. I left the office at the back of the store and walked right by the Gift Shoppe where a revolving display case lights up when you press a button.

  “We got some cute Beethoven bikinis in, Alice,” Loretta Jenkins said, pushing back the clump of wild curly hair that hung around her face like a mane. She grinned at me but I shook my head.

  “No? What about our new Stravinsky T-shirts?”

  “I’m just not in the shopping mood today,” I told her, and went home. I decided that Lester was right. Dad was a big boy and could take care of himself, and I had no business saying what I did to Janice Sherman. I hoped Dad would never find out.

  What happened was that Dad got a phone call from Helen Lake two days before the concert saying she had to go into the hospital for some knee surgery, that she was so sorry, but she’d be coming to Washington again in November, and she’d make it up to him then. Dad was disappointed, of course, but the fact that she was coming in November gave him something to look forward to, and the thought that he didn’t have to take both her and Janice out together was a tremendous relief.

  The morning of the concert, though, Janice Sherman called in sick at the Melody Inn and said she had a migraine and hoped Dad would understand that she couldn’t possibly attend the concert.

  “You want to go to the Kennedy Center tonight and hear the National Symphony?” Dad asked me at dinner.

  “Sure, Dad,” I said, wanting to give him every little bit of comfort that I could.

  “Les, you want to go?” Dad said. “I’ve got three tickets.”

  “What are they playing?” asked Lester, his mouth full of potato.

  “Schubert, Vivaldi, and Brahms,” said Dad.

  “Spare me,” said Lester.

  So Dad and I went to the concert together, he bought me a six-dollar Coke at intermission, and I put my jacket on the empty seat.

  5

  CELEBRITY

  IT WAS THE FOURTH WEEK OF SCHOOL when I thought of the seventh good thing about junior high, to cancel out the seven bad things. But before the week was over, I discovered an eighth bad thing that sounded so awful, so terrible, that it canceled out all seven of the good.