Are You Alone on Purpose?

  “Right,” interrupted Harry. He imitated her voice. “I started to like you.” He sneered. “Yeah, I believe that one.”

  Alison caught her breath in anger. “You’d better believe it,” she spat back, “because it’s true. You were so horrible, someone had to pay attention! And once I started paying attention . . .”

  Harry froze. They stared at each other. And then, slowly, Harry asked: “Why? Tell me why you decided to pay attention?”

  Alison swallowed. She turned her face away before she answered. “I think because—in a different way—for different reasons—no one in my family pays any attention to me either.”

  There was silence. Tentatively, Alison turned back to face Harry, and met his eyes. And, equally slowly, he reached out and took her head in his hands. And then leaned forward and kissed her, gently, on the forehead.

  And then on the mouth.

  And then backed off.

  Astonished, Alison put her hand to her lips. She stared at Harry.

  And he blushed. Alison watched in disbelief as the blush spread upward on his neck and washed over his entire face. He bit his lip. He turned away. “I’m out of practice,” he muttered. She could barely hear him.

  She said, just as quietly, “It might be easier if I helped.”

  In the silence Alison could hear Rabbi Roth talking. Something about responsive readings.

  “You interested?” said Harry. He had turned back toward her.

  “Maybe.”

  He waited, watching her. Alison realized she would have to make the next move. She wiped her palms surreptitiously on her jeans. Then she leaned over and kissed Harry, gently.

  “You’re not really in practice either, are you?” said Harry, after a minute.

  “No.” Alison was feeling surprised. Harry’s lips were very soft. Sweet.

  “It might be even easier,” Harry said, “if you would sit on my lap.” His voice went defensive. “It’s a little hard for me to lean over.”

  “Oh,” said Alison. “Okay.” She moved. His arms came around her. They felt good. They kissed again. Practice, Alison thought, was a good idea. She heard a short rapping noise but paid no attention.

  “Alison? I wonder if you could . . .” It was Rabbi Roth’s voice. Startled, both Alison and Harry looked up, toward the door.

  It was Rabbi Roth himself.

  In the doorway, holding the doorknob. Staring at them.

  HARRY AND ALISON

  May

  Adam was doing considerably better than Harry himself had done, two years before, Harry thought, watching his father watch Adam, at the podium, as he finished his nearly perfect Haftorah portion before a congregation of hundreds of Shandling relatives, friends, and acquaintances.

  He hoped that made his father, revolving on his own little planet, happy. Meanwhile, Harry himself was going to pay some attention to the planet sitting in front of him in the first row, next to her parents. Alison.

  His father hadn’t said anything about walking in on them yesterday. Harry had waited all day and evening and into today, right up until it was time to go to Adam’s bar mitzvah, and his father hadn’t said a word.

  He supposed that was good. Alison had been so terrified. She had slid right off his lap and fallen on the floor, and he had wanted to laugh, but—although he would never have told Alison—he’d been startled himself. And nervous. And frustrated.

  He had wanted to kiss her again.

  He wanted to kiss her now.

  She was wearing a white dress that was covered with lots of tiny green dots. It had a wide green bow at the waist in the back, and it looked very soft.

  So far during the service, he had pulled the bow untied twice. The second time, her mother had twisted suddenly in her seat to look at him, and he had smiled directly at her.

  Mrs. Shandling didn’t like him at all. He could tell.

  “May the Lord bless you and keep you,” his father was intoning over Adam. “May the Lord let his countenance shine upon you . . . .”

  Harry watched Adam; he was actually pretty entertaining. At this point, receiving the rabbinical blessing, a bar mitzvah candidate was supposed to have his head down and his face solemn. Not Adam. He had half turned away from the rabbi and was staring back at the ark containing the Torah scrolls. He looked as if, any second, he would bolt right over there and investigate whatever it was he had noticed.

  Harry wasn’t the only one to notice Adam’s distraction. Directly in front of Harry, the backs of all the Shandlings stiffened together. But then Adam’s posture eased, he lowered his head, and the Shandlings, to a body, relaxed. And so did Harry.

  He watched Adam take his seat again while the service resumed. There were only the final prayers left—fifteen minutes, maybe. Then it would be over and everyone could loosen up at last. And Harry would finally be able to talk to Alison.

  Twenty minutes later, Harry tugged at his tie, wheeled halfway around on the polished wood floor to face into the synagogue’s social hall, and looked around. Nearly everyone was a stranger to him, which was odd here at the synagogue. It felt good. Great, really. He could sit and look around at them all, drinking and talking to each other, and relax. There was plenty for them to look at and talk about besides him. And there weren’t many kids here, either, just a few that he didn’t know and, of course, Paulina.

  Alison was over with her brother and parents, talking to people. That was the way these things went. He remembered. At his bar mitzvah, he’d made short work of anyone trying to talk to him. Alison wouldn’t do that, of course. He grinned. More fool she.

  Alison had moved a little apart from the group around her family. He caught her eye and signaled, then watched as she edged her way between groups of people toward him.

  “Hi,” he said, as she arrived.

  “What did your father say?” she whispered. She shot a glance behind her, but most people were still milling around, or picking up the little cards with the seating assignments for lunch. Harry had already picked up his. He was at the head table. You got some privileges, being the rabbi’s son.

  “Nothing,” Harry said.

  She couldn’t believe it, he could tell. There was no way that mother of hers would have said nothing. “You’re lying,” she said.

  “He doesn’t care what I do. Anyway, it’s not his business.” Harry added, “I had my bar mitzvah already. I’m an adult. Maybe he’s treating me like one.”

  “But . . . ” Alison’s voice trailed off. She was looking away. “My mother’s waving at me,” she said. “I have to go be in the receiving line.”

  “See you,” said Harry. He watched her hurry off.

  He wondered when they could be alone again.

  “Of course I remember you,” Alison said for the twentieth time to the twentieth stranger. “Thank you. Yes, we’re all very proud of my brother. Yes, I’m in ninth grade. Thank you. You look very nice, too.” She tried not to strain to see how long the line was now. Who were all these people?

  And then suddenly it was Paulina’s parents, with Paulina trailing behind. Mrs. de Silva enveloped Alison in a smiling, perfumed hug. “Hello, dear,” she said. “You look so lovely. Wasn’t Adam terrific?”

  “Hi,” said Alison. “Yes. He was. We’re so proud. Hello, Mr. de Silva.” She submitted to being kissed. “Hi, Paulina,” it hurt, sharply, to look at Paulina. They still hadn’t talked.

  “Hi, Alison. Congratulations.”

  Alison could feel Paulina’s parents watching them. She wondered if Paulina had told them that she and Alison weren’t hanging out together anymore, or if, like Alison, she was just letting them figure it out.

  The line was stuck; up ahead, her mother and father were listening to someone with a lot to say. Adam was lucky. He had simply walked off. Alison smiled again at the de Silvas. She tried to think of something to say to them, to Paulina.

  It was sad, because really she had so much to say to Paulina. About Harry, about yesterday. About what a surprise it h
ad been, all at once. About how scared she was, and, at the same time, how... how excited—and happy. About how different Harry was, underneath, from how she had thought. About her parents, and the look on her mother’s face when she had seen Harry untying the bow on Alison’s dress just before Adam’s Haftorah portion. About that strange man, Harry’s father. About what might happen next.

  She had always told Paulina nearly everything. But now it was as if they had never been close.

  The de Silvas moved on.

  And finally everyone had gone through the reception line, and it was time for lunch to be served.

  Harry had calmly exchanged his father’s and Alison’s place cards at the head table so that Alison was sitting next to him, and his father was between Adam and one Dennis Shandling. He hadn’t had to move his own place card; it was already in the position he would have chosen, all the way at one end of the long table, where he’d have the best maneuverability for his chair. He moved into it while everyone was still standing around talking, poured himself a glass of white wine, and ate hors d’oeuvres. The caterers were very considerate. All he had to do was wave periodically and one of them would scurry over with a tray of stuffed mushrooms or spinach canapés.

  Eventually people started sitting down. Harry watched as his father came over, nodded tentatively at him, and took the seat Harry had assigned him. Not that he’d really thought there’d be any trouble there; the person to watch was Alison’s mother, who was just sitting down at the table herself, her attention elsewhere.

  He heard a rustling to his right. Alison. He picked up her place card and handed it to her, gesturing to the seat next to him.

  “I don’t think I’m supposed—” she started.

  “Why not? Are you ashamed to sit next to me?”

  She glanced down the table toward her mother, then sat down. “You know something?” she whispered. “You’re not the most mature person I’ve ever met. In fact—”

  “Listen,” he said quietly. “I really want to kiss you again. I haven’t been able to think of anything else.” He felt himself reddening. He hadn’t meant to say that. He hadn’t meant to say anything of the kind.

  Alison’s voice was very low, but he could hear it. “Me, too,” she said.

  Lots of people came back to the house later that afternoon, and it took Alison over an hour to work her way through them and into the privacy of her own bedroom. She took some care to avoid her mother, who she had seen signaling her with puzzled eyes over the seating arrangements at lunch. But it wasn’t really necessary; her mother was busy.

  It was more difficult to get away from Uncle Dennis. Dennis wanted to talk about Adam.

  “I mean,” said Dennis, “two years ago he barely spoke at all.”

  “He still sometimes doesn’t talk much,” said Alison. “But yeah, I guess he’s changed. It’s hard to tell.”

  “Um-hmm,” Dennis said. “When you live with someone, you’re always the last to notice. You have to make a conscious effort not to take him for granted.” His eyes rested on his boyfriend, Gerald, who was over on the sofa talking patiently with Adam about toothpaste.

  Alison squirmed. She’d known Uncle Dennis forever, of course, but somehow it was different today. She wondered what Harry would think of Dennis and Gerald. Would he think it was weird? Had he noticed them at the bar mitzvah?

  If she could get to her bedroom, she could call him. But what if his father answered?

  “You’ve changed a lot, too, Alison,” Dennis was saying. “You’re all grown up.”

  “Ummph,” said Alison. In a minute, she thought, she would just excuse herself and make a break for it. She would say she needed to get a soda.

  “In fact,” Dennis went on, “unless I’m very much mistaken, you’ve already got yourself a boyfriend. Am I right? That boy at lunch, huh?”

  “He’s a friend of mine,” Alison said cautiously. She did a quick, frantic scan of the room. Thank God, no parents.

  “Uh-huh,” said Dennis. His voice was much too loud. “Well, Alison, I’ve had ‘friends’ in my time, too.” He winked.

  “Excuse me,” Alison muttered. She fled. She could hear Dennis’s laugh, so like her father’s, booming behind her. She made it into her bedroom and closed the door.

  Was Harry her boyfriend? She didn’t know. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair to have Dennis out there, laughing, probably telling everyone in the family about this before Alison even knew herself. Why couldn’t she have any privacy?

  It was only five-thirty. People were going to be out there for hours.

  She changed into jeans and sneakers and a black T-shirt, carefully hung her dress on a special padded hanger, and covered it with a plastic bag before putting it in the closet. Then she slipped down the hall and out the back door. She grabbed her bike and headed off down the street, standing up as she pedaled to go faster.

  “Hey.” Along with the whisper, Harry heard the sound of the metal window screen vibrating against its frame under the pressure of something hitting it. “Harry.”

  Alison. He wheeled over to the window. Beyond the screen, he could just see the top half of her face, and her hand and forearm, upraised to hit the screen. He pushed with his thumbs at the little metal tabs that held the screen in place, released them, forced the screen up, and stuck his head out, looking down to see her standing on the ground under his bedroom window.

  “Hey,” he said back. He held back a smile. “Um, there is a door.” He was amazed at how cool he sounded. Except, like her, he was whispering.

  “I didn’t want to ring the doorbell,” she said. She still had her hair massed on the back of her head in that braid thing.

  “Yeah,” Harry said. “Well. Do you think you could maybe climb in?”

  “Are you nuts?” Even in a whisper, her voice rose on the last word. “Couldn’t you just come out?”

  “Shhh. It’s not that high. You could lean your bike against the wall and stand on it. I’ll pull.”

  After a moment, she shrugged, and went to get the bike. She climbed up on it cautiously, finally managing to balance with one foot on the seat, the other on the handlebars, knees bent, one hand against the wall, the other next to her foot on the handlebars. “Oh, God.”

  Harry reached out. “Okay. Now walk your hands up the wall. You just need to straighten up enough so you can lean in the window and I can grab you.”

  “Uh, okay.” She didn’t move for another minute, and then she did, smoothly, all at once, and Harry grabbed her around the waist, pulling her halfway in. She did the rest herself, landing on the floor where he’d rolled away to make room.

  She looked up at him, suddenly shy. “Hi, again.”

  “Hi.” He reached down, and she took his hands. Then he pulled her into his lap again, and looked at her, and kissed her, and it was just like yesterday, only better.

  And this time his door was locked.

  Long minutes later, Harry pulled a bit away from her. He was panting a little and Alison felt short of breath as well. She put her head down and rested it on his shoulder; she could feel his chest rise and fall with his breathing. He had untucked her T-shirt from her jeans in the back, and his hand was warm there.

  “Hey,” he said. “Alison?”

  “Umm?” She didn’t really feel like speaking. It was so nice not to talk. So nice not to think. Just to feel.

  “I wanted to ask you . . .” His voice, low to start, trailed away.

  Alison thought, incredulously: is he actually going to ask me to go out with him? She thought of Jason Shepherd and the labyrinthine dating protocol at school and almost giggled. Maybe she’d tell him he’d have to send a message through Felicia Goren. “What?” she prompted.

  “I wondered . . .”

  Alison raised her head, looked into Harry’s face, tightened her arms around him, and tilted her head inquiringly, waiting for the silly inevitable.

  “I just wondered if you knew that I can still have sex,” he blurted out. He ducked hi
s head and looked away. “Sort of, that is.”

  Alison literally felt her jaw drop. She stared at him. Her throat closed up. Her mind went blank.

  In the silence, even though she was still on his lap, even though they were still entwined, Alison could feel him separate himself and move apart from her.

  “Yes,” she said. It came out sort of mangled, and she had to cough a little to clear her throat. She felt her face getting hot. “Yes,” she said again, more clearly. “I know.”

  It took him a moment. “You do,” he said, and she could tell by his tone that he wasn’t sure whether he should believe her. But at least he was looking at her again, even though she had trouble meeting his gaze.

  “I looked it up,” Alison said. “At the library.” Months before, after the accident, she had chased through a library catalog computer until she found a book whose title and synopsis sounded right. It had had to be special-ordered from a medical library, and, mortified, Alison had buried the title among five additional requests for books from that same library. Spina bifida. Physical therapy for scoliosis. Things like that.

  “You looked it up,” Harry repeated.

  “Yeah.” Alison felt a little embarrassed.

  He stared at her. She stared right back. And then his mouth twitched at the corner, and so did hers, and they were laughing, choking, pushing their mouths against each other to try to keep the noise down. And when, finally, they stopped, Alison felt Harry’s breath against her ear.

  “Queen Nerd,” he murmured in it. “You are the most incredible Queen Nerd who ever lived.”

  Alison felt like the Queen of Sheba. She closed her eyes and kissed him again. Then she thought of something, and her eyes opened.

  “Harry?” she said. She pulled away a little. “Just because I . . . I know some kids our age...but I want you to know up front. I’m not ready. . . I don’t plan . . .” She stumbled into silence, and looked at Harry helplessly. Suddenly she felt nerdy in a way that wasn’t good.