Incredibly Alice

  I was trying to explain this to Liz and Pamela as we ate our lunch outside under the oak tree at the side of the school. But Pamela can take just so much philosophical thought before she barfs.

  “Alice,” she said, “did you ever consider that in spite of all the twists and turns of fate, there is only one reason why you are here on this earth?”

  “No,” I said. “What?”

  “Your parents had sex,” she told me.

  And who would have thought that the senior prom would be scheduled on my eighteenth birthday, May 14!

  “Now, that’s pretty incredible!” said Sylvia.

  My gift from them would be any prom dress I wanted, with shoes to match, she said, and she went with me to try some on. She said as long as we stayed out of the designer collections, I could have whatever I wanted. I chose a gorgeous gown in a deep, brilliant yellow. The long, full skirt was covered with a layer of white chiffon that made the whole dress look sort of ethereal, cloudlike. It almost seemed to shimmer with every step I took.

  But somehow I couldn’t find the right shoes to dye. I already had a pair of neutral sling-back heels that I loved because the flesh color seemed to elongate my legs, and a pair of bright yellow shoes would give my legs a chopped-off look if I lifted my skirt. And where would I ever wear bright yellow shoes again? So I decided to wear what I had, and Sylvia bought me a cute little clutch purse instead.

  Patrick called the Wednesday before the prom to give me his itinerary.

  “I’m winding up some research for the professor—a graph to go in his book—and I should be finished by Friday,” he said. “Late Friday, probably, but I’ll have it done. I’ll fly into National at eleven forty Saturday morning, and I’m staying with the Stedmeisters.”

  That was no surprise, because I’d heard Mark’s parents offer their home to Patrick whenever he came back for a visit. Patrick was good company for them, having been one of Mark’s best friends. He always did converse easily with adults—maybe because he was an only child.

  “Mr. Stedmeister’s picking me up at the airport and taking me to get my tux. I pretty much guessed at the measurements. You and I are going to have dinner before the dance with the gang. But I’ve made our own plans for what we do after. It’s your birthday, you know.” As though I’d forgotten.

  I felt my heart speed up. Patrick may have had plans, but Dad also had rules. And the one big nonnegotiable rule of the evening was that I could not go to a hotel room after the prom was over. I tried to explain to him that people just got together and rented a room to have an all-night party, not an orgy, but Dad held firm.

  “It’s a lot safer than driving around with all the drunks on the road at three in the morning,” I had said the week before, pulling out all the stops.

  “Not necessarily,” Dad had answered.

  Patrick continued: “Just wanted to make sure you weren’t counting on the after-prom party at the school.”

  “No, I wasn’t. But my dad’s just being a dad, Patrick, and there’s a nonnegotiable rule: I can’t go to a hotel room, even if there are twenty people there.”

  Patrick was quiet for several seconds, and I wondered if his plan for an intimate evening had just gone up in smoke. “Tell your dad that there’s no hotel room in the picture and that you’ll be perfectly safe with me,” he said.

  I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear that, either, especially after what came next: “I have to fly back Sunday, Alice. I have a huge—and I mean huge—test on Monday.”

  I know that for some girls, prom night is when you’re supposed to lose your V card—the atmosphere, the romance, the glamour, the gown. Something to make it special, to remember it by. And this was already special, being my eighteenth birthday, with a boyfriend who was leaving for Spain for a year.

  But I had already decided that wasn’t the way I wanted to have sex my first time—intercourse, I mean. That would seem so … so stereotypical. Everybody dressing up and expecting to get laid afterward. I wanted Patrick so much, it almost hurt to think about it, but I didn’t want it to be a single night. I wanted us to be someplace really private with all the time in the world—before, during, and after.

  It didn’t look like that was going to happen anytime soon, though, and Patrick didn’t live here anymore. He would be leaving for Spain the minute spring quarter ended at the University of Chicago. He would be in Spain a whole year—four quarters. Maybe this night was all I was going to get, I thought nervously. Maybe it was now or never.

  But what if we tried to make love and it was terribly awkward? What if it really hurt, or he came too soon, or I bled and was too sore to try again? I’d heard accounts of other girls’ “first times.” I’d read articles. I knew the old joke about how Niagara Falls was a bride’s “second biggest disappointment.” Did I really want Patrick and me separating for a year with an awkward, hurried “first time” to remember?

  Patrick had just asked a question and was waiting for an answer.

  “What?” I said.

  “What color is your dress?”

  “Yellow,” I said. “Daisy yellow.”

  “I can get you daisies, then?” he teased.

  I smiled. “Even dandelions would do if they’re from you.”

  “Till Saturday, then,” he told me.

  26

  MAY 14

  Sylvia did my hair and nails and even gave me a pedicure (still part of my birthday present, she kidded). I wondered if this was a setup where she’d ask me personal questions about what Patrick and I would do after the prom, seeing as how I was a prisoner of sorts, with one leg on a towel in her lap. She didn’t, though.

  But she did say, “It must be hard to have Patrick so far away.”

  “It is,” I said. “And he’ll be gone all summer.”

  “So will you.”

  “I know, but when I come back from my summer job, he still won’t be here. He won’t even be in Chicago. I wouldn’t be able to see him if I visited Aunt Sally or Carol. He’ll be half a world away.”

  Sylvia carefully buffed the heel of my foot with a pumice stone. “Thank goodness for e-mail and cell phones,” she said. “Maybe he’ll get an international phone card and call you now and then. Maybe you won’t be quite as lonesome as you think.”

  I didn’t tell her I wanted more than that. Didn’t say that maybe I’d make enough on my cruise ship job to fly over and see him in Spain. Didn’t say that maybe with the money Dad was saving by my not going to an out-of-state college, he could afford to send me to Spain and back a couple times a year. And it was that idea that made it bearable.

  Austin and Gwen drove up with Patrick around six o’clock. I could feel my excitement building as I watched the passenger door open and Patrick stepped out. He seemed even taller than when I saw him at Christmas. He’d be eighteen in July. Wasn’t a guy supposed to have attained his full height by eighteen?

  I rushed to the door and opened it before he got to the porch, and then we were in each other’s arms, lips together, and I think he even dropped the corsage box, but we didn’t care.

  When we finally stopped to breathe, we smiled at each other sheepishly, then kissed again, a short kiss this time—it was mostly a hug—and then Patrick picked up the box.

  “Happy Birthday,” he said, his eyes smiling down at me.

  “I’m so glad you’re here,” I told him, pulling him inside the house.

  Sylvia hugged him too, and he and Dad shook hands. I opened the corsage box. The flower must have been something from the orchid family, it was so delicately shaped. A very pale yellow, with sprigs of white baby’s breath. Patrick fastened it to my wrist, and we posed for pictures in front of the stone fireplace in the family room.

  “Come by for lunch tomorrow, Patrick, and we’ll drive you to the airport,” Dad said.

  “That would be great,” Patrick said. “I was planning to come by anyway.”

  I tucked my cell phone in one of Patrick’s pockets so we could take pictures of our fri
ends. I had Sylvia’s wrap over one arm, but as we were about to leave, I asked, “Anything more I should bring, Patrick? A change of clothes or something?”

  “No. What you’re wearing is fine. But … well, sneakers, maybe, in case you want to get rid of those high heels.”

  I went back upstairs to get them, Sylvia fetched a bag, and after the obligatory “Be safe” from Dad, we went out to the car.

  “Have a great time,” Sylvia called as they watched us go.

  We drove to Normandie Farm in Potomac, where we met the others, and everyone greeted Patrick with hugs and cheers.

  It was an old establishment with huge fireplaces at each end of a great hall and geese roaming the grounds. No fire was needed on this evening, but the hall was half filled with prom couples. Pamela was already there at our table with Jay, the guy who had played Frank Jr. in the play. Throughout rehearsals, I’d wondered if something wasn’t clicking between them, so I hadn’t been at all surprised when she’d told us that he invited her to the dance the night of the cast party.

  We all looked positively great. Gwen was in red, Pamela in white, and Liz in lavender. Along with my yellow, we looked like a summer bouquet. It wasn’t long before our table of eight was buzzing with happy chatter, questions zinging back and forth, talk of game scores and vacation plans. All I could think of was how normal, how comfortable, how familiar it all was, having Patrick back again, and yet … how different, because we were all going off in different directions, like seeds from a dandelion—Patrick going farthest of all.

  “Patrick, college must agree with you,” Pamela told him. “When you get back from Spain, you’ll probably be doing the rumba or something.”

  “That’s Cuba, Pamela,” said Austin.

  “Well, the tango, then,” said Pamela.

  “That’s South America!” said Liz, and we laughed.

  There was so much to talk about. Both Austin and Keeno went to different schools from ours. Austin was in his second year at Howard University in the District, Keeno would be entering the naval academy in Annapolis, and Jay would be going to Montgomery College after graduation. I told them how long Patrick and I had known each other—as long as I’d known Liz and Pamela—and how we had all been in Mr. Hensley’s seventh-grade World Studies class together, when we’d buried a time capsule and were supposed to come back when we were sixty to open it.

  “Old ‘Horse-Breath Hensley,’ we called him,” Pamela said.

  “And could that man spit!” Patrick put in. “You almost needed an umbrella if you sat in the first row.”

  “But we liked that time capsule,” I said. “Hensley won’t be around when we open it, but I plan to be here.”

  “We’ll all come,” said Liz. “From wherever we are, we’ve got to be here. And that means you too, Patrick, even if you’re in Samoa or someplace.”

  “How do you know the time capsule will still be there?” Austin asked. “That the school will still be there? I’ll bet there’s a town house development over the playground.”

  “Don’t be so pessimistic,” Gwen told him. “The school undoubtedly recorded it somewhere. What did the class put inside it?”

  “All I remember is that we were each supposed to write a letter to our sixty-year-old selves,” Liz told them.

  “Won’t that be a scream!” said Pamela.

  We rode to the Hyatt, where each end of the ballroom had been decorated like an Arabian tent, with huge pillows and rugs and an artificial sky above. In between dance numbers, seductive belly-dance music came from the tents, along with wafts of incense from elaborate copper burners. We took turns posing in front of the tents and took pictures of each other.

  During some of the numbers we walked around the halls, Patrick greeting old friends, and I felt as though I were showing off a movie star or something—Patrick in his black tux, the yellow boutonniere in his lapel; Patrick looking down at me, smiling; Patrick shaking hands with some of his former teachers, telling them where he was going to school now. But every time there was a slow number, we were in each other’s arms again, gently rocking on the dance floor, my cheek against his chest.

  “Well,” he said, “Happy Birthday. I guess I can say I spent the evening with an older woman.”

  I laughed. “Only by two months.”

  “Yeah, I was probably building block fortresses before you even learned to crawl.”

  “Yeah? I’ll bet I was potty trained before you,” I said, and when a couple next to us overheard and turned to stare, we laughed out loud and Patrick whirled me away. I danced once with Austin and Keeno too, and even once with Sam, who looked especially nice in a gray tux with a wine-colored cummerbund and boutonniere. We danced like old friends, which, I guess, we were.

  Ryan, I noticed, was there with Penny; Phil and another guy from the Gay/Straight Alliance had come together; and Lori and Leslie were still partners, both in white tuxes and looking smashing. When Lori saw me and cut in on Sam, I danced with her, and we laughed when the spotlight—which was focusing for a few seconds on one couple, then another—shone on us.

  “You look great, Lori,” I told her as she turned us so the glare wasn’t in our eyes.

  “You know what? This has been the happiest year of my life so far,” she said. “Everything’s going good.”

  “I can tell,” I told her as she swung me around again. “It shows.”

  “You look pretty happy too,” she said.

  “For a girl whose guy is going to Spain for a year, I guess I am,” I said. “Trying to focus on the here and now.”

  “It’s all any of us have got,” said Lori.

  Patrick claimed me again as the lights went even lower and artificial stars overhead began to twinkle. Patrick’s hand was firm on my bare back, and I leaned into him, my face against his neck, hand resting on his chest as he enclosed me in both his arms. I felt so safe, so secure, so loved.

  We were barely moving to the music now, our bodies pressed against each other. One of his fingers caressed my back, my lips brushed his throat. If only the here and now could last forever, I thought. If I could just stay wrapped in his arms like this … When we kissed, I was conscious once more of the spotlight. I just closed my eyes and moved with him to the music, enjoying the warmth of his hands, the caress of his thumb on my back, the feel of his breath in my hair.

  The spotlight stayed, and some of our friends were applauding. I realized they had stepped back to give us a small space on the floor as long as the spotlight was there, and then the moment was over—we were in shadow again. The crowd moved away, and we lingered over a long kiss.

  About eleven Patrick said we were leaving, and he suggested I use the restroom first. Where would we be going that we wouldn’t have a restroom handy? I wondered. And who was driving? But I did as he said, then picked up my wrap and sneakers at the coatroom. When I got back to the main entrance, where Patrick was waiting for me, he held open the door while I went outside. There in the hotel driveway was a black limo. When he saw us, the driver immediately hopped out and opened the door.

  “Patrick!” I said breathlessly, staring up at him, but he just smiled and helped me get in. Then he slid in beside me.

  It wasn’t a large limo, but the seats were soft and spacious, with a small bouquet of fresh flowers at one side, along with a DVD player, chilled bottles of mango and lime juice, a jar of chocolate-covered raisins, and some macaroons. A sliding panel of dark glass separated us from the driver.

  “The next few hours are for you,” Patrick said, putting one arm around me. “Happy Birthday.”

  “What?” I said. “Where are we going?”

  “We have the limo for three hours, so I thought we’d just go to all your favorite places. You know, drive around.”

  I stared at him in astonishment.

  “Patrick, all my favorite places are within five miles of my house. We could do the whole tour in a half hour.”

  “Oh,” said Patrick, looking dumbfounded.

  Was
it possible that Patrick Long, who could speak at least three languages and had traveled all over the world, hadn’t thought out what to do with a limo in Maryland for the next three hours?

  “Well …” he said at last, as the driver waited. “Hmmm.”

  I broke into laughter. “Patrick! Every minute we sit here is costing you money! Are you sure you want to do this? I mean, whatever it is we’re doing?”

  “There’s got to be some place you’d like to go,” he said. “I mean, dancing, dining …”

  We’d already dined and danced. I knew that all my friends who had watched us leave were wondering what we were doing. I knew that Pamela’s question to me would be, You won’t be seeing Patrick for a year, right? So … tell all. How far did you go?

  “Patrick,” I said, “how far have we been together? Away from here, I mean.”

  “Chicago?” he said, thinking.

  “Well, we can’t get to Chicago and back in three hours. What about Ocean City? Remember that summer Lester brought you out there when Dad rented a house?”

  “It’s a three-hour drive just to get there,” Patrick said. “The farthest we could get would be the Bay Bridge and back.”

  “Okay,” I said, settling myself into the plush seat. “I want to drive to the Bay Bridge with you.”

  His face spread into a grin. “Really?” he said, laughing. “Okay, you got it.” Leaning forward, he slid the dark glass to one side. “Bay Bridge and back,” he said.

  I suppose limo drivers are used to all sorts of directions. There was no answer that I could hear. Patrick slid the window closed again, and the limo rolled out of the circular drive, heading for the beltway.

  27

  VIEW FROM THE BRIDGE

  I think we laughed all the way to the Bay Bridge. It was such a crazy idea, and we had to go over every detail of the evening—the tents and the incense; how great Gwen looked with her hair coiled on top of her head, a silver thread in the braids, how comfortable she and Austin seemed together; whether Keeno would make it through the academy; whether Liz would get to Vermont… .