Incredibly Alice

  “Now tell me something good about yourself,” Gwen urged her.

  Yolanda just wiped her eyes and gave a half smile.

  “Well, I may not like my fingers, but I like my hair,” Gwen continued. “If I want to press it out and get it straightened, I can do that. If I want to go natural, I can. I can dread it and twist it. I’ve got great hair.”

  “I like my arms,” I said, holding one out. I don’t know that they’re different from anyone else’s, but they’re pretty arms. “I’ve always liked my arms and elbows.”

  Pamela jumped up and paraded around. “I like my butt!” she said, and gave herself a slap on the behind, and we applauded.

  We all looked at Yolanda. “I like my feet,” she said finally, wiggling her toes with their bright red polish.

  “The only part of you that’s got any sense,” said Gwen.

  4

  AN UNTIMELY OFFER

  After AP English on Monday, Mrs. Rosen asked if I could stay for a few minutes after class. I figured there was something she wanted me to cover for The Edge, so I had my pen in hand when I went up to her desk.

  She waited until the other students had left the room, then said, “Thanks for staying, Alice. I wonder if you’re familiar with the Ivy Day Ceremony here at school?”

  “A little,” I said, remembering that a few days before graduation each year, I’d seen the seniors, in their caps and gowns, gathering in the hallways and going outside for a procession around the block—around our ivy-covered building—for some kind of ceremony in the courtyard.

  Mrs. Rosen motioned for me to sit down and sat in the chair opposite me. In her white turtleneck and black pants, she looked more like an usher than a teacher, but I liked her shoes—really great purple and black shoes with a little curved heel.

  “Each year the teachers choose an Ivy Bearer—usually a girl who is deemed to be one of the most focused, well-rounded seniors. This is a seventy-year-old tradition in our school. Each class plants a little pot of ivy in the courtyard, symbolic of the senior class having planted its roots in this school. Walking along with the Ivy Bearer is the senior class president on one side and the Ivy Day Poet on the other. The president gives a short dedication as the ivy is presented, the principal accepts it, and then the poet reads an original poem. I’d like you to try out for the poet.”

  My eyes moved from her shoes to her face, a small face, deep-set eyes. I’d had the vague hope as she talked that perhaps I was going to be the designated Ivy Bearer—that focused, well-rounded girl. Had she really said “poet”? Had she said “try out for”?

  “Here’s the way it works,” Mrs. Rosen explained. “The English teachers invite four or five students to write an Ivy Day poem—about our school, their class, the meaning of Ivy Day to them—and each of the students reads his or her poem aloud at a faculty luncheon in early April. That week the faculty votes on which of the poems should be read at the Ivy Day Ceremony, and the author is appointed the Ivy Day Poet. I’d very much like you to be one of the contestants.”

  I was still staring at her. “I … I don’t really write poetry,” I said, stupefied.

  “Well, many of our previous poets hadn’t either, until they were asked. You write some very fine articles for the school paper, and poetry is an excellent way to learn to distill your writing down to its essence. Whether you win or not, you’ll have a chance to perform before the faculty, and that’s both an honor and good experience for college.”

  My pulse was going ninety miles an hour and my throat was dry, but not, I think, from excitement.

  “I just … I don’t know,” I said. “I’ve never thought about it.”

  She reached out and touched my arm. “Well, will you think about it for a few days, then? You don’t have to decide this minute. Take a week if you need to. But I know several teachers who would be very happy if you agreed.”

  I ended up in Mrs. Bailey’s office the next day. The minute I saw a free space on her sign-up sheet for after school, I wrote in my name.

  “I’ve never written much poetry, nothing I really liked,” I lamented. “I don’t do abstract very well. I mostly enjoy writing about people. What am I going to tell Mrs. Rosen?”

  My guidance counselor had made each of us a cup of chai tea, and she nodded as she listened, letting the steam warm her face. She was a sixty-something woman with gray hair, still brown in places, gently curled. Soft skin. Laugh lines at the corners of her eyes.

  “I’ve already got loads of stuff to do—things I want to do—and I feel sure that there are other people who write poetry better than I could,” I continued.

  “Is it possible you might surprise yourself?” Mrs. Bailey asked.

  “It’s possible I’d surprise myself; it’s possible I’d spend the next three months writing and rewriting a poem that isn’t very good, and I’d stand up at the faculty luncheon and humiliate myself,” I said.

  “Well, you’ve given some reasons why you feel you shouldn’t accept. Can you think of any reasons you should?”

  “I really tried to do that,” I told her. “The only reasons I could think of were that Dad would be proud of me and Sylvia would be pleased, simply because she loves poetry.”

  Mrs. Bailey was quiet for a few moments. “And you?” she asked finally.

  “I don’t want to do it, Mrs. Bailey. I wouldn’t enjoy it, I’d obsess over it, and I’d rather be doing other things.”

  “So … ? Where’s the problem?”

  “Mrs. Rosen really wants me to try out for it, and evidently, some other teachers do too. I feel I’d be letting them down. I just … what if I’m saying no because I’m afraid I’ll fail? Actually, in this case, I’m sure I would. But how do I know if I might be refusing for the wrong reasons?”

  “Ah! A question for the ages, Alice.”

  “For the aged?”

  “No, my dear, I mean, this is a question we all wrestle with each time we make a decision.”

  “But how do we ever know?”

  “We don’t. Each time you make a decision, you have to factor in everything you know at that moment. And later, if you see you chose wrong, you remind yourself how it seemed the best choice at the time. Some decisions are reversible, while others aren’t.”

  “I keep telling myself that if I say no, I’m closing a door. They’ll ask someone else and I will have lost the chance to be class poet, to have that honor.”

  “And if you say yes?”

  “If I say yes, I will probably be miserable for the next three months and fool around over and over again with verses I don’t even like. There’s just no joy here, except to think how proud Dad would be.”

  “Did it ever occur to you that by saying no, you could also be opening a door? That there are other ways to win the praise of your dad?” And when I didn’t answer, she asked, “Isn’t he proud enough of you as you are?”

  I slouched down a little and smiled at her. “I think you just talked me into saying no.”

  “My job isn’t to talk you into anything—just to help clear up the picture a bit,” Mrs. Bailey said.

  “Well, it really helps,” I said, but made no move to leave.

  Mrs. Bailey sipped her tea again. “How are other things going in your life right now?”

  “Mostly good,” I said. “I’m excited. Happy. But, well … a lot of the time I also feel sort of … lost.”

  “Lost? As in … ? Can you put your finger on it more specifically?”

  “Well, sad in a way. Scared in a way. Like … all along I’ve had a good idea of what was coming next. When I was a freshman, I’d watch the sophomores, and so on. Suddenly I’m a senior, and stuff like this starts coming at me. Be the class poet. My last chance to do something big in high school. Graduating’s like … like jumping out of a plane, doing something I’ve never done. I don’t know what to expect after high school, not really.”

  “You said you’d decided on the University of Maryland?”

  “Well, not exactly
. I’d like to see if I’m accepted at William & Mary. It would be great if I could go there. But Maryland would be good too. It’s not just school, though.”

  I let out my breath, then inhaled again and blew on my tea. She waited.

  “It’s like I’m leaving one whole life, almost, and starting another. Leaving one part of me behind,” I said. “I guess that’s the sad part, and yet … I mean, it sounds crazy … ,”—she smiled at that—“but for as long as I can remember, I’ve had this beanbag chair. Even after we moved from Chicago to Maryland, even after I redecorated my bedroom, I kept that beanbag chair in one corner because I was so comfortable in it. I curled up in it when I was sad, when I was happy, when I was scared. I always wondered if it was a substitute for my mom’s lap. I never wanted to give it away even when it looked out of place, which it does.

  “And the other night … I don’t know why … I just got the urge to go sink down in it, and …”—my voice actually quavered a little—“I didn’t feel comforted, I felt ridiculous. And I’d always believed I’d take it to college with me and keep it in my dorm. All it’s good for now is a footstool, and I … I … m-miss it.”

  I tried to laugh through my tears, and Mrs. Bailey nodded and smiled.

  “Alice, if you only knew how common this feeling is. Not everyone expresses it as easily as you have,” she said, “but I’ve almost come to expect this of seniors the closer they get to graduation.”

  “Expect what? Everyone missing a beanbag chair?”

  “The blues. The uneasiness.” She put down her cup and folded her hands in her lap. “It’s a kind of mourning, actually, the way I see it, because you really are experiencing a loss. Loss of your childhood, even though you’re glad to be growing up. A certain loss of security, a familiar routine. The pattern of high school life.”

  “But I’ve always looked forward to college! I thought I wanted to be on my own.”

  “And you do. But right now, as you put it, you’re preparing to jump into your future, and you don’t know exactly what you’ll find when you land. You’ve never been there before, only heard about it. And sometimes you just want to fly back to home base, where you feel safe and loved.”

  “Everyone else seems so excited about college, about graduating.”

  She laughed. “They’d probably say the same thing about you.”

  “Really?”

  She nodded. “You guys are good at hiding feelings from each other.”

  I took a minute or so to think about that and sip the tea. “So … how do I deal with it? When I get this … sadness?”

  “Acknowledge it. Take time to say to yourself, ‘I’m feeling really sad’—or nervous or scared, you supply the words—‘and I’m wondering how I’ll get along in college.’ This much I can promise you: It’s a lot less scary when you recognize what you’re feeling instead of trying to hide it from yourself.”

  “I’m not sure that will be enough.”

  “It may not be. You also need to talk about it with whomever will listen, and you know I’m always ready to listen. Remind yourself of the things you’ve faced in the past and how you managed to get through them.”

  “Not exactly like this, though.”

  “No?” She waited.

  “Well … losing my mom, maybe. That was worse.”

  “Really major.”

  “And moving a couple of times.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “And Mark dying.” Somehow the things I’d had to deal with before seemed a lot scarier than just going off to college. “I guess you sort of have to take a deep breath and tell yourself to get over it,” I said.

  “No. Not get over it. Get through it. Go into it staying up front with yourself and remind yourself of all the ways you have of coping. When you get to college, make friends with your counselor early on. Tell her what we’ve talked about here, so that when you come to a bump in the road, you’re already friends.”

  I could feel my panic, like a gas bubble in my chest, slowly evaporating.

  “In the meantime,” Mrs. Bailey said, “why don’t you write about this?”

  “Write it?”

  “A feature article for the paper. You’d be helping a lot of people who, like you, think they’re the only ones who feel this way.”

  “Wow!” I said. “I’m not sure I’m the one to do it.”

  “If not you, who?” Mrs. Bailey asked.

  She was right. It couldn’t be someone from outside the pain and panic, looking in. It had to be someone inside, looking out. And better this than a poem about ivy.

  “Okay,” I said. “I’ll think about it.”

  5

  NEW LIFE

  Sylvia and I went to a baby shower for Marilyn after work on Saturday. I’d known Marilyn since I was in sixth grade. Of all Lester’s old girlfriends, she was probably the one I liked most.

  I’d always thought of Marilyn as the original “flower child,” like the ones we read about back in the sixties. She was earthy and natural and sweet—as close as I could get to an older sister—and I’d always hoped she and Les would marry. But it never worked out, and she and Jack were happily married, playing their guitars, composing folk songs, and playing at weddings and anniversaries and stuff.

  The shower was supposed to have been at the home of one of her friends, but Marilyn had been having back trouble, so they were bringing the shower to her. I had her address, and Sylvia was doing the driving.

  It’s sort of fun to be invited to an adult thing with your mom—stepmom or otherwise. Like you’re accepted now as a woman. An acknowledgment that this would be happening to you—love, marriage, sex, a baby, not necessarily in that order.

  I was wondering how Sylvia felt, going to baby showers when she’d never had a child herself. It was something I didn’t feel I could ever ask. And then Sylvia answered it herself.

  “I used to dread going to baby showers,” she said, steering with one hand as she turned the radio down with the other. “It was the way the women looked at me, or I imagined they were looking at me—their side glances—when little sweaters and booties were held up to be admired. As though I might cry or something. They even said things like, ‘Well, it’s not all baby powder and cooing, you know. There are diapers.’ To make me feel as though I wasn’t missing much.”

  I couldn’t believe Sylvia was telling me all this, things she’d probably never told her friends.

  “So that … wasn’t the way you felt—that you were missing something?” I said hesitantly.

  “Of course I’m missing something. But I’ve never seen the Taj Mahal either. I never played the violin. I never wrote a novel or learned to fly or met a president. When people infer I’m incomplete somehow because I haven’t given birth, I think, ‘We’re all incomplete in some way.’ I don’t know anyone who has done everything she wanted to do in life.”

  “Well, I guess I’d like to have children if it works out,” I told her. “I’m just not sure I’d like the birthing part.”

  She laughed. “That wouldn’t have held me back, but I wanted any children of mine to have a dad they loved as much as I did, and until I met Ben, that just hadn’t happened.”

  I didn’t say, And now you’ve had a hysterectomy, so it’s too late. I didn’t know what to say, but finally I managed, “Well, if you did have children, I think you would have made a good mom.”

  She didn’t laugh out loud, but even without looking at her, I knew she was smiling.

  “And now that I am a mom?” she asked.

  “I think you’re doing pretty good, considering what you inherited,” I said.

  Sylvia glanced my way and gave me a grin. “I think I was pretty lucky with what I got.”

  “I’m not out of the nest yet,” I told her. “Eight more months before college. But there’s a possibility I’ll be out of your hair this summer. A bunch of us are applying for jobs on a new Chesapeake Bay cruise line—waitressing and making beds.”

  “Really!” she said. “
Now, that would be fun. See? That’s another thing I always wanted to do and never did.”

  The Robertses’ rental house was a little Cape Cod off Route 28 out in Rockville. It was on a dark winding road, set back from the street, the trees much larger and older than the houses.

  We saw Kay Yen’s Toyota parked in front, and it was Kay who answered the door. We could hear the chatter of women’s voices as we came up the steps.

  “They put me in charge of the door,” Kay said, grinning, and held it wide open. “I don’t know—is there some symbolism in this?”

  “Like catching a bride’s bouquet?” Sylvia said, and laughed. “I doubt it.”

  I gave Kay a hug as I stepped inside, conscious of how slim she felt, in contrast to how Marilyn looked, sitting on a straight-backed chair, her abdomen huge and resting, it seemed, on her thighs. At the store she was mostly standing or perched on a high stool behind a counter. Now, sitting down, her knees apart, she looked as though she could deliver any minute, and she still had a month to go. I guess on smaller people, an eighth-month pregnancy resembles a basketball under the clothes, but every time I tried to imagine that baby pushing its way out, I had to remind myself that everything stretches.

  “I know,” Marilyn said when I hugged her, as though she could read my thoughts. “I look huge.”

  “You look mama-ish,” I said. “It’s exactly how you’re supposed to look.”

  “Well, I’m ready,” she said, and patted her tummy. “But I guess this little person still has some finishing to do yet.”

  I sat down on the floor beside her chair as the other women gathered around, each of them with a photo of herself as a baby pinned to her shirt, as requested on the invitation. Sylvia’s photo was of a newborn, lying on her back, fists clenched, legs in the frog-kick position, a little red-faced, hairless wonder. It was impossible to see in that baby the beautiful woman she was now.

  For my photo I’d chosen a picture of me in a sundress at around fifteen months, sitting on the curb with an ice-cream cone. It was fun to look at each other’s baby photos and try to see something of the woman-to-be in them, even women I didn’t know.