“I was thoughtless and stupid not to tell you first, and I apologize. But is this reason enough for you to leave? Move somewhere else?”
“I think so. I may even make manager at another store, who knows?”
“Well, if that happens, it will be my great loss and another’s gain, Janice. I can only wish you the best of luck, and I mean that sincerely. You’ll do a great job wherever you are. I’m just sorry you feel this way.”
“So am I, Ben.”
I moved my head an inch at a time until I could just see around the doorway into the living room. Janice was getting up from the couch, her purse tucked under her arm like a rifle. She walked stiffly across the room toward the front door. I edged back again until I heard my father’s footsteps, too, in the hall. Then I peeked again.
“Can I count on you until the end of the month?” he asked.
“Yes. You can count on that,” Janice said. “Good-bye, Ben.” Suddenly she threw her arms around Dad’s neck, her purse dropping to the floor, and pressed her mouth against his. Dad stood as stiff as a broom handle, his palms resting lightly against her waist, but his fingers bent back away from her, afraid, it seemed, to touch her any more than necessary.
Before he could say a word, she turned again, swooped down to pick up her purse, then went out the front door, closing it behind her.
Dad didn’t move.
Les was coming downstairs in his stocking feet. I emerged from the kitchen, and we joined Dad there in the hallway. I didn’t know what to say, so I let Les do the talking. He grinned a little ruefully at Dad and said, “Well, Pops, you win some, you lose some.”
Dad shook his head. “Can you imagine? And all because Marilyn found out before she did.”
But Lester said, “I think it was the only excuse she could come up with. It was only a matter of time before she left. It would have been unbearable for her, once you were married, to have to listen to Sylvia and I did this, and Sylvia and I did that.”
“You’re probably right, but I’d no idea she was this unhappy. What am I going to do? Who will I find to replace her? Janice knows the store almost better than I do. She’s a terrific asset!”
“Won’t the corporation send someone else?”
“They always give us a chance to find someone local first.”
“Well, the advice you’d give me is to sleep on it, so why don’t you?” Lester said.
“I guess I will.” But Dad still didn’t move; he just stood in the hallway with a dazed look on his face. “Will somebody please explain why the major problems in this household concern romance?” he asked plaintively.
“’Cause love makes the world go around, Dad,” I told him.
“And it makes me dizzy,” Dad said.
4
The Big Night
There were even more people on Saturday than I’d expected. Kids invited other kids, I guess. The usual crowd was there, the ones who hang out at Mark Stedmeister’s pool in the summer: Patrick, Elizabeth and Pamela, Brian and Mark, Karen and Jill, and, lately, Gwen and her boyfriend, Legs. I’d invited two friends from school, Lori Haynes and her friend Leslie, mostly because some of the girls had been so awful to them back in eighth grade, but I wanted to know Lori better.
Justin Collier came, of course—the guy who likes Elizabeth—but I was surprised when Sam Mayer showed up with his girlfriend, Jennifer. Sam had asked me to the eighth-grade semiformal last spring, not realizing, I guess, that Patrick and I were a couple. That made fifteen people, and Mark had invited Penny, so that was sixteen. Penny’s dad actually came to the door to make sure an adult was present. But the biggest surprise of all was that an hour after everyone else had got there, Donald Sheavers rang the doorbell.
Pamela was peering out the window. “It’s him!” I heard her squeal, and Elizabeth started laughing.
I looked out. “Who invited Donald?” I asked. “Pamela!”
“He’s cute!” she said.
Donald Sheavers used to be my boyfriend back in fourth and fifth grades when we were renting a house in Takoma Park. He doesn’t even go to our school, and I’d never thought he had much between the ears because he always did whatever I told him. If I’d said, Donald, jump out the window, he probably would have jumped. But Pamela met him when we bumped into him at the mall, and then she invited him to the eighth grade semiformal, and he’d seemed a lot smarter then.
I wasn’t exactly wild to have him at the sleepover, though, since he didn’t know most of the other kids. Or maybe I remembered the way he always gave a Tarzan yell when he saw me, just because we used to play Tarzan together. Really dumb. It didn’t matter where we were—at school, the mall, the playground—whenever Donald saw me, he’d beat his chest and give a Tarzan yell, and it embarrassed me to death.
I opened the door. Donald started beating his chest and opened his mouth, and just as suddenly he closed it again and grinned. “Just kidding,” he said.
I laughed and held the door open for him. He had a sleeping bag under one arm. “So where’s the party? We all going to sleep in the same bed or what?”
“Shhhh,” I said. “Dad’s freaking out as it is.”
“Don-ald!” Pamela cried dramatically, throwing her arms around his neck, and introducing him to the other kids.
There were already three different card games in progress, but the TV was going, too, and there was the smell of popcorn coming from the kitchen. A car with a Domino’s sign on top stopped out front, and a man came to the door carrying five large pizzas.
I guess I’d never seen so many people in our house at one time. Wall-to-wall people. Somebody had a boom box playing softly in one corner, competing with the TV, Karen was snapping Polaroid pictures of everybody, Jill was dancing with Justin Collier and Mark, both at the same time, Penny was strutting around in red flannel pj’s with a drop seat, making us all laugh, and Patrick was imitating David Letterman. It was simply loud and fun and busy, just the way a party should be. Donald seemed to fit right in.
Dad wasn’t used to cooking for more than four or five people at a time. If we had one other person at the table besides our family, we figured we had a full house. Now Dad couldn’t even carry a pizza into the room without stepping over or around bodies—on the floor, in chairs, under chairs, leaning over the back of the sofa.
I guess it was the first time I could remember that I’d had a real party. I mean, more than a few friends in for birthday cake. The first time I’d had music and TV and guys and girls all at the same time. Most definitely the first time I’d ever spent the whole night with guys in the room.
The thing about having a party at your place, though, you feel like you have to be responsible for everybody. You have to keep checking to make sure everyone’s having a good time. I was mostly concerned about Lori and Leslie, because I wasn’t sure how the other kids felt about them. I noticed that while they stuck pretty close to each other, they didn’t hold hands with everyone watching, and certainly didn’t kiss. That’s the one thing I felt sad about, that Lori and Leslie didn’t feel they could be themselves in my home.
The other person I was watching was Elizabeth, mainly to see if she was eating anything. She was doing okay, I guess. I still saw her pause before every bite, as though debating whether she could afford to let herself eat it. But she ate most of a slice of pizza and some grapes and a couple of chips, which was a lot more than she had allowed herself last summer.
“Penny’s wild,” Pamela said to me as we passed on the stairs. With only one bathroom, and gallons of Coke and Sprite, people were going up and down all evening.
“What do you mean?”
“Just fun and crazy. Mark’s going ape over her.”
“Do you care?” I asked, because Pamela used to go with Mark when she wasn’t going with Brian.
“No way. I’m keeping my options open,” Pamela said.
I went back down to the living room. Penny was sort of crazy in a fun way. Still wearing those red flannel pj’s, she was tea
ching Donald Sheavers a new dance, and Brian kept trying to get in the act and mess it up. Patrick was sitting on the couch doing one of his magic tricks for Lori, using Legs as his assistant, while Sam and Jennifer watched TV—Jennifer on his lap.
I slipped out to the kitchen to see if Dad needed any help. He had the harried look of the Old Woman Who Lived in the Shoe, like seventeen homeless kids had just shown up on his doorstep.
“Need anything, Dad?” I asked.
“About three more hands,” he said. “I made a big pot of chicken gumbo in case people are still hungry after the pizza, but I thought we had more crackers, and—”
“Oh, Dad, you’re wonderful!” I said, and gave him a hug. His eyes lit up like a flashlight. Every so often it hits me that grown-ups—parents, anyway—need to be told they’re doing okay, that they’re loved and appreciated. You’d think they wouldn’t need that anymore once they’re grown, but they do.
Mark had brought a video of one of those old horror movies, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, so about ten-thirty we decided to put that on and we all settled down to watch, backs against backs, heads leaning on shoulders, legs over legs, pillows everywhere, till everyone was comfortable. It would have been terrifying if I was watching alone, but Mark and Justin kept making crazy remarks, so we laughed all the while it was on.
At some point I realized the light had gone off in the kitchen and Dad wasn’t around anymore. Then I noticed Lester sitting at the back of the room, eating a bowl of gumbo and watching the movie with us.
We clapped and brayed and whistled when the movie was over, and then the girls discovered that Lester was there and started cozying up to him. It’s really amazing to watch. Girls’ voices change when they talk to Lester. Their smiles are different. They laugh differently. I caught Lester’s eye and made a gagging gesture, and he grinned.
“Hey! Anybody want an egg cream, made by the World’s Best Egg Creamer?” Lester said, as much to get Jill and Pamela off the back of his chair as to have something to do, I think.
“What’s an egg cream?” asked Brian.
“Ha! Come out to the kitchen and watch a genius at work,” Lester said, so everyone traipsed out to the kitchen. He dramatically rolled up his sleeves. “Anybody here who doesn’t want one?”
“So what is it?” Pamela asked.
“A drink,” said Les.
The guys looked surprised.
“Count me in,” said Brian, and everyone wanted to try one, eighteen in all, counting Les.
Lester got out our tall iced-tea glasses, then the water glasses, then a couple beer steins, and finally a mason jar. He went over to Dad’s cupboard and took out the chrome seltzer dispenser, then a box of cream chargers. He slipped one of the chargers, which looked like a miniature propane tank, into the top of the dispenser, then filled the bottom with seltzer water. All the guys were fascinated.
After that he took a jar of U-Bet chocolate-flavored syrup from the cupboard and a half gallon of milk from the fridge.
“That’s it?” asked Karen. “Oh, and a spoon. Very important, the spoon!” Lester said, and took one from the drawer. Then, with a flourish, he said, “Observe!”
He carefully spooned an inch of chocolate syrup into the bottom of each glass. When they were all filled, the beer steins and the mason jar, too, he added an inch of whole milk on top of the syrup, going from one glass to the next. Then he took the first glass, tilted it, inserted the spoon and, with his other hand, sprayed the seltzer from the pressurized dispenser directly onto the spoon so that he got a big chocolatey head. He stirred and handed the first glass to Elizabeth.
“Enjoy!” he said.
I don’t know what fascinated me most—the way Elizabeth’s cheeks turned pink as she took the glass from his hands, or the way the other kids were watching. This was not a treat Elizabeth would ordinarily have allowed herself, certainly not last summer, but Lester had chosen her— her—to get the first glass. So she lifted it to her lips and drank.
“It’s wonderful!” she said. And then, as though counting calories, “It’s only milk and syrup and seltzer?”
“You got it!”
“Where does the egg come in?” asked Penny.
“Search me,” said Lester. “It’s an old New York drink. Some say it comes from Russia. But is that good or is that good?” He handed the second glass to Penny.
“Ummmm! It’s good,” she said. And offered Patrick a sip until he got his. I was glad Les served Patrick next.
We migrated back into the living room and sat around savoring the egg creams. There are times I absolutely love my brother. He was the hit of the evening. It was going on one o’clock, and when Les came in with his own egg cream in the mason jar, he said, “Ah, yes! An excellent bedtime drink,” hoping we’d take the hint.
“In your dreams,” said Pamela.
“We’re good for another three hours!” said Justin.
“Besides … ,” Elizabeth added, and looked at Karen and Jill. Suddenly looks traveled all around the room, and Elizabeth and Karen went upstairs to my bedroom and came back down carrying a cake with lighted candles. They’d ordered it from the Giant, and on the frosting, in blue letters, it said, TO OUR NO. 1 STUD. The girls started singing “Happy Birthday” and everyone joined in, even the ones who didn’t know what it was all about. “Happy birthday to you, happy birthday …”
I was sitting on Patrick’s lap on the couch, and we started singing, too. Patrick did, anyway. I never sing “Happy Birthday” because I can’t carry a tune.
“Happy birthday, dear Studly … ,” sang Pamela.
As soon as the cake was in Lester’s hands, Karen took a picture.
Lester looked a little embarrassed. “Stud?” he said, looking around. “Somebody here named Stud?” Then he laughed.
“Make a wish!” Penny instructed. “Make a wish with all us gorgeous girls around you, and maybe it will come true.”
“You mean I can wish this party was over, and you’ll all go home?” Lester teased.
“Better than that. Maybe one of us could be your teddy bear for the night,” said Pamela.
“Pamela!” Elizabeth scolded. We all laughed again.
“I don’t know about that. My old teddy bear had one ear chewed off and an eye missing,” Lester said.
“Blow, Lester! The wax is dripping,” Gwen told him.
Lester blew out all twenty-two candles, everyone clapped, and then Jill got a knife and cut the cake into twenty pieces. We all dug in.
“Presents! Presents!” cried Pamela. I looked around in surprise. I’d expected the cake, but no one had said anything about presents. I stared as all the girls—all except Leslie and Lori, who hadn’t known about it, either—retrieved little packages from their sleeping bags, some flat, some in tiny balls, some in small boxes, and gave them to Lester.
“What’s this? What’s this?” he asked.
“Open them!” said Elizabeth. “You have to open them in front of everyone.”
“Uh-oh,” said Lester. “I don’t like the sound of that.” But he did, and we shrieked as he unwrapped or unrolled, untied or unwound, pair after pair of boxer shorts, each one wilder than the one before. Boxers that looked like newsprint; boxers with ants painted all over them; boxers in a leopard print, boxers with lipstick marks …
Les looked around at the girls. “Somebody trying to tell me to change my underwear more often?” he joked.
“No, we want you to model them!” Pamela said, and all the girls laughed.
“Hey, we came empty-handed!” Patrick said. “No one told us about presents, Les, but I’ll give you the shorts off my bottom if you like.”
“No. Thanks, anyway,” said Lester.
“How about mine?” said Brian. He stood up and lowered his jeans just enough to show us three inches of bright purple boxer shorts with yellow zigzag lines on them.
“I can top those,” said Donald Sheavers, showing off his racing car boxers, and suddenly all the guys were lowering
their jeans and all the girls were screeching, and Lester looked relieved when I slipped another movie in the VCR and eventually everyone turned around to watch.
We weren’t ready for sleep, though. Lester went upstairs to put in a half hour of study while we goofed off. Elizabeth and I were gathering up glasses and washing silverware—stepping over bodies and carrying stuff to the kitchen—when we heard a lot of muffled laughter coming from the next room and I wondered what I was missing. But after all the work Dad had put into the food for the party, I didn’t want him to come down the next morning to a sink full of dirty dishes. I went back to the living room for a final check and heard Jill whisper, “There’s Alice!” and instantly all heads in the living room jerked toward me with grins on their faces.
“Yeah? What?” I said, laughing.
“Nothing! Nothing!” Brian said.
“Just a little innovative photography,” Justin added.
Actually, some of the kids had already staked out spots for their sleeping bags—under the dining room table, beside the couch, behind my beanbag chair, on my beanbag chair. I put in still another video while the girls trooped upstairs in twos and threes to change in my room and brush their teeth. Most of us just took off our jeans and pulled on shorts or sweatpants, but it felt so daring, somehow, to come downstairs with our sleeping bags and put them down next to the boys’ on the rug.
There was always a short line outside the bathroom, and the boys were joking about going out in the yard to pee. By the time Lester came back downstairs, almost everyone had found a spot to roll out his sleeping bag, and he went around turning off lamps while the movie on the VCR played on, the volume low.
Patrick had saved a spot for me under the grand piano next to him, so I crawled in my sleeping bag, and he rolled over and kissed me on the mouth.
“Hey! Hey! None of that!” Mark called. “Hey, Les! Over here, man! Sex alert! Sex alert!”
Lester, on the couch, sleepily raised one eyebrow, gave me a look, and rolled over on his side.
We were all pretty tired. It was almost three o’clock, and I knew that Dad probably hadn’t had much sleep yet and was hoping we’d all quiet down. The music, the movie, the food, the warmth of the sleeping bag … Patrick and I kissed a while longer, and I was thinking how it would feel if Les wasn’t here and we really did both crawl in the same bag. But he fell asleep even before I did, and for most of the night, I slept. So did everyone else, though I woke up briefly around four and was aware that Lester had turned on a table lamp and left it on. I guess he figured that the next best thing to his staying awake all night was the light from a lamp.