The Longs came to pick us up about nine o’clock, and Mrs. Long asked me if we’d saved room for something chocolate. I told her we’d had the mousse, and she said, “Oh, good! That’s the best thing on the menu.”
The Longs talked quietly to each other in the front seat the rest of the way home, as though they didn’t want to disturb whatever Patrick and I were doing in the backseat, which was sitting holding hands and wondering what to talk about next.
When we got to my house, I thanked Patrick’s parents for driving us to the country club, and they waited in the car while Patrick walked me to the door. And because Dad had the porch light on for his friends, and the Longs were probably watching, Patrick didn’t kiss me again but just squeezed my hand and said he hoped I’d had a good time, and I squeezed back and said it was absolutely super. Then I walked into the house grinning, past the little group of men in the living room who were playing their violins, and went upstairs to my bedroom to think about this wonderful night in which, except for leaving my purse in the car, I had not done anything incredibly stupid. I’d even used the finger bowls properly when the waitress brought them around after dinner.
I put the rose in a glass of water on my dresser and sat down to look again at the little black matchbook with Patrick’s name on it in gold. When I opened my purse, however, I discovered that I had accidentally stuck my linen napkin with the country club’s embroidered initials on it in my purse and had carried it home with me.
I fell back on my bed, the napkin over my face. Even alone in my room 1 could feel my cheeks beginning to flush. I’ll bet Patrick saw me put the napkin in there. I’ll bet he thought I’d never seen a cloth napkin before in my life and was taking it home to show Dad.
Lying motionless on my bed, my face hot beneath the linen napkin, the sounds of violins floating up from downstairs, I realized that I was spending an awful lot of my life worrying about what Patrick thought. What Patrick thought of my breath, my teeth, my hair, my feet, my knees, my manners …
I really liked him—more, probably, than he guessed—but it was time to start liking myself, too. What did I think? What kind of a person did I want to be? Something was missing here, and the something was me.
15
AN EMERGENCY MOM
THE NEXT DAY, THURSDAY, WHEN teachers were in the classrooms but students didn’t have to go back yet, I walked over to my old elementary school to see my sixth-grade teacher. She still had the shape of a pear and she still wore the same old green dress that she’d worn so often the year I was in her class, but when she saw me in the doorway and smiled, she was one of the most beautiful women I’ve ever known.
“Alice!” Mrs. Plotkin said. “How nice to see you! And look at your hair—all curly!”
I sat on top of a desk and talked as Mrs. Plotkin went about straightening her desk drawers. I told her about my summer with Patrick, and she told me about her summer with Ned, her husband, and I said I was going to miss her when I was in the seventh grade.
“Well, the good thing about missing someone,” Mrs. Plotkin said, “is that you’ve got somebody to miss. Think of all those friends you’re going to make in junior high school, Alice—people you don’t even know yet.”
That was sort of nice when I thought about it, except that I’d rather have the people I like around me all the time and never have to miss them at all. And as for the friends I hadn’t even made yet, well, there was no guarantee. Even if I had beautiful shoulders and knees and a leather skirt with a slit up the side, there weren’t any promises I’d never be lonely again, were there?
Elizabeth came over after I got back, though, to show me the stuff her mom had bought her for school, and I was glad she was finally getting over Tom Perona. Even if you were lonely sometimes, I guess, you could get over it. As for Pamela and Mark Stedmeister, they seemed even crazier about each other than they were before. Mark had given Pamela some sort of ring (I think it was his brother’s old class ring, actually), and Pamela wrapped a big wad of tape around the back of it to keep it on.
It was my last day at the Bentons’, because Mrs. Benton would have to hire someone else now that school was starting. I felt really good about how much I’d helped Jimmy. That’s the way mothers feel, I guess, about preparing their kids for life.
I’d been thinking a lot about mothers that summer and how I didn’t have one, probably because I realized how much I wanted one. And three days before school began, I needed one in the worst way.
I woke up that morning with both a headache and a stomachache. The minute I tried to get out of bed, I threw up. All over my bedspread, all over the floor. Dad had already left for work, and I could hear Lester’s car backing down the drive. When I got a towel to mop up, I vomited all over again. Yech! How did mothers ever stand it? What if you had seven children and they were all sick at the same time?
I rinsed out my mouth and wobbled downstairs in my pajamas to get a bucket. I wondered whether I should call Dad. Then I remembered that it was Friday morning, and Dad always had staff meetings on Fridays. I wanted to know if I should put a hot water bottle or an ice bag on my stomach. I wanted to ask if we even had a hot water bottle or an ice bag. I couldn’t remember the last time I was so sick. I didn’t think I should bother him, though, at least not until the meeting was over. And much as I loved Mrs. Plotkin, I wasn’t about to call the grade school and tell her I was sick.
Somehow I managed to fill a pail with water and find some old rags and go upstairs and clean up my floor. I went back down again, cleaned up the towel and the pail, drank a little milk, and was wondering if I should make some toast when the doorbell rang.
Not Patrick, I prayed. Please, please, not Patrick! I weaved down the hall and peeked out the curtain.
It was Mrs. Eggleston from next door. I opened the door just a little.
“Alice, I hope I didn’t wake you,” she said, “but the mailman left a letter for Lester in our box by mistake.”
The room was beginning to whirl. I shouldn’t have drank the milk. My throat tightened as I reached for the envelope. “I’m … I’m sick,” I said, and promptly threw up all over Lester’s letter.
The next thing I knew I was on the sofa and Mrs. Eggleston had a cold wet towel on my forehead. She was gently wiping my face with a washcloth.
The fact was, I hardly even knew Mrs. Eggleston. I’d say hello to her when she was out raking her yard, and I talked to her once when her poodle got loose and I helped catch it. She’d be out on her porch reading the newspaper sometimes when Patrick and I were in the swing, but she was just an ordinary neighbor who, in a space of ten seconds or so, had become my emergency mom.
She said she wasn’t going to give me any aspirin unless my dad said it was okay, but she took my temperature (102 degrees) and gave me a glass of cracked ice to chew, and then I went to sleep, and when I woke up again it was about two in the afternoon and she was sitting beside the couch holding a glass of orange juice.
“We’ll just wait till you feel like taking a few sips, Alice,” she said.
I could tell from the smell of Pinesol that she had cleaned up my mess by the front door. I could even see Lester’s letter, cleaned and dry, propped up on the bookcase. This was truly amazing. There were substitute mothers everywhere! Mrs. Plotkin was one; Lester’s old girlfriend, Marilyn, was another; Lester’s new girlfriend, Crystal Harkins; Aunt Sally; my cousin Carol … ! Lying there on the couch, waiting for my stomach to settle, I felt that there must be a mother deep inside of every woman just waiting to come out. Maybe there was even a little bit of a mother inside of me, and I didn’t even have a model!
I drank some of the orange juice, and Mrs. Eggleston helped me back upstairs. She got out some clean pajamas and I could tell that she had already washed and dried my bedspread.
I let her dress me. I let her brush my hair. I let her tuck me back in bed just as though I was two years old. I didn’t even care. I slept.
When I woke again, Dad was sitting by the be
d holding the thermometer.
“Open up, Al,” he said, and slipped the thermometer under my tongue. “Mrs. Eggleston said you were one sick girl today. Feeling any better?”
“Um hmm,” I said, letting my eyes close again.
“Does anything hurt? Your neck? Your throat? Your ears?”
Why do fathers do that? They’re just like dentists. They wait until you’ve got something in your mouth and then they ask you questions.
“Huh uh,” I said.
Dad took the thermometer out. “Well, it’s gone down a degree. That’s good news. You feel like any dinner?”
“Just orange juice,” I said. “And, Dad, … don’t let Patrick up here.”
“I won’t,” Dad said. “He’s already called, and I told him you were sick. He said he’d phone again tomorrow.”
Good old Dad. Just like when he’d bought me that bathing suit at the ocean, he’d taken charge again, and everything was under control. He started to get up to go downstairs, but suddenly I reached out and stopped him.
“Dad …”
He sat back down. “Yeah?”
“I just wanted to tell you … I wanted you to know … Well, I guess I should have asked first.”
Dad looked puzzled.
“I know I should have asked,” I said miserably. “But … when I was looking for those clothes of Carol’s that Aunt Sally sent, I opened the trunk and found—” I turned my face away. I was too embarrassed to look Dad in the eye. “I found your letters to Mom.”
The room was so quiet, I wondered if Dad was still there. I couldn’t even hear him breathing.
“And you read them.” He was there, all right.
I nodded. If the temperature in my mouth was 101 degrees, it was 110 degrees on my face. I wished Dad would say something. Anything. The silence was awful.
Finally, quietly, he said, “It’s been a long time since I read those letters myself, Al. I can understand you’d be curious.”
I nodded again.
“Well,” he said, and without even looking at him, I could tell that he was smiling. “Did you find out anything new about your mother and me?”
“Only how much you loved each other.”
Dad sighed. “We did, Al. A lot. Maybe one of these days I’ll go up to the attic and read them myself. But you’re right. You should have asked.”
“I won’t do it again. I mean, I don’t open your mail or anything.”
“You’d better not!” said Dad, and gave me a tap on the head.
This was Lester’s night to work late, so Dad fixed a Stouffer’s dinner for himself and carried the portable TV up to my bedroom so I could watch. About nine, though, I turned it off and was just starting to drift into sleep when I saw Lester standing in the doorway of my room, silhouetted against the hall light. He was holding an envelope. “Where’d this come from, Al?” he said.
“I’m sorry I puked on it,” I told him.
“Where did you get it?”
“Mrs. Eggleston had it.”
“What?”
“The mailman left it there by mistake. She brought it over.”
“When?”
“This morning, Lester! When I was sick. We cleaned it up the best we could. What’s the big deal?”
Lester just turned and walked away.
I lay there looking at the empty space in the doorway where Lester had been. I remembered now that the envelope was postmarked “Bethesda,” and that’s where Lester’s old girlfriend lived. I really liked Marilyn—maybe even more than I liked Crystal Harkins. I was here the evening they broke up with each other, when Marilyn told Lester that “it just won’t work.” That was all I heard, but I’d never seen Lester so sad and upset.
I got out of bed and went to the bathroom to get a drink. Lester was sitting at the top of the stairs, leaning against the wall, holding Marilyn’s letter in his hands. When I came out of the bathroom, he was still there, so I sat down on the floor across from him.
“Don’t worry,” I told him. “I’m through throwing up now.”
He just looked at me.
“It’s from Marilyn, isn’t it?”
Lester sighed. “Yeah,” he said. “It’s from Marilyn.”
I leaned against the opposite wall. It seemed as though we sat there for ten whole minutes just being quiet together, and Lester didn’t even tell me to get out of his life.
“What did she say?” I asked finally. “I mean, the parts you can tell.”
Lester just looked at me again blankly, as though he were trying to figure out who I was. “Alice,” I told him.
He went on staring. “She wants to start seeing me again,” he said at last.
“Whew!” I sucked in my breath.
About a year ago, Lester was grieving because Marilyn had just broken up with him and he didn’t have any girl at all. Now he was grieving because he had two. I decided right then that love is about the most mixed-up thing that can possibly happen to you, and we sat there a long time together—Lester thinking about Marilyn, me thinking about Patrick.
16
PATRICK AND ME
“WELL,” DAD SAID TO ME ON THE LAST DAY of vacation, “how was The Summer of the First Boyfriend?”
“It’s not over yet” was what I told him.
It was a fateful last day. I went shopping with Elizabeth for some socks, and she told me that she was devoting her entire seventh grade to her studies and hoped to make all A’s. She was going to work so hard, she told me, that she wouldn’t even think about boys once.
“They mess up your life,” she said.
The next thing that happened was that Pamela told me that her mother had caught her and Mark kissing (“That kind of kissing,” Pamela told me, whatever kind that was). Mrs. Jones didn’t cut off Pamela’s hair, but she told her she couldn’t go with Mark anymore, and she had to be in the house by nine every night from now until Christmas.
There must be something about last days of vacation, because Lester had gone over to Bethesda the night before to see Marilyn and she’d said she hadn’t known how much she cared about him until she’d let him go. I suppose she said a lot of other things, too (like “I want you! I need you!”), but that was all Lester told me. I never saw him look so happy, and I knew that however much he might like Crystal Harkins and her clarinet, he loved Marilyn even more. So I was happy for Lester and happy for Marilyn and sad for Crystal Harkins.
I’d been thinking about Patrick a lot the past few days. Thinking about myself, too. That’s why, when Patrick came over that afternoon, I felt sort of strange inside. We sat on the porch swing and held hands, talking about Mark and Pamela and Elizabeth and Tom and Lester and Marilyn and Crystal. Patrick said that Tom had already broken up with the girl he left Elizabeth for and was going with somebody else from St. Joseph’s, and that Mark was trying out for the basketball team and wouldn’t have time to date anybody.
Every so often Patrick stopped talking and leaned over to kiss me, and I was thinking about how things used to be when Patrick would sit on the porch railing and I’d sit on the steps—not even touching yet—and he’d tell me about living in Germany and Japan and how his family used to eat squid, and then I’d tell him what it was like to sleep overnight on a train when I went to Chicago to visit Aunt Sally.
And you know something? I missed that—just being friends. I decided I needed times like that more than I needed to start seventh grade with a boyfriend. All the boys who just wanted to be friends with me would figure they had to be “boyfriends” instead, and I wouldn’t even be able to go anywhere with a boy without holding hands and wiping the sweat off every chance I got. But when I thought of saying that to Patrick, my stomach flipped over. Finally, though, the words came out.
“Patrick,” I said, staring down at my knees, “I really like you a lot—more than any other boy—but I just want us to be friends for a while.”
Patrick got so quiet that I realized that I was the only one pushing my feet against the floor
, the only one moving the swing. His hand sort of went dead on top of my hand, and I felt scared and hollow inside. What was I doing?
“How come?” Patrick asked finally.
“Because I think I liked it better the way we were before,” I told him. “I mean, I like this, too, but I need some more of that first. You know what I mean?”
“No,” said Patrick.
I swallowed and gently pulled my hand away from his. I was probably making a terrible mistake. “There’s so much worry and everything, Patrick. About what you think of me, I mean. About what we’re going to do next. I want to like you without having to worry all the time.”
“I didn’t know you did,” he said. That’s just like a boy, not to even notice. But there was something about the way he said it that told me I wasn’t the only one who worried; I was just the one who said it first.
Patrick was quiet for a minute. “I’ll bet it’s because of what happened to Pamela and Elizabeth,” he said finally. “I’ll bet that’s why you want to break up.”
Break up! They were the most terrifying words I’d ever heard.
“No,” I said, and my voice was shaky. “Well, maybe. Partly, anyway. I just don’t like to think of us getting to the place where we never speak to each other again or where I have to be in every night by nine o’clock from now till Christmas.”
“I don’t either,” said Patrick. “But I don’t want to be just friends.”
He hadn’t actually moved away from me on the swing, but it seemed as though we were sitting about as far apart as we could get. As though walls had come between us. What he was saying, I guess, was that I had to choose to either go with him or we couldn’t be friends at all. The scared, hollow feeling grew bigger inside my chest.
“What about being special friends?” Patrick said.
I looked over at him. “What’s that?”
He shrugged. “Just special. We won’t be going with each other, exactly, but we’re more than just friends. Sort of in-between.”
“Do you mean that, Patrick?”