“No!” I protested. “We’ve still got to be turned down for someplace to sleep. I mean, what if it was five above zero and it was snowing and …”
“I know a home where some priests live,” said Liz. “We could try there.”
“Let’s do it,” I said.
“Then we can go home?” Don yawned.
“Then it’s a wrap,” I promised.
Liz directed them to the rectory, and once again, Tony parked a block away. Liz and I got out and started toward the house. We were halfway up the block when we heard a car cruising down the street, slowing when it got to us.
“Oh no, the police are back,” I murmured, but when I turned around, it was a light-colored van with some guys in it. Men.
“Alice!” Liz said shakily.
“Keep walking,” I said.
“Hey, girlies,” a guy called, hanging out the passenger side. “What’s the hurry?”
We didn’t answer.
The driver leaned over and yelled, “Wanna go someplace for a beer?”
When we didn’t respond, he said, “Hey! Don’t act so friendly!”
I remembered the guys who had followed us on the boardwalk last summer—how scared I’d been then and how we’d ducked into a stranger’s house where all the lights were on. There were no lights now. Not even at the priests’ house, and I had no idea how many men were in the van.
“Hey!” the first guy yelled again, and this time the van came to a stop. “It sort of hurts my feelings when a girl won’t even give me the time of day.” He started to get out, and we started to run. My heart was beating like crazy, and Liz was making frightened little bleating noises. There were pounding footsteps behind us, and someone grabbed my arm—not to stop me, but to speed me on. It was Tony, and Don stood like a wall between us and the van at the curb.
The men in the car hooted, and the first guy got back in again. “They got their big brothers looking out for them. Let’s go,” he said, and the driver gunned the motor and off they went.
My chest hurt with both the running and the fright. Even Tony was out of breath.
“Now, that’s got to go in the story,” he said.
“If I ever stop shaking!” I told him, and my voice trembled.
“They could be back, possibly with more,” said Tony.
“This is our last stop,” I promised. “Then we’ll go home.”
Liz pressed her finger to the doorbell, and we heard the ding-dong from inside. Don and Tony waited on a porch across the street.
“Oh, man!” I breathed out. “What if there had been a whole gang of men in that car, Liz? What if even Don and Tony couldn’t fight them off?”
“Don’t even think it, don’t even think it, don’t even think it,” Liz murmured. “I’m nervous enough already.”
We must have rung three times and stood there for five or six minutes before a light finally came on inside. An elderly man answered the door without speaking. I felt embarrassed for waking him.
“I’m sorry,” Liz said hesitantly, “but we don’t have anyplace to go, and we’re afraid to be out on the street. Some men just tried to pick us up, and we were wondering if we could possibly stay here just for tonight.”
The man opened the door wordlessly, and we stepped inside. He motioned us to his study, then came in and lowered himself into his chair, one arm leaning on the desk, nodding toward the sofa against one wall. He was in his pajamas and robe.
“I’m very tired,” he said, “so I’m not quite coherent, but somehow I get the feeling that you girls haven’t been out on your own for very long. Am I right?”
We sat down. “Yes,” I said, wishing he would hurry and tell us to go home so we could call it quits.
“Problems at home? Fight with your parents?” he asked sleepily.
We nodded.
“Is there someone you’d like me to call?” he asked.
“No. We don’t want anyone to know where we are,” Liz said. “It’s really very complicated, but you wouldn’t turn us away if you knew the whole story. It’s not that we’re desperate, we just need to know if we could stay here overnight.”
“If men are out there trying to pick you up, it sounds pretty desperate to me,” the priest said. “There’s the sofa for one of you, and the other will have to sleep in a chair. Bathroom down the hall. We’ll be waking you at seven in the morning, because I have an eight o’clock mass and appointments starting at nine.”
He stood up and pulled the belt of his robe a little tighter around him. “Good night,” he said, and walked unsteadily back into the hallway, slowly climbing the stairs.
Liz and I stared at each other.
“That’s it?” I said. “What are we going to do? The guys are out there! They want to go home!”
“Turn the light off and on and signal to them?” she suggested.
“Are you nuts?” I said. “We’ve got to leave, Liz!”
“I’ll write a note,” she said. I rolled my eyes and rested my forehead on my arms while Liz took the priest’s memo pad and wrote:
Dear Reverend,
I’m afraid we came on false pretenses, because we’re really doing a story for our school paper about what happens to homeless girls in Silver Spring and where they can go to get help. We promise not to use your address in the story, but thanks for your kindness.
E and A
We turned off the light behind us and carefully opened the study door. Except for a dim hall light, the house was dark, and we tiptoed step by step over to the big front door with the little stained-glass window at the top.
“What if it sets off an alarm?” Liz asked.
“Liz, we’ve got to leave, regardless!” I insisted.
I put my hand on the doorknob and turned it.
“Good night,” a voice behind us said, and we wheeled around to see the priest sitting up there on the landing, leaning wearily against the wall. “Next time you get an idea like this, bag it, okay?” he said. “Promise me you’ll go straight home, and I won’t have to tell the police I’m worried about you.”
“We promise!” Liz said, and this time we meant it.
We all trooped back to Tony’s car. We’d talked about going for coffee or something afterward, but we were simply too tired.
“Hope my photos turn out,” Don said. “I’d like to get at least two or three we could use.”
“Thanks, guys,” I said. “I think we’ll get a good story out of this.”
“Remember to mention the two fabulous hunks who saved your lives,” said Tony.
Fifteen minutes later, at quarter past two, he dropped Liz and me off at the corner, and we slipped back into my house.
No one was up. No light was on. No message from Dad or Sylvia. But the note Elizabeth had left on our bed—the “just in case” note—was gone.
14
Secrets
When I rode to the Melody Inn with Dad the next day, he wasn’t very talkative, but that was fine with me. I didn’t know what he knew—if he knew—and I was too sleepy to try to sort it out. I hadn’t had more than four hours of sleep. Liz had gone straight home that morning and back to bed. I leaned my head against the seat, my eyes closed, hands in the pockets of my jacket. Once the store opened, phones would ring, customers would mill about asking questions, clerks would call to each other, kids would troop to the practice rooms upstairs with their instruments for Saturday-morning lessons. It was good now just to soak up some quiet. But it was a jumpy kind of quiet with Dad lately, and any little thing could set him off.
He parked behind the store as usual, and we went inside. Marilyn was plugging in the coffeepot as we passed, and she studied us both.
Later, when she brought money over to my cash register, she asked, “Everything okay?”
“Okay how?” I asked.
She gave a little shrug. “Between you and your dad?”
“Sure,” I said. “Why wouldn’t it be?”
“No reason,” she said quickly. “Your dad
’s been a little edgy lately.”
“Yeah, we’ve noticed. The annex thing,” I said.
“That too,” said Marilyn. I looked after her, puzzled, as she took the box of twenties, tens, and ones over to David’s cash register.
Halfway through the morning, a friend from school came in to buy new strings for his guitar. We stood there talking a few minutes, and even though I edged toward another customer who was looking peeved and impatient, I didn’t stop our conversation. Suddenly Marilyn seemed to appear out of nowhere and waited on the woman.
When both the woman and my friend were gone, I said, “I know, I know, I shouldn’t have spent so much time talking.”
“Yeah, you really need to be a little more careful right now, Alice,” she said. “Don’t do anything more to upset them.”
More? I thought. Them?
“Anything other than what?” I asked.
“Just stay on good terms with them till things blow over,” Marilyn said, and then, “Your dad needs me over there. I’ve got to go.”
“No, wait!” I said. “Stay on good terms with who? What are you talking about?”
And over her shoulder Marilyn said, “Sylvia knows.” She crossed the floor.
I stared after her. What did she mean? Knows what? Knows where Liz and I went last night? Knows about Tony and me in his Buick? About me hiding in their closet? Was I living in a fishbowl or what?
I tried to get Marilyn’s attention after she’d finished helping Dad with a sale, but she avoided me. I waited till I saw her go in the stockroom for something, then followed her back.
“Marilyn, what were you trying to tell me?” I asked.
“Oh, me and my big mouth,” she said. “I just don’t want you to get in any more trouble, Alice. Just a little tip from me to you, okay?”
I felt my scalp turning warm, but I had to ask. “What do you mean, any more trouble?” If I had to die of embarrassment, let it be here with Marilyn, not a stranger.
“Your dad’s grumpy lately because he didn’t get the annex, and he’s been jumping on everyone,” Marilyn said. “If he saw you chatting up that guy and ignoring another customer, he’d be on your case in seconds flat.”
“So what does that have to do with Sylvia?” I asked. Nothing was making sense.
“Listen, Alice,” Marilyn said. “Sylvia dropped by over lunch on Wednesday because Ben had left his glasses in her car. We both saw you on that motorcycle with a guy during school hours. …”
I felt as though my brain had broken into a dozen pieces and was trying to realign itself. “That was just … it was only … I didn’t even know him!” I said, every phrase making it sound worse.
“I’ve got to get back out there,” Marilyn said, reaching for the violin bow a customer had wanted, and quickly ducked through the curtain to the main room.
I stood there trying to remember the route the motorcycle had taken. Yes, I think it had turned onto Georgia Avenue, and I could well imagine we might have gone as far as the Melody Inn. And yes, it was over the lunch hour, and we’d stopped for a light. …
My throat felt dry as I went back out to the Gift Shoppe counter and pressed the START button for two girls who wanted to see the earrings in the revolving glass case. Why didn’t Sylvia say anything to me about the motorcycle incident? What’s she waiting for?
When I’d wrapped up the girls’ earrings and made the sale, I went over to where Marilyn was looking up an order. “Just tell me this,” I said. “Does Dad know?”
“I doubt it, because Sylvia and I were both looking out the window, trying to decide if it was you, and Sylvia said, ‘Don’t tell Ben.’ And, of course, I haven’t.”
All afternoon it haunted me. All I could figure was that somewhere, Sylvia was keeping score, tallying up my misdeeds, so that someday, when she really wanted to wallop me, she’d have all these grievances at once to tell Dad. And it probably included last night. She’d undoubtedly tucked that note Liz wrote in a drawer. It was ridiculous and childish and completely unfair to suspect this, yet I couldn’t help it. It was as though Sylvia were a ticking time bomb.
Well, I thought angrily, at least I’m shaking off that MGT reputation. How many other girls had been invited to climb on the back of a stranger’s motorcycle and ride off into the noonday sun? And yet, all the while I knew, This isn’t me. Just like all the while Tony was playing with my breasts and I was enjoying it, I knew, He’s not the one. Not really. You can do things, say things, feel things that—down in your heart of hearts—you know you aren’t serious about, and yet, it’s like a big deal to everyone else who reads a lot more into it than is really there.
At school, when Liz had finally asked me what all had happened that noon on the motorcycle, I’d said, “We rented a motel room, made mad love, and he dropped me off at school again in time for the bell, what else?” She’d laughed, and so had I. But Sylvia, I felt sure, wasn’t laughing.
As soon as I got home from work that afternoon, tired as I was, I wrote up my story and e-mailed it to Scott. He was probably out for the evening, because an hour went by, two, three, and there was no response. Then, just before I went to bed, I got this:
Alice, you’re a wonder! It will probably get us both in hot water, but I love it. Hope the photos turn out. S.
I knew I’d treasure that one e-mail forever (Alice, you’re a wonder!), but why couldn’t he have added, But I’d love to be in a hot tub with you! or something?
Lester finally came by for dinner that Sunday night.
“Where have you been?” I asked as he slid in across from me at the table.
“You mean I’ve been missed?” he asked.
“When you go close to two weeks without even calling …!” I scolded.
Lester grinned and reached for the scalloped potatoes. “Okay, so I met this girl.”
“Thought so!” said Dad.
It had been four months since Les and Tracy broke up, and now he was back in circulation again.
“Can’t keep a good man down, can we?” Sylvia joked.
“Did you meet her in grad school, Les?” I asked. “Not one of your instructors again, is she?”
“No, no. She’s an aerobics instructor, actually, and a part-time student. I just know her from the gym. We’ve been going out some. Nothing serious.”
“Well, we’ve missed you,” said Sylvia. “Have some salad, Les.”
He helped himself. “I heard about the annex deal, Dad,” he said. “That’s a bummer.”
“Oh, I’ll survive,” said Dad. “I was just so sure we’d get it. The owner seemed to like the idea. But I guess the restaurant folks wined and dined him, and he liked their idea more.”
“On the other hand,” said Lester, “it’s possible that people who come to the restaurant will discover your store.”
“That’s what I told him,” said Sylvia. “He could put up a schedule of music classes in his window. Show people that here’s a place a kid can get trombone lessons. Where you can hire a good piano tuner. Buy a guitar. It’s not all bad.”
“Anyway,” said Dad, “that’s water over the dam. But while you’re here tonight, Les, I thought it would be a good time to call Sal and see how Milt’s doing. He left the hospital today.”
“Sure,” said Les.
I hate group phone calls. You never know whom you’re talking to next, and you have to keep the whole conversation generic. When Aunt Sally’s on the line, though, all Dad has to do is hold the phone away from his ear and her voice comes through loud and clear. It’s like she’s addressing a school assembly.
“Milt’s sleeping right now, Ben, but he’s just doing fine!” Aunt Sally was saying. “The doctor says he’s like a new man, and if we continue the medication and diet, he could live out his normal life span.”
“That’s just great news, Sal! It really is,” said Dad, pleased. The rest of us cheered in the background so that Aunt Sally could hear us.
“And Carol’s staying for a few days more,” Aunt
Sally continued. “Her phone hasn’t been working in her apartment, so she brought a suitcase here, and it’s so good to have her! She’s out right now, and I think she’s bringing home some take-out food.”
Les and I exchanged looks, knowing that Carol still hadn’t told her folks that she’d moved in with her boyfriend. Secrets, secrets …
“Sometimes,” Aunt Sally went on, “good things come out of bad, and I think we’ve become closer as a family because of Milt’s heart attack. Is Alice there, Ben? I want to say something to her.”
I reluctantly took the phone. I love my aunt, but whatever she had to tell me, I didn’t want the whole family to hear.
“Hi, Aunt Sally,” I said. “We’re so glad that Uncle Milt’s home now.”
“So are we,” she said. “I just wanted to say, Alice, that things like this make you realize that every day is precious. Each day is a gift to be enjoyed to the fullest. But when I was waiting outside the emergency room for Milt, I wrote a poem, and I want to share it with you. You always did like my poems, didn’t you?”
To tell the truth, the only poem of Aunt Sally’s I remember is one about sorting clothes on wash day.
“Of course,” I said, and held the receiver out so everyone could hear.
Aunt Sally cleared her throat and began:
“When scorching looks and angry words
Between you two have passed,
Just remember, ne’er forget
Each breath may be his last.”
Les and I exchanged wide-eyed looks.
“Or you may die, and loving words
Are sealed inside your head.
They’ll never reach his longing ears
Because your lips are dead.”
Sylvia put one hand over her face.
“So cherish every kiss and touch
And welcome each new day,
For winter claims us, one by one,
And takes it all away.”
I waited, wondering if there was more. When the pause lengthened, I said, “Aunt Sally, that … that’s …”
“Awful!” Les whispered, holding back laughter.
“So … sad!” I said. “Uncle Milt isn’t going to die!”