“Well, give him an extra hug from me,” I told her.
“We need all the hugs we can get,” Aunt Sally said.
The next day I was coming out of a restroom stall just before first bell when I heard someone vomiting in the handicapped stall at the end of the row.
As I washed my hands at the sink, I studied the stall in the mirror and realized there were two people in it. I was drying my hands when the stall door opened partway and Karen came out for a paper towel. She moistened it at a faucet and, with a secretive glance at me, took it back inside. A moment later Jill came out and rinsed her mouth at the sink.
When she stood up at last and wiped her mouth, I saw her eyes fasten on me in the mirror.
“You guessed it,” Jill said. “I’m pregnant.”
I stared. “Oh … wow! I—I’m—”
“She’s happy!” Karen explained. “Don’t be sorry.”
“Well, I …” I didn’t know what to say.
But Jill had a satisfied look on her face. “It’s all part of the plan,” she said.
7
A PIVOTAL MOMENT
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. All I could manage to say was, “Well … when is it due?”
“September, I figure,” Jill said, cupping her hand under the faucet again, then splashing water into her mouth.
I don’t know how anyone can look gorgeous right after she’s barfed, but Jill did. Cheekbones, hair, figure, everything done up neatly in a package of denim and rose-colored wool.
Karen was grinning. “Nine months from the night of the Snow Ball. The way she looked in that dress, Justin couldn’t help himself.”
It could have been nine months from almost any time at all, because Jill and Justin had been having sex for years. I started to ask about college, but I knew how ridiculous that was now.
The first bell rang, but I didn’t make any move to leave, and neither did they. Jill fished a little bottle of mouthwash from her bag, took a sip, and rolled it around in her mouth before spitting it out.
“Well … I guess congratulations are in order, then,” I said, sounding too nerdy for words. Nothing I ever say to Jill and Karen sounds smart and sophisticated. But I was still too curious to leave. They hung out with my crowd occasionally—often came to the Stedmeisters’ pool with the gang when we’d gathered over the summer. But Jill and Karen had their own inner circle of friends here at school, and I never had felt welcome in that. Yet here they were, letting me in on a secret.
“Justin knows?” I asked. Stupid comment number two.
“Duh!” said Jill. “My mom said once that she didn’t really start to show till the sixth month, so I can probably hide it till May. If Justin’s folks agree to a church wedding, fine. If they won’t, we’ll go to a justice of the peace. One way or another, we’re getting married right after graduation. We’ll both be eighteen by this summer, and then Justin will have access to the trust fund his grandfather left him.”
“But …” I winced. “From all you’ve told us, won’t his parents be furious?”
Jill gave a little laugh. “Of course! But Mr. Collier has always wanted a grandchild. A boy, preferably, to take over the business. Justin’s their only child, and this baby may be the only grandchild he’s going to get. Justin thinks they’ll come around.” She glanced at her watch. “Jeez. Lab day. All those chemicals. See ya.” And she headed for the stairs and the science labs below, arm in arm with Karen.
Gwen and Liz and Pamela and I sat at a corner table at lunch-time. It was sleeting out, and the halls still had muddy traces of boots tramping, bringing in the damp. All we wanted to talk about, of course, was Jill and Justin. It was obviously not a secret any longer, because Pamela had already heard, and I think the reason Jill told me was so I would spread it around. I figured that Jill wouldn’t mind if the word reached the Colliers, if Justin didn’t get up the nerve to tell them first. The sooner Jill could start planning her wedding, the better.
“I just can’t understand it,” I said. “I believe in planned parenthood, but this … !”
“Desperate people do desperate things,” said Liz. “I think they were simply sick of all the fighting with Justin’s parents and decided that having a baby would settle the whole thing.”
“But to put a baby in the middle of that mess?” I said. “It’s only going to add more tension.”
“And a mother-in-law who hates you like poison,” said Gwen. “Who wants to start a marriage with all that baggage?”
“I didn’t even know that Jill wanted a baby,” said Pamela.
“She wants Justin,” said Liz. “Who wouldn’t?”
We pondered that for a while over our grilled cheese. “Isn’t it weird that you can’t drive a car until you’ve taken lessons and passed a test, but you can have a baby without any preparation at all?” Gwen said. “Even murderers and child abusers can have babies, and nobody stops them until something happens.”
“But how do you ever know you’re ready to be a mother?” I asked. “I still feel sometimes like I need to be taken care of myself, and if I’m a mom, I’m supposed to be in charge. What if my baby got really sick or something? I’d be a basket case. I’m not the least bit brave.”
“But sometimes we find out we’re a lot braver than we think,” said Gwen.
I wondered what Pamela was thinking during our conversation. About her own miscarriage. About Tim. About the two of them miraculously dodging the bullet. About how a baby is a blessing for some couples, but for others, it’s a bullet.
On Saturday, Kay hung up her down jacket in the storeroom and let out a prolonged sigh. Then she realized I was back at the mailing table and gave me a wan smile. “Sorry.”
“For what? Sounded like something that needed to come out,” I said.
“It was the sigh of a half-deranged daughter who has upset her parents and, according to them, shown them the greatest disrespect.”
“They still want you to meet this guy, huh?”
“I did! I went home for dinner.” Kay sat down on a folding chair and tucked her hands beneath her thighs, shoulders stooped.
“How did it go?”
“Awkward. Very, very awkward. I’m convinced James could tell I didn’t want to be there. My parents certainly could.”
“What’s he like?”
“Mr. Great Stone Face, that was him. I’m sure he’s got the same mind-set as my dad, that I’m supposed to be the dutiful daughter and marry whomever Dad says. Oh, the room was full of artificial smiles, mine included. Frozen smiles. I tried not to look at him and let my dad do most of the talking. I asked James once how long he planned to be in the States, and he said he didn’t know. Then Dad asked if I was going to have a free weekend soon so we could show our guest around the capital, and I said I didn’t know. All Mom did was sip her tea and stare right through me for not helping out more with the conversation.”
“Is he staying at your parents’ place?”
“No. Some hotel. He’s supposedly here as a consultant for some networking firm. That’s the story, anyway.”
“Interesting,” I said. “There’s a girl at school who’s going all out to marry her longtime boyfriend, but his parents are against it; and you’re giving it all you’ve got not to marry someone your folks like.”
“So what all has she tried?” Kay asked.
“She just got pregnant. That’s the latest.”
“Great. I’ll find some guy to impregnate me, and then neither my parents nor James will want me,” said Kay.
Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could shift problems around? I was thinking. I’ll take yours for a day, you take mine? On the other hand, the biggest problem I had faced in the last few weeks was saying no to Mrs. Rosen, so I wouldn’t want to trade places with Lester or Kay. And I certainly wouldn’t choose to trade places with Jill.
On the first Monday in February, Drama Club had its first meeting of the semester. Everyone comes to this one—both backstage and onstage memb
ers—because it’s the first announcement of the spring production. Last year it was a musical, so this time it would be a play. That’s how our school does it—we alternate. I hoped it would be something exciting or racy or funny or wild. Noises Off, maybe, or A Streetcar Named Desire.
Mr. Ellis smiled as he held up a manila envelope, like this was the Academy Awards or something. “As you know,” he said, “we strive for variety in our spring productions, and every so often we do a period piece—always popular with the community.”
Our faces dropped. We knew we needed ticket sales to keep the productions going, and we needed to have the community behind us. But period pieces didn’t raise the heartbeat much.
“Last year,” Mr. Ellis continued, “we did Guys and Dolls, with a lot of scene changes. This year we’ll have only one set to worry about—the living room of a Victorian house. It has a lot of features, though: a stairway with a landing, two doors, a window, wallpaper, the works. It’s a family story.”
“What’s the name?” someone asked.
Ellis reached into the envelope and pulled out a green script book. “Cheaper by the Dozen,” he said. “An old favorite.”
Most of us had heard of it, but some hadn’t, so Mr. Ellis explained that it was the story of Frank Gilbreth, a motion study engineer back in the twenties, who believed that the same time-saving methods he devised for factories in World War I could be used in the home with his twelve children. A comedy. Well, at least it wasn’t Our Town.
Ellis passed out scripts so we’d be familiar with the play. Mrs. Cary, the speech teacher, would be designing the set.
I figured I’d be on props again, but I didn’t want to be in charge and was glad when a guy named Joel volunteered. Those of us on stage crew read off the list of things we had to find for this play—stopwatch, umbrella, large floppy hat—and when we came across flimsy underwear, Joel said, “I’ll get that one,” and we laughed.
I’d tucked my copy of the script in my backpack and was preparing to leave when Mrs. Cary came over. “You’ve worked on props before, Alice. How would you like to be on my set design committee? Love to have you.”
“Sure,” I said. Why not? It would be something new. I didn’t have to say no to everything.
Seniors began forming themselves into separate crews—props, lighting, set, sound—our last chance to strut our stuff; and the lower classmen waited around to be chosen for a crew. If we went into theater in college, we’d be at the bottom of the totem pole again.
The play was officially announced the next day during morning announcements, and a list of the characters, with a brief description of each, went up on the door of the dramatic arts room, along with the dates for tryouts. Other students could sign out a script overnight, and that afternoon there was a swarm of students waiting outside the classroom.
Pamela called me that evening and said she was going to audition for the part of Ernestine, the second-oldest daughter.
“Is she the one who wears the flimsy underwear?” I asked.
“What? Oh, man, I hope so!” Pamela said excitedly. “Where did you hear that?”
I laughed. “Someone mentioned it at the meeting yesterday.”
“I’ll read the whole script tonight,” Pamela said. “But I noticed that Ernestine and Frank Jr. open the show. Don’t you love it? The curtain opens and there I am! I want to talk Liz into trying out for one of the other five daughters.”
“Who’s trying out for the part of Frank Jr.?” I asked.
“Somebody hot, I hope,” Pamela said.
“He’s supposed to be your brother, Pamela.”
“So?” she said. And laughed.
I’d scanned the script a few times, trying to picture the stage set in my mind, the way it was described, but I was feeling strangely unsettled. When I detected the scent of cinnamon in the air, I knew that Sylvia was making Dad’s favorite snack. She takes a piece of thinly sliced bread, butters both sides, sprinkles them with cinnamon and sugar, and then browns each side in the toaster oven, just enough to melt the butter and caramelize the sugar a little. I didn’t know if I was more hungry for cinnamon toast or for company, but I went downstairs and joined them in the kitchen.
“Somehow I knew you’d be down, so I made some extra pieces,” Sylvia said, pushing the plate toward me.
I poured a glass of milk and sat down across from her.
“Homework all done, or are you taking a break?” Dad asked.
“I’m actually done for a change.” I bit into the warm toast and savored the buttery taste. “Sylvia,” I said, “when you think about your senior year, what was your favorite time? The most exciting thing you did?”
She thought about that a minute. “I guess I’d have to say it was the solo I sang in the choir concert. It’s the first thing that comes to mind, anyway. I worried I’d get a cold or something, but after I sang the first couple of notes, I knew I was going to be fine.” She shrugged. “I don’t know where it came from, but I really sang beautifully.” I was surprised to see her blush a little. “Now, didn’t that sound conceited.”
“Not at all,” Dad told her. “I don’t know why people who do things well can’t just say so.”
“Was it the singing itself or the applause that made it special?” I asked.
“Both. Obviously, if I’d been singing in the shower and nobody heard it, it wouldn’t have been nearly as exciting. But … well, it wasn’t quite a standing ovation, but I could tell by the applause afterward that I’d done well.”
I smiled and looked at Dad. “What about your best moment?”
“Next to kissing Joanna Lindstrom, you mean?” We laughed. “Probably the game against North High. I was a second-stringer on the basketball team, and one of our players fouled out, so I was put in for the last six minutes or so. I wasn’t anything great—not like Ed Torino, who got the three-pointers. But it was the next-to-last game of the season and we were tied—the usual story. Ed missed a jump shot, we had about thirteen seconds left, and I retrieved the ball. I jumped and put it in.”
“Wow!” I said.
“The crowd went nuts. Of course, North High could have made another shot in those last seconds, but they didn’t. Everyone was pounding me on the back and yelling my name and crowding around me, and it was like … I don’t know. It wasn’t that my shot won the game, because everyone’s basket counted. Just that mine was the last shot, so I got the glory. Silly, but that was my big moment, something I’ll always remember.”
They both turned to me. “What about you?” they asked.
“Well, I still have a semester to go,” I said. “It’s not any one thing. I like it when people comment on my feature articles.”
“And well they should! They’re excellent!” Sylvia said.
“And they have depth. You always have something to say,” Dad told me.
I half sat, half lay on my bed, surrounded by pillows, swathed in a fleece blanket, with the script of Cheaper by the Dozen in my hands. It wasn’t racy, like Guys and Dolls. It wasn’t heartrending, like Fiddler on the Roof. But it was funny, had its poignant moments, was based on a real family, and I certainly knew about family.
I opened the green script again, and this time I felt my mouth drying up, my pulse racing. I read each page hurriedly, then found myself going back and reading them again. I leaned back against the pillows and closed my eyes.
I started to reach for my cell phone, then stopped. Reached for it again and put it in my lap, breathing out of my mouth, my heart thumping.
Finally I punched in Pamela’s number, and when she answered, I said, a quaver in my voice, “Pamela, tell me if I’m crazy, but I’m going to try out for the part of Anne.”
8
GETTING READY
A long squeal came through my cell phone.
“Alice! That would be so cool! If Liz got the part of Martha, we could all be the older sisters and—”
I laughed. “I didn’t say I was getting the part. I said maybe I’
d try out for it.”
“No, you didn’t!” Pamela said fiercely. “You didn’t say ‘maybe.’ You are going to try out for it. This will be great. We could all go to rehearsals together, the cast party …”
I got that sinking feeling. Wasn’t this just like our old dream of going to the same college, getting married the same summer, helping raise each other’s kids?
“To tell the truth, I’m scared half out of my wits,” I told her.
“Alice, this might be our last chance to do something like this ever again,” came the determined voice over the phone.
“Did you see the crowd waiting for scripts this afternoon?” I asked.
“So? Not all of them want to be Anne.”
“What if I bomb? I’ve never done acting, even in grade school.”
“What do you mean? You were in the sixth-grade play with me.”
“I was a bush, Pamela. A bramble bush, and you were Rosebud, tripping around the stage in a long dress, singing.”
“Well, nobody has to sing in this play, and if you don’t try out, I’ll kick your butt,” said Pamela. “Hard! How’s that for motivation? And besides,” she added, and I could hear the change in her voice, “if you try out for Anne, you get the flimsy underwear.”
That made me laugh. “She doesn’t wear it, though.”
“I know. If she did, I’d be trying out for the part.”
I lay staring into the darkness long after I’d turned out the light. I shouldn’t have told Pamela. Now I’d really committed myself. How would my audition go? What would Ellis ask me to do? Was I really going to audition in front of other people or could it be private? Omigod. I’d already told Mrs. Cary I’d work on set design with her. How was I going to get through the next week when I was so miserable already?
Most of the talk at school was about the sock hop that coming Friday, but among seniors, the buzz was about who was trying out for the play and predictions on who would be chosen for each part. Seniors always got priority. A few people, like Pamela, were candid about the roles they wanted, but most of us held back and said, “Oh, I don’t know. I’m just going to tryouts and see what happens.”