I thought about that while I made myself a piece of cinnamon toast. How could I be a helper, not a hurter, if I lied? I wondered.
19
LESTER’S BIG NIGHT
“THERE’S TOO MUCH TROUBLE IN THE world,” I told my father when he came home that evening.
Dad had worked late at the Melody Inn, and Lester and I had eaten supper without him. We’d made a casserole of baked chicken and rice and left some in the fridge for Dad.
“What trouble were you thinking about in particular?” he asked, waiting for the microwave to ding.
“Like how if Mickey is happy, then Lester is mad. And if Lester is happy, then Mickey is sad,” I said.
“Come again?” said Dad.
“He doesn’t want her to have our new phone number.”
“Then don’t give it to her.”
“She’ll ask, Dad! I know!”
“Then you’ll have to learn the fine art of diplomacy,” he said.
“What does that mean?”
“Giving people an answer that won’t hurt their feelings,” he told me.
Wouldn’t you know that about eight thirty that same evening Lester was sitting on the couch with his foot propped up on the coffee table when the phone rang. I answered and knew right away it was Mickey.
I turned desperately toward Lester.
Is it Mickey? he mouthed.
I nodded.
Lester leaped up from the couch and went clumping out the front door so I wouldn’t have to lie.
“Could I speak to Les?” Mickey asked.
“He’s out,” I said.
“Would you ask him to call me when he comes back?” Mickey said.
I knew I could promise to tell Lester to call her, but I couldn’t promise he would. She must have been thinking the same thing—that he might not call back—because she said, “Oh, never mind him, Alice. I just wondered… Well, I have some decisions to make, I guess.”
I waited for her to say good-bye, but she didn’t.
“The thing is,” Mickey went on, “I can’t tell if Les is avoiding me or just playing hard to get.”
I shaped the words with my mouth but didn’t actually say them: Avoiding you, Mickey. Avoiding you.
“Can you… does he… well, does Les ever talk about me at home? I mean, I know he’s taking Lisa to the prom; how could he not, the way she comes on to him. But I need to know if I have any chance with Les. Just between you and me, does he ever say anything nice about me?”
I was standing with my back against the wall while we talked, and I let my feet slowly slide out from under me until I was sitting on the floor. The one thing they never teach you in fifth grade is the Fine Art of Diplomacy.
“Well, he talks about a lot of people,” I said.
The front door opened, and Les stuck his head inside. When he saw that I was still on the phone—sitting on the floor, in fact—his eyes opened wide and he made a cutting motion across his throat, which meant, I guess, that if I didn’t hang up soon, I was dead meat. Then he popped back out again.
“But when he mentions my name,” Mickey was saying, “is it good, bad, or indifferent?”
“Well,” I said, “it’s different.”
“Different how, Alice? I mean, if I just knew for sure how he felt about me, it would make things a lot easier.”
Dad lowered his newspaper and looked at me, wondering why I was carrying on a conversation with Lester’s friend. “I think maybe Dad wants to use the phone,” I said quickly.
“Okay. But I wanted to get the phone number to your new house,” she said.
“We don’t have it yet,” I told her.
“Then I’ll call again in a few weeks,” she said.
When I hung up and Lester came in, I threw back my head and bellowed, “Don’t anybody give me our new phone number until after we move, and then I won’t have to lie to Mickey.”
“Okay by me,” said Lester.
Every day that week, though, seemed a little better than the one before. My cat was dead—nothing could change that—but Megan’s sister was going to be all right, Mrs. Swick was going to get a baby, we were moving to a bigger house, Lester was going to the prom, and Mickey didn’t call back. My fifth-grade year was finally heading in the right direction.
On Saturday, Rosalind came over around four and we sat on the couch drinking lemonade and waiting for Lester to finish dressing for the prom. Dad had come home from the Melody Inn early to help him get ready, and Rosalind and I were in charge of making sure Lester didn’t leave without his wallet, the tickets, and the corsage for Lisa.
We could hear the electric razor going in the bathroom.
“Let me see your leg,” Rosalind said suddenly.
“Which one?”
“The one Jody said would grow hair like a gorilla because you shaved it and then stopped.”
I’d forgotten. Now I couldn’t remember which one it had been. I stuck out my left leg. Then my right one. I couldn’t tell the difference. “Whew!” I said.
I had a stack of old notebook paper on the coffee table, and we were playing tic-tac-toe while we waited. Rosalind traced the outline of her hand on the back of one of the papers, and I traced my foot on another. Then Rosalind laid her head sideways on a piece of paper, and I tried to trace her forehead and nose and lips, but that didn’t work so well.
“Dad!” Lester yelled from the bathroom. “I can’t get the stupid collar right.”
Dad was smiling as he came out of the kitchen and went down the hall to the bathroom. He was in there for several minutes.
“Stupid penguin suit!” we heard Lester say. Rosalind and I put our hands over our mouths and giggled.
“If we ever go to a prom, let’s wear jeans,” said Rosalind.
There was the sound of a car pulling up out front, and we scrambled up on our knees to look out the window.
A stretch limousine was parked outside. It was so long that it took up about all the curb space in front of our house. Neighbors came out on their steps to look at it, and Donald Sheavers came running across our yard, trying to see in the windows of the limo.
The driver got out and smiled at Donald. Donald tried to open one of the doors, but the driver shook his head.
We heard Lester clumping down the hall on his cast, and we turned around. There he was in his black tuxedo jacket with his white ruffled shirt and a red bow tie. And instead of tuxedo trousers with a stripe down the side, he was wearing red, white, and blue satin boxer shorts, the stripes in front, the stars on his behind. He had a black sock and a shiny black patent-leather shoe on one foot, his white cast on the other.
Suddenly he stopped. “Oh no!” he said. “I forgot to whitewash my cast!”
“What?” said Dad.
“Look at it!” said Lester. “It’s all grimy and dirty. I can’t go to the prom looking like that.”
“Les, you’ve got Lisa and two other couples waiting for you to pick them up,” Dad said. “There isn’t time.”
“We’ll do it!” I sang out. “Rosalind and I can do it!”
I ran to the hall closet and got out a little bottle of white shoe polish that Aunt Sally had left on her last trip here. I remembered it because she insisted on polishing my sneakers, and I never heard of anybody polishing sneakers before in my life. There was an applicator inside the bottle, and Dad got a sponge from the kitchen. We poured some of the polish in a bowl. I used the applicator, Rosalind used the sponge, and we worked at painting Lester’s cast until the whole thing was gleaming white.
The limousine driver came to the door. “Limo service!” he said when Dad opened it.
“He’ll be right there,” Dad said. He straightened Lester’s bow tie and showed him which button to keep buttoned on the jacket. I made sure that Lester had his wallet and the corsage, and Rosalind checked to make sure he had the tickets. Then we all went outside to watch him ride off in the limo.
When the driver went around to get in himself, he found Donald sit
ting in the driver’s seat, and we hooted and laughed when he pulled him out.
“Can’t I ride with you as far as the corner?” Donald asked.
“Sorry, dude,” the driver said. “It’s not on the agenda.”
I wondered if that’s what I should say to Mickey if she called again and asked for our new phone number. Sorry, Mickey. It’s not on the agenda.
About an hour later the limo came back again, this time with Lisa and the two other couples. They all came into our house so Dad could take pictures. Lisa was beautiful in a long red dress with no straps at all to hold it up.
“How does a dress like that stay up?” I asked Rosalind.
“Breasts,” she said.
Lisa heard and looked around.
“Zipper,” she said, pointing to the long zipper down her back. I was embarrassed, but Lisa just laughed.
This time Lester let Rosalind and me go out and peek inside the limo, and I was glad because I could tell Aunt Sally that I had checked, and there wasn’t a Jacuzzi in sight.
Rosalind and I ate dinner with Dad. Then we spent the rest of the evening in my room, playing cards on my bed. I was thinking how Rosalind had trusted me enough to tell me that she had started her periods, so I finally got up my nerve and told her a secret in return.
“Rosalind,” I said, “have you ever had a thought so evil that you’ve never told anyone before?”
Rosalind lowered her cards and looked at me. “So awful that if you ever said it aloud, you’d go to hell?” she asked.
I sucked in my breath. “I don’t think we believe in hell,” I told her.
“I’m not sure I do either, but Megan does, and she knows a lot more about it than we do,” Rosalind said. “If there is a hell, is the thought bad enough that you’d go there if you just said it out loud?”
“Probably,” I answered.
Rosalind seemed to be thinking it over. “Then write it on a sheet of paper,” she said. “But don’t sign it.”
I tore out a little piece of notebook paper and started to write. I cupped one hand over it so Rosalind couldn’t read it until I was done. I sort of wished that if somebody had to die, it would have been Marlene instead of my cat. Then I handed the paper to Rosalind.
She studied it for a minute or two and then, without saying a word, crumpled it up and went across the hall to the bathroom where she flushed it down the toilet.
“God can see in sewers,” I said.
“The ink’s all washed off by now,” said Rosalind.
“It’s horrible, I know, but I miss my cat,” I said.
“As much as you miss Sara?” asked Rosalind.
Now I knew I was bad for sure, because I missed Oatmeal even more than Sara. I nodded.
“Well, you know what they say,” said Rosalind. “When somebody dies, it’s because God wanted them in heaven with Him.”
I thought about that and began to smile a little. “That means He’d rather have my cat around Him than Marlene Beachy.”
“Who wouldn’t?” said Rosalind, and she smiled too.
But as I lay awake that night beside Rosalind, who snores, I wondered if my mother died because God had wanted her, too. I wished He’d pick on some other family for a change. But maybe He didn’t have anything to do with it in the first place.
Finally I rolled over, away from Rosalind’s breath in my face. “Have a good time with Oatmeal,” I said to God.
20
SAYING GOOD-BYE
WHEN I WOKE IN THE MORNING, I WENT out in the kitchen before Rosalind was awake to see if Lester had had a good time. Dad was drinking his coffee and working a crossword puzzle.
“Did Lester have a good time?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” said Dad. “He’s not home yet.”
I didn’t move. “He hasn’t come home?”
“No. They went from the prom to an all-night pool party, remember? He should be along shortly.”
The words were hardly out of his mouth when we heard a car pull up, and someone dropped Lester off. When he came in, he was still wearing his red, white, and blue satin shorts, but he had a T-shirt on top. He carried his tuxedo jacket in one hand and his shoe in the other. He hadn’t been in the water, of course, but from the look on his face, he’d had a wonderful time.
“Good morning,” Dad said, smiling at him. “How did it go?”
“The best!” said Lester. “Everyone was taking pictures of me in my shorts, Dad. I was like… the star! Everywhere we went, people took pictures of Lisa and me. She had a blast!”
“That’s great,” Dad said. “I’m glad it all worked out. Want some breakfast?”
“No. They served it there.”
I wondered when Lester was going to thank me, The Girl Who Got Him to Go to the Prom After All. I guess if you’re going to be a helper, you have to remember that not everyone says thank you.
“Lisa sure looked pretty,” I said.
“Yeah. She was hot!” said Lester. “All the guys were hitting on her. And you should see her in a bathing suit! Wow!”
Dad just smiled.
“Was Mickey at the prom?” I asked.
“Yeah. She brought some guy I never saw before. Someone from another school, I think.” Suddenly Lester stared at the doorway behind me and said, “What’s that?”
I turned and saw Rosalind standing there. Her hair was a mess, and one pajama leg was rolled halfway up her thigh. Her eyes were still puffy with sleep, but when Lester said what he did, they popped open. I wondered how she felt just then.
“It’s a beautiful princess who just woke up,” I said.
“So it is,” said Lester. “Good morning, Rosalind.”
She came over and sat down in the chair next to me. She reached for a sweet roll and began to eat.
“He had a good time,” I said to Rosalind. “He was really cool, and Lisa was really hot.”
Lester laughed. “Man, I’m going to bed.” He headed for the basement. “Don’t anyone wake me unless the house is on fire.”
“Happy dreams,” I told him.
Lester had a lot of happy things to dream about. Dad had promised him that as soon as he got his cast off, they would go buy a used car. Each day Lester tacked another used-car ad on the bulletin board above the phone: Curtis Chevrolet; Rosenthal Honda; Century Ford… . There was even a car dealership called Lester Buick. Lester had circled some of the ads in red and put stars by the cars he especially liked.
But I had something happy to think about too. A new house, new room, new porch, new yard. Life comes in waves, I guess, good and bad, like at the ocean. I’d only been to the ocean once that I could remember—right after we’d moved to Maryland. There were waves that came crashing in and knocked me down, dragged me under for a moment. And there were gentle rocking waves that I could lie on, that rolled me gently to the sand.
On the last day of school Mrs. Swick smiled a lot. She laughed twice. It’s hard to remember sometimes that grown-ups aren’t just there to take care of us—that they have all sorts of problems of their own.
At recess Megan had good news and bad news. The good news, she said, was that Marlene was well enough to go to Kings Dominion with the family when they went on vacation. The bad news was that she wouldn’t be coming back to our school because her parents were going to enroll both Megan and Marlene in a private school in the fall. She would miss us.
It didn’t bother me because I wouldn’t be here, but it must have been sad for Rosalind. Sara was gone, I was moving away, and Megan would be in another school.
“Maybe somebody really nice will move into our neighborhood,” I told her.
“Yeah, right!” she said.
The bell rang, and I grabbed Rosalind’s arm as we walked back to the steps. “Life is like the ocean, Rosalind,” I said.
“Huh?” said Rosalind.
“It’s sort of like you’re a bottle tossing about on the waves. Some waves are rough and throw you around, and—”
“Put a cork in
it, will you?” said Rosalind, and went on inside.
That night Mickey called again.
“Hi, Alice,” she said. “I wondered if you could give me Lester’s new phone number now. You promised, remember?”
I didn’t think I’d promised that exactly. I looked desperately at Lester for help.
Mickey? he mouthed. I nodded.
But Lester had the number all ready. I stared. He came over and handed me a piece of paper. Lester’s number, it said.
“Alice?” Mickey was saying. “Are you there?”
“Yes,” I said. “Here’s Lester’s number.” I couldn’t believe he was really giving it to her. I held the paper out in front of me and started to read it off.
“Just a minute till I get a pencil,” said Mickey.
As I waited, my eyes traveled to the car ads on the wall. Lester’s Buick, read one of the ads, and the phone number was the same one I was giving Mickey. I wheeled around and glared at Lester.
“Ready,” Mickey said when she came back.
I couldn’t do it. Not even to Mickey. “You know,” I said, “you’ll have to get it from Lester. I can’t read his writing. Sorry.”
When I hung up, Lester said, “What did you do that for?”
“The fine art of diplomacy, Lester,” I said. “You’re in for it now. God can read car ads, you know.”
When school was out for the summer and we were packing to move, I did everything I could with Rosalind. I told her to bring over a box and I would give her all the stuff I didn’t want anymore—even some of the things I did want. I gave her a little statue of Smokey the Bear, some purple beads, a rubber stamp with a witch on it, a snow globe, a Snickers bar, yellow shoelaces, a package of gum, sunglasses, a five-thousand-piece jigsaw puzzle of the rain forest, and a picture of me in second grade with two teeth missing.
“No matter what,” I said to Rosalind, “you’re one of my best friends forever.”
“Even if we never see each other again?” she asked.
“We will, but even if we don’t,” I said.
Lester got the cast off his foot, and the next day he and Dad bought a used Chevy. It wasn’t the sporty model Les had in mind, but it wasn’t an ugly car, either. It was silver with blue bucket seats, and Lester was pretty proud of it.