Achingly Alice

by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor

  “Hmmm,” she said, drawing her knees up. “This is a comfortable bed. I’m going to be asleep in two shakes, Alice. Are you?”

  “I guess I’m pretty excited—I mean, Christmas and all,” I told her.

  “I know. But the sooner you fall asleep, the sooner morning will get here. That’s what my sister and I used to tell ourselves on Christmas Eve.”

  “Did you sleep in the same room?”

  “The same bed. We were always best friends. I just wish we didn’t live so far apart now.” She sighed, and I could feel the covers move as she pulled the blanket up around her chin.

  This was my last chance, I thought. I might never again have the opportunity to ask her the one question I wanted an answer to. I’d hate myself in the morning if I let this slip away from me. Over and over I rehearsed it in my head: You and Dad will marry some day, won’t you? If I couldn’t ask that, maybe I could say, Miss Summers, you’d make a beautiful bride, or, The only person in the whole world I want for a stepmother is you, Miss Summers. Finally, when her breathing sounded as though it was getting more slow and steady, I knew I couldn’t wait any longer.

  “Dad really loves you, you know,” I said softly.

  But she didn’t answer. Her breathing seemed to come from deep inside her chest, and I figured she’d already fallen asleep. I was awake for a long time. I knew an hour went by, maybe two.

  Miss Summers began to make little bubbly noises from her lips, like Elizabeth does sometimes when she sleeps, and I decided to try a psychological experiment that I made up on the spur of the moment. It certainly couldn’t hurt anything, and just might help.

  Moving in slow motion, I turned, inch by inch, and rose up on one elbow. Then slowly, slowly I leaned over my teacher and whispered, “Marry him! Marry him! Marry him!”

  All at once I wondered if that was specific enough. What if she was dreaming of Jim Sorringer just then? What if I was encouraging her to marry our assistant principal?

  “Jim is a dork,” I whispered. “Marry Ben. Jim is a dork. Marry Ben. Jim is a …”

  She startled suddenly. “Alice?”

  “A … a drink!” I said. “I’m going for a drink of water. Hope I didn’t wake you.”

  When I got back, she was asleep again, and I didn’t open my mouth for the rest of the night.

  I must have slept, because I was aware of waking up. The room was dark, but Miss Summers was gone. My heart began to pound. Maybe it had worked! Perhaps she’d crept out of bed in the middle of the night and crawled in with Dad! Maybe they had been making passionate love and she had told him she had this irresistible urge to be married!

  But when I finally rolled over and looked at the clock, I saw it was already morning, and then I smelled coffee from downstairs.

  I put on my robe and slippers, combed my hair, went to the bathroom, and brushed my teeth. When I went downstairs, Dad was sitting at the table with his coffee, looking at the snow out the window, and Miss Summers, in her wool pants and sweater, had her feet propped up on his leg. He was caressing one ankle while she ate a sweet roll.

  “Merry Christmas!” said Dad. “How’d you sleep?”

  “Fine!” I said.

  “We make good roommates, don’t we, Alice?” said Miss Summers. “She didn’t make a sound, Ben, the whole night long.”

  3

  GIVE A LITTLE WHISTLE

  CHRISTMAS WASN’T PERFECT, BUT IT was fun. Having Lester around helped. After eating Dad’s breakfast of waffles and bacon, we sat on the floor by the tree and opened our presents.

  In addition to one nice gift for each of us, Lester gave us silly little things. For Dad, a small plastic drum with feet; you wound it up and the feet started moving. Lester gave me a lemon lollipop with a bug encased in it, and Miss Summers got a package of brine shrimp; put them in water and they come alive.

  I’d bought good soap for Miss Summers, as Aunt Sally suggested, a giant coffee mug for Dad, and a bottle opener in the shape of an eagle for Lester. I received the usual jeans and sweaters and CDs, but all I could think about was whether Dad would be giving Miss Summers a ring.

  I had my eye on a tiny box near the back of the tree, and when Dad finally reached for it, I felt my heart leap.

  The phone rang.

  “Wait!” I said. “I’ll get it and be right back.” I picked up the phone in the hallway. “Hello?” I said impatiently.

  It was Elizabeth.

  “Her car’s still there,” she said.

  “I know.”

  “She stayed all night,” Elizabeth gasped. “Did they sleep together?”

  “She slept with me,” I whispered, and Elizabeth shrieked. “I’ll call you later,” I said, and hung up.

  Back in the living room, Dad and Miss Summers looked at me strangely. But then Dad smiled and handed the tiny box to me. “‘To Alice from Sylvia,’” he said, reading the tag.

  Trying not to show my disappointment, I gamely unwrapped it and found a small gold whistle on a thin gold chain.

  “My favorite uncle gave me that when I was about your age,” Miss Summers said. “He used to tell me that if I ever needed him, just ‘give a little whistle.’ Actually, he and Aunt Elsie were a bit worried about my going out with boys and wanted me to have something for protection if I ever got in a situation I couldn’t handle.”

  I put the whistle to my lips, and a pitiful little squeak came out.

  “That’s protection?” asked Lester, and we laughed.

  But I thought of wearing this around my neck when I went back to school—being able to tell all my friends that it was a gift from Miss Summers—and I leaned over and hugged her. “Thank you!” I told her. “I love wearing your things.”

  Just as Dad reached for another present and placed it on Miss Summers’s lap, the phone rang again.

  “Sorry!” I said. “Please wait for me!”

  I rushed back out to the phone in the hall. It was Pamela.

  “Did they sleep together?” she asked.

  I knew that Dad and Miss Summers couldn’t hear Pamela, but they could hear me. I turned my back on the living room and tried to cover my mouth. “Pamela, I can’t talk right now,” I whispered.

  “What? I can’t hear you.”

  “I’ll call you later.”

  “Don’t hang up!” she warned. “Alice, if you hang up, I’ll keep calling till you tell me what happened.”

  “She slept with me,” I said, and hung up.

  “Is everything that happens in this house being broadcast around the neighborhood?” asked Dad wryly.

  I blushed. “No, I’ve just got weird friends, that’s all.”

  Miss Summers unwrapped the box in her lap. Then she gave a little cry. “Oh, Ben!”

  I stared. A book. The Seesaw Log, it said on the cover.

  “William Gibson’s play, Two for the Seesaw,” Miss Summers explained to Lester and me. “Ben and I saw the play when we were at the music conference last summer, and I’d heard there was a book about the writing and directing of it—that Gibson had kept a log of all the trials of production—but we couldn’t find a copy anywhere.”

  Dad grinned. “I found it in a rare-books store. Open the cover, Sylvia.”

  She did, and gave another cry. “His autograph! You found an autographed copy! Oh, you darling!” Miss Summers put her arms around Dad’s neck and kissed him, right in front of Lester and me. I wanted to rush to the phone that minute and call Pamela and Elizabeth, but restrained myself.

  I realized we hadn’t seen yet what Miss Summers was giving Dad. It turned out to be two shirts, a blue striped one and a beige print, with ties to go with them.

  “My gift isn’t very original, I’m afraid,” she said. “Not after that wonderful book.”

  “I’ll think of you each time I put them on,” Dad promised, and squeezed her hand.

  I sort of wished that Lester and I weren’t around. I imagined the passionate kisses that would pass between them if they had the house to themselves.
But there was lunch to prepare and the living room to clean up, so Miss Summers and Dad went to the kitchen to cook, leaving Lester and me in charge of the wrapping paper and boxes.

  “Lester, I really, really thought Dad would give her a ring,” I said disappointedly.

  “Well, I guess you thought wrong,” he said, loading me down with boxes to take to the basement.

  “But I had my life all planned!”

  “Then unplan it.” He gave me another load of boxes, so I couldn’t even see my feet. The phone rang, and I dropped them all to answer. It was Elizabeth.

  “Well, did he?” she asked.

  “What? Propose, you mean? No. He gave her a book.”

  “A book?” Elizabeth said. I could hear her baby brother crying in the background.

  “She loves it,” I said.

  “Was it Arabian Nights? The unexpurgated edition?” Elizabeth asked suspiciously. That book had got us in trouble before when Elizabeth secretly smuggled it out of her parents’ bedroom and over to my house and read parts of it aloud to Pamela and me on a sleepover.

  “No, a play they saw together once,” I told her.

  “This is a lousy Christmas,” Elizabeth confided. “All Nathan does is fuss.”

  “Want to come over?” I said.

  “Could I?”

  “I’ll call you when we’re through eating,” I said.

  I’d barely taken my hand off the phone when it rang again.

  “Are they engaged?” asked Pamela.

  “No, he gave her a book,” I said dully.

  “Oh, Alice!” Pamela said sympathetically. “On a scale of one to ten, ten being the highest, a book, between lovers, is about a three.”

  “I know. I had such hopes,” I told her.

  Lester raised his eyebrows.

  Pamela’s voice grew softer. “Oh, Alice, I’m miserable!” she said. “I’m at Mom’s apartment, and her boyfriend’s coming over, and I’ve got to stay until this afternoon. It was the agreement. Dad’s at home with Grandma and Grandpa, and everyone’s sitting around feeling awful, and I can’t stand Mom’s boyfriend.”

  “Do you want to come over later?” I asked.

  “Could I?”

  I felt good that we had the kind of home where friends could feel comfortable. I picked up the boxes once more and started for the basement when the phone rang still again.

  This time Lester picked it up: “No, they didn’t sleep together, and no, they’re not engaged,” he said. There was a pause, and then I saw his expression change. “Oh, hi, Sal! Sorry! Didn’t think it was you. Yes, of course. We had a very nice Christmas!” Lester rolled his eyes at me, and I giggled as I went to the basement.

  I had just come up for another load, colliding with Lester’s armful of ribbon and wrapping paper, when the doorbell rang.

  “What is this, Dulles Airport, Concourse B?” Lester asked.

  I went out in the hall and opened the door. There stood Janice Sherman, Dad’s assistant manager at The Melody Inn. She’s had this giant-size crush on Dad for the last few years, and she was holding a box wrapped in gold foil.

  “Merry Christmas!” she said, stepping inside. “I thought I’d drop by with a little Christmas cheer.”

  I saw Lester pause in the living room.

  “Oh!” I said. “How are the roads out there? Miss Summers had to spend the night because she couldn’t get home yesterday.” It was all I could think of to head her off.

  Janice Sherman had started into the living room, but came to a complete stop. “She’s here?” she asked.

  Just then Dad came out of the kitchen.

  “Janice! What are you doing out on those roads?”

  “They’re not bad at all,” she said stiffly. “Everything’s melting.”

  “Well, I’m glad to hear that. They were certainly bad last night,” he told her.

  “Perhaps not as bad as you thought,” she replied.

  Hoo boy! I said to myself, and made my escape once more to the basement. But when I came up the second time, Dad was saying, “Now, Janice, you know you shouldn’t have done this!” and he was holding up a silver ice bucket that had probably cost a fortune. Miss Summers, wisely, stayed in the kitchen, and all I could think of was that when Dad finally did propose to Sylvia, they could drink a glass of champagne that had been chilled in this very ice bucket.

  Janice left a few minutes later, and we had just sat down to quiche and salad when the doorbell rang again.

  “Now what?” said Dad.

  “I’ll get it,” said Lester quickly.

  I had a big bite of quiche in my mouth when Lester came back in the room bringing Patrick. I swallowed, choked, and had to grab a glass of water.

  “Merry Christmas, Alice,” Patrick said.

  “Mrrrff,” I said, coughing again, and Dad patted me hard on the back.

  The family took over.

  “Pull up a chair, Patrick,” Dad said. “We’re having Christmas brunch.”

  “Sure,” said Patrick. “I just had breakfast, but I can always eat again.” Boys don’t get embarrassed about anything, do they?

  “Here, Alice,” he said. “This is for you.” And he handed me a small box.

  What was it with all these tiny boxes? I wondered. Was I going to get a ring, not Miss Summers?

  “I’ve got your present, but it’s not wrapped yet. I was going to give it to you later.”

  “It’s okay. You can give it to me unwrapped,” he said, and reached across the table for the quiche.

  Miss Summers smiled. “I haven’t had a chance to tell you how much I enjoyed your drum solo at the concert,” she told him. “How long have you been playing the drums?”

  “Forever,” said Patrick, with his mouth full.

  The thing about Patrick, though, is that he can sound polite even with his mouth full. I think it has something to do with his father being in the foreign service. That’s something you learn to do when you’re a diplomat.

  I opened the box from Patrick. It was another thin gold chain, and dangling from the middle of it were gold letters spelling ALICE.

  “I love it!” I breathed.

  “I figured you would,” he said, and grinned at me.

  “Gold looks good on a girl with strawberry blond hair,” said Miss Summers.

  I put it around my neck along with the gold whistle.

  “What’s with the whistle?” Patrick asked.

  “It’s to wear when she goes out with you, in case she needs help,” Lester kidded, and Patrick laughed.

  I liked having Patrick there at the table. We finished the meal with him and Lester making jokes and dividing the last piece of quiche.

  Later, with Lester outside shoveling again, and Dad and Miss Summers in the kitchen, I sat down beside Patrick on the couch and put my gift in his lap. It was a framed photograph of me that Sam—a guy in our Camera Club at school—had taken after I’d stopped wearing green eye shadow. It was a picture I didn’t know he was taking. I’d been sitting on the steps outside of school, putting a fresh roll of film in my camera, and had just glanced up when he snapped the shutter.

  The teacher used it to demonstrate that sometimes people’s eyes get a dead, glassy look when they pose for a picture, but if you can catch them unexpectedly, you get a live, alert look you might not get otherwise.

  “Heeeey!” Patrick said, holding it closer and smiling. I could tell he really liked it. “It’s a great picture, Alice. It was taken right outside school, wasn’t it?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Someone from Camera Club took it.”

  “Was it a guy or a girl?”

  “A guy.”

  “Who was he?”

  I looked at Patrick. “Are you jealous? We were practicing portrait shots.”

  “I just want to know.”

  “Sam’s his name. I don’t know his last name.”

  “He likes you, huh?”

  Patrick was jealous!

  “I hope so,” I told him. “I hope a
lot of people like me.” That must have been the right thing to say, because Patrick pulled me close to him and kissed me—a light, lingering kind of kiss.

  “I like you,” he said. “A lot.”

  The fire snapped and crackled, music came from the stereo where Dad had put on The Nutcracker Suite, and I could hear Miss Summers talking with Dad in the kitchen. It was a nice Christmas, I decided. The only thing that would have made it perfect—if there was such a thing as perfect—would be if Dad and Miss Summers … no. If my own mother were alive to meet Patrick. If I could look across the room at my real mother and see if we looked anything alike. Check out her hands, her hair, her smile. I don’t know why I missed that so much, but I did.

  By the middle of the afternoon, everyone had gone. Patrick’s grandparents were coming for dinner so he had to go home, Miss Summers and Dad went to a movie, and Lester drove over to Marilyn’s.

  I called Elizabeth. “Everyone’s gone, and Dad said we could order in pizza. Come over,” I said.

  “Pamela’s here,” she told me. “We were just waiting for you to call.”

  They each came bringing me a present, and I had mine ready for them. We always give each other earrings, only they’re not new; we trade our favorite pairs to wear for a year, and then the next Christmas we swap again.

  After that they wanted to know what Miss Summers looked like in a slinky black nightgown, and I had to tell them she wore Dad’s pajamas, but that was even better.

  “He’ll never wash those pajamas,” said Elizabeth. “He’ll want her perfume to linger forever.”

  Pamela, who was sitting on the floor, leaned back against the couch, her eyes on the fire. “There is no such thing as forever. Not for love, anyway,” she said.

  “Oh, Pamela, don’t say that!” Elizabeth told her.

  “All those vows you make when you marry, they don’t mean anything!” Pamela went on, and her voice broke a little. “Two of my aunts are divorced. One of my grandmothers, even! And now Mom’s left Dad, and she’s going with this guy who’s four years younger than she is and sells NordicTrack. They met in a gym. I hate him!” She turned suddenly and said, “Listen: Let’s order the pizza now.”