Alice Bliss

by Laura Harrington

  She’s late picking up Ellie, even later than she thought. The teacher who got stuck waiting—looks like Mrs. Comstock—glares at Alice as she gets into her car. The school is locked up, Ellie is sitting on the front steps all alone, and it’s clear she’s been crying, but she’s done with that now. Now she’s steaming mad. She walks right up to Alice, right up close, and takes a big breath to start yelling at her, when she smells the poop and nearly gags.

  This is too much, Ellie thinks, this is insult and injury and grievous and if she were not eight years old she would figure out some way to sue her sister for damages. No, she would figure out how to divorce her sister. She would figure out how to become not-sisters. Un-sisters. Unrelated.

  “First you’re late! Really late. Later than ever. So late I didn’t think you were coming. And now . . . and now—”

  Alice looks at her shoes.

  “I hate you Alice, I really hate you.”

  Ellie takes another step back, farther away from the smell.

  “Where’s Henry?”

  “Band practice.”

  “I am not going to walk home with you.”

  “But—”

  “You can walk on the other side of the street. Or you could hide in the woods ’til it’s so dark that no one will see you. And smell you!”

  “Ellie—”

  “Do not! Do not even try to speak to me!”

  Ellie turns and walks off, heading for home. She is walking fast, as fast as an eight-year-old can walk. Her head is down and she’s swinging her arms, sort of like Mom on a power walk. She’s like a little engine. Running on mad.

  And she’s wearing a hat, Alice notices, even though it’s not that cold. A hat that completely covers her hair.

  “Hey! How’d everybody like your new haircut?” Alice shouts across the street.

  “What do you care?”

  “I bet Mrs. Baker likes it.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Janna?”

  “Pretty much.”

  “The other kids?”

  Ellie is twisting the middle button on her hand-me-down plaid spring coat.

  “Luke Piacci?”

  The button pops off in her hand.

  “Is that why you’re wearing that hat?”

  Ellie gulps in one of those horrible sobs where it sounds like she’s choking and wailing at the same time.

  “Can I come over there?” Alice asks.

  “No!”

  “I like it,” Alice offers.

  “No you don’t. And neither does Gram or Mom or—”

  “I bet Mrs. Grover likes it.”

  “What about Daddy?” Ellie asks through a fresh burst of tears.

  “Daddy’s gonna love it.”

  “You’re just saying that.”

  “You know what Daddy would say?”

  “What?”

  “Take off that silly hat and quit worrying about what other people think.”

  They cross Belknap Road with slightly less distance between them and turn down Baird Road.

  “Hey, you want to bake a cake? After I throw these stupid sneakers in the trash?”

  “He said I look like an elf.”

  “Who?”

  “Luke Piacci.”

  “Maybe that was a compliment.”

  “An elf.”

  “Well, you’re a very, very cute elf, Ellie.”

  “Shut up!”

  They turn into their driveway. Alice carefully keeps to her own side of the drive.

  “Could we make a lemon cake?” Ellie asks.

  “Sure.”

  “Caramel frosting?”

  “Sounds good.”

  “Okay!” Ellie shouts, pulling her hat off and skipping along the last twenty yards of their driveway, past Matt’s grape arbor and apple trees. A wash of sunlight spills over the trees and dapples her shining cap of hair.

  “Okay.”

  April 16th

  They get through the weekend somehow. Alice didn’t even tell her mom the truth about her sneaks. She just threw them away wrapped up in dozens of Wegman’s bags. She paid Ellie two bucks to keep her mouth shut and told her mom she lost them.

  Which made her mom really mad.

  “I just bought those sneakers!”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “You’re not paying attention, Alice!”

  “I’m—”

  “How many pairs of sneakers do I have to buy, anyway? In a lifetime of being your mom . . . ? And when are you going to at least wash that stupid shirt?!”

  So all day Saturday it’s mad Mom and a trip to the hated mall and the dreaded shoe store and the eyeglasses store to pick up Ellie’s new glasses. A compromise pair, yes, but still way too big for Ellie’s little face. She loves them.

  Now it’s Sunday afternoon and everybody is in a bad mood as they play catch up with chores. Alice is stuck in the basement with a mountain of laundry while Ellie is upstairs “dusting” and Angie is what, doing the taxes? Never a good day. Then the washing machine blows a gasket or a hose and floods the basement. Now they’ve got wet laundry, puddles of water, and that nasty damp basement smell. Nobody wants to pile this stinking, dripping laundry into the car and schlep to the Laundromat. So Angie’s terrible mood gets worse. Chores and broken appliances and they can’t afford a new washer right now, goddamnit! Which is when Alice calls Uncle Eddie.

  “Here comes Uncle Eddie!” Ellie shouts.

  Angie can barely contain a groan.

  Alice loves Uncle Eddie. Everybody else thinks he’s a fuckup.

  Eddie was brilliant in school when he bothered to attend, especially math and physics. Could have done anything, won scholarships, the whole nine yards. Instead he got fat and runs a garage. Uncle Eddie can fix anything. It really burns everybody that he does well in his sideline business, too, buying high-end cars at auction for a client base that stretches across the country. Just how much does it bug Angie to see fat Eddie drive up in a vintage Mercedes he’s scored for one of his rich clients, smoking a big cigar, with cash in his pockets. Eddie loves cash.

  All the pretty girls like Eddie. Even fat he’s really handsome, with lashes so dark and thick it looks like he’s wearing eyeliner. He’s had scores of girlfriends. Angie doesn’t like them coming over to the house anymore. What used to be fun and flashy and definitely out of the ordinary is now relegated to the despised favorite phrase of all boring adultdom: “not appropriate.”

  Uncle Eddie also likes to disappear every few months for a week or so. Nobody knows where he goes. On a drunk, chasing a girl, proving he’s still free and unattached and unencumbered. Or maybe he’s just tracking down a vintage car he’s heard about through the grapevine.

  Fastidious little miss Ellie is already starting to turn her nose up at Uncle Eddie. She’s imbibing Angie’s attitudes and opinions apparently. But his presents always wow her. Like Uncle Eddie always knows just what you really want, not what your mom thinks you should have, like the fringed cowgirl vest from his trip to Vegas, or the red, glittery Dorothy shoes with straps he bought one time in New York City. You can watch Ellie’s ambivalence play out right on her face. First, she’s loving the car and then she’s hating the cigar, then she’s loving Eddie’s booming laugh, but hating his big belly and his stubbly face and his grimy fingernails. When he picks her up and calls her pumpkin, she wrinkles her finicky little nose. He’s on to her, too. “Don’t be a simp,” he tells her. “What are you so afraid of, a little dirt?”

  Angie is at the front door.

  “Eddie, can you lose the cigar?”

  “Hi, sweetheart.”

  “Hi, Eddie. The cigar . . .?”

  “It looks good, though, don’t you think?”

  “Niiiice set of wheels,” Angie says.

  Eddie does a little shimmy and shake. Right there on the sidewalk. Angie can’t help herself; she smiles at him, covering her mouth with her hands. He’s unbuckling his belt in preparation for dropping his pants.

  “No!
Eddie! It’s broad daylight!”

  “I just want to get a laugh outta you.”

  She’s laughing and shaking her head—who knows at who? Eddie? Herself? At the fact that she’s laughing at all?

  “I heard your washer’s on the fritz.”

  He reaches into the backseat and takes out his tool kit.

  “So I’m gonna fix your washer and then I’m gonna take you out to dinner, gorgeous. Alice can babysit, right?”

  “Why can’t we come?” Ellie wants to know.

  “Oh, so now you like me?”

  “I like you,” she says, a little too slowly.

  “Your mom needs to put a dress on and go out someplace where she can turn heads and drink a martini. This is my big secret, the reason so many beautiful girls go out with me. I improve their looks. Next to me they look even more gorgeous than they already are.”

  And then he’s inside their little house, bumping into doorjambs, knocking the pictures out of whack on the walls. When Eddie stumps down the basement stairs, the whole house shakes. Angie clucks, she actually clucks, but Alice thinks the house is doing a little happy dance, just like Uncle Eddie.

  “I need an assistant!” he shouts from the basement.

  Alice looks at Angie who raises her eyebrow, as in, who me? Are you kidding?

  So it’s Alice who clumps downstairs. It’s an act, the clumping. She loves hanging out with Uncle Eddie. Every time she sees him, there’s always one shocking thing he tells her and the promise of more revelations to come.

  He turns off the water and disconnects the hose. “Pay attention,” he tells her. “You could learn something.” Alice does not really need to be told to pay attention to Uncle Eddie.

  “Okay, that’s the intake, that’s the outflow. My guess is, it’s the outflow. Let’s take a look.”

  He inspects the hoses.

  “Hoses look okay. You see anything I’m not seeing?”

  It’s a rubber gasket that’s shot; that’s what he figured it would be. He took the liberty of bringing a few basic supplies with him, including a gasket. How does he know these things? He takes the hose and tells Alice to pull off the old gasket.

  “It’s stuck.”

  “Yank it! Give it a real tug.”

  “It’s really stuck.”

  “Yeah, they get corroded.”

  He zaps it with some WD-40 and it comes right off.

  He hands her a new gasket: “Fit that one on.”

  She slips on the new gasket.

  “Like I said, it’s not rocket science. Now reconnect it.”

  When he squats down to test the connection, she wishes he’d wear his pants a little higher. He turns his head, catches her looking at him, and gives his jeans a hoist.

  “Sorry about that, kiddo.”

  “Oh, it’s nothing, I . . .”

  “Nobody wants to look down an old fart’s butt.”

  This cracks her up.

  “Actually nobody wants to look down anybody’s butt. Way too much of that these days. It used to be your old man had to tell you to keep your pants on, now they gotta tell you to keep your pants up, too. Not that kids are listening. What did your pop tell you?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Words of wisdom. Advice. That kind of thing.”

  She thinks for a minute.

  “I don’t think we got to that phase, yet.”

  “Sure you did.”

  “What, like how to live my life and stuff? I’m in the tenth grade. It’s a little early!”

  “No. The basics. Like don’t kiss a girl if you just ate garlic pizza.”

  She thinks again. She can’t believe she has to think about this! There should be a list, a list that comes trippingly off her tongue, of all the great things her dad told her.

  “Marigolds are a natural insect repellent?”

  “Apropos of . . . ?”

  “How to lay out a garden?”

  “Exactly! What else?”

  And Uncle Eddie, unlike most adults, is not impatient for her answer. It’s okay that she’s taking her time. He just hangs in there.

  “Let’s give her a little test run,” he says, and turns the washer on.

  So now they’ve got the snug basement and the friendly washerfilling-up sounds and Uncle Eddie is the first person to ask her a direct question about her dad, to assume, of course they’ll talk about her dad, like it’s totally natural to talk about her dad, no problem, bring it on.

  “He told me, never sell yourself short.”

  “You’ll find yourself thinking of that one even when you’re forty.”

  “Don’t let anybody make up your mind for you.”

  “Yeah.”

  “You’re as good as anybody else.”

  “Right.”

  “He gave me a compass when I was twelve.”

  “Cool.”

  “He said when I don’t know what to do, I should just stop and close my eyes for a minute and see if I can hear my inner voice. And that voice, that’s my compass.”

  “Your dad loves that stuff—maps, compasses . . .”

  “Yeah.”

  “He’s a good dad.”

  God bless Uncle Eddie for talking in the present tense.

  “You know how you feel about your mom right now?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Like she’s this huge pain in the ass?”

  “How do you know these things?”

  “She’s my big sister. She’s been a pain in my ass my whole life! Anyway, you’re not gonna feel this way forever.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “Couple years . . . it’ll all be different.”

  “I really don’t believe you.”

  “And right now, you’ve got a choice about how you want to feel and be around her.”

  “I do not!”

  “You do. I’m not saying it’s easy, but you’ve got a choice.”

  “Like what, suddenly she’s gonna be nice to me?”

  “Like maybe you could have a truce. A little cease-fire.”

  “Did she tell you to do this?”

  “Nope.”

  “’Cause it’s really making me mad.”

  The washer spins to a stop. They both turn to look at it. No leaking.

  “Let’s load her up.”

  They both start tossing darks into the washer.

  “Uncle Eddie . . .”

  “Yeah.”

  “It’s not that I hate her. . . .”

  “I know.”

  “I just don’t love her right now.”

  “That’s all I’m trying to tell you, Alice. Right now doesn’t go on forever.”

  “You sure?”

  “I’m sure.”

  “Hey—that’s a good piece of advice.”

  “From me? Hell, no.” He grins.

  Upstairs Angie has put on a silky dress and red high heels and dangly earrings and lipstick. Uncle Eddie gives Alice a little nudge.

  “You look nice, Mom.”

  Her mom actually smiles, after she gets over the shocked surprise.

  “Thanks, honey.”

  “Your mom’s a party girl. I bet she never told you that.”

  “Eddie!”

  “Perfume, too. Wow!”

  “Are you going like that?” Angie asks.

  “How’d you pack so much disapproval into five little words?”

  “Thanks for fixing the washer.”

  “I’ve got a clean shirt—Ralph Lauren—whoo hoo—and a sports jacket in the car.”

  “Always ready for a good time.”

  “That’s me. Life is short. Let’s go.”

  Alice watches them walk to the car, their heads close together, laughing at something she can’t hear, and she thinks she doesn’t really know anything about her mother. She never thinks of her mother as being a sister and that she had this whole other life in her own family, until she sees her link her arm through Eddie’s arm and lean into him. Why didn’t she ever see thi
s before? She sees that her mom loves Uncle Eddie even though all she ever does is give him a hard time and complain about him. And she’s happy to be going out. Putting on some high heels and going out.

  “What’s for dinner?” Ellie shouts.

  “Come into the kitchen and help me figure it out,” Alice shouts back at her.

  Ellie stomps in.

  “I bet there’s nothing good,” Ellie says.

  “You’re not helping.”

  “We could call Gram. She’d come over. She might even take us out.”

  “We’ve gotta finish all that laundry.”

  Alice opens the fridge. Why is she bothering to do this? She knows she’s not going to find some yummy leftover casserole, or even fresh sandwich fixings. She slams the door.

  “Okay, here’s what we’re gonna do: Backwards dinner. In front of a movie.”

  She takes inventory: one tired banana, some ice cream; she knows how to make fudge sauce. She tests the whipped cream canister; it’s not full, but it’s promising.

  “I’ll make chocolate sauce.”

  “Can we make it peppermint?” Ellie asks.

  “Yeah. You peel the banana and get it into bowls.”

  “Can I scoop the ice cream?”

  “Sure.”

  “Make it really chocolaty, Alice.”

  “Okay.”

  “Make lots.”

  “I will.”

  So Alice melts chocolate chips and stirs in half-and-half while Ellie stands on a chair to scoop ice cream onto banana halves.

  “I wish we had a cherry for the top.”

  “How about walnuts?”

  “That’s what Daddy likes!”

  “I know.”

  “Okay! Do it like Daddy does.”

  They sit down in front of Clueless for the five hundredth time and eat banana splits and talk back to the movie and say all the lines they know by heart. They pause the movie so Alice can go downstairs and put one load of laundry into the dryer and start the next load.

  She gets back upstairs to find Ellie standing on tiptoe on a kitchen chair with the longest wooden spoon in her hand, trying to reach the popcorn maker, and finally managing to pull it toward her by the cord. Alice waits and is rewarded by the sight of Ellie, popcorn maker clutched to her chest, grinning from ear to ear.