“You sure?”
“Uh huh.”
“How’s the homework coming along?”
“Fine.”
“You want a snack?”
“We ate the Oreos.”
“All righty, then.”
Mrs. Grover heads back inside, the laundry basket resting on her ample hip.
Henry dares to look up only after the front door has closed with its solid thump. And then he throws himself on the grass, the cool, damp, early-spring grass. He can feel the wet already seeping into him, but he doesn’t care. What if, he’s thinking, what if that really was a kiss?
The orange Dodge has one of those bench seats in the front. Alice has never seen one of those before. The whole car smells like wax it’s so spic and span.
“Nice car, Uncle Eddie.”
“Isn’t she a beauty? Who knew an old Dodge could have so much style?”
“What’s that thing on the steering wheel?”
“Necker’s knob.”
“What?”
He puts his arm around her and pulls her across the seat until she’s snugged right in beside him.
“So you can drive with one hand.”
“And . . .”
“Find a country road, open the windows, drive real slow, and give your girl a kiss.”
“You ever have a car like this when you were a kid?” she asks as she slides over to her side of the seat and rolls the window down.
“I wish! I had to drive my old man’s Ford. Stripped down, strictly utilitarian. Boring, boring car. How are you doing?”
She thought they were talking about cars, now he wants to know how she’s doing?
“Where are we headed?”
“I thought we’d go up to the high school parking lot and just get a feel for things.”
Alice is thinking that might be a better idea much, much later in the day or in the middle of the night or some weekend when there’s no game and no practice going on and really absolutely no people around to watch and make her want to hyperventilate.
“You know how there’s that faculty parking lot out by the maintenance shed? I thought we’d head over there.”
Uncle Eddie can read her mind.
Next thing she knows she’s behind the wheel. When they adjust the bench seat so she can comfortably reach the gas and brake pedals, Eddie is left with both knees jammed against the dash.
“No problem,” he reassures her. “Plenty of room.”
She puts on her seat belt.
“Okay. You know the difference between the gas and the brake?”
“Gas is right, brake is left.”
“Which foot do you use for the brake?”
“Trick question! Right foot for both.”
“Smart-ass.”
She smiles at him.
“Put your foot on the brake.”
He talks her through the gears. The Dodge is automatic but the shift is on the steering column. She’s never seen that before. It’s cool, though, the way you grab the handle, pull it toward you, and slide the lever to “D” for drive.
“So let’s just start real slow in a nice big circle around the parking lot.”
“Okay.”
“You ready?”
“Yeah.”
“Put her in drive and then release the brake nice and slow.”
Alice does as she’s told and they’re moving! She’s driving! Okay, so she could walk faster than this, but she’s driving!
“Can I give it a little gas?”
“Not yet. Let’s just focus on steering.”
She misjudges the first turn.
“Straighten out your wheels. You feel that now? You’ve gotta get a feel for how she handles. Every car is different, different turning radius, different responsiveness to the steering wheel.”
The second turn she drives right off the asphalt onto the stony shoulder, but pulls the car back in line a little more smoothly.
“A little more to the left.”
The third and the fourth turns are pretty easy. She’s proud of herself, but she doesn’t dare take her eyes off the macadam in front of her to look at Uncle Eddie and judge his response. By the third time around she’s starting to feel pretty good. She actually sits back in the seat a bit and relaxes the death grip she’s been keeping on the steering wheel.
“Can we go a little faster?”
“Don’t get cocky. You’ve been driving for five minutes.”
“I’m a natural. I take after you.”
“Next time. Maybe.”
“I think I’m getting dizzy.”
“So stop in the middle and start going the other way.”
She finds the precise middle of the parking lot, comes to a full stop, puts on her blinker for good measure, and turns right.
“Who taught you to drive, Uncle Eddie?”
“Your mom.”
“You’re kidding.”
“I made my old man crazy in a car. He swore he would never go anywhere with me behind the wheel.”
“How come?”
“He thought I was a hothead.”
“Were you?”
“Sometimes.”
“A lot of times?”
“According to my old man. But as you can see, I’ve mellowed with the years.”
“What kind of a teacher was Mom?”
“Awful. Her knuckles would be white, she’d be holding her breath and grabbing at the dashboard or the door handle for support every other minute.”
“How’d you get her to keep getting into the car with you?”
“I paid her.”
“You did not!”
“I was desperate. She would even gasp and moan whenever I did something stupid.”
“But if she hated it so much—”
“She needed the money.”
“For what?”
“College.”
“So if she was such a scaredy-cat how’d you get to be such a good driver?”
“I love it. Have you noticed? People tend to be good at the things they love.”
“She’s not happy about this.”
“She’s not thinking it through.”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s just the two of you taking care of things while your dad’s away. There could be an emergency where you’d need to be able to drive.”
“Like what?”
“To get help.”
“For who?”
“Say your mom gets food poisoning or appendicitis.”
“Wouldn’t I just call an ambulance?”
“Or Ellie falls.”
“Ditto.”
“Or Gram.”
“Same.”
“Or something unexpected.”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know! In my book it’s just a good idea to be prepared. In case.”
“In case.”
“Plus, it’s fun.”
“Yeah.”
“And you’ll be the first one—of all your friends.”
“Except for Ashley Cooper who lives on a farm and has been driving a tractor since she was twelve.”
At which point Alice realizes that she is just cruising around the parking lot. Slower than slow, but making the turns effortlessly, like a real driver. She cranks down her window and sticks her elbow out.
“Both hands on the wheel!”
“Okay, okay.”
“Confident is good. Overconfident is not good.”
“Got it.”
Both hands on the wheel, the cool spring air coming in the window, the nose of the car moving slowly past empty fields, the utility garage, the Dumpster, the crowns of the distant weeping willows gilded by the setting sun.
“There you go, kiddo. There you go.”
Alice risks a glance at Uncle Eddie.
“Who was your first girlfriend?”
“Why?”
“Just curious.”
“Melissa Pardee. Fourth grade. I followed her around like a puppy.
”
“First kiss?”
“What is this? Twenty questions?”
“First kiss?”
“Why the sudden interest in kissing?”
“Quit stalling.”
“Jessie Simons. Sixth grade. On the bus coming back from a field trip.”
Alice tries to picture eleven-year-old Uncle Eddie making his move with little Jessie Simons.
“Did she kiss you back?”
“Who knows? Probably. That was a long time ago. So what about your first kiss?”
“Are you kidding me?”
“’Fess up, Alice.”
She laughs and shakes her head.
“I guess I’m one of those late bloomers.”
“Sure you are.”
“Were you ever in love?” she asks.
“Alice, c’mon—”
“Were you?”
“Lots of times.”
“No, I mean, really in love.”
Eddie looks out the window.
“Once.”
“What happened?”
“That’s a long story.”
“How come you never got married?”
“What’s with all the questions?”
“Well . . . ?”
“I let her get away.”
“Why?”
“Couldn’t commit I guess.”
“Where is she now?”
“Married with four kids, teaching second grade about one hundred miles from here.”
“Do you ever see her?”
“No.”
“Do you ever get lonely?”
“Geez, Alice, let’s move on to brighter things. You’re driving, did you notice?”
She completes one last circuit before pulling up in the center of the parking lot. She remembers to put the car in park, engages the emergency brake, and relinquishes the wheel to Uncle Eddie. He moves the seat back with a sigh and punches her in the shoulder.
“Good job. I can’t believe we need a bigger parking lot already.”
“We could go to the mall.”
“Next week the mall.”
“For real?”
“It’s a date.”
Uncle Eddie turns the radio on to golden oldies as he pulls onto Five Mile Line Road.
“Crank your window down,” he shouts over Van Morrison crooning “Tupelo Honey.”
They both start singing along really loud.
She’s as sweet as tupelo honey
She’s an angel of the first degree
Normally this would embarrass Alice, normally she would be all self-conscious about how her voice sounds while at the same time scanning the streets and the sidewalks to see if anyone is witnessing her craziness. But today, she decides, she doesn’t care. Here in the orange Dodge with fat Uncle Eddie, singing at the top of her lungs, she doesn’t have to think, she doesn’t have to worry, she doesn’t have to give a damn. The day has turned to a pink dusk, and just like Henry, she’s got music inside her head and all around her.
April 18th
Alice does not like being dragged to the pool with her mother while Ellie takes a knitting class in the Y’s paneled, stuffy rec room. After school and track she just wants to go home.
Alice sits in the bleachers. It’s hot, it’s almost dripping with humidity. She hates the bleachers, she hates the chlorine smell of the pool. Underneath all that bleach there’s this nasty, damp rot kind of smell.
This time slot is lap swim only, so it couldn’t be more boring. Just a bunch of grown-ups and old people going back and forth, never getting anywhere. How they can put their faces in that slimy water is beyond Alice.
Here comes her mother from the showers. Her Speedo bathing suit and cap on, her goggles in her hand. She stops where Alice is sitting, sweaty and miserable.
“You don’t have to sit there like a lump, you know.”
“Thanks, Mom.”
“You do have a bathing suit.”
Alice doesn’t bother to answer.
“It’s healthy.”
“Uh huh.”
“You get into a different place in your head. It’s peaceful.”
“Okay, Mom.”
“Just once. Will you try it just once?”
“Probably not.”
“You love to swim in the summertime.”
“That’s different.”
“How is that different?”
“It’s outdoors, for one.”
“I was thinking this was something we could maybe do together.”
“I’ll think about it,” Alice says.
Angie walks away, hops into an empty lane, pulls her goggles on, gives Alice a little wave, and starts swimming. As she warms up for a few hundred meters with an easy breaststroke, she’s trying not to think about Alice and how is she ever going to reach her or even just feel comfortable with her own daughter ever again? She’s trying not to think about Matt and where he is and if he’s all right; she’s trying not to think at all; she’s trying to get to that place where she’s swimming and not thinking, just moving her body, just making her turns, reaching into the backstroke now, her favorite stroke, and letting her mind slow and quiet and then quiet some more until, for a few sweet strokes or lengths or moments, she is nothing but body and breath and motion.
Only it’s not working today. She turns and attacks the crawl as though she is attacking her anger, trying to drown it in the pool. No one talks about the anger, the rage, how the love and longing are all mixed up with these other less attractive emotions. How could he leave me? How could he leave us? This was not the deal, this is not where their lives were supposed to be heading. And that shirt, that stupid blue shirt of Matt’s hanging out beneath Alice’s jacket, looking grubby, looking like hell, looking like a goddamn battle flag waving under her nose: bad mother, bad mother, bad mother.
It’s just a shirt, she tries to tell herself. Ignore it. Forget it. Distant daughter. Deployed husband. Another turn, and another turn. Backstroke again, her favorite stroke again. Just breathe, Angie. Just breathe.
Alice grabs her backpack and heads up to the lobby. She rummages in her pockets to see if she has enough change to buy a Coke or a snack from the vending machines. No such luck.
She peeks into the rec room and there’s Ellie, sitting in a circle with four other girls. No boys of course. The teacher is this comfy-looking woman with long, scraggly hair, a patchwork skirt, Birkenstocks, and an obviously homemade sweater. She patiently moves from kid to kid, helping them work their big wooden needles, helping them find dropped or lost stitches. Ellie is chatting away like she’s found her niche.
Alice closes the door quietly and heads outside. The YMCA is a relatively new building, built on the outskirts of Belknap’s Four Corners. Not that there’s much left to the Four Corners since they built the stupid mall three miles down Belknap Road. There’s just the library, two churches, a gas station, a bar, an upholstery store that always looks like it’s on the verge of going out of business, The Bird Sisters, Jansen’s Hardware, and the local pharmacy. Ricci’s little grocery/ deli is still trying to hang on. It is the dimmest, dustiest store on the block. A 25-watt bulb would be bright in there. Maybe they don’t want anybody reading the expiration dates on the canned goods. They’ve recently updated their penny candy aisle, even though penny candy doesn’t cost a penny anymore.
Alice sits on the bench by the bus stop. She’d like to walk the few blocks to the library, but then no one would know where she is. She’d like to be sitting next to Stephie in the library doing their homework just like they used to do, passing notes and sharing M&Ms and giggling and making the librarian come over to tell them to be quiet. Again. She’d like to walk the half-mile home. Somehow this stupid trip to the Y is a family outing in her mom’s mind. Even though Alice hates it, even though they are all in different parts of the Y. Maybe the family part is when they go out to Don & Bob’s afterward for hamburgers and onion rings. Alice is counting on frozen custard for dessert.
Sh
e’s trying not to think about what happened with Henry yesterday, when she sees Mrs. Minty struggling to get her rolling cart out the door of Ricci’s grocery. Alice starts to cross the street to help her when John Kimball maneuvers his way past Mrs. Minty and then not only holds the door for her but picks up her cart and carries it to the sidewalk. He’s holding a soda and a package of Devil Dogs in one hand and doing all this maneuvering for Mrs. Minty with his other hand.
She thanks him. She knows his name. He offers to walk her home and help unload her groceries. She declines, says the exercise is good for her heart and her bones. And then she asks him about baseball. Mrs. Minty follows high school baseball? She tells him he’s a great shortstop. Mrs. Minty goes to games? Curiouser and curiouser, as another Alice would say.
Alice quickly retreats to the farthest corner of her bench and pulls out Othello so that John Kimball won’t know she’s been eavesdropping and, hopefully, won’t even notice her at all. Which is when she hears Mrs. Minty say:
“You remind me of my boy. All you boys do. He was just your age.”
“What happened to him?”
“Meningitis. The local doctor didn’t realize how serious it was.”
“When was this, Mrs. Minty?”
“1963.”
“What was his name?”
“His friends called him Pete. We called him Peter. After my father.”
“Did he play baseball?”
“Shortstop. Just like you.”
“Any good?”
“We thought he was marvelous. So fast.”
“Did you have any other—”
“No, no. Just the one.”
“And your husband?”
“That was the beginning of a terrible decade. Not the sort of times you can live through with a broken heart.”
“You mean the war?”
“And the assassinations. And everything else. Jared found he couldn’t keep getting up in the morning.. . . The doctors say he died of heart disease. But I know better.”
“I’m so sorry, Mrs. Minty.”
“It was his time.”
That’s what grown-ups always say, Alice thinks. But what does it mean? That every person gets allotted a certain number of days?
“Now how in the world did we get on this topic?” Mrs. Minty continues.
“Baseball.”
“Very diverting, baseball.”
“I have to be careful it doesn’t divert me right into getting C’s and D’s.”
Alice Bliss Page 11
