Alice Bliss

by Laura Harrington

  “You following the Red Wings as usual this year, John?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “I’d love to go to the opening game.”

  “I’ll talk to my father, Mrs. Minty. We’ll make a date.”

  “That would be lovely. Tell him I expect the full treatment: beer, peanuts, hot dogs.”

  “Will do.”

  “The Boxford High game next week. Is that a home game, John?”

  “Sure is.”

  “See you there. Weather permitting.”

  Mrs. Minty heads off, with a jaunty little wave, her square purse hanging over one arm, one hand firmly on her rolling basket. She doesn’t move quickly, but she’s determined. She also, Alice notices, isn’t looking down at her feet and the sidewalk, but instead, is looking up at the trees and the birds and the houses, and whatever else there is to see on her six-block walk home.

  Alice is watching Mrs. Minty and trying to take in the fact that she lost her son, that she even had a son, and that he was just her age. Alice has never known anyone who died before except for her grandparents and her great aunt Charlotte. Even though she didn’t know him, even though he died before she was even born, suddenly this boy, Peter, who played shortstop, is as real as real can be.

  As real as John Kimball, who has materialized in front of her, and not only that, has decided to sit down on the bench beside her and offer her a Devil Dog.

  “No, thanks.”

  “You’re not one of these crazy girls who doesn’t eat, are you?”

  “No.”

  “Good.”

  “I just heard, I couldn’t help hearing, about Mrs. Minty’s son, Peter, and . . .”

  “Yeah.”

  It’s really strange, or maybe not so strange, that they just sit there for a minute, thinking about Peter, not saying anything else for a while. Normally this would make Alice squirm and fret: Should I be saying something? Like what? Should he be saying something? But she is not thinking any of these things; she is not, in fact, worrying. This is hard to believe given that it is John Kimball sitting beside her and the last time she saw him she had dog shit all over her shoes. Hard to imagine that that ghastly experience might have been an icebreaker.

  “He was only fifteen,” Alice ventures.

  “Yeah.”

  “You ever know anyone who died?”

  John looks down at the ground.

  “My mother.”

  “Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry.”

  “Yeah.”

  “No, I mean, I’m really—”

  “Thanks. It’s okay.”

  He opens the package of Devil Dogs.

  “I think about it all the time,” Alice says.

  “What?”

  “Dying.”

  “Really?”

  If there were a red light in her brain, it would be flashing. Crazy outcast girl talking to the most popular boy in school. And the topic she chooses: dying. Not a good idea! Cease and desist!

  “Why?” he asks, like he really wants to know.

  “My dad’s in Iraq.”

  Why is she telling him this? It’s not like they’re friends, it’s not like they know each other at all, really; it’s not like this is the person she would choose to confide anything in, about anyone, ever. Ever!

  “I didn’t know.”

  There’s a big pause here and she expects him to push off and head down the street just like everybody else does whenever the war comes up.

  “Is he doing okay?”

  She looks at him. He is so not what she thought he was, at least in this moment, that she has to get a visual on him to place herself back in reality.

  “From everything I read I don’t know how he could possibly be all right,” Alice answers.

  “I don’t follow it as much as I should.”

  “No, I know, most people—”

  “Which kind of makes me a really big jerk, doesn’t it?”

  “I wouldn’t say that.”

  “I don’t know what to say about your dad.”

  “I know. Nobody does.”

  “But I wish I could say everything is gonna be all right.”

  She turns and looks at him again. He has a Devil Dog crumb stuck to his lip. She takes a breath. She tests the waters of this moment with this boy. Could this possibly be real? And before she has a chance to think, to stop herself, she reaches out and brushes the crumb off his upper lip. He pulls away from her, possibly just a startle reflex, possibly total aversion, she notices, as she curls her hands into fists and shoves them under her thighs. Just like Henry, she thinks.

  “Hey, Alice!” Ellie yells.

  She’s running down the steps of the Y, waving her arms wildly, waving her knitting like a flag.

  “I’ve gotta go,” she says.

  “Yeah.”

  “Okay. So—”

  “I’ll see you around, okay?”

  He gets up and starts walking away.

  She ducks her head; she knows she won’t really see him “around,” that come tomorrow they will still pass each other in the halls and she will be invisible to him and his friends—which is, of course, better than being the object of their attention and ridicule.

  Funny that a bench on Main Street could be neutral territory, kind of floating in a different world with different rules where for a few minutes they could almost talk, almost see each other.

  She looks up. Ellie is waiting on the steps.

  “Alice, c’mon!”

  John stops and turns around. He’s coming back to the bench.

  “Listen, you want to come to the Red Wings game with me and my dad and Mrs. Minty?”

  “Are you joking?”

  “No, I’ll talk to my dad. It’s fun. You like minor league baseball?”

  She wonders: Does she like baseball? Does it matter?

  “Okay,” she finds herself saying. “Okay.”

  “Great.”

  And he’s off, jogging down the street toward home. John Kimball did not just ask me out. This is not a date, this is probably not even going to happen. This is charity Tuesday with Mrs. Minty and that weird girl whose father is in Iraq. Okay. Good deed for the day. Pull yourself together, Alice.

  She joins Ellie on the steps of the Y. Ellie with her new glasses.

  “Who was that?”

  “Just some guy from school.”

  “What’s his name?”

  “John.”

  “Do you like him?”

  “No!”

  “Yes, you do.”

  “I’ve never even talked to him before today.”

  “Is he popular?”

  “What do you think?”

  “I think you like him.”

  “You’re nuts.”

  “What about Henry?”

  “What about Henry?”

  Ellie gives her one of those all knowing smart-ass teenager kind of looks. Where does she get this stuff?

  “C’mon. Let’s go find Mom,” Alice says.

  “Did he ask you out?” Ellie wants to know.

  “Did he ask me out? Are you kidding?”

  “Did he?”

  “To a Red Wings game. With Mrs. Minty.”

  “See?”

  “See what?”

  “He asked you out.”

  “Charity. Strictly charity. He must be getting his Boy Scout Buddha badge in compassion. Or selflessness.”

  “They don’t have Buddha badges in the Boy Scouts. You’re making that up. Plus, he must be an Eagle Scout already.”

  “Right. Eagle Scout Buddha Badge.”

  “You think Mom will let you go?”

  “Who knows?”

  “Are you gonna ask her?”

  “Maybe.”

  “He’s kind of cute.”

  “Ellie!”

  “What? He is.”

  “How was knitting?”

  “You’re changing the subject.”

  “Yup.”

  “I’m making a scarf for Dad. I picked
double rib stitch.”

  “What colors?”

  “Lots of colors. Mrs. Morris has hundreds of colors.”

  “Will you show me later?”

  Alice takes Ellie by the hand as they head to the parking lot at the rear of the building. She listens while Ellie talks about Mrs. Morris and how she smells like spices and how Dad is gonna love the scarf of many colors even if he gets it in the wrong season and how he could use it as a talisman or a good luck symbol just like the knights of old.

  “You want to hear my new favorite word?”

  “Sure.”

  “Hypergelast. What do you think that means?”

  “Sounds like extreme gymnastics to me.”

  “It means someone who can’t stop laughing!”

  Ellie doubles over she is laughing so hard. She laughs and laughs. And Alice can’t help herself; she joins right in.

  April 19th

  The alarm didn’t go off this morning, or if it did, Alice didn’t hear it and now she’s late and to top it off she can’t find her shirt. It’s not under the bed, where she left it, carefully hidden behind her backpack; it’s not in the hamper; it’s not in the basement in the pile of laundry overflowing the laundry basket. Ellie swears she doesn’t know where it is.

  “Did you take it?”

  “Why would I take your smelly shirt?”

  “Did you take it?”

  “No, Alice, I did not take your smelly, disgusting shirt!”

  “Where’s Mom?”

  “How should I know?”

  “I need my shirt.”

  “It’s just a shirt.”

  “It is not just a shirt. It’s Dad’s shirt.”

  “You are obsessed.”

  “I am not!”

  “How is it I can be so much more mature than you are, Alice, when I’m only eight?”

  “Bully for you, Miss Goody Two-Shoes.”

  Just then she hears the garbage truck screech to a halt at the curb. She looks out the window. There’s her mom, in her bathrobe, dragging the garbage can down to the curb. Could she be any more embarrassing?

  Which is when Alice puts two and two together and speeds through the front door and down the front steps and down the driveway in her bare feet.

  “Mom! Mom!”

  The garbage guy has their garbage can in his hand, he’s hoisting it up and pouring it into the open maw of the truck.

  “Wait! Wait! Stop!”

  But it’s too late. She doesn’t actually see the blue shirt going into the grinder thing in the back of the truck. No, it’s probably buried in a bag of trash and used Kleenex and carrot tops.

  Angie walks up the driveway. Alice can’t even look at her mother she’s so furious. She’s trying to control her breathing so she’ll be able to speak.

  “What’s going on? . . . Alice?”

  “Dad’s shirt.”

  “Oh, don’t get started on that again.”

  “You threw it away, didn’t you?”

  “You can stand out here and catch your death in bare feet, but I’m going inside.”

  Angie starts to walk past Alice, but Alice steps in front of her, blocking her way.

  “If it’s not in the trash, where is it?”

  “This is ridiculous. I’m going inside.”

  But Alice won’t move.

  “How could you do that? And how could you lie to me?”

  “I haven’t lied to you.”

  “You want to know why girls can’t stand their mothers? It’s shit like this, Mom!”

  “Inside!”

  “First you steal my clothes, then you lie to me and now you think you can order me around?!”

  “Alice!”

  Angie tries to walk around her again.

  “Couldn’t you just ask me, Mom? How hard is that? Just ask me!”

  “I am not going to argue with you in the middle of the driveway! We can continue this inside.” Angie pushes past Alice. “Or not at all.”

  “Fine! How about not at all?! That would be just more of the same, wouldn’t you say, Mom?”

  Alice has the satisfaction of hearing her mother slam the front door. Hard. Which is when she hears the garbage truck shift into second gear as it continues its lumbering journey down the street to Henry’s house, where no doubt Henry’s father had the trash down at the curb well before six a.m. No mothers running out to the street in bathrobes at Henry’s house.

  Where is her dad’s shirt now? Part of the compost of newspapers, orange rinds, cereal boxes, last night’s take out containers.. . . Some of the fight goes out of Alice as her feet begin to ache they’re so cold. She starts up the driveway.

  Okay. She’ll get another one of her dad’s shirts, and maybe she’ll take one of his jackets, too. And if she can wear both of those things, maybe, just maybe she’ll be able to hold it together and walk out the door and go to school like she’s supposed to.

  As she walks through the front door, her mom pushes past with a cup of coffee.

  “Alice, get ready for school. Enough of this nonsense.”

  Alice does not respond.

  “Alice, I mean it. Get a move on.”

  Alice swallows hard and finds her voice.

  “If anything happens to Dad—”

  “What?”

  “—it’s your fault.”

  “You’re being ridiculous.”

  “Am I?”

  “You want to blame me. Fine. Blame me. You know who you’re really mad at?”

  “I don’t want to hear this!”

  “You’re mad at Dad.”

  “I am not!”

  “Think about it, Alice.”

  “Dad did not put that shirt in the trash!”

  “Dad—”

  “—Don’t!”

  Alice walks up the stairs and into her parents’ bedroom where she takes another shirt out of her father’s drawer. Angie follows her.

  “I’d really rather you didn’t take another one of Dad’s—”

  Alice’s hands are shaking as she unbuttons a crisp blue and white striped shirt. Not the same, not the same shirt at all, she thinks in a kind of wild, sad desperation. One of the buttons pops off and skitters across the floor. She looks at the shirt for a moment, the stripes, the missing button, then shoves it back in the drawer, and slams the drawer shut so hard several photos fall off the dresser.

  “What are you doing?”

  “I’ll never forgive you if—”

  “Alice. For heaven’s sake.”

  “Can you spare one of these?” Alice asks, as she opens the top drawer and grabs a white T-shirt.

  “Take five! Take six! You want them all? Take them all, goddamnit! Take them all!”

  “I only wanted one, Mom. The one I had. The one he wore,” Alice replies as she slams out the door and down the stairs.

  Angie sits on the unmade bed, the broken glass of her favorite picture beneath her fingers. She feels awful, as she always does after a fight. Couldn’t she just have washed that stupid shirt?

  She looks at their wedding photo. Matt is holding her with both hands around her waist, his head thrown back, his whole face lit up with laughter.

  Lighten up, she can almost hear him say. Don’t you remember all the shit you put your parents through when you were in high school? She’s just a kid, a scared kid.

  Does she have to be so annoying, Angie wonders? Does she have to wave everything right under my nose?

  Stop rising to the bait. You’re the grown-up here.

  Easy for you to say, Matt Bliss, from nine thousand miles away.

  April 20th

  Alice and Henry catch the bus downtown after school, way downtown, to Pearl Street, to the cool vintage clothing store that specializes in tuxedos. They have twenty dollars to outfit Henry for the dance, and another twenty for Alice. Maybe. For Alice this is all a big maybe. The mothers wanted to take them to the mall; that was a definite no.

  Unbeknownst to Alice, Henry also has another fifty dollars in
his pocket, given to him by his mother. Henry and his mother have discussed the options; Henry and his mother have outlined a basic game plan; Henry actually knows what he is looking for.

  Sitting next to Alice on the city bus, however, Henry feels lost. It’s a cold, comfortless day that could belong to any month from October to May. Henry follows Alice’s lead and pulls out his history homework, but he can’t read. Reading in cars and buses makes him sick. He sneaks a look at her. She appears to actually be reading about the Continental Congress. She does not sense him looking at her and turn toward him and begin to talk, like she usually does.

  They have not discussed the kiss. Or the non-kiss. In fact, they haven’t really talked at all. They are both pretending that nothing happened, that everything is the same. But of course, nothing is the same. Riding the bus isn’t the same, sitting side by side so their legs almost touch is not the same, getting thrown against Alice as the bus makes the long curve up onto I-95 is not the same. Not talking is not the same. Not talking and joking and laughing. Not having to think so much about every single thing it gives you brain cramp is not the same. It’s all so overwhelming that Henry falls asleep, right there on the noisy downtown bus, falls sound asleep until Alice wakes him up at their stop on Jane Street at Downtown Crossing.

  They walk the two long, dreary blocks to Pearl Street in total silence. Maybe this was a mistake, Henry is thinking. Maybe this whole thing is one big, terrible mistake. Maybe Alice hates him now and maybe he’s mad at Alice for ruining everything and maybe they should just go home. But there’s Alice throwing open the grimy door and striding inside Rerun like she owns the place.

  There are millions of tuxedos at Rerun, crammed into a long, narrow, dusty storefront on a street that has seen better days. Rerun is flanked on either side by empty stores. The middle-aged, potbellied, Hawaiian shirt–wearing guy behind the counter is eyeing them as if they are hardened shoplifters out to rob him blind. Alice starts sneezing. They don’t even know what size to look for. Henry walks up to the counter.

  “Hi.”

  “Yeah.”

  “I need a suit. Or a tuxedo.”

  “Uh huh.”

  “For a dance.”

  “Look around.”

  “I don’t know what size.”

  The guy whips out a tape measure.

  “My name’s Henry.”