Nine
My mother would know. She always knows things like people’s last names, how many times they’ve been married, how many kids they’ve had, where the money comes from. Minutiae, I believe it’s called.
“What’s the name of that woman on the top floor?” I asked her, casual as heck, peeling potatoes like a pro. “The one with the scroungy little dog.”
My mother was making pie crust and didn’t answer. I thought she hadn’t heard, although as I said, her hearing’s first rate. She doesn’t miss a cough or a sneeze, even if it’s midnight and I have a pillow over my face. She never misses the sound of the top of the cookie jar being lifted by experts, which I consider myself and which Teddy certainly is.
“Out of there!” she hollers. “It’s almost dinnertime. You’ll spoil your appetite.” One of the things I look forward to about growing up and moving out is not having my mother’s ears around. I know I’ll miss her like crazy, but the ears I can do without.
“There,” she said, putting the final crimp on the crust.
“Her name’s Mrs. Olmstead. He was president of a copper company and the money’s his. Third husband, I believe. No children.” My mother brushed the top of the crust with egg white to give it a professional glaze.
“Now she raises funds. Sells tickets for benefits to all her friends, gets the right people to take a table at a charity ball. That sort of thing. She used to be vice-president of a fragrance company. In everyday language, kid, that’s perfume. She’s not friendly. We’ve been in the building almost ten years and I think she’s said hello twice. I can take her or leave her.” My mother opened the oven and shoved the pie in.
“Why?”
Just when I’m sure she’s lost the train of thought, she zeros in. She kills me. She really does.
“She invited me and Al to a party she’s giving for her nephew,” I said. “She’s having lots of young people and refreshments.”
“Well, for pity’s sake.” My mother looked at me with something like admiration. At least, I think that’s what it was.
“What did you do to get in her good graces? Or what did Al do? I’m flabbergasted. Flummoxed, you might even say,” my mother said.
“Well,” I said, wondering if I could trust my mother not to tell Al’s mother. “Sparky ruined Al’s new shoe, you see.” I told her about the barf and the pee and how delighted Al was that her shoe was ruined on account of she’d hated those shoes that her mother bought her.
“So Al’s kind of grateful to the mutt,” I explained. “Even if he is sort of repulsive.”
“He’s all of that,” my mother agreed. “Imagine being cooped up with that face all day. Imagine having to take him to the park, where he has to be followed around with one of those dreadful pooper scoopers. Imagine having to scoop up his poop. I’d be embarrassed to be seen scooping up my dog’s poop.”
I burst out laughing. “You looked so funny when you said that!” I said. “You cross your heart and hope to die you won’t tell Al’s mother, though. She might get mad.”
“What do you take me for, a squealer?” my mother said indignantly. “I won’t say a word, though I do think Mrs. Olmstead ought to at least offer to get Al’s shoe cleaned. Are you going to her party, you and Al?”
“I said I’d let her know,” I said. “I wasn’t sure you’d let me.”
“Of course I’ll let you,” my mother said. “It’s only upstairs. If the nephew turns out to be a bummer, come on down. Besides, I’d like to know what her apartment is like. She had it decorated last year by one of the top New York designers. I understand it cost the earth. So keep your eyes peeled. I think she has silk walls in the drawing room and her dining room is black.”
My mother set her mouth in that way that she has when she disapproves strongly of something.
“A black dining room is not good form, it seems to me,” she said, pressing her lips into a thin line. “What’s the nephew like, did she say?”
“She said he was brilliant and a darling boy,” I said.
My mother clapped a hand to her forehead. “Oh-oh,” she said. “Beware of brilliant darling boys. How old is he?”
“I didn’t ask,” I said.
“How tall is he, then?”
“I didn’t ask that either. You sound just like Al. She always thinks boys are going to be midgets, that they’re going to come up to her sternum or her belly button or something. She has a thing about it.”
“That’s because she’s tall,” my mother said. “I was always tall for my age too. And for some inexplicable reason, the short boys went for me straight away and all the tall boys seemed to prefer the short girls. Unfair, but that’s the way it was. I know how Al feels.”
I’d never thought of it until that minute. How tall was Brian? Al had never told me. All she talked about was Brian’s big muscles and how he made the city boys look like Charlie Brown.
“Mom,” I said, “did you ever go on a blind date?”
“Why, I was the blind-date queen of the eighth grade,” my mother said proudly. “In that grade alone, I had three blind dates. Each one was with the brother of a friend who needed a date in the worst way and couldn’t get one. One of my friends charged her brother fifty cents when I said I’d go to the dance with him. It was a finder’s fee, she said. He put up a good fight, but in the end he paid her, and afterward she told me she should’ve charged him a buck. I thought I was worth at least a buck. Maybe more.”
“Was it fun? Did you have a good time?” I asked her.
“No,” she said. “I can’t honestly say it was fun. We were both too uptight. But I’d never been on a date and I felt I was ready to get my feet wet. We didn’t have a single thing in common. He was bored and so was I. He’d been to dancing school, so he knew how to dance. I’d been to dancing school too, but I wasn’t a very good dancer. He left me to dance with a girl in a pink dress. Her name was Felicia. Oh, how I hated her. I could hardly wait for the evening to end. Then there was the business of what I should do if he tried to kiss me. That kept me awake nights. You see, in those days,” my mother said, giving me a piercer, “a kiss was a big deal.” She fell silent and had a little smile on her face. I guess she was thinking about those olden days of her youth.
“Did he try?” I asked. I didn’t want to seem too eager. All I wanted was for her to go on and on, leaving nothing out.
“I think he did,” she said. “Remember, this was long ago. He sort of lunged at me and almost knocked me off our front steps. I lunged the other way and we missed contact by a good five feet. And when I went in, there was Tess, sitting on the living-room couch in her nightgown, pretending to read a book. She was waiting up for me because our parents had gone to the movies or something. ‘What happened?’ she asked me. I can still see her, wide eyed, wanting some tale of wild events, so, of course, I made some up. I went all out, until Tess’ eyes were so wide I could see myself in them as if they were a mirror. That was the best part of the evening, telling Tess my version of what hadn’t happened.”
My mother laughed at the memory.
“Oh, Mom,” I said. “I wish I’d known you when you were young.”
“Yes,” my mother said. “Just think. You might’ve been the friend whose brother I went to the dance with for a fifty-cent finder’s fee.”
“You’d never go out with Teddy!” I said, shocked. “Not in a million years.”
Ten
The next morning Al and I skinned down the service stairs instead of waiting for the elevator. We didn’t want to take the chance of running into Sparky’s mom. We still hadn’t decided whether we’d take her up on her invite.
“What’s that?” I pointed to Al’s book bag, which was stuffed with what looked like a bunch of old clothes.
“My sweats,” Al said. “I figured we might give the health club another shot on our way home. After all, Al did seem a kindly gentleman.” She gave me her owl eye for an instant. “So I’m prepared. How about you?”
“My leotard’s too small,” I said. “I tried it on last night. It’s about right for Teddy, I figure.”
“Hey, cool,” Al said. “Teddy as a ballet dancer. It boggles the mind, n’est-ce pas? If Ted decides he wants to emulate Barishnykov, he can save your folks a bundle by skipping into your leotard and they won’t have to buy him a new one.”
“I had a discussion with my mother last night about blind dates,” I said. “She had three blind dates in the eighth grade. All with friends’ brothers. She said she had a lousy time.”
“No kidding? I asked my mother if she’d ever gone on a blind date and you know what she said?”
“No. What?”
“She said her mother was very, very strict, so strict my mother couldn’t even go out with a boy unless she brought the boy home so her mother could meet him, check him out and all. How do you like them apples?”
“That’s strict, all right,” I agreed. “My mother said she was always taller than the boys her age. She said the short boys always picked her to dance with.”
“I knew your mother and I had lots in common!” Al said, smiling. “I appreciate her predicament. I bet if Michael J. Fox and I were at the same dance, he’d make a beeline for me when they played a waltz. Same with R. Redford. I hear he also goes for the tall ones. If that happened, all the other girls would be green with envy, I bet.”
“How tall is Brian?” I said. “You never told me.”
“Oh, he’s tall,” Al said. “Pretty tall. He’s still growing, of course. Guys reach their full growth a lot later than girls do, you know. Ask any medical doctor, they’ll tell you.
“I just wondered,” I said. “I mean, you’re always asking how tall some boy is and you never told me how tall Brian is, so all I’m doing is asking.”
“Next time I write him, I’ll ask him,” Al said. I knew she was being sarcastic, but I said, “Yeah, good idea,” anyway.
“What’ll we do about Sparky’s mom’s fête?” Al said. “We can’t go on dodging her. My heart won’t take the strain of taking the stairs every time we go in or out of the building. It’s crazy. What if we run into her in the elevator and she pins us up to the mat and says ‘Gimme a yes or a no.’ What then?”
“She’ll probably sic Sparky on us,” I said. “The mutt will start in on our feet and nibble his way up.”
“I tell you one thing,” Al said. “If that mutt sinks one fang into me, I’ll give him such a case of indigestion he’ll never touch another bite of girl again as long as he lives. He’ll barf and pee and heave up such a storm his little insides will rumble for weeks.”
“You are really and truly gross,” I said. I love it when Al’s gross. She lets her imagination soar when it comes to being gross. It’s part of her charm.
“What I want to know is what do we do about Polly’s cousin and the tea dance,” I said. “If we don’t go, Polly might get sore.”
“Does that mean she’ll cut off the invites to join her for Sunday lunch and other goodies?” Al said.
“Probably.”
“Then I tell you what. You go,” Al said, “and I’ll stay home with a good book.” And although we’d been fooling around, I knew she was serious.
“You mean go without you?” I said.
“Sure. You’re much more the thé dansant type than I am,” Al said. “I can see you now, spinning around the dance floor, one hand on your partner’s shoulder, the other clutching a cup of tea. You go and tell me how it went. I’d be like a bull in a china shop at a tea dance.”
“You would not,” I said. “That’s crazy.”
“Yes, I would. Believe me, I know my own limitations. Hey”—Al was suddenly jolly, changing the subject—“let’s ask Ms. Bolton is she wants to go to the health club today. I brought my sweats and you can wear your gym shorts. They’d be perfect.”
I got mad.
“Why do you always have to go and spoil things?” I said. “We always do things together. I don’t want to go to the tea dance without you. Part of the fun is going together. You know that.”
Al was silent. Then she said, “Have you wondered why all of a sudden we’re in demand? Everyone wants us for tea dances and fêtes for brilliant, darling nephews. Only we’re in demand by people who’ve never seen us. Polly’s cousin hasn’t seen us, and anyway, what does he know with one blue eye and one brown. And Sparky’s mom has never really seen us because she’s too vain to wear glasses, without which she’s practically blind. If Sparky’s mom could see us as we are, our true selves, she’d dump us fast. All of the above is true. The God’s truth. Respectfully, signed Mother Zandi.”
“O.K.,” I said, after thinking about what she’d said. “My gym shorts are dirty but who cares. Let’s go. A good workout is good for the bones.”
Al scrooched up her face and said, “Did Mr. Richards say that?”
“No,” I said. “I did.”
Eleven
Ms. Bolton was game. Luckily, she had her workout gear stowed in her tote bag. We arranged to meet out front after last bell. Al and I were pretty excited. All of a sudden, it seemed a pretty daring thing to ask your teacher to go to a health club for a free tryout.
“I sure hope she likes it,” Al kept saying.
“How about us?” I said. “Don’t you hope we like it too?”
“We’re kids. We like practically anything,” Al said. “Grownups, especially teachers, are harder to please.”
We got our English papers back. Martha Moseley got an A minus and there was a minute there when I thought she might possibly blow her brains out.
“How can this be?” Martha said. “How can this be?”
I got a C. Al got a C plus. Ms. Bolton had written across the top of my paper, “Lacks focus!” Al’s was crisscrossed with Ms. Bolton’s red-pencil corrections of Al’s spelling and punctuation.
“Are you sure this is a good idea?” Al said at recess. “What’re we gonna talk about, our test marks? ‘Ms. Bolton, you’re full of it,’ I might have to tell her. ‘Ms. Bolton, this is great literature. Don’t let punk spelling and punctuation turn you off. Don’t think Shakespeare didn’t have similar probs. Did he let that stop him? No siree.’
“I just might have to say that to her,” Al said. “Then, when she’s coming up for air, I hit her with the rabbit punch. I say, ‘Ms. Bolton, ma’am, read between the lines. Ignore that other stuff. Taste the beautiful rhythm of the words. The symbolism. Memorable!’” Al closed her eyes and smacked her lips.
“Then I hit her again, when she’s down. ‘Ms. Bolton,’ I say, ‘if you don’t change this mark to an A pronto, forget the freebie.’ Whaddaya think?”
“That’s blackmail,” I said. “She might report us. Anyway, quit grousing. The whole thing was your idea in the first place. To ask her, I mean.”
“You kidding me?” Al snorted. “I thought it was yours.”
The day dragged. When the final bell rang, there was a tremendous noisy exit. Kids deserted that room like rats leaving a sinking ship.
Simile? Aphorism? Whatever.
I noticed Martha Moseley stayed put. That meant she was waiting for everyone to clear out so she could nail Ms. Bolton and demand an explanation for her mark.
“We’ll wait for you outside, Ms. Bolton,” I said in a loud voice.
“In a minute,” she said. Then I heard her say, “Martha, I can’t talk right now. Could you come in early tomorrow? We’ll go over your paper then.”
As Al and I waited for Ms. Bolton, Al agonized, as was her wont.
“What if he forgets his freebie offer and hits us with a gigantic bill when it’s over?” she said. “Suppose he turns nasty and bars the door until we cough up the cash? What then? He looks plenty skeevy to me. Sort of like a mobster.”
“You wouldn’t know a mobster if you fell over one,” I told her.
“You know what I mean. He looks like a mobster in a movie.” As she spoke, she paced back and forth at the top of the school steps. One false move and she’d hurtle
to the bottom.
“Maybe we ought to call Teddy in for a mobster spot check,” Al suggested. “He’s the Mafia expert, after all. He’d give us the straight skinny. Is the guy a mobster or isn’t he.”
“Will you cut it out?” I said.
“Well, I sure hope nothing goes wrong,” Al said. “If this whole health schmeer turns out to be a total bummer, then you just see what happens on your next paper. You think you lacked focus on this one, just wait until your next one. Man.” Al hit herself on the forehead with such force she wobbled around for a while, looking spacey.
“Ms. Bolton’s gonna hold it against us. Wait and see. See if I’m not right.”
When she showed up, Ms. Bolton was smiling. She looked much younger than when she was in the classroom bawling, that’s for sure. She also looked quite pretty.
“I’m really looking forward to this,” she said. “When I woke up this morning, the first thing I thought was ‘Today’s workout day.’ You would think at my age I could get myself to a gym on my own, but somehow I seem to have become immobilized since I moved here. Unhappiness does that to people, I guess. You get so mired in your own feelings it’s tough to get out from under the rug.”
She laughed and we did too.
We walked three abreast. The buildings stood out against the sky as if they’d been cut from construction paper. It was a windless day in mid-October and the temperature was just right.
“Is this guy who runs the health club a friend of yours?” Ms. Bolton asked us.
We told her about the pet shop turning into the health club practically overnight.
“His name’s Al,” I said. “Same as hers.”
“Listen. My feeling about this guy is he’s a total flake,” Al said. “Don’t expect too much, Ms. Bolton, O.K.?”
“I never do,” she said.
A sign on the door of Al’s Health Club said CLOSED.
“What’d I tell you.” Al said. “It just opened. How can it be closed already?” We could see two men inside, talking. They didn’t look like the same two we’d talked to.
“Knock,” Al told me.
Al’s Blind Date: The Al Series, Book Six Page 5
