Al’s Blind Date: The Al Series, Book Six

by Constance C. Greene

  “No kidding?” I said. “That’s a good idea. Why don’t we try that?”

  “I thought we already had,” Al said.

  We laughed until we both came down with the hiccups.

  “Hey, look!” I grabbed Al’s arm. “I don’t believe it. Twice in one day. It’s Woody again.”

  Al squinted into the distance.

  “You may be right,” she said. “Let’s say hello.”

  “Hi, Woody,” we said. “Loved your last picture.”

  The little man in the big glasses looked startled, then alarmed. Then he pulled up his collar even further and scuttled off, incognito.

  Sixteen

  Saturday my father and I tossed a coin. He got to do the vacuuming and the marketing and I wound up with the bathrooms. This is not uncommon when we flip a coin. Sometimes I wonder about that coin, about whether it’s on the level.

  Teddy was the designated duster.

  My grandfather called and said he’d like to take us out to dinner.

  My mother said she’d love to but how about next week.

  My mother’s sister, Tess, called from Connecticut. When she found out my mother had been sick, she offered to come and stay to help out.

  “I’ll send the kids to their father,” Tess said. “Serve him right.”

  “How’s things up in Mafia land?” Teddy hollered over the wire to Craig, the know-it-all cousin. When Teddy talks to Connecticut, he acts as if he’s got a bad connection to Istanbul.

  “Had any good drug busts lately?” Teddy shouted across the miles. I didn’t hear what Craig reported.

  Al came over and I made cream-cheese-and-olive sandwiches. On whole-wheat bread. It’s important to use whole-wheat bread.

  “My mother said to tell your mother that if there was anything she could do, let her know,” Al said.

  “Know something?” I said. “We’ve got the perfect excuse. We call up Sparky’s mom and tell her we can’t come tonight on account of we have to stay home and take care of my mother.”

  “Saturday night is the loneliest night in the week,” Al said. “It’s also blind-date night. If I don’t do it now, I never will. It’s a challenge. It’s practice. I’ve got my outfit all planned. I’m playing it straight. This nephew strikes me as a straight guy. I’m wearing my lavender sweater, my plaid skirt, and on my feet—guess!” She let fly with a piercer.

  “Your orange hightops?” I guessed.

  “My Sparky’s-revenge shoes,” she said. She said she wanted to see whether Sparky remembered those shoes, and that if he did and he repeated his barf-pee routine, she was planning on poisoning him and burying him in an unmarked grave.

  “I’m planning on wearing my taffeta party dress,” I said.

  Slowly, Al shook her head at me. “That’s being overdressed,” she told me. “We do not want to go to this fracas overdressed, thereby revealing that we expect great things of it. We want to be underdressed. My mother, who is in fashion, as you know, says it’s always better to underdress than over.”

  We thrashed through my limited wardrobe awhile.

  “My taffeta dress is the only garment I have that does anything for me,” I said.

  “Forget the taffeta dress,” Al commanded me. “It’s the light of intelligence shining from your eyes that’ll get him in the long run. Nothing else matters.” At last, we settled on my denim skirt and my Esprit shirt, which my mother bought from a street vendor on Sixth Avenue. It’s phony Esprit, but it’s sort of cute. In a trendy way.

  “Where are you two bound for?” my father asked from behind his newspaper.

  “We’re going to meet Sparky’s mom’s nephew,” I told him. He didn’t turn a hair.

  “It’s a blind date,” I added, testing him.

  He put his paper down. “A blind date? Are you old enough for a blind date? I thought they were out of style. I remember a blind date I had when I was in college.”

  Al and I looked at each other. My father? On a blind date? In college?

  “I was a very young freshman,” he said. “Very naive. Still wet behind the ears, as my father used to say. My roommate had a date with a girl he knew from home and he fixed me up with a friend of his date’s. I even got a haircut in anticipation. He said she was a hot number.”

  My father looked at us.

  “That’s the way young men referred to women in those days,” he said. “I apologize for any sexism you can find in that statement.”

  My father really does track at times, I was glad to discover. That’s one of the things that makes him so lovable. Just when you think he’s out of it, he jumps back in.

  “Anyway,” he continued, “we drove to the meeting place and I was so nervous I told my roommate I couldn’t go through with it. He said it was too late to turn back now. He was right. The girls were waiting. They were sitting down. I remember thinking my date had terrific legs. She was also the better looking of the two. To my eyes, she was very glamorous, very sophisticated.

  “Well, when she stood up, she towered over me. Of course, she wore high heels, but even flat footed she towered over me. We were supposed to go to a dance. My date was all dressed up in something frilly. She was a very kind girl, though. Because, without any commotion, she let me know it was fine with her if we stayed put. Or maybe she couldn’t face dancing with me at all. Whatever the reason, it turned out all right. We parted friends.”

  “I never saw her again,” my father said, a little wistfully, I thought.

  “That was a very romantic story,” Al said afterward.

  “I thought it was sad,” I said. “I felt bad for him.”

  “Your father is a very romantic man,” Al told me.

  “You think so?”

  “Extremely so,” Al said firmly.

  I made a mental note to ask my mother about this.

  “What time is it?” I asked Al.

  “Well, last time I looked, it was six-oh-one,” Al said. She checked her Swatch and said, “It is now six-oh-four.”

  “We don’t want to look eager and get there too early,” I said.

  “We can always eat and run,” Al said. “I’m starving. No offense, but that cream cheese and olive wasn’t all that filling.”

  “I would’ve made you another if you’d asked,” I said. “Let’s go.”

  “Wait just one sec,” Al said, and she made one more trip to the bathroom.

  “Blind dates are very nerve-wracking,” she told me on her return.

  At six-oh-twelve we rang Sparky’s mom’s bell.

  We laid our ears against the door, listening. There was lots of noise coming from inside.

  “It’s probably an orgy,” Al told me, smoothing her hair.

  “Yes?” The person who at last answered the door had eyes like two poached eggs, and when he talked I noticed his Adam’s apple bobbed like kids going for apples on Halloween.

  Al positioned herself behind me, ready to bolt if this guy turned out to be her blind date. I felt her tugging nervously on my skirt, telling me it was time to split.

  What the heck. We’d been invited, hadn’t we?

  “Hi,” I said.

  “Whom shall I say is calling?” the person with the Adam’s apple asked.

  “Are you the butler?” I asked.

  Al turned to me and said, “Whom are we, anyway?”

  “We’re the girls from the elevator,” I said.

  Sparky’s mom swept into view, as if she’d been hiding behind the door.

  “Oh, there you are!” she cried, happy to see us. “I thought you’d never get here.” She had on a skin-tight black jumpsuit and a huge gold necklace that came halfway down her chest and clanked noisily.

  “Come meet Josh. He’s dying to meet you. I’ve told him all about you two.” She took me by the hand and dragged me into the fray. I grabbed Al’s hand and brought her along with me. If she thought she was going to escape at this stage of the game, she had another think coming.

  My mother told me to check ou
t the decor. She likes to know about colors of slipcovers, walls, rugs, et cetera. The room was so crowded it was hard to see much. I noticed an old woman with white skin and bright red hair, holding an unlit cigarette in a long holder and waving her long-nailed hands around. Others moved in what seemed like slow motion, laughing, talking, drinking, flicking ashes into the potted palms.

  “Josh, darling! Did I promise you some lovely girls?” Sparky’s mom sounded positively joyous. “Don’t say I never do anything for you. Here they are.”

  “Ta dah,” I heard Al whisper.

  Josh reclined in a big chair, his legs draped over the arm. The first thing I noticed was his high-heeled cowboy boots. They were dark red, the color of old blood, and beautiful. He wore chinos and a button-down shirt. He didn’t get up, only lifted a hand in greeting.

  “Hey,” he said. “Have a seat.”

  “I’m thirsty,” Al said.

  “Of course you’re thirsty,” Sparky’s mom said, as if we’d traveled mile after dusty mile to reach this place. “Come with me and I’ll show you where the refreshments are. Don’t go away, darling,” she said to Josh, who looked as if he might fall asleep.

  “He’s so shy,” Sparky’s mom said as we plunged through the crowd. “Be nice to him, will you? He needs attention, friends, love.”

  “Who doesn’t?” Al muttered under her breath.

  “Just help yourselves,” Sparky’s mom said. Then she turned to speak to someone and drifted out of sight.

  “How tall is he?” Al asked me.

  “In or out of his boots?” I said. “Have a shooter of Coke. You need sweetening.”

  Al and I picked. We ate stuffed mushrooms, nachos, and crudités, which is French for carrot sticks.

  “Maybe we better go back and talk to him,” I said after a while.

  “Heck with that,” Al said. “Let him come and talk to us. Listen,” she said, frowning, “I have a hunch the guy might be a midget. I knew I should’ve checked out how tall he was before I got suckered into this mess.”

  “Don’t be such a pill,” I told her. “It’s a party. Smile. Act as if you’re enjoying yourself.”

  When we got back to where Josh had been, he was gone.

  “Maybe someone kidnapped him,” Al said, noticeably brightening.

  “You wish,” I said.

  “Hey.” The call came from a nearby couch.

  “Rats,” Al said.

  Josh had a friend with him. He had big chipmunk cheeks and aviator glasses and wore a vest.

  “He must be your date,” Al said, grinning for the first time.

  We didn’t know where else to go, so we walked over.

  “This is Mark,” Josh performed the introductions. “He’s my best buddy.”

  The four of us chatted up a storm.

  “So what’s new in the Big Apple?” Mark said.

  “Where are you guys from?” Al asked.

  “Cincinnati,” Mark said.

  “What do you do for kicks in Cincinnati?” Al said.

  “We mostly hang out at the mall,” Mark said. Josh may have fallen asleep by then, for all we knew. He sure wasn’t talking.

  “Lots of action going on at the mall.” Mark smiled slyly.

  “Give me a for instance,” Al said.

  “Oh,” Mark said, surprised. “The usual. You know. Dates, dances, flicks, video games.”

  “Oh, wow,” Al said.

  I said, “We don’t have malls in the city,” because I thought it was time for me to say something.

  “Well, what do you do for kicks?” Josh asked. “Go for walks in Central Park and wait to be mugged?”

  “We’re into health clubs, weight lifting, Nautilus machines, all that,” Al said nonchalantly. “Sometimes we take in a jazz joint or two, if it starts getting really late. I mean, those joints don’t get a buzz on until well after midnight.”

  “Jazz, huh.” Josh whipped out a pocket knife and started to clean his fingernails. “I’m into Willie Nelson. Willie’s my boy.”

  “How come no socks?” Al asked, pointing to Mark’s bare ankles.

  Mark clutched himself, as if to warm the ankles, and said, “We don’t wear socks in Cincinnati. It’s not cool.”

  “Whaddaya do when it snows?” Al said.

  Josh put his hand over his mouth and whispered something in Mark’s ear.

  “My mother always told me it was impolite to whisper,” I said. I know I sounded like an awful prig, but she did say that and I believe it’s true.

  Suddenly Josh said, “Like your shoes,” to Al. “They’re very, very funky.”

  “You do?” Al’s eyes widened in surprise. “They’re yours.” And she started to remove her shoes. Both boys backed off.

  “We got something to tell you,” Josh said. He jabbed Mark in the ribs. “Tell ’em, boy,” he ordered.

  “Josh wants me to tell you he has the major hots for Diane,” Mark said solemnly.

  “No kidding?” Al said in her supersarcastic voice.

  “Just in case you get any ideas,” Josh said. “Diane has a body that won’t quit.”

  Al and I traded looks.

  “Well, Al wants me to tell you she has the major hots for Brian and he has muscles that won’t quit,” I said. “He also works out and he’s very, very jealous.”

  Al put her shoes back on and said, “We better split. Nice knowing you.”

  The boys from Cincinnati zoned out. I guess they figured they were in way over their heads with us city girls. We looked for Sparky’s mom to say thank you for a nice time, but she wasn’t around.

  “Talk about wet behind the ears!” Al exploded when we hit the elevator button to take us down to home and safety.

  “What’s with the shoe bit?” I said.

  “Well, you know how you read about some rich eccentric person, how when someone says ‘I like your diamond ring’ or ‘I like your gold watch’ the rich eccentric person whips off the watch or the ring and says, ‘It’s yours,’ and hands it over to the person who admired it. I’ve always wanted to do that. It’s a beau geste.” Al gave me her owl eye. “So I figure if the bozo from Cincinnati admires my funky shoes, they’re his. I unload ’em on just the right person. The thing of it is”—and Al turned melancholy—“they would’ve been way too big. His feet were eensy.”

  She sucked her cheeks in and crossed her eyes.

  “Social encounters of the third kind are extremely taxing,” she said. “I’m whipped.”

  “What time is it?” I said.

  “Seven-oh-seven,” Al said, checking her Swatch. “Come on in and I’ll nuke us a couple of hot dogs and we can play Russian Bank. You don’t want to go home this early. Your mother and father will think you didn’t have a good time.”

  “I like your watch,” I said as Al opened the door.

  She turned and looked at me over her shoulder.

  “Tough beans, baby,” she said.

  Seventeen

  “How’d it go?” my father asked. “Meet any cute boys?”

  “Well, not exactly cute,” I said. “Kind of weird, actually.”

  “Oh? Where from?” he said.

  “Cincinnati,” I said.

  “Oh, Cincinnati,” my father said.

  “Let’s put it this way, Dad,” I told him. “It wasn’t exactly love at first sight.”

  “It almost never is,” he said.

  When I brought my mother breakfast in bed on Sunday morning, I told her Al and I planned to go to the health club that afternoon.

  “Health club?” she said. “I don’t think a health club’s exactly the kind of place a girl of your age should go. Isn’t it full of seedy, sweaty people?”

  “Mom, we’re not talking pool hall here,” I said. “We’re talking fitness. It’s where people go to work out and firm up their bodies. Mostly the people are yuppie types. Power brokers, that kind of stuff. They lift weights and all that.”

  “Yeah, and they all look like Cher, I bet,” she said. “In my
day, weight lifters were not considered suitable companions for thirteen-year-old girls,” and she shot me a piercer over the rim of her orange-juice glass.

  “Mom, things are different now,” I said.

  “Oh, don’t give me that,” she said.

  “These guys just opened the business,” I said, “and they’re looking for customers. Our teacher, Ms. Bolton, went there and it turned out she’s really into working out. She’s got a figure that won’t quit, although you’d never know it on account of she wears clothes that are very big for her.”

  “What’s that mean, a figure that won’t quit?” my mother asked.

  “I don’t know,” I admitted. “This guy we met at the party yesterday said his girlfriend had a figure that won’t quit, so I told him Al had a boyfriend named Brian with muscles that won’t quit. I figured that ought to fix him.”

  “And did it?” my mother said, trying not to laugh.

  “Who knows. They were nerdy types from Cincinnati.”

  “Oh, Cincinnati,” my mother said. “I used to go out with a boy from Cincinnati. I was crazy about him. Then I noticed he kept track of every penny he spent, wrote the dollars and cents down in a little book he carried with him. I decided maybe he wasn’t good husband material. It’s the little things that count, don’t forget.”

  “I’ll clean up the kitchen,” I said. She hadn’t said I couldn’t go.

  “Be home by five,” my mother told me. “You know I worry if you’re out after dark.”

  I almost said, “It doesn’t get dark until six” but decided against it. No sense in pushing my luck.

  “I’m glad you’re better, Mom,” I said. “Al said when her mother went to the hospital she planned on who she’d live with if her mother died. She said I didn’t have to worry if anything happened to you because I have more family than she does.”

  “It seems to me you and Al are awfully ready to wipe us off the face of the map if we spend a couple of days in bed,” my mother said, fluffing up her back hair the way Thelma does, but quietly, on account of she doesn’t wear bangle bracelets.

  I kissed her. “You’re a good woman, Mom,” I told her.

  “Go on and go,” she said. “And comb your hair. It’s a mess.”