Almost Alice

by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor

  “Only until we tap on the lid, then you push open the top and crawl out. We’ll take it from there. Thanks for being such a good sport and helping the plot along.”

  “But what is the plot?” I insisted. Even if I had no lines, I wanted to play the part.

  “The story tonight is that the host has persuaded the guests that not only is one of their number missing, but that his criminally insane twin has escaped his quarters and is roaming the mansion. Edgar pretends to fear for the safety of the missing girl and has promised his guests that whoever finds her will get his dinner on the house. But all the while, Edgar and his brother, Allan, not deranged at all, have been quietly picking the pockets of their guests as they grope about looking for the missing girl—which is, of course, you.”

  “And when do I get to come back in?”

  “Edgar has stolen you away himself and locked you in an upstairs room, supposedly. But unbeknownst to him and his thieving brother, two detectives have infiltrated the dinner party. They have rescued you, retrieved the bag of stolen wallets and jewelry, and at the critical moment—shortly after Edgar reports to his guests that he had no choice but to shoot his brother …”

  A shot rang out from below.

  “Our cue,” the man noted, then continued, “… the detectives enter the room carrying a coffin—not of the brother, who faked his death, but of the missing girl, very much alive—and the bag of jewels.”

  It would have been a grade-D movie, and the plot would never have made it beyond fifth-grade English, but it was fun.

  When we got downstairs, just outside the dining room, I climbed into the coffin and we listened as Edgar dramatically gave the account of finding his brother in an upstairs room, about to strangle the missing girl. There was a swell of recorded organ music, and the men carried me into the dining room, the lid of the coffin closed.

  “What’s this?” I heard the host exclaim. “This isn’t part of the plot!”

  Laughter from the audience, and I tried to hear Patrick’s laughter in it.

  There was more protracted conversation between Edgar and the detectives, and then I realized that someone was tapping repeatedly on the coffin. I rose up, hands folded over my chest, and climbed out of the coffin and onto the floor.

  The detectives announced that the plan was foiled, that they had retrieved all the wallets and jewels, and different actors scattered among the guests cried out in fake surprise when pearls and money clips and wallets were returned to them. Everyone hooted and clapped as the host was led out of the room in handcuffs, protesting all the way.

  Patrick and I laughed about it on the way home, and he was especially pleased that we got our dinner free, not because he had found me—no one had—but because I had played along.

  “So was it worth the loss of my companionship?” I asked, glancing over at him as he drove back down Georgia Avenue.

  “Oh, nothing could compensate me for that,” he said, “but if I had to eat hoary beef again, I don’t think I’d do it.”

  “Well, I had a good time,” I said.

  “So did I,” said Patrick. And when we got up on the porch, he said we should end the evening with a flourish. At that, he swooped me up in his arms, bent me over backward, and gave me such a movie-star kiss that I expected us both to fall over, but we didn’t.

  And then he was gone and I was grinning. Grinning. It was not exactly the way I imagined our evening would end, but I think it erased forever the kiss on the forehead from Scott.

  9

  Moving On

  I woke up smiling, thinking about that kiss. About the fact that the food was forgettable, the performance was awful, and yet we’d managed to have fun.

  Snuggling down under my blanket, I wanted to imagine what it might have been like if I could have invited Patrick inside. If there had been space to squeeze him inside. If he could have sat down in Dad’s armchair, me on his lap, Patrick’s hand on my …

  I heard voices coming from somewhere, the slam of a car or truck door, footsteps, more voices, and suddenly I remembered that this was the day we could move into our new addition.

  I sprang out of bed and bounded to the bathroom before the workmen came upstairs. I was as excited as a kid at Christmas.

  My first thought, of course, was that this bathroom would be all mine now, except for the times Les spent the night. My second thought was that I could cozy up to a guy in the family room—Patrick or someone else—while Dad and Sylvia stayed back in the living room. I did a quick washup, tied my hair in a ponytail, brushed my teeth, and slipped on my old jeans and a T-shirt.

  “Today’s the day!” Sylvia said happily as she came up the stairs. “Just wanted to see if you were decent before I let the workmen come up.”

  “Bring ’em on!” I said. “I can’t wait.”

  I made myself a piece of toast and trailed along after the burly workmen like a five-year-old. They started upstairs, untaping the thick blue wall of plastic that sealed off Dad and Sylvia’s old bedroom. Yesterday we’d heard the sound of sweeping and vacuuming coming from the new addition, and now, foot by foot, the plastic was peeled away, exposing the windows of the bright new master bedroom, sunlight streaming through. There were the two doors to the walk-in closets and another door leading to the master bath, with its double-sink vanity and Jacuzzi tub.

  I didn’t even have to ask.

  “Yes, Alice, you may use it whenever you like,” Sylvia said, smiling as she studied my face.

  “It’s all beautiful!” I said. “How did you stand that old cramped bedroom for so long?”

  “I wonder that myself,” Dad said.

  But the workmen were rolling up the blue plastic and heading downstairs, so I trotted along after them. They started at the wall between the kitchen and the hallway, and when the new cabinets came into view, then the new stainless steel sink, I had to be the first to go through, because beyond the kitchen was the family room, with its big stone fireplace all the way to the ceiling.

  “I can fit everyone in this room!” I said, thinking about the newspaper staff, the GSA, stage crew, and whoever was left of the gang that used to gather at Mark Stedmeister’s.

  “I could invite the teachers from school!” said Sylvia.

  “We could even hold the Melody Inn Christmas party here,” said Dad.

  But this wasn’t all. There was a screened porch beyond the family room, and then, coming back inside, I entered the door that led to the new study, and a door from the study to the revamped dining room, and when the workmen pulled off the last of the plastic sheets, I was back in our old living room and then the hallway again. It was as though we had moved into a brand-new house, and I loved it.

  There was no furniture yet for the family room or study. The workmen moved Dad and Sylvia’s bedroom set into their new bedroom. They put the appliances back in the kitchen and disconnected the temporary sink they had hooked up in the living room. They moved the dining room table and chairs back where they belonged, and Dad’s computer and table into the study.

  “It’ll be another couple weeks before we take care of all the small stuff, but you folks go ahead and put your things where you want them, and we’ll work around you,” the foreman said before the men left. And then it was just the three of us, exclaiming over each room, pointing out little details, opening cupboards, eager to put things back on shelves and in drawers, to spread out and breathe again. Annabelle moved cautiously through the rooms, sniffing at all the new scents, her tail straight up in the air.

  Back upstairs, I moved all of Dad and Sylvia’s clothes out of my room and into their new closets. Then I tackled the bathroom, helpfully taking all their stuff out of the medicine cabinet and from under the sinks and transferring it to their new bathroom. I moved their towels as well, and when I was done, I wiped off the shelves and rearranged my own shampoo and conditioner and cosmetics. Was I lucky or was I lucky?

  We ordered pizza for dinner and ate it in lawn chairs we’d moved up from the bas
ement into our new family room. It was hardly cold enough for a fire in the fireplace, but we built one anyway. I felt as though we were the richest people in the world, to have a stone fireplace that reached the ceiling.

  “I can hardly believe it’s finished,” said Sylvia. “Oh, Ben, I’m so happy with the way it’s turned out.”

  Dad put an arm around her on the aluminum love seat they were sharing. “So am I,” he said. “How about a bearskin rug, right here by the fire?”

  Sylvia’s smile disappeared. “You don’t mean that.”

  “Of course I mean it! A large brown rug.… No, maybe a polar bear skin—with the head and paws still attached. And a buck’s head and antlers on the wall between the windows.”

  She knew he was teasing then, and we started to laugh. The doorbell rang, and I was still smiling when I went to answer.

  “Patrick!” I couldn’t believe I’d forgotten he might come by.

  “Just your friendly neighborhood moving man!” he said. “Am I too late?”

  “Not for pizza, you’re not. We’ve still got a couple slices left,” I said. “Come on in.”

  We gave him the official tour, and even though Patrick’s family has a bigger house than we do, even with our addition, Patrick said all the right things. He especially liked the fireplace.

  We didn’t exactly have everything moved, because when Patrick asked Dad if there was anything he could do, Dad asked if he’d move the boxes of books he’d left up in Lester’s room, as well as Sylvia’s three-drawer file cabinet.

  After the fifth box of books, Patrick stripped down to his T-shirt. I was amazed at the broad range of his shoulders, the muscular back, the wide chest.

  “Sure that’s not too heavy for you?” Dad asked as Patrick lifted out one of the drawers of the file cabinet, holding Sylvia’s records and lesson plans.

  “Not any heavier than the mulch I’ve been unloading all week,” Patrick said.

  “That landscaping job obviously agrees with you, Patrick,” Sylvia said.

  “Yeah,” Patrick said. “That’s what all the girls say.”

  Dad and Sylvia went upstairs at last to organize their new closets, and Patrick and I had the family room to ourselves. We were sitting side by side on two aluminum chairs.

  “Well, the fire’s nice, anyway,” he said, glancing over at me. “Can’t say much for the chairs.”

  “Wait,” I said.

  I ran upstairs to my bedroom and lugged down the old beanbag chair I’ve had for as long as I can remember, plus all the pillows off my bed. We propped the pillows against the wall, put my beanbag chair in front of them. Then Patrick sank down in the chair and I sat on his lap, just as I had imagined. We turned out the lights and watched the fire.

  And … little by little … memories, feelings came winging back. Some came at me sideways, sneaking in at an angle. Others came head-on, and still others came as a pair. The scent of his skin, the texture of his hair, the way he nestled his chin against my shoulder, stroked my side, just at the edge of my breast. I loved the way he pressed his lips against my cheek or my arm or my neck—not a kiss exactly, as though just touching me with his lips was all he needed.

  I let myself be vulnerable. “It’s nice to have you back,” I said, trust overriding caution.

  “Nice to be back,” he whispered.

  I didn’t say it was nice to be a couple again, because—well, who knows?

  Saturday morning, since I didn’t have to go to the Melody Inn with Dad, I was working on a special article for The Edge. This year April 25 would be observed as the Day of Silence by Gay/Straight Alliances in high schools and colleges all over the country. But because it was new to our school, and because that date would coincide with the final weekend of our spring musical, we decided to hold our Day of Silence two weeks earlier, on Friday, April 11. To emphasize how gays and lesbians have had to keep their sexual orientation hidden, those of us in the GSA were going all day long wearing armbands and staying silent as a way of demonstrating what gays have had to do.

  Since I was a member, Miss Ames had asked me to write an article explaining what it meant and how any student who wanted to show solidarity was welcome to join in. We didn’t want kids to think that the GSA was some kind of cult or that we were using the silence as a way of not having to answer questions in class.

  My final draft of the article was half done when Sylvia came to the door of my bedroom.

  “Ben and I are going shopping for family room furniture,” she said. “Do you want to come along and help choose?”

  I looked up. “Well … sure!” I said. “I thought it was a done deal.”

  “We’ve only looked. Haven’t decided on anything,” she told me.

  I changed my shirt, put on my shoes, and we were out the door.

  “Saw some furniture we liked at Scan in Rockville,” Dad said. “Let’s swing by there first.”

  I sat happily in the backseat, thrilled to have been asked along. I had a new CD in my bag and would have loved to hear it again on the car player, but I wasn’t going to press my luck. Traffic was awful and I didn’t want to make Dad tense.

  Somehow I knew when we walked into Scan, with its sleek modern furniture, that this was probably the place, and I was right. A rosewood desk for the study, bookcase to match, a lamp.

  But when it came time to buy the couch and chairs for the family room, nothing really said Comfortable to me. Nothing said, Welcome or Hanging out or Put up your feet.

  Dad and Sylvia studied my face.

  “I don’t know …,” I said.

  “We don’t have to buy everything from one store,” said Sylvia. “Let’s try Marlo’s.”

  That store was huge. There were whole sets of furniture, whole room displays, one after another.

  “Hey, look at this!” said Dad. He liked a high-backed sofa in tweed, with masculine-looking chairs. “Price is right,” he said, checking the tags.

  “Possibly,” said Sylvia, which probably meant Ugh. “Let’s keep looking.”

  Sylvia liked color, and she longingly fingered an Ultrasuede sofa in soft peach, with matching armchairs. It was okay, but … could I see myself hanging out with peach? I gave a little shrug.

  “Well, there’s more,” Sylvia said, lingering a minute longer, and then we moved on.

  The sofa that caught my eye was an L-shaped sectional that you could take apart and rearrange. It came with a huge ottoman on which at least four people could rest their feet, and the whole set was marine blue.

  “Hey, what about this?” I said. “This is neat!”

  Dad and Sylvia stopped to look at it. Their expressions were engraved in granite, and because I couldn’t tell one way or the other how they felt, that should have told me something.

  “Well, it’s interesting,” said Dad.

  “I don’t know about the color,” said Sylvia. “We were sort of sticking to cinnamon or beige or something that would blend with—” She stopped. “It’s certainly a possibility,” she said.

  I tried it out and sank down five inches. I leaned back and put my feet on the ottoman. “It’s really comfortable,” I told them.

  A salesman standing by came over.

  “Does this set come in any other colors?” Sylvia asked him.

  “I’m afraid not. This is a one of a kind,” he told her. “We got it from another store, half price.”

  Dad sat down on the sofa. He tried tipping his head, but the back wasn’t high enough to support him.

  And suddenly I realized that I would be out of the house in a year, away at college, but they would be in the house for a long time yet. The rest of their lives, maybe. Once I started college, I’d probably be home just for the summers, and after that I’d drop in only now and then, like Les.

  “I’m willing to look around some more,” I said, and saw the relief on their faces.

  We ended up with an apricot-colored couch with thick cushions and a high back, along with two matching chairs and a rocker. Then
we drove back to Scan and bought a perfectly gorgeous area rug to go with it, in apricot, ginger, and olive. And finally a new rug for my bedroom, in a sort of African print. I loved it.

  We were so pleased with our shopping expedition that we went to Gifford’s and ordered Swiss chocolate sundaes with Swiss chocolate sauce. When the clerk asked if we wanted whipped cream, nuts, and cherries, Dad said, “Why not?”

  • • •

  Molly called me on Monday and said she was having trouble finding costumes for Adelaide’s chorus girls. Mr. Ellis had told her to get everything she possibly could free of charge from merchants who would be glad to have their companies or stores listed as sponsors in the program. Community service always got the attention of parents and teachers.

  “He said we’d rent whatever we absolutely had to, but I’d love to get practically everything we need without having to pay a cent,” she said.

  “What don’t you have yet?” I asked.

  “Black net stockings and short sexy costumes that would look okay with a cat’s ears and tail,” said Molly.

  “Oh, wow!” I said.

  “I can buy cheap stockings on the Internet, but if we could find the right kind of costumes locally, they’d probably come with the stockings,” said Molly.

  “What sizes do you need?” I asked, and she read off the sizes of the girls who were playing Adelaide’s “alley kittens” in the chorus, Pamela included.

  “I’ll see what I can do,” I promised. I spent the evening looking through the Yellow Pages, then called Elizabeth.

  Tuesday after school, Liz and I drove to a place just over the D.C. line called Nighttime Fantasies. They’d advertised “costumes for every taste and occasion.” Liz insisted on wearing dark glasses when we parked and walked down the block, but when we got in front of the store window, I said, “Better take them off so you can see better. You don’t want to miss this.”

  Elizabeth took off the glasses and looked at the display window. She stared for a minute and popped her glasses back on.

  “I’m leaving,” she said.

  I laughed. “No, you’re not. We got this far.”