Almost Alice

by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor

“I wasn’t about to,” I murmured.

  “Here’s the question: Why do the parts of your body you make love with—well, not you, Alice, I mean married people’s parts—have to be down there, for goodness’ sake, right between those other parts we don’t even talk about?”

  “Well, the last time I looked, mine were down there too,” I said.

  “But why?” said Aunt Sally. “Why couldn’t they be somewhere else … between the shoulder blades, maybe? Think how much neater it would be!”

  I tried to imagine a man and woman rubbing their backs together.

  “I don’t know, Aunt Sally. Just doesn’t do it for me, I guess. But I could do a feature story on you sometime,” I told her.

  Lester came over Sunday when we were sitting out on our new screened porch behind the family room. It was April at its best—birds everywhere, scouting out their territory—and Sylvia was talking about putting a bird feeder and bath out in the backyard … well, what was left of it, now that we’d put in the new addition. The air was balmy, breezy, totally perfect.

  We heard a car door slam out front and, a little later, footsteps coming through the kitchen.

  “Lester, I’ll bet,” Dad said, smiling.

  We hadn’t seen Les for several weeks and were sure he’d have come by when the renovations were complete. But his master’s coursework wasn’t over until the second week of April, so we knew he was too busy earlier this month to take time off.

  “Anybody home?” Les called.

  “Hey, Les!” Dad called. “Out here!”

  I jumped up and ran inside. “Isn’t this gorgeous?”

  Lester walked into the family room. “Wow!” he said, looking around. “The Porta-John’s gone! There’s sod on the front yard! I can’t believe it’s finished!”

  “Believe it,” said Sylvia, coming in to give him a hug. “We’re just loving this house, Lester. Come see the porch.”

  I followed him around like a puppy as we gave him a tour, wanting to see his reaction to everything.

  “Now I wish we’d done it sooner,” Dad told him. “All this space!”

  “The fireplace! The windows! Man, oh, man!” Les said, then stepped out on the porch to look around there.

  We moved from room to room, back to the hallway again and on upstairs. Lester gave a breathy whistle at each stop. “Fantastic job!” he said. “Great colors! If we’d had this addition when I was back in high school, think how I could have impressed the girls.”

  “Not up here in our bedroom, I hope,” Dad said.

  “And I don’t have to share the bathroom with anyone, Lester!” I said, scrunching up my face at him. “Just think! The whole medicine cabinet! The entire countertop, just for me and my stuff!”

  “Didn’t I tell you I was moving back home for the summer?” he asked, and then, when all three of us looked at him in dismay, he burst out laughing.

  We went downstairs again and sat around the table in our newly expanded kitchen. The coffeepot was still plugged in from breakfast, and Sylvia brought out a plate of lemon bars. As Dad set cups on the table, he asked, “So how are things with you, Les? Everything squared away?”

  When Lester didn’t answer immediately, just reached for the sugar, I could tell somehow that the news wasn’t good.

  “Well, could be better,” he said. “I just found out that I can’t present my thesis by the eleventh.”

  “Oh, Les!” said Sylvia. “What a disappointment for you!”

  “They found something that major?” asked Dad.

  “Afraid so. One of the philosophers I’m working on just had a new book come out that says pretty much exactly what I’m arguing.”

  “But does this invalidate your entire thesis?” Dad wanted to know.

  “No, in a way, it’s reassuring, but now I need to clarify exactly how my view is different from his and contributes something new to the debate. And it does, actually, but I haven’t emphasized that as much, and an entire section needs an overhaul. I’m wiped out. I need a break.”

  Since I didn’t understand much of anything they were talking about—and because his thesis had something to do with utilitarianism, I remembered that much—I just sat and tried to read their faces.

  “So what’s the plan?” asked Sylvia.

  “I’ll graduate in December, not May. Not what I’d hoped, but at least I know what I have to do,” Lester said.

  I’m embarrassed to say that my first thought was for myself. I’d already bought his graduation present—a beautiful expensive pen that looked like green marble and wrote so effortlessly that you hardly felt it touch the paper. And I’d found a funny little wire figure of a graduate in cap and gown, holding a diploma in one hand, a beer stein in the other. I’d even found a card! In fact, I’d imagined myself at his graduation ceremony yelling Go, Les! when he crossed the stage!

  Graduation in December? The month reserved for Christmas? It just didn’t compute.

  Dad was concerned about finances. “Will your fellowship cover the next six months, Les?”

  “Well, there is some good news,” Lester said, putting down his cup and smiling a little. “The fellowship ends in June, but I’ve been hired to work in the admissions office full-time—just a low-level job, but it’ll buy the food and gas and haircuts till I get my degree.”

  “Full-time?” I asked, because, as far as I knew, Les has never worked full-time in his life.

  “Yeah. Hard to imagine, isn’t it?” he joked.

  “Well, it’ll all turn out, Les,” Sylvia said.

  “And I sure can’t complain about my living arrangements,” said Les.

  The windows were open all over the house, and a light breeze blew my paper napkin off the table. A lawn mower was going somewhere down the street, and off in the distance a siren sounded, seeming to grow louder. As it grew louder still, we paused in our conversation, expecting it to wane as it passed by on Georgia Avenue, but instead, it became earsplitting, with a honking and urgency that made us get up from the table. It sounded as though it were going to come right through the house.

  I ran to the front door.

  “It’s Elizabeth’s!” I yelled. “The fire truck’s stopped right in front of their house!”

  A second truck followed the first. We rushed outside. Smoke was coming out their opened front door. Mr. Price was standing on the porch, directing the firefighters inside. Mrs. Price was out on the lawn with Nathan, who pointed excitedly at a rescue vehicle just rounding the corner. Elizabeth stood a few feet away, her eyes huge, hand over her mouth.

  Already one fireman was running up the steps to the porch with an ax, and a second was uncoiling the long hose and dragging it to the hydrant two doors down.

  We carefully made our way across the street, as neighbors gathered on porches and sidewalks.

  “Janet,” Dad said, going up to Mrs. Price. “Is there any way we can help?”

  “Oh, I don’t know!” she said. “Isn’t this something? We’re not even sure where it’s coming from. We started smelling smoke, and when Fred opened the basement door, it just rolled out! We can’t tell what’s on fire, and the dispatcher told us to get out of the house.”

  I looked at Liz and wondered if she was going to throw up. Her face was pale.

  There was the sound of crashing glass, and immediately smoke came pouring out of a basement window.

  I put one arm around her. “Don’t worry,” I said. “They’ll have it under control in a minute.”

  “I was in the basement just ten minutes ago!” she said.

  “Well, the firemen know what to look for,” I told her.

  An ambulance pulled up.

  “No pets in there, are there?” Lester asked, coming over. Liz shook her head.

  Nathan was jumping up and down. “Will they put up the ladder?” he kept asking. “I want to see them put up the ladder!” He tugged at his mother’s hand.

  “Nathan, stop it!” Mrs. Price said.

  Sylvia came over and took Natha
n’s hand. “Here, Nathan. Let’s go get a better look at that ladder,” she said, and Mrs. Price gratefully turned him over to her care.

  There seemed to be a lot of coming and going. We couldn’t hear any more crashing of glass or banging. One fireman stood by the fire hydrant, waiting for an order to attach the hose. But the minutes ticked by, and the man who had run up the steps with an ax was replaced by a man with a clipboard. More discussion on the front porch with Elizabeth’s dad.

  Liz turned away, biting her bottom lip.

  Finally the fireman on the porch gave a “roll-’em-up” sign to the man at the hydrant, who dragged the hose back to the truck.

  “Oh, thank goodness!” Mrs. Price said. “They must have found the trouble. I’m afraid to look inside.”

  “Most likely smoke damage, but nothing major, I’ll bet,” said Les.

  The smoke coming out the front door had stopped entirely, and smoke from the basement was growing weaker.

  “I just can’t imagine what it could have been!” Mrs. Price went on. “Elizabeth was doing the laundry for me, but we haven’t had any trouble with the washer and dryer before.”

  The firemen were putting things away. The ambulance drove off. So did the rescue truck.

  The first fireman came down the steps and across the lawn toward us. Perhaps, because I still had one arm around Liz, he thought we were part of the family.

  “Everything’s under control, ma’am,” he said to Liz’s mom. “You had a fire in the dryer, and I’m afraid you’ll need a new one. But it only scorched the wall. Maybe have to scrub down a room or two upstairs.”

  “But what caused it?” Mrs. Price asked. “I cleaned out the lint trap only last week.”

  “Think it was this,” the man said, reaching into the big pocket of his yellow fireproof jacket and handing something charred and black to Elizabeth’s mom.

  “What is it?” she said, and then, slowly pulling it apart, she stared down at the remains of a bra.

  Liz’s face turned pink with embarrassment. Her Stupefyin’ Jones push-up bra!

  “Probably shouldn’t put those things in the dryer. Anything with rubber padding’s likely to overheat,” the fireman said. And with a quick nod to Dad, he walked back to the truck.

  Mrs. Price looked at Elizabeth. “Whose is this?” she asked. Then she saw Elizabeth’s embarrassment, and crumpled it up in her hand as Dad and Lester turned discreetly away.

  “I got it at a costume shop,” Liz said miserably. “It was just a cheap thing, but I’ve been wearing it a little… .”

  Neighbors were coming over now to talk with Mrs. Price.

  “What happened?” they asked. And Les, as usual, came to the rescue.

  “Just a stuffed toy that caught fire in the dryer,” he told them.

  Mrs. Price nodded gratefully. “Some things just weren’t meant to be washed,” she said.

  Les and Dad and Sylvia went inside with the Prices to look at the damage, but Liz and I sat down on the porch steps as the neighbors dispersed.

  “Oh, Alice, I’m mortified!” she said. “I should have just thrown it out. I’d got it all sweaty running around the gym but it’s kinda fun to wear, and …” She rested her arms across her knees and her head on her arms. “I’ll never be able to face Lester again.”

  “Why? He knows you have breasts, Elizabeth!”

  “It was a push-up bra, Alice, for girls who don’t.”

  “But Les doesn’t know that.”

  “Les knows everything about women,” said Liz. “He can tell a push-up bra at twenty paces, I’ll bet.” She tipped back her head and wailed, “Why does this have to happen to me?”

  “Embarrassing stuff happens to all of us,” I told her.

  “Not like this! Not with a fire department announcing it to every neighbor on the block.” And then she said, “I can remember every year of my life by something utterly humiliating that happened to me. Eleventh grade, the flammable bra; tenth grade, buying the Trojans; ninth grade… .”

  “Liz, lighten up,” I said. “Nobody’s going to remember this except you. And Nathan, maybe, because of the fire trucks.”

  “Lester will.”

  “He won’t. He’s probably forgotten it already. He’s got his mind on school and his thesis and graduation and—”

  The screen door slammed behind us, and Lester came out on the porch.

  “Gotta take off, Al,” he said. “Take care.” And as he went on down the sidewalk, he said over his shoulder, “Hey, Liz, the next time you decide to burn your bra, do it for a cause, huh?”

  And then he was gone.

  13

  Out on the Town

  On Monday a special assembly was called at school for twelve forty-five. All students were to attend, and names would be checked off at the doors to the auditorium.

  “Well, I’ll miss the first half of English lit, but it takes fifteen minutes off our lunch period,” said Liz. “It’s raining out, though, so we can’t do much anyway. Save me a seat in the cafeteria.”

  We hate it when anything intrudes on our lunch period or when we all have to eat inside. I was halfway down the hall to geometry when I heard Amy Sheldon call my name. She used to be in special ed, but this year she’s attending regular classes. I don’t know quite what it is about Amy that rubs people the wrong way. She’s small for her age, and her features are a bit out of alignment, but she looks essentially like everyone else. I guess it’s her social awkwardness that makes her the butt of jokes. “Amy Clueless,” some of the kids call her.

  I had to rescue her at the Snow Ball last winter when she came to the dance alone and some girls were trying to humiliate her. She makes a good target, evidently, because you’re never quite sure whether it affects her or not—if she even knows it’s a joke. I’ve asked her before not to call out my name in the halls like she does, but it hasn’t stopped her.

  “Alice! Alice! Guess what?” she was yelling.

  Kids started laughing and turning around, rolling their eyes. Should I just keep going? I wondered. Duck into a classroom to shut her up? I stopped and turned, frowning.

  But she came on like a spinning top.

  “Guess what?” she cried again. “I got my period yesterday! I really did!”

  There were loud guffaws all around me, kids slowing down to listen in.

  “Hey, Amy!” one girl called, fishing in her bag. “Want a tampon?”

  “Yeah, Amy. Want a pad?” called another, and boys laughed.

  Before I could get to her, Amy answered back, “I can’t wear tampons yet, ’cause I’m a virgin, but I always carry them in case somebody else needs them.”

  The hall erupted in loud laughter, and Amy’s comment was passed along from one group to another. You could hear laughter coming down the corridor, wave after wave, like dominoes falling.

  I took her arm and hustled her on down the hall away from the catcalls. “Amy, that’s something you don’t talk about so everyone can hear,” I said. “You don’t want people laughing at you like that.”

  She looked at me blankly. “What’s funny? I’m glad I got my period. I’ve been waiting and waiting!”

  “I know, but it’s bathroom stuff, so you just talk about it softly to other girls. Okay?”

  “Okay. Mom says I’m a woman now and I have to be careful,” she told me with satisfaction.

  “She’s right. You can never be too careful, Amy,” I said. Especially you, I thought sadly, and gave her a little congratulatory pat on the back as I let her go.

  “What do you suppose the assembly’s about?” asked Liz as we found seats in the auditorium. “Some kind of compulsory sex ed, I’ll bet.”

  “Nope. I’m guessing it’s about discipline,” said Gwen. “Whenever all students have to attend, you know it’s discipline. A new set of rules.”

  Jill and Justin were sitting in front of us, and they thought so too.

  “If we leave a book in our car, we’ll probably need a pass to go back out and get it
,” said Justin.

  Karen, sitting next to Jill, said, “Clothes. The principal will probably explain why we can’t wear thongs.”

  “Who says we can’t?” Gwen joked, and we laughed.

  “See-through backpacks,” said Sam, behind us.

  But my thought was that the school was about to take away the open lunch period and make us stay on school property. Why else would they be taking up part of our lunch period for this?

  Finally the principal came onstage. The principal, not the vice principal, so I figured it must be serious. Gradually the chatter died down, and when he said, “Good afternoon, students,” everyone clammed up to see what the new restriction would be.

  I was looking around for Pamela, because we always sit together at assemblies, but I couldn’t see her, so I just assumed she was with Tim.

  “Thank you all for attending,” the principal continued, “especially those of you who are missing part of your lunch period. But we have two items of interest on the program. As you know, the faculty chooses one of our top seniors to be valedictorian at graduation. That has not been announced yet, but we have decided to honor three of our top students from each grade and to do this each year in a spring assembly. When I read the names, we would like the following students to come up onstage.”

  Well, this was a surprise. I think we were all relieved, and certainly curious. The principal read off three names from the freshman class, and there were cheers and applause after each one, as surprised students, somewhere in the auditorium, got awkwardly to their feet and made their way past the legs in their rows to get to the aisle.

  The sophomore list.

  Then the juniors. We whooped and cheered when Gwen was named, and we gave her backside slaps all the way down the row as she squeezed past us.

  But what about Patrick? I wondered. Everyone knows he’s a brain. And then I heard the principal announcing his name as one of the seniors. That’s right. Patrick was a senior now. He was sitting down in the first row—something Patrick doesn’t usually do, and I wondered if he’d gotten advance notice.

  When all twelve students had been recognized, the principal gave their grade point averages and mentioned some of the activities they’d been involved in. Then he gave each of them a gold pin and a handshake, and when Gwen came back to sit with us, we passed the pin along so that we could all admire it and congratulate her again.