Alice in Lace

by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor

  That seemed to calm Elizabeth a lot.

  We leaned back in our chairs, tucked the overnight bag under the seat, and watched the set of double doors. Behind those closed doors, I was thinking, a dozen women were probably having babies right then. Yet I didn’t hear a single scream. Not even a moan. Of course, there could be five more doors between us and them, but everything was quieter than I expected it to be.

  “I have to go to the bathroom,” Elizabeth said.

  “Are you okay?” I asked her.

  “I don’t know” We walked out in the hall and down to the women’s room. “Every time I think about what’s happening to Mom in there, I just … my legs feel like they’re going to give out from under me.”

  “She’s not as nervous as you are, Elizabeth, and she’s the one having the baby,” I said. “She already knows what it’s like. If it was awful, don’t you think she’d be terrified?”

  “You’re right,” Elizabeth said, but she still looked pale. She went into a toilet, and when she came out, she said, “I just don’t see how a whole baby can come out of a woman, Alice, without tearing her all up. That’s the awful part.”

  I shrugged. “Well, her body stretches, Elizabeth.”

  “But how? Alice, we’re talking big!”

  “It just does! Body openings stretch.” I got an idea. “Look! Look at my mouth.” We were standing at the sink now, in front of the mirror. “I don’t have a very big mouth, do I?”

  “Not exactly,” Elizabeth said, washing her hands.

  “Okay, now watch.” I opened my mouth as wide as it would go.

  “See how big it gets?” I said. “It’s supposed to stretch. It’s elastic. It’s made to stretch.” I took my fingers and pulled at the corners of my mouth until my lips were stretched into thin little ribbons.

  Elizabeth studied me for a moment. Then she put her fingers in the corners of her mouth and pulled, too. We both stood in front of the mirror with our mouths wide open, stretching our lips out as far as they would go.

  One of the gray ladies came in, the volunteers who help out. She stared at us a minute, then smiled sweetly. “I was sent to look for two girls who are waiting for Mrs. Price,” she said. “I’ll bet those girls are you.”

  “Did she have her baby?” Elizabeth asked, whirling around.

  “No, but Mr. Price is here and wants me to tell his daughter that he’s in the labor room with his wife.”

  Waiting was hardest of all. We went back to the lounge and stared at all the magazines about babies and parenthood. We stared at the coffee pot, and the paper cups with pink and blue designs on them.

  There were three men in the waiting area who all looked like expectant fathers to me, and the middle-aged woman who was there for her daughter. There was a younger man, too, probably still a teenager, who was waiting. I wondered if it was his wife or his girlfriend behind the double doors down the hall. He kept looking around as though he couldn’t quite believe he was there, as though it were all a mistake, and he should have been out at a ballpark or something with the guys.

  Elizabeth turned to me suddenly. “Were you planned?”

  “What?”

  “Did your parents want you—I mean, expect you—or were you an accident?”

  It was the first time that anyone had referred to me as an accident, but I remember Dad telling me once that they had waited a long time for me.

  “Planned, I think.”

  “Me, too. But my little brother’s a happy surprise, Mom says.”

  “You already know he’s a boy?”

  “Mom told me tonight. She had a sonogram a few months ago. She and Dad had sort of been keeping it a secret.”

  “That’s great, Elizabeth. Now you’ll …”

  “Don’t say it,” she said.

  I grinned at her, trying to make her laugh.

  “… see what a …”

  She clapped one hand over my mouth and giggled.

  “… boy looks like …”

  “Alice!”

  “… naked,” I finished.

  I think we were there for three hours and fifteen minutes. I know how many people used the coffee machine. I counted the number of windows in the waiting area, the number of pictures on the walls, the number of nurses that went by in the hallway.

  We looked through every magazine, split a sack of peanuts, ate a bag of potato chips, and had a Coke. The gray lady came by and gave us a bottle of nail polish, and we did each other’s nails. We watched a show on TV, split a doughnut, took a quiz in a magazine (“Are You a Risk Taker?” Alice—borderline; Elizabeth—no).

  I think I even dropped off once or twice, and woke up at one point to find Elizabeth leaning against me, her mouth open, snoring. I sat very still because I figured Elizabeth was going to need all the rest she could get. I wondered how many of the babies born in this hospital had changed lives around completely, for better or worse. How many dreams they’d begun and how many they’d ended. I was going to suggest to Mr. Everett that he assign someone to visit a maternity waiting room sometime for the unit on Critical Choices.

  Just when I thought my shoulder was going numb completely and I could never get out of my chair again without Elizabeth falling over, a masked figure came through the double doors, his eyes smiling. It was Mr. Price.

  I nudged Elizabeth. Her mouth snapped shut and she blinked.

  The man was holding a baby. “Elizabeth,” her father said, “meet Nathan Paul.”

  Elizabeth’s eyes opened wide this time, and she slowly rose to her feet. I got up, too, and stood on the other side of Mr. Price.

  There was a tiny baby with black hair and puffy eyelids, a small pink tongue protruding just a little through the lips. He was making soft smacking sounds.

  “Oh, Nathan!” Elizabeth said, gently stroking his forehead with one finger. “You little thing! I love you to pieces!”

  I never saw Elizabeth look so loving—or grown up. Did this mean she was no longer interested in Mr. Everett? In troubadours? Did this mean she would give up the idea of being a nun and become a mother instead?

  Mr. Price let Elizabeth hold Nathan for a couple of minutes and then he even put the baby in my arms. I looked down at the funny little creature who was making weird movements with his mouth, and thought of all the choices he had to make in his lifetime. It made me dizzy. But for now he was set on automatic and didn’t have to decide a thing. His body did it for him.

  “Enjoy it while you can, kiddo,” I said, and gently handed him back to his dad.

  Find out what’s next for Alice

  and her friends in

  OUTRAGEOUSLY ALICE

  About the third week of October, I decided it was turning out to be one of the weirdest months of my life. Not that there have been that many of them—Octobers, I mean. Thirteen, to be exact. But here’s what had happened so far:

  Lester, my twenty-one-year-old brother, who has been juggling two or more girlfriends for several years, just got word that one of his main girlfriends, Crystal, was engaged to be married at Thanksgiving. And I was to be a bridesmaid. Now that’s weird.

  And of course I was still holding my breath to see whether Miss Summers, my English teacher last year, would marry Dad or our vice principal, Mr. Sorringer, who’s in love with her, too.

  Then Elizabeth, my friend who lives across the street, got a baby brother. At last she found out what a boy looks like naked. Is that weird, or what?

  And finally, the student council at our junior high voted to create a haunted house for Halloween in the school gym to raise money for our library. What the school was going to do, see, was charge a buck fifty apiece to scare little kids half out of their minds. Patrick, my boyfriend, who’s vice president of the student council, asked if I wanted to help out.

  Well, why not? I thought. October couldn’t get any crazier than it was already.

  I was wrong. It got even crazier. Crystal Harkins’s maid of honor invited me to a bridal shower—a lingerie shower—an
d I’d never been to a shower before.

  But you know what? All of these things—the engagement, the bridal shower, the baby brother, the haunted house—were happening to somebody else. I was just on the outside looking in. Not much that is really dramatic, outrageous, and wonderful has ever happened to me— something to remember forever and ever. If there was a prize for the girl with the most boring life, I thought, I’d win it, hands down.

  Here’s where I miss my mom. If Mom were alive, she could have told me how to keep from being ordinary. She’d know what you take to a bridal shower, too. But because she died when I was four, I have to ask Dad and Lester, who don’t know diddly, all my questions, and if I’m really desperate, I call Aunt Sally in Chicago. This time I tried Dad and Lester first.

  “I’ve been invited to a lingerie shower for Crystal,” I said at dinner that night. “Any ideas about what I could get her?”

  “A chastity belt,” Lester mumbled.

  “What?”

  “He’s joking, Al,” said Dad. He and Lester call me Al.

  Lester just glared down at his tuna and noodles. I guess he figured his girlfriends would go on waiting all their lives for him to make up his mind, and it was really a shock that one of them got engaged.

  “What is a chastity belt?” I asked, curious.

  “A metal device that some medieval men bought their wives when the men were going to be gone from their fiefdoms,” said Dad. “Only the husbands had the key. It was to insure that their wives would be faithful while they were away. Now you know how ridiculous this conversation is getting to be.”

  I couldn’t believe it. “You mean it fit around their … ?”

  “Exactly,” said Lester. “Now shut up.”

  “But how did they go to the bathroom?” I have to know things like that.

  “With difficulty, I imagine,” Dad said.

  I looked from Dad to Lester. That was so unfair! “What about the men? Did they have to wear chastity belts while they were gone to make sure they weren’t unfaithful?” I demanded.

  Lester winced.

  I was indignant. “What about a metal pipe that fitted over their … ?”

  “Okay, okay! Just drop it, will you?” Lester snapped.

  He’s been pretty touchy these days. Ever since Crystal returned all the things he’d ever given her and told us she was getting married, he’s been a real grouch.

  I’m not sure why I was asked to be one of her bridesmaids, but I think it’s because her fiancé’s younger brother is going to be in the wedding party. He’s seventeen, and Crystal needs someone young to walk back up the aisle with him. Or maybe Crystal’s still mad at Lester and is trying to rub it in. Whatever, I’m prepared to enjoy myself.

  “I don’t see how you can buy Crystal anything without knowing her sizes,” Dad said, trying to be helpful.

  “Big,” said Lester. “Big hips, big boobs—a narrow waist, though.”

  “Do you want to buy it for me, Lester?” I asked.

  He glared daggers at me. “What do you think?”

  I went up to my room after dinner and tried to figure out what would look nice on Crystal Harkins. If she were to step out of the bathroom on her wedding night and present herself to her new husband, what would look best on her? She has short red hair in a feather cut, and I imagined her in a sheer white nightgown with lace over her breasts so you could see her nipples.

  I took the invitation out of the envelope again to see if they gave Crystal’s sizes on the back. They didn’t. But there was a little card enclosed that said the shower was being given jointly by Betsy Hall, Crystal’s maid of honor, and Fantasy Creations, which, it said, for eleven years has been making the kind of lingerie “every woman dreams of possessing, but only a few will dare.”

  “Huh?” I said.

  I went straight to the phone and dialed my cousin Carol in Chicago. She’s Aunt Sally’s daughter, and I always try her first. Carol’s a couple years older than Lester and, having been married once to a sailor, she knows everything there is to know in the sex department. The phone rang eight times at her place, though, and she didn’t answer, so I had to call Aunt Sally.

  “Is Carol there, by chance?” I asked when Uncle Milt answered.

  “Why, Alice, sweetheart! How nice to hear from you!” he said. “No, she’s on a business trip, but your aunt Sally’s right here. Just a minute.”

  “Alice?” said Aunt Sally. “What’s wrong?”

  I come from one of those families where if you call long distance, they figure someone just died.

  “Nothing! I just wanted to ask a question.”

  “Oh! Certainly!” said Aunt Sally, sounding relieved. She’s Mom’s older sister, who took care of us for a while after Mom died, before we moved to Maryland.

  “I’ve been invited to a bridal shower, and I’m wondering what to buy.”

  “Not Pamela or Elizabeth!” Aunt Sally gasped. Pamela’s my other best friend, and we’d all three gone by Amtrak to visit Aunt Sally last June.

  “No. An old girlfriend of Lester’s, actually. She’s marrying someone else.”

  “Good for her!” said Aunt Sally, who thinks it’s time Lester settled down himself. “Now what kind of shower is it to be? Kitchen? Linen?”

  “Lingerie,” I said. “The kind every woman dreams of possessing, but only a few will dare.”

  There was a soft noise at the other end of the line. I think Aunt Sally had just sat down.

  “Pajamas,” she said finally. “Alice, you can’t go wrong with pajamas. If I were you, I’d buy a pretty pair of pink pajamas, and I promise she’ll thank you.”

  Crystal would thank me, all right, but would she wear them? I thought not. So after I’d talked to Aunt Sally, I dialed the maid of honor herself, who told me that I wasn’t supposed to buy anything in advance.

  “Just come,” Betsy said, “and you can order from the Fantasy Creations catalog when you get here. We’ll have Crystal’s sizes, and she’ll choose the things she likes. You might like to buy something for yourself, too.”

  Now that was the weirdest idea of all, because I don’t have much of a body yet. I suppose that will come. At least I hope so. But what I really want is a life, not a new bra. I want to do things. I want people to notice me.

  Elizabeth Price is beautiful, she takes ballet and piano, and she has a little brother to take care of, even though his poop is yellow and Elizabeth says she’ll never eat mustard again. Gorgeous Pamela Jones, my other best friend, is taking tap and gymnastics, and Patrick’s on the track team, the debate team, the student council, and the school newspaper. He’s also in the band. Me? I’m just not a joiner, I guess.

  When Patrick came over later, we walked to our old elementary school and fooled around on the jungle gym. He chased me over and under the bars but never did tag me, and finally we sat on the swings, turning around and around until the chains wouldn’t wind anymore, and then we’d let go and spin the other way.

  Patrick was talking about how busy he was going to be this year, with track meets and all, and suddenly I said, “Patrick, is it possible to get through life without joining anything?”

  “You mean … like a church or a political party?”

  “A band, a chorus, a club, a group, Girl Scouts, Boy Scouts, Triple A, anything?”

  Patrick dug his feet in the ground to stop the swing. “I suppose, but why would you want to? You allergic to people?”

  “No! I like people! I just don’t want to end up being like everybody else. Like a … a piano key, that’s all.” I thought that was pretty original, but Patrick thought I was nuts.

  “Well, I guess you can have a full and interesting life without joining anything, but what do you do for excitement, Alice? Besides me, of course.” He grinned.

  Suddenly it seemed like one of the most embarrassing questions I’d ever been asked.

  “I guess I figured I was busy enough,” I murmured.

  “A college might not think so,” said Patri
ck.

  “What does college have to do with it?”

  “You have to list all your hobbies and extracurricular activities on your application, Mom says. And if you don’t have any, well …”

  I don’t know how Patrick could even stand to kiss me later. I was a zip, a zero, a zed, a zilch. If someone were to take my pulse, I’ll bet I wouldn’t have one.

  I marched straight upstairs to Lester’s room, where he was working on his senior philosophy paper, and burst through the door. “I need a life!” I bellowed.

  Lester jumped a foot. “Good grief, Al! Knock first! You want to see cardiac arrest?”

  “Lester,” I wailed. “I have no body, no personality, no hobbies! I’ve got to join something quick. What should it be?”

  “The army,” said Lester. “Now scram.”

  I went downstairs to talk to Dad, but he’d gone out for the evening, so I lay on my stomach on the sofa, turning the pages of our school newspaper there on the floor, looking at photos of girls who had bodies and lives—cheerleaders, basketball players, singers, skaters …

  On the last page, along with the ads for Hamburger Hamlet, Pizza Hut, Putt-Putt Golf, and Cineplex Theaters, was a boxed announcement:

  JOIN THE CROWD! JOIN THE FUN!

  Students: It’s still not too late to join a club. Get the most out of your junior high experience. Don’t let another week slip by without signing, up for something; extra. These clubs need new members:

  Debate Team

  French Club

  Camera Club

  Girls’ Soccer

  Science Club

  Explorers’ Club

  I checked numbers three and six, tore out the ad, and stuck it in my notebook.