When Audrey Met Alice

by Rebecca Behrens

  Madame Millepied broke the class up into conversation groups, and mine included Chris, Claire, and Stacia. When Madame left the room for a few minutes, their conversation work stopped and the gossip started.

  “Chris, wasn’t the party after Science Olympiad totally the best party of the year?” Stacia smirked as she said that, and I rolled my eyes.

  “Yup.” Chris Whitman: boy of few words.

  “People were really celebrating our win,” Claire insisted. She winked at Stacia and waited a beat before adding, “Madeline.”

  Chris perked up at that. “Huh?” Well, perked up for Chris.

  Stacia glanced at Claire. She lowered her voice and half-whispered, “Madeline kissed someone.” They paused to gauge Chris’s reaction. He struggled to look like he didn’t care. Finally, he asked, “Who?”

  Claire cleared her throat. “That drummer guy she knows from band. I think his name is Quint. I have a picture of them together at the party.” Claire held out her phone to Chris. I could see the screen as Chris held the phone at arm’s length, like he was horrified by it. Perhaps so horrified that he was down from one word to zero. Madeline and Quint sat next to each other on a couch, so close their shoulders touched. Madeline was grinning. Quint was leaning down and toward her ear, like he was going to whisper—or kiss her cheek.

  My hands went slack, and my pen fell to the floor, skittering to the side of my desk. I quickly bent down to grab it, pretending to have to search around to avoid having to sit back up right away. My heart was beating so fast I could hear it in my ears. I finally grabbed my pen and sat up again, red-faced. I hadn’t heard what they’d been saying while I’d hung upside down. That was probably a good thing. My chest felt like it was going to explode. If only I’d been allowed to go to Science Olympiad. I could’ve been sitting on that couch next to Quint.

  Claire said coyly to Chris, “We’ve probably said too much already.” At that moment, Madame reentered the classroom. “I hope you’ve all been conversing in French this whole time, non?” A chorus of oui broke out in the room. I spent the rest of the class staring at Madeline with a mixture of anxiety, rage, and white-hot jealousy.

  Just because the universe likes to mess with me, Quint was hanging around my locker after last period. He grinned as he saw me walking down the long hallway toward him, trailed a few doors back by Hendrix and Simpkins. I felt like punching a locker when I saw Quint’s smiling face. He was looking at me so eagerly; he didn’t have a freaking clue. Were you smiling like that after you snuggled on the couch with Madeline last weekend?

  “Hey, Rhodes. What’s up?” Clueless Quint moved aside to let me get into my locker. He had his drumsticks out and was rat-tat-tatting them on the adjacent locker to some tune only he could hear. I tensed my shoulders and stood perpendicular to him, spinning the dial of my lock with great concentration.

  “Not much.” I kept getting the combo wrong. “Jeez! Why doesn’t this stupid school have fancy musical locks instead of these sticky, piece-of-crap ones?”

  Quint took a step backward and pocketed his drumsticks. “Everything okay?” he asked tentatively. My locker finally popped open.

  “Yeah, I’m fine…I guess you are too.” I still didn’t look him in the eyes. Quint frowned.

  “Cryptic much?” Quint started drumming the adjacent locker again, with his fingertips. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  I crossed my arms over my chest and finally turned to face him. “I don’t know. What do you think it means?”

  Quint rolled his eyes and swung his messenger bag over his shoulder. “I can take a hint. See you around.” He turned and stalked away in the opposite direction from Simpkins. I shut my locker and leaned my forehead onto the cool metal door. What am I doing? Crush or not, he’s my friend. Singular. Sighing, I pulled back and reopened the locker, distractedly shoving books into my backpack before giving it a cathartic slam.

  After eating dinner alone, I wasted a few hours on Facebook, first checking all of the statuses of my old classmates in Minnesota, then seeing what the Friends kids were doing. I refreshed Quint’s profile repeatedly, until a new status finally popped up. “Extra band practice.” No question Madeline was going to be there too. I felt a lump in my throat and slammed my laptop shut.

  I blasted some music and danced around my room, trying to get back to my post–Kennedy Center happy state until I collapsed in a sweaty heap on my bedspread. I wished I could escape to Debra’s kitchen for some advice. I thought of Bye telling Alice that she could always come back to her when things got tough. My “Byes,” Harrison and Debra, were both thousands of miles away. My dad was holed up in his 1600 lab space, way off in another wing. I could wander over there, but I knew from experience that if he was in the middle of data mode I could walk in bleeding profusely or with green hair or on stilts and he wouldn’t bat an eye. My mom was off on another trip overseas, this time to India. I hated how she went to faraway places all the time, and I worried about her being on a plane so much. I feel so much more secure when she is just over in the West Wing, even if I see her almost the same amount whether she’s in D.C. or Davos. Surprise dance lessons notwithstanding.

  My arm trailed off the edge of the bed and pointed toward my desk drawer, reminding me what was hidden inside. Alice had to deal with competition, that lovely Janet in Cuba. Maybe she’ll show me how to one-up Madeline. Or, if that doesn’t work, how to deal with a broken heart. Alice seemed to spend a lot of time pining for guys, after all. I jumped off the bed and pulled open the drawer, fishing around until I felt the crumbly leather spine meet my hand. I pulled out the diary and opened it to the page I’d marked with the vintage postcard and started to read.

  July 26, 1902

  Diary—

  I think my dear friend Lila wanted to distract me from my obsession with Iselin, so she suggested that I join her in Newport. I gladly went—Newport, the summer destination for the wealthy. My jaw permanently dropped at the opulent mansions. They put my family’s home at Oyster Bay to shame; Sagamore looks like a shabby groundskeeper’s cottage by comparison.

  I became tired of mingling with society after a few days. It’s always in such situations that I think of how Edith and I refashion my old dresses, and then I start to itch. Isn’t it off that the daughter of the president can still feel pangs of inferiority? Power and wealth are not really the same thing.

  Dying to get back to Boston, where Arthur was, I begged Lila day and night to bid adieu to Newport. Finally, she conceded—but on the condition that we take off by ourselves, with no chaperone. I, of course, thought that was the most genius suggestion I’d ever heard. Two bold and rebellious young ladies, taking off in an automobile by themselves and driving all the way from Newport to Boston. I’ve never driven that far without a chaperone.

  We decided it would be best to leave at dawn to avoid having some stick-in-the-mud stop us “for propriety’s sake.” I’d hastily packed my hatbox and trunk the night before, so as soon as the sun started to creep over the horizon, I slipped out of my room and met Lila in the hall. We got to the automobile without being noticed but had forgotten how incredibly noisy they are to start. I thought I saw some window shades snapping up as the car sputtered and gagged to get going. We laughed gaily as we readied ourselves in the vehicle and took off down the bumpy lane. I never looked back, so I don’t know if by that point anyone was watching us. I can picture the lady of the house running frantically into the drive, still in her dressing gown and slippers.

  Getting back to Boston took most of the day. Lila and I took turns driving—I drove much faster than she did, of course. Every time we passed an intersection with another road, I honked the horn madly. We stopped along the road at lunchtime and ate a few roast-beef sandwiches that Lila had sneakily packed in the kitchen the night before, taking long swigs of water out of her canteen. We were covered in so much dust from the road that my white duster was completely
black. My face and hair were darkened with soot too—except for two large circles around my eyes where the goggles had been. What a sight we were.

  When we finally arrived in Boston, tired but exhilarated, Mrs. Paul was waiting at Lila’s home, absolutely livid. She shrieked about how terrible and scandalous we’d been, and about how unsafe it was for us to take off on a long car trip. I put on my sweetest face and replied, “But it’s terribly difficult to have such bully fun when a chaperone is present, Mrs. Paul.” She retaliated by sending a telegram to my parents.

  Now that I am back in Boston, I have heard from my father by letter about how “disappointed” he is that I chose to go for a spontaneous trip by automobile. Sometimes I wonder, though, if the man who led the Rough Riders in Cuba and tamed parts of the West is really that put out when his daughter does something unladylike. Yes, certain types of toughness are not considered proper for a woman, but I can’t help it that I, like my father, am a Tough. He’s said so himself. Sometimes I hope that although he chastises me when I do something outrageous, part of him is proud of my spirit. If not, that’s just another abandonment of Alice on his part.

  To Thine Own Self Be True,

  Alice

  August 4, 1902

  Diary—

  The summer is winding down, and I am back in Washington. It’s strange to come home to a house full of young children after such a long stint in polite society. (Not that my friends and I are always so polite.) I was ambushed walking into the East Room yesterday by the little ones. Quentin pelted me with his toy gun and then Archie came in and beat me with a cushion. I almost got angry toward them until I remembered the fun I used to have doing the same with them. So I got down on my hands and knees and hid behind the furniture with them, waiting for some poor unsuspecting staff to wander through and get assailed. Ethel wandered in and Archie hit her square in the face with a throw pillow.

  Can you believe that my stepmother is still in the midst of renovations? It’s now been a year since our family found our way into the White House. I long to live in a place that is neat and settled and not constantly being disrupted and changed, even if the renovations were sorely needed. If my father doesn’t win the next election, we may never enjoy the fruits of Edith’s labor.

  What is making me melancholy about being back home is Arthur. I suspect that he holds little affection for poor me. At the last party we both attended, he barely spoke to me and spent the whole evening swooning over a beautiful Southern girl. I heard that he was disappointed that associating with me hadn’t meant more to his prospects. Oh, I hate that I am so plain and unlovable! If I weren’t, he might still care for me.

  All I can think of these days, as I sit in my room and listen to the noise of children playing, renovations, and staff and visitors constantly tramping through the halls, is whether I shall ever dance with Arthur again. If he will ever again take my hand. If I should ever be able to kiss his handsome lips. My friends tried to warn me that he was fickle, but I couldn’t listen. One can’t control whom her heart chooses to love, and mine has chosen to love Arthur. I simply wish his would love me for me.

  To Thine Own Self Be True,

  Alice

  Chapter 14

  Alice must’ve been concerned about her maid snooping when she wrote those entries because her handwriting was almost impossible to read. Staring at the cramped letters gave me a headache, but soaking up her words was like guzzling an energy drink. I grabbed a school notebook and scribbled down the last lines of one entry: “One can’t control whom her heart chooses to love, and mine has chosen to love Arthur. I simply wish his would love me for me.” I felt the same way about Quint. I couldn’t help my crush on him, and I just wanted him to like me back, Fido or not. It was like Alice, across space and time, knew exactly the words I needed to hear.

  It was late, but I felt restless. I flipped back through, stopping on the entry where Alice and Maggie Cassini smoked on 1600’s roof. I suppose Alice didn’t know how bad smoking is for you. For her, smoking was a way to break the suffocating rules. I drummed my fingertips on the headboard. I wish I had more ways to do that. Living vicariously through Alice didn’t feel like nearly enough. I thought more about how my mom and Denise didn’t want me to have a platform, didn’t want me to travel—they didn’t seem to want me to be me, at least not in public. Highly controlled visits to the Kennedy Center and the like, while very cool, amounted to an ounce of freedom—not enough to feel like I was eating things up, Alice-style. If I want freedom, I have to take it. I hopped off my bed and walked over the creaky floor to my box closet. I kneeled down and reached behind a box, pulling out the handkerchief with the cigarettes still wrapped up inside. A smile crept across my face.

  I dusted off the never-opened pack and reexamined the writing. “Murad Cigarettes.” A mystery brand. “The finest Turkish tobacco leaf.” There was a color drawing of an elegant woman wearing scarves and a turban in between the title and the tagline. She looked like she could be a hootchy-kootchy dancer. The box had no FDA or Surgeon General warnings. I sniffed at them, wondering if cigarettes spoiled. Obviously, these were from when Alice lived in the White House, and that was…more than a hundred years ago. I put the kerchief back in its hiding place, but took the cigarettes with me as I walked back to my desk.

  I tapped the pack against my desk absentmindedly as I started googling “do cigarettes go bad” and “cigarettes get old” and “cigarettes rotten,” but all I found out was that after they’ve been opened, they go stale. Well, this pack was unopened, although at least a century old. Nothing said ancient cigarettes get any more toxic than they usually are, or go rancid or whatever. Everything reiterated that they are terrible for you.

  I’d never wanted to smoke before. Harrison is the only smoker I know. My mother has begged him to quit for years, to which he usually replies that he’ll quit on his wedding day. Same-sex marriage still isn’t legal where he lives, so Harrison is still a smoker. But honestly, he’s tried and struggled to quit over the years, which really upsets my mom. What I knew about cigarettes: they’re horribly addictive, they’re gross-smelling, they’re expensive. Not to mention totally illegal for someone my age. Still, I thought about teenage Alice smoking—puffing away on these very cigarettes—and what a rebel that made her. I wanted a taste of her type of freedom. One or two cigarettes won’t kill me. Right? I felt a twinge of guilt, thinking of Debra’s daughter and my dad’s research, but I pushed those thoughts out of my head and pictured Alice instead. Sitting on the White House roof with her Murads.

  I pulled on a black hoodie—for camouflage—and shoved my feet into a worn pair of fuzzy boots. I rummaged around in my desk drawer for the matches I kept for candles. I found the little box of the good wooden kind, from a favorite restaurant in St. Paul. I tucked them and Alice’s cigarettes into my hoodie pocket and quietly slipped out the door.

  I crept up the stairs to the third floor, where I hurried along the center hall to the Solarium. I assumed that when Alice wrote that she smoked on the “roof” of the White House, she meant she was up on the Promenade. It was during Alice’s stepmom’s renovations that they added guest rooms to what had been the attic level. Now the third floor is partly Residence living space and partly the patiolike Promenade. The Promenade is raised three feet higher than the rest of the third floor (except for the Solarium, where you can get onto it) and hidden from public view by a staunch balustrade. I’m definitely not allowed up there at night, but the door in the Solarium doesn’t have an alarm or anything, so no one should know if I ventured outside. I unlatched the glass door and stepped out, shivering, in the moonlight.

  Rather than stand on the rounded part of the Promenade, above the Truman Balcony, I walked past the windows of the game room and stood at the corner of the patio, outside some rarely used offices. There I pulled Alice’s cigarettes and my matches out of my pocket. I peeled open the warped box and shook out one cigarette. It look
ed strange—not bleached white, like the cigarettes you see in the movies and magazine ads, but a mottled brown-gray. It wasn’t perfectly shaped, either, but a little lumpy. I sniffed it. It smelled like regular tobacco, but faintly. I put one end between my lips and held it there. It felt strange, kind of like the stick end of a lollipop, but more papery. Already, my stomach started flip-flopping and I felt a little sick. The balustrade barely protected me from the sharp wind; my hands were getting cold and stiff. I’m guessing Alice only came out here to smoke in the summertime.

  I reached in my pocket to pull out a match, but stopped before my fingertips reached the box. This is wrong. Superwrong. Epic-fail wrong. On a lot of levels, and even just-one-cigarette, because I was certainly not old enough to smoke, and because these weren’t any old cancer sticks. They were Alice’s, and they’d been hidden in the White House for a century. They probably could be considered a historical artifact and should be in the Smithsonian or something—like her secret diary.

  It was one thing to keep the diary for myself (for now, while I was reading it) and another to smoke her historical artifact. I’d probably done enough damage by opening the box and touching them. I could stop now and salvage them—and stay a nonsmoker. Did I really want to become a kid who had smoked? That was something I couldn’t undo, and the more I thought about it, being tobacco-free was important to me. Awesome as Alice was, maybe not all of her shenanigans were worth repeating. She didn’t know in 1902 how bad the Murads were for her. I bet if she had, she would’ve found another way to shock people. You can’t exactly eat up a lot of life with emphysema.

  I fumbled with my frozen fingers to put the cigarette back in the box, then slid down the wall to sit cross-legged next to the building, more sheltered from the wind. I could still hang out on the roof like Alice had. I sat and stared at the Washington night sky, contemplating how quiet 1600 was at night, how private. And cold. I could see my breath in front of me, like smoke, and that made me feel close enough to Alice. I set the Murad box on the Promenade floor beside me. I think Alice would’ve been proud that I was to mine own self being true.