Alice on Her Way

by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor

  “So I can still see his apartment,” said Rosalind, and went up the steps. “Who are the other two guys?”

  “George Palamas and Paul Sorenson. Look, Roz, you’re on your own. This was your idea.”

  Rosalind knocked. It was a full minute before anyone came, but then Paul opened the door. Tall and thin, he looked like a younger version of Ichabod Crane.

  “Yes?” he said, and then he saw me. “Well, hi, Alice. I’m afraid Les isn’t here.”

  “We know,” said Rosalind. “But I’m a friend of the family, and I just wanted to see his new digs.”

  Paul stared at her, then at me.

  I tried not to laugh. “Rosalind, Paul. Paul, Rosalind,” I said. And then to Paul, “You’d better let her in. She won’t leave unless you do.”

  Paul grinned a little. “Okay. Look around. We haven’t cleaned up, though.”

  “I’ll feel right at home,” said Rosalind.

  Paul went down the hall, and I noticed he closed his bedroom door as well as George’s. George Palamas was in an old pair of sweats on the couch, looking at the stock market pages of the Post. A half-eaten bowl of cereal sat on the end table beside him. He looked at us quizzically.

  “We’re not staying,” I said quickly. “Rosalind, this is George.”

  “Hello,” said George, and went back to the business section of the paper.

  “Okay,” I said to Rosalind, giving her a quick tour. “Living room… kitchen area… bathroom… bedrooms… and this one is Lester’s.” At least he’d left his door open. I wouldn’t have let her go in if he hadn’t. The bed was unmade, of course. Clothes on the back of his chair. His desktop was covered with papers and books, and there were stacks of books, like termite hills, all over his floor.

  Rosalind looked round. She began to smile. She took one pile of books and set it on top of another. Carefully, she lifted a third pile and balanced it on top of the second. When she lifted still another pile, I said, “Rosalind!”

  But she managed to get that balanced too.

  “Don’t breathe,” she said, tiptoeing carefully over to the desk. She took out a blank sheet of notebook paper and wrote, Rosalind was here. Then she placed it on top of the stack of books, we said good-bye, and laughed all the way back to her car.

  I thought Lester would be gunning for me when he came for pancakes the next day. But he surprised me. He didn’t come at all.

  “You think we should call him, Dad?” I asked.

  “What for? Where is it writ that a grown man has to have pancakes with his dad every Sunday morning?” Dad said, slipping a couple of golden circles onto my plate.

  “Nowhere,” I said, “but he can usually smell pancakes all the way from Takoma Park.”

  “The spring semester is always the busiest,” Dad said. “He’s got a lot on his mind.”

  I had a lot on my mind too. When I wasn’t thinking about our school trip to New York in April, I was thinking about my driving lessons. If Lester thought he could get out of his promise by just not showing up on Sundays, he was mistaken. But meanwhile, I had another “Our Whole Lives” class to get through.

  This time the subject was sexual readiness, and we each got a handout with questions to ask ourselves before engaging in sexual intercourse. Questions like, Do I really trust my partner completely? What will I do to prevent pregnancy?

  One of the guys read another question aloud. “‘What makes me feel I want to have intercourse right now?’ Is this for real?” he asked. “Is there ever a time I don’t?”

  After the list of twenty questions the handout read, If you cannot answer all of the above with confidence, you are not ready for sexual intercourse.

  “Jeez!” a dark-haired girl said. “After answering all these questions, I’d be too tired to have intercourse!” And we laughed.

  The thing was, the questions were good ones, and to answer them all, you had to know yourself really well. You had to know your partner really well. Your family. His family! I’ll bet half the people engaged to be married couldn’t even answer all those questions!

  “How do you tell a guy you like that you don’t want to have intercourse?” somebody asked.

  “Or how do you tell a girl?” said a guy. “Sometimes it seems she expects it.”

  We spent the rest of the session just talking about that—how you turn down a girl without making her feel she must be unattractive; how to turn down a guy without sounding like a prude.

  “How about if you want sex and the girl says she doesn’t? But she’s afraid she’s hurt your feelings. How can you convince her you’re okay with that?” said another guy, and we discussed that too. It all seemed to boil down to respect—really listening to what another person has to say.

  It was strange in a way that when I started the class, I was thinking primarily of me. My body. My sexuality. How it would be for me. And I could see that the focus was going to be on the other person as much as yourself.

  Liz and Pamela weren’t the only ones interested in what we talked about there. Sam wanted to know about it too. I didn’t tell him everything, though. I didn’t get too specific. The thing about Sam, I discovered, is that he sort of jumps to conclusions. If you even mention a subject, that makes it a big deal. So when he asked what this session had been about, I said, “All the things you need to think about before you start a serious relationship.”

  “All I think about is you,” said Sam.

  “That could be a problem,” I told him.

  13

  Hello, Tracy!

  The next Sunday Les didn’t come over either.

  “I could always run over to his place with a Care package and see how he’s doing,” Sylvia suggested. “Chocolate chip cookies and homemade bread.”

  “He has two housemates, and if anything’s wrong, they’d tell us,” said Dad.

  On Wednesday night, though, Lester called and asked if we had enough dinner for four.

  “How does beef stroganoff sound?” Sylvia said, and I take it the answer was affirmative.

  I was setting the table when Les came in. We eat in the kitchen unless we have company.

  “Where’ve you been, the South Pole?” I asked, giving him a quick once-over.

  “Busy,” said Lester. If there was anything different about him, it was that he looked more alert and alive. I figured he’d finished the big paper he was working on and was feeling good about it. As we all sat down and Sylvia passed the salad, Les said, “Just wanted to tell you that I’ve met someone really special.”

  If we were dogs, three sets of ears would have pricked up all at the same time. Our eyes were all focused on Lester.

  “Aha!” said Dad. “That explains it!”

  Les grinned and helped himself to the Stroganoff. “I met her six weeks ago in a statistics course. Then we started having lunch together, and for the past few weeks we’ve been going out.”

  Was this it? I wondered. Was Les really and truly in love?

  “What’s she like?” I asked. My ears felt like satellite dishes, ready to pick up his slightest murmur.

  “Smart, caring, funny, attractive…”

  “I can’t wait to meet her,” said Dad, smiling. “What’s her name?”

  “Tracy Freeman. Majoring in special ed. We’ve had some long walks, long talks….”

  “Now, that does sound serious!” said Sylvia.

  Why was he telling us all this? I wondered. Lester had never told us much about his girlfriends before.

  “Some people,” said Lester, “you never get to know them completely. And others, like Tracy, you just spill out your guts to the second time you meet.”

  “Guts don’t sound especially romantic to me,” I said.

  He only laughed.

  “What does Tracy like to do when she’s not in school?” asked Dad.

  “Loves to travel. Likes the theater. Does some watercolor painting. She’s not much into sports. I offered to give her tennis lessons, but I don’t think she’ll take me u
p on it. Anyway, I think you’d like her. And did I mention that she’s African American?”

  I stopped chewing. So did Dad and Sylvia.

  “No, you didn’t mention that,” said Dad.

  “George and Paul think she’s great. We’ve had her over for dinner a couple of times, and one time she cooked for us. Great cook too.”

  Sylvia smiled. “Les, is there anything not perfect about Tracy?”

  “Well, as I said, she needs tennis lessons,” he told us.

  Later, after Les went home, I looked at Dad and said, “What do you think? I’ve never heard him talk about any other woman this way except Lauren.”

  “I think Les has a good head on his shoulders and is old enough to know what he’s doing,” said Dad.

  I began to see Patrick around school with the girl he took to the dance—the girl who plays first flute in band—Marcie Bernardo. They didn’t kiss in the halls like Sam and me, but a couple of times I saw Patrick with his arm around her. What do the really brainy kids talk about when they’re making out? I wondered. Quantum physics? Magnetic poles? Solar flares? The big bang?

  Sam was definitely more of a hands-on kind of guy—always touching my arm, my cheek, my neck, my back—and I liked it. Too much, perhaps. I wanted more. Gayle talked about that in one of my “Our Whole Lives” classes too—how that’s the way we’re supposed to feel. That’s how bodies are supposed to react.

  One of the topics we’d chosen for discussion was lovemaking, and the Sunday we talked about that, just to take some of the awkwardness out of it, we came to the session to find that Gayle and Bert had borrowed road signs from the state highway department and had propped them around the room: STOP; YIELD; DANGEROUS CURVES; SLIPPERY WHEN WET; SLOW; RESUME SPEED; MERGE; PROCEED WITH CAUTION…. It made us laugh.

  Cedar Lane Church is pretty liberal, I guess, but when you come right down to it, I think Gayle and Bert’s attitude about us having sexual intercourse was more on the order of STOP or SLOW than PROCEED WITH CAUTION.

  I got on my computer later and invited Liz and Pamela to my chat room. Pamela thought the road sign idea was a riot when I told her about it.

  Lovliz13: i can’t believe all you talk about, alice. if you ever marry anybody from that class there won’t be any surprises left

  pjhotbabe: surprises are out, liz. nobody expects surprises anymore

  Loveliz13: well that’s too bad cause there should be something left to discover

  AliceBug322: i sorta feel that way too

  pjhotbabe: well maybe you’ll find out your new hubby wears lifts in his shoes

  AliceBug322: or he has a glass eye or wears a toupee

  Lovliz13: what if i’m wearing a padded bra? is that false advertising?

  pjhotbabe: absolutely. even shoulder pads count

  AliceBug322: maybe nudists have it right. when a nudist proposes, he’s already inspected the merchandise, top to bottom

  The third Sunday in March, Lester brought Tracy to dinner. Sylvia baked a ham, and I made a pound cake.

  We had the table set in the dining room, and from the window I watched Lester and Tracy get out of the car—Les opening the door for her and Tracy, in a red jacket and gray slacks, grabbing his arm as she stood up. The wind whipped her scarf around her face so that it almost blew away, and she laughed as Les caught the end of it and tucked it down inside her jacket.

  Dad opened the door. “Come in! Come in!” he said.

  “Tracy,” Les said, “this is my dad. Sylvia… Alice… this is Tracy.”

  “Hello,” Tracy said, unwrapping her scarf, and Dad took her jacket to hang in the closet. “Quite a wind we’ve got out there!”

  Her eyes were heavy lidded, and she had a dimple in one cheek but not the other. Her skin was the color of cinnamon, and her figure was very much like Sylvia’s, only a little fuller. She smiled around at us expectantly.

  “We’re so glad to have you,” Sylvia said. “Please come in and sit down. Dinner will be ready in a few minutes. There are cheese straws you can nibble until then.”

  As we sat around the living room Tracy said to me, “I hear you’ve got Les booked for the month of April. Driving lessons.”

  “Really?” I said. “He told you that? The whole month?”

  “Depends on whether or not you’re a slow learner,” Lester said.

  “I didn’t even try for my driver’s license till I was eighteen,” Tracy confessed. “There was no way I was going to get a car in high school, so I just let my dad drive me everywhere. But college put an end to that, thank goodness.”

  Dad asked about her major then, and after Sylvia called us to the table, Tracy told about growing up in D.C. and how she always got season tickets to Arena Stage.

  What I was watching for, though, were the little gestures that meant they were in love. The quick glances, the occasional whisper, the smiles, the touching—all the stuff couples do. Tracy was probably too shy. You’re careful when you’re in your boyfriend’s house for the first time and his parents are staring at you. You feel awkward, like I had at Sam’s. But we liked her from the moment we met her, and after she and Les left around nine, Dad said, “Well, one thing I’ll say for Lester: Tracy’s a great improvement over the last two.”

  “Which two were those?” asked Sylvia.

  “Eva, the sophisticate… ,” said Dad.

  “…and Lauren, one of his instructors at the U,” I finished. “Lester almost cost her her job.”

  “They just weren’t right for him,” Dad said.

  “And Tracy?” said Sylvia.

  “I don’t know,” said Dad. “No one knows all the things that go into a relationship. Sometimes not even the people themselves.”

  “Not even you and Sylvia?” I said, teasing.

  Sylvia smiled at Dad. “We’re still learning,” she answered.

  On the bus the next morning Liz asked, “Who was that woman getting out of Lester’s car last night? I was sweeping off our steps when they pulled up.”

  “Lester’s new girlfriend,” I said.

  “Girlfriend?”

  “Tracy Freeman.” Then I turned to Pamela and said, “She’s African American, and Les wanted us to meet her.”

  “Wow!” said Pamela. “Is he serious?”

  “He’s crazy about her, I think,” I said.

  Pamela thought about that a minute. “Dad told me once that if I ever brought home a Latino or a black, he wouldn’t let either one of us in the house.”

  “Sight unseen?” I said.

  “Right. Without knowing anything about them at all,” said Pamela.

  “So I guess Koreans and Greeks and Canadians and Russians and Eskimos are okay?” I commented.

  “You know what I mean,” said Pamela. “He’s prejudiced against anyone who’s not a one-hundred-percent white made-in-America male.” And then she added bitterly, “So he marries a one-hundred-percent white made-in-America female, and look where they are now: He’s holed up in front of the TV every evening eating Stouffer’s, and she’s in an apartment in Wheaton, and he won’t let her in the house either.”

  She slid down in the seat, tipped back her head, and closed her eyes. “I can’t wait to get out of here. I can’t wait for New York.”

  “Gwen said she officially signed us up as roommates,” I told them.

  “It’ll be just like a college dorm!” said Elizabeth.

  “It’ll be freedom!” said Pamela. “And let me tell you, I am going to party!”

  14

  Getting Ready

  The next two weeks were totally crazy. Father of the Bride was playing the last weekend in March and the first weekend of April, and now there were rehearsals every day after school. The cast had been chosen in February, and at that time the stage crew needed to have only a few pieces of furniture in place so the actors could get the feel of where the doorways were and where the couch and chairs would go.

  But now the crew had to see how far to the left and right the scenery should ext
end and try out different lighting schemes to find the ones that made skin tones look most realistic. The cast members sometimes rehearsed well into the evening and the backstage crew was supposed to attend as many rehearsals as we could. When the first two performances went off with only small glitches with props or lighting, we thrust our fists in the air backstage and grinned at each other before the final curtain.

  At least Pamela came regularly and did her backstage work, even though I knew her heart was onstage with the actors. There were times I caught her watching from behind the curtain, her lips moving as she mouthed their lines.

  That could be you, Pamela, if you could get your old spunk back, I thought.

  The second weekend of performances is almost more nerve-wracking than the first because you’re supposed to have ironed out all the kinks. Whatever mistakes we made the first time around, Mr. Ellis said were learning experiences, but by the third performance, we had no excuse, and were relieved it went smoothly.

  I don’t know about the final performance, because I came down with a zinger of a sore throat. It hurt horribly to talk, and Dad said no way was I going to leave the house. Not only did I miss the final performance, but the cast party as well. Half the fun of being part of the stage crew is the cast party, but when you feel as bad as I did, you just want to stay in bed and try not to breathe too hard.

  I heard Sylvia explaining it over the phone to Pamela when she called. I heard her tell Pamela to go on to the cast party without me, and to please explain to Mr. Ellis. And I heard her tell Pamela that I’d said if she didn’t go to the cast party without me, I would tell the whole crew about the time back in sixth grade when Pamela called a Volvo a vulva in front of the class.

  Sylvia’s tinkly laughter filled the hallway and I knew Pamela was laughing too. Then I spent the rest of the evening hunkered down under the covers feeling sorry for myself—wondering what the kids were saying at the party, and who was making jokes, and who came in costume and whether Ron let Faith come at all.