Alice on Her Way

by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor

  “Tony was there too?”

  “Yes. Hugh’s brother used to go to NYU and he knew some places around there we could go, so we went. If you’d been there, we would have included you. It’s just something that happened!”

  “And that’s supposed to make it okay?”

  “What did I do that was so wrong?” I asked.

  He looked at me like I’d asked if two plus two equals four. “Your attitude, for starters. How would you have felt if I’d gone out with a bunch of girls and guys and didn’t tell you?”

  “I would have said, ‘Bravo! Did you have a good time?’”

  We stood facing each other for a moment or two. What Sam was saying made sense, and what I was feeling made sense too. It was what we’d been talking about at church—about me being responsible, on the one hand, and a need in me to be more spontaneous, on the other. I didn’t want to go so far in one direction that I was practically getting engaged-to-be-engaged to Sam Mayer, but I didn’t want to lean so far in the other that I was giving head to a guy just because he had a big chest and curly hair and might possibly invite me to the prom.

  “Maybe we just might have to agree to disagree here, Sam,” I told him. “I think I’m a little more spontaneous than you are, and I don’t like to have to keep explaining myself to you.”

  “Maybe you are,” he said, “but I forgive you,” and kissed me, and we were right back to square one. But he did leave me alone after that and let me sit with the girls in the theater after I promised to sit with him on the bus back home.

  The United Nations that afternoon, our final event of the trip, made me forget Sam. Made me forget Pamela and school and the rest of my world back in Silver Spring temporarily. I hadn’t expected to be floored. First the sight of that tall narrow building I’d seen so often in photos. Then those 191 flags of each member state. But it was the sculpture we saw at the entrance, a gun with its barrel twisted into a knot, that made me want to take its picture and send it to everyone I knew. What an elegant way to make such an important statement. No guns. No war. No killing. If only it were that simple….

  I don’t know which impressed me more, the photos on Ellis Island or our tour of the UN. Here at UN Headquarters was the General Assembly room, the Security Council meeting room—I’d seen them on TV when groups were in session. Here I was. And here, in display cases in one of the corridors, were coins, tin cans, and bottles that had melted in the atomic blasts in Japan and, on the wall, a photo of a small child, dead and hideously burned in the inferno.

  But as we went back outside to board the buses for home, there were Brian Brewster and Tony Osler, cutting up. There was Charlene Verona with her eyelash curler, checking her makeup. There I was, sliding into a seat beside Sam, going back to my same old neighborhood, same old school. Same old self?

  I was pretty quiet for a while after I boarded, and Sam just sat with his arm around me and let me be. He probably thought I was tired, which I was, but I didn’t want to go back home the same as I’d started. I wanted to feel I had changed somehow—that the trip had changed me. I mean, everything around me was changing. Dad got married and was getting on with his life; Lester had moved out and was getting on with his. Pamela, across the aisle, was sitting on Hugh’s lap again—whether invited or uninvited, I wasn’t quite sure—and for better or worse, she was getting on with hers. Was I going to be Alice Forever—the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow?

  The infamous plastic boxes were waiting for us on board—our dinner—with their cold macaroni salad and little tins of tuna and lemon squares and two cherry tomatoes each. We ate halfheartedly, yet I couldn’t help but think that each box would be a feast to a starving family in much of the world.

  We figured the teachers would want to get us back to Silver Spring as soon as possible so we wouldn’t be too tired at school the next day. We were surprised, then, when the buses just sat there idling their motors. Five forty-five. Five fifty….

  “What are we waiting for?” someone called out.

  Suddenly Mr. Corona came on board. “Pamela Jones?” he called.

  Pamela slid off Hugh’s lap and stood up. “Yeah?” she said.

  “Do you happen to know where your mother is?” he asked.

  I heard Pamela exhale. “No,” she said. “Is she missing?”

  “Well, it appears she is. You two roomed together. Was everything all right this morning?”

  “I… I think so,” Pamela said.

  “Well…” Mr. Corona looked at the rest of us. He was in no mood for this, I could tell, having been up all night. “Anybody see Mrs. Jones in the UN building?”

  “I saw her at lunch back at the museum,” Karen called out.

  “I did too,” said someone else.

  Mr. Corona looked at Pamela again, then at his watch. “We’ve got security guards checking the restrooms,” he said. “We don’t want to get started much later than this.”

  Pamela stepped back and slowly sank down in a seat beside Liz. “I… will… die… of… humiliation,” she murmured.

  Mr. Corona got back off the bus and stood out on the sidewalk talking with another teacher. Just then a taxi pulled up in front of us, and Mrs. Jones got out. She was holding a small white bag and came hurrying over to Mr. Corona. We couldn’t hear what she was saying, but she was gesturing with her hands. Then at the little sack. She looked embarrassed. Mr. Corona motioned her toward the other bus with the second teacher, then he got on ours. The doors closed and the buses pulled out.

  He came back to where Pamela was sitting. “She was trying to get a prescription refilled and had a hard time finding a drugstore, so she had to take a cab,” he said. “Everything’s okay. Relax.” And he went back up to sit behind the driver.

  I looked back at Pamela.

  “I didn’t know she was taking medicine,” Pamela said. “Why didn’t she bring enough in the first place?”

  “Maybe she needed more than she thought,” I said.

  Sam was tugging at me to settle down and concentrate on him, so I did. Hugh and Tony were sitting together, and Pamela was trying to squeeze in between them now. Hugh was somewhat playfully—I think—pushing Pamela away. It was sort of pathetic. She finally gave up and went back to sit with Liz again, and as she left he gave her a slap on the butt, and that seemed to please her.

  Sam put his arm around me, and in spite of everything, it had a welcoming feel. It was nice to slip temporarily out of the real world and into Sam’s. Nice to feel a protective arm around you when you’ve overdosed on tenements and atomic bombs and “Desperate Girls.”

  The lights dimmed so that the driver could see the road better. A few kids up front were laughing and kidding around with Mr. Corona as they ate, but most of us were pretty zonked, and a few were actually asleep. We could hear somebody’s CD player—a mellow song—and I put my head on Sam’s shoulder.

  “I love you,” he whispered in my ear.

  My eyes popped open. I didn’t move. I couldn’t say it back because I didn’t think I did. I really liked him, but love?

  He didn’t try to get me to say it. He just kissed me—slowly and tenderly—and his hand touched the skin under my shirt.

  What did I like most? I asked myself. Sam or what he was doing? I kissed him back, and he was grateful. He covered us both with his jacket, and our hands explored each other beneath the denim.

  It was almost eleven o’clock when the buses pulled in the school parking lot. I think we were all late to school the next day.

  When I saw Pamela at her locker the next morning, she said, “Mom slipped me this note last night.”

  I sat down on a nearby bench and read the piece of paper:

  Pamela,

  I’m sorry about all this. I shouldn’t have gone on this trip without asking you, and I know I embarrassed you by being There. I’ve been having some anxiety attacks lately, and the doctor had given me pills, but I guess I needed more than I had with me, and a lot of the drugstores were closed. Please forg
ive me.

  Mom

  I looked at Pamela. “So why don’t you?” I asked.

  “What? Forgive her?” She took the note back and stuffed it in a pocket. “Maybe,” she said.

  Two things happened at school later that day.

  At lunch in the cafeteria Hugh was sitting two tables over with some other seniors. When Pamela saw him, she set her tray down on our table and immediately started toward him. When I saw the look on Hugh’s face as Pamela approached, she made me think of a baby teetering too close to the top of the stairs. You don’t know what’s going to happen, but you know what might and you aren’t close enough to stop it.

  With no encouragement from Hugh, Pamela brazenly plunked herself down on his lap and put her arms playfully around his neck—the way she’d done on the subway. The bus. Before when she’d done it, he had slapped her thigh, patted her bottom, run his hands up and down her sides.

  This time, however, there wasn’t even a glimmer of an invitation on his face. He leaned stiffly back as she settled between him and his lunch tray. “Do I know you?” I heard him say.

  “Do you know me?” Pamela said in answer, leaning forward to brush his lips. I’m not sure what she said to him next, but I think it was “I’d say you know me very well.”

  The other guys at the table were looking at her in pained silence.

  Pamela gave Hugh’s neck a little jerk with her hands. “Hey! Studly! Liven up!” she said.

  Hugh just stared back at her. “C’mon,” he said, his voice low. “Get off.” He didn’t touch her. His arms remained at his sides.

  Get off, Pamela! I wanted to scream. Just come back to our table! She didn’t.

  “What’s the matter?” she asked.

  “Please get off,” Hugh said.

  Instead, Pamela began that same wiggle she’d done on the subway when she pretended she was lap dancing, watching Hugh’s eyes all the while.

  “I can’t watch,” Gwen whispered, shielding her eyes.

  Suddenly Hugh pushed back and stood up, and Pamela tumbled off, almost falling to the floor. She stared at him incredulously, but Hugh just sat back down, leaned his elbows on the table so she couldn’t get in his lap again, and continued his conversation with his buddies, while they gave Pamela an embarrassed smile.

  Pamela righted herself, her face flaming. I’d never seen it so red. I could barely look at her, and Liz and Gwen quickly began talking as though they hadn’t seen anything. Pamela came back to our table and ate half her lunch, head down, then threw the rest away. She left the cafeteria and I followed. She was heading straight for the restroom, and when I got inside, she was crying, big helpless sobs.

  There was nothing to say that she didn’t already know. I just went over and put my arms around her. She leaned against me crying like a little kid. Crying… and crying… and crying. It was more than just Hugh. It was the whole way her life had been going lately.

  “S-so humiliating!” she wept finally.

  “I know,” I said. “I know.”

  But the worst was yet to come, and it didn’t involve Pamela. Have you ever had a sad day just get sadder? I was worried all afternoon about Pamela. All I wanted to think about, concentrate on, was Pamela and how I might help. But Sam followed me around like a puppy. He wanted to know if I was mad that he was mad that I had gone out with friends in New York. I thought we had been through all that, and I was glad that he didn’t have his mom’s car, or else we’d have had to continue that conversation after school.

  Instead, it was Molly who had her dad’s car that day and offered to give Liz and me a ride home. She had to stop at the office first, though, and pay the balance on her trip to New York. When we went out the back door to the parking lot finally, most of the kids had left. We had just started across the lot when we saw Faith backed up against Ron’s Toyota, crying, and Ron had both hands on her shoulders.

  “Admit it!” he was yelling.

  “Ron, I swear!” Faith said.

  “Damn it, I’m not stupid! Say you were with him!”

  “No!” Faith, still crying, jerked herself free and turned away.

  And suddenly, while we stared in disbelief, Ron grabbed her by the back of the neck and slammed her face down, hard, on the hood of his car.

  “Oh my God!” I cried. We started to run.

  “Stop it!” Molly yelled. “Get away from her!”

  For a moment it looked as though Faith was going down on her knees, but then she grabbed on to the car, and when she lifted her head, her face was a bloody mess.

  Ron stepped back, staring at her, and then we were all over him, pulling him away. Faith’s eyes were scrunched up in pain, one hand over her mouth and a hurt, howling sound coming from her throat.

  “Faith!” Ron cried. “I didn’t mean to! I’m sorry!”

  Faith held out one arm to hold him at bay, the other covered with blood from her mouth and nose. I was holding her up on one side, Elizabeth on the other, and Molly had her cell phone out, dialing 911. We took Faith to the office and didn’t leave her side.

  In the principal’s office, the nurse fished two teeth out of Faith’s mouth, caught between her lip and her gum. The principal had found Ron sitting in his car in the parking lot, and the two officers who answered the call brought him into the office.

  “Miss,” the first officer said to Faith, “this the fellow who did that to you?”

  Faith was holding a wet towel against her mouth. She nodded, her eyes barely open, her face swollen and beginning to bruise.

  “And we’re witnesses!” I added.

  “Faith, you need to press charges,” said the principal.

  “Oh, jeez!” I heard Molly whisper. “Don’t ask her to do that! Just take him!”

  But one of the policemen said, “She doesn’t need to file charges. When there’s obvious evidence of an assault, that’s all we need to take him in.”

  “Take him in,” said Faith, turning her face away.

  I wanted to cheer.

  “Faith, I love you!” Ron protested, starting toward her, but the officer held him back.

  “Buddy, you sure have a strange way of showing it,” the man said. “Come on. Let’s get in the car.”

  The principal phoned Faith’s father to tell him that he was taking her to the emergency room. He carried the two teeth in a little bottle of salt water, in case they could be reattached somehow. After Faith left, Molly, Liz, and I sat in Molly’s car, stunned by what we had seen.

  “The problem is, will she relent later and take him back?” I wondered aloud.

  “Maybe she can get a restraining order so he can’t come near her,” said Liz.

  “If Ron comes near her again, they’ll have to restrain me!” Molly said, her eyes fierce with anger.

  When I got home later, Dad was still at work. Sylvia had a parent conference, but Lester was there, rummaging through the fridge.

  “Well, look at you!” I said, plunking my books on the table. “He comes over when no one’s home and steals the food.”

  “Wrong!” said Lester. “I figure I’ve mooched off you guys enough, so I’m cooking dinner tonight. Chicken diablo. How does that sound?”

  “Anything sounds good after today,” I said, and told him what had happened out in the parking lot. I almost told him what happened to Pamela, but then I’d have to explain what she’d done to Hugh in New York, and I wanted to be loyal to Pamela. I did tell him about her mother coming on our trip uninvited, though, and what I’d seen at the UN.

  “Does the world get better, Les, or does it just go around and around with the same problems happening all over again?” I asked. “I can’t believe what Ron did to Faith. I just want to move to a place where things like this can’t happen.”

  “Where women don’t have teeth?”

  “Where guys can’t knock them out, Lester! Be serious for once! I want to live in a place where people don’t kill each other and mothers can be forgiven and guys aren’t so needy and girls don�
��t do everything a guy wants and—”

  “Whooooa!” Les said, turning around and studying me hard. “What’s this?”

  I did a quick retreat. “Just… Sam. He’s just always around wanting more and more and more—”

  “Of what? You trying to tell me something?”

  “Me! My time! I mean, he’s always around! He’s always waiting for me. He says he loves me, Lester! We’ve only been going out for two months!”

  “Hmmm.” Lester put the chicken on a bed of rice and slid the pan in the oven. “Well, a guy can’t help how he feels. And you can’t help how you feel about him. Just make sure you’re honest with him. Don’t say something just to make him happy.”

  “Or do something… ,” I said.

  Lester gave me a quizzical frown. “Or do something!” he repeated emphatically.

  The dentist couldn’t reattach Faith’s teeth, and she was out of school for a week while her face healed and she was fitted for a bridge. When she came back with a temporary bridge in her mouth, it was difficult for her to smile even if she’d wanted. We knew she was still in pain. But all of us on stage crew rallied around her, and the guys were like German shepherds, they were so protective of her—Chris, in particular. I think maybe she was ready to move on, but you can never tell about girls like Faith. Ron had been arrested on assault charges, but that was still up in the air.

  I was thinking about what we’d discussed in that “Our Whole Lives” class—about questions to ask yourself before you have intercourse. Questions like, Do I trust my partner completely? Maybe you should ask yourself some of those questions before you even take on a boyfriend, I thought. Maybe you should ask yourself if you are truly comfortable in that person’s presence, or if you always feel you’re on the defensive. If one of you is always the giver and the other the taker. If you often feel you’d rather just be alone. And maybe, though he’s worlds away from Ron, I should be asking those same questions about Sam and me.

  21

  Party?