Alice on Her Way

by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor

  “Well, I can’t say it was fun, but—like you said, Alice—it’s a start,” Pamela told me when I called her that evening.

  “It must have been awkward, especially at first,” I commented.

  “I didn’t give it a chance to get awkward. I cut loose with all the stupid things I’ve done since she walked out on us—things a mother could have helped me with. I mean, I really let her have it.”

  “Things like…?”

  “Dropping out of Drama Club last year, my grades, fighting with Dad, what happened with Hugh… I didn’t go into details, of course.”

  “What’d she say?”

  “Mostly she just listened.”

  “Do you think you resolved anything?”

  “Who knows? I mean, what’s to resolve? How do you take back what you’ve done? She acted like a slut, running off like that with some guy and…”

  In the pause that followed, I wondered if Pamela recognized the breathtaking similarity: Mom with boyfriend in Colorado, daughter with boy in New York. I decided not to put it into words myself.

  “So she didn’t say much at all?” I asked.

  “Oh, yeah.” Pamela sighed. “She said there was no way she could make up for running out on us, that she’d really thought when she did it that I’d come live with her and her boyfriend. Well, I tried that, of course, and it was a disaster.”

  Another pause. Then Pamela’s voice grew a little softer. “She said that all she can do now is try to be the best mom she can, but I have to give her a chance—that she’s having a pretty hard time of it herself. I mean, I know she’s on pills and everything. So I said, yes, I’d give her a chance. Anyway, the lunch she brought was good.” Pamela gave a feeble laugh.

  More silence.

  “There’s one thing, though,” I told her. “Having a mom doesn’t save you from all the stuff that’s going to happen to you. I still would have fallen down the stairs at school last year and wet my pants. I still felt weird around Sam’s mother. And now that I’ve got a mom, I’m still having trouble with algebra. It’s not like everything would be perfect if your mom were living with you.”

  “That’s what she said too.”

  “Remember how mad Liz was at her mother because she hadn’t known Liz was being molested by a family friend when she was little? I mean, a mom can’t help you with something unless you tell her about it, right?”

  “Well, we agreed to spend one day a month together just doing something where we can talk while we’re at it. Mom wanted once a week, but I don’t think I’m ready for that much closeness yet.”

  “It might work,” I said.

  “Yeah, we made a mental note of how far we walked along the canal and decided maybe we’d start at that point next time and do another section. See how far we can go. Do you suppose if we walk the whole length, maybe by then we’ll be buddies again?”

  “I sort of think so,” I told her.

  The last session of “Our Whole Lives” was what Bert called “Catch-Up Sunday” and Gayle called “Anything Goes.” It was a chance to ask any question we still hadn’t asked, discuss any topic we’d overlooked, and talk about where we were headed that summer. A lot of the seniors told where they were going to college.

  It’s funny the way really important questions come out when you know it’s your last chance to ask them. The wrestler confided that he still wasn’t sure of his sexual orientation—that maybe he’d taken the course a second time to help him figure out whether or not he was gay. And I think—I hope—we all let him know that either way made no difference to us. There was a question about AIDS, another about pornography, and a lively discussion about messages we get from advertising, whether they’re directed more to guys or to girls.

  I got up the nerve to ask if a man can tell if a woman’s a virgin when they have intercourse. Bert said that sometimes it’s obvious, because the man will have a hard time penetrating and the woman bleeds. But in other women the hymen doesn’t cover much of the opening or it stretches, so there’s almost no difference between her and a nonvirgin. Then Gayle told us how in some cultures a bride-to-be is so worried her husband will find out she’s had sex before that she pays a lot of money to have a sheep’s membrane surgically stitched over her vaginal opening. We all groaned in disbelief. I don’t know when I was so glad that I live in the country I do, have the family I do, and go to the church that I do, even though I don’t go very often.

  Then it was checkout time, and after that, as we all said good-bye and gave Bert and Gayle a hug, they handed each of us our envelope and our group appreciation letter, tied together with blue ribbon, like a diploma.

  When I got outside, I saw that Dad and Sylvia were still in the church lounge having coffee after the service. So I sat down on a bench near the front garden and untied the blue ribbon. Then I unfolded the paper with my name at the top and was surprised at how nervous I felt to see what the other kids thought of me—kids a year or two older.

  Did anyone ever tell you that your best feature is your smile? Suzanne

  You didn’t say a lot in class, but whenever you did, it was something worth hearing. Gary

  There were comments about my candidness when I talked about myself and the way I never put anyone down. Someone even wrote that she liked my hair.

  The last comment was from the red-haired senior, the girlfriend of Lyle, the tall guy. She was probably the prettiest girl there, and just as I’d admired beautiful Miss Cole back in sixth grade, I felt this girl had everything, including a boyfriend and a scholarship to Brown. So I was surprised when I got to her comment at the bottom of the page:

  You really listen to other people, Alice. I feel I could tell you anything. Of all the people in this class, you’re the one I’d most like to know better. Sonya

  What a great way to end the course that I never wanted to take but that I wouldn’t have missed for the world.

  The euphoria didn’t last. I failed my second road test, even though I’d practiced parallel parking almost every day since the last test. Nobody fails two times. Nobody! When Dad and I got home, I went straight up to my room and shut the door. Real mature.

  I hadn’t gotten the same man either. This time it was a woman, and she made marks all over the paper. What I didn’t discover until later was that she was checking off things I did right, but I thought all those marks were against me. I figured I had failed even before we got to parallel parking, and when I made a mess of that too, I just turned off the engine and said, “I can’t do this.” She changed places with me in the driver’s seat and drove me back to the station.

  I didn’t cry the whole way home—just stared stonily out the window. How could I want something so bad and not be able to do it?

  I had to tell everyone at lunch the next day, though, because they asked. The last day of school, and this was how I’d end my sophomore year. The humiliating part was that my chin wobbled and I could feel tears gathering in my eyes. That’s the worst. When you bawl in front of friends. I should have cried at home and let it out.

  But they were really nice about it.

  “I’ve got my car today,” said Molly. “You want to practice in it after school?”

  “Pamela and I can help too,” said Liz.

  Brian said, “You can practice parking behind my Buick, but if you scratch it, I’ll sue.”

  So when classes were out and most of the cars had left the parking lot, I climbed in the driver’s seat of Molly’s old Ford. Molly rode beside me, Brian took his station near his car, and Liz and Pamela stood like cheerleaders along the curb. Sam came out to get in his own car, and when he saw our practice session, he waved and smiled at me and I smiled back. I’d heard that he’d taken a girl in his Spanish class to the movies, and now they were inseparable at school. I guess girls aren’t the only ones who can fall in love with love sometimes.

  “Good luck!” Sam called.

  I silently wished Sam good luck too. I wished my friends good luck. I wished good luck to th
e school and the state and the whole wide world, if only I could just pass my driver’s test.

  As I began to back into the space Brian showed me with his hands how much clearance I had when I began to turn the front wheels. Back and forth I went, again and again. Out and in. Out and in. I wasn’t sure how much of this was helpful because Molly’s car is wider than Dad’s. But my buddies wouldn’t give up on me.

  Finally, after I’d done it successfully five or six times with Molly in the car, she got out and stood on the side and made me do it alone. They made me circle the parking lot, then come back and pull up close beside the Buick. And then, inch by inch, I turned the wheel and backed Molly’s car in the space behind. This time I didn’t even scrape the curb with my back wheels, and everyone cheered.

  Getting my license had become an obsession with me, and I think that’s what did it. I was getting sick of myself. Of worrying about myself. Worrying about that test. Worrying about what my friends would think of me and what friends of friends would think. I wanted to concentrate on something different this summer. Do something different. I wanted to tackle something new and plan for something else and go to places I’d never been and meet new people. I wanted to concentrate on other things besides my hair, my clothes, my nails, my periods, my braces, my acne, my weight, my height, my love life or lack thereof…. A car would help.

  The last week of June, I called Les.

  “Holy Moses!” he said. “You don’t have that license yet?”

  “I just have the road test left to do, Lester.”

  “Where’s Dad?”

  “He works late tonight.”

  “Where’s Sylvia?”

  “Parent conferences.”

  “How do I know you’re not going to bang up my car?”

  “Life is full of risks,” I told him, and heard him sigh.

  “Okay, I’ll come over. When does the MVA close?” he asked.

  “We’ve got an hour and a half,” I said.

  As we headed out to the MVA in Gaithersburg, Lester driving, he said, “What you need to remember is—”

  “I’m going to pass this time, Les. You don’t need to tell me anything,” I said.

  “Just don’t let them rattle you.”

  “I’m going to pass, I’m going to pass, I’m going to pass… ,” I said.

  It was the first man again. This time I took a good look at his uniform, but it wasn’t a policeman’s—just MVA. He wasn’t a nurse or a grandmother with cookies in her lap, though, and I could have used some cookies. If he recognized me, he didn’t mention it.

  “Take her up to the corner and make a right turn,” he said.

  I put on my blinkers when I changed lanes and left them on while I made turns. Same drill. Take it down the block, then stop and back up, and this time I made sure to check the rearview mirror and look over my shoulder.

  When we got to the row of parked cars where I’d been tested before, he had me drive right by, and I began to hope he was going to forget parallel parking. He did. But then he remembered and had me go back. These were obviously the very same parked cars that were there before. Old banged-up cars that were destined to sit there forever, waiting to be bumped again. Somehow the empty spot where I was supposed to pull in looked even smaller. I swallowed.

  “Okay. Pull right up there by that car ahead and take her in,” the man said.

  I pulled up close to the gray car, closer than I had the first time. I was out of my mind, I told myself. I wasn’t in Dad’s car! I wasn’t even in Molly’s! This was Lester’s, and I’d never practiced in that at all. I think I would have paid anything to have Brian standing out there showing me just how much clearance I had. Inch by inch, I got it in, so close to the curb that I astounded myself. I did it! I was in!

  “Good!” the man said. He actually said “Good!” But then he said, “Okay, pull her out and drive back to the station.”

  I had to take it back out again? The space was too small. I was in too far! I didn’t think I could possibly pull out again without hitting the car in front of me.

  If you got it in, you can get it out, I seemed to hear someone saying to me, and I realized that was what Pamela had said when I was trying to use a tampon for the first time. I smiled and the man looked at me sideways. I quickly turned serious and put the car in reverse again. And inch by inch, inch by inch, I got the car back out and drove us back to the station.

  I grabbed hold of Lester and spun him around when my application was approved. “I did it, Les! I did it!” I squealed.

  “Hey, hold it down,” Les said, glancing around us. “What do we do now?”

  I had to get in line to get my picture taken, then wait until my license was processed.

  But finally, finally, I had in my hand that precious laminated card. In my photo my eyes looked half crazed with delight, but I’d done it.

  We went back out to the car, and Lester said I could drive. Out on the road! I couldn’t believe it.

  “Who’s on duty tonight?” I asked him, because either Les or one of his roommates has to be home in the evenings for old Mr. Watts.

  “George is on tonight,” said Les. “I was planning to take Tracy out, but she has to study. What’s in the fridge at home?”

  “Nothing good,” I said. “Which is why I’m taking you to dinner. Anywhere you want to go.”

  “Hmmm!” said Lester. “Well, there’s a French restaurant that has an excellent filet mignon with béarnaise sauce; a seafood place with whole lobster in drawn butter. Or I could go for rack of lamb or veal scaloppini….”

  “Uh… Lester… ,” I said, mentally trying to count the dollar bills in my purse and stay on the road at the same time.

  “Or,” said Lester, “I’d settle for a crab cake sandwich at the Silver Diner.”

  “You’ve got it!” I said, and my grin seemed to take over my whole body. Even my ears were grinning. “I’m on my way.”

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