Chapter 5
Traffic was heavy on US 13; several times, Alice tried doing deep breathing exercises to keep from screaming in fear as Dave carefully wove in and out of traffic. Her full coverage underpants were jammed so far up her ass that she was miserable, trying to pick the wedgie out but failing, afraid she might tip the bike over. Finally, she saw the signs for Fenwick Island and almost cried out with joy. Surely, God wouldn’t kill them so close to their destination. He slowed down as they approached the town. Before crossing the bridge into Ocean City, he pulled over to the right, into a parking lot in front of Grandmother’s Antiques. He brought the bike to a stop and turned to look at Alice.
“It really was my grandmother’s,” he said, deadpan.
“No kidding?” she responded, not caring if it belonged to Hitler, just wanting to get off the damn bike. She pulled the helmet off. She didn’t care if it was disgusting; she reached around and pulled the wedgie out and breathed a sigh of relief. “I guess I didn’t realize we were going to be on the bike for two hours.”
Dave looked surprised. “I’m sorry. I thought you knew where we were going. Come on in; you can meet my parents. They fill in when I go on buying trips.” He held the door open for her, standing aside to let her pass. There was a couple looking at furniture toward the front of the store, and in the back, standing behind a high counter piled with items needing pricing, stood Elsa and James Jensen. They looked at their son with love, but concern.
“Mom, Dad, meet Alice,” Dave said with pride.
His parents stepped out from behind the counter with outstretched hands. “Hello, Alice,” they said in unison.
Alice looked around the store as she shook their hands, first the mother’s, then the father’s.
“Hi,” Alice said. “Wow, a lotta old stuff!”
“Do you like antiques?” James Jensen asked.
“Not on purpose,” she admitted. “I probably have a few, but only because it was something given to me.” She didn’t say she couldn’t imagine buying something old and fragile. People’s interests couldn’t be accounted for, she decided.
“Come on, I’ll take you up to your room so you can relax,” Dave said, making a sign off gesture with his hand to his folks. Alice smiled and turned to follow Dave up a narrow stairway. His parents watched them depart with looks of concern and worry on their faces, but not so Alice could see. Dave was mildly annoyed.
“Your parents seem nice,” Alice said when the reached the apartment. “Do they live nearby?”
“Yes. Here, this will be your room.” He opened a door off the hallway, which led to a small bedroom overlooking the water across the street. There was a tiny bathroom with a toilet and shower inside.
“How nice!” Alice said, not expecting her own room. She didn’t know what she expected, but it wasn’t this. She thought she might have to sleep with Dave Jensen in return for rescuing her from a summer of boredom, and she was resigned, looking forward to it almost.
“It is a nice little room,” he said proudly. “I hope traffic noise won’t keep you awake. There’s no air-conditioning, but if you leave the window open and run the fan, you’ll get the ocean breezes.” She smiled at him, walking over to the window. Looking out, she saw the water had a warm glow on it from the sun setting behind the apartment.
“Thank you,” she said. “It looks very comfortable.”
“I’ll get the saddlebags, and you can settle in. We’ll go out for dinner as soon as I close up for the night.” He disappeared down the stairs; she could hear murmuring voices as he spoke with his parents. Were they asking about her? She was self-conscious of their age difference, wondering if that would turn out to be a problem after all. His parents looked at her curiously; they must have wondered about the relationship; they were only about five years older than she was.
Once the shop was closed and his parents left for their home inland, Dave got cleaned up for dinner. Alice tried not to read more into whatever it was they were doing. Just take it minute by minute, she thought. Out of his motorcycle clothes, he looked younger, which made her nervous. It was one thing to be old enough to be your date’s babysitter. But his mother? She couldn’t help herself.
“Are you sure you’re forty? You sure look younger,” she said, trying to keep the fear out of her voice. If he noticed, he didn’t let on.
“I swear to you, I’m over forty. Would you like to see some ID?” He smiled down at her, offering his arm as they walked down the stairs together.
“No, no, I guess I believe you,” she answered. But there was still something bothering her. She was sure it would become more obvious or fade away completely as she got to know him better. She was attracted to people who were different. And she was grouped in with the different crowd, as well. How she attracted someone like Doug Bradshaw, who was a popular football player in high school, always stymied her friends.
“How’d you get him?” a classmate asked. Or her favorite, right in front of her someone once asked him, “Why are you with her?”
He looked down at Alice and put his arm around her. “Alice is great,” he answered. “I’m lucky she’ll give me the time of day.”
She felt like he spent a lot of time defending their romance, first to their friends, and then his family. She wondered later if he married her to prove to his mother and father that what they felt for each other was enduring. And she guessed it was, having no doubt that they’d still be together if he’d lived.
Alice and her family were definitely the poor people in town. Vicky was still stigmatized by it, fighting to rise above it. Her social climbing ranged from being label conscious and critical of Alice for shopping at Walmart, to driving a luxury car. Alice didn’t feel the same way and didn’t resent the way they’d lived when they were growing up. She was thrifty and wise with money, frugal even. Alice didn’t have a credit card. Evidently, that was nothing to be proud of. Everyone told her how lucky she was to have caught Doug Bradshaw; he was a good student who could’ve played football at just about any college he wanted. But he wanted to farm. And Alice was fine with marrying a farmer.
As she walked alongside Dave Jensen, listening to him talk about the different shops they passed as they headed to the restaurant, Alice thought of Doug again. They’d never argued. She often thought their relationship never got beyond the stage where two people are enamored of each other, and although there may be disappointments, they would never be voiced because it would be unkind. He was gentle with her, and she respectful to him. And then she remembered the night when he knew he was going to die soon, falling to his knees and grabbing her around her waist, muffling his sobs in her body. She held onto his head, incredulous that it was happening to them. She didn’t even care that she’d be left alone with four kids; she couldn’t imagine spending one minute without him in the world.
After he died, she’d walked around like a zombie for months, barely able to breathe, but knowing she had to do what she could for her children. She ceased to exist as a person, doing only what she needed to do to stay alive. All effort was spent taking care of her family. After a while, she entered a state of mild confusion, where it became evident that her output was not yielding the results she thought she should be getting. She’d believed that if she worked hard, sacrificing for her family, everything would fall into place like it did for others. She did what was right because that was what was expected of her. She continued doing what she had been doing all along, not knowing how to fix the things that were going wrong.
When her in-laws slowly took control of Faye, bribing her with expensive gifts and promises of more to come, so that Alice lost all of her influence over her own daughter, and Lynn’s mental illness took over her life, she put what she had left into April and John. She never admitted it, but she knew April drank too much, and John was a workaholic whose goal in life was to achieve a lifestyle a million miles away from the way he was raised.
“Here we are,” Dave said as they arrived at the restaurant
. “You’re deep in thought.” He looked down at her.
“I need to get in touch with my family before they call the police,” she said. “Can I use your phone after we eat?”
As they entered the room, the wait staff and hostess all called out to Dave. “Hey, Dave! Nice to see you!” and, “Who’s your date?”
He laughed good-naturedly, introducing everyone who approached them to Alice, his new friend. They weren’t really even friends yet. The waiter brought menus to the table and began to recite the specials. Alice glanced at the menu, turning it over, and looked at the guy as he spoke. When he walked away, she said, “Are you a vegetarian?” as she took one last look at the menu.
“Yes, sorry, I guess I should have mentioned we were going to a vegetarian restaurant. Do you mind?” he asked.
What could she say? She’d worked at Howard Johnson’s. Her kids used to say if Stouffer’s didn’t make it, they didn’t eat it at their house.
“I guess I could have a salad. This is like trying to read a foreign language.” She kept turning it back and forth, hoping a page with the word “hamburger” would appear if she played with it enough. The situation was getting so strange. Here was a motorcycle guy who ran an antique shop his granny used to own and didn’t eat meat. She supposed anything was possible.
“Let me order for you, is that okay? I guarantee you’ll enjoy it,” he said.
She agreed, and he was right, it was tasty, but it wasn’t satisfying. She felt like they needed to stop at McDonald’s on the way home. They ate and talked and walked home after the sun had completely set. She could see the lights of ships out to sea, and the view reminded her of other times in her youth, when she and Doug had gone to the beach together at night and made love on the sand. She knew she was trying to capture him, and it worked; he was totally mesmerized by Alice. She’d play-acted for him too, acting the demure temptress and doing such a good job he went to his grave believing it. She’d never dated after he died, and never slept with another man. Now, here was Dave. Where would it go, if anywhere?
They reached his apartment, and he let her go ahead of him as he double-checked the doors of the shop. When they went up the stairs, he paused at her door and said good night to her, but didn’t try to kiss her. He squeezed her shoulder, which seemed to be his only gesture. She thanked him and went into her room, closing the door and immediately undressing in the dark. She was exhausted and had one goal: bed and sleep. And in the process, she forgot to call her family to let them know she was okay.
~ ~ ~
Dave Jensen was pleased with the way the day had gone—never in a million years believing he’d finally meet someone, especially by picking her up at the side of the road. He chuckled to himself, pleased that he’d decided to go to North Jersey for that sale. Alice was exactly what he’d been looking for all of his life: a stable, no-nonsense adult he thought incapable of playing games. She didn’t know him, wouldn’t be tainted by his past. She’d get to know him as he was now. Hopefully, she would grow to feel about him the way he thought he might feel about her. He snuggled into his pillow, smiling himself to sleep.
Chapter 6
Vicky stood in her sister’s kitchen, going over the last phone conversation she’d had with Alice, trying to pinpoint anything that could have exposed why she’d leave without saying good-bye. The police hadn’t been called yet; forty-eight hours hadn’t passed. John told her Faye was on her way over after spending a fortifying day at the beach with April. John was ready to kill both of them; selfish bitches, he was afraid he’d pick a fight with her. So Vicky was waiting instead.
Faye was never on time, even during a crisis. She stopped and got snacks for her kids at Wawa; something she wouldn’t have done if her mother was there waiting for her.
The sound in the distance of barking dogs prompted Vicky to look out the window; Faye’s Cadillac Escalade was coming down the driveway, a cloud of dust billowing out from behind it.
Vicky decided to let Faye ask the questions. She stayed in the chair instead of greeting her on the porch, choosing to watch the kids pile out of the car, sunburned, wearing their bathing suit cover-ups, shoving and pushing each other, each with a large paper drink cup and a bag of something greasy, coming to spread their garbage all over Alice’s clean house.
Vicky popped out of the chair to meet them at the door after all. “Ah, I don’t think you’ll be coming in here with all that crap,” she said.
The kids stopped in their tracks, glaring at her, and Faye assumed her haughtiest attitude.
“You’re kidding, right, Aunt Vicky?” she asked.
“No, the hell I am not. You can stay out here and eat that stuff,” she said to the kids. “You,” she said, pointing to Faye, “get in here.”
“What’s your problem, Vicky? You don’t need to take that tone with me.”
“I think I do,” she said. “I know you allow your kids to run like pigs when they come here, and you’re not showing that disrespect now, when we don’t even know if she’s coming back.”
Faye had the decency to look mildly concerned. “Did she leave a note or anything?”
Vicky shook her head.
“Todd said he had her car towed to his shop.”
“No one should touch it until the police have had a chance to look at it!” Vicky yelled. Are these people stupid? “I’m calling John, and you call your husband and tell him not to touch that car!”
John said he’d be right there and told Vicky to call the police. The urgency in the operator’s voice brought Vicky to tears, the reality of the possibilities almost too much for her to think of. What if Alice is dead? Faye seemed annoyed that her mother had disrupted the beach day activities.
“Look, I need to get my kids home and into a tub. Everyone’s covered with sand. If and when my mother shows up, let me know, okay? I don’t have time for this drama. It just proves what I have said all along about her.”
It happened so fast that both women screamed at the same time. Vicky stepped forward and slapped Faye across the face with so much force that it threw her against the open door, slamming it up against the wall.
“Don’t ever talk about my sister like that again,” Vicky said. “When you treat people like crap, they usually end up leaving. I’m surprised Alice stuck around as long as she did. Go, take your monstrous children and leave.” She fought the temptation to shove them out the door.
Faye burst into tears as she pushed the child nearest her toward the car. Vicky slammed the door shut after the last of the children were off the porch. As Faye maneuvered the big car around to leave, Vicky’s cell phone rang. She pulled it out of her pocket and looked at the display; it said Delaware and had an unfamiliar number. She pushed the talk button and said, “Hello.”
“Vicky? It’s Alice.”
~ ~ ~
April’s hands started shaking when Todd called her about her mother’s car and shook as she carefully drove from Folsom after Faye dropped her and the boys off at the car, and continued shaking until she pulled off the highway in Deptford. The last words she said to her mother ricocheted through her head. She hadn’t meant to sound so insulting, to hurt her mother. It was a fact they lived with shabby furniture and hand-me-down clothes. But Alice didn’t see it that way. Well, it is clear she didn’t, dumb ass. She thought of her fragile mother driving away from the house, possibly the last time she’d ever see her if she’d come to some kind of harm, and rather than stopping her, running after her to apologize, April had allowed her to drive off. It was so sad thinking of her beat-up car at the side of the road and imagining what might have happened to her.
She allowed some brutal scenarios to drift through her foggy brain, of Alice being run over after the car broke down or kidnapped or, worse, murdered and her body thrown down the ravine. Todd would have missed it, and when investigators discovered that he was the one who moved the vehicle, they’d issue a warrant for his arrest and come to their front door with a pair of handcuffs. She went throug
h a stop sign at the corner of her block, narrowly missing a car which had the right of way, slamming on its brakes and screaming at her out the window. April lost it then, starting to cry, so that by the time she pulled in her driveway the boys were upset and she could barely see for the tears. Todd came out to see her with the news that Vicky had just called and her mother was on her way to New Mexico with a friend of hers. She’d simply forgotten to let everyone know.
~ ~ ~
“What do you mean you’re on your way to New Mexico?” Vicky asked her as she stood in Alice’s kitchen. “Did you take the bus? Todd found your car on the side of the road.”
“Oh, right. The engine blew up, and my friend told me it would be cheaper to let the county pick it up rather than me calling for a tow,” Alice explained.
“Who’s this friend you’re with? I never remember you mentioning a friend you’d take a trip with in the past, oh, thirty years,” Vicky said.
“It’s someone you don’t know, Vicky. I’m old enough to have friends to travel with without getting your permission,” Alice said. “I’m truly sorry I forgot to call, but it was a last-minute trip. He’s an antique dealer, and we’re going to buy from an estate sale in Santa Fe.”
“He?” Vicky asked, incredulous. Since when?
Alice lowered her voice. “He’s just a friend, so far. I’m hanging up now, but thanks for getting the word out to my family.” She hung up without waiting for Vicky to say good-bye. Dave had gone into the restroom at the Pennsylvania Turnpike rest area while she stayed with the bike. That was another thing. She thought they’d be in a truck pulling a trailer, or a paneled truck at the very least. When he got out another helmet for her to wear, she almost changed her mind about going. Six days on a motorcycle?
“You’ll get used to it after a day or two,” he promised. “By tomorrow, you’ll look forward to getting on the back of the bike. You’ll see more of the scenery and have freedom from being cooped up in the passenger side of a car.”
Alice's Summertime Adventure Page 5
