For the hundredth time that year, I’d come home from a party…alone.
It was the irony of my life.
I had the busiest social schedule of any girl at senior high—and I had never had a date.
I spent weekend after weekend at parties, dinners, socials, dances, and receptions—and I had never received an invitation. Never danced, never sat down at a meal, never had an escort (unless you count Ralph; my father certainly counts Ralph), and never had my hand held (except by the combo; they certainly felt I got my hand held a lot).
I took a long shower, letting the hot water drain the tension of the evening out of me. My mind ran over the things I’d done well as well as the mistakes I’d have to correct and the practice I’d need to do.
And mixed in with all the pride and the pleasure at being a good musician doing a good professional job was loneliness. I didn’t have a single person to share it all with.
I went to sleep wondering what it would be like to go to a party as somebody’s girlfriend, instead of somebody’s keyboard player.
2
“TELL ME ABOUT IT,” I begged Frannie. “Come on. Please?”
Frannie just shook her head and laughed, as if I were making a really ridiculous request. She fiddled with the pages of her American History assignment. We were studying election regulations and trends. “It was a silly date, Alison,” she said. “It was nothing. We just kind of walked around. You know you aren’t interested in that. Now tell us about the Lindsays’ party. I was thinking about you Saturday night. They have such a super house. That marvelous curving brick drive and that beautiful portico with all the white pillars. Like Cinderella or something. That must have been some dance!”
“I hear they actually have a ballroom right in the house,” said Lisa. “Is that true, Alison? I mean, it is a big house, but it doesn’t look large enough to have a real ballroom.”
“Oh, tell us about it!” cried Jan. “Suzanne Lindsay’s picture was in the newspaper and she looked absolutely beautiful. I bet you had a super time, didn’t you, Alison?”
“It was okay. Just a dance. The decorations were nice, though.” I wanted to hear about Frannie’s date. Her little brother Joey had sold the most candy bars of anybody in his elementary school, raising money for playground equipment. But the day they had to be delivered, Joey was throwing up, so Frannie waded through ice and slush and old blackened snow to make the deliveries for him. And who should volunteer to walk with her but Dick Fraccola! I’d love to go anywhere with Dick, especially laughing our way through the snow with a box of candy bars.
“It was okay,” Jan mimicked me. “Just a dance.” She and Frannie and Lisa rolled their eyes at each other. “Miss Jet Set here can’t even be bothered to describe the party of the season.”
“Aftah all, dahling,” said Frannie, affecting an accent, “they’re such a bore when you’re out night after night.”
I often wondered what they thought I did at these parties. Did they really see me as Cinderella, taking the social scene by storm? I’d told them often enough that for me these parties were work, but they never seemed to hear me. They always thought I was just being a pain.
“Did you wear your scarlet satin number?” said Lisa.
“No, that’s too gaudy for an engagement party,” I said. “At an engagement party the bride is the star and the musicians have to be pretty low-key. I wore my white velveteen costume.”
“Gosh, I envy you,” said Lisa, and from her voice I thought she really did. “The most exciting party I’ve ever been to was Halloween, bobbing for apples at Kevin’s house.”
I’d never been to Kevin’s. He gave a lot of casual parties. They had a big basement with an old jukebox, a pinball machine, a few electronic games, and of course a good stereo set; the kids went there a lot. You knew you were in if you dropped in at Kevin’s a lot. Kevin had asked me. Once. I’d had to decline. I remember the occasion vividly, because I had felt so completely stupid. “Oh, Kevin,” I said, “I’d love to!” I proceeded to drop all my books trying to pull out my engagement calendar, and my Math book smashed Kevin’s foot. “I’m sorry,” I said desperately. “It’s okay,” said Kevin, “I only walk on the bottoms. Can you come?” I bent over to gather up my books, when a girl tripped over me and I went sprawling. After Kevin had gathered me and my books and relocated us in a corner, he said a third time, very patiently, “Can you come?”
I opened my calendar, and Kevin actually gasped at the list of activities I had there. What with term papers, exams, combo practice, music deadlines, and all the gigs Ralph had lined up, the calendar was pretty impressive. Just looking at my schedule exhausts me. I never see how I’m going to live through the month, juggling everything; and every time I turn over a new page I’m sort of amazed, and I think, I really did live through the month.
“I’m sorry,” I said, and I was really, painfully, terribly sorry. “I have a dinner.”
“Oh,” said Kevin. “Well, have fun.” He stacked my books carefully in my arms and pointed me toward my next class and he never asked me again.
The dinner was the induction of officers for the Junior League’s new year. It was the most boring thing I ever endured—some of the gigs Ralph lines up can be pretty dull.
Sometimes, in the cafeteria line or at the school bus stop, Kevin mentions my schedule to someone. “Forget Alison,” he says, although he’s nice about it and smiles—as if he’s proud of me. “She’s probably tickling the ivories for the governor, or something.”
And once Pete Fox asked me to go to the library and study with him. We had a huge, frightening test coming up in Biology: the skeletal, muscular, digestive, and reproductive systems of every little beast we’d studied. “I wish I could, Pete,” I said, checking my calendar, “but I have a rehearsal.”
“You can skip a rehearsal,” said Pete. “You must know all that stuff cold by now.”
“No,” I said helplessly. “There’s always a new hit to learn, or a different kind of music for an unusual gig. Smoothing out the rough spots from the last performance. Working out transitions. Spacing…”
But Pete was bored by that. And hurt, I think. He really thought there was no reason for me not to skip the rehearsal except that I didn’t want to study with him.
The only person who agreed that I couldn’t possibly skip a rehearsal was our football captain, Michael MacBride, who said he personally liked to kill people who missed football practice. I said, “Gee, sort of cuts down on the lineup, doesn’t it?” Mike laughed and touched my shoulder as he passed on, and that was the closest I have ever come to a boy-girl chat.
Furthermore, Pete Fox never quite forgave me for getting an A-minus on that Biology test when he got a C-plus. He was positive I’d skipped the rehearsal anyhow and studied by myself. I tried to describe how Lizzie and Alec quizzed me all through the practice. Ralph would say, “Okay, let’s listen to that record again. Now get that modulation right this time, you jerks,” and Lizzie would say, “Okay, Alison, what two kinds of ribs does a frog have?” After I’d listened very hard to the modulation I’d say, “Fused and carpel,” and Alec would say, “Discuss the digestive system of the earthworm.” Then Ralph would scream, “There’s got to be a keyboard player somewhere who’s out of high school!”
It was fun studying with the combo, but I’d far rather have studied with Pete Fox. After all, Lizzie, Rob, and Ralph are all in their twenties. (Alec is nineteen and rather spaced-out. He took a year off between high school and college to “find himself” and, as Lizzie says, he’s finding less and less each week.)
But when I tried to tell Pete about the combo, he only got the idea that the combo was more fun for me than he was, and he went off bristling and annoyed and hurt.
I dragged myself out of my daydreams and listened to Jan and Lisa and Frannie going on and on about the Lindsay party. “Really,” I said to them helplessly, “It wasn’t that exciting. More than half the guests were Mr. and Mrs. Lindsay’s age, or even olde
r, and we did a lot of slow dances, waltzes, and foxtrots, and we didn’t do much rock at all. We had requests going back to Jerome Kern and—”
“Forget the music,” said Jan impatiently. “Tell us about the party!”
But for me the music had been the party.
“What did everybody wear?” demanded Jan. “What did the bride wear?”
I tried to remember what the bride had worn. I tried to remember something besides the awful buffet and that moment when Ralph smiled evilly at me. “There was this old lady in a golden sheath,” I said finally.
“Sheesh!” said Jan, furious with me. “Don’t be such a snob. Talk with us for a change.”
The bell rang for classes and I had to go in the opposite direction from them.
Sometimes I felt that music, far from being the international language that binds everybody together, had become a wedge between me and my friends. Even the people I knew who were musical—played in the marching band or took piano lessons—didn’t understand.
But then, I didn’t know how to explain myself, anyway.
People asked me about it often enough. You’d think I would have found an easy, logical answer to describe me and music.
I watched Jan and Lisa and Frannie go off together and wondered what they were saying about me. I won’t care about it, I told myself. I’ve bungled a lot of friendships and that’s that. In two years, I’ll be at college, I’ll be a music major, I’ll be with people who understand. Until then I’ll just have to endure high school.
That sounded fine. It carried me about five steps down the hall toward Latin, when I saw, way ahead of me, a boy and a girl sneaking a quick kiss before breaking apart to go their separate ways for the next class.
Two years? I thought miserably. Hang in here alone for two whole years?
I had this overwhelming desire to have somebody love me for myself, not my fingers on the keyboard. To have somebody want to kiss me, not hear me play an old hit tune. I thought how much more warm and wonderful it would be to stroke a boy’s hand instead of ivory, and then I felt absolutely stupid for thinking like that.
My footsteps were getting slower and slower.
The hallways cleared and in another moment I would be late.
Boys, I thought. I don’t even have time to daydream like a normal person, let alone make friends and start dating.
It isn’t worth it, I thought. I’ll tell Ralph I’m quitting. I’m so lonely it hurts and music just isn’t that important.
I scurried alone down the stairs to Latin.
3
LATIN USED TO BE a forgotten subject. Nobody took it. But when I was in ninth grade, there were seventeen of us in first-year Latin and we all loved it. Not one of us dropped out. The class has the same sort of comradeship that the combo does: a tight, yet easy friendship that comes from sharing something difficult and special.
Unfortunately, I hadn’t had time to do my translation, and with only seventeen people in the class you almost always get called upon daily.
“I see panic in your eyes,” murmured Mike MacBride.
“I didn’t have time to do the translation.”
“Superwoman has fallen short. I don’t believe it.”
I flushed, but Mike was smiling at me. “I’m no superwoman,” I said, embarrassed. And proved it. Miss Gardener called on me first and I couldn’t even fake my way through the first noun.
“Zero,” said Miss Gardener gladly. “Too many activities, Alison. Too little attention to what counts, I’m afraid.”
When other people had trouble, Miss Gardener helped them, rather gently. She’d ask for excuses and she’d accept them, no matter how thin they were. We were her favorite class. But when I failed she was glad. I spent the rest of Latin fighting tears.
After class, Mike tugged my hair. It was a funny thing to do. It sounds mean, but it wasn’t. It was sort of affectionate. I looked up at him and thought that any time he wanted to show more affection, I’d be happy to cooperate! I tried to think of something clever to say but nothing came to me. I looked back down at my desk while I gathered up my books, wondering if he had seen my tears.
“It’s just a dumb Cicero translation,” said Mike, “not the end of the world.”
He smiled at me and the world tumbled back into perspective. What a super thing a nice smile is! I felt warmed up like sunshine, and I hugged my books to my chest and smiled back. Mike tugged my hair again and walked on.
He was gone before I realized I had not said one word to him. A boy I really liked, who was nice to me, and I hadn’t even tried to let him know I was glad he’d taken the time to speak to me.
I thought, I know about as much about boys right now as I did about gigs two years ago. Zero.
I began a long involved fantasy about how I would be deluged with offers of dates, so Ralph would have to get substitutes for me five nights a week, and my phone would be ringing off the hook with the deep, romantic voices of strange boys. My father would be meeting a new one at the door every night and I’d leave my spangled sheath at the dry cleaner’s and stock up on all these frilly romantic little numbers. I’d dance instead of provide dance music and all the boys standing on the sidelines would turn and stare at me, the way they do in TV ads for women who have on a new brand of pantyhose.
I figure if you’re going to have a fantasy, you should really lean into it and get it top-drawer.
I thought of the girl being kissed in front of her classroom and told myself that before long I’d have boys arguing over who got the thrill of kissing me in front of—
“Alison!”
Fantasies down the tube. It was a girl calling me.
“Alison!”
I turned to see who it was. Lucy, who moved to town about a week before I began playing for Ralph. Needless to say, I don’t know her very well. We sit next to each other in Chem, though, and once in a while we meet in the cafeteria. She’s one of these people you know you’d like tremendously if there were just time to be around her…but there’s never time. Whenever Lucy talks to me or waves at me I feel a twinge. I want to ask her to spend the night or come over after school or something, but I never do because I never can. “Hi, Lucy,” I said, beaming at her.
“Listen, I know how busy you are, and I’m almost afraid to ask, but I’m having a party for Kathleen Devaney Saturday night and I’d love to have you come.”
“Oh, I’d love to.” I said. It was my refrain. I knew perfectly well I couldn’t come Saturday night. Ralph had booked me to play for a dinner party. People who were paying a lot of money, made arrangements weeks, if not months, in advance. And although I might quit playing for Ralph, I certainly couldn’t quit when he had no replacement for me, not with three nights’ notice.
Lucy had a calendar out—the tiny, pretty kind that Hallmark gives out free, where you have a quarter-inch of space per day to write in appointments. Fine, if you have to go to the dentist once and a party once. I felt pushy and ridiculous getting out my fat leather book and turning to Saturday to prove to Lucy I was really busy. Very busy.
“I’m really going to miss Kathleen, aren’t you?” said Lucy mournfully. “When I moved here, Kathleen was all that stood between me and total loneliness. I want to give her a really special going-away party.”
“Kathleen?” I said, stunned. “Kathleen’s moving?” In first, second, and third grades Kathleen Devaney had been my very best friend. We used to alternate meals at each other’s houses, and I couldn’t begin to guess how many times she spent the night. The Devaneys moved across town in our fourth-grade year, so we’d been in different elementary and junior high schools, but we’d kept our friendship up. In senior high we were so glad to be together again that we used to hug each other in the halls.
Lucy burst out laughing. “Alison, you’re so out of touch,” she said. “Kathleen announced at least three months ago they were moving.”
“Three months?” I said. And she hadn’t called me. Hadn’t said a word to me.
> But then, when was the last time I’d called Kathleen? My heart began hurting.
“Billy is really cut up about it,” Lucy told me, shaking her head.
“Billy?”
“Billy Schuyler,” said Lucy, laughing at me, but getting irritated. I knew the symptoms well by now. “Kathleen’s only been dating Billy for a year, Alison, seven nights a week. You can’t pretend you haven’t noticed that, Alison.”
I could only stand there and gape at Lucy. My best friend from childhood had a boyfriend as steady as that, and I didn’t even know who he was.
Lucy shrugged her eyebrows at me and kept smiling, the way you would at a spoiled brat you like in spite of his rotten behavior. “I…I’m busy,” I said defensively. “My music is practically a full-time job, Lucy, what with having to memorize all those pieces and do all that practice. You just don’t understand how much work is involved. I’ll bet I’ve had to learn six or seven hundred pieces in the last year—and that’s not exaggerating. Everything from Diana Ross and Eddie Rabbit and Bette Midler back to the Beatles back to the Kingston Trio back to West Side Story back to—”
“I get the point,” said Lucy. “You don’t have to brag all the time, Alison.”
I choked back another defense. “When is the party?” I said.
“Saturday night,” Lucy repeated.
I looked at my engagement calendar. I was playing the piano for a dinner party.
“Anybody would think you were the presidential aide for foreign affairs,” said Lucy irritably. “Don’t you ever move without that fat, foolish book?”
“I’m sorry,” I said desperately. “I would if I could.” She didn’t want me to explain anything to her. She didn’t care that I had made a commitment and had to stick to it. She just smiled at me tightly and moved on.
I felt as isolated from high school life as if Lucy had shut a door and bolted it.
How could I possibly go play some dumb piano pieces for some middle-aged clods when my best friend Kathleen’s good-bye party was that night? How could I not have known Kathleen had a boyfriend? Or that she was moving?
He Loves Me Not Page 2
