Alice Alone

by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor

  Pamela let out her breath. We waited.

  “And he … he asked me to stand very still and let him touch me. I let him lift me up to stand on a rock or something, and he pressed against me from behind and put his fingers down my pants again, and then we went home and he thanked me for helping him not to feel so lonely anymore.”

  “And your parents still didn’t catch on?”

  Elizabeth’s face was all scrunched up again. “I still thought maybe they knew! That they wanted me to do this for him. He was one of their best friends, and I felt I should do whatever he said. It was only a couple years ago, in thinking about this, that I began to see they simply thought it was a game. It was all in fun, our walks. But I took their smiles to mean they knew what he was doing to me. How could I have been so dumb?”

  “Elizabeth, you were only seven!” I said.

  “Eight, by then. And when I got home that day and went to the bathroom, I found that my shorts and shirt were wet and sticky in back and I changed them, and rinsed them out under the faucet. When Mom asked why I’d changed my clothes, I told her I’d just got wet, and I guess she figured I’d slipped in the creek or something.”

  “It must have made perfect sense to them,” Pamela said. “The walk to the creek … the strainer … the biologist … the trusted friend. Who would have thought?”

  Elizabeth pressed the palms of her hands hard against her cheeks, sliding them up over her temples as though wanting to wipe the skin right off her forehead. “The thing is … the thing is … when he touched me, it … it felt good. I didn’t think we should be doing that, but he wasn’t hurting me, physically, and even later— years later—any time I thought of telling Mom about it, I couldn’t, because I felt I was as guilty as he was. Because it had felt good … what he did.”

  So many things came to mind just then—the way Elizabeth had always reacted to talk about sex and bodies, the way she embarrassed so easily. All her emphasis on sin and confession—her mother never struck me as being that way particularly.

  “Elizabeth,” I said. “If a guy touches you without your permission and you get a ping out of it, it doesn’t mean you did something wrong. When somebody touches the right button, you ping, that’s all!”

  She was thoughtful. “The next time he came, the next summer when I was nine, it was raining, and he didn’t say anything about a secret walk. He and my folks were talking in the living room and I went down in the basement to play with this big Victorian dollhouse my dad had set up for me. After a while this man came down to see it. Dad and Mom came, too, and then the man sat down on a chair and he was sort of playing along with me, making silly things happen to the dolls. Dad and Mom stayed for a while, we were all laughing at him, and then they went upstairs and he stayed. For a while we were having fun. And then …”

  I began to notice anger in Elizabeth’s voice. “Then he said it was too bad we couldn’t go for one of our walks, but did I want to see something secret? And he took one of my hands and … and put it on his pants. I could feel his penis underneath … and I pulled away from him and went upstairs to my room. I remember walking very deliberately; I didn’t run or anything because I didn’t want my parents to know I was walking out on him. I mean … believe it or not … it seemed so rude, and I just told Mom I was going to play in my room awhile.”

  “What’d the guy do? Follow you up there?” Pamela asked.

  “No. He came up from the basement and played the piano awhile, and then he and Dad and Mom sat around talking the rest of the evening. When I got up the next morning, he’d already left for the conference.”

  “When did you see him again?” I asked.

  “I didn’t. About four months later he was killed in a car accident, a really freak accident, my dad always said. And … and it was like … like I’d made it happen.”

  “But you didn’t!”

  “I know, but the fact is, I was glad when I heard it. Mom cried when we got the news, and Dad had tears in his eyes, but I wasn’t sad at all, and they kept looking at me, like, what was wrong with me? This wonderful man who brought me presents and was respected in his field and had done so much for ghetto kids, and I wasn’t even sad? And finally … finally … I made myself cry, not because I was sorry he died, but because my parents were so d-disappointed in me!”

  Elizabeth broke down again, and I began to see how problems can get so complex, how all these different feelings could get mixed and matched in your head, and be so hard to get out later. I couldn’t help but wonder about myself … feelings I might have had, or still have, about my own mother when she died.

  I don’t know how Pamela and I knew what to do just then, but it seemed like we did the right thing: We hugged Elizabeth, Pamela on one side of her and I on the other, so that we were sort of a warm moist ball of arms and faces, and I think that without quite knowing it, we were making Elizabeth feel safe with us and protected. We just let her cry, and she cried softly, like a little mouse, until she was limp and drained. When we let her go, she sat there on the bed with her head on her knees.

  “You know, Liz, you aren’t going to be really free of this till you tell your folks,” I said finally. “They really need to know.”

  “Why?” she asked, looking up at me, her face all streaked. “First, I’m not sure they’ll believe me. They’ll say I must have imagined it, or that it happened so long ago, I’m getting fact and fantasy mixed up. Or if it really happened, why didn’t I tell them before? He was their best friend, Alice! Everyone loved him. Everyone but me.”

  “They need to know because they love you, and it’s a part of you that’s hurting,” I told her.

  “But I’m probably just as guilty as he was. I didn’t try to stop him, except for that last time. He said stand still so I did. I could have pushed him away.”

  “You were eight years old, Elizabeth! That’s third grade!” I said. “And it wouldn’t have made any difference if you were older, because he was the adult and you were the child. Look! We’re considered minors till we’re eighteen, right? Up until then, adults are supposed to know best and we’re supposed to obey them, and that’s exactly what you did.”

  “Well, I’m not telling Mom. It would just kill her. Let them remember him the way they think he was. But I feel better having told you,” Elizabeth said.

  We sat up another hour after that, talking. We heard Dad and Lester come in and go to bed, and when we finally turned out our light around one, Pamela and I in my double bed and Elizabeth on the cot under the window, I decided I was pretty sure what I wanted to do as a career. I truly did want to be a psychologist, someone who works with children before little problems become big ones. Someone who, maybe if she’d seen Elizabeth when she was eight or nine, could have helped her get the feelings out before they took up so much space in her life.

  15

  The Test

  It turned out that Patrick and Penny hadn’t gone to the Snow Ball, either, Jill told me. She stopped by the Melody Inn the next day to show me pictures of herself and the sophomore who had taken her to the dance. Jill had worn a white strapless dress, and her bosom was bulging over the top. If she’d sneezed, she would have popped right out.

  I wondered what it meant that Patrick hadn’t taken Penny, or whether it meant anything at all. But mostly I was thinking about Elizabeth. I couldn’t get her out of my mind—what it must feel like to go five or six years hiding a secret like that and feeling guilty about it.

  Nevertheless, I had work to do, and Marilyn and I spent the day restocking the display of Christmas CDs near the front of the store and making sure we were caught up on telephone orders. We left at the usual time, but Dad said he’d work another hour or two.

  When I walked in the house, I could hear Lester rummaging about the kitchen, making dinner, but there was a message for me to call Karen, so I did.

  “Alice,” she said as soon as I dialed her number. “I didn’t think I ought to call you at the Melody Inn. Is your dad home?”
/>   “No. Why?”

  “I just need to tell you something when he’s not around, and I’m not even sure I should be telling you in the first place.”

  “What are you talking about?” I asked, puzzled.

  “Well, I was at my dad’s last night. I told you he was giving this party, and I was, like, helping out. Dad and Jim Sorringer are friends, you know. He bought that engagement ring for Miss Summers last February at Dad’s jewelry store, remember? The ring she turned down? Anyway, Sorringer was there at the party, and at one point he was at the buffet table with his back to me—I was gathering up dirty glasses—and a woman asked him how he was going to spend the holidays, and I heard him say he was going to England. I … I just thought you should know.”

  At the first mention of Jim Sorringer I had felt a wave of cold rush over me, but now it felt as though I had swallowed an ice cube, and I wasn’t even sure I could breathe.

  “Alice … I … I didn’t know if I should say anything… .”

  I tried not to sound worried. “Did he … say any more? Did he say he’d be going to Chester?”

  “Yes. That’s exactly where he said he’d be going. The woman said wouldn’t Christmas in London be wonderful? and Jim said that actually he’d be spending it in Chester.”

  I wanted to throw up. “Well, there could be all kinds of explanations, I suppose,” I managed to say. “There’s no law that says he can’t go to England.”

  “I suppose so. It probably doesn’t mean anything at all. Maybe he’s going with someone else and he’s just stopping by to say hello to Miss Summers,” Karen said quickly.

  “Was he with anyone at the party?”

  “No,” she admitted. “He came alone.”

  “Well, thanks, anyway, Karen,” I said.

  “Yeah, thanks for nothing,” she said apologetically. “I just thought you should know, that’s all.”

  After I hung up, I wondered if I was having a heart attack. If a fourteen-year-old girl could actually expire from anger and disappointment. And suddenly I lost it. I went stumbling out to the kitchen.

  “I hate her!” I said, breaking into tears. “She’s a liar and a cheat, and I hate her!”

  “Who was that?” Lester asked.

  “Karen.”

  “What did she do?”

  “Not Karen. Miss Summers! Mr. Sorringer is going there for Christmas!”

  Lester stopped chopping onions and stared at me. “When did you hear this?”

  “Just now.” In shaky fits and starts I told him about the party at Karen’s dad’s, and what Karen had heard Jim Sorringer say. “That’s why she didn’t want a diamond!” I wept. “That’s why she didn’t want any engagement ring at all! She didn’t want to be wearing one when Jim came for Christmas! And she told Dad she’d be traveling during the holidays! Traveling with Jim, that’s what!”

  Lester put the knife down and leaned against the counter. I had expected him to say it wasn’t any of our business. I expected him to say that this was between her and Dad, but this time he didn’t. “How do you know Karen’s telling the truth—that she isn’t just stirring up trouble?” he asked.

  “Well, what she told me before was true—about Jim Sorringer buying Sylvia a ring. I don’t think she’d lie about this. She didn’t sound as though she was trying to make trouble.”

  Les was thoughtful. “Well, there may not be anything to it,” he said, “but this time, I think Dad ought to know. Maybe he already does. Maybe it’s Sylvia’s final good-bye to Jim or something—her way of making sure she’s doing the right thing.”

  “How can you say that?” I shouted. “If she’s not sure of Dad, then they shouldn’t be engaged. Is she going to go on seeing Jim Sorringer for the rest of her life to make sure she did the right thing marrying Dad?”

  “Well, let’s not jump to conclusions. Let’s tell Dad as calmly as we can and let him handle it in his own way.”

  But now the tears were really rolling. All my resolutions about not crying at every little thing … “It’s two weeks before Christmas, Lester! Dad’s been so happy. She’ll break his heart. What I want to do is call Sylvia myself and tell her what she’s doing to him.”

  “You’ll do nothing of the kind. We’re just going to tell Dad what you heard, and that’s all… .”

  The front door closed, and Dad’s footsteps sounded in the hall. I froze. He walked straight into the kitchen and looked at me. “Well, what’s all this?” he said jovially. “Has somebody called off Christmas?”

  That made it even worse, because someone had, I wanted to say. Sylvia Summers, that’s who, but I didn’t trust myself to answer, so Lester answered for me.

  “Al heard a disturbing piece of news just now, Dad. Karen was helping out at her father’s Christmas party last night, and Jim Sorringer was one of the guests. Karen overheard him tell a woman that he would be spending Christmas in England. In Chester, to be exact.”

  Dad stared at us as though Lester were speaking Norwegian, as though Les weren’t making a bit of sense. He reached out, opened the refrigerator, took out a bottle of cranberry juice, and set it on the counter. And two seconds later, just as mechanically, he put it back in again, his eyes unblinking. “Well, he’ll find Sylvia gone. She’ll be traveling,” he said, but his face looked blank. Then he added, “It’s possible that Jim’s just doing some traveling himself. A coincidence, maybe.”

  We all knew the answer to that. London? Possibly. But, Chester? No.

  “Was he going alone, do you happen to know?” Dad asked, looking at me. “Maybe he’s traveling with a friend.”

  “I don’t know. But Karen said he came to the party alone,” I told him. And then I lost it again. “Dad, I’m so sorry,” I wept. “I hate Sylvia!”

  “Now, don’t say that, Al. There could be a good explanation. We didn’t hear all the facts,” Dad said, but he didn’t convince me.

  “Call her!” I said. “Ask her what it’s all about.”

  “No.” Dad was firm. “I’ll let her tell me herself without any prodding from me.” And then he added, “She’s supposed to call tonight, and she’ll undoubtedly explain it then. Now, what are we having for dinner?”

  I couldn’t bear it. I couldn’t stand the hurt in his eyes, his voice, his face … I blindly reached for the plates and set the table.

  Dinner was a sober affair. I think we all ate the burritos without tasting. It looked as though our mouths were scarcely moving, as though we weren’t even chewing.

  “How are things at the store?” Lester asked finally. “Business has been nonstop at the shoe store.”

  “We sold two baby grands this week,” Dad said. But his voice was flat, and the conversation died after that.

  I did the dishes after dinner, and Lester and I went right on up to our rooms because we knew it was close to midnight in England, and Sylvia would be calling Dad any minute now. We wanted him to have the downstairs to himself so he could talk to her in private. I spread out my homework on my bed, but left the door ajar. When the phone rang and I heard Dad pick it up, I’ll admit that I got up and went to my doorway.

  “Oh, Sylvia, it’s so good to hear your voice,” Dad said. “… I know. I miss you, darling… .” There were murmurs, words I couldn’t make out. Then I heard Dad telling her about work and the big pre-Christmas sale at the Melody Inn. I changed position and waited. “How I wish you could be in my arms at Christmas,” Dad was saying now. “How will you spend the day, sweetheart?” He was fishing, I knew. Giving her every opportunity to tell him. More silence. Then, finally, “Oh … uh-huh … I see … well, that might be fun… . No, I won’t try to reach you then, but you’ll be calling me?”

  She wasn’t telling him! Whatever she said was a lie. I went back and sat on the edge of my bed, waiting for Dad to come up and tell us what she’d said. When we heard his footsteps on the stairs, both Les and I came to the doors of our rooms. Dad paused on the next to the top step, his hand on the banister.

  “What d
id she say?” I asked.

  “Well, she didn’t mention Jim. I guess she plans to do her traveling just after Christmas, between Christmas and New Year’s. I asked what she’d be doing Christmas Day, and she said that one of the teachers had invited her to have dinner with her family, and she’d be out most of the time, but she’d call me that evening.”

  “And you didn’t ask her about Sorringer?” I wanted to know.

  “No… . . Whatever her reasons, she’s keeping them to herself. But I trust her—”

  “I can’t believe you’d put up with that, Dad!” I cried. “If you had another woman coming here at Christmas … !”

  “Al, cool it!” Lester said sternly.

  Dad just sighed. “I’ve got to handle this in my own way, honey,” he said. And walked slowly back to his room. He looked like an old, old man.

  After I heard his door close and Lester closed his, I angrily wiped one arm across my eyes. I didn’t have to trust Sylvia! I didn’t have to excuse her! I rushed over to my dresser, grabbed the picture of Miss Summers off my mirror—the photo of her I’d always liked best, Sylvia in a filmy blue and green dress—and ripped the picture in half.

  “There!” I cried, and ripped it a second time. “There! And there! And there!” And then I lay facedown on my bed and bawled some more.

  As Christmas drew near, our house was like a morgue, and I began to feel that as much as I had loved Sylvia Summers in the past, I hated her now. I was glad we were busy at the store. I went in twice after school the week before vacation, just to help out. I’d bought Polartec gloves for both Dad and Lester, as well as their favorite candy. And I was going to make a chocolate cake for Christmas dinner, the best ever. But I knew that cake and gloves couldn’t make Dad happy. I didn’t have the power to do that for him, any more than he could make me forget Patrick. My anger at Sylvia was like a fever that wouldn’t let up.