Alice Alone
Page 16
Elizabeth, however, seemed more relaxed these days somehow. I couldn’t say she seemed happier, just thoughtful. Pamela and I didn’t ask her any more about the episode with the biologist. To keep bringing the subject up would put more emphasis on it than it deserved. But when I saw her folks going in and out of their house, it bothered me that I knew something so basic about Elizabeth that they didn’t.
On the last day of school, Sam Mayer wished me Merry Christmas, and I wished him Happy Hanukkah, and I was really surprised when Patrick called out, “Merry Christmas, Alice,” as I was getting my coat out of my locker.
I took the chance to have a normal conversation. I smiled at him and said, “You, too, Patrick. Doing anything special?”
“I’m going skiing with my folks in Vermont.”
“Sounds good,” I said. “Happy New Year, too.”
“Same to you,” he said, and smiled that funny little smile that wrinkled the bridge of his nose. I told myself I still saw a glint in his eye for me, imagined or not, because I needed every glint I could get this Christmas.
Elizabeth and I walked home from the bus stop together. I’d told her what Karen had said about Jim Sorringer. I had to, because Karen had already told some of the kids on the bus. Karen is one of those people who seems to be your really close friend, but you never know.
“Well, if it will make your Christmas any happier, Alice, I told my folks,” Elizabeth said.
“About Miss Summers? Why would that … ?”
“No. About me. About what happened back in second grade.”
I stopped and looked at her. “Good for you, Liz!” I said. I gave her a hug right there on the sidewalk, and repeated, “Good for you!”
“And you were right. I feel so much better.”
“What did they say?”
“Well, they were stunned. It wasn’t that they didn’t believe me. They never said that maybe I imagined it, but they quizzed me in such detail that I could tell they wanted to make sure. And then Mom cried. I knew she’d do that. They both kept saying, Why didn’t you tell us the first time? That’s the part they still can’t understand. I can’t, either. You just … when you’re small, I think … you accept things about grown-ups, like whatever they do must be right because they’re adults. There’s so much they ask us to do anyway that we don’t understand, so when this man told me I could help him not feel so lonely and asked me to stand still, well … it must be right, I figured, or my parents wouldn’t have let me go on those walks.”
“Kids can’t reason like adults,” I told her.
Elizabeth nodded. “What I feel worst about, though, is that … well, when I told my parents I thought they knew what their friend was doing to me, that’s when Mom really cried. Dad even cried. But you know what? They hugged me. They both hugged me, just like you and Pamela did.”
“You’re lucky, Elizabeth, because you hear about girls telling their moms that their dads or stepdads are molesting them, and the mothers won’t believe it. Don’t want to believe.”
“They made me promise that if anything like that ever happened again, I’d tell them. And best of all, they said I didn’t have to tell the priest in confession unless I wanted. They said it was their friend who should have had to confess, not me. And it’s like … like I’m twenty pounds lighter. I feel one hundred percent better.”
“It must be a great feeling,” I said, wishing I could feel the same about Sylvia Summers.
“The best! I don’t even want to say the guy’s name again. I’m going to call him El Creepo. Dad said that was fine with him.”
We laughed a little.
“I did ask my parents, though, how a man who was supposedly loved by everyone and did such noble things could do something like that to a little girl, and they said that, unfortunately, a person can be mature in one way and infantile in another. He can be generous and selfish, both at the same time. And just because everyone seemed to love him didn’t excuse what he did at all.”
“I hope they also pointed out that a man who molests kids, no matter how wonderful he is, is breaking the law and, if he was still alive, would go to prison,” I told her.
We got to Elizabeth’s house and stopped. “The thing is,” she said, “Mom’s going to make an appointment with me to see a therapist. She wants to be sure I work out my feelings about El Creepo so that things won’t bother me later on. I don’t know how I feel about that.”
“I think it’s a great idea,” I said. “I think it would make sense if we all had a head check once in a while.”
We were halfway through dinner that night when the phone rang. Dad had just put a bite of pork chop in his mouth, and gestured for me to get it, so I scooted my chair out from the table and went down the hall.
It was Sylvia’s voice on the line, and she sounded tense: “Alice, I need to talk to Ben,” she said right off. “Is he there?”
“Yes,” I said coldly. “I’ll get him.”
I clunked the telephone down on the hall table and hoped it hurt her ear. “It’s Sylvia,” I said in the kitchen. “She wants to talk to you.”
Dad paused, his glass halfway to his lips. Then he hurriedly left the table, but I seethed.
Tell her this is the first year you’ve missed the Messiah Sing-along, I wanted to say to Dad. All because it would have reminded you of her. Tell her how she’s ruined Christmas for us, the whole Christmas season. Tell her she’s a cheat, and that I take back all the good things I ever said to her. I speared a potato and angrily thrust it in my mouth.
“Chew, Al,” Lester said, even though I knew he was listening, too.
We both sat silently, trying to decipher what words we could hear of Dad’s conversation.
“Sylvia? How are you?” Dad was asking.
There was a long silence. I heard the chair by the phone creak as he finally sat down. He still didn’t say anything, and I could feel in my bones that this was good-bye. That she was going back to Jim Sorringer, and hadn’t known how to tell him before.
“Swallow, Al,” Lester said.
I swallowed the potato.
And then we heard Dad say, “Honey, I wouldn’t have cared if you’d had dinner with him, but I think you handled it well.” Lester and I looked at each other. “Of course! I can’t help feeling sorry for the man.” There was a long, long silence. Then, “I know… . I feel the same way… . You know I do… . Yes, beyond a doubt.” And finally, so soft and gentle, we could hardly hear it, “I can’t wait until you’re in my arms again.”
Lester and I looked across the table at each other and suddenly we began to grin and gave each other a high five, just as Dad came back in the kitchen.
“Al,” he said, “Sylvia wants to talk to you.” He was smiling. His cheeks were pink, his eyes sparkled.
“Me?” I slowly lowered my hand, and could feel my face redden. I had talked to her with ice in my voice and slammed the phone down on the table. I’d torn her picture in pieces, for heaven’s sake!
“What … what’ll I say?” I choked.
“How about Merry Christmas?” Dad said, smiling still.
I went down the hall and picked up the phone.
“Alice, I want you to know what’s going on,” she said. “There was a Christmas program at our school this afternoon, and when I got back to my flat, Jim Sorringer was waiting for me in the landlady’s parlor.” And then, as though she was talking with a friend—she was talking with a friend—she said, “That is so like him. Just up and decides he’s going to do something, and … I had no idea he was coming. He evidently thought he could change my mind about things by surprising me here, but I explained to him that I am madly in love with your dad, and I think he finally got the message. He’s on his way back to London, to spend Christmas there. I know how stories get around, though, and wanted you to know that I had nothing to do with his visit. Nothing has changed between me and your dad.”
“Oh, Sylvia! I love you! I really, truly do!” I cried. “Merry Christmas!”
“Well, sweetheart, I love you, too,” she said, and I could hear the smile in her voice. “And I hope you have the best Christmas ever!”
When she hung up, I walked slowly to the kitchen and gazed unblinking at my family.
“Helloooo!” Lester said, waving one hand in front of me.
I blinked. “Dad,” I said. “You know that picture I like of Sylvia? The one you took of her in her blue-green dress?”
“Yes, I know the one,” Dad said.
“Could you get me another print? Something happened to the one I had.”
Dad studied me for a minute. Then he said, “I suppose that could be arranged. What size did you want, Al? Four by six? Five by seven?”
“Poster size?” I said, and gave him a sheepish grin.
BE SURE TO READ ALL OF THE ALICE BOOKS
The Agony of Alice
Alice in Rapture, Sort of
Reluctantly Alice
All But Alice
Alice in April
Alice In-Between
Alice the Brave
Alice in Lace
Outrageously Alice
Achingly Alice
Alice on the Outside
The Grooming of Alice
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