“So what do you know about it?” he rasped.
“I happened to hear you and Dad talking last night.”
“‘Happened’ to, my eye. You were eavesdropping.”
“Well, I’m worried about you,” I said. “Do you want to talk about it?”
“No.”
I got milk from the fridge, poured it over my cereal, and started to eat. After a minute or two, when Les still didn’t speak, I said, “Am I chewing too loud for you?”
“Yeah. I can hear you breathing, too. Stop chewing and breathing and I’ll be fine.” He took another sip of coffee and stared morosely out the window.
“The course of true love never did run smooth,” I said helpfully.
Les didn’t answer. When that didn’t seem to help, I said, “Every cloud has a silver lining, Les.” And when he still didn’t say anything, I said, “Whenever a door closes, you know, a window opens.”
“Will you stifle it, please?” he growled. “What are you? The Book of Proverbs?”
“I’m just trying to make you feel better, after all the times you’ve been there for me.”
That seemed to soften him a little. He got up and refilled his cup, then stood leaning against the counter, still staring out the window.
“I just thought we had a good thing going,” he said at last. “I was even starting to feel I might have found the right woman for me and then, just like that, I get the brush-off.”
“Yeah, she was about a thousand times better than Eva,” I said.
“That’s for sure,” said Les.
“Maybe she’ll teach at another college here, and then you can date all you want,” I said.
“I don’t think so,” Lester said. “She’s hoping she’ll be hired again next year, and if she’s asked, she won’t have much use for me.”
I hated to see my brother look so sad. There had to be a way around it if they were really in love, regardless of what Dad said.
“Then what you’ve got to do, Les, is have a secret courtship until you’ve got your Ph.D., and then you won’t be a student anymore.”
“A three-year secret courtship?” he sneered.
“If she’s the love of your life, it’s worth it,” I said.
“So what do you suggest, doctor? She has Caller ID and doesn’t answer my phone calls. She won’t answer my E-mails, either. Maybe she thinks they’ve got her place bugged, I don’t know.”
“You’ve just got to do something wild and reckless, Lester! She still sees you as a student. Be a take-charge man! Do something so romantic, so full of animal magnetism that she can’t resist.”
“Like what? Grab her by the hair as she comes out of the faculty dining room and drag her off to my den?”
“No, but if you were to climb through her window at night with a bouquet of flowers or something—oh, Les, she’d just melt in your arms.”
Lester was looking at me strangely, and I realized I had his attention.
“Where does she live, Lester?”
“An apartment off-campus.”
“What floor?”
“It’s a garden apartment. Ground floor.”
“Perfect! It’s destiny, Lester! You’d knock her socks off if you showed you cared that much about her.”
Les continued staring at me for another fifteen seconds. Then he put his cup down. “You’re nuts, Al,” he said, and left the kitchen.
A few days later, Eric came over and we went for a long walk, holding hands like Patrick and I used to do. In fact, I found us walking around the same block, down the same sidewalks that Patrick and I had walked the night we broke up. Were these streets endings and beginnings? I wondered now that Eric was leaving.
“SSSS-So, what are you thinking?” he asked.
“About endings and beginnings,” I said.
“And?”
“It’s just been a really wild year. Relationships, I mean. Like half the time I’m not even sure what’s going on.”
“M-Maybe you d-don’t have to figure it all out. Maybe you sss-shouldn’t even try. Just let things b-be; see what happens.”
I figured he was talking about us right then. I knew he’d be dating other girls down in Texas, and I’d be seeing other guys back here. It just felt as though there was a huge question mark hanging over my head. But maybe he was right: I tried to control things too much.
“Okay,” I said suddenly. “New resolution: Live one day at a time. Just go with the flow and don’t try to guess what will happen next.”
He grabbed me then and gave me a real movie-star kiss, bending me backward under the new shade of a box elder, then lifting me back to a standing position.
“What was that?” I gasped.
“Didn’t you r-recognize it?” he said. “That was what happened next.”
A week later, the phone rang, and at first I thought no one was there.
“Hello?” I kept saying. “Hello?” I thought I heard someone breathing on the end of the line, and for a moment I figured it was an obscene call and was about to hang up.
Then a voice said, “A-Alice?” and I realized it was the first time Eric had ever called me on the phone.
“Eric?” I said.
“Yeah, I just c-called to say g-g-good-bye,” he said. “We’ve g-got a six o’clock flight.”
“Oh, Eric!” I said. “I hope things turn out great for you.”
“Right n-now all I’m thinking about is g-getting my d-driver’s license while I’m down there. And mm-missing you.”
“Well, good luck on that and everything else,” I told him. And then, “It’s wonderful you could call me.”
“Yeah. P-Progress. Will you write?” he asked.
“Sure, if you’ll answer.”
“Of course I will,” he said.
“Okay. I’ll look for that first letter.”
“I m-might surprise you. I might even c-call.”
“Even better,” I told him.
That’s what I mean about change.
I’d no sooner hung up when the phone rang again. I figured Eric had something else he wanted to tell me. But this time it was Karen. “Did you hear?” she asked.
“Hear what?”
“Patrick and Penny. They broke up!”
I was getting dual images in my brain right then of Patrick on one side, Eric on the other. “Really?” I said. “What about?”
“I’m not sure. Penny told Jill it was mutual—that they just didn’t seem to have time for each other. I thought you should be the first to know.”
“Why?”
“Well, you have a shot at him again,” she said.
“Karen, I’m not on a safari,” I told her.
“Yeah, but he was yours in the first place, Alice,” she argued.
“I don’t think anyone ever gave me a title to him,” I said.
“You’re letting a great opportunity slip by,” she said, and hung up.
I’ll admit, I waited to see if Patrick would call me that night. If he wanted to get back together. But he didn’t, and I didn’t call him. And though a part of me would have been glad to have him tell me that all the while he was dating Penny, he was really thinking of me and couldn’t live without me, another part was liking this freedom to just explore and see what was around the next corner. To concentrate on who I was, for a change, without a boyfriend as an appendage. In a way it was nice to be simply “Alice” again, not “Alice and Patrick,” or “Alice and Eric.” I think I was feeling better about myself than I could ever remember.
Lester was going out for the evening, and Dad had a season ticket to the National Symphony, so I invited Pamela and Elizabeth for the night. When we get together now, it’s usually at my place, because what with Elizabeth’s grudge against her parents, and Pamela’s dad dating again, and her never quite knowing what’s going on between her folks, it’s just simpler to have the girls here. I’d hoped Gwen could come over, too, so we could plan some more about camp, but she was going somewhere with her sister.
To take, Elizabeth had written down on a sheet of paper. “Toilet paper,” she said.
“What?” I said.
“Camps never have enough toilet paper. I’m bringing my own supply. Tampons, too. And a huge jar of Noxzema.”
“Sunscreen,” said Pamela. “Write that down.”
“M&M’s, for the middle of the night if I get hungry,” I said. “They’re also great bribes if we have discipline problems.”
“Boys,” said Pamela. “Add those to the list. Big and brawny and cute.”
I was just about to get out a frozen pizza when the phone rang. Who could be calling at ten o’clock at night? I wondered. Patrick? I went out in the hall and picked up the phone outside my room.
“Al,” came Lester’s voice. “Dad there?”
“No. He’s at the symphony, remember?”
Lester muttered something I couldn’t understand. Then he added, “I forgot.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Listen. Write this down because I only get one call,” he told me. I motioned to Liz to bring me her pad and pencil.
“Okay,” I said. “I’m ready.”
“I’m at the police station in College Park, and as soon as Dad gets home, ask him to come over here and get me out.”
“What?” I cried. “What happened?”
“They took me in for breaking and entering, Al, and I don’t know if they’re going to set bail or what. Just tell Dad to come over here as soon as he can.” He gave me the address and phone number and said he had to go.
“Oh, Les. Did you … did Lauren …?”
“Let’s just say she didn’t think it was all that romantic,” Lester said, and hung up.
Pamela and Elizabeth were standing in my doorway, staring at me.
“Lester’s been arrested!” I gasped. “For breaking and entering his girlfriend’s apartment, and it’s all my fault!” I told them about the breakup and what I’d suggested.
“Alice, we’ve got to get him out!” said Elizabeth. “Your dad may not be home for another hour or two, and Les could be beaten up by then! He could be locked up with murderers and stranglers and …”
I was already scared enough, and didn’t need that, but Pamela was all fired up, too. “Let’s pool our money and take a cab!” she said. “We’ll all be character witnesses for Lester, and he’ll be indebted to us for life.”
I did feel responsible, and I wanted to get him out before Dad got home. So Pamela called a cab, I left a note on the kitchen table for Dad in case he got home before we did, saying I’d be back soon, and when the cab pulled up, all three of us crowded in the backseat and asked the driver to take us to the College Park police station.
We could see him studying us in his rearview mirror. “Any … uh … particular reason you girls are going to the police station?” he asked.
“A mission of mercy,” said Elizabeth, and off we went.
“My gosh, can you believe this?” Pamela kept whispering as the cab sped along the beltway toward College Park. “Did you ever think that we’d be rescuing Lester?”
“He’s going to be so glad to see us!” exclaimed Elizabeth.
When the driver pulled up outside police headquarters, he asked, “You want me to wait outside?”
I thought a minute. “Yes, I guess you’d better. I’ll come out and let you know.”
“Okay, but you’re up to eleven dollars now,” he said.
I swallowed, and we went inside. A sergeant sat at a desk and was talking with two other officers standing near the back. They all three stopped talking when they saw us.
“Can I help you?” the man at the desk said.
“Yes. I’d like to see my brother, Lester McKinley,” I told him.
“Al?” came Lester’s voice from somewhere down the hall.
“Lester?” I called back.
And suddenly Elizabeth cried, “Please let him go! We’ve known him all his life, practically, and he wouldn’t hurt anyone, and—”
“Couldn’t you just release him to our custody and we’ll promise to bring him back for the trial?” Pamela put in.
“Al!” yelled Lester again, and I wondered if inmates were beating him up already.
“Don’t let anyone hurt him!” I pleaded. “Just put him in solitary confinement if you won’t let him out.”
“Uh … sister … your brother’s just getting his things together. The lady refuses to press charges. He’s free to go,” the sergeant told me.
“What?” I said.
Just then Lester came down the hall, and all three of us rushed over and threw our arms around him. I was crying because this all had happened on account of me.
Lester shook us loose and fumbled around in his pocket for his car keys. “Damnation!” he said. “My car’s back at her apartment.” He turned to the officers. “Now that you got me out here, how about a ride back?”
“Sorry, buddy. The lady called 911, and we responded. We were just doing our job. One-way transportation only.”
“It’s okay, Lester, I’ve got a cab waiting,” I told him.
He stared at me. “What?”
“It’s all arranged,” I said. “The cab will drive you back to get your car, and we’ll go with you.”
We went outside and the three of us crawled in the taxi again while Lester got in front with the driver. The cabbie looked at him warily, and Lester gave him Lauren’s address.
“It’s okay,” I told the driver. “He’s not violent or anything.”
“Al!” said Lester.
“Only when he’s being studly,” Elizabeth said, giggling.
“And then he’s wild! Pure animal energy!” purred Pamela.
Les turned around. “Will you stop?”
We all got out at Lauren’s apartment building, paid the cab driver, and climbed in Lester’s car. The windows in the ground-floor apartment were dark. I figured she had probably turned out the lights and was watching from a window.
Lester didn’t even glance toward the building. He pulled away from the curb with a screech of tires, and headed back toward Silver Spring.
“Who wants to be dropped off first?” he asked.
“No such luck, Les. They’re spending the night,” I said.
He groaned. “Listen,” he said. “I would really appreciate it if you guys wouldn’t tell Dad any of this.”
“Okay, but you have to tell us what really happened, then,” I said, eager to bargain.
“Oh, good grief!” Lester said. He was quiet for a minute or two, but finally said, “Lauren had asked me days ago to return her house key, so … I was returning the key. I just happened to let myself in first, and was sitting at her kitchen table waiting for her when she walked in. With a new boyfriend, it so happens, a professor in the physics department. I was only going to plead my case, but she never gave me the chance. She pretended I was a student obsessed with her, and called 911 to make it convincing.”
“Maybe you should have brought flowers,” I said.
“It wouldn’t have helped,” Les said bitterly. “She obviously hadn’t told her new boyfriend about me, and especially didn’t want him to know she’d given me her key. That really teed me off, so I was standing there shouting at her when the police arrived… . All this time she’s just been using me to get acquainted, find her way around… .”
“Oh, poor Les,” said Pamela. “There are other fish in the ocean, you know.”
“It’s always darkest before the light,” said Elizabeth.
“It may seem awful now, Lester, but tonight’s the first night of the rest of your life,” I told him.
“Are they offering a course now in platitudes at your school? Bartlett’s Quotations?” Lester said. “Just forget it, will you? It’s over. I’m lucky to have found out now. But remember, not a word to Dad. I don’t want to worry him. He’s too happy these days.”
I agreed.
Dad was already home when we got there, standing in the kitchen, puzzling over m
y note.
“Well!” he said, as we all trooped in. “Where have you been?”
“Out with Lester for a night on the town,” I said.
“Oh?” Dad looked pleased. Pleased, I guess, that Lester was getting over his breakup so soon.
“A little reality contact, that’s all,” Lester said.
“I’m glad to hear it,” Dad told him. “I had a great evening, too. All Schubert and Mendelssohn. A real treat.”
“Then everybody’s happy!” I said, and led the girls back up to my room. Les had paid the cab fare for us, so we weren’t out anything.
We lay on my bed a long time discussing the evening—Lester’s breakup and all.
“You know what that means, don’t you?” said Elizabeth.
“What what means?”
“His having the key to her apartment,” said Elizabeth. “It means they were having sex. When you give a man a key to your apartment, it’s his invitation. You know … the guy is the key, and the woman’s the keyhole, and—”
“You were dropped on your head as a baby,” I said. “Maybe she let him have a key so he could study there, where it was quiet. How do you know?”
“Yeah, and maybe they just liked to get together and play Tiddly Winks,” said Pamela. “Anyone who believes they were just friends, please raise your hand.”
“Okay, maybe. But this keyhole business—”
“It is, it is! Everything’s symbolic!” said Elizabeth, warming to the subject. “Pistons and cylinders, candles and holders—”
“Plugs and sockets,” said Pamela.
There was a tap on the door, and Lester opened it a crack. “Everyone decent?” he called.
“No, Les, we’re all lying here naked,” Pamela called. “Come on in and join the party.”
We giggled.
Les opened the door tentatively, and finally all the way.
“See?” said Pamela. “That didn’t stop him one bit.”
“Just wanted to say thanks, Al,” Lester said. “It was a comedy of errors from the get-go. At least she had enough decency not to press charges, but I’m still steamed.”
“Well, don’t do anything rash, Lester,” I said.
“Don’t worry. I’m off women for the duration.”
Simply Alice Page 14
