Alice in April Read online

  Dad and I sat at the table together and I watched while he sewed up my brown pants.

  “I didn’t know you could do that!” I said in astonishment.

  “Who do you think has been mending your clothes all these years?” he asked.

  I hadn’t given it much thought, actually. The elves, maybe. All I knew was that after I’d been wearing safety pins in my clothes for three or four months, I’d put them in the hamper one day, and when I got them back, they didn’t have pins anymore.

  “Did Mom teach you to sew?” I asked when he showed me how to knot the end of the stitching.

  “No, but after she died, I learned in a hurry,” he said.

  Lester came in and got a soda out of the refrigerator, then watched the sewing lesson. I was even feeling kind toward Lester. Now that my pants were mended, I realized I had a reason to live. Then I remembered how Patrick could have called me California, but didn’t, so I might be Florida.

  “Lester,” I said, “what’s the first thing you think of when I say ‘Florida’? About the land, I mean?”

  “Sinkholes,” he said.

  I stared. “Sinkholes?”

  “And swamps,” Lester added.

  I ran upstairs to spend the rest of my life in my room.

  5

  FAMILY BUSINESS

  SOMETIMES I THINK MY LIFE WOULD BE simpler if I didn’t have any aunt in Chicago. Aunt Sally is my mom’s older sister. She’s married to Uncle Milt, and they have a daughter, Carol, who’s a few years older than Lester.

  I guess it’s because Aunt Sally can’t quite believe we’re still alive after Mom died that she calls so often to find out if we need her. She can’t believe that my growth hasn’t been stunted, that Lester’s not on drugs, and that Dad hasn’t married “the first floozy who comes along,” as she puts it. To Aunt Sally, it’s a “wondrous amazement” that we function as well as we do.

  “Alice,” she said when she called that evening. Lester was out, and Dad had gone back to work to put in a few more hours. I was the only one home. “Have you decided yet what you want to do with your life?”

  I didn’t even know what socks I was going to wear the next day, and Aunt Sally wanted to know what I was going to do with my life.

  “Not really,” I told her.

  “Well, one of these days you’ll have to start choosing your course of study. You don’t want to wait until the last minute, then find out you have to have chemistry in order to be a surgeon or something.”

  “Aunt Sally,” I said, “the only way I would ever become a surgeon is if someone threatened to kill me, my family, and wipe out the North American continent unless I did.”

  “A pharmacist, then.” Aunt Sally just wouldn’t give up.

  “What was Mom?” I asked her.

  “Your mother was a homemaker, Alice, one of the most noble professions there is, and if that’s your choice, I won’t say a word against it.”

  The word homemaker always throws me. It sounds as though homemaker is what you have to have if you want a home, yet Dad and Lester and I seemed to get by, and there was no homemaker here that I could see.

  I asked Aunt Sally about it, and she said a homemaker just makes a better home, that’s all.

  “But what does she do?” I wanted to know.

  “A lot more than dishes and dusting,” Aunt Sally said. “In addition to keeping the house clean, the clothes mended and pressed, and food on the table, a homemaker is aware of the seasons. She puts away winter clothes in the spring, summer clothes in the fall, airs the pillows, dusts the blinds, cans the vegetables, preserves the fruit, and turns the mattresses.”

  I swallowed.

  “And that’s only the house,” she went on. “The most important part of her job is people. A homemaker is a nurturer, Alice. She knows what each person in her family needs, who will be working late, who will be rising early, who needs a sack lunch, who needs a light supper, and she remembers all birthdays, music lessons, and dental appointments.”

  I felt as though I should be making a list.

  “Well, I just haven’t decided yet what I want to be,” I said again. And then, because I didn’t want to sound like a total loser, I added, “Right now the choice is between a chef, a waitress, and a forest ranger.” I realized after I’d said it that two out of three had to do with food.

  There was a long pause at the end of the line.

  “Hello?” I said.

  “Alice,” came Aunt Sally’s voice, “a chef and a forest ranger I can take. But let me tell you what you have to look forward to if you become a waitress: tomato stains on your uniforms, varicose veins, customers who don’t know the difference between sunny-side up and over light, and,” she added darkly, “men who want to drive you home.”

  By the time she got to the end, I’d forgotten whether these were pros or cons.

  “I was a waitress one summer when I was in my twenties,” Aunt Sally went on, “and every day this man came in for lunch, and when I’d ask him what he wanted, he’d look me up and down and say, ‘Nothing that’s on the menu.’” She stopped so that I could get the full import of what she meant.

  “If you decide to become a waitress, Alice, I want you to promise that if a man ever says to you, ‘Nothing that’s on the menu,’ you’ll go get the manager.”

  “Okay,” I said.

  When Lester came home, I asked, “Les, did you ever say to a waitress, ‘Nothing that’s on the menu’?”

  Lester sighed and took off his jacket. “I’ve had a rough day, Al. What are you talking about?”

  I told him what Aunt Sally had said.

  “I haven’t yet,” said Lester, “but I’ll keep it in reserve.”

  Something Aunt Sally said, though, about birthdays, got me thinking. Usually I don’t remember anyone’s birthday but my own. I’ll remember Dad’s or Lester’s when I write the date on a math assignment, maybe, and then I’ll go over to the Giant after school and buy a decorated cake from the bakery, the kind Dad scrapes all the roses off of first.

  Dad, on the other hand, remembers both Lester’s birthday and mine in advance, always has a present waiting, and usually asks me a week or two ahead of time where I’d like to go for dinner.

  The Woman of the House was supposed to remember things like this. I went right to the calendar Dad keeps above the telephone and circled two birthdays—Dad’s, on April 30, and Lester’s the fourth of September.

  “Dad’s birthday is coming up the end of this month,” I told Lester. “How old is he going to be?”

  “The big five-o!” Lester said.

  I stared. “Fifty?”

  “You got it.”

  I couldn’t believe it. My dad, half a century old? Some people died when they were fifty! You were supposed to have false teeth and fallen arches when you were fifty! And then I remembered something else Aunt Sally said—that a homemaker keeps track of everyone’s needs. How was my dad’s health, anyway? Did he have any needs I should know about?

  When the phone rang again, I figured it was Aunt Sally with still another idea to add to my homemaker’s list, but this time it was a younger female voice: “May I speak with the woman of the house, please?” she asked.

  “I’m the woman of the house,” I said. From across the room, I could see Lester rolling his eyes.

  “I’m calling to see if you would be interested in a five-hundred-dollar certificate toward family planning,” the voice said.

  My first thought was that a five-hundred-dollar certificate would make a fantastic birthday present for Dad; my second thought was that planning a birthday party was not what the woman had in mind; my third thought was that this had something to do with birth control, and I’d better put Les on the line.

  “Um … what kind of planning?” I asked.

  “‘A happy family is a prepared family,’ we say in this business, and I wonder if you already have your cemetery plot.”

  Someone else knew my dad was going to be fifty!

&n
bsp; “Well … uh …” I thought of all Dad’s relatives down in Tennessee and figured there must be a plot down there somewhere. “I think we already have a family plot,” I told her.

  “Then you could apply the certificate toward a gravestone. A number of families have plots, but few have thought of the expense of a gravestone. Ordering one in advance would save the family an added burden at a trying time.”

  “I don’t think we’re in the market for a gravestone,” I told her. I could see Lester’s eyebrows go up.

  “The five hundred dollars could also be applied toward a casket,” the woman told me. “Do you have a casket?”

  “A casket?” I croaked. “Where would I put a casket? I don’t think I’m in any hurry to run right out and buy one.”

  “Well, not today, perhaps, but tomorrow or the next day,” the woman said.

  I finally had to hang up on her. She just wouldn’t quit. Lester said the next time the cemetery lady called, I should tell her that we planned to be cremated and float our remains down the Potomac. But I began to worry again about Dad.

  The next day I stopped by the Melody Inn Music Store, where Dad is manager, to see if there were any new earrings in the gift section. Dad’s assistant—Janice Sherman, in sheet music—happened to mention that Dad needed a vacation.

  “He’s working much too hard,” she said. “I was here filling orders until ten last night, and he was still working when I left. Maybe you and Lester could talk him into taking some time off.”

  “I’ll see what I can do,” I promised.

  The person I should talk to, I was thinking, was my Language Arts teacher. Maybe I could suggest that she and Dad take a long weekend together, but Lester nixed that idea.

  “First of all, the idea should come from them, not from you,” he said. “In the second place, Dad’s much too straight to go off for a weekend with a woman he’s not married to.”

  “Why not? They don’t have to sleep together,” I said.

  “Well, things don’t work that way, Al. Even if they had separate bedrooms, people would assume they slept together.”

  “That’s stupid!” I insisted. “That’s just plain dumb! Besides, why do they care what other people think as long as they know the truth?”

  As soon as I’d said the words, I remembered what Patrick had said to me about why should I care what state a bunch of boys named me. But it didn’t seem quite the same, somehow.

  “Dad,” I said later that evening as he sat down to play the piano. “Don’t you think we should have a family doctor, and go for checkups and everything?”

  “Actually, I was thinking about that myself last week, Al,” he told me. “If one of us should get really sick, we need someone we can call. So I made appointments for all three of us to have physicals.”

  Physicals? All? We, me included? A “physical” sounded a lot more serious than a checkup.

  “I meant … uh … you and Lester,” I told him.

  “It would be a good idea for all of us, sweetheart. It’s been a long time since any of us had a really thorough exam. Your body’s changing, and I want you to have someone you can go to for personal questions, in case you feel you can’t ask me.”

  I didn’t want to see a doctor. More to the point, I didn’t want a doctor to see me. “I can’t think of any questions I couldn’t ask you,” I told him.

  “But one day you might, and I want someone to be there for you,” he said. “You and Lester have appointments on Thursday afternoon. I’ve arranged it so you can go together.”

  “In the same room?” I squeaked.

  “Of course not, Al. One at a time.”

  “I’m healthy as an ox,” Lester said.

  “Well, I want to keep you that way,” Dad told him. “I’m going to have a doctor check you both over from head to toe.”

  I gulped. “Naked?”

  And when Dad nodded, I realized it didn’t matter whether the boys called me California or Rhode Island, because even Colorado would be embarrassed to stand in front of a doctor without her clothes.

  6

  HUMILIATION

  I DIDN’T TELL ANYONE WHERE I WAS going on Thursday. Pamela asked me to come over after school, and I just said I had to go somewhere with my brother. When I got home I put on clean underwear, washed my feet and armpits, and brushed my teeth. Then I put on a blouse and skirt and went out to the car where Lester was waiting.

  That morning, to make me feel better, I guess, Dad had told me I’d be seeing a woman doctor. It helped some, but not a lot.

  “Have you ever had a complete physical?” I asked my brother. “I mean, everything?”

  “Sure,” he said, backing down the drive.

  “What’s it like?”

  “Well, first they take this four-inch-long needle and stick it in each eyeball. Then …”

  “Lester, stop it.”

  “It’s really not so bad, Al. Builds character! The only part I don’t like is when everyone has to line up naked to be weighed.”

  “Everyone together?” I shrieked.

  “Just kidding. Truthfully, if you can get through the specimen process, the rest is a piece of cake.”

  I didn’t know whether to trust him or not. “What’s the specimen process?” I asked warily.

  “When the nurse holds a paper cup under you and asks you to pee.”

  I put my hands over my ears. “I’m not listening. Shut up! Just shut up!”

  We must have looked weird walking in the medical building, me with my hands over my ears humming as loudly as I could so I wouldn’t hear anything Lester said.

  A. J. RICHARDS, M.D.; M. P. THORNTON, M.D.; R. B. BEVERLY, M.D.; INTERNAL MEDICINE, it said on the door.

  Lester and I went in and sat down. He picked up a copy of Sports Illustrated. I picked up Better Homes and Gardens, but I didn’t read a word. I was too nervous. This didn’t look at all like the pediatrician’s office back in Takoma Park with clowns and elephants on the walls.

  The receptionist gave us each forms to fill out, and Lester did mine for me.

  “Ever had mumps, chicken pox, or measles?” he asked me.

  “How should I know?” I said.

  He put question marks in the spaces.

  “How about mental illness. Check yes?”

  I gave him a look.

  Finally the nurse said, “The McKinleys?” And when we nodded, she said, “Alice, will you come with me?”

  I followed her into the back hall. Whatever horrible thing was about to happen, I wanted to get it over with.

  “Let’s see …,” the nurse said. “You’re here to see Doctor …?”

  “Beverly,” I told her.

  “Okay.” She handed me a paper cup. “If you’ll just take this to the restroom around the corner and give me a specimen, I’ll take it when you’re finished.”

  Ha! I thought. I’d never listen to Lester as long as I lived. When I came out of the restroom, though, I forgot which way to turn, and found myself in the waiting area again. Lester was engrossed in his magazine, and there was only one other person in the room.

  As I passed, I nudged Lester. “Want some lemonade?” I asked, holding out my cup, and he almost took it.

  “Al!” he said suddenly, glaring at me, and I laughed right out loud.

  The nurse was watching us from the doorway. “Brother and sister?” she asked when I came back in. I nodded.

  She weighed me, took a blood sample, then my blood pressure, and finally led me to a room with a desk and chairs in it, and a wall full of books. “The doctor will be with you shortly,” she said.

  There was a picture of Dr. Beverly and her two children on the desk. She was a gorgeous brunette with large white teeth and beautifully shaped eyebrows. I was just settling down to read the titles of all the books when a man walked in and put out his hand. “Hello, Alice. I’m Dr. Beverly,” he said, and sat down.

  I was too astonished to speak; too amazed to tell him he had the wrong patient. I had been s
o sure that the female of the four was Dr. Beverly that I hadn’t even thought to ask. But now that he was here, how could I say I didn’t want him? I thought of saying, “I thought you were a woman,” but that didn’t sound right either.

  What I said was nothing. What I did was nothing. I just gave him a little smile and went on digging the fingernails of one hand into my arm.

  “Well, how are we doing?” he said. “Is something in particular bothering you, or are you just here for a tune-up?”

  I figured that any doctor who referred to a physical exam as a tune-up couldn’t be too bad, so I decided to stick with Dr. Beverly. He asked questions about my family, and I told him how Mom had died of leukemia when I was five. We had just gotten to how often did I have sore throats or earaches when I heard Lester’s desperate voice out in the hallway.

  “I’m sorry, sir,” the nurse was saying, “but Dr. Beverly is with a patient.”

  “I understood I’d be seeing a male doctor,” Lester said.

  “Dr. Richards is an excellent physician. I think you’ll like her, but if you’d prefer to wait for Dr. Beverly, he could see you in an hour, perhaps.”

  Lester mumbled something I couldn’t understand, and their footsteps faded away. I decided to stay right where I was and let Lester see the woman doctor. It would be good for his character.

  * * *

  When we were through with the talking part, Dr. Beverly rang for the nurse and she took me to an examining room.

  “Now,” she said cheerfully, “I want you to take off all your clothes except your panties.”

  I nodded.

  “I like to let patients keep on a little something of their own,” she whispered with a wink. “Makes them feel more secure.”

  I didn’t tell her that I wouldn’t feel secure if I were surrounded by the United States Army.

  “Then,” she went on, handing me a paper sheet, “put on this robe, with the opening in front, and climb up on the table.” She went back out and closed the door.

  Robe? I unfolded the paper sheet. There were two holes in it for my arms and a string to tie it around me. I looked at the door and then at the robe. How long before they came back? What if I got all my clothes off and they came in before the robe was on?