Alice In-Between Read online

  “Me, either,” she said. “It turns your teeth yellow.”

  We made each other promise that if anybody ever tried to get us to smoke, the other would step in and stop her. When Pamela appeared at our door to ask for gum, Elizabeth said earnestly, “Don’t ever smoke, Pamela! Promise!”

  “Who’s smoking?” said Pamela. “What’s the matter with you guys, anyway?”

  She went back to her roomette and stayed away so long that I began to wonder what she was doing. I made my way down the hall. When I got to Pamela’s roomette, I saw a man in a suit and tie, holding his jacket casually over one shoulder, leaning against her doorway and talking.

  10

  PAMELA’S ROOM

  I TURNED AROUND AND RACED BACK TO our bedroom.

  “There’s a man in Pamela’s roomette!” I said.

  Elizabeth’s eyes grew as large as grapefruit. “Get him out!” she breathed.

  “Well, he’s not exactly in it, but he’s talking to her. I’ll bet he’s thirty at least. Forty, even!”

  We stared at each other silently for ten seconds or so. I think deep down we had known that someday this would happen; someday we would have to rescue Pamela.

  “Okay, here’s what we’ll do,” Elizabeth said. “We’ll both go down together and say, ‘Pamela, Dad wants to talk to you immediately.’”

  I shook my head. “She’d never forgive us. Don’t mention her father, for heaven’s sake!”

  Elizabeth thought it over. “Okay, we’ll go down and say, ‘Pamela, your boyfriend, the police officer, wants you to meet him in the lounge car.’”

  “Doesn’t that sound a little hokey?” I asked.

  “He’s got to know there’s someone on board to defend her!”

  I rolled my eyes. “Why not just say, ‘Your boyfriend, the police officer, the one who has the black belt in karate, is headed this way?’”

  We decided we would know what to say when we got there, so we both piled out the door and started along the narrow corridor. And then, around the corner, where the aisle in the sleeping car makes a sharp turn, came Pamela. Her cheeks were pink, her eyes shining, and she practically mowed us down. She herded us back to our bedroom and shut the door.

  “Guess what?” she said breathlessly. “A man asked me to dinner.”

  I stared. “You said no, didn’t you?”

  “Of course not! I said yes.”

  “Pamela, you’re having dinner with us!” Elizabeth bleated.

  “Oh, it’s just this one night! It’ll be a riot! He thinks I’m on the train by myself! C’mon, you guys, it’s just for kicks.”

  Elizabeth sat down hard on the couch. “I never should have come,” she said.

  I didn’t know what to do. “How old is he?” I asked, as if that made any difference.

  “Thirty-seven! I told him I’m going to college in the fall.”

  I was so angry at Pamela I didn’t know what to do. “What college?” I said, glaring, as if that made any difference.

  “Joseph and Mary.”

  “What?”

  “It was the first college that came to mind. I heard it somewhere.”

  “I never heard of Joseph and Mary College, and if there was a college like that, I would have known about it,” said Elizabeth. She would have too.

  I tried to think of names of colleges Lester had applied to before he’d started at the University of Maryland.

  “I’ll bet you meant William and Mary,” I told Pamela.

  “Whatever,” she said.

  “I thought we were going to have a good time on the train together,” said Elizabeth. “I thought we were going to play cards and just have fun.”

  “We will, as soon as dinner’s over. I promise!” said Pamela. “It’s just for laughs. You’ve got to pretend you don’t know me if you pass me in the dining car.”

  “I don’t know you,” said Elizabeth, turning up her nose. “I don’t want anyone to even think I know you.”

  “Oh, don’t be so stuffy,” said Pamela. “See you later, guys. He’s coming back to show me his sample case. He sells sports equipment to high schools and stuff.” And she was off again.

  “I don’t think I want to have anything to do with Pamela ever again. She just picked him up, like this was a bar or something,” said Elizabeth.

  “Hey, wait a minute, he came to her!” I said.

  “I’ll bet she waved at him from the window.”

  “Bet she didn’t. He was probably just walking through and stopped to talk. I mean, there’s really nothing wrong with having dinner with someone, Elizabeth.” I was only trying to make myself feel better.

  Elizabeth simply curled up on the seat by the window and watched the trees go by. We had passed Rockville and were heading toward Harpers Ferry, West Virginia.

  Elizabeth was in our bathroom when the announcement came over the loudspeaker that all those holding dinner reservations for the seven o’clock seating could come to the dining car.

  Moments later there was a shriek from the bathroom. I tapped on the door and then opened it. “What’s wrong?”

  Elizabeth was standing there, one hand on her throat. “I flushed, and you can see daylight through that toilet.”

  “So?”

  “The toilet flushes right out onto the tracks!”

  “Just the water. The paper and stuff stays in a holding tank.”

  “Alice, if you were sitting on the toilet and flushed, you would be visible!”

  “Only to someone lying on the tracks while a train was going eighty miles an hour overhead. C’mon. They called for our dinner seating.”

  Elizabeth came out and was looking around for her shoes when we saw Pamela and the man go by. He was walking behind Pamela, one hand on her elbow, as though he was guiding her along the aisle. As though she might make a wrong turn or something and get lost.

  Pamela didn’t even look in as she passed. The man certainly didn’t look at us. We picked up our meal vouchers, and as soon as Elizabeth had her shoes on, closed the door behind us and made our way to the dining car.

  We had to wait in a short line while people were being seated.

  “How many?” the attendant asked when it was our turn.

  “Two,” I said.

  The attendant ushered us right to the table where Pamela and the man were sitting side by side, smiling at each other. Pamela’s smile all but disappeared when we slid into the seat across from them.

  “Good evening,” the man said pleasantly to us.

  “Hello,” I told him, and opened the menu. Across the table Pamela had grown very quiet.

  Elizabeth watched what I did and checked little boxes on her order sheet to show what she wanted. After we’d done that, the man stopped looking into Pamela’s eyes and said to us, “Are you coming or going?”

  “What?” I said.

  He smiled. “Are you on your way somewhere, or are you returning home?”

  “We’re visiting in Chicago,” I told him.

  “So are we,” he said. Pamela smiled faintly and looked out the window. “Ride Amtrak whenever I can. I really like the train. As they say in the commercials, it’s the civilized way to travel.”

  “You two are married?” Elizabeth asked suddenly. Sometimes she surprises even me. Pamela’s eyes opened wide, but the man just smiled.

  “Bill Donovan,” he said, by way of introduction. “And this is Pamela … uh …”

  “Jones,” said Pamela.

  “Alice McKinley and Elizabeth Price,” I said.

  “Nice to meet you,” he told us.

  The waiter came to the table just then and went over our orders with us, and when he left, Bill Donovan and Pamela were whispering together again. The air-conditioning was on the cool side, and the man asked Pamela if she was cold. He put one arm on the back of the seat, and his fingers just touched her shoulder. Elizabeth gave me a nudge. Pamela turned toward the window and smiled again.

  I don’t know what it was—the fact that I was
far from home, and feeling grown-up, and not caring one whoop about Bill Donovan, but I looked across the table and said politely, “And what kind of work do you do?” Like I was thirty or something.

  “Sales,” he said. “Sports equipment to high schools and colleges. Uniforms are big in our company.”

  “I see,” I said. And then I looked right at Pamela. “Are you traveling on business too?”

  She kicked my leg under the table, but I didn’t even wince.

  “I’m a student,” she said.

  “Grade school?” asked Elizabeth.

  Pamela looked horrified. Bill Donovan laughed.

  “Well, now, I’d take that as a compliment,” he said to Pamela. And then, to Elizabeth, “Actually, she’s trying to decide on a college. What about you two?”

  “Junior high,” I said.

  “Well, each year will be better than the last. Isn’t that right, Pamela?”

  “Oh, definitely,” she said. It was disgusting.

  When the food came, Bill Donovan talked about the joy of lying in bed on the train and watching the mountains roll by outside the window. He was drinking beer, and the only thing I can say for Pamela is that she hadn’t ordered any. She was sort of picking at her steak and mushrooms, taking tiny little bites, and laughing gaily whenever Bill Donovan told a joke.

  When Pamela’s cheesecake came, she said she couldn’t possibly eat it, that she was watching her figure, and Bill Donovan said to relax, he’d watch it for her, and then he laughed again.

  “Well, I’ll be glad to eat it,” I said. I reached across the table and took her cheesecake. Elizabeth and I split it and ate it right in front of Pamela, and I happen to know that cheesecake is her favorite dessert. I think she thought we were going to take it back to the room and save it for her.

  Bill Donovan finished eating first but made no move to leave, and when Elizabeth and I had dawdled as long as we dared, we said good-bye and went back to our room.

  “If her mother knew …” Elizabeth said darkly. “If she acts like this when she’s thirteen, Alice, how will she be when she’s sixteen or seventeen? She’ll be impossible!”

  “She’s impossible now,” I said.

  We sat on the couch, watching for Pamela to come back from dinner. It was about fifteen minutes later that they went by—Pamela first, Bill Donovan right behind her, only this time he had one hand on her waist.

  “I’m not going to speak to her ever again!” said Elizabeth. “She’s ruining this trip for all of us.”

  “No, she’s not,” I declared. “I’m going to have a good time, regardless of what Pamela does. Let’s play hearts.”

  I got out the deck of cards, and every so often, we’d look out the window, but the sky was getting dark now, and there were long stretches of West Virginia where there was nothing outside the window but black.

  We played several hands, and heard them announce the 8:30 dinner seating.

  Suddenly Pamela came crashing into the room and slid the door shut behind her with a bang. Her hair was wild and so were her eyes.

  “I’ve got to hide in here,” she breathed, one ear to the door as though she were listening.

  Elizabeth jerked around, her face horrified. “Pamela, what did he d-do to you?”

  “He came in and we talked for a while and everything was fine, and then he closed the door and kissed me!”

  I didn’t have much sympathy for Pamela just then. “Well, what did you expect? You’re a college student from Joseph and Mary; you should know about men like him.”

  “Alice, please don’t be mad! It was just a joke! I just did it for fun! But he’s not teasing.”

  “Where is he now?” I asked. Elizabeth couldn’t even speak.

  “He went to get another beer! I don’t want him to know where I am. I won’t go back to that room! I’ve got to spend the night in here. I’ll sleep on the floor! I’ll sleep in the toilet! But I’m not going back….”

  Suddenly Pamela was our friend again, a friend in need, and with her hair all wild and her lipstick half gone, she didn’t look as old as she had, and I knew we would do whatever was necessary to save her.

  11

  SAVING PAMELA

  “WHERE ARE YOUR THINGS?” ELIZABETH asked her.

  “I-I left them! I tried to get the big suitcase down, but I couldn’t, so I just left it there. Could you two go get it?”

  “If he sees us go into your room, he’ll follow us here,” Elizabeth said. “And if he gets in here, no telling what he’ll do!”

  To Elizabeth, a man with a beer in his belly was like a raging bull out of control.

  “We’ll get your bag later,” I said. “You’ve got to be really quiet in here, Pamela, or he’ll hear and start knocking.”

  We waited about twenty minutes, and finally I slid open the door and stuck my head out. I went quietly down the hall and around the corner to where the roomettes began, then down to number 6.

  There sat the man, in Pamela’s seat, holding a can of beer. I went on past as though I were on my way somewhere, but when I came back he called out, “Say, Alice?”

  I stopped.

  “You haven’t by chance seen Pamela, have you? The girl who was sitting beside me at dinner? She seems to have disappeared.”

  “Her bag’s still here,” I said, peeping inside the compartment.

  “I know, that’s the mystery. I’ve checked the other cars.”

  “Why don’t you ask the conductor?” I said.

  “That’s a thought,” Bill Donovan told me, but I could see he didn’t think much of the idea. “Oh, well, she’s got to come back sometime. She’s probably in a ladies’ room somewhere.”

  “Probably,” I said. “Well, good night.”

  “Sleep tight,” he told me.

  I went straight back to our room, but just as I was going through the door, Bill Donovan came around the corner, and I know he saw me. I slid the door shut behind me, one finger to my lips.

  We waited without a sound.

  There came a knock on the door. None of us moved. I don’t think we were even breathing.

  “Alice?” came his voice. “Alice, would you do something for me?”

  “You’ve got to answer!” Elizabeth said. “He knows you’re in here.”

  I went to the door. “What is it?” I called.

  “I wonder if you could check a few restrooms and see if Pamela’s there.”

  “I don’t think so. I’m sort of sick myself,” I told him. “I guess it was the food.”

  Actually the food was wonderful.

  “Oh.” There was quiet on the other side of the door. Then, “You’re sure you haven’t seen her?”

  I didn’t answer, just held my breath.

  “Alice?” came the voice again.

  No answer. And finally he must have gone, because we could hear other people moving along outside our door, talking and laughing.

  “What are we going to do?” Elizabeth wailed. “No matter what we do, he’s out there waiting.”

  “I don’t know about you, but I’m going to bed,” I told her. “People always go to bed early on a train. I’ve got to ring for the attendant to make our beds, and Pamela will just have to hide in the bathroom, because you and I will be standing out in the hall.”

  It was about three minutes before we heard another knock on the door, and the attendant called out, “It’s Stan. You girls ready to go to bed?”

  Pamela ducked into the bathroom. Elizabeth and I went out in the hall and leaned against the windows. While we were standing there, Bill Donovan came by, smelling like beer.

  “Where the devil could she have gone?” he said as if to himself, but it was really to us. “Not that many places on a train a girl could hide, is there?”

  “Why would she want to hide?” I asked innocently.

  “Oh, you girls get ideas, sometimes, no telling what goes through your heads,” he said, and plowed on down the hall.

  It was impossible to get Pamela�
�s bag because Bill Donovan was always there in her roomette.

  I put on the pajamas I promised Aunt Sally I’d bring, and Elizabeth put on hers, but Pamela, of course, stayed dressed. She curled up in a corner on the floor.

  “What we’ve got to do,” said Elizabeth from the top bunk, “is make an alarm of some kind, so if he gets the door open in the night, we’ll know.”

  I went through our bags, looking for anything that made noise, and found an aspirin bottle, nail clippers, a roll of Lifesavers, and a metal brush. I took the laces out of both our pairs of sneakers, tied the stuff to the ends of the laces, and hung them over the handle of the door.

  “Try it and see if it clangs,” said Pamela.

  I opened the door and found myself looking right into the face of Bill Donovan. I banged the door closed so hard that the mirror on it rattled, and it sounded as though somebody had overturned a medicine cabinet.

  “It works,” I said.

  “He saw!” gasped Elizabeth. “He saw Pamela in here!”

  Outside the door Bill Donovan began knocking. “Pamela,” he called. “Hey, what’s the matter? Come on out. I just want to talk to you.”

  Elizabeth pulled the covers up over her head.

  Bill Donovan was trying to get into the room, because the handle on the door kept shaking, and the stuff was jiggling back and forth.

  “Pamela!” he said. “I know you’re in there! Come on out! I just want to talk. I’m not going away, so you might as well come out.”

  Pamela started crying.

  I turned around and looked for the white button on the wall, and then I pressed it, holding it down for three seconds.

  “Pamela!” Bill Donovan said again, and started pounding.

  “Tell me when we get to Chicago,” came Elizabeth’s muffled voice from above.

  And then there was another sound outside the door—the voice of Stan, our savior. “May I help you, sir?” he said.

  “Just looking up an old friend,” said Bill Donovan.

  “You have the wrong room, sir. You belong in number nine at the other end of the car.”

  “But I …”

  “And if you come back here again, we’ll have to put you off the train.”