Achingly Alice Read online

  “Like everything’s upside down,” said Elizabeth.

  “Inside out,” said Pamela.

  “Maybe it’s the eighth-grade syndrome,” I suggested. “Maybe it’s when we’re thirteen that we find out the world isn’t exactly like we thought it would be.”

  Elizabeth sighed. “What I wish is that there could be one day of the week when things stayed absolutely the same. A day you could count on when nothing startling would happen. For that one day your life would remain peaceful and quiet.”

  “How about a whole week, not just a day? A whole month, even,” said Pamela. “Sometimes I feel that if Mom doesn’t come back to Dad, I won’t be able to stand it.”

  “I sort of feel that way about Patrick—if he broke up with me,” I confessed. “And yet I’m the one talking about going out with other guys. It’s nuts.”

  I did wonder about Patrick and me. He always seemed so busy lately. He has a lot of interests—track, drums, debate team, French Club, chess—and he wonders if he can’t squeeze in swim team as well. I hadn’t noticed that he was interested in any other girl; he just had his life on fast-forward, that’s all.

  After third period, Pamela and I were in the restroom curling our hair when Elizabeth suddenly rushed in, her cheeks pink, and backed up against the wall, her arms stiffly at her sides.

  “What’s the matter with you?” Pamela asked.

  Elizabeth looked both flustered and excited. “You’ll never guess! Justin just stopped me in the hall and asked me to the semi-formal.”

  Pamela and I shrieked like a two-toned fire alarm.

  “He just stopped you in the hall and asked?” I wanted to know.

  “Yes!” Elizabeth was smiling now. “I said I’d go.”

  We squealed some more. “Elizabeth, you’re the first one of us to be asked! It’s wonderful!” I told her. Only I had to admit to myself that right at that moment I felt a little jealous. Patrick and I were supposed to be going together, and he hadn’t said anything about the dance to me.

  It was all we three girls talked about at lunch, and we sat together for the teacher recognition assembly, too. Because our school has a student recognition assembly, I guess they figure a teacher recognition ceremony is worth having, where grants and awards and stuff are announced. It’s one of the most boring assemblies of the whole year, but we have to go.

  There was a row of teachers sitting up on the platform, and I was pleased to see that Miss Summers was one of them. Doubly pleased that Mr. Sorringer wasn’t there at all. Mr. Ormand, our principal, did the honors, and the seventh-grade girls’ chorus provided the music.

  It’s really weird to be an eighth-grade girl sitting in the bleachers, looking down at the rows of seventh-grade girls, thinking how you were once short and skinny like that; flat-chested. That your voice was so high.

  We listened to the teachers’ names read off who had had articles published, or who’d received grants to try new projects in the classroom. The basketball coach got an award for our winning team. The art teacher got special recognition for her paintings in a Washington, D.C., gallery. Mr. Everett, the health teacher and everybody’s favorite male teacher, got two different awards for inventiveness in the classroom. We clapped and cheered.

  And then there were only three teachers left.

  “Sylvia Summers,” Mr. Ormand said, and Miss Summers smiled while Mr. Ormand read off her particular honor. Whatever it was for, I beamed.

  “It’s no secret to our school that Miss Summers is one of the best English teachers we have ever had,” said Mr. Ormand, and we clapped and cheered again. A few of the guys whistled. It’s no secret, either, that some of the guys are practically in love with her. How could they not be?

  “And so,” Mr. Ormand continued, “it’s no surprise, I guess, that her fame has spread far and wide. We feel honored that although she has been offered positions in other schools, both public and private, she has always chosen to remain here. But yesterday she received an offer she couldn’t refuse …”

  I think my heart actually stopped beating. How did I seem to know that the next line would be: She has accepted a proposal of marriage and will be leaving the teaching profession to be a wife to Ben McKinley, and stepmother to Alice. I held my breath.

  “… so I am delighted in one way, sad in another, to announce that Sylvia Summers has been accepted as an exchange teacher in England for one year and will be leaving us in June to broaden her teaching skills in Chester, England. I know you will join me in congratulating this wonderful teacher.”

  The auditorium burst into applause, but I was frozen in my seat.

  “Alice!” Pamela and Elizabeth cried together in dismay.

  The next thing I knew I was almost tumbling over the legs of the other girls in the row to get down. With Elizabeth and Pamela, I rushed to the exit and burst out the doors into the hall, heading for the restroom.

  “She’s sick,” I heard Elizabeth say to the teacher standing there at the door.

  I hurried into the restroom—the same restroom where Elizabeth had announced her good news only a few hours before. I leaned against the towel dispenser and covered my face with my hands.

  “Oh, Alice!” Elizabeth said again, putting her arms around me.

  I hated Miss Summers! She had been leading my dad on! She’d been pretending to be a part of our family when she wasn’t at all. She was selfish and inconsiderate—incapable, maybe, of love. But how was she going to tell Dad?

  I cried bitterly, my shoulders and chest heaving as I tried to catch my breath.

  There was another time I had left a school assembly—the time Mr. Ormand had announced the suicide of Denise Whitlock. At that time, Miss Summers had seen me leave and had followed me out into the hall. She had hugged me and comforted me, and I was half-expecting her to come to me now, to tell me it was all a mistake. But nothing happened. Nobody came.

  There was one more period in the day, and I avoided her room, her corridor, completely. I didn’t want to see her ever again. Didn’t want to talk with her, call her, smile at her—nothing. She had broken my father’s heart, I felt certain, and it was beyond repair. I would never forgive her! Never, ever!

  Some of the kids could tell I’d been crying. Patrick met me at the bus going home and sat with his arm around me while I cried into his jacket.

  “I just feel so sorry for my dad,” I gulped.

  “Maybe he has other girlfriends you don’t even know about,” said Patrick.

  “Get real,” I said, suddenly turning my face toward the window. Sometimes Patrick knows exactly the right thing to say, and sometimes he doesn’t.

  He squeezed my shoulder. “I can imagine how you feel, Alice, but it’s not the end of the world. Your dad has gotten along okay so far without a wife. And I know that you wanted her in the family, but you’ve gotten along okay, too, and you’re pretty and funny and smart.”

  That was the right thing to say. I snuggled against him and stayed that way till he got off at his stop. Then Pamela got off, and at our stop, Elizabeth and I walked arm in arm up the sidewalk together.

  “You know, Alice,” she said, “if you ever need a mom to talk mother-daughter stuff with, you can always use mine.”

  “Thanks,” I told her, but that was impossible, I knew. How could I ever go to Mrs. Price, for example, and tell her I was envious of Elizabeth? Of her good looks and gorgeous skin and the fact that she was the first one of us three to be officially invited to the semi-formal?

  Lester wasn’t home yet, so I went up to my room and stood at my dresser, staring at a picture I’d taken of Dad and Miss Summers at Christmas. He was on the couch, and she was sitting on the floor in front of him. They looked so happy then. Dad’s fingers were caressing her shoulder, his other hand sort of cupped over her ear. Or maybe he was stroking a lock of hair.

  I pulled open my drawer and saw the little gold whistle on its gold chain that she had given me, and I started to cry all over again. If I blew it, she wouldn�
��t come. How could she do this to us? Why did she do it?

  Suddenly I sat down hard on my bed. Maybe I was to blame! Maybe my telling her that Mr. Sorringer had been seen with another woman had made her feel that men could simply not be trusted, Dad included, and she decided to leave the country! Or maybe she knew I was lying and decided she could never be the stepmother of a girl who would lie. Or maybe she believed me, but was angry that I was a snitch!

  I threw myself back on the bed in agony, staring up at the ceiling. That was it! Just when she was feeling most in love with Dad and a part of our family, I had messed up good, and she wanted to get as far away from both Mr. Sorringer and our family as possible.

  That’s why she refused Mr. Sorringer’s diamond.

  That’s why she was going to England.

  It was all because of me meddling in their love life, hers and Dad’s, and I was to blame for the whole thing. I sobbed.

  I wanted in the worst way to talk to Lester, but he didn’t get home till Dad had already come in and started dinner.

  “Al? You home?” Dad called up the stairs.

  I tried to sound normal. “Yeah, I’m studying. Need any help?” I called back.

  “No, I can manage. Dinner in about fifteen minutes,” he told me.

  I washed my face and tried to powder out the red around my eyes. When Lester came in and we sat down to eat, Dad said, “Well, I got some rather surprising news yesterday. Sylvia has accepted a position as an exchange teacher in England for a year, beginning this June.” And then he added, “I’m going to miss her.”

  Les stopped chewing, glanced at me, then back at Dad. I was afraid to speak for fear I’d bawl.

  “I guess it’s something she’s always wanted to do, and when she got the chance, decided to take it.”

  “I’m sure she must be going with mixed feelings,” Lester said, trying to put the best possible face on it.

  Dad didn’t answer.

  “We heard at school,” I said, knowing I had to say something. “They announced it in assembly. I wish she’d stay …” My voice quavered.

  “Well, so do I,” said Dad. “But it’s her choice to make, not ours.”

  Lester went on eating, frowning down at his plate. “She ever mention this before, Dad?”

  “No. She only said she liked to travel. I knew she loved England, and hoped to return for a vacation sometime, but she’d said nothing about teaching there. So naturally, it was something of a shock.”

  I struggled to keep tears out of my eyes. “I thought she had a good time here at Christmas!” I said. “I thought she wanted to come back again and again.”

  “She did have a good time, honey, and I think she does want to come back. But she also wants a year in England, and I’m not going to stand in her way.”

  I lost it then.

  “Well, maybe you should!” I cried. “Maybe you should propose and tell her we’ll all go with her! You could be married in England, and …”

  “Al!” Lester barked at me from across the table, and he looked so serious that I immediately shut up.

  “Al,” said Dad, more gently. “I have asked Sylvia to marry me. Several times, in fact. So I appreciate your concern, but I’d rather handle this my own way.”

  I sat mutely, absorbing this knowledge, but when Dad went back to the store that evening to do inventory with Marilyn Rawley and Janice Sherman, I burst into Lester’s room and threw myself, sobbing, onto his bed.

  He turned around, sighed, then went on typing.

  “Lester!” I wailed. “I’ve done something terrible and it’s all my fault that Miss Summers is going to England, and I know you’ll want to disown me, but I thought I was helping Dad and I wasn’t.”

  Now he stopped typing. “Al, what did you do?”

  Between tears and swallows, I told him how I’d made up a fib about Jim Sorringer, and what I’d told Miss Summers.

  “Well,” he said gravely, “whether this is why she’s leaving or not, you still owe someone an apology.”

  I wiped my nose. “Dad?”

  “No. Sylvia.”

  “I can’t! Why?”

  “Because she’s the one you lied to. Technically you should apologize to Sorringer, too, but we’ll assume he doesn’t know about it. I want you to go out there to the phone and call Sylvia.”

  “I can’t, Lester!” I wept. “I can’t tell her something like that over the phone!”

  “Then talk to her at school tomorrow.”

  “Les-ter! She could have a bunch of kids around her.”

  “Then tell her you’re coming over, and I’ll drive you.”

  I gaped at Lester. “You’re … you’re serious!”

  “Never more serious in my life.”

  “Couldn’t I just write her a note?”

  “This is goof-up big time, Al. It’s more than a note.”

  I walked out in the hallway as though facing my execution and slowly picked up the phone.

  9

  CONFESSION

  I FELT LIKE ANNE BOLEYN GOING TO THE chopping block; Joan of Arc on her way to the stake. I had tried to save my father from the loneliness of widowerhood, and now I had to confess to the woman he loved that I’d lied.

  “Can you tell me what you want to talk about, Alice?” Miss Summers asked when I called her.

  “N-No,” I wept. “I have to see you in person.”

  “Well, then, why don’t you come right over?” she said. “Who’s bringing you?”

  “Lester.”

  “Okay. See you in a little while.”

  I sat silently on the passenger side of the car, not looking left or right. A white lace garter swung from Lester’s rearview mirror—the garter he’d caught at somebody’s wedding when the groom threw it to his buddies. Right now it seemed the most obscene thing in the world.

  “I don’t like that garter,” I said in a small voice.

  Lester reached up, slipped it off his mirror, and tossed it into the backseat. “Anything else displease you? I should change the seat covers, maybe?”

  “I’m just sick of wives leaving husbands and teachers leaving schools and men swapping wives and guys catching garters. I’m sick of the whole mess. This world is one big revolving door, and I hate it.”

  “The world has its good days and its bad days, Al, just like you. You won’t always feel this way,” Lester told me.

  I began to tear up again. “Les, what am I going to say to her?”

  “The truth.”

  “She’ll hate me!”

  “Well, that’s a chance you’ll have to take,” he said.

  “Couldn’t I just tell Dad and let him tell her?”

  “He didn’t lie to her; you did.”

  We rode some more in silence. “I’ll bet you never had to do anything like this,” I said bitterly.

  “I sure did.”

  “When?”

  “When Mom was still alive and we lived back in Chicago.”

  “You lied to Mom?”

  Lester shook his head. “Aunt Sally.”

  I looked over at him. “What did you do?”

  “Ate her goldfish.”

  I laughed in spite of myself. “Ate her goldfish?”

  “All seven of them, in fact, and told her they just died.”

  “But why?”

  “A friend dared me. We read about some college kids doing it back in the twenties, and after this kid dared me, I swallowed one of Aunt Sally’s fish. Then my friend did, only he said he’d eaten a bigger one than I had, so I had to eat a larger one. Then he ate a larger one, and we kept trying to one-up each other until they were all gone. We just kept swallowing them down with a big glass of water. I swear I could feel one swimming around in my stomach.”

  “That is so gross! And Mom made you ’fess up?”

  He nodded.

  “Why were you afraid to tell Aunt Sally?”

  “I was afraid she’d give me a laxative or something. Sal is big on purging.”

 
That should have put me in a more cheerful mood, but by the time we reached the small house on Saul Road in Kensington, my eyes welled up again.

  “Lester,” I gulped. “If Dad and Miss Summers don’t marry, I just won’t be able to stand it.”

  Lester pulled over to the curb in front of Miss Summers’s house and faced me. “Yes, you will, Alice,” he said, and he never calls me “Alice.” “You will because you’ll choose to stand it. When Mom died I felt the way you’re feeling now, only worse. I didn’t think anybody could understand the way I felt. You were too young, and Dad was her husband, not her son. I decided I could either cave in or I could carry on, so I carried on, and you will, too.”

  I sat there thinking about that—the way our lives seemed right then, mine and Elizabeth’s and Pamela’s. Pamela said she couldn’t stand it if her parents didn’t get together again, Elizabeth said she couldn’t stand going for another pelvic … Lester was right. Of course we would stand it. We might be miserable for a while, but somehow we’d make it.

  “Wait for me here, Lester,” I said. “I’m not sure how long this will take.”

  Lester turned off the engine, turned on the radio, and settled back.

  I went up the walk, then up the steps, and tapped on the door. Then I remembered the doorbell and rang that.

  Miss Summers answered. She wore corduroy pants and a bulky yellow sweater. She studied me carefully as I stepped inside.

  “I’ll bet I know what this is all about,” she said, putting an arm around my shoulder, and then I broke down. As soon as the door closed behind me, I bawled.

  We sat side by side on her couch, and all I could do was cry. I was thoroughly disgusted with myself. You’d never know I was in the eighth grade. I felt more like I was in kindergarten.

  “Is this about the assembly?” she asked.

  I nodded and held a tissue to my nose.

  “I’m really sorry you had to find out that way, Alice. I only got the news myself yesterday, so Mr. Ormand added my name to the teacher recognition list. I didn’t even know I’d be up there …”

  “You didn’t know you’d been accepted as an exchange teacher till yesterday?” I asked in this teeny-tiny voice that sounded like a kitten’s mew.