Alice Bliss (15 page)

It’s just a shirt, she tries to tell herself. Ignore it. Forget it. Distant daughter. Deployed husband. Another turn, and another turn. Backstroke again, her favorite stroke again. Just breathe, Angie. Just breathe.

 

Alice grabs her backpack and heads up to the lobby. She rummages in her pockets to see if she has enough change to buy a Coke or a snack from the vending machines. No such luck.

She peeks into the rec room and there’s Ellie, sitting in a circle with four other girls. No boys of course. The teacher is this comfy-looking woman with long, scraggly hair, a patchwork skirt, Birkenstocks, and an obviously homemade sweater. She patiently moves from kid to kid, helping them work their big wooden needles, helping them find dropped or lost stitches. Ellie is chatting away like she’s found her niche.

Alice closes the door quietly and heads outside. The YMCA is a relatively new building, built on the outskirts of Belknap’s Four Corners. Not that there’s much left to the Four Corners since they built the stupid mall three miles down Belknap Road. There’s just the library, two churches, a gas station, a bar, an upholstery store that always looks like it’s on the verge of going out of business, The Bird Sisters, Jansen’s Hardware, and the local pharmacy. Ricci’s little grocery/ deli is still trying to hang on. It is the dimmest, dustiest store on the block. A 25-watt bulb would be bright in there. Maybe they don’t want anybody reading the expiration dates on the canned goods. They’ve recently updated their penny candy aisle, even though penny candy doesn’t cost a penny anymore.

Alice sits on the bench by the bus stop. She’d like to walk the few blocks to the library, but then no one would know where she is. She’d like to be sitting next to Stephie in the library doing their homework just like they used to do, passing notes and sharing M&Ms and giggling and making the librarian come over to tell them to be quiet.
Again
. She’d like to walk the half-mile home. Somehow this stupid trip to the Y is a family outing in her mom’s mind. Even though Alice hates it, even though they are all in different parts of the Y. Maybe the family part is when they go out to Don & Bob’s afterward for hamburgers and onion rings. Alice is counting on frozen custard for dessert.

She’s trying not to think about what happened with Henry yesterday, when she sees Mrs. Minty struggling to get her rolling cart out the door of Ricci’s grocery. Alice starts to cross the street to help her when John Kimball maneuvers his way past Mrs. Minty and then not only holds the door for her but picks up her cart and carries it to the sidewalk. He’s holding a soda and a package of Devil Dogs in one hand and doing all this maneuvering for Mrs. Minty with his other hand.

She thanks him. She knows his name. He offers to walk her home and help unload her groceries. She declines, says the exercise is good for her heart and her bones. And then she asks him about baseball. Mrs. Minty follows high school baseball? She tells him he’s a great shortstop. Mrs. Minty goes to games? Curiouser and curiouser, as another Alice would say.

Alice quickly retreats to the farthest corner of her bench and pulls out
Othello
so that John Kimball won’t know she’s been eavesdropping and, hopefully, won’t even notice her at all. Which is when she hears Mrs. Minty say:

“You remind me of my boy. All you boys do. He was just your age.”

“What happened to him?”

“Meningitis. The local doctor didn’t realize how serious it was.”

“When was this, Mrs. Minty?”

“1963.”

“What was his name?”

“His friends called him Pete. We called him Peter. After my father.”

“Did he play baseball?”

“Shortstop. Just like you.”

“Any good?”

“We thought he was marvelous. So fast.”

“Did you have any other—”

“No, no. Just the one.”

“And your husband?”

“That was the beginning of a terrible decade. Not the sort of times you can live through with a broken heart.”

“You mean the war?”

“And the assassinations. And everything else. Jared found he couldn’t keep getting up in the morning.. . . The doctors say he died of heart disease. But I know better.”

“I’m so sorry, Mrs. Minty.”

“It was his time.”

That’s what grown-ups always say, Alice thinks. But what does it mean? That every person gets allotted a certain number of days?

“Now how in the world did we get on this topic?” Mrs. Minty continues.

“Baseball.”

“Very diverting, baseball.”

“I have to be careful it doesn’t divert me right into getting C’s and D’s.”

“You following the Red Wings as usual this year, John?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“I’d love to go to the opening game.”

“I’ll talk to my father, Mrs. Minty. We’ll make a date.”

“That would be lovely. Tell him I expect the full treatment: beer, peanuts, hot dogs.”

“Will do.”

“The Boxford High game next week. Is that a home game, John?”

“Sure is.”

“See you there. Weather permitting.”

Mrs. Minty heads off, with a jaunty little wave, her square purse hanging over one arm, one hand firmly on her rolling basket. She doesn’t move quickly, but she’s determined. She also, Alice notices, isn’t looking down at her feet and the sidewalk, but instead, is looking up at the trees and the birds and the houses, and whatever else there is to see on her six-block walk home.

Alice is watching Mrs. Minty and trying to take in the fact that she lost her son, that she even had a son, and that he was just her age. Alice has never known anyone who died before except for her grandparents and her great aunt Charlotte. Even though she didn’t know him, even though he died before she was even born, suddenly this boy, Peter, who played shortstop, is as real as real can be.

As real as John Kimball, who has materialized in front of her, and not only that, has decided to sit down on the bench beside her and offer her a Devil Dog.

“No, thanks.”

“You’re not one of these crazy girls who doesn’t eat, are you?”

“No.”

“Good.”

“I just heard, I couldn’t help hearing, about Mrs. Minty’s son, Peter, and . . .”

“Yeah.”

It’s really strange, or maybe not so strange, that they just sit there for a minute, thinking about Peter, not saying anything else for a while. Normally this would make Alice squirm and fret: Should I be saying something? Like what? Should he be saying something? But she is not thinking any of these things; she is not, in fact, worrying. This is hard to believe given that it is John Kimball sitting beside her and the last time she saw him she had dog shit all over her shoes. Hard to imagine that that ghastly experience might have been an icebreaker.

“He was only fifteen,” Alice ventures.

“Yeah.”

“You ever know anyone who died?”

John looks down at the ground.

“My mother.”

“Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry.”

“Yeah.”

“No, I mean, I’m really—”

“Thanks. It’s okay.”

He opens the package of Devil Dogs.

“I think about it all the time,” Alice says.

“What?”

“Dying.”

“Really?”

If there were a red light in her brain, it would be flashing. Crazy outcast girl talking to the most popular boy in school. And the topic she chooses: dying. Not a good idea! Cease and desist!

“Why?” he asks, like he really wants to know.

“My dad’s in Iraq.”

Why is she telling him this? It’s not like they’re friends, it’s not like they know each other at all, really; it’s not like this is the person she would choose to confide anything in, about anyone, ever. Ever!

“I didn’t know.”

There’s a big pause here and she expects him to push off and head down the street just like everybody else does whenever the war comes up.

“Is he doing okay?”

She looks at him. He is so not what she thought he was, at least in this moment, that she has to get a visual on him to place herself back in reality.

“From everything I read I don’t know how he could possibly be all right,” Alice answers.

“I don’t follow it as much as I should.”

“No, I know, most people—”

“Which kind of makes me a really big jerk, doesn’t it?”

“I wouldn’t say that.”

“I don’t know what to say about your dad.”

“I know. Nobody does.”

“But I wish I could say everything is gonna be all right.”

She turns and looks at him again. He has a Devil Dog crumb stuck to his lip. She takes a breath. She tests the waters of this moment with this boy. Could this possibly be real? And before she has a chance to think, to stop herself, she reaches out and brushes the crumb off his upper lip. He pulls away from her, possibly just a startle reflex, possibly total aversion, she notices, as she curls her hands into fists and shoves them under her thighs. Just like Henry, she thinks.

“Hey, Alice!” Ellie yells.

She’s running down the steps of the Y, waving her arms wildly, waving her knitting like a flag.

“I’ve gotta go,” she says.

“Yeah.”

“Okay. So—”

“I’ll see you around, okay?”

He gets up and starts walking away.

She ducks her head; she knows she won’t really see him “around,” that come tomorrow they will still pass each other in the halls and she will be invisible to him and his friends—which is, of course, better than being the object of their attention and ridicule.

Funny that a bench on Main Street could be neutral territory, kind of floating in a different world with different rules where for a few minutes they could almost talk, almost see each other.

She looks up. Ellie is waiting on the steps.

“Alice, c’mon!”

John stops and turns around. He’s coming back to the bench.

“Listen, you want to come to the Red Wings game with me and my dad and Mrs. Minty?”

“Are you joking?”

“No, I’ll talk to my dad. It’s fun. You like minor league baseball?”

She wonders: Does she like baseball? Does it matter?

“Okay,” she finds herself saying. “Okay.”

“Great.”

And he’s off, jogging down the street toward home. John Kimball did not just ask me out. This is not a date, this is probably not even going to happen. This is charity Tuesday with Mrs. Minty and that weird girl whose father is in Iraq. Okay. Good deed for the day. Pull yourself together, Alice.

She joins Ellie on the steps of the Y. Ellie with her new glasses.

“Who was that?”

“Just some guy from school.”

“What’s his name?”

“John.”

“Do you like him?”

“No!”

“Yes, you do.”

“I’ve never even talked to him before today.”

“Is he popular?”

“What do you think?”

“I think you like him.”

“You’re nuts.”

“What about Henry?”

“What
about
Henry?”

Ellie gives her one of those all knowing smart-ass teenager kind of looks. Where does she get this stuff?

“C’mon. Let’s go find Mom,” Alice says.

“Did he ask you out?” Ellie wants to know.

“Did he ask me out? Are you kidding?”

“Did he?”

“To a Red Wings game. With Mrs. Minty.”

“See?”

“See what?”

“He asked you out.”

“Charity. Strictly charity. He must be getting his Boy Scout Buddha badge in compassion. Or selflessness.”

“They don’t have Buddha badges in the Boy Scouts. You’re making that up. Plus, he must be an Eagle Scout already.”

“Right. Eagle Scout Buddha Badge.”

“You think Mom will let you go?”

“Who knows?”

“Are you gonna ask her?”

“Maybe.”

“He’s kind of cute.”

“Ellie!”

“What? He
is
.”

“How was knitting?”

“You’re changing the subject.”

“Yup.”

“I’m making a scarf for Dad. I picked double rib stitch.”

“What colors?”

“Lots of colors. Mrs. Morris has hundreds of colors.”

“Will you show me later?”

Alice takes Ellie by the hand as they head to the parking lot at the rear of the building. She listens while Ellie talks about Mrs. Morris and how she smells like spices and how Dad is gonna love the scarf of many colors even if he gets it in the wrong season and how he could use it as a talisman or a good luck symbol just like the knights of old.

“You want to hear my new favorite word?”

“Sure.”

“
Hypergelast
. What do you think
that
means?”

“Sounds like extreme gymnastics to me.”

“It means someone who can’t stop laughing!”

Ellie doubles over she is laughing so hard. She laughs and laughs. And Alice can’t help herself; she joins right in.

The alarm didn’t go off this morning, or if it did, Alice didn’t hear it and now she’s late and to top it off she can’t find her shirt. It’s not under the bed, where she left it, carefully hidden behind her backpack; it’s not in the hamper; it’s not in the basement in the pile of laundry overflowing the laundry basket. Ellie swears she doesn’t know where it is.

“Did you take it?”

“Why would I take your smelly shirt?”

“Did you take it?”

“No, Alice, I did not take your smelly, disgusting shirt!”

“Where’s Mom?”

“How should I know?”

“I need my shirt.”

“It’s just a shirt.”

“It is not just a shirt. It’s Dad’s shirt.”

“You are obsessed.”

“I am not!”

“How is it I can be so much more mature than you are, Alice, when I’m only eight?”