Alice Bliss (19 page)

While waiting in the band room for chorus rehearsal to begin, Alice overhears Jennifer White and Melissa Johnson talking. She’s trying to ignore them, but they’re loud like they always are, and words and phrases keep hitting her like a punch to the gut.

“How could he do that?”

“I hate my father. I really hate him.”

“I can’t believe he did that to you.”

“He’s such an asshole.”

“Grounding you for two weeks . . .”

“I wish he’d go away, I wish he’d die, I wish . . .”

Before she can think, Alice shoves Jennifer White. She meant to just give her a little push, but it’s like she’s so upset she’s got this superhuman strength, and that little push hits Jennifer White so hard she stumbles, loses her balance, and falls to the ground. And gets a bloody nose and starts wailing. Alice looks up in time to see Stephie glance at her and then look away, shaking her head. No sympathy from that corner. Melissa Johnson is about to retaliate when Mr. Brooks, the music teacher, pushes his way through the crowd with his immense bulk. And even though Jennifer White gets a bloody nose if you just say boo to her, this looks really bad.

Next thing you know Alice is in the principal’s office. Mr. Fisher wants to know what happened, he wants to talk about it; but Alice can’t talk about it, she can’t answer his questions, she can’t tell him her side of the story. She just sits there staring at her hands or out the window. And while the principal is trying to be understanding, the longer she stays silent, the more wound up he gets until he’s forgotten all about her father and has convinced himself she’s being disrespectful and obstreperous and that she needs a nice little suspension to get her attitude in order.

When he picks up the phone to call her mother at work, Alice gets up to leave the room. He angrily waves her back to her seat just as the lunch bell rings. She knows he will not make himself ridiculous by actually chasing her, so she makes her escape in the general lunchtime melee and walks out the back door of the school and heads for home. Henry follows her for a ways but she can’t talk to Henry right now, she can’t talk to anybody.

Halfway down Highland Drive, where is she
going
anyway?, B.D. pulls up beside her in his old Chevy. The backseat is filled with orange plastic cones for practice, out-of-date running magazines, and empty coffee cups.

“Alice, where are you going? We’ve got practice this afternoon.”

“I can’t come today.”

“You want to be on the team, you come every day.”

“I’ll make it up. Tomorrow. I can make it up tomorrow.”

B.D. doesn’t say anything. He’s just looking at her.

“And I can run tonight. From home. Give me the workout.”

“You want to be on this team, or what?”

How can he ask her this? How can he not know?

“
Yes!
” she says too loudly.

“Did something happen, Alice?”

She can’t answer.

“You okay, kid?”

Alice is clenching and unclenching her hands. Her legs are so tense that her right knee is vibrating.

“You need somebody to talk to?”

“No.”

“You sure?”

“I’ll be okay.”

“You need a lift somewhere?”

“No, thank you.”

“Where are you going? Aren’t you supposed to be in school?”

“I couldn’t . . . I can’t . . .”

He rolls his window all the way down, leans out.

“I’ll let it slide this time, Alice. But come and talk to me, okay?”

“Are you gonna give me the workout?”

“Kid, you hardly look like you can stand up, let alone run.”

“
I can run!
” bursts out of her with more vehemence than she intended.

B.D. reaches out to touch Alice, her hand or her shoulder, and then thinks better of it. Nothing is simple anymore, he thinks, not even reaching out to a girl who is falling apart in front of your eyes.

“You need me to call somebody? A teacher? Your mom?”

“
No!
”

He thinks about his own kids, lost to him following his divorce, the look they get in their eyes, the faraway look, the fear, the anger, the tough protective layers they build up around their hopes and their losses.

“Alice—”

She looks at him.

“I’m not the enemy, okay?”

She hesitates, then nods and turns away.

B.D. grinds the Chevy into gear.

“Come and see me tomorrow, okay? Alice?”

“Okay.”

“I mean it.”

B.D. lurches away, tailpipe rattling, looking at Alice in his rearview mirror.

 

She breaks into a run, and even though she has no idea where to go, she’s suddenly like some sort of homing pigeon, and in short order she finds herself at Uncle Eddie’s garage. He slides out from underneath the 1979 BMW he’s working on.

“Hey, Alice, what are you doing here?”

She looks at her feet. She didn’t think she’d have to explain to Uncle Eddie.

He looks at his watch.

“Aren’t you supposed to be in school?”

“I . . . It’s just . . .”

He grabs a set of keys.

“You want to drive? Take your mind off things?”

“Okay.”

“We could head out to the lake. Back roads. Nice and slow.”

She nods, uncertain of her voice.

“I’ll drive us out to the golf course, then you can take over.”

Eddie leads her around back to the little parking lot behind the garage and opens the passenger door of a restored 1966 Mustang. In the back corner of the lot, Matt’s truck sits up on blocks, covered with a tarp. Alice hesitates. The tarp looks like a shroud. Don’t think like that, runs through her mind. It’s just a truck; it’s just a tarp.

“C’mon, Alice, let’s go.”

She turns back to Uncle Eddie and the Mustang.

“Uncle Eddie, I can’t drive this car.”

“Why not?”

“It’s . . . it’s . . .”

“Spectacular, isn’t it? Hop in.”

The seats are deep, buttery leather.

“Don’t you feel cool just sitting in this car?”

Alice smiles, she almost laughs.

“If I could afford it . . . man, I’d love to have a car like this.”

“Who owns it?”

“Some Kodak CEO. Nice guy. For a CEO. He’s got good taste in cars, at least.”

“How much longer do you get to play with it?”

“We’re done. He’s picking it up tomorrow. Lucky us he’s busy in Washington right now. This is my good-bye drive. And I’m sharing it with you, you lucky girl.”

Uncle Eddie rolls down his window and cranks up the radio.

“Put your window down,” he shouts.

She rolls her window down, sticks her arm out, flaps her hand in the wind. Uncle Eddie fiddles with the dial until he finds the classic oldies station and the Rolling Stones: “Satisfaction.” Perfect. He turns the volume up so loud the floorboards are vibrating under their feet. Uncle Eddie shouts along with the music.

He drums on the steering wheel.

More drumming.

He looks at her and grins. What can she do? She grins right back.

They change places and moderate the volume just a bit in the parking lot of Silver Lake Golf Course. Alice adjusts the seat and the mirrors under Uncle Eddie’s watchful eye.

“You ready?” he asks.

She nods.

“I figure we’ve had enough practice in parking lots.”

“Only three—!”

“That’s plenty. You’re a natural.”

“I am?”

“Time for the open road, girl.”

As she eases the Mustang out onto Blossom Road, she thinks, thank God there’s no traffic because it sure feels like she is driving down the center of the street.

“A little to the right,” Eddie suggests.

She oversteers onto the verge, and then overcorrects, and finally gets the car centered in the lane. It’s harder than it looks.

“There you go. You’re getting it.”

Alice makes it through six miles of open road, she manages the four-way stop at Lakeshore Boulevard, and Uncle Eddie talks her through the tricky intersection right before they get to the lake.

“Hang a left on Seabreeze. Let’s get some ice cream.”

This is easy, she thinks, until she almost clips the guardrail making her turn into the frozen custard place.

“That was a little close.”

And then she hits the brakes too hard as she pulls into a parking spot.

“Sorry! Sorry!”

“You’re doing fine. What flavor do you want?”

“Chocolate almond.”

“Keep count of how many boys try to pick you up while I’m inside.”

“Uncle Eddie!”

“Just keep count. I’m telling you.”

“I’m
fifteen!
”

“You’re in a Mustang, baby. Count the boys.”

Instead she cranks up the radio again and closes her eyes. Driving is almost as good as running, she thinks. Maybe she could just get in a car and drive forever. She could drive from park to park and run at every lake and beach and woods from here to . . . Maine, she thinks. From here to Maine.

 

There’s a knock on her window and Alice nearly jumps out of her skin. There are four teenage boys and two older guys clustered around the Mustang. Wanting to touch it, to run their hands over the bright red curves, pushing each other and their bodies closer and closer. This one guy leans right in her window after she opens her eyes.

“Hey, beautiful.”

They jostle each other to get close to the window.

“Goin’ my way, honey?”

“Where’d you get this gorgeous car?”

“What’s your name, baby?”

Uncle Eddie appears with an ice cream cone in each hand.

“Back off, boys. She’s my niece. She’s fifteen.”

“Just admiring your car.”

“No harm meant.”

“She’s a beauty.”

The men and boys disperse as Uncle Eddie hands her the ice cream.

“Six,” he says, “I counted six.”

“It’s the car.”

“Of course it’s the car. It’s also, I’m telling you, every man’s fantasy: a beautiful girl in a beautiful car.”

They change places so Uncle Eddie can drive them out to the lake. Driving plus eating ice cream is a lesson for another day, apparently, or another car. He parks where they can watch the water and the birds.

“You want to talk?” he asks.

The cooling engine ticks away like a clock running down.

“I don’t know.”

“How’s your mom doing?”

“She’s kind of wrapped in cellophane or something.”

“What about Ellie?”

“I’m not sure she gets how serious it is.”

“Maybe that’s good.”

“Maybe it is. But she wet the bed last night. And she’s sucking her thumb again.”

“Wouldn’t it be nice if we could press rewind and go backward a couple of years. What about you?”

“I might be suspended.”

“Really?”

“I shoved some dimwit girl and she fell over like a . . . she fell over and got a bloody nose.”

The ice cream is freezing inside her chest.

“Why’d you hit her?”

“She was talking some dumb shit about hating her father and wishing he were dead. Because he
grounded
her.”

“Wow.”

“And then the principal was trying to be decent and wanted to give me a chance, wanted to hear my side of the story, only I couldn’t talk, so he just sat there getting madder and madder, because it probably seemed like I was doing it on purpose, and then he got so mad he decided to call Mom and suspend me. Which is when I walked out.”