Are You Alone on Purpose? (17 page)

“I looked it up,” Alison said. “At the library.” Months before, after the accident, she had chased through a library catalog computer until she found a book whose title and synopsis sounded right. It had had to be special-ordered from a medical library, and, mortified, Alison had buried the title among five additional requests for books from that same library. Spina bifida. Physical therapy for scoliosis. Things like that.

“You looked it up,” Harry repeated.

“Yeah.” Alison felt a little embarrassed.

He stared at her. She stared right back. And then his mouth twitched at the corner, and so did hers, and they were laughing, choking, pushing their mouths against each other to try to keep the noise down. And when, finally, they stopped, Alison felt Harry's breath against her ear.

“Queen Nerd,” he murmured in it. “You are the most incredible Queen Nerd who ever lived.”

Alison felt like the Queen of Sheba. She closed her eyes and kissed him again. Then she thought of something, and her eyes opened.

“Harry?” she said. She pulled away a little. “Just because I . . . I know some kids our age...but I want you to know up front. I'm not ready. . . I don't plan . . .” She stumbled into silence, and looked at Harry helplessly. Suddenly she felt nerdy in a way that wasn't good.

But Harry was looking a little surprised. “Well, I'm not ready either,” he said. “What did you think?”

Alison blushed. “Well, you did bring it up.”

“You looked it up!” he retorted.

Alison turned away. A silence fell. She could feel Harry's palm on the skin of her back, and then, slowly, he slipped it out and reached to make her look at him.

His face was unbelievably serious. And there was an expression on it that she had never seen before.

“Listen, I didn't ask if you knew that I could, uh, make love to you because I wanted us to do it anytime soon . . . .” Now he was a little red, too, avoiding her eyes. “I'm only a year older than you are . . .and it won't . . . I'm not . . .”

“Okay,” said Alison hurriedly. “I understand.”

But Harry hadn't finished. “No,” he said. “You don't understand.” It took him a moment before he could continue. “There was a reason I asked.”

This time, Alison waited.

“I asked because I . . . I wanted to make sure that you thought of me that way. In a sexual way.” And then he looked straight at her, and for the very first time Alison saw that he was a little scared. Of her.

Maybe more than a little.

She looked straight back at him. She thought of the kids at school. They wouldn't think of Harry, of any cripple, as sexual. Probably lots of people wouldn't think of him that way.

“Well,” she said, “I do.”

T
hat night, even his father couldn't annoy Harry, though the rabbi was doing his usual routine of shuffling around the kitchen. He kept glancing at Harry when he thought Harry wouldn't notice, and occasionally he lapsed into the distinctive silence that his son knew meant he was conducting a conversation, in his head, with his dead wife. But there were hamburgers for dinner, and Harry had cooked his own so it wasn't overdone, and the Sox would be on TV later. And summer was coming.

If the old man had his own life, in his own universe, well, it didn't matter so much, did it?

Alison was going to improve her basketball game this summer. Or she could pick a sport of her own; Harry didn't want to be dictatorial. Swimming, maybe? They could both do that. And it was a loner's sport, a head sport. Alison might go for it. Truth was, Harry didn't think she'd ever be much of a team player.

You had to face facts, and work with them.

“Harry?”

At first, Harry didn't hear his father. But finally the voice penetrated, and he looked up. “Yeah?” He was a little astonished, and then pleased, that his tone was so relaxed. “What's up?”

“Uh...” The rabbi had not finished his own hamburger. It lay abandoned on his plate. “Adam Shandling did a good job today, don't you think?”

“Yeah,” said Harry. “He didn't forget anything. He did okay.” Watching his father fidget, he added, deliberately: “Alison thought so, too.”

“Oh. Did she?”

“Yeah.” Harry waited, but his father let the opening drop. “I'm going to make another hamburger.”

“Okay,” said the rabbi. Harry could feel his father watching him as he pulled a hamburger patty out of the freezer and wheeled over to the microwave oven to defrost it. At least he wasn't racing around to do things for Harry anymore.

He decided to push his father a little bit. “Yeah, Alison said they were all a little worried he might get distracted or something, but he didn't.” He retrieved the patty from the microwave and adjusted his chair to face the stove. “She said her parents were really proud. That's what Alison said.” He leaned on the name. He turned on the burner and glanced back at his father.

The rabbi looked very self-conscious. He cleared his throat. “I'm glad to hear that. They said so, of course, earlier today, but—”

“Well, what did you think? That they wouldn't be proud of him?” Harry was swept with a wave of irritation. He was an idiot. He'd actually thought his father was trying to find a way to ask Harry about Alison. But no. His father was still fixated on Adam.

Harry flipped the hamburger over before the first side was done, and had to flip it back.

“You like that girl?” said his father suddenly.

“Who?” said Harry rudely, after a moment. He kept his back to his father. Why should he make it easy for him?

“Alison Shandling.” It sounded unexpectedly firm. “Adam's sister. You like her?”

Harry had to fight an unexpected and nearly uncontrollable impulse to snarl,
No!
He almost choked on the word as it struggled to escape from his throat and into the air. He had a sudden memory of a year before, at the synagogue, of his father trying to introduce him to Adam Shandling.

I've met the retard
and
his sister
, Harry had said.

He flipped the hamburger again. This time, the first side had burned slightly.

“Yes,” he said to the hamburger. “I like her.” He squashed the burger flat with the spatula and listened to the sizzling. It would be done in less than a minute. He turned and looked at his father. “I like her a lot.”

There was a silence. And then the rabbi said, mildly, “You do realize that she's Jewish?”

There was a stunned moment of absolute silence before Harry burst out laughing. And, incredibly, he heard his father join in.

It was a strange, strained sound, the rabbi's laughter, low and cautious, as if he were afraid someone would hear it and take it away from him.

Harry's hamburger burned beyond repair.

But when the laughter died again into awkwardness, Harry saw that look start to dawn again on his father's face—the Margaret look. The private look.

And Harry felt rage threaten to descend on him again. Before he could think, before he could stop himself, he blurted out, “My mother. Is it true that you met her when you were my age?”

The rabbi's face froze.

“Forget it,” Harry said. “Just forget it.” He turned off the stove and started to wheel out of the kitchen. “I have some stuff to do—”

“Wait.”

Harry paused.

“Yes,” said his father. “It's true.”

Slowly, Harry wheeled around again.

The rabbi was staring at the table. After a moment, he continued. “I was sixteen.”

He stopped, and Harry thought for a moment that that would be all. But then his father went on, speaking slowly.

“My parents picked up your aunt Naomi and me at camp at the end of that summer, and we drove home. I remember my father was wearing a pair of women's white plastic sunglasses that had happened to be in the glove compartment. My mother was in the passenger's seat. She twisted around to ask questions about the summer, the food, the counselors. You know.”

Harry didn't—his father had never asked him those questions about camp—but he let it pass.

His father continued. “I was nervous about Naomi. She kept looking at me, and snickering, and I knew it was only a matter of time. And then, when we pulled into a gas station near the state border, she yelled, ‘Avi's got a girlfriend!' ”

The rabbi shook his head. “I was mortified. I saw my father smile in the rearview mirror. I wanted to disappear.”

He stopped for so long that Harry thought he wasn't going to say anything more. Then he went on. “But later, in the driveway at home, when I was helping him wrestle down the trunks, I just told him, out of nowhere, ‘She lives in Great Neck. Her name's Margaret.'”

He stopped talking. Harry watched him. The rabbi continued to stare at the table. And then he added, “The other day...when I walked in on you and Alison . . . I remembered. I remembered talking to my father.”

Finally he looked up. “And I wanted you to be able to talk to me.”

Harry swallowed. “Well,” he said, after a minute, “you need to be able to talk to me, too.”

“I know,” said the rabbi. He sighed. “It's just that... your mother was the only person it was ever really easy for me to talk to. When she left . . .”

When she died, Harry thought. But he didn't say it aloud.

“It's hard for me,” the rabbi said. He looked at Harry pleadingly. “But I want to try.”

You're the only father I have, Harry thought. “We'll try,” he said.

T
he following Friday evening, Alison didn't get home until after seven. Her parents and Adam had already begun eating without her. Pizza, Alison noticed, from Bertucci's.

“Sorry,” she said. She glanced at her parents. Her mother was sitting very straight in her chair, scowling. “We got hung up.”

“Diligent of you,” said Mrs. Shandling, “on a Friday.”

Alison smiled at her uneasily. She slipped into her place at the table. “Oh, yum, eggplant. Adam, can I have that big piece in front of you?”

“I hate eggplant,” said Adam.

“Well, the more eggplant I eat, the more cheese there is for you.”

“Extra cheese.”

“Extra cheese. I stand corrected. No, I
sit
corrected.”

“Sit corrected.” Adam giggled. “You sit corrected.”

Alison watched as Adam carefully loosened a piece from the rest of the pie, using the spatula with one hand while holding his nose with the other. Somehow, he managed to flip the piece onto the plate Alison held out for him.

“It was such a nice day,” said Alison chattily. “I love spring.”

“I had a nice day too,” said Alison's mother. “I had lunch with Rosalie de Silva.” She paused meaningfully. “We got caught up.”

Alison froze, with her pizza slice midway between the plate and her mouth.

“So, Alison,” her mother continued, “why don't you tell us more about this project you've been working on so hard with Paulina? Every afternoon this week, Jake.”

“That so?” said the professor. “What's this?”

Alison took a huge bite of her pizza and chewed elaborately. “Ummph,” she said.

“I didn't quite catch that,” said Mrs. Shandling, distinctly.

Alison looked up then, and met her mother's eyes. She knows about Harry, she thought. A blush slowly rose in her cheeks. She swallowed the food she was chewing and put the slice down on her plate.

“Well?” said her father. “Are you girls getting a start on next fall's science fair?”

Alison's eyes darted to her father. He was clearly sincere. She looked back at her mother and took a deep breath. “This isn't very nice of you,” she said.

“I don't think you've behaved very well yourself,” her mother snapped back.

“Excuse me?” said Alison's father, looking from one to the other. “What are you talking about?”

“Why don't you tell him?” said Alison quietly to her mother. “Since you know it all.”

Mrs. Shandling glared. “Don't you speak to me like that, young lady!”

I can't do this now, Alison thought. She shoved her chair back from the table and jumped up.

“And don't you leave! We're not finished.”

Alison paused in the doorway, her back stiff, and then slowly turned around. She crossed her arms in front of her and leaned against the door frame, trembling.

“Please,” said the professor, “will both of you calm down and tell me what's going on?”

“Alison won't tell you,” said Mrs. Shandling. “But I will.” She glared at her daughter. “Alison was not over at Paulina's today, or, in fact, any day this week.”

“Oh,” said Alison's father blankly.

“That means,” Mrs. Shandling went on, “that not only has she been lying to us, but we don't know where she's been or with whom.”

The professor turned to Alison. “Well, then, where were you?”

Alison was looking at her mother. You know perfectly well, she thought. She said, “I didn't think I had to account to you for every minute of my life. I thought you trusted me.”

“Tell us where you've been,” Mrs. Shandling said.

“Is that all you care about?” Alison yelled suddenly. “Where I've been? Don't you care about why? Didn't it ever occur to you to sit me down and ask me how things are going in my life? What I'm thinking about? What's happened lately? That maybe if you asked or showed any interest whatsoever I might tell you?”