The Fall of Alice K. (27 page)

Given what was happening in her family, holding back on her relationship with Nickson made no sense. What was there to fear? She had absolutely nothing to lose. The whole situation was totally unfair. What her parents were doing was the most unjust thing that had ever happened to her in her entire life. If they were going to slam one door shut, she'd open another one. She would open every door that she could open and invite Nickson inside. She would pursue him. She would seek out
his company every second she could. Oh, she'd study. She'd be a star student. She'd study hard and jerk the valedictorian honor right out from under Lydia's nose. Scholarship offers would come at her from everywhere like a platter of goodies. But she would have Nickson too. She'd sneak away to be with him at night. She would love him. She did love him. She would give all her love to him. She would give him everything she had. She would go for it!

In her bedroom, she took a second look at Hamlet's soliloquy. “To be or not to be.” He still sounded like a loser. God gave people minds to make decisions, not to avoid them. She would take back the life that her parents were so recklessly determined to steal from her.

27

The next morning Alice's resolutions were still clear, but her complexion was not. She would follow Lydia's instructions to take these orange capsules with their clear mark of where to break them in half. They were sixty milligrams of something-or-other and she was to split them in half and take one half in the morning and another half at night. With lots of water “or they'll burn your throat.”

Taking these things made her feel as much like a druggy as her mother, but she took them—aggressively because more crimson pimples had sprung full bloom onto the field of her once smooth and flawless skin. Is it my diet? she wondered. Is it nerves? She thought of how President Clinton's impeachment fanatics talked about how “the truth always comes to the surface sooner or later.” No, she would not believe that her deceptions were a dark cloud that had unleashed this storm of acne on her face. She slathered her face in makeup.

When she got to school, she was looking for Nickson but found Lydia.

“I think Hamlet is a jerk,” said Lydia.

That was a relief. At least Lydia was thinking about Shakespeare instead of George Bush.

“I know,” said Alice. “I thought the same thing.”

“I mean, why couldn't that guy get a life already? Sometimes I felt like kicking his butt.”

“Exactly,” said Alice.

“Especially when he is talking to Ophelia. You know what I think? I think Hamlet is gay and doesn't know how to come out.”

“I hadn't thought of that,” said Alice.

“You know what I think?”

“Not really.”

“I think what Hamlet needs is a couple of weeks working with you on the farm. Get a little pig crap on his hands.”

“Thanks a lot,” said Alice. “Maybe a couple of weeks fixing lawn mowers might help him.”

“Hey!” said Lydia. “Let's not go at each other.”

“You started it.”

“Okay, I'll stop it,” said Lydia.

Alice noticed that they were both wearing tight sweaters. Alice knew she was wearing hers for Nickson but had no idea why Lydia would be showing her goods at Midwest when lover boy was off somewhere getting his hands greasy.

Lydia was a 36-28-34. Alice was a 34-28-37—but the 37 was her legs, not her hips. If she got 28X36 jeans, her ankles poked out into the wide-open spaces. Lydia had great hips and boys stared at her butt when she walked in front of them. Alice wasn't sure what the boys saw when they walked behind her. Something tall and lean with buns and arms of steel. Some guys, like the creeps she had met briefly at church, would start to hit on her until they realized she was smarter than they were. One of the beautiful things about Nickson was that he was attracted to her mind as much as he was attracted to her body, though she wasn't sure what Nickson actually thought of her body: given how short he was, he really had no choice but to stare at her breasts.

“What's with the sexy sweater?” asked Alice. “Your lover boy isn't at Midwest.”

“I dumped him.”

Good riddance, Alice thought, but said, “Oh no, I'm so sorry.”

“Don't be,” said Lydia.

“So who's the sweater for?” said Alice.

“For me,” said Lydia. “I want to feel good about myself.”

“No new prospects?”

“I've been dating another guy. He goes to Redemption.”

“You quit taking the pill?”

“You kidding?” said Lydia.

“You wearing the sweater for him?”

“And any other cool guy who takes an interest,” she said. “There has
to be at least one guy at Midwest who has the mind of an Einstein and the looks of Tom Cruise.”

“I like the Einstein part,” said Alice.

An excited sad feeling. A delicious but painful realization. Crosscurrents of envy and resentment. Lydia seemed so free, but she was talking like a slut.

Alice still wasn't sure what Lydia suspected about Nickson and her. There actually hadn't been much to suspect, but right now she wished she had at least a little bit of Lydia's experience with which to fight back.

“You look great in that sweater,” said Lydia, “and my makeup looks better on you than it did on me.”

“Thanks,” said Alice. “I'm not trying to look alluring; I'm just trying not to look disgusting. Now I've really got to run.”

“Debate?”

“Yeah,” said Alice. “We're just getting to the real meat.”

Even after that exchange, Lydia was ready with a Nancy Swifty: “‘More matter, with less art,' Nancy said matter-of-factly.”

But Alice was ready too, and she had practiced this one: “‘Brevity is the soul of wit,' Nancy said in as few words as were humanly possible in order to make what she had to say really, really funny.”

“Oh, come on,” said Lydia. “You practiced that one. You didn't just think that one up on the spot.”

“So what? I'll bet you practiced yours too.”

“Did not.”

“Did so.”

“Did not.”

In Miss Den Harmsel's office Alice didn't waste time with Nickson. She told him about the big changes at her house. She told him what would be her new home schedule.

“That's big,” he said. “That will change your life. That's really, really big.”

“My parents will be asleep from about four-thirty in the afternoon until eleven-thirty at night when they'll get up to go to work,” she said. Nickson watched and listened. He seemed puzzled, but maybe he was finding what she was saying more exciting than troubling.

“I could leave the farm before six and be back home any time before eleven-thirty and they'd never know I'd been gone,” she said.

At this point, it was clear that Nickson understood where she was going with this. His shoulders tightened in a way that was unusual for him.

“You're thinking that we could get together while your parents are sleeping? And you wouldn't even tell them?”

“It would be easy,” she said. “I could drive over, maybe pick you up and go for a ride. They'd never have to know.”

“But my mom would know. She wouldn't like it if we went off together alone.”

“Can't you get out of the house, just tell her something? I could park a little ways away so she wouldn't see you get in the car.”

Nickson rarely looked uncomfortable with anything that Alice said, but he did now. “I don't want to get caught lying to my mom,” he said. “Mai is always going off on dates and telling Mom that she's going to the library; my mom doesn't trust me the way she trusts Mai.”

Some part of Alice knew she was doing something bad, not only in deceiving her own parents, but even worse in getting Nickson to deceive his mother. She sensed there was some kind of slippery slope here, but if sliding down this slippery slope meant more private time with Nickson, it was worth it. The expression “Sometimes a person does what a person has to do” played through her mind.

“So tell your mom you're going off to the library. Wouldn't she believe that?”

“Maybe. I'll have to practice. She always seems to know when I'm lying. I'm glad she's not a cop.”

“Don't you want to see me?”

“See you? Oh yes, I really want to see you. A lot.”

“Nickson, this is our chance.”

“I know,” he said. “I know.”

Silence felt like the appropriate pressure to put on him. She sat silently. She sat silently and waited.

After a minute of stillness, Nickson slowly nodded his head. “Maybe I could do it,” he said. “I'll watch the way Mai does it. I could tell Mom I'm going off to the Redemption library to work on debate. I wouldn't even mention you.”

“Now we're talking,” said Alice. Alice looked at him. His eyebrows danced.

Tomorrow would be the great house emptying at the Kayenbraak farm, with Aldah going off to Children's Care and her parents starting their midnight shifts. Alice would fill the vacuum with Nickson. She would wait one night, giving her parents a chance to learn how to fall asleep so early. Then, on the second night, she would pick Nickson up at six while her parents were asleep.

The more she thought about it, the more it felt like it was all quite fair and balanced: her parents doing what they decided to do and she deciding what she deserved in exchange. Being deprived of Aldah's presence in the house was the final justification.

Aldah's face showed no sadness the next morning as she got ready to leave for Children's Care. She helped Alice fold her jeans and roll her socks, and she counted the number of shirts up to five, as if she knew how many days there would be between washings. The way Aldah cooperated in packing her suitcases told Alice how much her sister did not need to be institutionalized, but it was happening, and there was no stopping it now.

Alice tried to give support to Aldah by imitating her excitement. For Aldah, going to the new school was like going on a picnic. She hummed “Old Macdonald” as they packed her little mirror and her special crayons. Aldah didn't realize how this was anything
but
a picnic; she didn't know how permanent this would be and that she'd be staying overnight night after night after night. She didn't know this would mean separation from her parents, from her house, from Alice.

Alice's own emotions were so overfed with everything that was suddenly happening in her life that she couldn't sort one feeling from another. Sadness and joy volleyed in her heart and mind. Watching Aldah get into the Taurus registered a moment of terror: her sister really was being institutionalized. Then a moment of chest-tightening guilt: she, Alice, had failed. Not her mother, not her father—Alice! She was the one who had pretended to be the authority. She taught Aldah to speak clearly and never loudly. She taught her to keep her lips together when she wasn't eating or talking. She taught her to read many words that she could now recognize without hints or prompting. Anyone who knew anything about what happened at their house knew Alice was the one who had been
educating
Aldah. She was the only real teacher, the only
effective teacher, Aldah had ever had. But she, Alice, had failed to keep her out of an institution.

According to Alice's mother, the family should not make a big fuss about the departure. They were supposed to celebrate it for Aldah's sake and not show too much sadness in her leaving. Alice didn't know whether that was professional advice that had been given to her mother or something she had made up, but Alice did control her emotions as she watched Aldah being driven off with her suitcases in the back of the car. An innocent lamb was being led to the slaughter. Aldah couldn't fight back against injustice the way Alice could, but maybe her innocence would save her. That glimmer of hope: all might be well. Alice waved to her as she sat smiling in her big-buttoned pink dress, her hair held away from her face with a pink barrette, her seat belt fastened snugly across her shoulder. Alice kept smiling. Aldah, my angel, my special person, your life is beginning anew. Like mine.

When she walked into the house, she went to Aldah's deserted little bedroom. Aldah's favorite flowered blanket had been packed, along with her mirror and the purse that always lay on top of her dresser. Alice closed the door and walked over to Aldah's bed. She knelt down beside it and rubbed her hands over the sheet where Aldah would not be sleeping. She remade the bed without taking off the sheets and puffed her pillow. Aldah would not have to see what she did next as she leaned over the pillow and tried to breathe in the last scent her sister's head might have left on the pillow. When she stood up, her eyes blurred and then the tears flowed freely onto her sister's empty bed.

28

That evening Alice's parents started their midnight jobs. It was as if the Krayenbraaks had their first big garage sale, and the first items to go were the people.

When she got home from school at three thirty, her parents were starting the new work routine by getting ready for bed. Her mother was in one of her up moods—whether through medication or the challenge of circumstances, Alice didn't care.

“I have the oven set to go on at five. It will be ready by five-thirty.” Alice opened the oven and saw a tuna hotdish. Tuna and mushroom soup?

“Try not to wake us,” said her father.

“I won't.”

Doing chores that first evening, Alice found that her father had overprepared for this transition: feeder wagons full of hog feed were parked in the alleyway of the corncrib, the tractor had been filled with gas, he had mown the grass and weeds around the entire farmyard, and he had put boxes of lightbulbs on little shelves inside the buildings. She had already gone through the routine of checking the hoglots and hog feeders, but her father still left her notes about proper levels in the feeders and about nutrient ratios. And one final note: “If that runt in pen 3 dies, just drag her to the north side of the hog units out of the sun.” She spotted the runt. At least this one was not in the pen with the chewers. But if it died, of course, she could drag it away. There was not a job on the farm that she couldn't do—except think of a way that it could make enough money for them to survive the winter without the humiliation of having her parents working midnight shifts. The freedom from them and the weight of the family's money problems. Oh, the mixed blessing of it all. The mixed curse.