Alice Alone (15 page)
“It’s okay,” I said. What else could I do?
“I just don’t know what’s going on with her lately. With
us,
I should say, because she’s irritable with her father, too. It’s as though she’s
looking
for ways to disagree with us. All we have to do is suggest something and she’s against it. I didn’t care so much when she gave up gymnastics and ballet, because they put too much emphasis on staying slim, and we all know the kind of trouble Elizabeth has had with that. But
piano?
Has she … well … said anything to you about that, Alice? I mean, anything that might help me understand?”
“Not really,” I said. “What’s happened?”
“She dropped piano. After all the work I went through to get Charles Hedges to take her on, and all the interest he’s shown in her—he insists she’s talented—she quit. She didn’t even tell me.” Mrs. Price’s voice trembled. “He called and said it was a shame she didn’t stay with it, because she’d make a really good pianist.”
“Elizabeth could be good at almost anything,” I said.
Mrs. Price sounded on the verge of tears. “I know. I just thought … if you could ask her about it. I mean, if I just
knew
why she’s so uncooperative, lately …”
“I sort of hate to go behind her back,” I said.
“And I hate to ask it, but I’m … I’m just so
puzzled!
” she said, and sniffled. “It’s as though she has a grudge against us or something.”
“If I find out anything, I’ll let you know,” I said, but I didn’t promise to pry.
“I appreciate it, Alice. You’re the only one of her friends I felt I could ask. All I want is for things to be like they used to be between Elizabeth and me—between her and her dad, too. And I think she’s making a horrible mistake giving up piano.”
After I hung up, I knew I didn’t want to get involved in this. When a parent says she wants things to be the way they used to be, what she is saying is that she doesn’t want you to grow up, because that’s what it’s all about. Change. Elizabeth’s been the perfect daughter for so long, she can’t stand it, but her mom just doesn’t see that.
There must have been a blowup over at Elizabeth’s shortly after her mom talked to me, because Elizabeth was steamed all the way to the bus stop the next morning.
“I just get so tired of parents thinking they know what’s best for you when they don’t know what’s best at all!” she raged. “All I hear is ‘Mr. Hedges this’ and ‘Mr. Hedges that’ … like he’s some sort of god, and we’re supposed to worship him just because he says I have talent.”
“Maybe you really do,” I said.
“That’s not the
point!
I don’t
want
to be a professional pianist. I can play well enough to suit me, and I don’t care whether I ever get better than this or not. High school’s a lot harder than junior high, and I’ve loads more work to do.”
“Did you explain that to your folks?”
“They don’t
care
how I feel. All they care about is how Mr. Hedges feels.
He’ll be so disappointed. He took such an interest in you. He’ll think we’re so ungrateful.
Who
cares
what he thinks?
I’m
their daughter!”
“I think you all need to improve your communication skills,” I said, trying to make a joke of it.
“Mom puts on that hurt look, like I’ve let her down. And Dad just buries himself in the computer.
If she wants to throw her talent away, let her,
he says.
We gave her the best lessons money could buy, and if she doesn’t care, it’s her loss—all those years of practice.
”
“Maybe you could take a year’s leave from piano,” I suggested. “Then see how you feel—if you really miss it or not.”
“They’ll never give up,” Elizabeth said, and I was astonished to see there were tears in her eyes. “They’ve got me on this guilt trip, and they have no idea what it’s doing to me.”
I guess they didn’t. All I could figure was that this argument was about a whole lot more than piano lessons, but I didn’t know what it was.
Everything seemed to depress me lately. Elizabeth and her folks, algebra, breaking up with Patrick… . At home that evening, Dad asked if he’d gotten any mail and I knew immediately he meant
any letters from Sylvia
, but there weren’t any. Lester had put in a couple of hours at the shoe store after his classes at the U, and he was tired. Now that he’d broken up with Eva, he didn’t seem to be having as much fun as he used to. He spent most of his time studying.
And suddenly I said to myself,
Alice, you’re not the only one who’s hurting here. You aren’t the only one with problems. Concentrate on someone else for a change.
It’s what they say to do when you’re depressed, you know. Walk in someone else’s shoes for a while, and your own won’t feel so tight. I wasn’t too worried about Dad, because I knew his mood would improve the minute he heard from Sylvia. And he could always pick up the phone and call her in England if he wanted. But I wished I could
do something for Lester. The holidays were coming up and he wasn’t really dating anymore.
Of course, with Thanksgiving only a week off, what I
should
be doing, I thought, was concentrating on someone
really
needy—maybe by inviting a poor family to have Thanksgiving dinner with us, but I didn’t know any poor families personally. I’d thought of inviting Pamela and her dad; they weren’t poor, but they were sad, with Mrs. Jones having deserted the family. But Pamela had told me that her uncle and aunt would be in town, and they were all going out for Thanksgiving dinner at Normandy Farm.
So on Friday after school, I looked up the number for the Salvation Army and called. I said that I wanted to invite some people who might otherwise be alone on Thanksgiving. And then, thinking of Lester, I said maybe the Salvation Army knew of some young women who were working as maids or something, or were far away from their families this Thanksgiving, and might like to share our dinner with us.
How many people could we serve? they asked. I mentally counted the number of chairs. Six in the dining room, four in the kitchen. Then I realized I would be doing the cooking, and I’d never cooked for ten people in my life.
“Uh … three, I guess,” I told them. That would be double the size of our family.
The Salvation Army said that mostly they had whole families of eight or nine needing a place to go on Thanksgiving, but if I got in touch with an organization called CCFO, perhaps they would know of some young women who would be glad for a refuge on Thanksgiving Day.
I liked that—a refuge. I liked thinking of our house that way. So I called the number he gave me, and was startled when a voice said, “Community Connections for Female Offenders, may I help you?”
I blinked, then swallowed and told them how the Salvation Army had given me their number, and that we had room at our table for three young women on Thanksgiving, and did they know of any ladies who didn’t have anywhere to go?
The man on the phone asked if I knew anything about their organization, and I said no. He said that their purpose was to help women offenders, now out of prison, to readjust to the community. To help them find places to live and jobs so they wouldn’t return to a life of crime.
I gulped.
Then he assured me that he would not send us anyone who had been accused of a violent crime, and they would all have places to live, but that CCFO, for their part, needed assurances that we were what I claimed we were, simply a family who wanted to share our holiday, because they don’t
just send three young women out to anyone who asks. After they had checked on us, he would like to call my father at his place of employment, so I gave him Dad’s number at the Melody Inn.
“Very good,” he said. “We appreciate your call, and we’ll be in touch.”
At least it gave me something to take my mind off Patrick.
A letter from Sylvia had come that day, and Dad was in a good mood all evening. He always read her letters three or four times before he folded them up and put them away, and she must have said all the right things because he was still smiling when he tucked it back in the envelope.
“Dad,” I said from across the room where I was slouched down in my favorite beanbag chair that he’s been trying to get rid of. “I thought it would be nice if we invited some poor people to our house for Thanksgiving this year. I mean, people who ordinarily wouldn’t have anyone to spend the holiday with.”
Dad looked at me over the rims of his glasses. “That’s a noble thought, Al. I think it’s a fine idea. Do you know of a family?”
“Well, no, but I called the Salvation Army—just to see how we might go about it—and they referred me to another organization that knows of”—I remembered what the man at the Salvation Army had said about people needing a refuge—“refugees
who would appreciate Thanksgiving in someone’s home, and so I called and this man is going to phone you at work. He said they always check people out first. They don’t send … um … refugees out to just anyone who asks.”
“Of course not. Honey, I’m real proud of you. How many did you say we would take?”
“Just three,” I said quickly. “I wasn’t sure how many I could cook for.” The fact was, I’d never roasted a turkey in my life.
“That’s great. Les and I will help, of course. It’s a fine idea.”
I called Elizabeth and told her what I’d done and she said it was a fine idea, too. Elizabeth goes for noble things. She said they were having her grandparents for Thanksgiving, but she could come over that day and help me out for a couple of hours, that she wanted to do her part for the refugees, too.
“They speak English, don’t they?” she asked.
“I’m sure of it,” I said, and began to wish I hadn’t said anything at all about refugees.
The next day at the Melody Inn, both Dad and Marilyn were with customers and I was answering the phone when a call came from CCFO.
“Dad,” I said, going over to the center of the store where he was showing a cello to a couple. “You have a phone call.”
“I’m with a customer, Al. Can’t you take it?”
“They have to speak to you,” I said.
“Excuse me,” Dad said to the couple, and went back to the counter. “Hello?” I waited, holding my breath. “Yes, that’s correct. I’m her father, and she told me we’d be having guests. We’re delighted to have them… . Yes, that will be fine… . Yes… . I wonder if I could put my daughter back on the line. I’m with customers at the moment… .” He handed the phone back to me.
The man from CCFO wanted directions to our house and asked what time the women should be there. I hadn’t even thought about it. I figured it would take most of the morning to cook, though, so I said maybe two o’clock.
“Well, we do appreciate your thoughtfulness,” the man said. “It means a lot to former prisoners to experience Thanksgiving in a friendly home. One of the women will be driving the other two, and their names are Shirley, Charmaine, and Ginger.”
There are two ways that putting your mind on other people makes you feel better. First, it simply gives you something to do, and second, you don’t feel so alone, as though fate singled you out to be more sad than anyone else you know.
As soon as I got home from the Melody Inn on Saturday—Dad always works an hour or two after closing on Saturdays—I called Aunt Sally in Chicago and asked her how to roast a turkey. I didn’t want to get into who exactly we were having for dinner, so I told her we were having some refugees.
“My goodness, Alice, you are so grown up!” she said. “Your dad must be very proud of you.”
“How big a turkey should we get?” I asked.
“It depends how long you want to eat leftovers.”
We like leftovers at our house because, if the food was good to start with, it means nobody has
to cook for as long as it lasts. I imagined us eating turkey sandwiches for a week after Thanksgiving, and I liked the idea a lot. “A long time,” I said.
“Well, then, you certainly couldn’t go wrong with a twelve-pound turkey. That’s two pounds per person, but if you’re serving refugees, no telling
how
much they’ll eat. And it would be a really nice gesture to send each one of them home with a little package of turkey. Why, I’ll bet even a sixteen-pound turkey wouldn’t go to waste.”
“Okay, but how do I roast it?” I asked.
“The important thing to remember is to remove the neck and gizzard.”
“What? I have to
kill
it?” I cried.
“No, no, but it will come packaged with the dismembered neck stuffed in the neck cavity, and the heart and kidneys and gizzard stuffed in the cavity below,” she said. If ever I had thought about being a vegetarian, I should have made a commitment right there. But Aunt Sally continued: “All you really have to do is follow the instructions on the wrapping and you shouldn’t have any trouble. Rinse it well, and don’t stuff it until you are just ready to pop it in the oven. You can find a recipe for stuffing on any package of croutons. You need to figure on a roasting time of about twenty minutes per pound of turkey. I’ll be here all Thanksgiving Day if you need me.”
“Thanks,” I told her. And then, “Oh, one little piece of news: Patrick and I broke up.”
There was silence at the other end. Then Aunt Sally said softly, “It was the sleepover, wasn’t it?”
I thought back to the sleepover. In a way she was right. That was the night Karen took a picture of the fake kiss between Penny and Patrick, which led to the definitely unfake kisses ever since.
“Sort of,” I told her.
“Oh, sweetheart, how I wish you’d listened to me. All those bodies together there on the floor … !”
“It wasn’t that, Aunt Sally. Somebody was taking pictures,” I said.
“Alice, do you mean to tell me that boys and girls were all over each other and someone was taking
pictures?
Where was your
father?
Where was Lester?”
“It’s not what you think,” I said. “It was Patrick and the new girl, and Karen arranged it so it only
looked
like they were doing it, but actually …”
