Alice Bliss (25 page)

“Five bucks suit you, Mrs. Minty?”

“Right down to the ground.”

John reaches over and takes Alice’s hand. She can’t stop herself: she turns to look at him in stunned disbelief, but he is not looking at her, he is watching Gelbart, on an 0 and 2 pitch, hit a line drive deep into left field.

She leaves her hand in his. His palm is calloused but his hands are warm, warmer than her hands. But what is he doing? He has a girlfriend. Does this mean he’s kind of a bum, seeing what he can get away with far from the prying eyes at school? And what about her? Two weeks ago she kissed Henry. Sort of. If that was really a kiss. Now this. What is this? She looks at him. He won’t look at her. She pulls her hand away.

Now John looks at her; he smiles at her, even more confusing, and takes her hand again. She glances over at Mrs. Minty who misses absolutely nothing. She doesn’t have the nerve to look at John’s father, so she sits there, holding hands with John Kimball and watching the season opener at Frontier Field in the weak but promising April sunshine. Until Joey returns, takes in the hand holding situation, exchanges a glance with his father, and then worms his way between them, laughing and chanting:

“John’s got a girlfriend! John’s got a girlfriend!”

“Shut up, you little twerp.”

John grabs Joey’s hat and sails it into the bleachers below. When Joey flies down the steps to retrieve his hat, John does not take Alice’s hand again. Which is a relief. Kind of. She shifts away from him.

“I thought you were going out with Melissa Johnson,” Alice says quietly, as Mrs. Minty and Mr. Kimball discuss the Red Wings’ new outfielder.

John pays extra close attention to the pitcher.

“Well?”

“It’s complicated.”

“I think that’s pretty much a yes or no answer.”

It’s a full count.

Is this why twelfth-grade boys troll for ninth- and tenth-grade girls, thinking they’ll be too wowed to protest or complain about anything as immature as cheating?

“Maybe you’re just trying to be nice to me. But I don’t really know you because I’ve never really even talked to you so . . .”

He turns to look at her.

“We’ve talked.”

“Hardly.”

“More than I talk to most girls.”

“That’s not possible. I see you with girls all the time.”

“That’s not really talking.”

“It looks like talking.”

“It’s
just
talk. It’s not anything real.”

“But . . .”

Gelbart steals second. Under the cover of the crowd’s roar he says:

“I like you, Alice.”

“You do not.”

“Why is that so hard to believe?”

“It just is, okay?”

“Why?”

“It’s impossible.”

“Why?”

“For one thing, you’re a senior.”

“So?”

“It’s confusing.”

“I thought when you said yes to coming to the game that maybe . . .”

“I figured you were just getting all your good deeds for the year over with in one fell swoop: you know, old lady, sad girl from school,” Alice says even more quietly in case Mrs. Minty overhears.

“That’s not why I asked you.”

“And what about Melissa Johnson?”

“What about her?”

“I heard she spent a lot of money on her dress for the spring dance.”

“Which is why I can’t break up with her before then.”

“Because of a
dress?
That’s insane.”

“Yeah. But what kind of jerk would I be to break up with her now?”

Gelbart gets to third on a sacrifice bunt.

“I wanted to ask you to go with me,” John says.

“You’re just saying that.”

“No, I’m not.”

Alice looks at him, thinking, I don’t know you at all, and what I thought I did know about you turns out to be completely, totally wrong.

“I already said yes to Henry anyway.”

“Henry Grover?”

“He’s my best friend.”

“But do you . . . ?”

“Do I what?”

“Do you like him?”

“Of course I like him!”

“You know what I mean.”

Sammy Marston hits a double deep into left field, sending Gelbart home.

“Save me a dance, then,” he says.

“What?”

“One slow dance.”

“Wouldn’t that be . . . ?”

“It’s just a dance.”

“Melissa Johnson won’t think it’s ‘just a dance.’ ”

“Fair enough.”

They go back to watching the game.

“What happened to your mother?” Alice asks.

“Breast cancer.”

Alice registers that she has never heard a seventeen-year-old boy say
breast
before.

“I’m sorry. I can’t imagine . . .”

“Yeah.”

Why is this so hard to talk about?

“You must miss her.”

“All the time.”

“How old was Joey?”

“Four.”

“Does he remember her?”

“Sort of. But I think his memories get mixed up with all the pictures we have.”

Alice pulls off her Red Wings hat.

“I can’t remember my dad’s voice.”

“Doesn’t he call all the time?”

“He’s missing in action.”

He looks at her.

“You didn’t say anything.”

“I never know what to say.”

“How long has it been?”

“Eight days.”

She looks at her hands.

“Alice . . .”

She can’t look up.

“He’ll be okay.”

She wants to believe that. She wills herself to meet his gaze.

“Let’s not talk about it anymore,” she says. “Let’s just . . .”

He’s still looking at her

“Are you close?” he asks.

“Yeah . . . Yeah. We are.”

He takes her hand again and Alice thinks, don’t ask me if I’m all right or I am going to totally lose it.

After a long pause he says, “I’m thinking of enlisting.”

“What?”

“I’ve been talking to the recruiters at school. I want marines, I think.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I’ll get all this training. They’ll pay for college. And it’s really great experience. Plus, with my dad on his own, we can’t really afford—”

“What about baseball?”

“That’s a one in a million chance, Alice. You know that.”

“But you’re really good.”

“Thanks, but—”

“I don’t know what to say.”

“I turn eighteen next month. I can enlist on my birthday. And head off to basic training right after I graduate.”

“Does your dad know?”

“Yeah.”

“I can’t believe you’re doing this. They’ll send you overseas.”

“Probably.”

“Oh, God . . .”

“I thought . . .”

“Isn’t there any other way—?”

“It’s an incredible opportunity.”

“You can’t be all you can be if you’re dead,” she blurts out and can’t believe how much she sounds like her mother.

Mrs. Minty and Mr. Kimball both glance over.

“I thought you’d understand,” he says.

“I understand that there are a million things that could happen to you, a million things that could go wrong.”

“C’mon, the war could be over by the time I’m done with my training.”

“You don’t actually believe that, do you?”

He focuses on the game again.

“Don’t do it. Don’t sign your life away. Don’t go,” she says, suddenly afraid he’s going to laugh at her intensity.

“Are you saying we could start something?”

“What? What do you mean? No—”

“And I could stay in Belknap and live at home and work in a garage, learn how to be a mechanic, or work at Gleason’s like my grandfather did, or get my electrician’s license and go into business with my dad.”

“No, I—”

“Marry my high school sweetheart and have three kids before I’m twenty-five, divorced by thirty.”

“That’s not what I’m saying.”

“I want to get out, Alice. I want something more.”

“You sound like my dad.”

She has to let go of his hand to steady herself. She’s holding on to the bleachers with both hands and looking down trying to quiet the tumult inside of her when Benny Benjamin hits a home run and the hometown crowd is on its feet yelling and cheering.

A home run on opening day,
she can hear her dad saying,
that’s a good omen, sweetheart. That’s a good omen for the season to come.

All day long Alice has been trying to get out to the garden to start planting. In the morning they had a dusting of snow, which melted when the temperature soared to fifty-five and the sun came out. Now it’s drizzling.

Her mother keeps piling on the chores and she’s suddenly obsessively interested in Alice’s homework and is demanding to see her planner. Only Alice’s planner is pretty blank because Alice doesn’t have many plans when it comes to schoolwork. Somehow her mother wheedled some information out of Henry’s mother. Alice can just picture poor Mrs. Grover standing there asking Henry if they do, in fact, have a research paper due tomorrow? Three pages on the Continental Congress. So then it’s off to the library. Why is the library even open on Sunday, Alice wants to know, doesn’t anybody ever get a day of rest anymore?

Now she’s got three books to skim through and three pages to write. She calls Henry.

“I need a topic sentence.”

“That’s cheating, Alice.”

“Give me one of your discarded ones. I know you have at least five topic sentences up your sleeve.”

Henry considers.

“Okay.”

She can hear him take a piece of paper out of his wastebasket and uncrumple it.

“Was Jefferson the sole author of the Declaration of Independence?”

“That’s a question.”

“It’s a teaser. Here’s the rest: While we often think of Jefferson as the sole author of the Declaration of Independence, John Adams edited it, and he defended it to the rest of the Congress and helped get it passed.”

“This is a
reject
for you? Geez!”

“I got interested in the role that Franklin played.”

“You should quit worrying about math, Henry. You’re a genius. Thanks a lot. ’Bye.”

“Wait, Alice—”

“Gotta go, Henry.”

“Did you—?”

“—What?”

“I heard—”

“—
What?
”

“John Kimball.”

There’s an uncomfortable silence.

“I need to write this paper, Henry.”

“Alice—”

“We just went to a baseball game. With Mrs. Minty.
And
his father.
And
his brother.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“There’s nothing to tell.”

“Do you like him?”

“I don’t know.”

“You do like him.”

“I don’t even know him.”

“Did he kiss you?”

“No!”

“He did, didn’t he?”

“He already has a girlfriend.”

“I know that!”

“Can I come over?”

“No. I have to write this paper.”

“I’m coming over.”

“Don’t. I’m having a terrible day.”

“I need to talk to you.”

“I will be horrible to you if you come over here.”

“Alice—”

“Everything is going wrong today, Henry. I don’t want to have a fight with you, too.”

“Could you just tell me—”

“What?”

“Never mind.”

“Henry, you’re my best friend.”

“Okay.”

“See you tomorrow?”

“See you tomorrow.”

She hangs up and finds that she is actually grateful to get lost for a few hours in the prickly lifelong relationship between Jefferson and Adams, which turned into this amazing friendship in the last years of their lives with hundreds of letters written back and forth. And then they died on the same day: July 4, 1826. You can’t make stuff like that up.

She finishes her paper and looks up to see the rain still falling. Is it ever going to stop?

She heads downstairs only to get roped into helping her mother make dinner. Her mother hasn’t cooked in weeks, and today she’s making pot roast? So Alice is at the sink peeling carrots to throw in with the roast that is already bubbling away inside the stove, and potatoes for mashed potatoes. Her mom is making a pie. A pie! What is going on? Okay, so it’s the Pillsbury roll-out crust, but it’s also cherries, real cherries that they freeze every year from their own trees.

“It’s Sunday,” her mom offers, by way of explanation.

“So . . .?”

“Uncle Eddie is coming over and so is Gram.”

“I need to get out in the garden, Mom.”

“I thought it would be nice to have a family dinner. Gram is bringing her green bean casserole.”

“It’s not like it’s Thanksgiving.”

“Just some family time.”

“Dad and I always plant on this Sunday. Some people go by the equinox, we go by the Red Wings opening game. The Sunday after. It’s always the Sunday after the home opener.”

Angie carefully unrolls the crust from the package.

“Mom?”

The squeak of the rolling pin.

“Mom? Are you trying to keep me from planting the garden?”

“No.”

“Well, good. Because you can’t.”

“I just thought—”

Angie stops rolling out the crust for a minute and puts the heels of her hands over her eyes. She’s wearing Dad’s apron, Alice notices. Everybody’s wearing Dad’s apron lately.

“This is your dad’s grandmother’s pot roast recipe. And cherry pie is—”

“Daddy’s favorite.”

“Exactly.”

“So?”

“I just want my family here with me.”

Okay, Alice can understand all of this and she can even like it that her mom is cooking dinner for a change and that Uncle Eddie and Gram are coming over, but why did this have to happen today?