He Loves Me Not (6 page)

I tried to do a somersault, fell heavily on my side, and struck the tumbler next to me with my left foot. For the millionth time, I thanked God that gym is not coed. If I have to make a fool of myself three times a week, at least I don’t have to do it in front of the boys.

Boys, I thought.

I narrowed that down quickly. Boy. Ted. Two very fine three-letter words.

It was much easier to daydream about Ted, whom I didn’t and wouldn’t know, than about Mike, who was real and there and required effort I didn’t know how to make.

“Y
OU KNOW, HONEY,” SAID
my father at supper, “I always thought you’d be a companion to me in my old age. But I’m hardly even middle-aged yet, and you’re off seven nights a week gallivanting.”

“I’m not gallivanting, Daddy, I’m working.”

We were having frozen pizza. We both hate cooking. Hate it. We eat a lot of frozen dinners, tons of junky fast food, and consider it the height of domesticity when we scramble eggs and make toast. The way we eat is boring, expensive, and probably not very nutritious, but it suits us.

“Sometimes I worry about what your mother would say,” my father told me. He finished his pizza and began tugging at his hair, which is a sign that he’s about to deliver a distress lecture. I’m not sure he even knows what Mother would say about that. They had known each other only two months when they got married; I was born eleven months later, and she died six months after that.

This time Daddy was sufficiently upset to get her photograph off the piano. We have a nice old Yamaha grand, and Daddy likes to keep their wedding picture propped up on it. Every single time I practice I have to set it on the floor so it won’t fall off and break during the banging of chords. It’s dreadful to think that my only contact with my mother is impatiently moving her wedding picture out of my way.

“Your mother would want you to have a more normal social schedule, honey,” said my father.

“I’ll second that,” I said.

My father nearly dropped his napkin. “You would?”

“I’m normal, Daddy. I’d like to date. Have boyfriends.”

“Then why don’t you?” He was honestly puzzled. You would have thought I could run downtown and buy a boyfriend at the department store. Pick my size, keep my change, and live happily ever after.

I shrugged and shoved the pizza leftovers into their cardboard box.

“Whatever happened to that Ted you were mooning over?” he asked.

“I was not mooning over him. And I don’t think anything happened to Ted. I’ve just never run into him again.” I tried to be very offhand about Ted.

“Why don’t you call him up?” said Daddy. “Ask him out. This is a new world, you know. Equality between the sexes and so forth.”

The mere thought of asking a boy out made me queasy. Fortunately, I had a very logical answer for Daddy. I didn’t know Ted’s name and consequently could not look up his phone number.

Daddy picked up the photograph of Mother. “She’s beautiful,” he said. “You look just like her.”

I stared at the face, frozen there for all these years, the only face I knew for her. I didn’t know my mother angry or laughing or tired or proud. I only knew her calm and waiting for the photographer to snap the picture. I wondered if she had been well organized. If she could have fit school and a music career into one life. I was organized down to the last tube of toothpaste, and I was still missing out on half of what was out there.

The male half, among other halves.

I decided to go over to the Devaneys and say good-bye to Kathleen decently, not just shout it at her during changing periods at school.

“Alison!” cried Mrs. Devaney. She hugged me fiercely. “It’s been so long. Come in, darling. Kathleen tells us all the time about your music. We’re all so proud of you.”

Now
there
was a welcome!

I followed her into the den, and sitting around on couches, in chairs, and on the floor, were the three Devaney girls and their three boyfriends. I don’t think I have ever in my life felt so lonely as I did at that moment, being introduced to three hugging couples. I’d played jump rope and horses and Spud with the Devaneys, Bridget had taught Kathleen and me how to put on mascara, and Annie was the first kid I ever baby-sat for.

And now they all sat with their hands entwined with boys I’d never met. I was the only person in the room without a partner.

Mr. Devaney started things off wonderfully by asking why I hadn’t brought my boyfriend along.

I managed to laugh. “I don’t have one to bring,” I said.

“Ah,” said Mr. Devaney. “Between men, huh? Beautiful girl like you.” He shook his head sadly and began describing the social lives of his three daughters. Bridget, Kathleen, and even thirteen-year-old Annie had obviously dedicated themselves to the pursuit of men. It sounded like fun.

Kathleen said, “Dad, Alison doesn’t want to hear all that now. You hush for a moment and let us talk.”

“Tell her about the wedding,” said Mr. Devaney.

“The wedding!” I gasped. I stared at Kathleen and at Billy. Getting married at sixteen? Surely she wasn’t really going to do that! It would be crazy!

The Devaneys shrieked with laughter. “Bridget,” they told me. “As soon as she graduates from college this June.”

“Oh.” I felt totally stupid. The entire evening was just the same. I didn’t know the Devaneys anymore; I couldn’t share their jokes; I didn’t feel like a part of their family.

I felt terribly, totally lonely.

Kathleen kissed me good-bye on the cheek; her boyfriend shook hands with me. We agreed that it had been nice, and I went on home.

Annie, I thought. Even little Annie can rack up boyfriends.

I walked heavily in the door. The phone was ringing. I didn’t feel like answering it. It would only be Ralph.

On the sixth ring I gave up and answered. It was Ralph. I sighed.

“That kid Ted who drove you to get my electric piano,” said Ralph.

“Yes? What about him?” My heart leaped about seven stories up from the cellar where it had been at the Devaneys.

“You remember him?”

“Yes,” I said distinctly. “I remember Ted.”

“He called me.”

“He called
you
?” I said. It seemed to me if Ted were going to make a phone call, he should at least make it to me.

“Yeah. He wanted your phone number. I gave it to him and he gave me his to give to you in case he doesn’t reach you so you can call him. That make sense?”

I didn’t think it made a whole lot of sense, no, but it certainly made me happy. “What’s his last name, anyhow?” I said. “Did he tell you his last name yet?”

“I didn’t ask and he didn’t say.”

Terrific. If we did have a date I would have to pick his pockets, sneak a look in his wallet, read his driver’s license, and
then
I’d know Ted’s last name.

“I know,” said Ralph brightly. “You’ve got his phone number. Go through the entire phone book, number by number, until you—”

I hung up on Ralph.

F
IRST I WAITED THREE
minutes to see if the phone would ring and it would be Ted. Then I panicked. I would have to call him.

He loves me, I thought, mentally stripping a daisy of its petals. He loves me not. He needs a pianist for his birthday party to which he will ask some other girl. He wants to ask
me
to a party. He needs to know the name of a Baroque composer for a history exam and figures I’ll know. He wants my company. He cracked a rib falling down and wants to sue me.

Eight-six-nine, six-one-seven-eight.

It was a pretty catchy number. I might set it to music. Setting it to music would definitely be less traumatic than dialing it.

I eyed the telephone. Previously it had been a small white object with a gentle bell. Now it was The Enemy.

The more I thought about telephoning Ted, the more I thought it was a miracle that anybody ever got asked out on any dates at all—considering the courage it takes to dial a number and ask a question.

I remembered the shape of Ted’s nose and the way he had fed me petit fours. Love, I told myself. He wants to get to know me better. I picked up the receiver and dialed eight-six-nine, six-one…

Ralph, I thought. Mean, sinister, untrustworthy Ralph. I bet this is a practical joke of his. Ted didn’t call him at all. When I phone that number it’s going to be a pizza house or one of Ralph’s extra drummers.

I picked up the phone book this time. Ours is about two inches thick, excluding yellow pages. I did not really want to work my way through it one number at a time to locate and verify the number.

Strength, I told myself. Backbone. Character. This is where we separate the sheep from the goats.

Eight-six-nine, six-one…

I put the phone back down. If Ted planned to ask me out, I needed my datebook right there so I could see when I was free. I got the engagement calendar out of my purse and studied it. I was pretty heavily booked up but, frankly, there wasn’t one commitment in there I wasn’t willing to sacrifice. Ralph probably wouldn’t feel that way, but I wasn’t his slave. He could find another keyboard man.

I waited another fifteen minutes for Ted to call me, but the phone didn’t ring.

Then I spent fifteen minutes planning what I would say if all Ted wanted was a pianist and not a date.

By that time it was too late for anybody to telephone anybody and I had to go to bed. I lay there meditating on two things. One, was Ralph really sufficiently cruel to play a joke like this? Two, what color
were
Ted’s eyes?

Around one o’clock in the morning I remembered that I really should be thinking about an English Lit essay test, but somehow Ted’s eyes were more interesting.

By morning I knew I was being very childish and silly about the whole thing. The only way to resolve this was simply to dial the number and see who answered. I waited until my father was in the shower so he couldn’t listen in.

Eight-six-nine, six-one-seven-eight.

There was no answer. I was very sure because I let it ring seventeen times. Afterwards, I wondered what I would have done if someone had picked it up on the seventeenth ring and demanded to know what kind of worthless, interfering person would let a phone ring seventeen times when other people were trying to sleep late.

I went off to school to take my English Lit essay test, and all through the test I was sort of humming to myself: eight-six-nine, six-one-seven-eight.

“I knew you were peculiar,” said Frannie at lunch, “but singing happily through that terrible Lit test? Honestly, Alison, if I’d had a china plate I’d have broken it over your head.”

“I’m sorry,” I said humbly. “I didn’t know I was doing it out loud.”

“What was the song, anyway?” said Lisa. “I didn’t recognize it.”

I blushed scarlet. “Can’t remember,” I mumbled, and cleared my place quickly and left early for my next class. I had to go through the main hall to get there. There’s a pay phone in the hall. It attracted me enormously. Silly dope, I told myself, Ted’s in school right now, too.

I wafted through the rest of the day. I had convinced myself that Ted also had a crush on me, that it really was his number, and that we were destined for a long and loving relationship.

After school I decided against using the pay phone because the lobby was crammed with people, all of whom lean against the pay phone and make wisecracks whenever it’s being used. I went on home and there was my father, having a snack—a large one—that would take him half an hour to eat, what with the paper there for him to read…right next to the phone.

Ted didn’t call me. My father didn’t leave his post. We went out for supper and Daddy dropped me off at Rob’s junior high, where he teaches band and where our combo has its rehearsals. I walked in warily waiting for Ralph to make some snide remark, but the only snide remark Ralph made was about how I didn’t modulate very well from E flat to G and what kind of musician was I anyway?

It didn’t bother me at all. If Ralph didn’t hassle me over Ted, then it really was Ted’s number he’d given me and not some joke. I went straight home after rehearsal and it was only eight forty-five, so I dialed the number.

“Ted?” said a tired, irritated voice. I couldn’t even tell if it was a male or female talking to me.

“Yes, please,” I said.

“Ted left half an hour ago. He won’t be back until late.”

“Oh,” I said.

“You want to leave a message?”

I tried to think of an intelligent, noncommittal message to leave.

“You from the paper?” said the voice.

“No. My name is Alison Holland and Ted asked me to call him.”

The voice coughed a few times, cleared its throat, yawned, and finally said in a much more pleasant, female tone, “Okay, I wrote that down. And who are you, please? Did he interview you?”

“No, ma’am. I’m a musician he met a few weeks ago.”

The voice climbed an octave, getting edgy and suspicious. “Musician?” said the woman. Obviously, to her musicians were drug-popping, orgy, organizing fiends. I tried to sound very innocent and ordinary. “Could you just tell Ted I returned his call? My number is—”

“I’ll tell him,” she said, and hung up.

At least it gave me something new to worry about all night. It was probably Ted’s mother. She would probably not give him the message because she didn’t like musicians, and in the meantime Ted would have met some super girl and forgotten me.

Several things happened over the rest of the week. We had two important gigs, I earned a lot of money, Daddy changed jobs, I aced the Lit test and got D-plus on a surprise Latin quiz, war broke out all over Central America, and new cancer-causing agents were discovered.

I, however, was concerned solely with a little white telephone that did not ring when I watched it.

On Wednesday my father said, “Oh, I forgot to tell you that some boy called.”

I froze. He did not elaborate. “And?” I said.

“And I said you weren’t home.”

Now I knew what teachers meant when they said that getting answers was like pulling elephants’ teeth. “And what did he say?”

“He said he’d try again.”

“Who was it?”