Just Plain Al: The Al Series, Book Five (3 page)

My mother shot me a dark look. “There are plenty of people who would be glad to be given some secondhand things,” she reminded me. “There are also people who never wear anything but other people's castoffs. Don't be a snob.”

After my mother had given me a cool cheek-brush in farewell and told me to put some potatoes on to boil for potato salad, I was alone. Teddy had gone to day camp. So there I was, sitting in the kitchen, alone with the clicking refrigerator, the dripping faucet, and myself. Being by yourself isn't always easy, especially if yourself turns out to be a not-so-nice person.

I've gotten much more introspective since I've known Al. Before she came into my life, I was a happy-go-lucky slob. Now I tend to brood, though not nearly as much as she does. Al says knowing me has made her much more laid back than she used to be. I guess we're good for each other, the way friends should be.

When you come right down to it, though, I'll be thirteen in September and what have I got to show for it?

Nada
, as Al would say.

Then Polly called. Boy, was I glad to hear her cheerful little voice!

“You sound like you've lost your last friend,” Polly told me. “And you haven't. Here I am.”

She asked me and Al over for supper. “I'm making chicken cacciatore tonight,” Polly said. “The
spécialité de la maison.”
Polly is a star cook. She's going to be a chef and have her own restaurant when she's eighteen.

“Sounds good,” I said. Polly and Al and I are all very different. Polly stayed at our apartment when her parents went to Africa, and Al got a little uptight. Two's company, three's a crowd, as my mother says in her infinite wisdom. And she's right. Al flailed around awhile, then she got over whatever was bugging her, and now we all get along fine. We laugh a lot. Mr. Richards said a good laugh was good for the soul. He also was right.

Mr. Richards died eight months ago. He was the assistant super in our building. He was also our friend. Not a day goes by but that something he said or did doesn't remind us of him.

“You go,” Al said when I told her Polly had invited us. “I'm always horning in. Polly's your friend, after all.”

“Don't be a klutz,” I told her. “She's your friend, too. Polly doesn't ask anyone she doesn't like. You know that.”

Al smiled. “Yeah, I guess you're right.”

“Polly's making chicken cacciatore.”

“Is that anything like headcheese?” Al asked nervously.

The dictionary said “cacciatore” means cooked with tomatoes and various herbs.

“Whew! That was close.” Al wiped off imaginary perspiration on her sleeve. “I better leave my mother a note. She's dining with Stan again tonight.” Al rolled her eyes. “I think it's serious.”

“I've heard that one before,” I said. “Remember when you thought she was going to marry Ole Henry and go to Bermuda on her honeymoon?”

“Yeah, well, I called that one wrong, all right,” Al admitted. “But there's something about the way her voice goes all soft and cuddly when she says ‘Stan' that makes me think this might be the real thing.”

Al's mother is loaded with sex appeal. For a woman her age, I mean. She must be at least forty. Maybe more. But I've noticed that whenever one of her beaux takes a walk, there's another one standing in line. I wonder if my mother has sex appeal. If she and my father ever get divorced, would men line up to take
her
out? Well, they might take her, and even me, but one thing is sure: we'd have to drown Teddy.

“Listen,” I said, “if her face goes all soft and cuddly over a name like Stan, it must be love.”

“I didn't say ‘face,' dummy, I said voice. Do you realize if she gets married to Stan, I'd probably move away, probably to a mansion in the suburbs, and we wouldn't be best friends, anymore? You and Polly would be best friends.”

Before my very eyes, Al's face grew long and doleful. “Of course,” she said, “I'd invite you to sleep over, meet my new friends, stuff like that, but it definitely wouldn't be the same. As living down the hall, I mean.”

Holy Toledo. Al's mother hardly knows this Stan guy and already they're moving to a mansion in the suburbs.

“What's eating you? One minute everything's fine, and the next you're all bent out of shape.”

“Sorry,” Al said. “I'm uptight. Yesterday freaked me out.”

“You're probably going through the change of life,” I told her. “Thirteen is one thing, fourteen is another. Fourteen is practically sixteen, and we all know what that means. You're a woman when you hit sixteen.”

“Yeah,” Al agreed, “that's it. My hormones are bent out of shape, too. You called it.”

“Your mansion, the one you're moving to, does it have a Jacuzzi?” I wanted to kid Al, make her laugh.

“You got it, baby.” Al grinned at me. “And a hot tub. Hot tubs are very big in the 'burbs, I hear.”

“Did you tell your mother? About yesterday?” I asked her.

“Nope. Did you?” I shook my head. We don't tell our mothers lots of things. We protect them from the facts of life.

“Just give them what they want,” my mother is always telling me. “Just hand it over and they'll leave you alone.” My mother is sometimes quite naive. But I don't have any gold chains, or an expensive wristwatch, or any cash. I figure I'm pretty safe. I know enough not to walk down alleys or in bad neighborhoods. I know not to cut through Central Park, ever. Or to open the door to a guy dressed in a Santa Claus suit who says he's selling Girl Scout cookies.

Al and I have a lot of street smarts.

But you know mothers.

chapter 5

The elevator had barely come to a stop before Polly flew out and hugged us both. For a skinny person loaded with bones, Polly is surprisingly strong. “Boy, am I glad to see you!” she cried. “I thought you'd never get here. Come on in.”

Polly's apartment smelled delicious, as always. We followed her into the kitchen and sat on high stools watching her grate and mince and chop. Polly could be on television, she really could. She can talk and cook at the same time. And that's not easy. I tried it and I know. I almost took my thumb off.

“We have the joint to ourselves,” Polly said. Her parents were at a diplomatic reception, and Evelyn, Polly's sister, was in the Maine woods. “She's doing research.” Polly sighed. “She's in love with this handsome forest ranger, and she figures she better learn how to chop wood and build fires without matches, all that junk. She doesn't even have a telephone up there. My father says that means she's serious about the guy. My mother said she better watch out for bears. The Maine woods are loaded with bears, and they eat people if provoked. My father says forget the bears, he's saving money hand over fist with Evelyn out of reach of a telephone.”

We watched, silent with awe, as Polly diced a defenseless tomato.

“How's Thelma?” Al asked when Polly had finished dicing.

“Thelma's in a dither,” Polly said, throwing onions and peppers into a big pot. Thelma's this really shallow person who's friends with Polly. Al and I can't figure out how a good, true-blue person like Polly can be friends with a shallow person like Thelma.

“What's she dithering about?” I said.

“Well, her parents told her she can have either a new car or a nose job when she turns sixteen,” Polly said.

Al and I looked at each other.

“Which did she choose?” Al wanted to know.

Polly finished browning some chicken legs, then turned down the heat and put a lid on the pot.

“A nose job.”

I laughed. For some reason this struck me as very funny. Al's face was inscrutable.

“What kind of a car did they have in mind?” Al finally said.

Polly shrugged. “Who knows? Maybe a Chevvy. Nothing fancy.”

“I never even noticed Thelma's nose,” I said.

“It's not really gross. She can live with it, she says. She's been living with it for almost thirteen years, right?” Polly said. “Thelma broke it when she was four, going the wrong way down a one-way street. She totaled her tricycle. They set it wrong, I guess. Anyway, it's got this big bump. Thelma's very self-conscious about her nose.

“Besides,” Polly threw a pinch of salt into the pot, “Thelma wants to be a rock star. She figures a cute nose is very important to a rock star.”

Al started choking, she was laughing so hard. I thumped her on the back. “Cool it,” I told her in a low voice. Thelma was Polly's friend, after all.

“Thelma a rock star?” Al said, sort of gurgling. “How come? She has a terrible voice.”

“So what's that got to do with being a rock star?” Polly said. “She plans on dying her hair bright red and wearing really outrageous clothes and makeup. Then she'll go to a special school where they'll teach her all the moves, what you do with your hands, all that stuff. Then you memorize some lyrics and practice like mad in front of the mirror, and if you get a good agent, he gets you a couple of spots and you get some publicity, like your picture in magazines and all, and you're on your way.

“Of course, all this is three years away, so it gives Thelma time to get her act together. She thinks her life is going to change when she gets her new nose. I told her to take it slow, but you know Thelma.”

“Yeah,” Al said in a slow, wicked drawl.

“Thelma's father says he'll spring for part but not all of the expense. A good plastic surgeon costs big bucks.” Polly went on. “So Thelma's saving her allowance like mad. We went shopping the other day, and everything she fell in love with she didn't buy. She tried on a sensational pair of pants but didn't buy them; she'd tried on some shoes, she didn't buy 'em; she even tried on a fake fur coat.”

“Yeah, I bet she didn't buy it, either, right?”

“Hey, it's Thelma's nose, not mine,” Polly said. “Give me a break.”

For some reason both Al and I started to tell Polly about the man who'd snatched Al's money and the woman with the sign saying Please Help Me.

“I chased him,” Al said, “but he got away.”

“She wouldn't let me look away,” I told Polly. “I thought she might be deaf and dumb, then she said something to me, only I couldn't understand her.”

“Oh, boy,” Polly said. “That sounds like something that might happen in Africa.” With a long-handled fork, she poked at the chicken and said it was done.

We sat down and dug in. After a couple minutes of silence broken only by sounds of chewing, Al said, “This is the best.”

“Uh-
huh,”
I said. “Tell Polly about the headcheese,” I told Al.

Al really knows how to tell a story. By the time she was halfway through, we were all practically rolling on the floor.

“So I wanted to spit it out, but there wasn't a waste-basket around, and I held it in my hand until we got outside. That's the last time I'm eating any old free sample,” Al said.

“Next time you come I'm fixing a headcheese soufflé,” Polly said, wiping her eyes. “How's your mother doing, Al?”

The smile dropped off Al's face and bounced on the floor.

“She's fine, thanks, Polly,” Al said, dead serious, “but my name's not Al any more.”

“It's not? What is it, then?” Nothing surprises Polly.

“I can't decide. Maybe Sandy. Or Alex. Or how about Zandra?”

Polly said, “Why not stick with Al?”

“I can't exactly explain,” Al said, frowning down at her plate, “but I'm hitting fourteen next week, and I figure it's time to have a more dignified name. One with more”—she looked over at me—“more pizzazz.”

I decided to stay out of it. I'd heard it before. This was Polly's first time.

“Well, you're definitely not a Sandy,” Polly said, frowning. “And I know a very snotty girl named Alex, so that's out. And as for Zandra—” Polly turned her thumbs down. “That's for a phony, and I know you, Al, you're no phony,” Polly said.

“What else is there? I can't pick something entirely different. I have to stay in the Al range.”

“Al is you in a nutshell,” Polly said. “True blue, down to earth, no fooling around. You look like an Al.”

I could tell from Al's face that Polly had unwittingly struck again. When Al was agitating about mailing her famous letter to Brian, like when should she mail it, what day would it arrive, etc., Polly got impatient and said, “Just mail the dumb thing,” or something like that. I'll never forget Al's face when Polly said that. For a basically tactful person, Polly can be blunt at times.

“I told you!” Al wailed. “Just plain Al. That's me. When I'm an old lady in my rocking chair, I'll still be just plain Al. That's very depressing, you know that? How'd you like to be just plain anything?”

I could see her point. And I could see Polly knew she'd blown it.

“Listen, with three great minds at work,” Polly tried to soothe Al, “I'm sure we'll come up with something. What's your middle name, Al?”

“I'm not telling,” Al said.

“She's just trying to help,” I said.

Al mumbled something. “Speak up,” I said. Finally Al said, “Agnes,” in a loud voice. Then louder. “Agnes!” she shouted. “It's Agnes! Put that in your pipe and smoke it!”

Both Polly and I knew when to quit. Polly brought out her chocolate brownie pudding for dessert.

“Calorie city,” Al said, smacking her lips. On the way home she said, “I must've put on five pounds tonight.”

“It's only baby fat,” I told her.

“When you hit fourteen, it's gross, grown-up fat, kid,” Al said. “What do you know? You're skinny. You don't know squat about being fat. People who've never been fat should keep their mouths shut. If you ask me, that is.”