Now I'll Tell You Everything (Alice) (16 page)

And then, telling me he was only following instructions, he came over to the bed, excused Val, to much laughter, and then, taking her place, gave me one of those theatrically passionate kisses that drew laughter and applause from the hallway.

After that, professional that he was, he backed off, wished me a happy birthday, and with lightning speed, the pants were on again, the shirt, the jacket, the socks, and in a final tribute to twenty-one, he tossed me a red-spangled G-string. It could not possibly have been the one he’d been wearing, but the others gasped as though he’d magically removed his own somehow, and then he was gone.

My cell phone was ringing, and when I picked it up, it was Pamela.

“Happy birthday,” she said, and we laughed together. “Just wanted to juice up your day a little. Wish I could have been there.”

“You gave the whole floor a thrill,” I told her. “Thanks for remembering, you big goof!”

That night Dave took me to the Four Seasons Hotel in Georgetown for a six-course dinner, including wine and cherries jubilee. Afterward we walked along Georgetown’s waterfront, stopping often to kiss. I loved being wrapped in his arms—the warmth of them—and was glad he’d reserved a room for us there, so we wouldn’t have to sleep in a dorm room that night. We lay in bed together, propped up on pillows so we could see the lights on the river below, the occasional boat going by, the lamps on the pier.

“Did you enjoy the evening?” Dave asked me.

“Very much,” I told him. “Thank you, Dave. You know what a girl likes.”

“Hope so,” he said. “What
this
girl likes, anyway.”

As I lay in that drowsy bliss just before sleep pulls you in, I
revisited the events of the day. Twenty-one, the so-called magic number. I remembered that long-ago promise Patrick had made to me the summer before seventh grade—that he would call me, no matter where I was, on my twenty-first birthday, and if I wasn’t engaged, we’d make a date for New Year’s Eve. I wondered idly if Patrick even remembered my cell phone number, much less my birthday. Of course, no telling where he was now, or who he was with, and I drifted off to sleep, trying to figure out if the international dateline made my birthday yesterday or tomorrow in Africa. . . .

*  *  *

I had dinner at home the next night back in Silver Spring. Stacy was holding exercise classes for a weekend retreat, but Les drove in from West Virginia for the occasion. That made it really special.

“Wow!” I said. “Wish I could turn twenty-one every birthday.”

“It’s always good to have you here, honey,” Dad said, giving me one of his bear hugs. “You’ll never be too old for this.”

Sylvia came out of the kitchen holding a six-layer cake she had made, and Les brought both wine and chocolates, so we were all set.

It was somewhere between the steak and the cake that the phone rang. Dad answered, and it was Aunt Sally. She and I used to talk much more than we did now, but Sylvia had told her I’d be here for dinner.

“We were just about to have our dessert, Sal, but we’re only
sitting around the table talking. . . .
Of course
you may. Here she is,” Dad said.

I took the phone. “Hi, Aunt Sally.”

“Oh, Alice.” What a familiar, comforting voice hers was. But she must have felt the same about mine. “I declare, you sound more like your mother all the time. Marie would have been so pleased.”

“Well, I am too,” I said honestly. “How are you and Uncle Milt?”

“We’re older—and we look it—but that’s no surprise. I only hope that he goes first so he won’t be left alone after I’m gone. None of our friends understand that. They think it sounds awful, but it’s not.”

Having just finished a funky course called Funerals and Fabrications in American Life, about the way commercial funeral establishments try to make us feel in order to buy their most expensive products, and the wide variety of emotions people can experience at the death of a loved one, I was perfectly able to see that this may well be a true expression of love and empathy.

“It doesn’t seem that way to me at all, Aunt Sally,” I said.

“And now you’re twenty-one and a junior in college! Oh my goodness!” she said.

Here come the warnings,
I thought—sex, alcohol, drugs, drinking, and how she’s worried about Les and me all these years. I settled back in my chair while the others went about clearing the table, smiling my way.

“How I remember my twenty-first birthday!” she said. “I wasn’t
much of a drinker, you know. In fact, I’d hardly had anything more than a sip or two of champagne on New Year’s Eve before that, but I went to a dance with a boy, and all my friends were at our table, and I had half a glass of wine, and we danced . . .”

Get ready,
I told myself.

“. . . and, Alice, I don’t think I ever danced so well in my whole life!”

I blinked.

“I mean, it was like my legs were loose at the hips, but they knew just what to do, as though the floor were polished glass. I glided, I slid, I twisted, I whirled like nobody’s business. When we got back to the table, I finished the glass of wine, and we danced some more. It was the most fabulous night on the dance floor, the night I turned twenty-one!”

Les saw the look on my face and paused with a bowl of green beans in his hands. Aunt Sally and I talked a little more, and after we said good-bye, I turned to Les: “I’m not the only one who’s changing,” I said, and told him about our conversation.

“Darn!” he said. “I miss the old Aunt Sally.”

“Oh, I’m sure she’s still around,” I said. “You just have to press the right buttons.”

Dad and Sylvia were excited about a trip to France in August and showed us brochures of all the places they planned to visit. I’d already promised to help out at the store for the two weeks they’d be gone.

“I love that you’re getting away, Dad,” I told him. “You need a break from the store.”

“Well, I’ve never been to France, and Sylvia’s always wanted to go back, so this seems like a good time to do it,” he said.

After we feasted on Sylvia’s cake, Dad and Sylvia insisted I wasn’t to do dishes on my birthday, so Les and I sat on the back porch talking, our feet sharing the wicker hassock, each of us sinking low in a chintz-covered chair. Fireflies flitted here and there over the backyard, reminding me of the lights on the river the night before, lying there in Dave’s arms.

“Got any big plans for this summer?” Les asked.

I played it cool. “Huge. I’ve got a part-time job in the public relations office at the U, believe it or not. Just collecting names and addresses for a database—people in the community who responded to our student outreach program, small-time donors, community leaders. . . . We’re trying to expand the registry we started last September.”

“They’re paying you for this? Or is this still part of that volunteer project?”

“Low pay, but it’s worthwhile, and of course I’ll help out at the Melody Inn while Dad’s gone.”

Les was looking at me strangely. “And that’s it? This is your summer?”

I couldn’t hold back any longer. Just before dinner, I’d received an e-mail from Liz, and I’d been trying to figure out how to approach the subject with Dad.

“Okay, so there’s one more thing—I’m going to California!” I said breathlessly, keeping my voice low. “Liz and Pam and Gwen and I made a deal that right after we graduated from
college, we’d rent a car and drive to the West Coast for a vacation. Dad’s promised me a car when I graduate, so if I could talk him into giving it to me a year early—”

“Whoa, whoa, and wow!” Les said. “And you’re doing this a year early because . . . ?”

“Because Elizabeth’s decided to take a year off after she graduates and teach in a rural school where only a BA is required, then enter a master’s program later.”

Lester continued to stare at me. “So? And this means . . . ?”

“This means that
next
summer she’ll be interviewing for jobs, so she wants to take that long trip to California now, the minute classes are over at Bennington. I’m so psyched!”

Les settled down a little farther in his chair, as if knowing he was in for the long haul. “I take it you haven’t asked Dad yet for the car.”

“Actually . . . no. It would be a used one, of course. A red convertible would be perfect, and Pamela’s offered to be the driver.”

“Uh . . . I think the trip to California is a great idea, but you might want to rethink the convertible and the driver,” said Les.

I crossed my arms over my chest. “I’m so ready for a vacation!” I told him. “With Dad and Sylvia preoccupied with Paris, I figure they’ll be okay with me cutting loose for a while.”

“Sounds good to me,” said Les. “Where does Dave fit into the picture?”

“Well, he’s graduating later this month and has some job
leads. I’m happy for him. But . . .” I avoided Lester’s eyes. “I get the feeling that he’s going to propose one of these days.”

“Really! Guess you guys
are
serious.”

I gave him a quick glance and looked away again. “And I’m not sure I want him to yet. I mean, how do you keep a guy from popping the question?”

“Have you tried anti-proposal spray? The heavy-duty kind you can use in the dark?”

Les always makes me laugh. I kicked his feet off the hassock. “Be serious,” I told him.

“Okay. Whatever you do, though, be honest. If you want to wait, just say so.”

“But maybe I don’t. Maybe I want to get married already. And . . .” I reached for my glass of iced tea and sat jiggling it slightly, watching the shifting of the ice cubes.

“You might want to pay attention to those ‘maybes,’ ” he said. And when I didn’t respond, he added, “Al, you’re only twenty-one. If you live to be eighty-four, you’ve lived only a fourth of your life so far. If you live to be a hundred and five, it’s only a fifth of your life. If you live—”

“Okay, okay, I get it. Maybe I’ll just go to California and stay there. Maybe the four of us will climb into that red convertible and ride off into the sunset.”

“Well, if Pamela’s driving, be sure your life insurance payments are up-to-date, and make me the beneficiary,” said Les.

When Dad heard we wanted to drive to California, he freaked out. Sylvia, too. “It will take half your vacation just getting there and back,” he said.

“Why don’t you take a train out, so you can see the country, then fly back?” Sylvia suggested.

That appealed, actually. Amtrak had a special deal with an airline, so we bought our tickets and worked out an itinerary. All but Gwen. She had proven herself such a valuable lab assistant, that she’d been hired for the summer to work with a doctor researching the human placenta. Any med student would envy her the job.

“I wish you’d reconsider and come with us,” I told her on the phone after my last class. I was standing out in front of the dorm with some of my stuff, waiting for Dad.

“I wish I could too, but from now on, my summers are booked till I get that ‘MD’ after my name. Send me a card from Big Sur, one of the places I’ve always wanted to see,” she said.

I went to Dave’s graduation and presented him with a neat desk set—a heavy, square acrylic paperweight and a letter opener with an acrylic handle. The clear acrylic had tiny parts of watches buried in it—little gears and wheels and springs.

“For the up-and-coming businessman,” I said, kissing him on the cheek. He pulled me closer, and we had a real kiss.

I didn’t spend the night with him because his parents were taking us out to dinner. Also, I was getting up early the next morning to finish packing for the train ride.

Our good-bye kiss away from his parents said it all, my body molded into his. He made me promise to spend a weekend in Cumberland with him as soon as I got back.

“Alone,” he added. “No girlfriends.” He grinned. “Have a good time, now. Two weeks is all you get.”

*  *  *

Pam and Liz and I boarded the train as excited as we’d been years ago when we took Amtrak to visit Aunt Sally in Chicago. This time we had two economy sleepers across the aisle from each other. Each had two armchairs, facing each other, which joined to make a bed at night, and a top bunk that folded down from the ceiling. Since we needed only three beds, we dumped all our extra stuff on one of the top bunks. We decided to take turns sleeping in the room with the extra bunk. The shower and toilets were on the lower level of the car.

As we pulled out of Union Station, all three of us squeezed in one of the rooms, Pamela said, “Remember our last train trip, when those guys were horsing around outside the window, trying to see in?” We all laughed.

“And we’ll
never
forget the man you picked up, Pamela, who tried to get in your room later,” Liz teased.

“Tried to get in her pants!” I added.

“
He
tried to pick
me
up! I only agreed to have dinner with him,” Pamela argued.

“And Aunt Sally almost passed out when we told her,” I said, and we laughed some more.

An attendant came by to make sure we knew how to use all the room amenities and ask if we needed a wake-up call the next morning. Then, after the conductor had taken our tickets and someone had come by to make our dinner reservations, we were free to move about the train.

In the dining car we were seated across the aisle from five guys who were all trying to cram in at one table.

“Now, you three lovely ladies wouldn’t object to having one of these fine gentlemen at your table, would you?” the chief dining room steward asked, smiling at us, and Pamela instantly moved over to make room.

We introduced ourselves.

“Tom, Dick and Harry, Moe and Joe,” said the blond guy sitting opposite me, giving fictitious names to himself and his friends. We went along with the joke because it was easy to remember.

Four of them, it turned out, had just graduated from Georgetown University, the other from American, and they were giving themselves a cross-country train trip as a graduation present: Washington to San Francisco, then up to Seattle, then back east again, making multiple stops along the way. They were traveling coach class, which meant they had reclining seats instead of beds, no showers, and they had to pay for their food. We sleeping-car passengers had meals included in our fare.