Only Alien on the Planet (9 page)

“And you want to see Smitty about…?” she asked. I could hear a TV on in the back of the house.

“It's a personal matter,” I said. I said it apologetically. “I just need to talk to Smitty. I won't upset him.” Actually, I was lying. I didn't care if I
did
upset him.

She laughed this tiny, half-exasperated laugh. “I think you can imagine how strange I find all this,” she said.

I smiled at her. I didn't know what else to do. By this time I was pretty sure she was going to tell me to go home and leave her family alone.

“Well,” she said a little helplessly. “I guess I'll get him for you.”

When she left, I was so relieved, I almost forgot myself and relaxed against the back of that sofa, but then I started thinking about how embarrassing it was going to be when she came down and told me he wouldn't come. I straightened up, trying for a little dignity. That room was not exactly exuding hospitality—it looked like some kind of museum exhibit, perfect and eternally frozen. The piano was so polished, you could have seen the fingerprints a mile away—if anybody'd ever touched it. The only human things in there were the piled up newspapers in the corner, and a little picture of Smitty and his brother and his parents that sat in a gilt frame on the piano.

Smitty came into the room.

What had made him decide he could finally come down, I couldn't guess. His mother stood in the doorway behind him. “I'll be in the den,” she said, watching him until he sat down. Then she left us alone. Smitty lifted a
National Geographic
off an end table and opened it.

“I'm here because I need to take charge of my life,” I started. The sound of my voice hung in the air for a moment before it got sucked up by the blue carpet and the sheer blue drapes.

“I need somebody to talk to, and I can't talk to my mother, because she's working with my dad, and I can't talk to Paul because he's at college, and I can't talk to Hally because she's part of the problem, and I can't talk to Caulder because he's the other part, and the rest of my family is over there with a bunch of friends
and
Caulder, which makes it so I can't talk to
any
body. So, I have chosen to talk to
you
. And if you don't like it, I'm sorry. And if you don't hear me, that's fine. Just so you sit there and try to remember you're a fellow human being.”

He just sat there.

“I have to admit,” I said bitterly, “that right now, I'm feeling very sorry for myself. It seems like everybody in the world but me has somebody who cares about them. Like I'm good company as long as nothing better comes along. Caulder is my best friend. But now Caulder is taking Hally out on Friday—which is the night Caulder and I
always
do something together—” I blushed a little, here, “—as you already know. So, the upshot is, this Friday night,
I
get to sit home alone, without anybody. Reading a book or something, which is not
my
idea of a bang-up Friday night, if you have any life at all. Which I don't. Unless it's convenient for somebody else to remember that I happen to be there.

“I swear, something's
wrong
with me, or why doesn't somebody ask me out? People
used
to ask me out. But these people probably think I don't
want
to go out. They probably think I
want
to spend
every night with Caulder. And now Caulder's got a date and you're no use at all. It's not like
you're
going to ask me out. And even if you did, I'd probably just end up doing something offensive, and you'd stalk off and leave me feeling like an idiot. So, where am I after all this? All by myself on Friday night, that's where.

“Well, I don't want to be by myself. I want to see
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington,
which is the movie this Friday, and which I happen to know for a fact is sweet and wonderful and all about the triumph of personal honor, and not about anything terrible, except maybe politics. But here's the thing: I can't go unless
you
go, because—
a
, I can't go with Caulder unless we double, and
b
, I certainly can't go alone. So I'm asking you—
please
, whatever it was we did to you that was so terrible—which we did
not
mean to do—
forgive
us, and come with me, so I don't have to sit home all by myself, which I really, really,
really
don't want to do.”

At least I had dignity enough not to let any tears actually spill over. I stood up with great dignity. “I'll be in that car with them tomorrow night, and we'll come down here at seven fifteen, and we'll honk. If you want to come, you come. If you don't, I'll just get out of the car and go home. Otherwise, I'm paying for the tickets, because I'm the one asking you out. That's all I have to say. I hope you could hear me. Thank you for coming down.”

And then I left.

I walked up and down the sidewalk some more, feeling humiliated, and wondering how I was going to tell Caulder what I'd done.

Everybody looked up when I came in. I just stood there, daring them to say anything. “I may have a date for the movie myself
tomorrow night,” I announced, leaving no space for comment and definitely looking like I wouldn't welcome any. “And now I would like it very much if you would explain my math to me.”

Caulder gave me no argument.

But it must have killed him, wondering where I'd been.

C
aulder is so nervous, he could die—don't tell him I told you.
I was starting my morning howdy-to-Hally note in homeroom.
By the way, we're doubling, sort of. Maybe. I know that wasn't what you expected. I hope you don't hate me.

Nifty, nifty,
she wrote back.
Who with? Petey-baby?

Mrs. Eagle Eye was not fond of note-passers. We had made an art out of getting a note from my desk to Hally's without having it snagged.

Smitty Tibbs
. I was in agony, watching Hally as she read it, hoping she wouldn't freak or laugh or, worse, be totally repulsed. I guess I shouldn't have worried. But she did look surprised.

“So,” she said once we were out of class and free to breathe, “how did this come about?”

I shrugged. “Caulder and I have kind of made a tradition of going to the Film Society on Friday nights, and sometimes we take Smitty with us.”

“Oh,” she said, slowing down right in the middle of the hall. She stopped and looked at me square on. “Tell the truth—is this messing you up? Me coming along tonight?” I could have kicked myself for having made it sound that way.

“
No
,” I lied, and then followed with a quick truth—"I'm just worried I'm messing things up for
you
.”

“Don't worry about it,” she said, cheerfully shrugging us back into the mainstream of traffic. “I hate first dates anyway.” We walked along in companionable silence for a while, and then she said, “Smitty is still a little spooky to me. Which isn't to say that I don't respect him as a person.” She looked at me. “What's it like—going places with him?”

“Kind of strange,” I said.

“That's what I thought. Well, I guess I'll find out, huh?”

If things work out tonight,
I thought.

I was nervous the rest of the day, and unsettled. I hate it when you don't know what's going to happen—when you're not even sure how you feel about what's going to happen—it's like, you have to be prepared to handle every possible scenario. It's not possible to be that well-adjusted.

As it turned out, Caulder and Hally picked me up, we all drove over to Smitty's house, and there was Smitty, standing at the end of his walk. Caulder got out and opened the car door for him, and Smitty got into the backseat with me.

That's all there was to it.

Caulder pulled away from the curb, Hally chatting along cheerfully in the front seat. She even managed to get the nerve-stricken Caulder's verbal motor running, and their talk began to fill up the inside of the car. For a while, I felt like I should be helping them break the ice—until I finally realized there was no ice up there that needed breaking. Then I sat back into my own seat, maybe a little embarrassed, glancing sidelong at Smitty.

All day, I'd been a little appalled at what I'd done—not because I'd gone over to Smitty's and asked him to come, because I don't see what's wrong with that socially. I mean, it's embarrassing and all, but it's no worse than what guys go through all the time. It was
who
I'd asked out. When I could have chosen anybody. It made me feel a little bit strange about myself.

Smitty had found himself a comfortable place on the seat, his head back, his eyes half closed. I kind of snugged myself over into the far corner of the seat, dropped my hands into my lap and sighed.

Hally and Caulder were laughing about something. I sighed again. Gradually, the sound of their voices dropped a blanket of peaceful detachment across the two of us in the back. We were just going where they were taking us, no responsibility in the matter at all. I began to relax.
This must be what it's like for Smitty,
I realized—
going where they take you, but thinking your own thoughts.

We parked in the usual place, walked up the hill, and waited in line, the three of us joking around together, but once we got into the auditorium, I caught at the slack on Smitty's sleeve, effectively stopping him, and waited for Caulder and Hally to go on down the aisle a ways without us. They didn't even notice we were gone.

“They need to be alone,” I explained to Smitty, feeling a little like I was explaining things to Lassie. “So why don't we sit back here?”

He didn't move a muscle, just stood there in his usual suspended state, until I finally understood I was in charge of deciding where to sit. So I found us a couple of seats, led the way, and we sat down. Ginny and Smitty, alone together.

How I was going to keep up a one-sided conversation, I didn't know. But as we sat there waiting for the lights to go off, I realized that I didn't have to talk. Smitty didn't require that. He just sat, so I just sat, looking around, thinking. And it wasn't bad. I sighed and slid down into the seat.

Then the movie started. It was great—you got to root for right and truth and innocence, and in the end, virtue and love came through triumphant, just the way they always should and hardly ever seem to. And when the lights came up, Smitty was still sitting there. I felt the best I had in a long, long time—at peace with the world, knowing God's in his Heaven, believing in True Love, the Triumph of Simple Goodness and the Ultimate Unity of Mankind, and thinking it might actually be possible for things to turn out all right in the end.

I waited until Caulder and Hally came back by, and then we filed out after them, up the hall, down the stairs, and out into the night air. I let the other two get a little ahead, allowing them their privacy. It was velvet dark as soon as we got down over the edge of campus, out of so many lights and under the trees. And it was cold. I shoved my hands deep into the pockets of my parka, nestled my chin down into the collar and blew out a tiny, contented cloud of mist.

Hally and Caulder passed under a streetlight ahead of us. They were holding hands. I got a little shock, looking at that little heart-shaped knot their hands were making. They were connected now—no longer through me. And they were making a new place between them with every step they took and every word they
said to each other. Suddenly I was feeling very outside, and very much colder.

I glanced at Smitty's empty, serene face.

I wondered if his coming tonight had actually had anything to do with me. Maybe he'd forgotten about last week already. Maybe he hadn't even been waiting for us—maybe he'd just been standing there at the end of his walk, minding his own business, and we just sort of kidnapped him.

But I didn't believe any of that. I knew he had come with us tonight because I'd asked him to come. And he'd been taking a chance, doing it. That seemed like kindness to me. I had a fleeting impression then of the personality in the body walking beside me. I looked up at him shyly and smiled. But he didn't see.

Hally and Caulder were waiting for us at the car. Caulder was grinning, and he wouldn't look me straight in the eye. Hally was a little flushed in the face.

“My brother and I decided to have a little way-before-Halloween party next week,” Hally told us as we climbed into the car and started fishing for seat belts. “You want to come? All you guys? You too, Smitty. All you guys come together. You come and be my man, okay, Caulder?” she said, just as cute as you please—utterly captivating, judging from the look on Caulder's face.

“Great,” I said.

Caulder was really feeling good. He backed that car right out of its parking place like a man in charge of his own destiny. “Let's take a ride,” he said expansively. “It's not really that late.”

And so we did. Caulder and Hally went about setting up their
quiet wall of conversation, and Smitty settled back into his seat, looking very comfortable and almost sleepy.

I was snugged down into my corner again, watching him as the streetlights flickered across the backseat.

Caulder headed out toward the country where the roads were smooth and long.

Smitty's eyes were closed. The car was warm, and the dark drone of the tires against the road was peaceful, almost hypnotic. Smitty opened his eyes and laid his head back against the seat, watching the darkness go by. I could see his face reflected in his window, planes of light and shadow, and eyes that were dark pools.

That reflected face was harsh and empty, but looking at it made me realize what a gentle face Smitty actually had, and it seemed to me then that the person behind it must also be gentle—I don't mean weak at all—just a quiet heart, tucked away from what could be a hard, stupid world. I wondered if it was sweet where he was, or if he was lonely there.

At that moment, inside my soul, I moved over next to him, put my arm through his, and rested my head on his shoulder.

I jerked myself up straight and turned my face to the window. My breath clouded it immediately, and I couldn't see anything but the mist I'd made. My heart was pounding in my ears.
What were you thinking?
I rested my forehead against the window. My hands were shaking.