Outrageously Alice (2 page)

Here’s where I miss my mom. If Mom were alive, she could have told me how to keep from being ordinary. She’d know what you take to a bridal shower, too. But because she died when I was four, I have to ask Dad and Lester, who don’t know diddly, all my questions, and if I’m really desperate, I call Aunt Sally in Chicago. This time I tried Dad and Lester first.

“I’ve been invited to a lingerie shower for Crystal,” I said at dinner that night. “Any ideas about what I could get her?”

“A chastity belt,” Lester mumbled.

“What?”

“He’s joking, Al,” said Dad. He and Lester call me Al.

Lester just glared down at his tuna and noodles. I guess he figured his girlfriends would go on waiting all their lives for him to make up his mind, and it was really a shock that one of them got engaged.

“What
is
a chastity belt?” I asked, curious.

“A metal device that some medieval men bought their wives when the men were going to be gone from their fiefdoms,” said Dad. “Only the husbands had the key. It was to insure that their wives would be faithful while they were away. Now you know how ridiculous this conversation is getting to be.”

I couldn’t believe it. “You mean it fit around their …?”

“Exactly,” said Lester. “Now shut up.”

“But how did they go to the bathroom?” I have to know things like that.

“With difficulty, I imagine,” Dad said.

I looked from Dad to Lester. That was so unfair! “What about the
men
? Did
they
have to wear chastity belts while they were gone to make sure
they
weren’t unfaithful?” I demanded.

Lester winced.

I was indignant. “What about a metal pipe that fitted over their …?”

“Okay, okay! Just drop it, will you?” Lester snapped. He’s been pretty touchy these days. Ever since Crystal returned all the things he’d ever given her and told us she was getting married, he’s been a real grouch.

I’m not sure why I was asked to be one of her bridesmaids, but I think it’s because her fiancé’s younger brother is going to be in the wedding party. He’s seventeen, and Crystal needs someone young to walk back up the aisle with him. Or maybe Crystal’s still mad at Lester and is trying to rub it in. Whatever, I’m prepared to enjoy myself.

“I don’t see how you can buy Crystal anything without knowing her sizes,” Dad said, trying to be helpful.

“Big,” said Lester. “Big hips, big boobs—a narrow waist, though.”

“Do
you
want to buy it for me, Lester?” I asked.

He glared daggers at me. “What do
you
think?”

I went up to my room after dinner and tried to figure out what would look nice on Crystal Harkins. If she were to step out of the bathroom on her wedding night and present herself to her new husband, what would look best on her? She has short red hair in a feather cut, and I imagined her in a sheer white nightgown with lace over her breasts so you could see her nipples.

I took the invitation out of the envelope again to see if they gave Crystal’s sizes on the back. They didn’t. But there was a little card enclosed that said the shower was being given jointly by Betsy Hall, Crystal’s maid of honor, and Fantasy Creations, which, it said, for eleven years has been making the kind of lingerie “every woman dreams of possessing, but only a few will dare.”

“Huh?” I said.

I went straight to the phone and dialed my cousin Carol in Chicago. She’s Aunt Sally’s daughter, and I always try her first. Carol’s a couple years older than Lester and, having been married once to a sailor, she knows everything there is to know in the sex department. The phone rang
eight times at her place, though, and she didn’t answer, so I had to call Aunt Sally.

“Is Carol there, by chance?” I asked when Uncle Milt answered.

“Why, Alice, sweetheart! How nice to hear from you!” he said. “No, she’s on a business trip, but your aunt Sally’s right here. Just a minute.”

“Alice?” said Aunt Sally. “What’s wrong?”

I come from one of those families where if you call long distance, they figure someone just died.

“Nothing! I just wanted to ask a question.”

“Oh! Certainly!” said Aunt Sally, sounding relieved. She’s Mom’s older sister, who took care of us for a while after Mom died, before we moved to Maryland.

“I’ve been invited to a bridal shower, and I’m wondering what to buy.”

“Not Pamela or Elizabeth!” Aunt Sally gasped. Pamela’s my other best friend, and we’d all three gone by Amtrak to visit Aunt Sally last June.

“No. An old girlfriend of Lester’s, actually. She’s marrying someone else.”

“Good for her!” said Aunt Sally, who thinks it’s time Lester settled down himself. “Now what kind of shower is it to be? Kitchen? Linen?”

“Lingerie,” I said. “The kind every woman dreams of possessing, but only a few will dare.”

There was a soft noise at the other end of the line. I think Aunt Sally had just sat down.

“Pajamas,” she said finally. “Alice, you can’t go wrong with pajamas. If I were you, I’d buy a pretty pair of pink pajamas, and I promise she’ll thank you.”

Crystal would thank me, all right, but would she wear them? I thought not. So after I’d talked to Aunt Sally, I dialed the maid of honor herself, who told me that I wasn’t supposed to buy anything in advance.

“Just come,” Betsy said, “and you can order from the Fantasy Creations catalog when you get here. We’ll have Crystal’s sizes, and she’ll choose the things she likes. You might like to buy something for yourself, too.”

Now
that
was the weirdest idea of all, because I don’t have much of a body yet. I suppose that will come. At least I hope so. But what I really want is a life, not a new bra. I want to do things. I want people to notice me.

Elizabeth Price is beautiful, she takes ballet and piano, and she has a little brother to take care of, even though his poop is yellow and Elizabeth says she’ll never eat mustard again. Gorgeous Pamela Jones, my other best friend, is taking tap and gymnastics, and Patrick’s on the track
team, the debate team, the student council, and the school newspaper. He’s also in the band. Me? I’m just not a joiner, I guess.

When Patrick came over later, we walked to our old elementary school and fooled around on the jungle gym. He chased me over and under the bars but never did tag me, and finally we sat on the swings, turning around and around until the chains wouldn’t wind anymore, and then we’d let go and spin the other way.

Patrick was talking about how busy he was going to be this year, with track meets and all, and suddenly I said, “Patrick, is it possible to get through life without joining anything?”

“You mean … like a church or a political party?”

“A band, a chorus, a club, a group, Girl Scouts, Boy scouts, Triple A,
any
thing?”

Patrick dug his feet into the ground to stop the swing. “I suppose, but why would you want to? You allergic to people?”

“No! I like people! I just don’t want to end up being like everybody else. Like a … a piano key, that’s all.” I thought that was pretty original, but Patrick thought I was nuts.

“Well, I guess you can have a full and interesting life
without joining anything, but what
do
you do for excitement, Alice? Besides me, of course.” He grinned.

Suddenly it seemed like one of the most embarrassing questions I’d ever been asked.

“I guess I figured I was busy enough,” I murmured.

“A college might not think so,” said Patrick.

“What does college have to do with it?”

“You have to list all your hobbies and extracurricular activities on your application, Mom says. And if you don’t
have
any, well …”

I don’t know how Patrick could even stand to kiss me later. I was a zip, a zero, a zed, a zilch. If someone were to take my pulse, I’ll bet I wouldn’t have one.

I marched straight upstairs to Lester’s room, where he was working on his senior philosophy paper, and burst through the door. “I need a life!” I bellowed.

Lester jumped a foot. “Good grief, Al!
Knock
first! You want to see cardiac arrest?”

“Lester,” I wailed. “I have no body, no personality, no hobbies! I’ve got to join something quick. What should it be?”

“The army,” said Lester. “Now scram.”

I went downstairs to talk to Dad, but he’d gone out for the evening, so I lay on my stomach on the sofa, turning the
pages of our school newspaper there on the floor, looking at photos of girls who had bodies
and
lives—cheerleaders, basketball players, singers, skaters …

On the last page, along with the ads for Hamburger Hamlet, Pizza Hut, Putt-Putt Golf, and Cineplex Theaters, was a boxed announcement:

JOIN THE CROWD! JOIN THE FUN!

Students: It’s still not too late to join a club. Get the most

out of your junior high experience. Don’t let another

week slip by without signing up for something extra
.

These clubs need new members:

Debate Team

French Club

Camera Club

Girls’ Soccer

Science Club

Explorers’ Club

I checked numbers three and six, tore out the ad, and stuck it in my notebook.

I RESOLVED WHEN I GOT UP THE NEXT
morning that by the time I came home again, I’d have a life. As soon as I got to school, I stopped by the office and signed up for both the Camera Club and the Explorers’ Club. It wasn’t as though I were signing away all my worldly goods, I told myself. I could leave anytime.

“You did
what
?” Elizabeth asked me in Mr. Everett’s health class.

“I just wanted to try something different,” I said.

“I’ll bet they’re full of dorks,” Pamela commented. She was wearing a red sweater with a Wonderbra beneath.
Must
have been, because her breasts were rounder and higher
than usual. Pamela not only has breasts, she flaunts them. “I looked over that sign-up sheet,” she went on, as Mr. Everett walked into the room and took attendance, “and you know what the motto of the Explorers’ Club is? ‘The world is our province.’ Oh, brother!”

I thought about that a minute. Mr. Everett tapped for attention, but I whispered, “I think it just means that almost everywhere is interesting—that we’re not limited. Whatever, I want to see what it’s like.”

“We’re all doing different things this year!” Elizabeth complained. “Not a single one of us has signed up for the same activity.”

“Miss Price,
if
you please!” said Mr. Everett.

Elizabeth blushed and faced forward, and Mr. Everett began the class.

I was surprised, frankly, that that could even happen. Elizabeth’s usually on the edge of her seat waiting for Mr. Everett to enter the room. She’s had a crush on him since the first day of school. Our health teacher is six foot five and looks like Brad Pitts’s kid brother. Brad Pitt’s son! Elizabeth told us once that she loves him so much, it hurts. Hurts, I suppose, because she can’t have him. I can understand that. I’ve felt that way about Mom. Which is why I want so much for Dad to marry Miss Summers. But
Lester says that’s not reason enough for people to marry, and I suppose he’s right.

It turned out that the Camera Club met every two weeks, and wouldn’t be meeting again until Tuesday of the week after next, but the Explorers’ Club was that same day after school. So I told Elizabeth and Pamela to go home without me and I’d catch a city bus later.

I should have known, I guess, when I discovered that the Explorers’ Club met in my old world studies classroom, that it was going to be a glorified geography lesson. That there were only six kids there should have been Clue Number Two. The faculty sponsor sat at the back of the room grading papers, as though she couldn’t care less.

As soon as I’d been introduced, the guy in charge said that when they’d met last time, they’d decided that this week each would tell the most interesting place they’d ever visited and any problems they’d encountered. That was when I should have slipped out. Because the farthest west I’ve ever been is Chicago, and the farthest east is Ocean City, and after listening to the other kids tell about a trip to India with an aunt, or Antarctica with their dad, all I had to report was a visit to Aunt Sally on Amtrak.

“Well,” somebody said charitably, “what was the most interesting thing that happened on that trip, then?”

I was about to tell them how a man had made a pass at Pamela, but then I realized that was her story to tell, not mine. Here I was again, living my life through other people. So instead of telling them about that trip, I told them about the very first time I’d gone to Chicago on the train, and when I’d tried to get up in the middle of the night to use the john, the bed came down on my head.

There was silence so long and profound that when someone laughed at last, I knew it was only to put me out of my misery. I decided to walk home through the leaves instead of taking the bus, and realized just how disappointed I was. I’d thought we might go prowling around Washington and Maryland or something—explore the tunnels under the Lincoln Memorial, or hike along the C&O Canal. No, someone had told me, it was more like a travel club. So much for the Explorers’ Club.

I thought about myself and where exactly I was headed. It wasn’t that I was unhappy. But the more I examined my life, the more it seemed to consist of getting up, going to school, seeing my friends, going to bed, getting up, going to school, and—on Saturdays—working half-days at the Melody Inn. That was it.

All the things that
could
happen—like Dad eloping with Miss Summers and taking me on their honeymoon
with them, or the Publishers Clearing House Prize Patrol descending on our porch, or my getting chosen most popular girl in eighth grade—nothing like that ever happened. In my thirteen years of life, in fact, when had anything happened to me that could be called remotely outrageous? Embarrassing, yes. Outrageous, no. Just once in my thirteen years, I decided, I would like something truly remarkable to happen that would make people sit up and take notice. I’m not particularly superstitious, but if it doesn’t happen in your thirteenth year, I figure it’s not going to happen at all. Well, there was still the Camera Club to look forward to.