The Fall of Alice K. (26 page)

Do I have a choice? Alice asked herself. Yes, she thought, yes, and her answer to herself was like another prayer, and this one said, “Yes, with God's help.”

Thinking of Miss Den Harmsel again led her to seek refuge in Shakespeare. She took out her copy of
Hamlet.

She came upon Hamlet's soliloquy that began with “To be or not to be—that is the question.”

The famous quotation struck her as one of the stupidest questions she had ever read in literature. To be or not to be? What an indecisive loser. What had Miss Den Harmsel said about melancholia? Hamlet didn't need her mother's Valium; he needed a perker-upper!

Then she came across a quotation that was as good as anything she might have found in the Bible. “Refrain to-night, and that shall lend a kind of easiness to the next abstinence: the next more easy.”

That sounded like something Miss Den Harmsel might quote. Why couldn't her mother put it like that? She didn't need her mother to make her keep her relationship with Nickson in safe territory. She had restrained herself with him for over a week. The rest would be easy.

Alice intended her next conversation with Lydia to be about Shakespeare first, and then she'd use talk of Shakespeare to make a
transition to Nickson. She would ask Lydia if she had any advice about how to keep a friendship with a guy in safe territory, even if Lydia didn't know how to do that herself. Unfortunately, Lydia was less interested in talking about Shakespeare—or Nickson, for that matter. She wanted to talk politics!

When she started ranting about how terrible things would get if George Bush became the next president, Alice interrupted her. “You sound like my mother! All my mother can do is talk about how bad things are going to get, but she thinks it's the millennium. She thinks the world is going to end!”

“It will end if George Bush and his buddies buy the presidency!” Lydia bellowed.

“You're sounding as crazy as my mother in your talk about how bad things are going to get,” said Alice. “My mother thinks our computers will rot our brains if they don't make airplanes crash and clocks stop. You two are fellow doomsayers!”

Lydia straightened her back and turned to Alice in what one could only call her snippy way: “Bad things
are
going to happen,” she said. “Your mother is not entirely wrong about that. Some of it will have everything to do with the millennium. I read that some crazy cult people will commit suicide the way they did with the last millennium. And the government's a lot more worried than they let on. National Guard troops are going to be ready in case major power outages actually happen.”

“My mother is hoarding cans of Spam, Lydia!” Alice yelled at her. “It's nuts!”

“Stockpiling food is not such a bad idea either,” said Lydia. “Especially if George Bush becomes our next president.”

“Have you gone bonkers?” Alice stared at her. Was this her dear friend in whom she confided and in whom she would like to confide a lot more in talking about Nickson? “I don't think things will be much different whether Bush or Gore or Elizabeth Dole or Steve Forbes or Bill Bradley or anyone else is president.”

“Yes, they will,” said Lydia. “Yes, they will.”

“Have you turned into one of these conspiracy-theory nuts?” said Alice, still staring in disbelief at her dear friend who looked as if she
was possessed by some strange power that was making her mad. She was practically hyperventilating.

Lydia read Alice's dumbfounded expression. “Sorry,” she said. “Sometimes I get carried away.”

“Me too,” said Alice, “but not about George Bush.”

When Alice and Lydia parted, the fear that Alice had was that Lydia's vision of the future put her in the same camp as her mother.

26

The next afternoon Alice's father called a family meeting without Aldah present. Something bad was coming down. It started with her mother criticizing Alice for not spending more time with Aldah. That set Alice off: “Aldah is the one who doesn't have time for
me,
” she said. “She's always on the phone with her boyfriend.”

“We put a stop to that,” said her mother. “We're going to be putting a stop to a lot of things. Albert, tell her.”

Her father pursed his lips and nodded his head.

“Things are bad,” he said. “We're going to have to do something different. You didn't tell her anything about this, Agnes?”

“She doesn't listen to me, why should I tell her anything?”

“Because we're going to have to work together as a family. No sense beating around the bush. Things are bad.”

“They'll get worse,” said her mother.

“Your mother and I had to find jobs.”

The surprise that wasn't a surprise. Her parents going off to work, leaving the whole farm stranded, uninhabited, halfway toward total abandonment? Even though Alice had fantasized about this scenario, she wasn't ready for it.

“Dad, don't do it. If you and Mom go off to work, everybody will know how bad things are. Let me give the summer money back.” She kept control of herself. She wouldn't let her mother know about the thirty-two thousand dollars.

“That money is not on the table,” he said. “Your mother and I will bring in some money.”

“And Aldah will have to go to Children's Care now,” her mother said.

Another surprise that shouldn't have been a surprise!

“And Aldah in Children's Care? Now? You're dumping everything! You're just dumping it—Aldah, the farm, me! You're just dumping everything!”

“The world is narrowing,” said her mother. “Things are closing in. We have only one path to follow.”

“An empty house is a pretty dumb path,” said Alice. “And a deserted farm doesn't earn money.”

“Your mother has been offered a job at the Bylersma Chicken Farm. There are 180,000 chickens in that operation.”

“Chicken farm?” said Alice. “Chicken farm?”

“I grew up with chickens,” said her mother. “I know chickens. There are so many things you don't know about me.”

“So you're going to walk around all day with a bag of chicken feed saying, ‘Here, chicky chicky chicky'?”

“Stop it,” said her father. “Your mother will be overseeing the grading of eggs.”

“And you?” said Alice. “What are you going to do while Mother stands around with her grade book? By the way,” she said, turning to her mother, “What's a passing grade for an egg, C-?”

The face of her mother: large blank eyes beneath her high forehead, eyes that refused to say what the mind might be thinking. Inscrutable eyes.

“Stop it,” said her father. “I am going to work for the Vander Myer Dairy. Three hundred cows milked three times a day. We'll be on the same schedule—thirty hours a week.”

Her mother continued her blank stare, though she was barely able to control her distorted grin. This had to be one of her parents' conspiracies: they'd worked things out together and now were laying it all out on Alice, one puzzling piece at a time.

“We'll be working nights,” he said. “We're giving you a lot of responsibility because we respect you for how responsible you can be about work. And we were sure you would understand why this is absolutely necessary for the family right now.”

Alice held her tongue while her father laid out the plan. They'd go to bed shortly after Alice got home from school and get up at midnight to work until six in the morning. Her father would be around to help her with the morning chores, though she'd have to do all the chores alone
in the afternoons when she got home from school. She'd have from five in the afternoon until eleven thirty to have supper and study while they were sleeping.

“Our work will be supervisory,” said her father. “It shouldn't take too much out of us. We're lucky to get these jobs.”

All of Alice's suspicions about what they were up to were coming true. He had just recited a whole life-changing program. Alice let it sink in before asking for clarification. Was he really saying that they would sleep the whole while she was home after school, only to get up just before midnight and not be home again until early the next morning? Did he really say that? And did he really say Aldah would be leaving the house, going to live in one of those—those homes? Did he really say all that?

He really had said all that. When Alice shuffled the information in her head a few times, it still didn't make sense.

“I thought those were all Mexicans working at the dairy and chicken factories,” she said.

“They are. That's why our roles will be supervisory.”

“Um, shouldn't you both be able to speak, like, Spanish if you're going to supervise Mexicans?”

“Not necessary,” he said. “The important thing is that we're able to speak English to the owner to tell him what is going on, who is doing their work, and what needs improving. He has people who can translate to the Mexicans what needs doing that isn't being done.”

“Louis Vander Myer actually owns that big dairy?” asked Alice. Only a few years ago he had looked like your ordinary farmer scraping by.

“His father and uncle in California have had big dairies out there for years. They're just expanding the family operation out here.”

“So Louis is more like a manager than owner?”

Her father saw where Alice was going with her analysis. He didn't want to admit it: he was going to work for a corporation, even if it was a family corporation. A family corporation with California money.

Alice had fooled herself into believing that she could outsmart any situation. She was a problem solver who could look at the information, figure it out, and come to some workable solution. Not this time. She understood the expression, “Things were getting desperate.”

“I really don't get it,” she said. “What about things here? We can't just stop feeding the hogs and cattle!”

“Of course not,” said her father, and his voice had gotten louder. “I'll do some of the chores before you get home from school, and I'll be home before seven in the morning to help you finish morning chores.”

“To help
me?
To help
me?
Don't we have something turned around here? I thought it was I helping
you.
”

“See what I mean about her?” said her mother. “Listen to the way she talks: always me, me, me! That's all she can talk about! Me, me, me! Me, me, me!”

Where was a good hailstorm when they needed one? Maybe some lightning or a flood. At least they had their own little earthquake going: their chairs were moving even though no one had gotten up.

Like an apparition, Aldah appeared in the kitchen doorway. She was wearing her bathrobe with the little white sheep against a blue background. It was a soft flannel and fit her loosely. She had everyone's attention.

“Aldah took bath by myself,” she said.

“Very good, my special person,” said Alice.

Her hair was moppy over her ears. She had slipped into her soft bunny slippers and put on her new thick glasses. The living room behind her was shadowed, and she really did look like a guardian angel, eyes glowing, coming to rescue them all from themselves. When she looked at them, all Alice saw were those big magnified eyes.

“Where's David?” said Aldah.

Did Aldah know what she was doing? It's not as if she and Alice had never talked about the brother she never had, and when Alice talked about David, Aldah had seemed to understand that he had died as a little baby. When Alice talked about David, she tried to make Aldah feel that she had something that most people didn't have, like a secret that was to be treasured. “David” was one of the words that Aldah could read. Maybe she had seen David in her mind and went looking for him to see him again. Alice thought this was possible—one of God's gifts to those whom he had shortchanged.

“David is not here,” said her father.

“Now you get ready for bed,” said her mother. “Alice, you take her to her room.”

Alice was in no mood to take orders from her mother, but she preferred leaving the room to staying there, so she took Aldah to her room and tucked her in. When Alice walked back through the kitchen on the way to the stairs and her own room, her father said, “We're not finished.”

Alice rejoined them.

“Because we'll be going to bed right after you get home from school, you'll always have to be here by four o'clock. I'll show you what needs to be done with the hogs, but this does mean you'll have to cut out all extracurricular activities.”

“I'm in choir and debate. Sometimes I'll have to stay after. Not often but sometimes.”

“No extracurricular activities. This is family survival we're talking.”

“Drop them both,” said her mother.

“She's right,” said her father. “Drop them both.”

Her parents were emptying everything. They were taking it all. What exactly did they think she'd have left? Alice didn't understand the emotion that filled her as her father dropped the last bombshell, but it was not a feeling of defeat. It wasn't anger either. If this feeling had a voice, it would be a war cry. A powerful voice in her chest that screamed for justice.

Her parents were depriving Alice of everything that mattered. Did they really understand what they were doing? Did they even care? Did they have one inkling of how cruel they were being? No! And they were trying to act as if they were the ones who were making a sacrifice. They didn't care about anything that was important to her. They wanted to use her as a free grunt. Less than minimum wage. They were turning their daughter into a slave!