Outrageously Alice

by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor

  “A washing machine accident, I mean,” I said miserably. “I was t-trying to be helpful. I thought I was doing you a favor.”

  Lester followed me down to the basement and stared at the pink linen shirt hanging there on the line. “I’ll take care of my own clothes from now on, okay?” he said angrily. “That was a thirty-eight-dollar shirt, Al!”

  “It’s still perfectly good! It’s just pink!”

  “If I’d wanted a pink shirt, I would have bought one. Jeez, Al! Use your head! Who would wash a red sweatshirt and a white linen shirt in the same water?”

  Worse yet, when I folded the clothes later, so much red had come out of the sweatshirt that even it looked more pink than red. Not only that, but because I had put it in the dryer, it was two sizes too small.

  Patrick came over on Friday and asked if I wanted to go to a movie. When we got there, though, the show was sold out, so we just hung around the mall. We went into a tie shop and Patrick tried on the loudest, wildest tie they had. They don’t like that in tie stores, especially if you’re thirteen, but then, they never know who might buy something. We ended up at the Orange Bowl for an orange freeze, and Patrick said that Mark Stedmeister was interested in going with Pamela again, now that she’d broken up with Brian.

  “She’s got a lot on her mind these days,” I told him.

  “Yeah, Mark told me about her folks.”

  “What she probably needs more than anything else is just friends to listen when she wants to talk.”

  “Mark can listen,” Patrick said.

  “Mark’s a dweeb.”

  “How come?”

  I looked at Patrick and wondered if boys ever remembered anything. I’ll bet that all the embarrassing things that happen to them just drift right out of their heads afterward. With girls, these memories stick around forever. They implant!

  “Patrick, don’t you remember what Mark did to Pamela the summer between sixth and seventh grade?” I asked.

  Patrick stopped drinking his orange freeze and looked at me blankly.

  “When she was showing Elizabeth and me a new bra she had bought, and Mark came up behind us and grabbed it out of her hands and went racing around the playground, waving it like a flag?”

  “That was a year ago!” Patrick said. “More than a year, and she’s gone out with him since!”

  “It doesn’t matter if it was a hundred years ago, or that she went with him again. It happened, and girls remember! Mark’s a dweeb!”

  “She’s going to hate him forever because of what he did after sixth grade?”

  “Well, what about what he did last summer? When he pulled open the back of her bathing suit and dumped his potato salad in her bikini bottom?”

  “Yeah, I guess that was pretty stupid.”

  “See, Patrick? You’d never do anything that dumb,” I said confidently. “Except for that stupid kiss in the closet, you would never do anything like that.”

  Patrick didn’t answer, just kept sucking on his orange freeze.

  I grinned at him and leaned across the table so he had to look at me. “What’s the stupidest thing you ever did to a girl?”

  No answer. Patrick kept sucking away like a vacuum cleaner.

  “Well?” I said, teasing.

  “You don’t want to know,” he said.

  “I asked, didn’t I?”

  “You’ll get mad.”

  “Why would I get mad?”

  Patrick had reached the bottom of his drink. He lifted the straw out of his glass, turned the straw over, and sucked at the other end.

  “Well,” he said finally, “you remember last May—when we were all over at Mark’s?”

  “In May? They don’t open their pool till June first.”

  “I know, but it was a warm day and we were playing badminton on the lawn.”

  “Wasn’t I sick that weekend? Getting over the flu or something? I remember sitting around feeling woozy and watching the rest of you play. We made lemonade. Somebody brought over this big bag of lemons, and you guys were seeing who could suck a lemon the longest without making a face. Is that the day you mean?”

  “Yeah, that’s the day. Well …” Patrick whirled his glass around and around on the table between his fingers. “Promise you won’t get mad?”

  I began to feel uneasy. “I said I wouldn’t.”

  “Well, the girls went inside once, all except you. You stretched out on the picnic table and fell asleep for a few minutes.”

  I vaguely remembered lying down on the picnic table, my sweatshirt folded up under my head, and I guess I did drift off. It was a warm day, and I was really out of it.

  I looked over at Patrick. His face was turning pink.

  “What happened?” I asked suspiciously.

  “Well … I was just horsing around, see … you were asleep, and … it was just a joke, Alice, honest!”

  “Patrick … ?”

  “I took two lemon halves and set them on your breasts.”

  I blinked. I tried to imagine myself the center of attention on Mark’s picnic table, snoring, even, with two lemon halves turned upside down, like cones, on my breasts, and all the guys laughing.

  “Patrick!” I said again.

  “I only left them on for a couple of seconds.”

  “Why didn’t anyone tell me?”

  “You think the guys would tell you? The girls never saw.”

  I shoved my drink away. “Patrick, when I got home that day I couldn’t figure out why there were these stains on my T-shirt. I thought something was the matter with me, like I was lactating or something.”

  “See? I told you you’d be mad.”

  “But it was so stupid!”

  “Well, you wanted stupid.”

  I was infuriated. “All this time you never told me.”

  “You never asked.”

  “How could I ask? I was asleep.”

  “That’s just it. I couldn’t tell you, because you were asleep.”

  Was this a dumb argument, or what?

  “If you were asleep, Alice, you couldn’t be embarrassed. And if you’re embarrassed now, it’s useless, because everyone’s forgotten it already.”

  “Girls don’t forget things. We remember them forever. They become a part of us, Patrick. They stick to us like Velcro.” I picked up my shoulder bag. “I’m ready to go.”

  “See? You’re mad.”

  “I’m disappointed in you,” I said gravely, just like my dad.

  “Well, I won’t do it again. It was dumb, and I’m sorry.”

  I didn’t feel like letting him off that easy, though. I guess I wanted him to shave his head, crawl to school and back on his hands and knees, and promise he’d never do it again. But then I remembered how close I’d felt to Dad after he’d forgiven me.

  “Okay,” I said to Patrick. “Apology accepted.”

  9

  RELIGION AND SEX

  ON SATURDAY, CRYSTAL HARKINS CAME over to take me to her aunt’s for my fitting. I’d told Marilyn at the Melody Inn that morning that I was going to be in Crystal’s wedding, and she’d said, “Have fun!” I never saw a woman so happy about another woman’s wedding plans. As soon as Crystal was out of the picture, Marilyn would have Lester all to herself.

  It felt really strange to be in this grown-up world of weddings and fittings and measurements and stuff.

  “Ready?” she asked, when I answered the door. “You’re going to love your dress, Alice. It looks great! Danny was asking about you.”

  “Who’s Danny?” I wanted to know, climbing in the car beside her.

  “The guy you’ll be paired with in the procession. Peter’s brother.”

  “What’s he like?”

  “Well, next to Peter, of course, he’s probably the handsomest guy in the world. Just kidding. But he’s a real hunk.”

  I gave a nervous giggle. Whenever I’m nervous, I giggle. I imagined walking down the aisle on my own wedding day, giggling. It would be just like me.

  �
��Are you nervous?” I asked her. “About the wedding and everything?”

  She laughed.

  “I’m nervous about the wedding, all right, but what’s ‘everything’?”

  “Oh, you know. What comes after.”

  “The wedding night? Sex?” She laughed again. “No. Not really.”

  I was quiet and stared out my side window.

  “Anything on your mind, Alice?” Crystal asked, and I remembered that this was the woman who had rescued me once when I had a perm I couldn’t stand, who showed me what to do with my hair. If I was ever to ask someone about sex, why not Crystal?

  I took a deep breath. “What if after your wedding night, you …” I shrugged. “Well, what if you don’t like it?”

  “Sex?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Why wouldn’t you like it? It’s a natural function.”

  “So is throwing up,” I said.

  “Listen, you like to eat, don’t you? You like to sleep? To stretch? To sneeze?”

  “But I don’t like to eat everything.”

  “Well, you don’t have to do everything, either. You can tell your husband what you like and what you don’t, and then you can try something else. What you’ve got to remember, Alice, is that sex isn’t like what you see in the movies.”

  “What movies?” I asked curiously.

  “Well, almost any movie. There are lots of ways to make love. Not everybody uses the missionary position, you know.”

  I was about to ask how religion got into it when Crystal gasped. “Oops! We just went through a red light, Alice. See, you’ve even got me flustered!”

  Ten minutes later I was standing on a low stool in a gorgeous jade green gown while a woman holding pins in her mouth moved around me on her knees, hemming up my dress. She took tucks here and there, at my waist, at the bosom, until I looked as though I had been poured into that dress.

  “Now!” Crystal’s aunt said, rocking back on her heels. “Just don’t gain any weight until the wedding’s over, okay?” Then she turned to Crystal. “She almost looks like a Barbie doll, doesn’t she?”

  “That anorexic thing?” said Crystal. “No way. Alice, don’t you ever get as bony and malnourished as that nitwit.”

  As she drove me home again, I said, “Crystal, could I ask you something?”

  “About wedding nights?” She grinned.

  “No. I just wondered if you ever … well, think about my brother anymore. Do you ever miss him?”

  “I don’t miss his going for weeks at a time without calling. I don’t miss calling him only to find out he’s with Marilyn. I don’t miss being in his arms and thinking he really loves me, and then discovering he says the same things to Marilyn Rawley. No, I don’t miss that at all.”

  “But don’t you miss some of the good things?”

  Crystal suddenly grew quiet. “Yes. Some of the good things I miss very much. But I love Peter now, and I simply don’t allow myself to think of Lester,” she said.

  * * *

  That worried me some. I would have felt better if she’d said she’d never loved anyone as madly as her husband-to-be. I guess I was thinking about it at dinner that night, because I realized I’d tried to wind up a forkful of spaghetti five times, and finally Dad said, “Something on your mind, Al?”

  I didn’t want to tell Lester what Crystal had said in the car for fear it would really mix things up, so I tried to remember what else we had talked about. Wedding nights … throwing up …

  “I thought missionaries were preachers,” I said finally.

  “Huh?” said Lester.

  “This is a topic of conversation, Lester,” I said primly. “I just want to know what they do.”

  “They don’t usually preach as much as they go to foreign countries and teach people how to do things a little better,” said Dad.

  “Sort of like sex therapists?” I asked.

  “What?” said Lester

  “They show people the right positions and everything?”

  Dad and Lester stared at me.

  “Are we talking religion here, or are we talking sex?” asked Dad.

  “Crystal said that there are lots of ways to make love,” I said knowingly.

  Lester dropped his fork. “When did you see Crystal?”

  “We went for my fitting today, and we were discussing sexual intercourse, for your information.”

  Lester coughed.

  “And she said that not everybody chooses the missionary position. So I was just wondering about missionaries.”

  Dad laughed. “Oh, honey, Marie would have enjoyed you so much at this age. It’s too bad you only have Les and me to help you muddle through.”

  I still didn’t understand. “So what’s the missionary position, anyway?”

  “Well, it’s been said that when missionaries went to foreign countries in the past to convert the natives, they talked them into wearing clothes and giving up what they felt were unusual sexual practices. They taught them that the only acceptable way to have intercourse was with the woman on the bottom and the man on top. So ever since then, that’s been referred to as ‘the missionary position.’ Got it?”

  “What are the others?”

  Lester looked at Dad. “Will she never quit?”

  “I want to know!” I insisted. “How will I ever learn if I don’t ask?”

  “Okay,” said Lester. “Woman on roof, man on ladder; woman in boat, man on water skis; man on table, woman on chandelier …”

  “Cut it out, Les,” said Dad. “Al, whatever position a man and woman find themselves in, they can usually figure out a way to make love, and whatever is comfortable and gives them pleasure is the right way. Okay?”

  “Just for the record,” Lester said, “what did Crystal say was her favorite way of making love?”

  “Lester!” I said. “I’m surprised at you. I’m her bridesmaid, after all. You don’t think I’d give away Crystal’s secrets, do you?”

  And I grandly got to my feet, went upstairs, and called Elizabeth.

  “Elizabeth, you know that missionary fund you collect for?”

  “Yes?” she said.

  “Do you know what missionaries do?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “They teach natives how to have sex.”

  “What?”

  I love to tell Elizabeth things about the church that she doesn’t even know herself. “I just found out. They go to primitive cultures and show them the right position.”

  Elizabeth gasped. “How do you know?”

  “Dad just told me.”

  “Alice, I’ve been collecting for the missionary fund for two years!”

  “Well, think of all the good your dimes are doing,” I said.

  I was so thrilled with my new discovery that I had to tell Pamela, too. “Have you ever heard of the missionary position?” I asked. And then I forgot all about it, because I could tell that Pamela was crying.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “I miss Mom and I don’t want to leave Dad,” she said, weeping. “Oh Alice, I’ve never been so sad in my whole life.”

  10

  EMERGENCY

  I INVITED PAMELA OVER TO SPEND THE night. I asked Elizabeth to come too. Elizabeth’s usually able to think of something comforting to say. I just didn’t know what to tell Pamela. That, being motherless myself, I knew she’d get over it? Huh-uh. You don’t get over it. Not ever.

  We all lay on our backs on my bed and stared up at this big wispy spiderweb that blew back and forth in the draft from my heat register. Here we were in eighth grade, the last year of junior high, and Elizabeth was too insecure to go out with Justin alone, Pamela was too unhappy to enjoy herself, and I was soon going to be in a wedding where the bride might possibly still be in love with my brother. God, who made the world, sure must have a sense of humor, I decided.

  “Where do you suppose we’ll be ten years from now?” Elizabeth asked. “We’ll all be twenty-three.”

  Twenty-t
hree! It sounded so grown-up and far away. Older than Crystal, even.

  “I’m thinking about being a psychiatrist,” I said. It was the first time I’d said that aloud. Actually, I’d been thinking about being a school counselor, but after seeing all the misery Pamela had been going through lately, I thought maybe I should go for the heavy-duty jobs.

  “A shrink?” asked Pamela.

  “Psychiatrist, psychologist, whatever,” I said. “I just want to know why people do the things they do. Maybe stop some of the problems before they start. I think I’d like that.”

  “You just want people to tell you about their sex problems,” said Pamela.

  “They come to me with sex problems?” I said, wondering. I was a missionary, too, then?

  “Pamela will know all about sex. She’ll probably be married with two kids,” said Elizabeth. “Three, even.”

  “What about you?” Pamela asked her.

  “Maybe I’ll join the Peace Corps. Maybe I’ll travel. Be a flight attendant or something,” said Elizabeth.

  That was a new kind of talk from Elizabeth.

  “I’m wondering if it’s smart to get married,” said Pamela. “You think everything’s fine, and then—pow! I had no idea my folks were thinking about a divorce. One day we’re all eating breakfast together, and the next day we’re not.”

  “You can bet they talked plenty about it when you weren’t around,” I told her.

  “Then it would have been better to talk while I was there so I would know it was coming. Figure out the whys. Why do you suppose people get divorced?”

  “They meet someone they think they love more, maybe,” said Elizabeth. “But maybe, after they divorce, they find out they don’t.”

  “Maybe they grow apart; they’re each interested in different things,” I suggested. “Or maybe they just get tired of the missionary position.”

  “The what?” asked Elizabeth.

  “Never mind,” I said.

  We had doughnuts and Cokes around midnight and went to sleep, but I woke up about four to hear Pamela crying. It’s really strange to be in your bed and hear one of your best friends crying. My first thought was to get up and go over to the cot against the wall, but then I wondered if this was a private time for her.

  I decided to turn over, just noisily enough to let her know I was semiconscious, but not loud enough to wake Elizabeth. I also gave a little sigh so she’d know it was me.