Patrick looked at me strangely. “Why?”
I shrugged. “Because they’re special to me, I guess.”
You know what Patrick did? He reached over, grabbed my shoulders, and kissed me on the mouth. In front of the other boys at the back. It wasn’t a kiss in the moonlight with our snow-covered eyelashes beating time with our hearts; it was a kiss in the school bus with the smell and taste of orange juice on Patrick’s lips.
Brian started yelling like a baboon and the boys all stomped their feet on the floor, which made all the kids in front turn around. And you know what happened next? Patrick kissed me again. When a seventh-grade boy can’t think of anything else to do, he kisses.
As we went inside the school, Elizabeth said, “I’m glad you didn’t play that trick on Patrick. I never saw his face get that red, Alice. I wish I hadn’t been one of the ones to scream.”
Brian wasn’t so kind. “You’re a killjoy, you know it?” he told me. “All the other kids did their part. All but you. It would have been a blast!”
“For you, maybe,” I said.
It was Pamela who surprised me, though. As we walked to our lockers, she said, “You and Elizabeth and Patrick and I have known each other since sixth grade, Alice. I think you did exactly the right thing.”
I did? You mean there was a Brotherhood too? Or maybe a Universal Humanhood that included Brian and Dad and Lester and even Mr. Hensley? Who came first? My family? My friends? Myself? The Sisters? Or did you have to decide it case by case? It was all very confusing. The important thing, however, was that Pamela and Elizabeth and I were Sisters again. Friends forever, just as we’d promised.
At lunchtime, however, I told Jill and Karen that I didn’t want to come to the earring club any longer, because I was saving my money for something else. They didn’t seem too surprised.
“What are you saving for?” Pamela asked me.
I had to think quickly. “A dress,” I said, and that seemed to satisfy them.
And maybe it would be a dress, who knows? A bridesmaid’s dress for whoever got married first, Lester or Dad. Would Lester marry Marilyn? Would Crystal find another love? Would Loretta get lost? Would Janice Sherman walk down the aisle with the oboe instructor? Would Dad marry Miss Summers? The only thing I knew for sure was that nothing stays the same, and whatever was coming next, I’d be ready. Maybe.
WOMAN OF THE HOUSE
IT WAS AUNT SALLY WHO STARTED IT. March wasn’t even over before I got a note from her reminding me of my birthday in May. As though I might forget or something.
Our little Alice is going to become a teenager, she wrote. Community property, that’s me. It was what she said next, though, that got me thinking: It’s a big responsibility, because you’re the woman of the house now, you know.
I guess it was the word “woman” that sounded so strange. Up until then I’d thought of myself as the only girl in the family, but this was different. Woman of the House sounds pretty official.
“What did Sal have to say?” Dad asked as he divided the mail among the three of us: The New York Times Book Review for himself; Muscle and Fitness for Lester; and “Occupant” for me. So far that week I’d got a packet of shampoo, a round tea bag, coupons for one free doughnut when I buy a dozen, two packs of razor blades for the price of one, and paper towels at twenty cents off.
“She says I’m Woman of the House now,” I told Dad.
“Woman?” said Lester, looking around. “Where?”
Lester is twenty years old and looks thirty because he has a mustache. I’m twelve and look like I’m ten. Sometimes, anyway. It depends on whether you’re looking at me sideways or head-on.
“I’m practically thirteen,” I told Lester, in case he had forgotten.
He gave a low whistle. “I can’t believe I’ve spent more than half my life in the same house with you.”
“I can’t believe I’ve spent my whole life with you!” I retorted.
“Just our luck, huh?” said Lester.
Dad was opening all the bills. “Your mother used to say that if she had to choose two children all over again, she’d take the two she got.”
I was a little surprised. “All I can remember is how she used to say we were taking five years off her life.”
Dad put down the envelope in his hand. “That was your aunt Sally, Al.” My name is Alice McKinley, but he and Lester call me Al. “Your mother never said any such thing.”
“Sorry,” I told him. I always do that. Mom died when I was little—five, I guess—and Aunt Sally, in Chicago, took care of us for a time. I can never remember who was who. I thought about that awhile, though. “If she wanted me so badly, why did she wait seven years after she had Lester?”
Dad smiled. “We were waiting for you, sweetheart. Babies don’t always come right when you want them, you know.”
“I know,” I said. I was thinking about Elizabeth’s mother, across the street, who was expecting a baby in October. Elizabeth Price has been an only child for twelve years, and she’s in a state of shock—partly because she’s about to be displaced, and partly because anything having to do with bodies shocks Elizabeth.
I looked at Lester. “When I was born, were you in a state of shock?”
“Uh-uh,” said Lester. “Not till after I saw you. Then I went catatonic.”
I took my mail upstairs and opened the latest Occupant envelopes. There were coupons for deodorant, sink cleaners, ravioli, and mouthwash. There was also a little envelope of rich chocolate cocoa, which I ate with my finger.
Aunt Sally, I knew, collected coupons and kept them in a little box with dividers in it. I wondered if Mom saved coupons. And then I got to thinking about how, if I was the Woman of the House now, I had to start thinking about things like this. Saving money, I mean. Running a home. Looking out for Dad and Lester. Simply looking after Lester was a full-time job.
I lay back on my bed and stared up at the ceiling. Woman of the House. In charge, sort of. It was weird that all these years I hadn’t thought of it once. I’d always felt that Dad and Lester were here to take care of me, but now that I was going on thirteen …
I arranged all my coupons alphabetically, put them in a corner of a drawer, and went back downstairs where Dad and Lester were still reading their mail.
“What we’ve got to start thinking about,” I told them, “is spring cleaning.”
Dad lowered his magazine. Lester lowered his jaw.
“Cleaning?” asked Dad.
“Clean, as in scrub, sweep, vacuum, and polish?” said Les.
“Whatever,” I said. “What we could do is divide up the work.”
“I’ll dust the piano keys,” said Dad.
“I’ll rinse out my coffee mug,” said Lester.
“I’m serious,” I told them. “I don’t think we’ve done any spring cleaning since Mom died.”
“Frankly, Al, I don’t think your mother ever did any spring cleaning. She vacuumed and straightened up regularly, but I don’t remember her making a big deal of spring,” said Dad.
“Oh,” I murmured. Actually, I was sort of glad, because I didn’t much like the thought of scrub-sweep-vacuum-polish either.
If Mom didn’t do spring cleaning, though, what did she do? Since I didn’t much remember her at all, I tried to think about all the women I saw on TV and what they worried about. Toilet bowls. Ring around the collar. Fiber. Dentures.
I was just going to get a pen so I could make a list when the phone rang. It was Pamela Jones, of the long blond hair. So long she can sit on it. At least I thought it was Pamela. It was her voice, but I could hear sobbing in the background.
“Pamela?” I asked.
“Alice,” she said. “You’d better come over. I’m here at Elizabeth’s.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Illinois.”
“What?”
“Illinois,” Pamela said again. “Hurry!”
I grabbed my jacket and went outside. Woman of the House could wait.
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