“Well, if I’m going to cook supper, you can wash some of these windows,” I said.
“Hey, what is this? You always cook on Tuesdays and Thursdays, Al.”
I stomped out to the kitchen and banged a pan on the stove. When I can’t think of anything else to make, I fry some hamburger, boil some macaroni, open a can of tomatoes, and mix them all together. Then I go down the spice rack and put in two dashes of everything I can find—basil, cinnamon, cream of tartar, garlic, fennel seeds—it doesn’t make any difference what. Finally I dump in a scoop of Parmesan cheese.
As Lester watched from the doorway, I said, “I want you to know that what you told me to say if anyone called me ‘Rhode Island’ has got Elizabeth in a lot of trouble. A boy teased her about being Illinois, so she sounded off, only she said it wrong.”
Lester stared. “What did she say?”
“‘Don’t worry! Someday you’ll get another one.’”
Lester collapsed in a chair with laughter. “Oh, boy! Oh, brother! I can just hear the guys after she left! That poor kid is going to lie awake nights wondering, ‘Another what? Another face? Another nose? A punch in the mouth? Another girl?’”
I decided to change the subject. “Lester, Dad’s party is a week from Saturday, and I’ve invited some of his friends, including Miss Summers.”
Lester straightened up. “Sounds good,” he told me.
“Do you have his present yet?”
“Ordered and ready to pick up,” said Lester. “A balloon ride for two, second Sunday in May.”
“You did it!” I gasped. “Dad and Miss Summers!” The whole world suddenly began to look better. “Oh, Lester, that’s marvelous! It’s so romantic! You’re wonderful!”
“I think so too,” said Lester.
12
HOUSE GUEST
I SPENT TWO HOURS THAT EVENING TRYING to mend the clothes from Dad’s and Lester’s closets, and only got two things done. Wednesday, just as I was leaving for school, I heard Dad banging around his bedroom.
“Son of a gun!” he bellowed, which is about as bad a thing as he’ll ever say.
I went to the bottom of the stairs. “Something wrong?”
“Where in blazes is my shirt with the gray stripes?” he thundered.
Something clicked in my head and I ran upstairs to see if it was in my mending pile.
“It’s in my room, Dad. I was going to sew a button on the cuff.”
Dad let out a sigh. “Al, if you take something of mine, will you please tell me? I’ve got on gray slacks, gray socks, and the only shirt in my closet is brown-checked.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I appreciate your learning to sew, but you’ve cost me fifteen minutes of searching the clothes dryer, the hamper, and everywhere else I could think to look. I wanted to be at the store early too.”
I apologized again and had to run to make the bus. But when school was out, I’d only been home five minutes before Lester came crashing in the front door.
“Who’s the idiot who sewed my pocket closed?” he yelped.
I swallowed. “What pocket?”
Lester turned around and showed me how stitching on the hole I had sewn up went all the way through to the back, and he couldn’t get his hand inside.
“Oh, that pocket,” I said. “You could always use the other one, Les.”
“Al, I keep my wallet in my right hip pocket. Three times today I felt around for my wallet and flipped because I thought it had been stolen.”
“I was only trying to help.”
“So what’s a little hole in a pocket? Did I ask you to mend it? Did you hear me complain?”
I sank down in the beanbag chair in one corner. “Okay, so I won’t mend your clothes. Go without buttons! Go with holes in your jeans! Go with seams ripped open and the linings hanging out. What do I care?”
“Thank you very much,” said Lester, and he went upstairs.
This was a family? I don’t know how wives and mothers stood it. If this was all the thanks the Woman of the House got, Aunt Sally could take this job and lump it. I almost called her long distance to say so.
All three of us were pretty grumpy at dinner. We were eating the leftover macaroni, ground beef, and tomato, for one thing. To disguise it, I’d added a can of corn, but it didn’t fool Dad for a minute.
“This the stuff we had the other night?”
“Sort of,” I said curtly.
He chewed some more. “The spices taste a little strange to you?”
It did taste odd, come to think of it. I guess the longer things sit, the stronger they taste. Actually, the spices were okay—the chili powder and garlic and fennel and stuff. I guess I should have stopped there and not added vanilla too. Sometimes I get carried away.
“Any more complaints?” I snapped.
“Yeah, we could use a little bread,” said Lester.
Wordlessly, I got up, took a loaf of bread from the bread box, and slung it on the table, then sat down and started eating again, eyes on my plate.
“What’s with you?” Lester said after we’d had sixty seconds of silence. “They didn’t name you ‘Rhode Island,’ did they?”
I didn’t answer.
“Delaware? Louisiana?”
“Oh, shut up, Lester!” I said. “I’m not appreciated here, I’m not appreciated at school, I’m not …”
“Welcome to the club,” said Dad. I guess we’d all had a hard day. More silent chewing. We would have made great actors for the old silent movies.
It was just about then that the doorbell rang. I got up and traipsed into the other room. As I opened the door, I was all set to say, “No, thank you,” or “I’m sorry, we’re having dinner,” when I saw Denise Whitlock leaning against the side of the porch, hands in the pockets of her jeans, shoulders hunched.
“Hi,” she said.
“Denise!” I stared. “What are you doing over here?”
She gave a little smile and shrugged again.
“How did you know where I lived?”
“Looked up McKinley in the phone book. There aren’t that many in Silver Spring.”
I stared some more. “Well, come on in. Have you had dinner?”
“Naw, I’m not hungry.”
“Oh, yes you are,” I said. “Come on out in the kitchen. We’re having leftovers, though.”
I led her to the kitchen. Dad looked up, then half rose from the table in greeting. My Dad’s such a gentleman he still tips his hat in elevators. When he wears a hat, that is.
“Dad, this is Denise Whitlock. Denise, this is my brother, Lester,” I said.
For a moment I was afraid Les was going to say, “The Denise Whitlock? Denise ‘Mack Truck’ Whitlock?” but he didn’t. Last fall it was Lester who rescued me when Denise and her gang backed me up against a car and tried to make me sing the school song. I stared intently at Lester, and somehow he got the message.
“Hi,” he said instead, and took another bite of macaroni.
“She just stopped by and I invited her to stay for dinner,” I said.
“This dinner?” Lester said jokingly. “You’re kidding. Good luck, Denise!”
She grinned a little.
This time it was Dad to the rescue. “Please sit down, Denise. We’ll find something,” he said, and got up to open a can of anything from the cupboard.
Denise seemed self-conscious. She sat sideways in her chair, like she was going to bolt any moment.
“Are you in any of Al’s classes?” Dad asked.
“Who?”
“Al, that’s me,” I told her.
“Oh. Miss Summers’s class,” Denise said.
I heard the can opener going and saw Dad dump something in a pan. Meanwhile I put a spoonful of beef/tomato/macaroni on a plate and added a glop of applesauce on the side, then got Denise a fork from the drawer.
She swung her legs around, leaned both arms on the table, and lifted the fork to her mouth. She took one swallow and dropped the fork.
“Trés mal,” said Lester. “That’s French for ‘You don’t want to know.’”
“It would have been okay if Al hadn’t put in the vanilla,” said Dad.
Denise reached for the water. “Man, it’s gross!” She took a long drink.
“I agree,” said Dad, and whisked her plate away. “Let’s try something else.” In two minutes he had a couple of slices of toast on her plate, covered with chicken à la king from a can, with a pickle on the side.
“Thanks,” she said, and started to eat.
Dad and Lester went on talking—about the cars, which of them needed oil changes; about who was going to cut the grass this year—and I thought they were extremely rude, acting as though Denise wasn’t even there. But as the meal went on and Denise was ignored, I realized she was beginning to feel more comfortable. She even reached for the salt once, even licked the sauce off one finger.
“Dessert!” Dad said finally. “What will it be?” He got up and opened the freezer. “Ice cream! Vanilla and …” He started moving cartons around. “… uh … vanilla and vanilla and … Of course! Vanilla!”
And then, as Denise and I stared, he set the ice cream on the counter, got down a box of Oreos, crunched them up in his hands in a bowl, and then added the ice cream and mashed until the whole concoction was gray. It was delicious. Denise ate every bit of hers and licked both sides of her spoon after.
“We’ll do the dishes, Dad,” I said, trying to think of some way to keep Denise there long enough to tell me why she came. We kidded around while we put the stuff in the dishwasher. I asked Denise if she was going to eat again when she got home, and she said no, it might be poisoned.
“Did you memorize that poem by Robert Frost?” I asked, figuring maybe that’s why she stopped by.
“Uh-uh.”
“Want to work on it?”
She laughed. “Not especially. This is your house, huh? How long have you lived here?”
“Almost two years. We were in Takoma Park before that.”
“Your dad teaches music?”
“He’s manager of the Melody Inn.”
“Oh.” She looked around. “Room of your own?”
“Yeah. Come on up.”
Denise really seemed to like my room, which is weird, because after you’ve seen Elizabeth’s room, with her twin beds and white eyelet bedspreads, and Pamela’s room, which looks like the inside of a Coca-Cola factory—Coke wastebasket, lampshade, bedspread, and curtains—mine looks like Goodwill leftovers, probably because they are leftovers. A twin bed, an old scratched dresser, bookcase, bulletin board with a broken corner, and a folding chair.
But Denise didn’t seem to mind that. She was looking at my bulletin board, with the picture of me in Elizabeth’s bathtub with bubble bath up to my armpits; the program of the Messiah, where Dad first met Miss Summers; the ribbon from around the box of Whitman’s chocolates Patrick gave me on Valentine’s Day; a picture of me and my mom, when I was too young to remember …
I don’t know what made me say it; what Aunt Sally had told me about nurturing, I guess—looking out for every member of my family. Denise wasn’t even family, but I think I knew what she needed.
“Denise,” I said, “why don’t you stay all night?”
“Okay,” she said, and plopped down on the edge of my bed.
I was pretty proud of my family that evening. I went down and told Dad that Denise had decided to spend the night, and he hauled up the old army cot from the basement. I put my sleeping bag on it for my bed.
Denise didn’t have any clothes with her, of course, so Dad loaned her one of his old shirts to sleep in, and Lester found a new toothbrush in the medicine cabinet. But it wasn’t until the lights were out that Denise began to talk, and it reminded me of when my grown cousin Carol came to visit, and we were lying in the dark. Somehow it’s always easier talking when the lights are out.
“What are you going to tell your mom about where you’ve been?” I asked her.
“She doesn’t care,” said Denise.
“I’ll bet she’s worried. Your dad too.”
“I’ll bet they’re not.”
The room was quiet for a while, and I began to think I’d never find out what drove Denise here. But finally she said, “Mom’s mad as hornets because she says I took her cigarettes. She walked all the way to the drugstore for a pack, and just because she can’t find them, she thinks I took them.”
“Tell her!”
Denise just shrugged hopelessly. “She never listens. Get her mad enough, she just starts hitting.”
“So what are you, her whipping girl?” I asked.
“Something like that.”
“What does your dad say?”
“Nothing. ‘That’s between you and your ma,’ he says. He believes whatever she tells him. I told you, Alice, they just don’t care. I thought of running away once, but … well, where would I go? You know what happens to kids on the streets.”
“You can’t just stay there and let her hit you.”
“I don’t. When she’s on the warpath I take off. That’s why I’m here.”
Her thoughts began to ramble after that, and at some point I fell asleep. But in the night, something woke me up. At first I thought it was the sound of a train going through Silver Spring. When it’s really quiet at night and the window’s open, I can hear the trains clearly. But then I heard something else: Denise crying. Her sobs were thick and heavy, just like Denise is. Gulps, really. This time I didn’t say anything; didn’t even let her know I heard, because I realized this was her own private time.
Dad, I thought. I love you. And I love Lester. And I love this family, even when we’re all grumpy.
The next morning Denise got up and put on the same clothes she’d worn before, ate breakfast with me, and said she was going to walk to school.
I think Dad and Lester and I all realized that she didn’t want any of the kids at school to know where she’d been.
“Hey, Denise, I go within a block of the school on my way to the U,” Lester said. “C’mon. Hop a ride.”
I found out later that Dad had tried to call the Whitlocks after we were asleep that night, but they’re unlisted. So he called the police to tell them that if they’d received a missing persons report on a girl named Denise Whitlock, she was safe with us. The police said thanks, but no one had called.
13
CLEANING THE DUCTS
I CAN UNDERSTAND WHY DAD LIKES MISS Summers. At school the next day, she was wearing her hair a new way, curls tossed this way and that, like a tossed salad. She wore a blouse of red and blue and black and green, and a slim, black skirt. She’s gorgeous. The only reason the principal hasn’t asked her to marry him, I’m sure, is because he already is.
“Why don’t you ask Miss Summers to marry you?” I suggested to Dad at dinner, just after I’d buttered my roll.
“Al!”
“Well, why not? She’s gorgeous.”
“That’s hardly reason enough,” Dad said.
“It’s a start,” said Les.
“Well, I haven’t known her long enough, for one thing, and she hasn’t known me,” said Dad. “Can’t I just enjoy a woman’s friendship for a while without having to plot the future?”
“Sure, Dad,” said Lester. “Set your cruise control on twenty and just glide along.”
“I’m afraid she’ll get away,” I told him.
“If she’s in that big a hurry to leave, there wasn’t enough to hold her in the first place,” said Dad.
When Lester and I were doing the dishes later, he said, “I think he’s worrying about Mom.”
“But she’s dead!”
“Worrying about whether he can love someone as much as he loved her. My hunch, anyway.”
“He really loved her, huh?” I asked.
“A lot,” said Lester.
I was trying to decide how I could help the romance along, and decided that just being Woman of t
he House would do. The more I could take off Dad’s mind, the more he could concentrate on Miss Summers.
So when we got a call around seven from a furnace-cleaning company and I answered, I remembered that cleaning the heat ducts was on Aunt Sally’s list of spring chores.
“Just a minute,” I said, and went into the dining room where Dad was writing checks at the folding table he uses for a desk. “It’s the All-Clean Furnace Company. They want to clean out our ducts, and Aunt Sally said it should be done every year.”
Dad groaned.
“Okay, I’ll tell them to bug off,” I said, and started back to the hallway, but Dad stopped me.
“Wait a minute, Al. This house has seemed dusty to me lately. I’ve been sneezing a lot. Lord knows when the ducts were cleaned last. Maybe never. What the heck. Tell them okay. Make an appointment for some afternoon you’ll be here, and have them bill me.”
The All-Clean Furnace Company was delighted and said they could do it the following day at four, which didn’t say too much for their popularity.
I came right home from school on Friday to be here for the cleaning. I asked Patrick to come over, because Dad doesn’t like me to be in the house with workmen by myself. We’ve got strange heat registers. They’re in the floor, and if you want to get warm quickly in cold weather, you stand over one of them and feel the heat billow out your clothes.
While the men went around the house covering up the registers in some rooms and attaching their huge vacuum cleaner to a register in another, Patrick and I sat at the kitchen table to plan what to cook for Dad’s birthday dinner.
“What does he like?” Patrick asked.
“Everything. The only thing I’m having for sure is pineapple upside-down cake for dessert.”
“How about steak?”
“Loves it.”
“Twice-baked potatoes with cheese and chives, steaks, salad, coffee, and pineapple upside-down cake. How does that sound?” asked Patrick.
My stomach rumbled in response. “Sounds great,” I told him.
We fooled around with the piano awhile, and then Patrick showed me three things he could do: stick out his tongue and curl it, close each eye one at a time, and wiggle his left ear. I wondered if this was the maturation jump they told us about in health class—a certain time when girls leap ahead of boys in emotional development.
Alice in April Page 7