Just Plain Al: The Al Series, Book Five

by Constance C. Greene

  I looked over at Al, expecting she’d tell Polly about my grandfather asking her mother out. But I knew by the set of her chin, even by the tip of her ear turned to me, which looked unnaturally pink, that she wasn’t going to mention it; she wasn’t going to say a word.

  Al didn’t like the fact that my grandfather had put the moves on her mother. Even if he only asked her to go to the ballet. She was unhappy about it. Probably because my grandfather was old enough, as she said, to be her mother’s father.

  Tough for her.

  In the end, we didn’t do much of anything. When there are three of you and only two are enjoying themselves, the third sour one puts a damper on having a good time. That last-day celebration didn’t work.

  When Polly left us to take a bus back to the west side, Al and I walked home. We didn’t say much. I wasn’t going to ask her what was bugging her. I was tired of asking her that.

  Al may be fourteen, I thought, but she’s got a lot of growing up to do.

  If I’d known she was going to get bent out of shape that easily, I wouldn’t have given her a birthday party at all. Let her go to Burger King. What do I care?

  chapter 17

  Al smelled. Even in the open air I could smell her.

  “What’s that perfume you rolled in?” I said.

  “I didn’t roll in it. All I did was put a drop behind each ear. Isn’t it cool? It’s Night Song. Stan brought my mother a bottle from Paris.”

  “Big deal.”

  “Stan also brought my mother a silk scarf.”

  “Bigger deal.”

  I felt Al looking at me. She didn’t know what to make of me. Let her figure it out. She better pull up her socks.

  “You acted like a twerp yesterday, you know that?”

  “I did not.” Al’s face got red.

  “You did, too. And what happened about changing your name? I thought you were going to the minute you got to be fourteen. I thought you were going to make an announcement at the party. You chickened out.” I wanted to make her mad. I knew that would get her. I wanted to get even with her for ruining yesterday.

  She didn’t answer, only speeded up, walking stiff-legged. She was burned up. Good. I let her go. Didn’t even run to catch up, the way I usually do. I can manage by myself.

  When I got to school, Martha Moseley and her vassals were ensconced by the steps, talking about what glamorous lives they’d led over the summer.

  “My father pierced them himself,” Martha said, turning this way and that, showing off her pierced ears, her new earrings. “He’s a jeweler, you know, and he knows just how to do it so it doesn’t hurt. And you have to have real gold earrings so the hole doesn’t get infected. Fourteen karat is best.”

  If Al was here, she’d say something wicked to put Martha in her place. One minute I wanted Al to go, the next I wanted her to be here. Let’s face it: I’m still the straight man, she’s the silver-tongued orator. I didn’t see Linda Benton or Sally Sykes, Martha’s chief vassals. Or they had been when school let out in June. There were three new ones. Martha thrived on new vassals. Martha was very demanding, vassalwise. The new ones had smooth, bland faces, anxious-to-please faces. Not faces anyone would willingly choose. Martha preferred ciphers. I bet when and if Martha gets married, she’ll choose the three most nothing types she knows to be bridesmaids.

  “Where’s your old pal Al?” Martha sneered. Al told me Martha practiced sneering every day after school. Even before she ate her yogurt.

  I shrugged. “Where’s Linda and Sally? You must be lost without them.” Martha smiled pityingly. “Sally’s moved to Chicago, and Linda’s gone to boarding school. She hates it. She says she might run away. It’s coed; they have piles of parties after lights out, though. I’m going to visit her next month. I’m flying to Boston and taking the train from there. It’ll be quite a trip.”

  “Why not go by horseback?” I said. “You know, like Paul Revere. ‘One if by land, two if by sea.’ Right?”

  It wasn’t great, but it wasn’t bad. I galloped up the steps as they tittered behind me. Girls like Martha always titter. And wear fourteen-karat-gold earrings in their pierced ears.

  My new home-room teacher was Ms. Bolton. She looked pretty cool. She was long and thin, with long, thin hands and long, thin feet. She wore red tights and kept pushing her hair back nervously. I felt sort of sorry for her. It must be tough being new and tackling a group of eighth-graders.

  There were still ten minutes before the opening bell. I went to Mr. Keogh’s room to say hello. He was our homeroom teacher last year and Al’s and my friend. He was the only teacher in the whole school who called Al Al. The others all called her Alexandra.

  Al was already there. “So I signed up for shop,” I heard her say. “I was the first on the list. I might make a table.”

  Last year when Al wanted to take shop instead of cooking, they told her she couldn’t. Mr. Keogh went to bat for Al. This year girls can take shop and boys can take cooking, if they want. Quite a few do want.

  “Hello, there.” Mr. Keogh stood up to shake hands with me. “I was wondering where you were. When Al showed up without you, I thought you might be sick. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you apart before.” Al and I avoided looking at each other.

  “I was fourteen last week,” Al told Mr. Keogh. “She,” and she lifted her shoulder in my direction, “and her parents gave me a wonderful party to celebrate. It was the most perfect party I ever had.”

  Kids milled around Mr. Keogh’s desk. We only had a couple of minutes before the bell rang.

  “One thing, Al, and then you girls had better take off; maybe you better start something small. In shop, I mean,” Mr. Keogh said. “A table might be too much at first. Why not start small so you don’t get discouraged?”

  “Mr. Keogh,” Al said, “my name’s not Al, anymore.”

  “It’s not? What is it, then?”

  Al was silent. “She hasn’t made up her mind.” I spoke for her. “Maybe Sandy. Maybe Alex. One of those.”

  “Hello! Mr. Keogh!” Martha Moseley spoke in exclamation points. She twirled and said, “Look at my pierced ears! My father’s a jeweler, you know, and he pierced them for me. See my earrings?”

  “Well. They’re very nice, Martha.” Mr. Keogh tugged at his ear. The bell rang then, and he looked very relieved.

  Al placed her hands in front of her, and in her deep, dark voice, she said, “Mother Zandi says she who pierces ears has hole in head.”

  That broke Mr. Keogh up. He laughed so hard the new kids in his class looked at each other, as if to say, “This guy’s a nut case.”

  “Go along, girls. I’ll talk to you later,” he said.

  “I’m sorry,” Al said when we were halfway down the hall.

  “Me, too,” I told her.

  Martha Moseley huffed her way past us, her behind wiggling in indignation.

  That made things just about perfect.

  chapter 18

  “The trouble with me is,” Al confessed, “I’m always standing back and looking at myself, contemplating my own navel. I’m too uptight. I know that. I wish I was more of a free spirit. I want to be a free spirit, but I can’t seem to cut it.”

  “You’re a nonconformist,” I told her, “and that’s a good way to be. You’re tense because you’re afraid you might be too much of a nonconformist, that’s all.”

  Al stared at me. “You think that’s it?”

  “Sure. Smile more. People like people who smile.”

  Al put a finger in each corner of her mouth and pulled her mouth as wide as it could go.

  “How’s that?” she said.

  I told her, “Not bad.”

  “As I grow older,” Al went on, “I’m becoming less of a nonconformist than when I was thirteen. That’s one thing being fourteen has done to me. It’s made me cautious. Sort of apprehensive, if you know what I mean. But darned if I’m going to be totally conformist. Ever.”

  “I don’t think there’s much dan
ger of that,” I said.

  “Conformists are boring,” Al said. “I may be a pain in the neck, but I’m never going to be a boring pain in the neck.”

  We got a good laugh out of that.

  “You know who’s uptight? Ms. Bolton.”

  Al pulled my arm, warning me. “Shhh, there she is.”

  Ms. Bolton came out of the teachers’ room right ahead of us. Her head was down. I don’t think she knew we were there. She had on her red tights. We figured she must have about ten pairs of red tights.

  As if she’d heard us, Ms. Bolton turned, saw us, and said, “Hello, kids.” Probably she hadn’t memorized our names yet. We said hello back. I think she’s shy. Al says she’s aloof. Whatever. Yesterday we peeked into the teachers’ room and saw Ms. Bolton sitting by herself, mournfully eating a sandwich. The other teachers give her a lot of room.

  We slowed down and followed her slowly. By the time we reached the street, Ms. Bolton was gone.

  “Mr. Keogh seems down in the dumps,” Al told me. “He wasn’t his usual friendly self today.”

  “Maybe his marriage is in trouble.”

  “No, he told me he had to put his father in an old people’s home just before school started,” Al said. “He said it almost broke his heart. He goes to see his father every weekend, sometimes twice. His father has a wonky heart and hardening of the arteries. He didn’t want to go into the home. He’d been in the same apartment for almost forty years, Mr. Keogh said. Then his father fell and couldn’t get up. Mr. Keogh’s mother died four years ago, so he’s all alone. So they had to put him in the home.

  “You know something? Kids think they have problems. But we’re pretty sure things will fall into place when we grow up and go into the world. We think the only reason we have problems is that we’re young. So then you look around and you see people like Ms. Bolton, who’s probably unhappy and lonely, and Mr. Keogh’s father, who’s old and unhappy because he doesn’t want to be in the home, and Mr. Keogh, who’s unhappy because his father’s unhappy. So what good does it do to grow up? It doesn’t solve anything.

  “What it all boils down to, my friend,” Al gave me the owl eye, “is that happiness is elusive. The more you look for it, the more elusive it becomes.”

  “Maybe the trick is not to look for it,” I said, “and maybe it’ll creep up on you when you least expect it.”

  “You want to come with me? I’m going to the card shop to buy a card to send to Brian.”

  “What kind of card?”

  “One of those ‘Oooops, sorry I forgot’ cards.”

  “What’d you forget?”

  “His birthday. He sent me an ‘Oooops, sorry I forgot’ card after Louise told him I’d had a big birthday party.”

  “How come you didn’t tell me?”

  “It was when we were mad at each other. I wanted to tell you, but I was too mad at you. Anyway, it turns out,” Al flashed me a big grin, “his birthday was two days before mine. How do you like them apples? He’s sixteen. Two years and two days older’n me.”

  “Well, I guess that means you’re opening up a whole new phase in your relationship,” I said. “Go for it, kid.”

  “Does bad luck seem to follow you?” Al said in her swami voice. “Has the one you love found another? I, Mother Zandi, will set you on the right path, warn you gravely, suggest wisely, explain fully.”

  “Bag it, Mother Zandi,” I said.

  chapter 19

  “Grandfather’s asked Al’s mother out on a date,” I said, watching my mother closely, thinking, hoping actually, she’d freak when she heard the news.

  “I know,” she said calmly. “He told me. Isn’t that nice? I’m sure they’ll enjoy each other’s company.”

  “He’s pretty old for her, don’t you think?” I said, in a severe way designed to intimidate her. “I mean, when you think about it, he’s old enough to be her father.”

  “So he is. If he’s old enough to be my father,” my mother said, “he’s old enough to be Al’s mother’s father. However, I do believe she’s several years older than I am.” My mother sat up straight and stretched out her neck in an effort to eliminate unwanted bulges.

  “Al says she’s forty-four or forty-five,” I said. “She doesn’t remember exactly what year she was born.”

  “Ah, yes.” My mother smiled. “The old failing memory trick. I know it well. They’ll have a fine time. Cool your jets,” my mother told me. I hate it when she talks like that, as if she were my age. It’s very undignified, I think.

  “Grandfather’s taking Al’s mother to the ballet,” I told my father. Maybe he’d jump up and down and say, “I won’t have it!”

  “Is that so?” He looked over the top of his newspaper at me. “I didn’t know they knew each other.”

  “Dad,” I said very patiently, “they met here, in this apartment. At Al’s party.”

  “Oh, so they did, so they did.” My father disappeared behind his paper. I directed a couple of laser beam stares at him, thinking how cool it would be if the paper went up in smoke before his very eyes.

  But nothing happened, as it so often does.

  The big question I ask myself often is: is my father as out of it as he pretends to be, or is it a ruse he uses when he doesn’t want to get involved? Men, fathers particularly, can be pretty sneaky at times, I’ve discovered.

  As luck would have it, Teddy was lurking. Scratching himself and lurking. Teddy’s fading fast. His spots now look like freckles on their way out. He’s full of pent-up energy. He’s going back to school on Monday. The whole family is offering up thanks for small favors.

  “I heard you!” Teddy screeched. “I heard you! Don’t think you can keep it a secret from me! Al’s mother’s going out with our grandfather. What’s going on here, anyway?” Teddy scrooched up his face into a tight knot. I couldn’t get over his resemblance to my favorite baby monkey at the zoo.

  “Keep your hair on, kid,” I told Teddy. “It’s strictly a platonic friendship.”

  Teddy clapped his hands over his mouth. His beady little eyes sparkled gleefully.

  “I’m telling, I’m telling!” he crooned from behind his hands. “A platonic friendship, huh?” Teddy was onto some pretty hot stuff here. He went happily into the bathroom, complete with fins and mask. Teddy liked nothing better than to go snorkeling in the tub. Usually he sings while preparing himself for descent.

  “My bonnie lies over the ocean,” I heard Teddy shouting. “My bonnie lies over the sea.”

  Someone had told Teddy that the song was very dirty. My mother said it was dirty only if you had a dirty mind.

  Teddy was crestfallen when she said that. Which was a joy in itself. Nothing I like better than to see that kid’s crest fall.

  If I want to make his day, I bang on the bathroom door while he’s singing and cry, “The sheriff’s on his way to arrest you if you don’t quit singing that dirty song!” So, feeling big-hearted, I did just that.

  I banged and shouted, and I could hear Teddy gurgling with pleasure as he submerged.

  I mean, you can hear dirtier songs in your friendly neighborhood record shop. Any day of the week.

  chapter 20

  Saturday was hot and muggy. Thick clouds scudded overhead. Planes coming into LaGuardia and Kennedy flew low, parting the clouds as if they were nothing.

  “I love flying through clouds,” Al said. “You feel as if you’re nowhere—you’re suspended above the earth and you’re not sure if you’re coming down or going up.”

  Al’s flown a lot. I never have. Everyone I know flies. Even Melvin Ticknor went to Cancún last summer. His mother got divorced and she heard there were lots of single guys down there, plus she owed herself a trip. She took Melvin along to Mexico. He got Montezuma’s revenge and never got out of the motel room. Melvin’s mother wants to go back next year, to see if this golf pro she met is still there. Melvin says he wouldn’t be caught dead there. “Didn’t see nothing but the bathroom,” Melvin told me glumly. “Tha
t and lousy TV.”

  Al looked up as a 747 flew so low it practically ruffled our hair. “What if one of those bozos crashed?” she asked me.

  “Chaos,” I told her, not wanting to dwell on it. I thought I saw tiny heads at the plane’s windows, but I couldn’t be sure.

  We waited on the corner where we’d seen the woman with the eyes. We must’ve waited half an hour. Al had a five dollar bill to give her. The digital clock said it was 77 degrees, and 11:07. The woman didn’t show. “Maybe the police told her to move along,” Al said.

  I said, “Maybe she’s dead.”

  “Now who’s putting a damper on the fun?” Al said.

  When at last we gave up and walked west, we were in search of Rudy. It seemed like a good time to listen to some of his fantastic tales. He always cheered us up. We checked all his familiar haunts. He wasn’t around. Finally, we went up to a guy playing a mournful guitar on the corner of Forty-fifth Street.

  “Do you know Rudy?” Al said.

  The guy scratched his carefully arranged black hair. “What’s he play?”

  “Violin.”

  “Oh, that Rudy. Gotcha.” His wide black mustache rippled as he talked. “He’s took off, I hear from the grapevine.”

  “Took off? Where to?” Al and I said, practically in unison. “He wouldn’t leave without telling us good-bye,” I said.

  “Yeah, well, the way I heard it,” the guy put on his cowboy hat and smiled at a passing pretty girl, “Rudy came on hard times. Somebody stole his violin. He went looking in every pawnshop on the west side, not to mention the east side. Never found it. I hear he was pretty down, pretty discouraged. He went to Florida. St. Pete, around there. His brother lives down there. Maybe it’s his sister. I don’t know. He said he’d never find another violin like that one. He was pretty broke up, I heard. It was his father’s violin, very valuable, they say. Came from Germany. Or maybe Austria.” The man’s eyebrows went up. “What do I know?”