Alice on Her Way

by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor

  “Mom… Alice, Liz, and Ross,” Sam said.

  “Hello,” she said. “I’m Martha, and I’ll be your server for this evening.” We laughed along with her as she pulled a chair away from the table, first for me, then for Liz, and we sat down. “Could I get you something to drink? We have Pepsi, apple juice, and V8.”

  “Uh… V8, please,” I said, and the others gave their orders.

  We turned and watched her head for the kitchen, then looked back at Sam. He was watching her too, and he grinned as he sat down to my left and Ross sat down by Liz.

  “Humor her,” said Sam. “She’s enjoying herself.”

  I realized that the song we were listening to was Celine Dion singing “My Heart Will Go On.” The candlelight flickered on Sam’s face. “Happy Valentine’s Day,” he said to me.

  I wanted to keep things casual. “It’s officially not till next Monday,” I said.

  “Does that make any difference?” he asked, smiling.

  Ross was wearing a tuxedo jacket and jeans and was taller than I’d remembered him. Liz looked the best, though, in her rose-colored dress. She was wearing blush of the exact same color, and I didn’t wonder that Ross’s hand was reaching for hers on the table. Sam put his hand over mine. Mrs. Mayer came up behind me just then and set my V8 juice on the table. I pulled my hand away from Sam’s so fast, I almost knocked over the glass.

  When the first song ended on the CD and the next began, we started talking about our favorite singers, our favorite groups. Then Martha appeared again, without the white gloves this time, holding a notepad and pencil.

  “Our appetizers this evening are crab bisque or spinach salad, and our entrées are chicken with mushrooms or Tuscan lasagna,” she said. I decided she must have been a waitress in a previous life, she did it so well. It really was sort of like a restaurant, and certainly a lot cheaper for Sam, which was fine with me.

  “This was really nice of your mom, Sam,” said Elizabeth after Mrs. Mayer went back to the kitchen. “She put a lot of work into this.”

  “She’s having a ball,” said Sam. I wondered if Mrs. Mayer had ever done it for Sam and Jennifer when they were going together. Then I realized I’d ordered the spinach salad. No! Not with braces! Spinach was the worst! But I wasn’t about to go after Martha and change my order.

  Then the salads and soups arrived, and I hoped I wouldn’t spill any oil on my dress. The worst part about a formal date is the dinner, I decided. I still remembered the night Patrick took me to his parents’ country club, just Patrick and me, the summer before seventh grade. I was terrified. His folks drove us over, and I’d never even seen a dessert fork or a butter knife. After I got home, I’d opened my purse to find that I had stuffed the table napkin in there! Talk about embarrassing!

  I speared a cherry tomato with my fork and sent a squirt of juice in Sam’s direction. Everyone laughed. “Oh, I’m sorry!” I said.

  “You only ruined my Ralph Lauren tie,” Sam joked, and dabbed at the lapel of his blazer. And then I felt the spinach caught in my braces. When Mrs. Mayer came back with some rolls, I asked, “Could I use your restroom?” Restroom? Had I actually said restroom? In this apartment?

  “Right this way,” she said, and led me down the hall to the bathroom.

  “You look lovely,” she said, “and Sam’s talked so much about you. Your father owns the Melody Inn, is that right?”

  “No, he’s the manager,” I said as we reached the bathroom. I don’t know what would have happened if this had been an emergency, because she went right on talking there in the hall.

  “But he must have a wide range of musical knowledge to run a business like that,” she said.

  “Yes.”

  “Does he play an instrument?”

  I ran the tip of my tongue over my braces, searching for spinach. “Flute, piano, violin… ,” I said.

  “Then he probably studied music in college. What university? I’m just curious. I have a lot of musical friends.”

  “Northwestern for his undergraduate, I think.” I edged toward the doorway.

  “So he did postgraduate work as well? Oh dear, I’m standing here talking and you need to get in,” she said quickly. “Sorry.” She gave me an apologetic look and went back down the hall.

  Now, what was that all about? I wondered, closing the door behind me. Talk about the third degree! It was all about Dad. Our family. His education. His status. I felt as though I had just been interviewed for a position in a company. Future daughter-in-law or something. But maybe it wasn’t all that different from Dad asking questions about Sam.

  I checked my teeth in the mirror, and sure enough, it looked as though I’d lost a tooth where a hunk of spinach had blacked it out.

  There was a little basket lined with a gingham cloth on top of the toilet tank. It held an artfully arranged disposable toothbrush and paste, tampons, hair spray, dental floss, and aspirin. I had the feeling this was just for Liz and me. I used some of the dental floss.

  When I came back to the table, the entrées had arrived.

  “Enjoy!” Martha said. When she returned to see if everything was okay, we told her that her food was wonderful.

  “Thank you,” she said, laughing. “I’ll be sure to tell the chef.”

  Somehow I managed to get through the meal without sliding the chicken breast onto my lap. I remembered to cut up only the next bite of meat, not the whole piece. Not to blot my lip gloss on the linen napkin, just to dab at my mouth. Not to use my own knife to help myself to the butter. Honestly, Dad and Lester and I ate like pigs at home, I thought. Maybe now that Sylvia was living with us, I’d learn some social graces. I had to think about every move I made.

  “I like your dress,” Sam told me.

  “Sylvia helped choose it,” I said. “She has great taste in clothes.”

  “What’s it like having an English teacher for a mom?” he asked.

  “Weird,” I said, and joked, “About the same as having a waitress for a mom, I guess.”

  It must not have sounded right, because I had expected Sam to laugh and he didn’t. I added quickly, “I hope she knows how much we appreciate this.”

  “I’ll tell her,” Sam said.

  Mrs. Mayer removed our plates when we had finished and delivered little chocolate cakes in the shape of hearts for dessert. She and Sam exchanged smiles.

  “Terrific meal,” I told Sam. “She should open a restaurant.”

  “She really could too!” said Sam. “And she could decorate the walls with all the people she’s photographed.” He motioned toward one whole wall of the living room, which I hadn’t noticed before because the light was so dim.

  “She’s a photographer too, then?” Ross asked.

  “Yeah. She does freelance for some of the local newspapers,” Sam told us. Then he turned on some lights and gave us a tour of their living room. You could tell he was proud of his mom. He could have been her press agent, the way he showed us around. There was a photo of Chelsea Clinton, Sean Penn, the mayor of New York, a scientist at the National Institutes of Health….

  As we moved around the room Sam kept one arm around my waist, and every so often his lips brushed my cheek. I liked that. I liked Sam. I think I would have enjoyed the evening a little more if his mom weren’t around, though.

  When we got to a photo of the Redskins’ coach, Ross and Sam started talking football, and Liz and I went down the hall to the bathroom together. I pointed out the little basket of “necessaries” on top of the toilet tank.

  “This is so weird,” I said. “I’m glad you guys are here.”

  “I think his mom’s kind of nice,” said Liz, combing her hair.

  “She is. I just… I feel like she’s watching me through one-way glass or something.”

  “That’s what Jennifer said,” said Liz.

  “What?”

  “What Jennifer said when she dumped Sam. I heard her telling Charlene. She said she felt that Mrs. Mayer was along every time they went out.
”

  “What did she mean by that?”

  “I have no idea,” said Liz. “I wasn’t even supposed to hear.”

  “You never told me.”

  “I didn’t know you’d be going out with Sam. And besides, why should what she felt affect you?”

  Liz was right, I supposed. And Sam really was being sweet to me. So was his mom.

  “You think we should leave a tip?” I asked, motioning to the little stack of paper guest towels.

  Liz grinned. She took the eyeliner pencil out of her purse and wrote Thank you, from Alice and Liz on one of the towels and left it for Mrs. Mayer on the sink.

  “It was a pleasure meeting you,” Mrs. Mayer told me when she brought my cape, and gave my hand a squeeze.

  “The meal was wonderful, and so are your photographs,” I said.

  As we went back down to the parking garage, Liz and Ross lagging behind to kiss, I asked Sam, “No dad in the picture?”

  “No,” he said. “They separated a long time ago. Never divorced, but I hardly ever see him. He’s in Florida. Sort of weird, huh?”

  “I guess so,” I said.

  “I asked Mom about it once, and she said they respect each other too much to get divorced but they don’t love each other enough to live together. Figure that one out.”

  “I wouldn’t even try,” I said.

  9

  Alone Together

  The gym had been transformed into a red and white fairyland. Red, white, and pink streamers formed a ceiling over the polished floor. A strobe light went on every now and then, creating a large circle of light in front of the band, with “snowflakes” swirling around and around inside it. When dancers moved into the circle, their bodies were covered with tiny dots of light.

  Artificial Christmas trees lined both sides of the dance floor. They had all been sprayed white, with red and pink hearts dangling from their branches. The faculty chaperones hung back by the punch table, but every so often a few came out to dance. I remembered how upset I used to get when I saw Sylvia Summers dancing with her old boyfriend, Jim Sorringer, back at our junior high school dances.

  “Has anyone seen Pamela?” I asked when I spotted Jill and Justin. And then I saw Pamela’s red top across the gym. She was gorgeous, of course, and Brian already had his hand too far down on her back.

  Sam had his arm around me when the next number began, and we danced out into the dark as the lights went down a notch. It was different from dancing with Patrick. When I leaned against Patrick, my head was against his chest. When I leaned against Sam, our cheeks were side by side. That was okay too!

  I could see Karen and her date and caught a glimpse of Penny and Mark. Everything seemed different with the snow-covered trees, the little lights, the music, the way we looked, all of us dressed up, so sophisticated. I turned my face toward Sam, and we kissed as we danced, our feet scarcely moving at all.

  When the band took a break, Liz and I went down to the girls’ locker room to check our makeup. One of the teachers was there offering tissues and combs and any help she could give. Pamela came in, balancing on a new pair of stiletto heels.

  “Hey, hot stuff!” Liz said.

  “Ross is one magnificent hunk!” Pamela told her. “All the girls are looking at him. Be glad he’s in Pennsylvania, or they’d be lining up at his door.”

  “Yeah, lucky me,” said Liz.

  I leaned toward the mirror and reapplied my lip gloss, then my eyeliner, vaguely conscious of the girl next to me in the purple dress with the low-cut neckline. She was holding a mascara brush, flicking up her lashes, her dark hair piled on top of her head.

  The girl on the other side of her said, “Marcie, who’s your date? I didn’t see you come in.”

  And the girl with the mascara brush said, “A guy from band, Patrick Long.”

  I tried not to stare. Did I know her? One of the school brains, I figured. I watched out of the corner of my eye as she removed a contact lens and put it back again. Then I realized she played first flute in the school band. She was probably about as perfect a girl as Patrick could get, I thought. Was I jealous? A little, I guess. I was his first choice, though, I reminded myself.

  Giving my hair a few quick stabs with my comb, I went upstairs to find Sam. A fast number was just ending, and the lights were dimming again.

  Sam smiled at me. He put one arm on my waist and with his other hand, held mine close to his chest. I snuggled against him. We were dancing toward the band when I noticed that some of the couples had stopped near the edge of the strobe-lit circle, their faces turned toward the couple dancing there in the light.

  I wondered if it was Patrick and Marcie. Sam wasn’t even aware of the couple or the others watching. His eyes were closed, and he pulled me tighter to him as we swayed from side to side to the music.

  As we kept turning, though, the couple attracting all the attention came into view, and I could see two figures dancing alone, their noses almost touching as they looked into each other’s eyes.

  It wasn’t Patrick and his date. It wasn’t even Jill and Justin or Faith and Ron. It was Lori and Leslie, each wearing dark pants and dressy black tops, and they danced as though there were no one else in the whole wide world except them.

  We talked about that when the dance was over. Some of the other kids were going out to eat, but we’d had our dinner, and Dad expected me home. I didn’t want him calling me on my cell phone. We drove to Lester’s. Ross got his overnight bag out of the trunk, and we waited while Liz went over to the side steps with him and they kissed in the shadows. Sam and I looked away.

  “What’d you think of Lori and Leslie?” asked Sam.

  “I think they looked great,” I said.

  “It’s hard to watch sometimes, though,” he said.

  “You think so? I think it’s hard to watch Jill and Justin sometimes—the way they’re all over each other. You just want to say, ‘Get a room!’”

  Sam smiled and pulled me to him, and we kissed. He grinned at me. “You think it feels that good when lesbians kiss? Lori and Leslie?”

  “Why not?”

  “What about gay marriage?”

  “Nobody told me they were engaged!” I joked.

  “In general, I mean.” Sam always manages to turn things into a serious conversation.

  “Well, some people are always saying how promiscuous gays are, and yet when they try to settle down with one partner, they can’t make it legal,” I said.

  “You’ve thought about the question, then?”

  “I’ve thought about Lori and Leslie and how rotten they’ve been treated by some of the kids,” I answered.

  “I suppose you’re right,” said Sam. “But I take marriage pretty seriously.”

  Were we really having this conversation? I wondered. I didn’t want to ruin a wonderful evening. “Well, I won’t be thinking about marriage for a while,” I told him.

  In the light from the streetlamp I could see the twinkle in Sam’s eyes. “Not at all?”

  “Oh, now and then. Off and on,” I said, and laughed. “How do you know I want to get married at all?”

  “You mean, you wouldn’t?”

  “That’s light-years away. I’ve got five or six years of college ahead of me, Sam. What about you?” I asked, meaning college.

  “I think about it,” he said, meaning marriage.

  Elizabeth came back to the car reluctantly and got in, and I saw Lester open the door to Ross at the top of the side stairs.

  “It must have been hard to say good night,” I told Liz.

  “It was,” she said, “but he’s coming over tomorrow before he goes home.”

  After we let her out at her house, Sam pulled in our driveway. I was nervous. This was such a formal date. After the work Sam and his mom had gone to in making a nice evening for me, I felt I ought to invite him in. I didn’t know if I wanted Dad and Sylvia to be waiting up or not.

  Sam turned off the ignition.

  “Would you like to com
e in for a little bit?” I asked. “I think we’ve got some sparkling cider in the fridge.”

  “Sure,” said Sam.

  I got out my key as we went up the steps and opened the door. I made enough noise to let Dad know I was home and heard a toilet flush upstairs.

  “Just want you to know I’m home and Sam’s here,” I called.

  “Okay,” Dad called back.

  “Come on out to the kitchen,” I told Sam. I got down two glasses and found the cider behind the milk carton. It was a fancy bottle with a cork instead of a cap. I found the corkscrew, and Sam took off his jacket. He uncorked the bottle and poured the cider.

  As he lifted his glass he said, “To us,” and clinked his glass against mine.

  We took them back to the living room and set them on the coffee table.

  “I really enjoyed this evening,” Sam said as we sat down together on the couch, his mouth against my ear.

  “So did I,” I said.

  “In fact,” said Sam, “I’ve wanted to go out with you since the first day I saw you in eighth grade.”

  “Really? What was I doing?”

  “Eating lunch,” he said.

  “Eating lunch?” I gasped. “And that got your attention?”

  “You were talking to Patrick, actually. And I wished it was me.” He ran his hand up and down my bare arm and kissed the side of my face.

  “Well, now it is you,” I said, and turned toward him. He kissed me, just brushing my lips with his. The bulb from the floor lamp shone directly in my eyes when we pulled apart, and Sam reached behind him and turned it out so that our only light came from the kitchen.

  “Much better,” he said.

  Everything was like I was doing it for the first time. The kissing, the touches. Except it wasn’t as awkward now as it had been at the beginning with Patrick. That first time Patrick and I kissed, it was so excruciating. I couldn’t wait for him to leave. But it wasn’t like that now. Now I wanted Sam to stay. I wanted it to last. And more than that…

  Sam moved in slow motion. Everything he did was slow. I thought about the movies where the man and woman suddenly grab each other and start swallowing each other’s tongues, practically. It was different with Sam. His lips touched mine lightly, making me eager to press mine against his. His hands caressed my hair, my shoulders. I don’t really know how long we were there on the couch, half sitting, half lying down…