I Just Got a Letter from Allyson Pringle

by Anya Bateman

  I extended my arm.

  “The trombone? I love it! But hey, we could have used you in The Music Man.”

  “Seventy-six of me?”

  She let out an involuntary snort. Then, smiling gently, she smoothed down her dress until the hemline slipped down over her boots, leaving only the toes showing. Looking a little vulnerable, she lifted her delicate chin in my direction. “You really do remind me of my brother, Pete. He’s not like me, not the lampshade-on-the-head stuff, I mean. He has more of a dry sense of humor, like you. Oh, don’t get me wrong, he can be hysterically funny, but if there’s a choice, he’d rather not perform in front of too many people. Once, when I tricked him into being the MC at a function my dad was involved with, he came through big time, just like you did in my skit, and he was a hit.”

  I wasn’t sure how flattered a guy should feel to have a girl tell him he reminded her of her brother, but I was happy she was sharing things about herself and anxious that she continue. “So, do you have other brothers and sisters, or is it just you and Pete?”

  Alysse opened her mouth for a second but then shut it, as if this were a sensitive topic. She tugged at her hem, revealing green fishing boot again, but then she changed her mind and let the skirt fall back over her ankle. Lifting her chin even higher, she tilted it slightly, her smile stiffening somewhat. “I have some stepbrothers and stepsisters.” Alysse ran her fingers through the loose portion of her hair in front, pulling out a piece of tinsel and staring at it as if wondering whether to continue. Finally she studied my face for a second or two. She looked around the gym, then continued. “This last time my dad got married was his sixth try, and this new wife has a couple of kids. The other stepkids along with their moms have come and gone. My mother lives in Baltimore now with her new family. But Pete—he’s always been there for me.”

  What she’d just said about her haphazard family life took me by surprise. I would never have guessed that Alysse’s life was anything but blissful. “Sounds kind of challenging,” I said.

  Alysse started to deny this, and again I could tell she was considering making light of things as usual, but then she seemed to change her mind and, squeezing her shoulders against the back of her neck, said, “Okay, it kind of is. Pete and I only get to visit our mother in the summers, and it’s like she has a whole other life now.” She blinked at the toes of her boots. “Pete’s been sort of bitter about the way things turned out. He said he doesn’t even want to go visit next year. I hope he will.” She grew quiet.

  I nodded slowly, and kept nodding as the lights flickered around us. The band began to play “Winter Wonderland,” and Alysse sat up a little and began humming along, her skin glowing in the subdued light, her thick eyelashes casting shadows on her cheeks. In her festive red dress—which to my relief had turned out to have enough fabric in front and even a fairly good-sized portion in the back—she was even more than beautiful. And when she lifted her hand and unconsciously ran her fingers slowly down the side of her elegant neck, I figured it was a good thing I knew who I was and where I was going because I could see how this hormone thing really could mess a guy up if he wasn’t thinking ahead.

  It was far more than the way her skin glowed, however, and how she looked in her dress or even her sweet smell that was getting to me. It was the closeness I was feeling to her in other ways. She had shed her mask now and then before, but never to this extent. As I looked around the gym, I doubted that many there knew about some of her challenges, and I felt honored that she’d felt she could confide in me.

  Apparently nervous that she was talking about herself too much, Alysse pulled herself even farther up with a rustle and a smile. “Okay, enough about boring little me. Now it’s your turn, buster. Tell me about your family. You say you have a sister getting married?”

  “I have two sisters. And yeah, my sister who’s just older than me, Monica, is getting married during the Christmas holidays and I’m kind of bummed about it.”

  Alysse lifted her eyebrows but smiled gently once again. “Why are you bummed about it?”

  “She didn’t even bother to get my permission. One minute she’s complaining about always being stuck with this Rulon guy, her roommate’s brother. Then, at the end of this last summer, as soon as she gets back to school in Utah, she calls and just like that tells us they’re in love and they’re getting married and he’s the greatest guy who was ever created. Okay, I guess they e-mailed all summer, and it wasn’t as if they didn’t know each other from the year before. But did she even hint to me or any of us that this was coming? Nooooo.”

  I was only partly kidding. I had felt a little betrayed when Monica had let us know she was getting married. She’d told me all along that she was going on a mission, and we had planned to put in our papers together and leave around the same time, a real brother-sister act, she’d called it. But it hadn’t taken me long to adjust—maybe a couple of minutes. How could any of us be anything but happy for her when she was obviously so beyond elated herself? “I just hope this Rulon guy is good enough for her,” I added. “My sister’s a rock.”

  “So it sounds like you’re the youngest in your family.” Alysse removed a piece of tinsel that was falling from her hair, and then another, her eyes still Velcroed to my face.

  “Yeah, I’m the youngest.” I helped her unknot a stuck piece of tinsel, pulling out tiny strands of dark, silky hair from the loose front part of her hairstyle as I told her about Lynette, my happy-yappy social sibling, and “the big Kipper,” as they’d called my brother in high school. I let her know that Lynette and Kip had each made a good match as well and told her about their stellar little families. I told her how we were close—in Kip’s case, closer than ever before.

  “Brothers and sisters really can be our closest friends and allies, can’t they?” Alysse said, more to the silver and white snowflakes glimmering from the ceiling than to me.

  “And our toughest critics.” I’d finally gotten the tinsel out and I handed it to her and patted down her hair, then carefully brushed back one last small curl.

  “Or advisers,” she added, stroking the tinsel with her delicate fingers. “My brother’s given me some really good advice through the years.”

  “Yeah, to be more careful, right?”

  She laughed softly. “That too.”

  “My brother always told me the opposite,” I admitted. “To loosen up and get a life.”

  Alysse chuckled again, moved her eyes from the tinsel, and smiled at me reflectively. We sat quietly once more, and as we listened to the medley that had now turned into “Silver Bells,” I wondered if I dared mention something I was still really curious about—that I really really wanted to know. Finally I took the plunge. “So, I notice Ren Jensen isn’t here tonight. I’m thinking there were a lot of surprised people when you came with me instead of him. The word in Hollenda halls has been that you two are a couple.” There, I’d said it.

  “The couple to watch?” She moved back a little and lifted one shoulder with some apparent discomfort. “You can’t believe everything you read in a school paper.”

  Alysse could probably tell I wanted to know more. “It amazes me how eager people at Hollenda are to match everybody up. Well, I just don’t move that fast. I want to take my time when it comes to couple kinds of decisions, and I’m not sure I’m ready to be exclusive.” She stretched her neck a little. “It’s mostly me, but I have some trust issues.”

  I wanted to say, Yeah, well, with Ren, it just might be good to have a trust issue. Instead I tried to be clever. “So are you saying you may be trying to give Ren the . . . umm . . .” I lifted her hem a couple of inches.

  “The boot?” She tilted her head again.

  I nodded a little too eagerly.

  “I’m not sure that I’m giving anyone the boot, but I’m thinking that going to this dance with you may help get a message out there.”

  Was that the only reason she had asked me? I really wanted to know, but I recognized that it probab
ly shouldn’t matter. “Glad I could be of service,” I said instead.

  “You really do remind me of my brother,” Alysse said almost tenderly then. A corner of her mouth was twitching upward. And as she looked at me with those deep blue-green eyes, framed by dark lashes, from a face so right out there, my heart without warning started clip-clopping faster than Tyrone could even think about dancing. Okay, this was not good. I took a deep breath. This was exactly the kind of thing I knew I needed to watch out for. Tone it down, buckaroo. Anyway, she’d just told me I reminded her of her brother. And then, as if some guardian angel assigned to make sure I got out there on my mission was tapping the band leader on the shoulder, he announced that the next dance would be the last. Was it really that late? I jerked forward. “What time is it?”

  “Eleven-fifty.” Allyson was looking at the clock above where the basketball hoop had been folded away.

  “That late already?” I followed her eyes to the clock. I’d forgotten about time altogether. Oh, maaan. I moved forward in my chair nervously and looked over the dance floor to see if I could spot the people from our group. My father had miraculously extended my curfew at the last minute, but only by a measly fifteen minutes. I was going to have to tell Alysse that if I didn’t get home in just over half an hour, I’d be pumpkin meat.

  Alysse beat me to it. “Hey, if the whole group of us are Mormons tonight, we probably better get home early, right?”

  “I’m afraid so,” I said gratefully, melancholy mixed in with relief.

  “Time soars when you’re having a funtastic time,” Alysse said, flashing another gentle, even vulnerable smile in my direction. “And it’s been more than fun.” She touched the back of my hand with the tip of her index finger again and let it linger there for a few seconds. Oh wow. It’s the little things.

  But by the time I found the presence of mind to open my mouth to agree, Allyson had completely transformed. She was a zany clown again and had started yodeling “Whooo hooo hooo, over here!” to Dansco and Tallulah. “Okay, they’re not hearing me!” she said. Before I could respond, she got the attention of a sophomore boy with bright yellow hair. The next thing I knew, this sophomore, Joe, and I were lifting Alysse in her chair and she was swinging my jacket around to get everybody in our group over while happily displaying her green boots. “You okay?” I asked the sophomore.

  “Yeah, she’s a lot lighter than she acts,” he said.

  That night, even two or three hours after the dance, I was still on a high. The first date of my life had been one sweet experience. Funtastic, oh yeah. It’d been more than funtastic. Words were too small to describe what a good time I’d had. In tune with my good mood, Lucky Duck kept barking and batting his tail against the nightstand happily.

  “It was good, old boy, yeah, it was good. What a night! Oooooh, yeah! Maaaan. Yes, what a night!” And it was true that it couldn’t have been a better evening if I’d special ordered and custom designed it.

  My gosh, I’d even been given the chance to share a little information here and there about the gospel in a non-pressured, comfortable way. But after I’d said my prayers and reviewed everything, my good mood gradually dimmed as I recognized that there were so many more things I could have said. I’d been wanting to tell Alysse the real name of the Church, for instance, and I could think of a couple of times during the dance when it would have been easy to do that. In fact, with all the kidding about everybody in our group being Mormon, I could easily have asked her what she really knew about the LDS faith. I felt like I could also have expressed support for her decision not to “couple up.” Why hadn’t I done that? That could have been important. I could have even grabbed a few For the Strength of Youth booklets and passed them out. I’d read in the New Era about someone who took them everywhere she went. If I’d had any Paul or Alma the Younger in me, I would have done things far differently. Hey, I would have had the whole group converted by the end of the evening, or at least moving in that direction! Wasn’t it important to me that Alysse, especially, learned more? Man, I remember thinking as I pushed my bottom teeth forward. Why wasn’t I more missionary-minded?

  But then, after mentally kicking myself for a good half hour, I finally decided to give Kendall Archer a break. This had, after all, been my first date and my first dance. And hey, considering that I’d started off the evening not even being able to operate my tongue, things had turned out amazingly well. Right at the beginning I’d been in too much of a state of panic to share anything, and on the way home I’d been too concerned about making it home on time to think about sharing the gospel. And okay, mid-evening, I’d been caught up in just Alysse. Gradually, as I lay in the dark, I became optimistic again. It wasn’t as if there wouldn’t be other chances. Alysse and I were far closer now, and it would be easier and more comfortable in the future to move ahead with discussions of that type. Things were also looking good with all my new friends. Oh yeah, there’d be a lot of opportunities to talk to them more.

  Chapter Fifteen

  I wasn’t sure if it was because Allyson had talked to them about me or if it was because they’d seen me in the skit, but during lunch on Monday, Tallulah and Tyrone and some school “thespian” types invited me to join them that following night to watch Bye Bye Birdie on DVD. It was a more recent version than the one I’d practically memorized, they let me know, and starred Jason Alexander and Vanessa Williams. “It follows the play script better,” Tallulah said.

  I invited along Parry, who had expressed an interest in the play earlier but, I was guessing by the way he kept looking at her and elbowing me, was even more interested in Tallulah’s long, lean friend, Tanny Willespie.

  Arnold, who was no doubt hoping to see Allyson do her thing again, asked if he could tag along that night as well. But as soon as we got to Tallulah’s, she told us that Alysse had had a conflict and wasn’t able to make it to the get-together. “She always has a lot going on,” Tallulah explained.

  “Yeah, I can imagine,” I responded, my stomach hollowing out with disappointment. But a person can make up his mind to have a good time, and that was what I did. It wasn’t hard, with Arnold and Parry setting the example. At first I was content to stay in the background and let those two shine. It soon became obvious, however, that Alysse had left a message with this group that they were to try to talk me into trying out for the play. I convinced them to work on my friends instead and let them know I was scheduled to play in the orchestra. I have to say that the evening ended up being pretty fun, especially toward the end when we put on an impromptu skit we called The Three Scrooges. My shirt expanded a few sizes when Tallulah laughed and said, “Alysse was right. You really are a funny guy.”

  On the way home, as Parry and Arnold talked nonstop about the play, I wondered if maybe I could talk to Mr. Hammond about the possibility of my squeezing in a small stage part. Even when I got home I found myself putting off getting to the books as I daydreamed about playing Conrad Birdie, the Elvis-type character in the show. I even went to the mirror and did the old hair-combing thing, my hips at an angle. “Hey, baby,” I murmured to Alysse, whom I envisioned in a fifties felt skirt, her ponytail flipping as she swooned and fainted at my presence.

  I pulled back, popped my lips, looked down at the dog, and said, “Homework time!” And yeah, it sure was. It was way past homework time and I had to stay up till after eleven and then get up even earlier than usual for seminary to complete my physics and English.

  I was still finishing my English during the announcement portion of first period the following morning. Now I understood why Alysse always worked so hard and fast in class when she didn’t think anyone was noticing.

  It’s amazing what can happen to a guy when a popular girl asks him to a dance.

  That following weekend I was invited to three holiday parties. This time Alysse was at two of them, but so were several other girls who suddenly seemed to want to get to know me. Ren and Nate showed up at Dee Dee’s party but left within five minutes, p
ossibly because she was serving cupcakes and punch—not their style of refreshments. I did see Ren talking to Alysse at one point and found it encouraging that neither of them were smiling. After Ren left, Alysse came toward me from the side and pretended to bump into me. Her face was flushed.

  She was pulled away almost as quickly as she’d come, but later she came up beside me and socked me softly in the upper arm, which was enough to make my entire weekend.

  That following Monday, I found myself in a place I had never in my life imagined I would be sitting: on the central stairs, with people I never thought I’d be sitting by. Arnold couldn’t handle it and disappeared quickly. It didn’t end there. Less than fifteen minutes later, in homeroom, I was stunned when McKinley, smiling on the screen above us, announced me as one of the finalists for the first semester’s Spirit of Hollenda award. “An honor,” he read, “extended to the well-rounded, friendly student who most exemplifies the values of the school.” Me, well-rounded? I hadn’t even made a team. Those around me in my English class didn’t seem to think that was a drawback, however. It was nice of them to clap. A couple even cheered.

  That Tuesday morning Mrs./Sister Carruber caught me near the front office when I came to check in late after a dental appointment. With tears at the corners of her crinkled eyes, she said quietly, “I just wanted you to know, Kendall, how happy I am that students at Hollenda are recognizing someone with integrity and high standards.”

  I nodded agreeably until I realized she was talking about me. “Oh . . . oh, thanks.” I was surprised that I’d been nominated, but again, it wasn’t as if I’d won anything.

  “Too often the students choose to honor and even follow people who don’t have the good moral values and the high academic standards that this award is meant to inspire,” she continued. “So when I heard you were on the list, I went home and said to my husband, ‘Well, there is justice, after all. A really fine boy has been nominated for something.’” Her voice was warbling with feeling.