Alice's Summertime Adventure

by Suzanne Jenkins

  “Sorry. But it upsets me to see you so sick,” Vicky said. “Faye, at least, should be here. She lives close enough, and her kids are old enough.”

  The thought of Faye and her kids there made Alice sicker, but she didn’t want to say too much about it to Vicky.

  “Faye’s busy, and I don’t know if the ruckus they create would be such a good thing.” It was as much of the truth that Alice could admit. Vicky offered her arm to Alice so she could pull herself out of bed. Vicky decided that she’d call Alice’s girls when she got home and read them the riot act. It was the least she could do.

  Now, when Alice was trying her best to have a lazy, summer day, her anxiety level was mounting. She got up out of the chair and threw her straw hat down. She had to find something to do that was meaningful, even if it meant returning to her job, something she swore she’d never do again, even if she was starving to death.

  Chapter 2

  Alice got along without the support of her daughters. April had her hands full with the little boys and lived an hour away in Deptford. She visited but couldn’t run errands or help out with Alice in no condition to babysit. They only stayed forty minutes, the littlest of the boys cuddling in bed with Alice and the older, Dougie reading her the front page of the Philadelphia Inquirer. April paced, nervously pulling on her ponytail, and finally told the boys to get it together, they were heading back up north.

  And that left Lynn. Lynn was the middle child, born after Faye and before the only son. When Alice looked back on Lynn’s youth, she didn’t see the warning signs. Maybe Lynn didn’t get the attention she needed, ignored when Doug died, fed because the others needed food and dressed in whatever clothing was left over. Alice privately accepted that Lynn was insane. She was homeless, living on the street or in a shelter; John said she often slept in a cardboard box. Alice didn’t know how Lynn lived, but she didn’t have the time or the finances to find out. She didn’t want her around, having to hide her meager supply of Percocet and her checkbook, assuming incorrectly that Lynn was a drug addict. The last time Alice heard anything about her it was from John, who ran into her from time to time in Wilmington. Alice didn’t ask questions, and John didn’t elaborate. At least she was alive. Fear of her own daughter made Alice keep her distance.

  When the kids were growing up, she lived one day at a time. She made sure clothes were clean and there was food on the table, and homework was done before bedtime. Everyone got baths, and she looked at report cards. At Christmas she had a tree and bought gifts for the four of them, hoping her sisters and mother, Marlene, would fill the gaps. During the summer, Vicky and Marlene babysat for her when she went to work until Faye was old enough to help.

  Faye resented having to sit, but there was no alternative. Everyone had to chip in. Looking back, there may have been something missed during the years Faye was the babysitter. Faye said she didn’t notice anything unusual until Lynn was older. Lynn was just a little kid like the others. But Faye was jealous of her; the younger children preferred Lynn rather than Faye. John said she was cruel to Lynn, teasing her until she cried. Even with Lynn no longer a threat, Faye bristled when the subject came around to her.

  “She’s lost,” Faye said. “Living in a cardboard box on the street like a crazy person. What’s there to talk about?”

  “I miss her!” her sister April said. “I wish there was something we could do for her.”

  “Well, if you’re going to waste my time talking about Lynn, I’m leaving,” Faye replied. So the conversation ended, a pink elephant in the room controlled by the oldest sibling.

  That early summer morning, Alice woke up feeling a little like her old self. Vicky had gone back to her life days earlier; John and Beth were working, busy with family. Alice spent the week playing catch-up. She puttered around the cottage, cleaning and tossing out. Her hair was a mess; long, faded red, it was once her glory. She put it in a ponytail and cut a foot off. It felt light and wonderful.

  She wanted to arrange visits with Faye and April. Faye said she’d come to Alice; her father-in-law had moved in the month before, and she wasn’t eager for a reunion between Vinnie and Alice, jealous of the attention her mother would command from him. “Let me come there, Mom,” Faye said. “It’s crazy with Bill’s dad and the kids out of school.”

  Alice thought of the chaos, the mess they’d leave her. No.

  “Honey, I don’t think I’m up for a house full of kids. It would be so much easier for me to get in my car and come to you. Anyway, I’d like to get out of the house.” She’d been housebound for months.

  “Mom, I don’t think you get it. I want to come to you. Bill’s dad is here. The kids miss the farm. They’re old enough not to get on your nerves. Let me come there,” she repeated, a hint of impatience in her voice. “You sound like you don’t want me.”

  Alice couldn’t help herself and gave a laugh out loud. “Vicky said she tried calling you to come help me. She said your exact words were that you would come when I was better, that you had no intention of helping out. Is that true?” Alice tried to keep the venom out of her voice, but a bit of it may have escaped. She thought she heard Faye gasp.

  “That’s a lie! I never said I had no intention of helping out. What I may have said was that I had helped you all I could from the time I was ten years old. I think you may have reached the limit of help you could expect from me, Mother,” Faye yelled, out of breath. “Not that I wouldn’t help you! I already have.”

  But Alice didn’t hear that last phrase because she’d already hung the phone up. She thought back to those years of hectic visits from her daughter and grandchildren, and maybe she gained some clarity in that instant. Alice was getting her comeuppance. Alice owed her the servitude rendered because Faye had helped her out as a young girl. Every time the children shit on the floor and Faye didn’t clean up after them, Faye was getting revenge. She’d resented helping out her mother by caring for her siblings, and now she was making sure she got what was due her. Alice shook her head to clear it. How’d she escaped this realization? She was just figuring it out. Did she owe her daughter an apology because she needed her to babysit after school occasionally? Alice started pacing in her kitchen, wringing her hands. She thought of growing up in her own family when Marlene was ill, how Vicky looked after them because that’s what you did when you belonged to a family. Everyone pitched in. It had never occurred to Alice to ask Faye if she wanted to keep an eye on things. There was no one else to do it.

  She thought of how Faye was the only child to get a college education paid for; Doug’s family singled her out for attention the others didn’t get. The three others made due with two years of junior college by working and taking out loans. Did they feel slighted because Faye got more? Rather than ruminating, Alice decided to ask. She picked up the phone and dialed John’s number first. April would be doing her morning chores and didn’t like to be bothered until after lunch, and Lynn was no where to be found to ask.

  “Sorry I’m bothering you at work,” Alice said, hearing the monitor in the background, beating out the rhythm of someone’s heart.

  “What’s up?” John whispered. “I’m in the middle of a case.”

  “Did you resent Faye because she got her college paid for?” Alice asked.

  “Oh, for God’s sake. What’s going on?” he said, exasperated.

  “Just answer the question, will you?” Alice said.

  “No! I didn’t resent her. I can’t believe you called me in the middle of a work day about Faye. Good-bye, Mother,” and he hung up.

  Alice couldn’t help herself; she started laughing. She dialed Faye’s number again.

  “Look, I’m sorry you got screwed into babysitting,” she said. “I was desperate, or I wouldn’t have had you do it. Just hope you’re never put into the same situation.”

  “Fine, Mother. I know you were desperate,” she said.

  “Then why the resentment?” Alice asked, baffled.

  “I don’t know, honestly. I
just feel like you skated through life, and now everything’s supposed to be fine.”

  Alice looked at the phone, dumfounded. Skated through life? There was obviously more here that met the eye, and what they were skating on was the surface of deeper issues.

  “We were always broke, yet my father’s family lived less than a mile away, in a mansion with servants, and you never thought to ask for money. Why was that, Mother?”

  “I don’t know how you’ve come to that conclusion, but if you think it was easy managing after your father died, or since I got sick, you’re wrong. And I’m truly sorry you think I skated through life, and that it is a reason for a loving daughter to be angry with me. Jeesh!” Alice couldn’t help it, but she hung up the phone again, never addressing the issue of Doug’s family. She didn’t tell Faye, but after Doug died, she did try to enlist his family’s help, and they refused. They never cared for Alice, hating that Doug chose to marry the daughter of a drunken slob like Marlene Morgan. Alice wasn’t sure if she could forgive her own flesh and blood for being such a bitch. She continued pacing until she’d calmed down, and it was late enough to dial April’s number.

  “Hi, honey, I miss you and was hoping I could see you,” Alice said when April answered the phone. Alice was still smarting from her conversation with Faye and would later wonder how much she alone was to blame for the pain her family seemed to be in.

  “Mom, I can’t come down. The boys have games today, and I am behind in everything here,” April said. “You should come up. You haven’t seen the boys in months.” Wanting to avoid a repeat of what she had just gone through with Faye, Alice agreed to take the trip from Cedar Springs to Deptford. It was only an hour-long drive.

  “Okay, you’re right. I’ll come. If I leave right now, I’ll get there in time for lunch. Let’s go out,” Alice suggested. They said good-bye, and Alice gathered up her purse and a bottle of water for the trip. She took a last glance in the mirror and was surprised at her reflection. Today she looked pretty good for an older person who had been deathly ill for the past months.

  The trip up to Deptford was highway driving. Alice had the car window open and the music on; she felt free and happy. She pulled on to the street leading to April’s house, a rural setting of small cottages in the middle of a city. She shut the car off, sitting for a while before she went up to the door, tired from her weeks in bed and the trip. She enjoyed coming to see April, who was waiting at the door for her mother.

  “Wow, you look much better than I thought you would,” April said. They kissed and embraced. April stood aside for Alice to walk through the door, and through a peppermint haze, Alice smelled alcohol. “Let’s go to lunch,” April said. “You can stay for the boys’ games.”

  Alice didn’t think she’d last through the games, but let it go. “Your house is always so neat,” she said, looking around. For having three small children, the house was devoid of clutter or toys.

  “I think I’m obsessed because of the way we lived,” April replied.

  Alice was taken aback. What the hell did that mean? She let that comment go, too. The visit might be shorter than she originally thought.

  April seemed hell-bent on harping at her mother. “One thing I want for my boys is to not be ashamed of the way we live.”

  Alice decided to confront her in spite of worrying her daughter might be drunk in the middle of the day. “Were you ashamed of the way we lived?” she asked. If so, it was the first she’d heard. “Just last Christmas, you and John went on and on about what a good home life you’d had, in spite of growing up without a father.”

  “The shabby house and furniture, the way we dressed, it was hard on us,” April explained.

  Alice sat down on a bench in the front room. She wasn’t going any further into the house. “No offense, but this isn’t exactly the Taj Mahal,” Alice said, glancing around. “And the last time I looked, you had a husband who worked.”

  “You don’t need to get defensive, Mom,” April said. “I was just explaining why I’m so neat.”

  “A simple thank you could have sufficed,” Alice said. Then she started laughing. The ludicrousness of being insulted by her spoiled daughter on the day Faye did the same thing led her to believe they were in collusion. “You didn’t happen to talk to your sister today, did you?”

  April started fussing with a flower arrangement, embarrassed. “I did, but what goes on between the two of you doesn’t affect me. I’m old enough to come to my own conclusions,” she answered.

  Alice stood up and went back to the door.

  “Where are you going, Mother?”

  “I’m old enough to come to my own conclusions, too,” Alice explained. “So I’ll leave now. Give my grandsons my love.” She walked down the short path to her car, not looking back, a little surprised and hurt that her daughter could be so cruel and not even try to apologize. Her car started right away, but there was a smell of burning oil as she headed back toward the highway. However, it would take more than a smoking car to keep her there in Deptford. She’d get back home if she had to hitchhike.

  Chapter 3

  The burning oil smell became clouds of smoke. She was in the fast lane and had to pull over to the left shoulder, traffic passing by at a dizzying pace. Alice stood at the side of the road as the traffic got worse. She was afraid to sit in her car—too many newspaper stories about people getting smacked while they waited for help. It was only just after one, but rush hour started early in New Jersey, lunch hour traffic followed by shift workers speeding to get to work in Philadelphia by three. Cars whizzed in the heat, blowing dust at her. She took a step back but not too far; there was a steep drop-off into a ditch just a foot from the shoulder. To have both daughters be cruel to her and then have the damn car break down, well, it was just wrong.

  She heard him before she saw him, the deep rumble of a motorcycle slowing down. He saw her as he rounded the bend, a forlorn, attractive woman alone at the side of the road, standing next to a car that used to be beige, now faded, the faux canvas top starting to peel back. He pulled over several yards ahead of her, walking his bike back to her. Alice was grateful he’d stopped; it didn’t occur to her to be frightened. She was a grandmother with a rusted, dead car. What could he do to her in rush-hour traffic? He unfastened his helmet and pulled it off, showing his thick brown hair peppered with gray pulled back into a ponytail. Alice suppressed a grin; he was so what she thought he should look like, with his black leather and helmet. Lanky to the point of being undernourished, tall and a little hunched over, he was ageless; one of those men who could be anywhere from twenty-five to sixty. As he approached her, he smiled with deep dimples and sparkling eyes. He was definitely nearer the younger end of the spectrum. The smile did strange things inside her chest, like his lips were connected to a string attached to something deep within her, pulling on whatever the attachment was. She absentmindedly reached up to her heart with her right hand.

  “You’ve got trouble,” he stated, his voice deep.

  Alice, with a chill, nodded. She felt goose bumps traveling up her arms. “It just died,” she replied, smiling.

  He motioned with his hand for her to turn the key as he reached under the edge of the hood to unlatch it. “Turn it over.”

  She opened the car door and got in, putting the key in the ignition. It grinded away, but nothing happened. He poked his head around the opened hood and gave it the thumbs down. She got out of the car again and walked around to the front of it to see what he’d found. He waved her to the side of the car, and she moved away while he came around the side with her.

  “Don’t stand in front of the car when you’re on the side of the road,” he said as he looked at her face, at her beautiful green eyes. Then he focused on the car again. “Lady, your engine is shot. There’s oil blown all over the compartment.” He pointed to what looked like a stream of oil exiting the engine.

  “Can I replace it? I’ve got a can of oil in the trunk,” she said.

  He sho
ok his head and chuckled. “Your engine is blown up. It’s finished. This old machine is going nowhere on its own steam.”

  Alice couldn’t help herself. In the recent past she’d fought for her life, been disrespected by her children, and hearing that her faithful car was gone was the final straw. She bowed her head, put her hands over her face, and started crying.

  The man was clearly moved by it and reached out a hand to grasp her shoulder. “Hey, it happens. Unfortunately, they don’t last forever.”

  “I’m sorry,” she mumbled. “It’s not just the car. It’s a combination of things. The car breaking down couldn’t have happened at a worse time. What should I do?” She’d been independent a long time, but being stranded on the side of the highway was a new dilemma.

  He looked the car over, determining the tires were worn and the body wasn’t worth anything. “I’d get your stuff out and just leave it here. Let the county tow it away. It’ll be cheaper than hiring a tow truck to take it to a junkyard. If you don’t mind riding on the back of my bike, I can get you home.”

  Alice was grateful for the help, although it did cross her mind that the motorcycle ride was out of her comfort zone. But she’d deal with it. April’s husband, Todd, owned a towing company in the same town, but she’d rather ride on the back of the motorcycle than call him. She got her purse out of the car and took the contents of the glove box. There was nothing else she wanted.

  They walked to the motorcycle together while he asked where she lived, expecting to hear her say in the general area, not an hour south. But he was going her way, heading home to Delaware. He handed her the helmet, helping her fasten it, and then offered to put her things in his saddlebags. He got on the bike and slid forward as much as he could; it was not a seat meant for two. Reaching around, he showed her where handles were placed on either side of the seat.