But for once Alice wasn’t obsessing about whether or not everyone else was having a good time. She was having an amazing time.
It was almost midnight when Mrs. Oldham came downstairs to tell them it was time to “get some shuteye.”
Quentin’s mom had gone to a lot of effort to make them comfortable, setting up an air mattress next to the queen-size bed in the guest room, putting out fresh towels and bottles of water. But all Alice could think about was that Mrs. Oldham had whisked her away from Quentin before they’d gotten a chance to say a proper good night.
“So, did you kiss him?” Tiernan asked, plopping onto the air mattress.
“When could I do that?” Alice sighed, letting her body fall back against the frilly white bedspread. “We were never alone.”
“Too bad.” Summer climbed into bed next to her. “He seems really sweet. Unlike his poop-stain of a brother.”
A knock on the door made Alice bolt upright. If Mrs. Oldham had heard them talking about her sons . . . Then Alice saw the note on the floor—a small square of white lined paper, meticulously folded. She sailed across the room and snatched it up, unfolding each layer carefully as her heartbeat thundered in her ears.
“Come on, Alice, spit it out. What does it say?” Tiernan bounced on the air mattress like a little kid.
The note had only three words, but Alice was almost too tongue-tied to say them. “You, me. P-Pod?”
Summer shrieked with delight. “At least someone’s getting some tonight.”
“Shhhh,” Alice reprimanded her, though on the inside she was screaming. She loved everything about the note—the way he’d put “you” and “me” in the same sentence, the way he hadn’t assumed anything by ending “P-Pod” with a question mark.
“You better take one of these.” Tiernan rummaged through her toiletries bag and fished out a condom. “Just in case.”
“Put that thing away, please,” Alice cried.
“Don’t listen to her,” Summer said. “You don’t want to sleep with him on the first date anyway.”
“You guys, I am not having sex with him. I’m not even sure if he likes me.”
“Oh my God.” Tiernan collapsed dramatically, making the air mattress hiss.
“Alice,” Summer said, nodding reassuringly, “he likes you.”
Alice quickly brushed her teeth, dabbed on a layer of strawberry lip gloss, then smoothed her hair with water. If only she’d remembered to put in some gel after swimming, she wouldn’t look like she had a bird’s nest on top of her head. Finally Summer jumped up and helped her pull her hair back in a French twist while Tiernan dug through Alice’s wardrobe for something decent to wear.
“How about this?” Tiernan asked, holding up a plain black tank dress.
“Perfect.” Summer nodded. “Sultry, yet understated.”
Alice slipped on the dress, added her favorite dangly gold earrings, then gave her pits a quick sniff. A quick slather of deodorant and she was out the door.
“Wish me luck,” she whispered while Summer and Tiernan waved and grinned like a couple of proud parents.
Alice padded down the squeaky wooden stairs, her breathing shallow and fast, like she’d just run a marathon. Then she took a deep breath and opened the front door.
The night air felt like a different world—warm, mysterious, sweet.
“Alice.” Out of the dark Quentin whispered her name. She’d heard it a million times a day, every day of her life. But it sounded different coming from his mouth. Better. She could see him now, leaning against the van.
“Here I am,” she said, suddenly feeling shy.
“I can see that,” Quentin replied.
They stared at each other for a few beats in silence.
“So, you want to check out the van?” Alice asked, regretting the question as soon as it came out of her mouth. Could it sound any more like a cheesy pickup line?
“Sure,” Quentin said.
The side door rolled open quietly on its freshly oiled track, and Alice sent Gert a silent thank-you. Quentin climbed in first, stepping over her bathing suit, which had fallen from where she’d hung it to dry and was on the floor, inside out, its tan nylon crotch completely exposed. Alice scrambled in after him and quickly wadded the suit into a ball, tossing it in the sink. She left the door open a few inches, partly for the breeze and partly because the thought of closing it all the way made her nervous.
“So, is it like you expected?” she asked as Quentin looked around.
“Even better,” Quentin said. “Though I try not to have expectations.”
Alice sat down on the bench seat, tucking her bare feet underneath her. “How do you not have expectations? I mean, if you don’t have expectations, how do you ever get what you want?” She hadn’t imagined their conversation would get so deep right off the bat, which, she realized, was also an expectation.
“Well, I know one way to never get what you want is by trying to make it fit into your vision of how it should be.” Quentin sat down next to her, close enough for her to feel his heat against her bare knee.
“You seem to have a lot of big ideas for a high school senior,” Alice said. He was only five months younger than her, but a grade behind.
“Oh, I’m full of big ideas.” Quentin smiled back. Alice stared at him until she felt herself blush. Then Quentin leaned forward to look at the collage taped to the cabinet below the sink. It wasn’t one of their better works, but it was the only one they hadn’t cut apart last night.
“This is cool.” He pointed to a small cutout of her face—the center of a daisy made up of Level3 leaves. “Is that you?”
“When I was twelve.” Alice rolled her eyes.
“You had a lot of artistic talent for a twelve-year-old.”
“I didn’t make it alone. Summer and Tiernan, they’re really the creative ones in the group. But making collages, well . . . it used to be kind of our thing.”
“So were you friends before you became groupies, or were you groupies before you were friends?”
“First of all, we’re not groupies,” Alice corrected him. “Groupies are fanatical, plus they usually sleep with the band.” She’d been alone with Quentin for ten whole seconds and already she’d brought up sex. Smooth. “And, yes, we were friends first. I mean, before.”
“Before what?”
“Before we stopped being friends.”
Quentin looked confused. “So what are you now?”
Alice paused, exhaling through her nose. “The only reason we’re all together is to go see Level3, because we have that history. But back in the real world, we don’t even hang out.”
“Isn’t this the real world?” Quentin asked.
Alice laughed. It certainly didn’t feel like the real world, sitting here in the Pea Pod in the middle of the night with a cute boy.
But Quentin wasn’t letting it go. “Doesn’t it bother you? Hanging out with people who aren’t your friends anymore?”
“Well, I wouldn’t say they aren’t my friends,” Alice said. “I mean, it’s cordial; it’s not a big deal, really.” She turned to face him. “Can we talk about you for a while?”
Quentin nodded. “Well, I’m seventeen, I’m a Virgo, my brother once broke my nose with a baseball bat—supposedly an accident—and that’s why it’s crooked. And in two more weeks, I’m getting the hey-yell out of this backward, godforsaken town to spend a month up north at a summer art program.”
“Where?” Alice asked, her heartbeat swishing in her ears.
“At RISD. Rhode Island School of Design. That’s near Massachusetts, right?”
RISD was in Providence, practically right down the street from Brown. “Mm-hmm.” Alice nodded, trying to act casual. “So, you’re an artist?”
Quentin shrugged. “I try to be. If things go well at the summer program, it’ll help my chances of getting in when I apply to go to school there next year.”
Alice felt a flutter of hope beating its wings inside her chest. Wha
t if she was at Brown and Quentin was at RISD? It was almost too good to be true. Wait a minute. It was too good to be true.
“Why are you laughing?” Quentin asked.
“Oh, nothing,” Alice said. “I’m just amused by my own failure to not have expectations.”
They talked like this for hours, until the black sky brightened to cobalt blue, until they were yawning as much as talking. They were both lying on the floor now, the door closed all the way to keep out the chill of the predawn air. Their bodies were millimeters away from each other, but not touching.
“We should probably go back up,” Alice said, even though it was the last thing she wanted to do.
“Okay,” Quentin said, turning to face her, his mouth so close she could feel his breath on her chin.
Suddenly Alice’s brain was seized by the list of things she’d messed up today—how she’d forgotten to turn on her cell phone, to get gas for the van, how she hadn’t called her mother back, forgotten to even check whether or not Tiernan had called her mother. Of course, they’d never made it to Lexington.
“How do you not have expectations?” she asked, suddenly jumping back into their old conversation. “If you don’t anticipate certain outcomes, how do you ever plan where you’ll end up?”
Quentin smiled at her, then reached out and put his palm on her cheek. “Maybe you’ll end up right here.”
Then, he leaned in and kissed her—her cheek still in his hand as if he were holding on to something precious. Alice had kissed boys before, but never like this. Their kiss was a thing of their own invention—like a river flowing through every cell in her body, then out into the universe.
He pulled her in closer and she devoured his smell—a mix of pool chlorine and sweat that might have seemed unpleasant to anyone else in the world, but to Alice, it was delicious. His lips wandered down to her ear, her neck.
She let out a little moan, unintentionally, but she didn’t even think to be embarrassed until she felt him pull away. Had her noise freaked him out? What other reason could there possibly be for him to interrupt this perfect moment? But when Alice opened her eyes, she saw the reason right in front of her, looking in through the window of the van. And her name was Mrs. Oldham.
“TOMFOOLERY”
I WANT TO LIVE LIFE LIKE VACATION
I WANT TO RUIN MY REPUTATION
GET OUT OF MY CAR
IF YOU DON’T LIKE THE STATION
ON MY RADIO.
BUT I DON’T WANT YOU TO GO.
—from Level3’s self-titled first CD
Chapter Fourteen
“OKAY, I’VE GOT IT THIS TIME,” TIERNAN SAID AS THE PEA POD made a rasping sound, then stalled out. Again. Tiernan glanced at the clock. She’d been trying to make her “quick getaway” for the last three minutes. Not that getting the Pea Pod into gear was easy under normal conditions, let alone with an angry Southern Baptist giving her the stink-eye.
“Do you need me to drive?” Summer asked.
On the front porch, Mrs. Oldham scowled at them, sunlight glinting ominously off the gold cross at her neck.
“Look at her, glaring at us like we’re a bunch of Yankee hussies,” Tiernan whispered as she restarted the van. “It was just Alice!” she pretended to shout to Mrs. Oldham. Then she ever-so-gently hit the gas, and the van conked out with a spasmic sigh.
“Could you skip the commentary and just get us out of here?” Alice hissed from her hiding spot in the back. Only ten minutes had passed since she’d burst into the guest bedroom babbling incoherently and yanked Tiernan and Summer out of bed.
“All I’m saying is that the woman has anger management issues.” Tiernan paused to restart the van. “I can see the headline now: Tennessee Mother Kills Three over Hickey.”
“We’re in Kentucky, bonehead,” Summer pointed out.
“And it wasn’t a hickey,” Alice chimed in.
Without knowing exactly how it happened, Tiernan realized she was moving, so she seized the momentum, gunning the Pea Pod turbo-speed down the Oldhams’ driveway and whipping it onto the road Dukes of Hazzard style.
“Thanks for your hospitality!” She waved liked Miss America out the window as the Pea Pod bucked and lurched down the street.
“Oh. My. God!” Alice screamed. “That was the most embarrassing thing that’s ever happened to me!”
“Think of how Quentin must feel,” Summer offered. “She’s his mother.”
Tiernan cringed. “Can you imagine getting caught with a boner in front of your own mom?”
“Not really,” Summer said.
Then all three of them busted out in silent hysterics. Tiernan was laughing so hard, she had to wipe her eyes to see the road.
“Do you even know where you’re going?” Alice asked, gasping for air.
Tiernan looked at the unfamiliar landscape, suddenly aware that she was driving. If Alice and Summer were in their usual moods, they probably would have yelled at her. But this morning, her cluelessness just triggered another round of laughter.
“I may not know where I’m going,” Tiernan began, her words coming out in snorts, “but I know where you’re going, Alice Miller—straight to hay-ell!”
“Ay-a-may-en,” Summer said in a bad Southern accent.
“Turn around when possible,” Coach Quigley offered.
Eventually they made it to civilization—or in this case, a Waffle House, which was about as close to civilization as things got in these parts. Over weak coffee and soggy bacon, they charted their course for the day. The plan was to drive until they made it to Nashville, Tennessee, and then chill out in the nicest hotel they could find. For under one hundred fifty dollars. With a pool.
“What about this one?” Summer asked, holding up her phone. “It has a spa, a fitness center, three swimming pools, and an indoor waterfall. . . .”
Since Alice seemed to be stuck in a permanent state of la-la land (at the moment, smiling at her French toast like she was about to French kiss it) Tiernan looked at the website first.
“You wanna stay at the Gaywether?” Tiernan blurted out, louder than she’d intended. “Summer . . . is there something you’d like to tell us?”
“Oh, calm down.” Summer snatched her phone back. “We don’t have to stay here. I’m just saying it looks pretty nice, and it’s not that expensive, considering.”
“What?” Alice looked up from her breakfast as though she’d just arrived on Planet Earth.
“This hotel Summer wants to stay at.” Tiernan raised her eyebrows. “It’s called the Gaywether.”
Summer handed her phone to Alice. “Check it out—they have this whole indoor garden area with a waterfall and a river.”
“Hotel, or Epcot? You be the judge,” Tiernan said.
“What’s wrong with Epcot?” Summer asked.
“Nothing, if you like that kind of sanitized, generic family entertainment.”
In Tiernan’s opinion, real fun didn’t happen by going to places like Disney World. Real fun was something you stumbled into, by accident.
Alice scrolled through the website. “I think this looks nice. I mean, why not splurge a little? Maybe we’ll even be able to get a little R and R for once.”
“Okay. I’ll make the reservation right now,” Summer said, taking her phone back.
Alice turned her attention to Tiernan. “Hey, I meant to ask you . . . how did the conversation with your mom go?”
Tiernan pushed a bite of waffle around her plate, mopping up the leftover syrup. Could Alice just give it a rest already? It wasn’t like she was in any hurry to dial up her mom and give her the play-by-play of last night’s spit-swapping session.
“She wasn’t around,” Tiernan lied, licking syrup off her fork. No need to ruin the girl’s post-make-out euphoria.
“So, did you leave her a message?”
Tiernan shook her head in what she hoped was a remorseful way. “I’ll try her again today, okay?”
Three hundred and twelve miles later, Alice was zon
ked out in the back (drooling all over the upholstery) and Tiernan still hadn’t made the call. Although as penance for not making it (a habit from the Catholic side of her family) she’d kept Alice’s cell phone in her front pocket so that it dug uncomfortably into her hip bone.
The weird thing was, Tiernan wasn’t sure why she wasn’t calling. Yeah, Judy was going to be tweaked. But a watered-down phone version of Judy’s bitch-slap was better than facing the real thing. And unless Judy was planning to track her down bounty-hunter style, Tiernan had another week before she had to face whatever punishment Judy was cooking up (though the heaping side order of guilt trip could probably be delivered via telephone).
“Okay, I have a good one for you,” Summer said. They’d been talking in stops and starts like this for the last five hours. At first, Tiernan figured it was just a way to pass the time while Alice slept, but somewhere in southern Kentucky, she’d actually started to enjoy their little trips down memory lane.
“Remember the time we ran away?”
“Of course.” Tiernan smiled. “We were such rebels back then.”
Their infamous running-away episode had happened at Tiernan’s house at a play date. (That’s how young they were—their hangouts were still called play dates.) Something her mother had done set her off; Tiernan couldn’t remember what. Maybe they’d been caught watching an R-rated movie on Showtime, or maybe she’d decided to lead a revolt against Judy’s tyrannical two-Popsicle limit. Whatever the nature of the injustice du jour, nine-year-old Tiernan had the solution: running away.
Naturally, Alice and Summer had joined her in solidarity, loading up Tiernan’s little red wagon with canned goods (for nourishment), blankets (for warmth), and a dictionary (so they could continue their education on the road). Then, the three fourth-graders set out into the cold, cruel world. Cut to one hour later when Tiernan’s dad spotted them while mowing the lawn. They had made it as far as the next-door neighbor’s azalea bush.
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