Alice in Charge

by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor

  I scanned the list of questions: If you could invent one useful thing for humankind, what would it be? Does multidisciplinary teamwork with a faculty mentor, lasting throughout your undergraduate years and dealing with the social implications of science and technology, appeal to you? Huh? How has your life experience and background shaped you into an individual who will enrich the University of Maryland community?

  Usually Dad took a cup of coffee with him into the family room and turned on the news after dinner if it wasn’t his night to clean up the kitchen. But lately he’d been doing neither. He’d bring a folder of sales figures home from the store and go over his inventory, salaries, bills, rent. … Melody Inn headquarters had announced the closing of three stores on the East Coast. Ours wasn’t one of them, but what if there were more?

  In the past I would have curled up beside him on the couch and gone over some of the questions on the application—testing my answers out on him, how they might affect my admission. But now, more than ever, I realized I was supposed to be figuring all this out on my own. Even if I chose Maryland and lived at home to save Dad the cost of room and board, I would be expected to do the work myself. What if I gave up my chance to go to another school, another state, only to find that I wouldn’t have the reassurance and support I’d wanted here at home?

  From my chair at the dining room table, where I was drafting my responses to the application, I watched Sylvia sitting across from Dad, her chin in one hand, brows furrowed.

  “It doesn’t seem possible,” I heard Dad say. “Last year at this time, sales were up thirteen percent.”

  “Maybe people haven’t started Christmas shopping in earnest,” Sylvia said. “Things will probably pick up once Thanksgiving’s over.”

  Dad took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. “The shoe store down the street went out of business today.”

  “Lawfords? Really?”

  “Yeah.”

  Sylvia sighed. “That’s not good, is it? But the restaurant beside you is doing okay. That’s always a draw for customers.”

  “It’ll be tight this year, Sylvia. Really tight.”

  “I know.”

  “No trips to New York, I’m afraid. No New England tour in the fall….”

  “We can make it, Ben. I can live without a weekend of theater-hopping. And those trees in Vermont will still be there next year and the next.”

  I returned to my application to U of Maryland.

  There were other things to concentrate on, though: Thanksgiving, the Snow Ball, Patrick, Christmas….

  Gwen had an idea for the Snow Ball, one of the two formal dances at our school. I could tell by her expression that it was going to be something different.

  “Let’s all trade dresses.”

  The four of us had gone to the mall Thursday night to hunt for dresses. Shop after shop, we looked the merchandise over and said, “Blah.” Nothing looked that great—great enough to spend a hundred and fifty bucks on, anyway. We were standing outside of Macy’s and turned to stare at her.

  “You’re serious?” I said.

  “Yeah. It’s crazy to buy new dresses right now, and when are we going to wear formal gowns once we get to college? From then on, it’ll be bridesmaid dresses, right? No bride is going to want her attendants in leftover Snow Ball dresses.”

  “But we’re not all the same size!” said Liz.

  “Pamela and I are about the same, and so are you and Alice.”

  Smiles traveled from one of us to the other, and then they turned into grins.

  “Let’s do it!” said Liz, and we all high-fived each other and began chattering at once—colors, shoes, straps or strapless….

  And then I added a P.S. to Gwen’s suggestion: We would announce it in advance. In fact, I’d get Sam to take a picture of all four of us and put it on the front page of The Edge—the very next issue, if we could get our act together in time. LATEST FASHION: DRESS EXCHANGE, could be the heading, and we’d lead off the story with, Senior girls start new trend….

  I’m sure we sounded like a bunch of chickens as we rode down the escalator and took over one of the tables by the icecream shop.

  “Okay,” said Liz. “What have we got?”

  “Last year I wore that slinky black halter-top,” I said.

  “I loved that dress!” said Liz. “Oh, I can’t wait.” Then she hesitated. “I’ve just got that rose-colored crepe….”

  We both winced. Not with my strawberry blond hair, and not crepe.

  “What did you wear last to the Jack of Hearts dance, Gwen?” Liz asked.

  “The Kelly green number with the tiny black polka dots, remember? I’ll bet you could wear it, Alice, because it was little big for me.”

  “With the wide black sash at the waist?” I asked. “That was cute.”

  “That’s the one,” said Gwen. “And I want to wear Pamela’s salmon satin gown with the spaghetti straps.”

  “You’ve got it,” said Pamela. “But then what will I wear?”

  “Remember that midnight blue dress with the iridescent stripes in the skirt that I wore for the Jack of Hearts dance? Sylvia could alter it for you, I’ll bet,” I told her.

  “I’m up for anything,” said Pamela. “Bring on the photographer!”

  The following day Les had good news.

  “Signed, sealed, and delivered!” he announced when he stopped by for dinner. “My thesis has been accepted, and I graduate December eighteenth, free and clear!”

  “Hey, bro!” I said.

  “Congratulations, Les!” said Dad, giving him a hug with a couple of back pats thrown in. “What a relief, huh?”

  “You’re telling me! Had my first good sleep in months.”

  “Can I help send out the invitations?” asked Sylvia.

  “Oh, wow. Invitations! Hadn’t even thought about it. Sure!” said Les. “I might even get around to polishing a pair of shoes for the occasion.”

  Dad said we owed it to Aunt Sally and Uncle Milt to call them, so we sat around the dining room table after we’d enjoyed Sylvia’s impromptu dinner of shrimp scampi and a frozen Sara Lee cake, and made the call.

  We all knew the routine and were smiling even before the conversation began: Uncle Milt usually answered the phone. We could fill in his part of the conversation just by listening to Les:

  “Hi, Milt. How are things? … Well, that’s why I’m calling. Wanted you and Aunt Sally to be the first to know that my thesis has been accepted and I’m cleared for takeoff.” Les was grinning. “Me too. … Yeah, it’s been a long road, that’s for sure. … Roger that. … Uh-huh. Seems like I’ve been in school forever….”

  At some point, we knew, the phone would be handed over to Aunt Sally.

  “Sure,” Les was saying, “put her on. … Hi, Sal! Yes…. Yes. … Well, thank you. I appreciate it. … Yeah, I wish Mom were here too. … I understand. … Of course….”

  They were so proud. … Mom would be so proud of him. … They might not be able to make the ceremony….

  And then Les said, “Certainly! I’ll put her on,” and handed the phone to me. “Aunt Sally wants a word with Alice,” he said, sotto voce to Dad and Sylvia, his eyes filled with amusement.

  Me? I mouthed, shaking my head. When Aunt Sally, bless her bones, wants to talk to me, it’s always an admonition of some kind. It fell to her to help raise us after Mom died, and she’s still trying to do her best.

  I rolled my eyes and took the phone while the others smiled and settled back, picking at the last crumbs of chocolate cake.

  “Hi, Aunt Sally,” I said. “It’s wonderful news, isn’t it?”

  “It certainly is” came my aunt’s voice, and either my hearing is so acute or her voice is so loud that I always have to hold the phone an inch away from my ear. “With everything going on in the world, it’s nice to know that somebody’s got it right. Oh, Alice, Marie would be so thrilled. Whoever thought that Lester …?” She paused, and I saw Lester’s eyes open wide in amusement.

/>   “You never thought he’d make it?” I asked, making a face at Les.

  “I just … wasn’t sure. He always seemed to march to a different drummer, that boy! That band he had once? You know, the Naked Savages—”

  “Nomads,” I said. “Naked Nomads.”

  “And all those girlfriends?”

  Sylvia had her head on her arms, and her shoulders were shaking with laughter. I had to struggle to keep from laughing too.

  “Well, I just don’t know,” Aunt Sally went on. “But I remember saying to Milt somewhere along the line, ‘It’s a good thing they left Chicago when they did and moved to Maryland, because if they’d stayed here, Lester might have ended up in that mansion with all those rabbits.’”

  Dad and Lester stared at each other, and then they broke out in silent laughter, but I didn’t know what they were talking about.

  “Rabbits?”

  Aunt Sally cleared her throat. “You know … that Hefner man … and his little playmates.”

  I looked helplessly at Dad and Lester.

  “Hugh Hefner and his Playboy bunnies,” Dad whispered. “The Playboy Mansion.”

  “Oh!” I said to Aunt Sally. “Hugh Hefner and the Playboy Mansion. Why, Aunt Sally, if I’d known it was in Chicago, I’d have toured it while I was there for Carol’s wedding.”

  Aunt Sally gasped.

  “Joke! Joke!” I said, trying to remember that we were sharing good news here.

  “But this is what I wanted to say to you, Alice,” Aunt Sally continued, lowering her voice, conscious, perhaps, that the others could hear. “The newspapers are full of stories about young men who get to the pinnacle of their success and suddenly they self-destruct.”

  “They do?” I said.

  “They do! You read about it all the time. A football player dies of an overdose; a politician gets drunk and kills someone with his car; a movie star leaves his wife and children….”

  “I don’t know, Aunt Sally,” I said. “Les isn’t married, he’s not running for office, and he doesn’t play football.”

  The family stared at me, then covered their mouths and laughed some more.

  “I just want you to keep an eye on him for me,” Aunt Sally said. “With the economy the way it is and people losing their jobs, I didn’t want to worry Ben or Sylvia, but do give Lester special attention right now, will you? Make sure he eats well and gets plenty of sleep and doesn’t get so full of himself that he thinks he’s above the law.”

  “I’ll watch him every spare minute I get,” I told her. “He just wanted you to know the good news. Pass it along to Carol and Larry for us. How are things with them?”

  “Well, they haven’t given me a grandchild yet.”

  “They just got married in July!” I spluttered.

  This time Aunt Sally laughed at her own joke. “Of course. And they’re happy.”

  We were too when the conversation ended at last.

  “Okay, spill it,” said Les when I’d hung up and we erupted in laughter. “What’s she worried about now?”

  “That you’ll self-destruct,” I told him. “You’ll drive too fast, eat too much, sleep too little, and end up in the Playboy Mansion with all those bunnies.”

  Dad was laughing so hard, he had to pull out his handkerchief and wipe his eyes. “What would we ever do without old Sal?” he said. “Every family should have one, I guess, but ours is the genuine article.”

  14

  RELATIONSHIPS

  Big news flash. For our crowd, anyway. Something gossipy and trite in the general scheme of things, but a fact we could chew on awhile to forget the Nazi stuff at school and all the anxiety over college: Jill and Justin broke up.

  Pamela and I were trying to figure out just how long they’d been a couple.

  “I know they started going out the summer before tenth grade,” Pamela said, passing around the bag of Fritos Gwen had brought. Pam had invited the three of us to sleep over on Saturday. Mr. Jones and Meredith, his fiancée, had gone to a movie.

  “I think it might even have been before then. By that summer they were sleeping with each other,” Liz said, and added comically, “I was shocked, I tell you! Shocked!”

  We laughed.

  “They probably had one of the longest relationships of any couple in school,” said Gwen. “I’ll give them that. But Justin—I think he deserves better than Jill, if you want my opinion.”

  “I think he deserves just what he got,” I put in, remembering that he used to like Liz, and I’d hoped maybe those two would click. “Still, guys don’t think a whole lot about relationships when they’re freshmen. Sophomores, even.”

  “And who really knows what goes on between two people?” said Gwen.

  “We do,” said Pamela, grinning. “Jill loved to tell us every little detail. She’d tell you exactly what went on between the sheets if you asked her. And the answer was ‘Plenty.’”

  “So which of them called it off?” asked Liz.

  “Jill,” said Pamela. “I got it straight from Karen, and if Karen doesn’t know, nobody does. Jill’s furious at the way the Colliers have tried to break them up. She and Justin’s mom in particular hate each other, and I guess she gave Justin an ultimatum: Stand up to your mom or else.”

  We groaned.

  “Ohhh, bad call!” I said. “What did she expect him to do? Pack up his bags and say, ‘Well, Mom, I’m outta here?’ Is Jill nuts? Where would he go? Who foots the bill for college next year?”

  “Jill’s used to getting her way, that’s all,” said Pamela. “But his parents think she’s after their money.”

  “And isn’t she?” asked Liz.

  “I don’t know. But I think that when a couple’s been together as long as they have, there’s got to be a little something more,” Pamela answered. “Jill’s gorgeous—you’ve got to hand her that. There are a dozen guys who would love to go out with her.”

  We ambled out to the kitchen to see what Meredith had left for our dinner, and Pamela slung plates onto the table like she was dealing cards.

  “How did the Colliers get so rich?” I asked. “I thought his dad was in the navy. You don’t get rich in the navy.”

  “Was,” said Pamela. “Career officer, but he retired and became a partner in his dad’s real estate firm. You know, Collier and Sons? You see their signs everywhere. It was his grandfather, I think, who really had the dough.”

  “So how is Justin taking the breakup?” asked Gwen.

  “Awful, according to Karen. Keeps calling Jill’s number and she won’t answer.”

  “Time for Mommy and Daddy to whisk him off to the Bahamas again,” I said. “Remember how they did that on spring break last year, just to get him away from Jill, and Justin sent her money for a plane ticket and put her up in the hotel next door?”

  We all whooped at the memory as we waited for the meat loaf and potatoes to heat up in the microwave. Gwen passed the silverware around.

  “Speaking of couples,” said Liz, “when are your dad and Meredith going to tie the knot, Pam?”

  “Who knows?” said Pamela.

  I wondered if I could ask the question the rest of us were thinking. “Is it possible he’s still … well … that your mom’s still on his radar?”

  “Veto that,” said Pamela. “She’s dating someone from Nordstrom, and they’re hitting it off. A nice man, let me add—a manager from another store. No, my guess is that Dad and Meredith are waiting for me to graduate and go off to school somewhere so they can start married life in the house all to themselves. I can’t blame them for that.”

  Sitting across from her, I slowly sipped my glass of iced tea, wondering if Dad and Sylvia have been waiting for me to clear out so that at last they can have the place to themselves.

  At school even Daniel had heard about the “breakup of the year.”

  “How do you do a breakup?” he asked me as we sat in the library during lunch when I’d volunteered to help him with an assignment.

  “It’
s not anything formal,” I explained. “Either the girl or the guy tells the other it’s over.”

  “Nothing is broken? Smashed?”

  “No. There’s no ritual. It just means the relationship is through. That they can each start going out with other people.”

  Daniel leaned back in his chair, deep in thought, skinny arms folded over his chest, chin tucked down. “That is hard to do in America for my brother. He would like some day to find a bride, but your ways and the Dinka ways are different.”

  “Your culture? What would be the Dinka way for a man to find a wife?” I asked.

  “I remember once, before we left our village, when the young men would gather. They would stand and sing for the girls and laugh. And the girls would smile at them. And they danced. I was only a small boy, but I liked to see the dancing.”

  “And that’s where a man would meet his bride?”

  “Perhaps a man and a girl would make plans to meet again. A man would go a long way off to visit a girl from another village. Even if the weather was very bad, a man would go. The more bad the weather, the more—how do you say?—more impress the woman would be. But …”

  He sighed and slid down a little farther in his chair. “A man wanting a bride would have cattle. And that would be the dowry. In a refugee camp no man had cattle. All he had for a dowry was a promise.”

  “Is your brother looking for a bride here?” I asked.

  Daniel shook his head. “Geri looks only at his books. He says first he goes to school. Then he finds a bride. I think he will find a bride in Africa, but he is like all men. He will want a wife.”

  Daniel looked at me then and laughed, a somewhat silly laugh. I could never quite tell if he found something amusing or if he was merely feeling self-conscious.

  “What is your family doing for Thanksgiving?” I asked him. The week before, he had been asking Phil about American holidays, and Phil had given him a calendar with the days marked.