The Truth About Alice

by Jennifer Mathieu

  “Elaine, meeting,” she said. “Time to get up.”

  Like most of the things I do, I can’t really tell you why I did it, but I pulled the covers up over my head and said, “I’m not going.”

  “What?”

  I was staring at the tiny pink flowers on my sheets. I focused in on one and stared it down.

  “I’m not going,” I said again.

  “Elaine, why? You’ve had such a great week. I saw your food tracker and you’ve eaten beneath your daily points target every day!”

  And I’m starving, I thought to myself. And if I eat any more Greek yogurt I’m going to become Greek.

  “I just don’t want to go,” I said.

  “Would you at least take those covers off your head?”

  I thought I would totally lose my nerve or something if I had to look her in the eyes, but I did take the covers off my head and I did stare at her and I did say again, “I just don’t want to go.”

  My mom did this deep breath thing and tried to smile, but I could tell she was ticked off. The deal with my mom is that she’s always trying to be my friend, so I could tell she was debating in her head whether or not she should make me go or just pretend that this week was only this weird break in our gal pal routine.

  “I just know you’ve had a loss, if that’s what you’re worried about,” she said.

  I dug my hands under my covers and I squeezed the pink-flowered sheets and said, “Mom, I’m not going. I’m not going today, and the thing is, I’m not going next week either. I’m not going to Weight Watchers anymore because I don’t want to and I don’t need to. If you want to go, that’s cool, okay? But I’m not going.”

  Okay. There. I said it.

  My mom did this whole pouty face thing, and I knew she would ignore me for the rest of the day. She turned around and left me alone, and after she walked away, I fell back against my pillows, pretty much totally in awe of myself.

  No more holding my breath during weigh-ins. No more listening to old ladies talk about spraying their pizzas with Lysol so they wouldn’t eat them. No more low-point substitutes that taste like crap when you compare them to the real thing. No more no more no more.

  I waited until I heard my mom back her SUV out of the driveway. I knew my dad was still asleep. I went downstairs and found a box of S’Mores Pop-Tarts in my dad’s section of the food pantry and I took it back up to my room, crawled into bed, and ate all six of them in ten minutes. The chocolate icing melted on my tongue and the marshmallow filling seemed to be made of nothing but sugar and lard. I didn’t even need to toast them. I just ate them, and I loved every single bite.

  When I was done eating, I patted my stomach. Then I looked out the window by my bed down onto my street that goes past the Nealy house and the Carver house until it curves down and around a corner. I couldn’t see past that corner, but I know all of the houses beyond it and I know all of the people who live in them. Just like I know what and who is around every corner of every street in Healy. And this fact, like the box of S’Mores, made me very happy. It made me, like, completely content.

  I tossed the empty box into the garbage can where I knew my mom would find it eventually, and I slid back under the covers and fell asleep.

  Kelsie

  The day before Winter Break is always a half day. It’s also the world’s most pointless school day. Maybe even more pointless than the last day of school. At least on the last day there can be no reason for assigning homework or taking attendance. But the half day before Winter Break is always this total exercise in killing time.

  Right before the end of the day, I was stuck in Chemistry and totally bored out of my mind. So I asked to go to the bathroom. I ended up in the bathroom with the Slut Stall. It’s not like we don’t use it all the time or anything.

  But normally when I go in there, Alice Franklin isn’t actually inside the bathroom, washing her hands.

  I walked in and I saw her and almost immediately I wanted to turn around and walk out, but I knew that would be totally and completely chicken of me. I’d done what I’d done, and I couldn’t take it back.

  I didn’t actually have to go to the bathroom. My plan had been to go in and text someone or fool around on my phone or just basically kill time in any other place besides Chemistry class.

  But there was Alice Franklin, my former best friend, dressed in that bulky weird sweatshirt and reaching for some paper towels. When I walked in, she lifted her head up and looked right at me. Right into my eyes.

  There was nothing to say. I just stood there for a second and then I went into a stall. Not the Slut Stall. A different one. I tried to pee, and I couldn’t. I waited for at least five minutes. I thought I could outwait Alice, but when I heard her tell some girl who walked in after me to get out and that she wanted the bathroom to herself, I knew there wasn’t anything I could do except face her. I came back out and Alice was standing there, staring at me. Her dark brown eyes were just penetrating into me. My heart was racing. I felt sick.

  “Why did you tell everyone I had an abortion?” Alice said evenly. Now my heart was thumping so loudly I was sure Alice could hear it. It was like that weird short story we read in English class about the guy who was convinced he could hear the heart of his murder victim underneath the floorboards.

  I didn’t answer. I just stood there. Heart thumping.

  “Why are you telling everyone that I had an abortion when you know it’s not true?” Alice said. Her cheeks were all red and blotchy, and she was breathing hard. She could be mad at me about so many things. Ditching her. Ignoring her. Starting the Slut Stall. But right then it was the abortion rumor she was the maddest about. And I couldn’t blame her.

  “I…” I said. I couldn’t talk. Like I said, there was nothing to say. Nothing.

  “Look,” Alice said, and for a second I wondered if she was going to hit me. It’s not like I didn’t deserve it. But she just stayed there by the sink, and I stood back, up against the stall door, as far from her as I could be. She kept talking, her voice low, steady, but I could tell it sounded like it was about to explode. “I get the fact that I can’t do anything about the crap going around about me and Brandon and Tommy. I get that. Okay. And I get the fact that no one would even think for a second that the amazing and wonderful Josh Waverly made up that story about me texting Brandon in the truck and causing the accident. Fine. People are going to think what they’re going to think and it doesn’t matter what I say about it. But you know the abortion thing is a lie. You know it!” When Alice said know the second time, she kind of hit the edge of the white porcelain sink with her hand, and I jumped a little.

  “I…” I said, and Alice stood there, like she was just begging me with her eyes to say something, anything. And I couldn’t. I really couldn’t.

  All of a sudden Alice was crying. Not all sobbing or anything, but there were tears running down her face. Her voice stayed really even though, just even and steady despite all the tears.

  “You were my best friend, Kelsie. My best friend. And I am not letting you out of here until you tell me why you made that up,” she whispered, stepping toward me. “You can’t just lie like that!”

  I swallowed. Now I was the one breathing hard. I was pretty sure I was red in the face, too.

  “Well, you lied to me once,” I said, barely getting the words out. “You lied to me about messing around with Mark Lopez that summer at the pool. You said I wouldn’t understand because I was a virgin.” I spat out the word virgin like I had as much right to be mad at Alice as she had to be mad at me.

  Alice stared at me, completely confused, like she’d made up all sorts of reasons why I did what I did, but in a million years that had never been one of them. She sort of shook her head a little, like she was repeating my words in her head.

  “Mark Lopez? That was a million years ago. I don’t … what does that have to do with…” She just stood there. Stunned, I guess. I just kept swallowing and breathing hard and my heart was thumping so
bad I just knew Alice could hear it.

  And for the briefest moment, the teeniest, tiniest moment ever, I was totally tempted to tell Alice everything. Like, everything. Like real best friends are supposed to do. About how I’d felt like I’d had something to prove after she said what she’d said. How I got jealous of her so much of the time. How I’d had sex with Tommy Cray. How I’d been terrified I’d lose all my friends by hanging out with her and I’d be transformed into a dork again. I even wanted to tell her about the abortion. Because she was hurting so bad and I was hurting so bad—am hurting so bad—and, like, I just wished I had someone I could talk to. Anyone. But I knew I wouldn’t say anything to her. I’m not that brave. I’m just not.

  And not only am I not a brave person, to tell you the truth sometimes I’m pretty sure I’m the worst person alive.

  We didn’t say anything for a minute, and Alice stopped crying. She looked confused. Then she walked past me into the stall and got some toilet paper and patted the skin under her eyes. When she came back out, she just stared at me and said really slowly, like I was stupid: “Okay. So you told the entire school I had an abortion because one time—over a year ago—I lied to you about giving Mark Lopez a blow job because I felt stupid about it? That’s why you told everyone I had an abortion?”

  “And you said I was a virgin,” I repeated. Oh God, that sounded so dumb. So impossibly dumb.

  “Well … you are,” Alice said, still dragging out her words like I was a kindergartner. “Right?”

  Here was my chance to make it better. Here was my chance to tell the truth. To fix everything.

  But I couldn’t. Yeah, I was scared of becoming Kelsie from Flint again. But maybe just as much—as silly as I know it sounds, as ridiculous as I know it is—there was a part of me that blamed Alice Franklin for The Really Awful Stuff. It was petty and childish and I realize that. My mom was more to blame than Alice, and I was probably the most to blame out of everyone. But at that moment in the bathroom I couldn’t help but think that maybe things would have turned out different if Alice hadn’t made me feel like a naive little kid about everything.

  Maybe.

  So I didn’t tell her the truth. I didn’t fix anything. I just stood there.

  “Okay,” Alice said. Then she added, “So tell me to my face that you know the abortion thing is a lie.”

  I nodded yes. “It’s a lie,” I whispered. “I made it up.”

  Alice didn’t look satisfied or anything. She just stood there, almost like she couldn’t believe she’d gotten me to say what I said. Then she walked over to the corner of the bathroom and threw away the wadded-up toilet paper she’d used to dry her face. Then she turned around to face me again.

  “You know what, Kelsie?” Alice said all calm. “Fuck you.” She stood there and looked at me evenly for another moment. When she said that last part, her voice broke like she might cry again, but she didn’t. And then she just walked out.

  I stood there for a second after the swinging door shushed shut, and I walked into the Slut Stall.

  Killer Alice did it with Santa Claus. Merry Christmas HO HO HO!

  I sat on the toilet and I pulled my legs up under me. I put my chin on my knees. I cried so hard, and it felt so good. It felt so good. I cried until snot was just pouring down my nose and into my mouth. I sobbed and I sobbed and I sobbed. Someone whose voice I didn’t recognize came in and asked me through the door if I was okay, and I didn’t answer. I didn’t even try to stop sobbing. I just kept crying.

  Finally, when I realized whoever came in might go get a teacher or something, I pulled it together and came out and washed my face. I walked down the hallway and out of one of the side doors of the building and started walking toward my house. It’s so easy to cut school at Healy High. I don’t think my Chemistry teacher even noticed I never came back. I just walked toward home. I didn’t even have my backpack or my coat—I left them both in my locker—but I didn’t care. The only thing that mattered was leaving that building as fast as I could.

  * * *

  I feel like the baby was a boy. I don’t know why. I just do. I have no reason to think that or anything. Maybe I feel that way just because I wanted it to be.

  If I ever get pregnant again, I hope it’s a boy. I would say I’ll pray it’s a boy, but I don’t know if God listens to me anymore. It’s scary to say this, but I don’t know if God exists, to tell you the truth.

  But if I do end up having a girl, there are so many things I’ll do for her. So many things I swear I’ll do for her.

  I’ll never walk into her room without knocking.

  I won’t fake emotions in front of her.

  I’ll tell her she’s special just because she’s who she is.

  I won’t act like I’m perfect.

  I won’t scare her. I won’t let her be scared of me.

  I won’t tell her I know all the answers.

  I won’t lie to her.

  And if she ever feels awful or scared or alone or goes through something terrible and miserable and horrible, I won’t leave her in her room all by herself. No, I’ll crawl into bed with her and hold her in my arms, and I’ll let her cry and cry all she wants, and I’ll press her little head into my neck and let her sob tears on me, and I won’t tell her I know it will get better, and I won’t promise her she won’t always feel this bad, and I won’t make her stop crying. I’ll let her cry for as long as she needs to. As long as she needs to. As long as she needs to.

  Kurt

  When I arrived at Alice’s house that early spring evening, Alice greeted me with a smile at the door and said, “So, I have a surprise!” Oh, to have a quick wit about me, to be able to respond with some clever answer. But I just followed her into the kitchen and asked, “What?”

  “Look!” Alice said, pulling out a math quiz from her binder. Her face was gleeful. “An 88! Do you know how crazy this is for me? An 88!” Next to the circled grade Mr. Commons had written “Much Improved!” and underlined it.

  I was thrilled and also upset. Upset that this 88 meant Alice would most likely no longer be requesting my help in mathematics. Gone would be our once or even twice weekly visits together. Gone would be the nights I could soak in her face, her eyes, her smile, the way she grips her pencil and bites her bottom lip as she works, the way she grins to herself when she gets something right.

  Gone would be our conversations. The ones that—ever since the day we had lunch together at my house—have more frequently started meandering away from talk of constants and variables and begun entering into other territories. Our families. Our likes and dislikes. Our favorite things. Our funny habits.

  I know, for instance, that Alice still holds her breath when she walks past the historic city cemetery on the way home from school, even though she knows it’s a silly superstition. And Alice knows, for example, that elevators make me claustrophobic. (“So I suppose it’s a good thing that we only have two of them in Healy,” Alice observed with a laugh.) And I know, for instance, that Alice’s mother is dating a man over in Clayton and sometimes leaves Alice all alone for a week at a time. (“Once she forgot to pay the power bill and I had to get ready for school in the dark, if you can believe it,” she confessed with a shrug, like she was used to such annoyances when dealing with her mother.) And Alice knows that back in first grade I liked to imagine that young, pretty Miss Sweeney could somehow become my mother since my real mother was gone. When I told that to Alice, she smiled at me.

  “You know what? I kind of used to imagine that, too,” Alice admitted.

  But now, all of that sharing will be going away. Because of a wonderful, terrible 88.

  I supposed my expression must have given away my sadness because Alice’s face—her beautiful face—turned from excited to confused.

  “Oh,” she said, her voice soft. “Do you … you think I … I mean, I should be getting As?” Then she smiled. “Kurt, it’s nice to have your faith in me, but come on. An 88! You’ve got to be happy over this. We work
ed so hard.”

  “No, Alice, I am,” I said. “I’m very happy for you. But I’m just…” I took a breath. I could tell Alice how I felt. I could do it. “I guess I’m just worried that maybe you won’t need my help anymore.”

  Alice sat down at the kitchen table, so I did, too. She stared at the 88 and then back at me. “But I’m not, I mean … I’m not paying you to do this. Why would you…” She stopped, and her cheeks pinked up a bit. Alice knows I’m attracted to her. She knows and she knows I know she knows. Even earlier in the fall when she’d asked me if I was only tutoring her because I wanted to sleep with her, she must have known deep down inside that I liked her.

  Hadn’t she realized that as time went by, it wasn’t simply sex that I thought about? (Although I would be a hypocrite and a liar if I didn’t admit to frequently fantasizing about such unattainable acts in the privacy of my own home.) Hadn’t she figured out by now that I really like her—her, Alice? Not Fantasy Alice, but the living, breathing, talking, walking, actual Alice who holds her breath near cemeteries and eats grilled cheese sandwiches and has managed to survive complete and utter banishment from everyone she ever regarded as a friend and still come to school every single day.

  That Alice. I like her. I like being her friend.

  Alice didn’t humiliate me. She didn’t make me elaborate. She just sat there, pink cheeks, 88 in hand.

  “Alice, I know that I’m not … I mean, that I’m not exactly what you’d find…” I could not find the words. I have a genius IQ, yet I could not find the words.

  Alice could. She reached out across the kitchen table and put her small girl hand on top of my arm, and the warmth that pulsed from that touch heated up my entire body from my toes to the roots of my hair.

  “Kurt, it’s okay. I want you to know that I don’t know what I would have done this year without you. And I don’t mean just math. I mean, that was great. But what I mean is that you were the only person in the school who would even talk to me. You were my friend, Kurt. You are my friend. And I don’t have any friends other than you. None. I don’t know if you know what that feels like,” she said, and as she said it, her voice broke a bit.