Alice Alone (11 page)

He laughed.

We walked out in the street in the gutter where the leaves had piled up, enjoying the crunching sound underfoot. I let him do the talking—the assignment he had to do for physics, his mom’s birthday, the car his dad was going to buy, the sci-fi movie I’d missed, what a blast it had been… . He still, though, didn’t mention Penny, and it began to annoy me that he wouldn’t talk about her, almost as though he had something to hide.

“I hear you had quite a cheering section at your audition,” I said finally, as lightly and casually as I could muster.

He didn’t say anything for a moment. Then, “Yeah, some of the kids showed. I usually block everyone out when I’m playing, though.”

“And afterward?”

“What?”

“Well, I heard you got quite a hug.”

He smiled faintly. “Penny’s real affectionate,” he said. “It’s just the way she is.”

“I guess so,” I said, hating the flat sound my voice took on. “You must have enjoyed it, though.”

“Why not? I did what any normal guy would do—hugged her back. Something wrong with that?” Now
his
voice had an edge to it. I didn’t trust myself to respond, and then he added, sort of jokingly, “She
likes
me! What can I do?”

“What else?” I said.

Patrick wasn’t smiling anymore. “Is this what tonight’s about? You wanted to lecture me about Penny?”

“What I really wanted was just an evening together—we haven’t seen much of each other since school started. But if there’s something I should know …”

“Why do I get the feeling that every time I’m within six feet of Penny I have to report back to you?” Patrick said.

“I don’t know. Conscience, maybe?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

I noticed that instead of taking the usual route to the grade school where we often sat on the swings and hand-walked the horizontal bars, we had turned at the next corner as though we were circling the block. As though my feet refused to go in a straight line that would, if we had passed the school and gone three blocks farther, taken us to the ice-cream parlor where Penny may or may not have been working that
night. I even wondered if that’s why Patrick had mentioned getting ice cream, just so he could see her.

“I mean that I keep hearing things from other people about you and Penny, but I never hear about them from you. And if she’s just a casual friend, why wouldn’t you mention her along with everyone else? What’s so secret if she’s just another face in the crowd?”

Patrick looked straight ahead. “She’s not just another ‘face.’ She’s a good friend. She’s fun to be with. I expect to have a lot of good friends, male and female, through high school and college, and you should, too. The more the better.”

We walked awhile without speaking. The truth of what he said only cut a little deeper. So did the fact that we seemed to be heading right back to my house, because we turned again at the
next
corner. As though the relationship, as well as our feet, wasn’t going anywhere.

“So why did I have to find out about that false ‘kiss’ between you and Penny from a photo on our piano? Why did I have to hear from someone else about you sitting beside her at the movie and making her scream? Why did Jill tell me about the way Penny went up and hugged you after your audition, but I didn’t hear it from you?”

“Because Jill’s a gossip, that’s why.”

“But you wouldn’t have told me yourself? Once again, Alice is the last to know.”

“What’s to tell? She likes me, I like her. She’s not you, she’s just different.”

Somehow, the way he said it, cut deepest of all. The last time Patrick had said,
She’s not you, Alice,
it had made me feel special, as though Penny could never hold the place in his heart that was reserved for me. But now I heard something else: that Penny was different, and he liked that difference. That there were qualities he found in Penny that he didn’t find in me. And while that was only natural and made common sense, it hurt like anything. What it meant to me was that Patrick found Penny fun and cute and full of life, and it made me feel large and unattractive and dull in comparison.

“What I’m hearing, Patrick, is that Penny’s pretty special to you,” I said, but my words came out all breathy.

He glanced over to see, I suppose, if I was going to cry. “But you are, too,” he said in answer.

I imagined Patrick kissing Penny the way he had kissed me; touching her the way he had touched me. “How can we
both
be special?” I asked angrily.

He shrugged. “You just are. You and I have been going out for two years.”

“Just tell me this: Are we still a couple or not?” I asked, refusing to look at him, my feet plodding on ahead.

Patrick didn’t answer for a moment. Then, “If you mean will we still go out, sure. If you mean I can’t
go out with Penny sometimes, then …” He didn’t finish.

My whole body felt like feet. I could feel each one hitting the sidewalk. The more I imagined Patrick and Penny together—petite Penny—the bigger my feet seemed to be. My legs, my hands, my head felt huge, and the more unattractive I felt, the angrier I got. I didn’t want to be walking along beside this red-haired guy who didn’t want me anymore. Not the way he used to.

When we turned again onto my street, I could see our porch six doors down. I didn’t even want to walk past those six houses to get there. I wished I was there already, safe inside.

“Well, maybe if Penny’s so special to you, you should just become a couple,” I snapped.

Patrick stopped walking and stood absolutely still on the sidewalk, his hands in the pockets of his jacket. I’d never seen his face like it looked then. Reserved. Distant. “Are you asking me to choose?” he said.

“Yes,” I told him. “Maybe you should just take her to the Snow Ball.”

“Then, maybe I will,” he said. And he turned and walked slowly off in the other direction.

I caught my breath, wanting to call after him, but I didn’t. I could feel my heart racing, my tongue dry, the blood throbbing in my temples. I turned and walked as fast as I could back home, my eyes starting
to close against the tears, my chin wobbling, and then I was running up the steps, crossing the porch, streaking up the stairs to my room, and collapsing on the rug beside my bed.

I don’t know how long I cried. My room was full of Patrick—pictures and postcards and mementos of all the things we’d done. Pamela had even returned the Milky Way wrapper from the first candy bar Patrick ever gave me; I’d given it to her as my prized possession when we thought she was moving to Colorado. Most of my bulletin board was devoted to Patrick.

My memories were Patrick. My kisses were Patrick’s. All my plans for weekends and summers had been built around him, and now there didn’t seem to be anything left—any structure to pin things on. I’d had a boyfriend for so long that I didn’t know what to do without one. How would I act, going everywhere by myself? Being a single in our gang? How did other girls manage this?

There was a light tap on the door. “Al?” said Dad.

I couldn’t answer. “Al?” he said again, louder. “May I come in?”

“Yes.” Even my voice sounded small.

The door opened, and he stood there in his Dockers and flannel shirt, looking down at me. “What happened, honey?” he said, and came over to sit on the edge of my bed.

I turned around and grabbed hold of one of his legs, burying my face in his pant leg, and cried some more.

“Something happen between you and Patrick?”

“I think w-we b-broke up,” I sobbed. “Oh, Dad!”

I felt his hand on my forehead, his fingers brushing back the wet hair that clung to my temples. “Want to tell me about it?” he asked softly.

“It’s just … just … there’s this girl, Penny, and she’s been chasing him, and …” I couldn’t go on. I was putting it all on Penny, I knew. I still couldn’t face the fact that the feeling between her and Patrick was mutual.

Dad did it for me. “And he let himself be caught?”

I nodded vigorously and went on crying, curling up against his leg as though it were a pillow.

“Love is really hard sometimes,” he said. And I was glad he said “love.” I was glad he acknowledged that I loved Patrick, and didn’t modify it with “puppy love” or “high school infatuation” or something.

“It’s worse than being sick, worse than throwing up,” I told him, my nose clogged.

“I know,” said Dad.

“I feel like there’s nothing left. That Patrick’s gone and taken a part of me with him.”

“In a way, I suppose he has,” said Dad.

I was doubly grateful that he didn’t immediately
start talking me out of my crying jag, that he accepted how I felt.

“I feel alone and ugly and scared, like I don’t know what to do next. Like … like I don’t even know how to
act
without a boyfriend. It’s all so stupid, and yet … oh, Dad, it hurts! It really hurts.”

“I know, I know,” he said.

Deep inside, however, I felt maybe it wasn’t over. That Patrick would go home and feel as bad about this as I did. That he’d E-mail me, maybe, or the phone would ring about ten o’clock and his voice would be soft and gentle the way it often was after we’d argued. I could even imagine him saying, Alice McKinley, may I have the honor of escorting you to the Snow Ball? and I’d sort of giggle and maybe cry, and we’d both say how dumb the argument had been. He’d tell me how he couldn’t bear to lose me, and I’d say I’d been insanely jealous, and everything would be okay again.

Except that the phone didn’t ring and Patrick didn’t E-mail. I had a horrible night. I looked incredibly awful the next morning—my eyes were all puffy. I wanted to stay home. I wanted Dad to write an excuse, say I needed sleep, but he wouldn’t.

“Al, do you really want everybody to notice that you aren’t on the bus? Do you want the news of your breakup to travel around, and everyone know that you’re taking it hard?”

That, I realized, would be even worse than letting them see my puffy eyes. I wrapped some ice cubes in a dish towel and sat at the kitchen table, holding the ice to my eyes, taking deep breaths to quiet my nerves.

Lester came clattering down the stairs for breakfast. I saw him pause in the doorway, staring at me, and then, out of the corner of my swollen eyes, I saw Dad shake his head at him sternly. Les came on in the kitchen without a word to me, mumbling something about how his car needed gas and he’d just drink a little coffee and get a muffin on campus. Then he was gone.

When my face began to feel numb, I dumped the ice in the sink and went upstairs to shower. I knew I couldn’t keep anything down if I tried to eat, so I skipped breakfast and concentrated on my face. I carefully put on foundation and blush and powder, dropped Murine in my eyes, blow-dried my hair, and dressed in a beige top and khakis. Walking beside Elizabeth to the bus stop, I kept my face turned away from her a little, and she didn’t seem to notice my eyes.

She was talking about an English assignment and how she’d almost forgotten to wash her gym clothes the night before, how her shorts were still damp, and when the bus came, we got on and sat together across from Pamela. I could sense Patrick’s
presence at the back of the bus, but I didn’t hear his voice and dared not look in his direction.

Pamela and Karen were sitting together comparing nail decals. This time the older kids on the bus were so loud that anything we said was drowned out. They were making up a new cheer for basketball games, with a lot of bawdy words in it, and of course all the ninth graders were drinking it in.

Elizabeth in her usual way was trying to carry on a conversation with me as though she weren’t subjecting her ears to their banter. “I forgot to take them out of the dryer and they’ll be a wrinkled mess,” she was saying. She stopped and studied me for a moment, then leaned forward and looked directly into my face. “My gosh!” she said.

I could feel tears welling up again. “It’s that bad, huh?”

“What’s
happened?
” she asked softly.

I didn’t answer, and she looked quickly around to see if anyone else was listening. “You and Patrick?” she asked again.

I nodded.

“You and
Patrick?
” she repeated, unbelieving. And when I didn’t answer, she said, “You broke
up?
”

I leaned my head on her shoulder, swallowing and swallowing, till I’d managed to control my tears. She put one hand on mine and squeezed it, and I was never so glad for a friend.

9

Pain

I didn’t want anyone to pity me, though. I didn’t want to feel like “poor, rejected Alice.” I was pretty sure Elizabeth wouldn’t tell anyone until I said she could, but it turned out that Jill asked Patrick if he was taking me to the Snow Ball, and he said, “Probably not.”

That’s when Jill told Karen and Karen told Pamela and Pamela cornered me outside the cafeteria and said, “Alice, what happened?”

“It was by mutual consent,” I said.

“Was it Penny?” she asked.

“It was everything,” I said, starting to move away before the bell. Before I started crying.

“I’ll be over after school,” Pamela called after me, and disappeared down the corridor.

How do you look cheerful when you’re crying inside? How do you act interested in friends’ conversations when all you can think about is what you said to Patrick and Patrick said to you and
how he looked when he said it? How do you keep your mind on the blackboard and tomorrow’s assignment when tomorrow seems about as bleak and colorless as a tomorrow ever seemed?

It’s weird, but I was almost more depressed about breaking up with Patrick than I remember being over my mom dying, I think, because I was too young to understand what dying meant. That it was final. Forever. I remember everyone else crying at the funeral, but I kept thinking, “But when she’s better, she’ll come back!” The breakup with Patrick seemed pretty final to me because—even if we got back together sometime, how could it ever be the same? How could I ever feel that Patrick liked—loved—me best of all?

“Alice? Up here, please,” my history teacher said, tapping the pointer against a wall map. “You can’t see China out the window.”