Alice Alone (20 page)

Lester stopped chopping onions and stared at me. “When did you hear this?”

“Just now.” In shaky fits and starts I told him about the party at Karen’s dad’s, and what Karen had heard Jim Sorringer say. “That’s why she didn’t want a diamond!” I wept. “That’s why she didn’t want any engagement ring at all! She didn’t want to be wearing one when Jim came for Christmas! And she told Dad she’d be
traveling
during the holidays! Traveling with
Jim,
that’s what!”

Lester put the knife down and leaned against the counter. I had expected him to say it wasn’t any of our business. I expected him to say that this was between her and Dad, but this time he didn’t. “How do you know Karen’s telling the truth—that she isn’t just stirring up trouble?” he asked.

“Well, what she told me before was true—about Jim Sorringer buying Sylvia a ring. I don’t think she’d lie about this. She didn’t sound as though she was trying to make trouble.”

Les was thoughtful. “Well, there may not be anything to it,” he said, “but this time, I think Dad ought to know. Maybe he already does.
Maybe it’s Sylvia’s final good-bye to Jim or something—her way of making sure she’s doing the right thing.”

“How can you say that?” I shouted. “If she’s not sure of Dad, then they shouldn’t be engaged. Is she going to go on seeing Jim Sorringer for the rest of her life to make sure she did the right thing marrying Dad?”

“Well, let’s not jump to conclusions. Let’s tell Dad as calmly as we can and let him handle it in his own way.”

But now the tears were really rolling. All my resolutions about not crying at every little thing … “It’s two weeks before Christmas, Lester! Dad’s been so happy. She’ll break his heart. What I want to do is call Sylvia myself and tell her what she’s doing to him.”

“You’ll do nothing of the kind. We’re just going to tell Dad what you heard, and that’s all… .”

The front door closed, and Dad’s footsteps sounded in the hall. I froze. He walked straight into the kitchen and looked at me. “Well, what’s all this?” he said jovially. “Has somebody called off Christmas?”

That made it even worse, because someone
had,
I wanted to say. Sylvia Summers, that’s who, but I didn’t trust myself to answer, so Lester answered for me.

“Al heard a disturbing piece of news just now, Dad. Karen was helping out at her father’s Christmas party last night, and Jim Sorringer was one of the guests. Karen overheard him tell a woman that he would be spending Christmas in England. In Chester, to be exact.”

Dad stared at us as though Lester were speaking Norwegian, as though Les weren’t making a bit of sense. He reached out, opened the refrigerator, took out a bottle of cranberry juice, and set it on the counter. And two seconds later, just as mechanically, he put it back in again, his eyes unblinking. “Well, he’ll find Sylvia gone. She’ll be traveling,” he said, but his face looked blank. Then he added, “It’s possible that Jim’s just doing some traveling himself. A coincidence, maybe.”

We all knew the answer to that. London? Possibly. But, Chester? No.

“Was he going alone, do you happen to know?” Dad asked, looking at me. “Maybe he’s traveling with a friend.”

“I don’t know. But Karen said he came to the party alone,” I told him. And then I lost it again. “Dad, I’m so sorry,” I wept. “I
hate
Sylvia!”

“Now, don’t say that, Al. There could be a good explanation. We didn’t hear all the facts,” Dad said, but he didn’t convince me.

“
Call
her!” I said. “Ask her what it’s all about.”

“No.” Dad was firm. “I’ll let her tell me herself without any prodding from me.” And then he added, “She’s supposed to call tonight, and she’ll undoubtedly explain it then. Now, what are we having for dinner?”

I couldn’t bear it. I couldn’t stand the hurt in his eyes, his voice, his face … I blindly reached for the plates and set the table.

Dinner was a sober affair. I think we all ate the burritos without tasting. It looked as though our mouths were scarcely moving, as though we weren’t even chewing.

“How are things at the store?” Lester asked finally. “Business has been nonstop at the shoe store.”

“We sold two baby grands this week,” Dad said. But his voice was flat, and the conversation died after that.

I did the dishes after dinner, and Lester and I went right on up to our rooms because we knew it was close to midnight in England, and Sylvia would be calling Dad any minute now. We wanted him to have the downstairs to himself so he could talk to her in private. I spread out my homework on my bed, but left the door ajar. When the phone rang and I heard Dad pick it up, I’ll admit that I got up and went to my doorway.

“Oh, Sylvia, it’s so good to hear your voice,” Dad said. “… I know. I miss you, darling… .” There were murmurs, words I couldn’t make
out. Then I heard Dad telling her about work and the big pre-Christmas sale at the Melody Inn. I changed position and waited. “How I wish you could be in my arms at Christmas,” Dad was saying now. “How
will
you spend the day, sweetheart?” He was fishing, I knew. Giving her every opportunity to tell him. More silence. Then, finally, “Oh … uh-huh … I see … well, that might be fun… . No, I won’t try to reach you then, but you’ll be calling me?”

She
wasn’t
telling him! Whatever she said was a lie. I went back and sat on the edge of my bed, waiting for Dad to come up and tell us what she’d said. When we heard his footsteps on the stairs, both Les and I came to the doors of our rooms. Dad paused on the next to the top step, his hand on the banister.

“What did she say?” I asked.

“Well, she didn’t mention Jim. I guess she plans to do her traveling just after Christmas, between Christmas and New Year’s. I asked what she’d be doing Christmas Day, and she said that one of the teachers had invited her to have dinner with her family, and she’d be out most of the time, but she’d call me that evening.”

“And you didn’t ask her about Sorringer?” I wanted to know.

“No… . . Whatever her reasons, she’s keeping them to herself. But I trust her—”

“I can’t believe you’d put up with that, Dad!” I cried. “If
you
had another woman coming
here
at Christmas … !”

“Al, cool it!” Lester said sternly.

Dad just sighed. “I’ve got to handle this in my own way, honey,” he said. And walked slowly back to his room. He looked like an old, old man.

After I heard his door close and Lester closed his, I angrily wiped one arm across my eyes.
I
didn’t have to trust Sylvia!
I
didn’t have to excuse her! I rushed over to my dresser, grabbed the picture of Miss Summers off my mirror—the photo of her I’d always liked best, Sylvia in a filmy blue and green dress—and ripped the picture in half.

“There!” I cried, and ripped it a second time. “There! And there! And there!” And then I lay facedown on my bed and bawled some more.

As Christmas drew near, our house was like a morgue, and I began to feel that as much as I had loved Sylvia Summers in the past, I hated her now. I was glad we were busy at the store. I went in twice after school the week before vacation, just to help out. I’d bought Polartec gloves for both Dad and Lester, as well as their favorite candy. And I was going to make a chocolate cake for Christmas dinner, the best ever. But I knew that cake and gloves couldn’t make Dad happy. I didn’t have the
power to do that for him, any more than he could make me forget Patrick. My anger at Sylvia was like a fever that wouldn’t let up.

Elizabeth, however, seemed more relaxed these days somehow. I couldn’t say she seemed happier, just thoughtful. Pamela and I didn’t ask her any more about the episode with the biologist. To keep bringing the subject up would put more emphasis on it than it deserved. But when I saw her folks going in and out of their house, it bothered me that I knew something so basic about Elizabeth that they didn’t.

On the last day of school, Sam Mayer wished me Merry Christmas, and I wished him Happy Hanukkah, and I was really surprised when Patrick called out, “Merry Christmas, Alice,” as I was getting my coat out of my locker.

I took the chance to have a normal conversation. I smiled at him and said, “You, too, Patrick. Doing anything special?”

“I’m going skiing with my folks in Vermont.”

“Sounds good,” I said. “Happy New Year, too.”

“Same to you,” he said, and smiled that funny little smile that wrinkled the bridge of his nose. I told myself I still saw a glint in his eye for me, imagined or not, because I needed every glint I could get this Christmas.

Elizabeth and I walked home from the bus stop together. I’d told her what Karen had said about
Jim Sorringer. I had to, because Karen had already told some of the kids on the bus. Karen is one of those people who
seems
to be your really close friend, but you never know.

“Well, if it will make your Christmas any happier, Alice, I told my folks,” Elizabeth said.

“About Miss Summers? Why would that … ?”

“No. About me. About what happened back in second grade.”

I stopped and looked at her. “Good for you, Liz!” I said. I gave her a hug right there on the sidewalk, and repeated, “Good for you!”

“And you were right. I feel
so
much better.”

“What did they say?”

“Well, they were stunned. It wasn’t that they didn’t believe me. They never said that maybe I imagined it, but they quizzed me in such detail that I could tell they wanted to make sure. And then Mom cried. I
knew
she’d do that. They both kept saying,
Why didn’t you
tell
us the first time?
That’s the part they still can’t understand. I can’t, either. You just … when you’re small, I think … you
accept
things about grown-ups, like whatever they do must be right because they’re adults. There’s so much they ask us to do anyway that we don’t understand, so when this man told me I could help him not feel so lonely and asked me to stand still, well … it must be right, I figured,
or my parents wouldn’t have let me go on those walks.”

“Kids can’t reason like adults,” I told her.

Elizabeth nodded. “What I feel worst about, though, is that … well, when I told my parents I thought they knew what their friend was doing to me, that’s when Mom really cried. Dad even cried. But you know what? They hugged me. They both hugged me, just like you and Pamela did.”

“You’re lucky, Elizabeth, because you hear about girls telling their moms that their dads or stepdads are molesting them, and the mothers won’t believe it. Don’t
want
to believe.”

“They made me promise that if anything like that ever happened again, I’d tell them. And best of all, they said I didn’t have to tell the priest in confession unless I wanted. They said it was their friend who should have had to confess, not me. And it’s like … like I’m twenty pounds lighter. I feel one hundred percent better.”

“It must be a great feeling,” I said, wishing I could feel the same about Sylvia Summers.

“The best! I don’t even want to say the guy’s name again. I’m going to call him
El Creepo
. Dad said that was fine with him.”

We laughed a little.

“I did ask my parents, though, how a man who was supposedly loved by everyone and did such
noble things could do something like that to a little girl, and they said that, unfortunately, a person can be mature in one way and infantile in another. He can be generous and selfish, both at the same time. And just because everyone seemed to love him didn’t excuse what he did at all.”

“I hope they also pointed out that a man who molests kids, no matter how wonderful he is, is breaking the law and, if he was still alive, would go to prison,” I told her.

We got to Elizabeth’s house and stopped. “The thing is,” she said, “Mom’s going to make an appointment with me to see a therapist. She wants to be sure I work out my feelings about El Creepo so that things won’t bother me later on. I don’t know how I feel about that.”

“
I
think it’s a great idea,” I said. “I think it would make sense if we all had a head check once in a while.”

We were halfway through dinner that night when the phone rang. Dad had just put a bite of pork chop in his mouth, and gestured for me to get it, so I scooted my chair out from the table and went down the hall.

It was Sylvia’s voice on the line, and she sounded tense: “Alice, I need to talk to Ben,” she said right off. “Is he there?”

“Yes,” I said coldly. “I’ll get him.”

I clunked the telephone down on the hall table and hoped it hurt her ear. “It’s Sylvia,” I said in the kitchen. “She wants to talk to you.”

Dad paused, his glass halfway to his lips. Then he hurriedly left the table, but I seethed.

Tell her this is the first year you’ve missed the Messiah Sing-along,
I wanted to say to Dad.
All because it would have reminded you of her. Tell her how she’s ruined Christmas for us, the whole Christmas season. Tell her she’s a cheat, and that I take back all the good things I ever said to her.
I speared a potato and angrily thrust it in my mouth.

“Chew, Al,” Lester said, even though I knew he was listening, too.

We both sat silently, trying to decipher what words we could hear of Dad’s conversation.

“Sylvia? How
are
you?” Dad was asking.

There was a long silence. I heard the chair by the phone creak as he finally sat down. He still didn’t say anything, and I could feel in my bones that this was good-bye. That she was going back to Jim Sorringer, and hadn’t known how to tell him before.

“Swallow, Al,” Lester said.

I swallowed the potato.

And then we heard Dad say, “Honey, I wouldn’t have cared if you’d had dinner with him, but I think you handled it well.” Lester and I looked at
each other. “Of course! I can’t help feeling sorry for the man.” There was a long, long silence. Then, “I know… . I feel the same way… . You know I do… . Yes, beyond a doubt.” And finally, so soft and gentle, we could hardly hear it, “I can’t wait until you’re in my arms again.”