Alice Bliss (5 page)

Yesterday Angie drove out to the Holschers’ farm and sat at Edna Holscher’s kitchen table to go over this year’s policy and then broke down crying for long minutes when Edna asked how she’s holding up. This is not professional, she thinks, this is not what old man Beeman had in mind when he gave her these accounts.

Angie keeps a pair of tall rubber boots and a slicker in her car for her visits to her farms. Once she’s appraised them for insurance purposes, everything from buildings to outbuildings to barns to vehicles and tractors and tools and animals, she feels like she belongs to them or they belong to her.

She knows the cost per head and replacement value of every last animal on every farm that she covers. This is another side of Angie, the flip side of the high heels and silk blouses. It was a surprise when old man Beeman took Angie under his wing and taught her the farm side of the business. Pretty Angie, the least likely adjustor in the office to be chosen by Beeman for farm work. Give her commercial real estate, give her residential, give her life insurance, who could say no to Angie? But farms? Try making sense out of that.

It’s the big animals, she’ll tell you; she fell in love with cows and horses and fields and farms and the way Route 20 curves through mile after mile of fertile, rolling land. Like stepping into another century.

The farmers and their wives were leery of Angie at first, even with old man Beeman vouching for her. But Angie sits in their linoleum-floored kitchens drinking coffee from percolators, adding sugar and cream until they laugh at her. The year she left her own Thanksgiving dinner to follow the fire trucks out to the Holschers’ farm for the worst kind of fire, a barn fire, and stayed until every horse and cow was accounted for—the dead animals named and mourned, the living safely housed in temporary quarters—and sat, again, in the kitchen, her coat scorched, ash in her pretty hair; that was the year they took her in. Edna Holscher held her hand at the kitchen table, whispering in her ear so that Hank, pouring whiskey, couldn’t hear:
Don’t let this be what ruins us, Angie; don’t let this be the last straw.

And here she is, driving nearly an hour to sit in Edna’s kitchen and cry because Edna will understand and because really, where else does she have to go?

 

Alice found her dad’s blue shirt in the hamper the day she decided to do laundry because no one had any clean underpants left in their drawers. She set the shirt aside instead of tossing it into the washer. She laid it out on her bed for an afternoon, then put it under her pillow for a few nights. Now she’s wearing it. Every night she airs it out and every day she rolls the cuffs up half a turn. She had to spot clean the left front when she inadvertently got into the middle of a ketchup fight in the cafeteria. She hates the fact that the Dad-ness of the shirt is evaporating. She still likes wearing it, though, no matter what Ellie says. Her mom just rolls her eyes. Alice thinks the two of them are planning an intervention so she’s started to get very smart about where she airs it out each night.

Henry slams through the backdoor with a blast of clean, cold air, shouting, “Good morning, Mrs. Bliss!” just like he does every morning, whether she’s in the kitchen or not. Henry’s energy is just the catalyst they need to grab jackets and backpacks and get out the door.

On the way to the elementary school, Henry teaches Ellie and Alice a new round he has written especially for Ellie. It features about four hundred mentions of the word
fart
. He gets Ellie giggling so hard Alice thinks she’s going to wet her pants. Henry grabs Ellie’s recorder out of her backpack so he can play the tune and make big, fat
splat
sounds every time they sing the word
fart!
Tears are streaming down Ellie’s face and she has to stop walking and cross her legs to keep from peeing.

Henry is the only person Alice knows who would sing, play music, and dance around like a maniac to make a second grader laugh. In public. Henry is also capable of walking to school carrying his clarinet case in front of him—sideways,which is so awkward, you think who carries
anything
like that?—while
at the same time
banging his knees against the case to work out some complicated rhythm for jazz band. This sort of thing used to mortify Alice; now it makes her laugh.

When they reach the grammar school bus circle, Ellie grabs her recorder from Henry and sprints to catch up to Janna. Alice and Henry head off across the playground and up the hill and through the playing fields that separate the schools. Henry pulls out his iPod and offers Alice one earbud.

“Listen to this, Alice.”

They listen for a bit, walking shoulder to shoulder.

“Who is it?”

“Art Tatum. You ever hear of him?”

She shakes her head.

“He makes the piano
rock.
Listen to the way he rolls those bass notes.”

She listens.

Henry reaches out his left hand, imitating what he hears with his fingers, as though he’s playing air piano. It’s amazing the way he can do that. He’s got his eyes half closed, he’s making funny faces, he’s lucky he doesn’t trip and break a leg. He opens his eyes and glances over at her, a grin on his face.

“Good, huh?”

“Yeah,” she says, grinning back at him. “Really good.”

Two days later Alice is sitting in the kitchen, in the chair closest to the phone hanging on the wall, her homework scattered across the table, untouched. Matt ships out tonight and he will have a chance to call between five and nine. Alice staked out her spot by the phone at three, the minute she got home from school. Angie is coming home from work early, to be here by five, just in case.

Ellie and Janna are in Ellie’s room playing dress up. Last week Gram gave Ellie a whole bagful of scarves and belts and hats and purses she’s been collecting at yard sales. This is their first chance at the stuff.

For two hours as she tries to read chapters six through nine of
A Separate Peace
, Alice can hear Ellie and Janna laughing and talking. She can tell they’ve moved on to Angie’s closet and are searching for high heels. They creep downstairs barefoot, slide into the heels and clomp their way to the kitchen for a TA DA! moment: two eight-year-olds in polyester old lady dresses, elaborately and multiply belted at the waist, fake fox furs, pillbox hats, high heels, and too much lipstick.

Alice tells them they look lovely.

“We’re going on the
Queen Elizabeth
!” Ellie says.

“Around the world! The whole entire world,” Janna adds.

“Really!”

“The most marvelous boat in the world, darling!”

“Just the two of you?”

“And Luke Piacci!!!!!”

Ellie sweeps out like an elegant matron, trailing fur and too much perfume. Janna wobbles and then trips making her turn, but tosses a brave smile over her shoulder anyway.

Watching Ellie and Janna reminds Alice of her friend Stephie Larson or, more accurately, her former friend Stephie Larson. They were inseparable all through ninth grade after they both got stuck in crazy Mr. Bartolotto’s French class. But over the summer Stephie stopped eating and stopped being a pudgy kid and when tenth grade began she started hanging out with a different crowd at school. Last month, when Alice’s dad left for Fort Dix, Stephie was being kind of friendly, actually speaking to her in the girl’s room or between classes. Not a lot. Not anything like the way it used to be, not laughing, not making plans, just the occasional word or two, when nobody else was around. Today Alice must have lost her mind because she approached Stephie while she was talking to Jennifer White and Stephie actually pretended she didn’t hear her or see her.

She looks up to see Ellie in the front hall daring Janna to kiss the newel post.

“Pretend it’s Luke Piacci,” she giggles.

Alice wishes the phone would ring right now, with Mom gone and Ellie otherwise engaged. She wants five minutes to talk to her dad without an audience, without anyone telling her to hurry up, without Ellie shouting, “My turn! My turn!” She stares at the phone, willing it to ring, and when it does she nearly jumps out of her seat.

“Dad?”

“No, it’s me, Alice. Henry.”

“I can’t talk right now. We’re waiting for my dad.”

“I thought that was after five.”

“It could be anytime.”

“Have you done your math homework?”

“Henry!”

“I can’t get number six. Or number five either.”

“I haven’t looked at it.”

“Oh.”

“I have to go.”

“Alice—”

“What!?”

“Did you—”

“Henry, hurry up!”

“Are you avoiding me?”

“No. But I have to go.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

“Okay.”

She hangs up and sits with her hand on the phone, thinking call now, Dad, right now. She glances at the clock: ten to five. You and I could talk, then Mom gets home and you guys have your time, then Ellie. Just five minutes. Just one minute. Just . . .

She closes her eyes and she can imagine the line at the bank of phones on the base. The lucky guys with their own cell phones, talking as long as they want. The rest of them waiting to call, some poor schmo having to keep the line moving, cut the calls short.

Is he already packed? Is he hungry, is he tired, is he lonely? Is he scared of this phone call? She’s scared she’s gonna cry and end up not telling him . . . telling him what exactly? How do you take the stupid daily details that don’t mean anything at all, like yesterday’s math test and the way she just blanked out and couldn’t think at all, and the new coffee Gram is trying out in the café, and what’s in the news about the war and what’s not in the news about the war; how is she supposed to pretend that this is all fine and normal and she can handle it when . . .

Suddenly she’s angry; she’s so angry so quickly she feels like her head could come off. Why is he doing this? Is there something wrong with her? If she were different, if she were better, smarter, prettier, then would he stay? Why isn’t Mom enough? And Ellie and Gram and the garden and his baseball team? Why isn’t any one of those things enough anymore?

The phone rings. It’s exactly five, she notices, as she picks up the receiver. Mom must be stuck in traffic.

“Dad,” she says, and her voice sounds dead.

“Honey? Alice? How are you?”

“Fine.”

“Where are you?”

“The kitchen.”

“Doing homework?”

“Sort of.”

“Where’s Mom?”

“Not home yet.”

“And Ellie?”

“Upstairs playing dress up with Janna.”

“We don’t have a lot of time. You want to call Ellie to the phone?”

“No.”

“What?”

“I want . . .”

“Alice?”

“Don’t go,” she manages to choke out.

“Alice, honey, listen—”

She hears Mom’s car in the driveway.

“Mom’s home.”

“Okay.”

“I’ll call Ellie.”

“Wait!—Alice, are you still there?”

“Yeah.”

“We said our good-byes, remember? Let’s just have this be a regular call, like hi, how are you?”

“You want to pretend?”

“What?”

“You want me to
pretend
?”

And then Mom is through the door and standing beside her.

“I just want to hear your voice, honey. To take that with me. Maybe hear you laugh. I don’t know.”

“Keep talking.”

“Is Mom there?”

“Yes. But—”

“You can stay on. Or you could get on the extension.”

“That’s okay. Here’s Mom.”

“Sweetheart?” Angie says into the phone.

“Angie. . . ”

Even Alice can hear the longing in his voice when he says
Angie
like that. She knows she should leave the room; she should give them their moment, but she can hear his voice faintly, and she can’t walk away from that any more than she could talk when she was on the phone.

“Are you okay?” Angie asks.

“Yeah. Fine. We’re in good shape.”

“Did you get the package we sent?”

“Tell Alice and Ellie I loved the cookies. And your mom.”

“I know we don’t have much time—”

“What are you wearing?”

“
Matt!
”

“I want to picture you.”

“I’m wearing that navy dress you like. With the belt.”

“And heels.”

“Yes. Heels.”

“What’s Alice wearing?”

Mom holds out the phone to Alice.

“You want to tell him?”

Alice takes the phone.

“Jeans, high tops, and your blue shirt.”

“You’re wearing my clothes?”

“Just your shirt.”

“Send me pictures. Okay, Alice? Send me pictures.”

He sounds so young. It’s hard to think of her dad as young, but his voice, there’s another note in it now. That upper layer of control that’s always there is suddenly gone and he sounds like he feels, she thinks. The realization, he
is
scared, suddenly shoots through her like an adrenaline rush.

“Go get Ellie,” Angie says, reaching for the phone.

But Alice won’t give up the phone. Now she’s ready to pretend, she’s ready to do whatever it takes to get her dad’s voice back to normal.

“Dad,” she says, “Dad—?”

“I’m right here, sweetheart.”

Angie shakes her head and walks through the dining room to the stairs where she calls up to Ellie to come to the phone.

“Uncle Eddie is taking us to the movies, and it’s only three more weeks until the equinox and the Red Wings home opener, and Henry might flunk math this term even though I keep trying to help him, and ever since you left, it’s hard to concentrate, and Mrs. Piantowski might be having another baby or maybe she’s just getting fatter, and Gram says . . .”