Now I'll Tell You Everything (Alice) (18 page)

The eight of us stuck pretty much together the rest of the trip, eating our meals at adjoining tables and hanging out in coach or in the observation car. We talked about college and jobs and plans, and when we reached San Francisco, the guys insisted on taking us out to dinner at a great restaurant on the Bay as thanks for sharing our room and our desserts.

We exchanged names and addresses, and when we parted at last, we gave each of the guys a kiss and a hug. I couldn’t tell if they seemed more like boyfriends or brothers. Just friends, I guess, and it felt good.

That night, in a Holiday Inn, Elizabeth said, “Well, now I can say I’ve slept with a man!” and laughed. But I noticed she looked particularly pleased.

*  *  *

We rented a sky-blue Honda and, with a map from AAA, set off for Yosemite, where we hiked until our legs would take no more. After a night in a lodge, we headed down to Sequoia
National Park and stayed even longer than we had planned. There was something about the huge trees—big enough to drive a car through, to
live
in, actually—something so fatherly about their age, so grandfatherly, that we almost felt we ought to hug them before we took off again.

“Doesn’t it make everything else seem small?” said Elizabeth. “I don’t mean in size, I mean in importance. All that these trees have lived through, yet here we are, worrying about grades and guys and weight and . . . and life. Trees don’t worry. They just go right on being trees.”

“Very profound, Liz, except you’re not a tree,” said Pamela. “You can’t just stand in one place and be fed through your roots. You do have to earn a living eventually.”

“And you can’t reproduce just by standing there shedding acorns or something,” I told her.

“Why is it that no matter what we’re talking about, you two always bring it back to sex?” Liz asked, and suddenly we all started to laugh. For just a minute the old Elizabeth was back again, and we were sort of glad to have her.

The next day, after we had called home to let people know where we were, we made the long drive to L.A., where we did Universal Studios and the tour of movie stars’ houses—even a day at Disneyland and a little shopping on Rodeo Drive, just to say we’d been there. Then we headed back up the coast to Hearst Castle and, after some time there, started our long-awaited drive up Highway One through Big Sur toward Carmel and the Monterey Peninsula.

It was an amazing drive, with the ocean to our left and the towering rocky wall on our right. We let Pamela do most of the driving because she enjoyed it more than we did and was good at it. It wasn’t quite fair, because we got to see a lot more of the scenery than she did, but we all were having a fantastic time.

And then . . . a tire blew.

Elizabeth, of course, screamed, but all Pamela said was “Dear God.” It was the closest I’d ever heard Pamela come to praying. There was scarcely any shoulder on the road at all, neither rock side nor cliff side, but Pamela carefully edged the Honda over as close to the wall as she could get and turned on the emergency blinkers.

The problem was that we were on a curve, and any car coming along the narrow road from the south, if the driver was going too fast, might plow into us from behind. I think we all had visions of being rammed at seventy miles an hour and sent hurtling through the air and over the cliff.

“We’re going to die!” came a soft wail from the backseat.

“Elizabeth, will you shut up!” I snapped, only because she’d said what we were all feeling. “Does anyone know how to change a tire?” I sure didn’t, and I doubted that Elizabeth did. I looked hopefully at Pamela. She shook her head.

Now I began to panic.

A car eased past us from behind and went on. Nobody going in the opposite direction stopped to help because there was no good place to stop.

“We’re going to get hit!” Elizabeth said shakily. “It’s only a matter of time.”

“Then get out of the car and stand back there at the curve and wave your panties or something,” Pamela said irritably.

I began to wonder too if it might be safer if we all got out of the car. I had helped pack the trunk and hadn’t seen any emergency flares.

Just then a car pulled up behind us, and we all turned to see two men sitting in the front seat, talking to each other and looking at us. One of them got out and came along Pamela’s side. He had on jeans and a Heineken T-shirt, about thirty, I guessed, with tattoos up and down both arms.

“Keep the door locked, Pamela,” I warned her. “Just lower the window a couple of inches.”

Pamela started the engine long enough to roll down the window slightly, then turned the key again.

The man was looking us over. He put his face to the back window and studied Elizabeth, then grinned at Pamela and me. He also grinned at the second man, who was getting out of the car now and coming up behind us.

“P-Pamela!” Elizabeth bleated.

I slowly pulled out my cell phone and pressed 9-1-1.

“Looks like you girls got trouble,” the man said.

“I’m afraid so,” Pamela said. And, noticing my cell phone, she added, “We’re calling Triple A.”

I nudged Pamela and tilted my cell phone toward her.
No signal,
it read.

The man gave a short laugh. “She’s calling Triple A,” he said to his friend, and the friend laughed too. And then, to us, he said, “Well, they’ll be here in about three or four hours, I’d guess. You’re a long way from the nearest garage, sweetheart.”

I heard Elizabeth whimper from the backseat. I tried to swallow, but my throat was dry.

“Why don’t you let us take you to wherever you’re going?” the man said. “You can leave your blinkers on and the key behind the sun visor. Just tell Triple A to bring an extra man to drive the car on into Carmel.”

“No,” said Pamela. “I think we’d better stay with the car.”

The men turned away from us and started whispering to each other as another car slowly made its way around us from behind.

“Don’t open the door, Pamela,” I repeated.

“Oh, God!”
Elizabeth wailed softly. “I’d rather go off the cliff than be murdered or raped.”

When both men turned toward the car again, I leaned across Pamela and said to them, “We were hoping someone would offer to change the tire for us. We’d be glad to pay.”

“Be happy to, sweetheart, but we’d need your spare. Why don’t you give us your key and we’ll see what kind of jack you have. Might need a hydraulic.”

Pamela looked at me. “They don’t need the key,” she whispered. “I can unlock the trunk from in here. Should I?”

I thought it over.

“Well, we’re sure not giving them the key or they could get in here,” I murmured. “They could also drive away with the car
or force us to go with them. And if you open the trunk, they could steal everything we own. Better not.”

“No, thanks,” Pamela said to the man. “We’ll wait for Triple A.”

“You could get yourselves killed,” the first man said. “What’sa matter? You scared of us? You better let us take you somewhere. Best chance you got.”

“No!” said Elizabeth. “Just go away!”

“Suit yourself,” the man with the tattoos said, and they walked back to their car. With a roar of the motor, they raced past us, almost sideswiping our car.

“What are we going to
do
?” said Elizabeth.

“The question is, what are we
not
going to do, and handing over the keys to some strange guys isn’t one of them. But somebody’s got to be able to get to our spare,” I said. “I’d better go stand at the curve and warn cars that we’re here.”

“I wish we had flares. Be careful, Alice,” Pamela warned.

But before I could open the door, a second car pulled up behind us. A van.

“Oh, God!” Elizabeth cried.

We turned to look as a man of about fifty got out. There was a woman sitting in the passenger seat. He came carefully up to the window, watching for cars coming around the curve.

“Not a very good place for a flat tire, is it?” he said through the window.

“No,” said Pamela.

“I’ve got a hydraulic jack. You have a spare, I presume?”

“Yes, it’s under our bags in the trunk,” Pamela said.

“Well, I’d better put out a couple of flares. Then, if you girls will get in the van with my wife, it’ll lighten the load and I can change your tire. ’Less you want to stand back there by the wall. Sure don’t want you here on the road.”

We looked at the man, then at his wife, then at each other.

“Name’s Gerald Gray, and I’m a retired school principal, if that’ll help,” he said.

We decided we had to trust somebody, so we got out of the car and gave him the key. Then we climbed in the van with his wife, who offered us each a slice of homemade banana bread and asked us about our trip. By the time she’d told us all the places they’d been and shown us pictures of her grandchildren, Gerald Gray had changed our tire and was back with the key.

“What you need to do is get to a gas station when you reach Carmel and have them repair the tire. That spare’s only a temporary. Good luck, girls,” he said.

“You have no idea how much we appreciate this,” I told him.

“Could we pay you for your trouble?” Pamela asked. “Really, we’d be glad to!”

Mr. Gray only smiled as he got back in the van. “No, just pass the favor along when you come across somebody else in need,” he said. And I vowed to save that little piece of philosophy for Lester when I told him about our trip.

*  *  *

When we finally got back to San Francisco, after two gorgeous days on the Monterey Peninsula, we checked into the same Holiday Inn where we’d rented the car—the only motel on our itinerary that we’d reserved in advance—and found a note waiting for Elizabeth.

As soon as we got to our room, she opened it.

“From Moe!” she said, her cheeks beginning to flush.

You told me you’d be staying here your last night of the trip, so I hope you get this. I’ll always remember you for the best night’s sleep I ever had. Can we stay in touch? You’ve got my number.

Moe

“Yes!” breathed Elizabeth when we’d read the note.

We looked at her.

“Yes, we can stay in touch,” she said, smiling.

When Dave met us at the plane this time, he swooped me up in his arms and kissed me and we didn’t hold back.

“Missed you!” he said. “You have a good time?”

“A great time!” said Liz. “She slept with another man.”

Dave didn’t stop smiling as he reached for my bag at the baggage pickup. “Yeah?”

“In separate bunks,” I told him. “You’ll hear all about it.”

“Can’t wait,” said Dave, and kissed me again.

It was the start of a diversified summer. I was working part-time on the SCOO database for the university. Devon and Samantha had proposed more ambitious things that the U might sponsor in the future: fall barbecue, a clothing drive, a shredding truck to cruise through the neighborhood on some
designated Saturday, a pet-washing Sunday—the ideas kept coming. Marcus took me along to a meeting of a new political organization formed of both Democrats and Republicans trying to get more agreement in Congress and to persuade college students to vote.

Dave was still interviewing for jobs in the insurance industry, where he hoped to become an actuary. He was staying at his parents’ home in Cumberland but was frequently down in the Washington area for interviews.

And so it began: “The Summer of Dave.” We did everything together that we possibly could. Washington, DC, is full of summer festivals, and in June alone, after I got back from California, we went to the Smithsonian Folklife Festival, the gay pride parade with Marcus and Devon, and the Capital Jazz Fest, as well as a wine tasting over in Virginia. For the Fourth of July, though, Dave got a room for the weekend at a hotel in Crystal City where we could watch the fireworks from our private balcony.

Just another thoughtful touch from a very thoughtful person, and as I lay back in his arms, sharing the chaise longue, feeling his body warmth against mine, I thought,
This must be love—lying in the arms of a strong, considerate man.

We watched the starbursts in the sky beyond the river, listened for the distant boom, watched the waterfall bursts, the little explosions that reminded me of a weeping willow, and Dave’s favorite, when several rockets were fired at once and the bursts were more like a bouquet—a flower here, a flower there, bursting into
bloom, then disappearing until a final explosion, everything at once.

“Alice,” Dave murmured in my ear, “I want our life to be like this forever, one happy surprise after another, and I think we can make it happen. Will you marry me?”

I said, “Yes.”

Then we kissed, because there and then, everything seemed possible.

It was like the replay of a scene I’d already acted out, and I guess I had—in my head. All I could think was,
Why not?
We couldn’t go on like this forever, just hanging out. Dave had already turned down one job offer in Missouri, to stay near me, and now he could start planning the rest of his life.

It was a beautiful evening. He slipped his grandmother’s ring on my finger while the moon was still visible from where we sat—a too-heavy ring with a sapphire in the middle, a tiny diamond on each side. Dave said that would have to do until I could decide on a ring myself.

*  *  *

The next morning I just had to tell someone. I called home and Sylvia answered. I could hardly contain the excitement in my voice, but I really wanted to tell Dad.

“Is Dad home?” I asked.

“No, he went out for gas and a few groceries,” she said. “How are things with you? Are you having a nice Fourth of July weekend?”

I had to tell her. “Oh, yes! Dave and I. And guess what? We’re engaged!”

Sylvia gave a little gasp. “Why . . . you
are
?”

“Yes. I’ve even got his grandmother’s ring. You’re the first person I’ve told.”

“My goodness!” There was a pause. “What news, Alice! Ben will be so surprised!”

“I hope he’ll be happy about it,” I said tentatively.

“If you’re happy, your father’s happy. So—any thoughts about the date?”