Outrageously Alice (14 page)

Those are my short-term goals. Marriage and kids and a house and stuff aren’t even in the picture yet, but I decided these are the things I should think about first. And since numbers two through five would be a whole lot easier if I had a mother to help me make decisions, I’ve committed myself to putting all my energy into getting Dad and Miss Summers married.

I used to think I couldn’t stand it if they didn’t. The thought of having to go through high school, to dances, through breakups and disappointments, getting married, even, without a mom’s advice, somebody to talk to late at night about woman stuff, was just too awful. Now, though, I realize that even a mom can’t solve everything, but I still want Miss Summers to marry my dad, for his sake. Worse than not having a mother myself is seeing my dad unhappy. My own mom died when I was in kindergarten. Lester remembers her better than I do because he’s seven years older than I am. I keep getting memories of her mixed up with memories of Aunt Sally, who took care of us for a while after Mom died.

I’d already asked Miss Summers if she wanted to go to the
Messiah
Sing-Along with us again this year, and she’d said yes, if she was invited. So I made it official, and Dad was really pleased. Better yet, I found out that Miss Summers
invited him, in turn, to the school band concert, in the middle of December. But most wonderful of all, Dad announced at dinner one night that Miss Summers was spending Christmas with us.

I gave a yelp of delight and dropped my fork, splattering spaghetti sauce on the front of my sweatshirt.

“Here?” I gasped.

“We could just take her caroling through the neighborhood, if you’d prefer,” said Lester.

But I was still staring at Dad. “Christmas Eve and Christmas Day both?”

“I think so,” said Dad, smiling.

I leaned across the table and looked him right in the eye. “Where is she going to sleep?” I asked eagerly.

“Al!” said Dad. (My full name is Alice Kathleen McKinley, but Dad and Lester call me “Al.”)

“She can always sleep with me!” I begged, pleased that I had a new double bed. What I wanted to know, of course, was whether she would be sleeping with Dad.

“Sylvia only lives in Kensington,” he said. “That’s about a twenty-minute drive from Silver Spring, as if you didn’t know.” And then he changed the subject.

I couldn’t wait to tell Elizabeth and Pamela at the bus stop the next morning.

“Where is she going to sleep?” they both asked together. I’m not the only one interested in details.

“I don’t know yet,” I told them. “I’ll keep you posted.”

For Elizabeth, of course, everyone else’s life seems more interesting than her own right now because, after being the only child in her family for thirteen years, her mom’s had another baby and, according to Elizabeth, conversations at her house revolve around formula and diaper rash. And Pamela’s parents have separated, so she’d rather talk about anything than that.

“Well, I don’t think she should sleep over at your house,” said Elizabeth. “It just wouldn’t look right.”

“You’re the only one who would be looking, Elizabeth, because you’re right across the street,” I told her.

With the rush of Christmas events, the band concert came first, and I spent a half hour that day just thinking about what I was going to wear. I’d actually be sitting with Elizabeth and Pamela, but I wanted to be near enough to Dad and Miss Summers that I could see whether they were holding hands.

Patrick, who plays the drums, had a huge drum solo in a jazz number the band was doing, so I wanted to get there early and find seats on the left side of the auditorium
where I’d have a good view of the drums. I told Dad we’d save two seats for him and Miss Summers.

I finally decided on black leggings and a long white sweater. Lester drove Elizabeth, Pamela, and me over early on his way to pick up Marilyn Rawley, his longtime girlfriend. Elizabeth and Pamela, who have had a crush on Lester since sixth grade and were wearing enough perfume to anesthetize a cat, climbed in back.

“Hi, Lester,” said Elizabeth. Her voice was high and tight, while Pamela’s was just the opposite—low and husky. Lester says that whenever he drives my girlfriends anywhere, it’s like carrying Snow White and the Wicked Queen together in the backseat.

I tried to make intelligent conversation.

“Going to a movie?” I asked.

“Yeah, something with Jack Nicholson in it, I forget what. Marilyn chose it,” he said.

Marilyn Rawley works part-time for my dad in his music store, The Melody Inn, and she chooses great stuff for the store’s Gift Shoppe.

“Marilyn has excellent taste,” I said, and it suddenly occurred to me that while I was working to get Dad and Miss Summers engaged, I might as well do the same for Les and Marilyn. I’d
love
to have Marilyn Rawley as a sister-in-law.
So I added, probably sounding too much like Aunt Sally, “She could really make a house a home.”

“Cut it out, Al,” said Lester.

But Elizabeth picked right up on it. We love bugging Lester. “Are you against marriage, Lester?” she asked.

“Let’s put it this way,” he said. “If I get married, I’m signing on for the whole caboodle—house, furniture, lawn, crabgrass—the works. And I know that as soon as we’d have a house and furniture, we’d think about kids, and with my luck, every kid would be a girl, and every girl would be like Alice, and I would have contributed to overpopulation without providing any socially redeeming benefits whatsoever.”

It’s impossible to have an intelligent conversation with my brother. I think the reason he dates Marilyn and no one else is that he’s too busy with college to make the effort. I mean, getting involved with someone new takes work! Lester knows that all he has to do is pick up the phone and Marilyn will go to a movie with him.

He let us off at the school auditorium, and we were able to get seats about nine rows from the front. We put our coats on the two seats we were saving for Dad and Miss Summers.

They came just before the concert started, and Miss
Summers slid in right next to me, with her glorious scent and her glorious shoes and her blue knit dress and mauve-painted fingernails.

I tried to use mental telepathy.

Marry him, marry him, marry him
, I thought, directing my vibes her way.