The Fall of Alice K. (9 page)

The cab of the 150 was a small chamber of peace as Alice drove toward Dutch Center. Better than church. Better even than the haymow where she could escape when she wanted to be by herself on the farm. In the haymow she could wallow alone and content among the hay bales reading or dreaming beneath the cooing pigeons in the cupola, but the 150 gave her a different satisfaction. It gave her privacy but also the good
feeling that she was actively in control of something. When she tapped the gas pedal, it jumped. When she put her foot on the brake, it stopped. When she talked, it listened. She chose a long route to school just so that her anticipation of getting there would grow, turning down gravel roads that took her away from the hail-damaged fields and past the healthy fields of ripening corn and soybeans. She kept the speed at forty-five, just fast enough to hear the purr of the engine and the casual rustle of sand against the fenders. Driving to school in the 150 was a meditation.

The high school sat at the end of Midwest Street like a confused experiment in architecture. The original two-story redbrick rectangle rose from its center as a testimony to the school's history, dating to the early 1900s when it was called Midwestern Academy and half of the faculty were ordained ministers. The Latin inscription over the front door in Gothic letters read “COR MEUM TIBI OFFERO DOMINE PROMPTE ET SINCERE.” The original structure told Alice that her forefathers respected education and wanted to give the halls of learning some dignity. Since then the school building had expanded randomly, a one-story yellow-brick wing here, a metal-roof Quonset extension there, and a separate hadite block building set back on the edge of campus where the band could sound off without disturbing students in the rest of the school. In comparison to the original structure, the assorted expansions looked like architectural slang, if not downright obscenities.

The 150 glistened along in its red glory and onto the student parking lot where Alice's privacy was lost by faces whirling in her direction. Of course. The 150 was still a sneeze of bright color and people had to stare.

The first day at Midwest this year would be different from the first day last year. Last year she worked on her hair for an hour and spent another hour deciding what to wear, only to feel like someone who was trying too hard to be liked. This year she wore jeans and a blue shirt that hung loose over her hips, and she hadn't thought twice about her long blond hair, which she had given a couple of quick brushes before putting in a clasp and letting the rich bulk of it stream in straight lines over her shoulders. This was the year for brainwork, not bodywork. This was the big one. These were not only the last months of the millennium, this was her last year of high school and her last year as a farm girl. She felt as if her life was a teeter-totter, weighted on one side by the farm and the
other side by school. She intended to weight one side with books and let the other side fly into the air with its flaky silage.

Although the Dutch Center vicinity was considered a rural community, Alice was one of only a dozen students at Midwest who still lived on an actual family farm. At least she wouldn't have to listen to hailstorm talk. Town kids could care less what happened outside their little worlds of
Army Men
video games and aviator sunglasses. At school, she could move inconspicuously into their company and leave the whole home scene behind: the money worries, her weird mother, the impending loss of her sister to an institution—all of it.

What Alice wasn't expecting on the first day of classes was the onslaught from the coaches. They were after her for track, softball, volleyball, and basketball. The basketball coach, Miss Rettsma, who had as much muscle in her voice as she had in her arms, thought she had first dibs. Alice had been their team's star forward last year, and Miss Rettsma thought Alice was the key to Midwest's making it to the state tournament. Alice's real reputation in last year's season had come when the tips of her fingers nearly touched the rim of the basket just as the ball went through the net.

“She dunked it!” someone yelled from the bleachers—which was absolutely not true, but after that, every time Alice got her hands on the ball somebody yelled, “Dunk it, Alice!” And then, the boys barking, “Alice K.! Alice K.!” Alice knew she'd make a fool of herself if she really tried to dunk it, so she didn't.

Why couldn't they yell, “Quit wasting your time on sports, Alice. Study, Alice, study!”?

Alice didn't waste words with Miss Rettsma. “I want to focus on getting ready for college.”

“You could get a sports scholarship to college,” Miss Rettsma said in a voice that sounded like a scolding. “You're a natural athlete.”

“I don't want to get a scholarship for what I can do with my arms and legs,” said Alice. “I want to get a scholarship for what I can do with my brain.”

There was actually more to it than that. It wasn't just that sports took too much time away from her studies, but she thought her nerves were too brittle for sports—and her temper too short. One of the worst
memories for her was a game last year when they were playing a small school from Saint Michael, a town that was as solidly German Catholic as Dutch Center was Dutch Calvinist. Both Lydia and Alice expressed their disapproval of “Catholic jokes” when one of the airheads around them told one of their lame Catholic jokes before a game with Saint Michael's. Lydia and Alice also offered what they called “intelligent resistance” to the mockery of Catholic girls who crossed themselves before shooting a free throw.

Maybe it was because the coaches and cheerleaders from Saint Michael knew about the Dutch Center Catholic jokes, or maybe they saw and heard the mockery of their girls' crossing themselves before shooting a free throw, or maybe it was because Saint Michael was behind eighteen to fifty-two at half time—but whatever the motive, the Saint Michael cheerleaders led off the second half with this silly cheer:

“Yays” and wild whistling and clapping followed this insulting cheer. The cheer lit up the players on the opposing team too. Laughing and high-fiving each other.

When the two teams returned to the basketball court, the girl guarding Alice wore one of those “gotcha” grins.

Alice remembered that moment as one when she became another person, someone who was totally out of control. Reason, common sense, and Christian charity all went to hell in a handbasket in one split second. She wanted to kill.

As the Saint Michael team brought the ball down court, Alice stood in the lane close to the basket. When the gotcha-grin girl got within range, Alice whirled around as if to position herself under the basket, but she used all of her whirling momentum to elbow the girl in the ribs. Hard. Harder than she'd elbow a steer that refused to move. The ref didn't even call a foul, but the girl reeled back with her arms across her ribs. “For Christ's sake, Twenty-four!” she moaned. “We were just joking!”

The girl couldn't go on. She held her arms across her ribs and bent over. The ref called time out. After a few minutes, the game resumed without the elbowed girl. Word circulated on the court that the team trainer diagnosed her with a cracked rib and she was being taken to the Dutch Center hospital.

For Alice, it had been a moment of truth. Using all of her strength to hurt someone was not the person she was. Some athletes were no doubt intelligent, but couldn't she be an athlete without becoming a monster? And if she was going to be a Christian, now or ever, it would be by finding peace, not victory at some silly sport. In that moment, she had become what she despised in others, and she didn't want to go there ever again, not into that arena of madness where she had no control over what she was doing.

As much as Alice regretted losing her temper, she couldn't excuse anyone who would mock her just because she was going to a Christian school. Almost all of the students at Saint Michael's were Catholic, but it was still a public school. Maybe if it had been a Catholic school they would have shown more respect. Maybe the people in charge of public schools thought it was all right to be sacrilegious about heaven, but she couldn't turn into one of them, could she? Going to a Christian school had to mean that there were some differences. Alice thought there were many differences, actually. In her mind, most kids in public schools didn't take life seriously, and they certainly didn't take their studies seriously. Alice imagined that in a school without prayer and chapel, there was nothing to remind students that “Life is real, life is earnest.” The teachers in public schools probably didn't take life seriously either. They got paid more than the teachers at Midwest Christian and must have thought life was one big expensive party with summer made up of beer and pretzels. It was a wonder that any students from public schools could get admitted to any college. What would it mean to be the valedictorian in a public school? That you'd learned which direction you had to go to get to Canada and could use a sentence without using “ain't”? “Our girls are going to heaven.” You bet. On the issue of defending Midwest Christian, Alice would stand her ground—but not with her elbows. Never again.

You didn't have to elbow anybody in debate and choir. They would
be the only extracurricular activities for Alice in her senior year. Lydia was in choir too but wasn't interested in debate. “I don't want to learn to argue both sides of an issue,” she said. “I just want to argue the right side. My side.”

That was Lydia: funny, quick, and always clear about how she felt. To Alice, debate taught clarity and balance. It taught that there really are two sides to almost every issue. Rev. Prunesma would disagree, but he had a Dweller's tunnel vision on every issue.

Lydia was no Dweller, but she could be stubborn, a real contender in any argument, a fact that, to Alice, just made her more interesting. She was always a challenge, but it was as if Lydia saw in Alice what her parents couldn't see. Lydia constantly reminded Alice how intelligent she was—and how beautiful. “You could make a million dollars as a model if you wanted to,” she said.

“Right,” Alice said. “A model what? Model string bean for Jolly Green Giant advertisements?”

“And your wit!” Lydia howled.

But Lydia didn't talk about Alice's beauty or wit when they first saw each other in the hallways.

“How are things at home?” she asked.

“Don't ask,” said Alice.

“Come on,” said Lydia. “I heard the hailstorm hit you hard and that you didn't have hail insurance.”

“The rumor mill is alive and well,” said Alice.

Alice had dreaded the hailstorm topic because it would be a reminder that living on a farm not only carried bad smells with it, but potential economic disaster as well. Still Lydia was different: she might compete with Alice for grades, but she wasn't the kind of person who found perverse pleasure in a friend's misfortunes. Alice once had a friend like that, and Lydia was not of that kind.

“Not really,” said Lydia. “I think my mom talked to one of your neighbors. I don't gossip, you know that.”

“I know that.”

Lydia looked at Alice with her bright, intelligent eyes. “You don't want to talk about it, do you?”

“My feelings are still pretty raw,” said Alice.

“You in Miss Den Harmsel's class with me ?” Lydia gracefully changed the subject.

“Yes!”

The mention of Miss Den Harmsel's class put them both in an immediate bright mood. They had an equal admiration for her and love of her classes, and they loved the fact that she didn't change from one year to the next. While her students grew and altered their appearance, one hairstyle this year and another the next and one clothing fashion one year and another the next, Miss Den Harmsel looked exactly the way she looked the previous spring—and the spring before that. It wasn't as if she missed every reference to whatever might be the current most popular music group, but she was like the old Krayenbraak house in the way that she was stable and predictable through all kinds of weather.

In class, Miss Den Harmsel wasn't flashy or funny, but she knew her stuff and was all business. She was almost as tall as Alice, and Alice sometimes imagined that she could be like Miss Den Harmsel someday—except that Alice knew she wanted to get married and have a family. Alice had confused desires, seeing—as was her human lot—through a glass darkly, but she adored Miss Den Harmsel and her unswerving dedication to her work. Her students were her family and she gave them every ounce of energy and knowledge that she had. They'd hear the clicking of her shoes as she approached the classroom, and she'd enter briskly with that wrinkled and serious brow over her long face, lay the textbook down, and say, “Class, we have much to accomplish today”—and then she'd go at it.

“Did she recommend books for you to read over the summer?” Lydia asked as they approached her classroom.

“Of course,” said Alice. “I read them both twice. I just finished rereading
The Grapes of Wrath
last week. I read
Beloved
twice in June.”

Lydia looked puzzled. “That's strange,” she said. “She had me reading
The Federalist Papers
and Jefferson's
Notes on the State of Virginia.
”

“Maybe she thought we'd talk to each other and trade books.”

“Maybe she sees us differently,” said Lydia.

They walked into the classroom and sat on opposite sides so that they
wouldn't be tempted to whisper if Miss Den Harmsel said something that excited them both.

This was Senior Advanced Placement Literature. All sixteen students were preparing for college, several of them to become teachers. Miss Den Harmsel loved Emily Dickinson and William Shakespeare. She said that those two authors would be the focus of the entire semester.