The Truth About Alice (11 page)

“Hello, Paul,” my grandmother called to him.

“Hello, Vivian,” Officer Daniels said, his face looking drawn and pale. Then he told her he needed to speak to her privately, so she left me in the bed of weeds and walked down the driveway to talk to him.

Whatever he told her, my grandmother put her hand up to her mouth and shook her head upon hearing it. I thought it must be news about one of grandmother's church friends, but then I saw her nodding her head yes, and she followed Officer Daniels toward the Fitzsimmons' house.

“Kurt, give me a moment, please,” she said, and I think she was trying not to cry. I watched, confused, as she and Officer Daniels knocked on the door and Mrs. Fitzsimmons let them in. A few moments later, I heard Mrs. Fitzsimmons screaming like an animal at the top of her lungs.

 

 

But I couldn't tell Alice my story that night. Not like that. Not with Alice buzzed from drinking and her eyes red from possibly crying. So I said nothing.

“I left my math books at school,” Alice said, tossing her empty beer can away and opening the refrigerator to find a full one. “So I guess you can't tutor me tonight.”

“Okay,” I said. It seemed to be the one word I could utter.

We were just standing there in the kitchen. Alice was wearing those dark blue jeans and her shirt was dark green and loose and draped over her small frame almost like a blanket. She didn't have on any shoes, and her tiny toenails matched the color of her lips. These are the things I notice about Alice Franklin. These are the things I am constantly noticing about Alice Franklin.

“Follow me to the living room, please, my tutor friend,” Alice said, and she took one finger and sort of dragged it across my chest as she left the kitchen.

My chest was on fire from Alice's fingertip, and I walked behind her to the living room. It's not a particularly unique living room. It has a window that faces the street, two broken-in beige couches, a few end tables, a television (not the latest model), and a dark blue throw rug in the center of it all.

Alice sat down on one end of one couch, and I sat down on the other end. I drank my beer slowly, and then I asked the only question I could come up with.

“So why aren't we working on math?”

Alice's eyebrows popped up like she was thinking about my question very hard. Then she sighed one of her big loud signs again and took another sip of beer, and she got a sort of faraway look in her eyes.

And then a few tears started to run down her face.

Soon, she was no longer entertaining a few tears; she was sobbing. Hard. Hard enough that she got up to grab some paper towels from the kitchen as I sat on the couch, mute and useless.

In all of my Alice Franklin fantasies, sitting on the couch in her house while she cried was not one of them. Something told me I should go to her. Pat her hand. Tell her it was going to be all right. But I couldn't figure out how to make myself do any of those things. And anyway, who could say it was going to be all right? Considering all that Alice Franklin had suffered in recent months, that sort of prediction would be considered highly suspect by anyone in Healy. Most especially Alice.

I almost asked her if I should leave, but I didn't want to leave. I wanted to do the right thing. I clenched a fist in frustration. Why couldn't I just say something? The right thing? Whatever that right thing might be?

“Alice, I have a Christmas present for you.”

Alice was back on the couch now, rubbing at her face with a wadded up paper towel. When she heard what I said, she kept sniffling but her crying slowed down.

“What?” she said, confused.

“Here,” I said, walking over to the front door where I'd left my gift, wrapped in some burnished red wrapping paper my grandmother gave me. “This is for you. For Christmas.” I handed it to her and then sat back down.

“Oh, Kurt,” Alice said, balling up the paper towel before putting it on the coffee table in front of us that was stacked with magazines and remote controls. She was still sniffling, but at least she was no longer sobbing. At least my move worked. Although I couldn't say it came from any sort of rational plan. My offer of her present was simply the first thing that slipped out of my mouth.

But here was Alice Franklin opening my present, here she was slipping a delicate finger underneath a piece of carefully placed Scotch tape, here she was pulling out the book that cost me more money than I've ever spent in my life at one time.

“Oh, this is my favorite book ever!” Alice said, turning it over in her hands. “How did you know?”

Oh.

This was definitely not part of any rational plan. Despite my alleged intellectual prowess, I hadn't thought this far ahead. How could I tell Alice that I knew
The Outsiders
was her favorite book without admitting to her that I'd been observing almost everything about her since we were in the seventh grade?

“I think you … mentioned it once. In an English class we had together.”

Alice exhaled one last little shaky, post-crying exhale and seemed to accept this answer. Thank goodness. She opened the book and flipped the pages.

“I've never seen this version of the cover before. Is this … old?”

“It's a first edition,” I said.

I could see from Alice's face that she didn't know what this meant, but she smiled at me anyway.

Now I have to confess something that may come off as sounding snobbish. In all of my fantasies about Alice Franklin, she knows what a first edition is. And in all of my fantasies about Alice Franklin, not only does she understand this, she understands all of my strange, obscure cultural and historical references and she can even engage with me in long conversations about quantum mechanics.

This is because my fantasy Alice Franklin is perfect.

But that night something occurred to me. I'd never been to fantasy Alice's house. Fantasy Alice had never given me cold Cokes or smiled wide enough to show off her crooked tooth. (Let's face it, Fantasy Alice doesn't even have a crooked tooth.) And I'd never been able to make Fantasy Alice stop crying with a present I'd purchased.

“A first edition is from the first print run,” I explained, and I obeyed the brave part of me inside that encouraged me to slide over to Alice's side of the couch and flip the book open to the first few pages. I ran a finger under the copyright date. “See, the very first time the publishing house printed a big bunch of
The Outsiders
, this was one of those books. Before anyone knew how famous it would become or how special it would be.” I wanted to add that a first edition of such a famous book is pretty rare, but I didn't want to sound stuck up about everything. And anyway, you could tell from Alice's facial expression that she understood the precious quality of this book in her hands, and I don't mean financially.

She smiled broadly and closed the book and opened it again. Then she bent her head down and smelled the pages.

“It smells good,” she said to me. “Very first edition.”

I grinned back at her. It felt quite good to grin with Alice Franklin.

“I hope you like it,” I said.

“Oh, Kurt. I love it. But I didn't get you anything. You're helping me. I should have bought you something. You gave me a first edition of
The Outsiders
and all I gave you was one of my mom's shitty beers.”

“It's okay,” I said. “This beer is not so shitty.”

“Oh, God, yes it is. No, I'm going to order us a pizza,” Alice said. “A Christmas pizza.”

She wouldn't let me pay, and soon we were sharing a pizza with green peppers and pepperoni.

“This is a very festive meal, Alice,” I told her, aware of my sudden ability to talk to her. Maybe it was the Lone Star. I admit that for one second it was awkward to eat in front of such a beautiful girl, but Alice is a messy eater, I noticed. She licked her fingers and took big bites. Watching her gorgeous raspberry lips open and close over and over made me slightly dizzy if I looked at them too long, but more than anything else, I just enjoyed sitting in the living room, drinking Lone Star beer and eating Christmas pizza with Alice Franklin.

Not the fantasy version, but the real thing.

Kelsie

Once when I was helping my mom clear out some boxes in our attic back in Flint, I found a shoebox full of photographs of her and my dad. I pulled one photo out of the box and stared at it. The people in the picture looked completely different from the parents I have now, and that's because they were. My mom had a nose ring and a streak of pink hair. My dad had a beard and a knit hat that looked filthy, and he was wearing a T-shirt that said “The Melvins.”

“Chicago, 1993” was scrawled on the back in blue ink.

That was before Jesus became my mom's BFF. Three years before she got pregnant with me, back when they were living together (and not married!).

“Mom, who were the Melvins?” I asked, handing her the photograph.

My mom took it out of my hands. My mom with the normal mom hair and ironed khaki slacks and little gold cross hanging around her neck. For the briefest, teeniest, tiniest second I think she smiled, but then it was like she'd been caught doing something illegal because she shoved the picture inside the shoebox and pushed the box into a pile she'd designated for the trash.

“Just a band,” she said, her smile gone. “From back in the bad old days.”

Mom used to tell me all the time that I was the reason she rediscovered Jesus and was saved from a life of sin. From the time I was little, she'd told me how surprised she'd been when she'd turned up pregnant with me, and how she'd moved back home to Flint after my dad said he wasn't sure if he wanted to have a kid at 19. But then, after my mom started going to church with my grandparents and started praying really hard for Jesus to come into her life again or whatever, my dad had a change of heart and followed her to Flint and they got married and one month later I was born.

“Jesus worked on Dad's heart and my heart, and it's all thanks to you, Kelsie,” my mom would say to me. I wondered—if that were true—why my dad sometimes fell asleep during church and argued with my mom about whether or not God wanted him to have that third Miller Lite. But when my mom told me this as a little kid, it made me feel special. This was back when I was pretty sure God loved me. Back before The Really Awful Stuff.

 

 

The Really Awful Stuff happened the summer Alice was working at Healy Pool North, and it involved Tommy Cray. It was the summer of Mark Lopez and the blow job and Alice lying to me and then telling me I could never possibly understand because I was a virgin.

But before I explain what happened, what has to be said is that Tommy Cray was and is gorgeous. He's got this permanent smirk that looks more handsome than mean, muscles that are obvious but not too overwhelming, and gorgeous calves. With the lightest blond hair on them, so light you can barely see it. Back then, that summer before tenth grade, I could have stared at his calves all day. I think it's fair to say he's way more gorgeous than Brandon Fitzsimmons, if you ask me.

Whenever I'd bike down to Healy Pool North to hang out with Alice, all I'd think about on the ride there was how I was going to get to watch Tommy Cray. The way he walked, the way he chewed gum, the way he twirled his lifeguard whistle around his finger three times to the right and then three times to the left. I tried really hard to make it look like I wasn't trying too hard to catch a glimpse of him, but I knew Tommy Cray could tell how much I liked him anyway. It was like I was drunk or on drugs or something that summer. I couldn't stop thinking about Tommy every millisecond that I was awake, and sometimes I thought about him when I was asleep, too.

“Hey, Kelsie,” he'd say, grinning at me when he saw me working on my tan or heading toward the snack bar to say hi to Alice.

“Hey, Tommy,” I'd answer back, acting like I was just walking by, like I hadn't even known he'd be working that afternoon. I'd imagine he was staring at my butt as I left wet footprints on the cement. But I never turned around to make sure.

One afternoon toward the end of the summer, a few days after Alice had admitted to me that she'd lied about giving Mark Lopez that blow job, I was hanging out by myself at the pool, reading
Teen People.
Even though I was still kind of mad at Alice for lying to me, I was texting her and trying to get her to come down to see me even though she wasn't scheduled to work, so she could keep me company as I stalked Tommy.

And then, all of a sudden, the most miraculous thing happened.

Actually, it was the worst thing ever as I came to realize later on.

But in the moment, it was miraculous.

“You wanna go for a ride?”

I looked up and there was Tommy standing over me, wearing a Healy Pool North T-shirt and red board shorts. His blond hair had gotten even blonder over the past couple of weeks, and I knew behind his Ray-Bans that his blue eyes probably looked even bluer.

I was being asked by Tommy Cray if I wanted to go for a ride. Even though I couldn't really talk to boys very well, here one stood before me. The one I wanted. And he was talking to
me
.

Somehow, on that steamy August afternoon, I managed to open my mouth and say, “Uh, now?”

“Yeah, now,” Tommy Cray said. “Why not?”

“Okay, sure,” I said, trying to act like boys were always asking me to go for rides. My heart was beating so strongly it was like my entire body was pulsating on the pink-and-white lounge chair.

A few minutes later we were eating Sonic hamburgers in his used Toyota, and when I got ketchup on my chin, Tommy reached over with one finger and scooped it off, then licked it off his finger. I thought I might get sick from nervousness, sitting there in that car with Tommy Cray. He did most of the talking. How he was leaving for college in a few days, how he had to pack all his stuff, how he wasn't sure if he was going to like his roommate or not.