Some alterations were made on my prom gown, and it was delivered by the end of the week. Craig was occupied with the baseball play-offs that were going to be held on Friday at a neutral field. He had picked me up for school every day but was unable to take me home any day during the week. I felt he was quite distracted and less talkative, but it wasn't until Friday morning that I discovered the reason.
This particular morning he was acting even more withdrawn. At first I thought it might be because he was nervous about the game, but after a few moments I realized it was something more serious. I knew him well enough by now to understand when he was very upset. If he fell into any dark mood, he usually shook it off the moment he saw me and was sweet and funny almost instantly. He was always making a big effort to snap me out of any depression or unhappiness.
"The last thing I want to see," he told me more than once, "is for you to return to that withdrawn, frightened little mouse you were. You're too beautiful, and you have too much to offer to be hidden away in some attic, Alice. I won't let it happen," he told me.
But now, just as I had always wondered, what could he do to stop it if the shadows were too thick and powerful and wanted me back? I could see on his face that he couldn't avoid bringing me bad news.
"I've got a small problem," he began, "but before I tell you about it, I want to assure you that nothing will change."
"What is it?"
"Nothing will change."
"Okay, Craig. What?"
"My mother is a snob. She's always been a
snob. Even before she married my father, she had money and thought she was some kind of royalty. Her father was a very successful business attorney, and she and my uncle Steve, her younger brother, were always spoiled. My dad's the first to say so, too. I mean, I love my mother, as you'd expect, and I love my uncle, too, but I'm not blind and stupid about it all."
"What is this all leading to, Craig?"
"I should have told her I had asked you to the prom and that we've been seeing each other. She found out from one of her gossips at the beauty parlor and first was angry that I had not told her."
"Well, she's right to be angry. Why didn't you tell her?"
"Because I knew exactly how she would react. I wanted to hold off telling her until it was absolutely too late for her to say or do anything about it."
"What do you mean? What did she say and what can she do about it?"
He was quiet as we drove on to school. I sat patiently waiting.
If anyone should know how difficult it was to explain, rationalize and cover for the words and actions of our parents, it was surely I,
I thought.
"I wasn't exactly truthful and accurate about everything I've told you," he continued.
"Like what?"
"The reason I started to research and investigate the Pearson murder in our house. It didn't bother me at all that we were moving into that house, and I didn't think much about your mother until--"
"Until what?"
"Until I started thinking about you. You intrigued me for some time, Alice. I wasn't kidding about looking at you all the time and hoping you would show some interest in me. It was not because of the house and what happened in it that I tried to learn everything I could about your mother; it was because of you. I thought that someday, I'd be able to discuss it intelligently with you and win your interest in me."
"Isn't that what happened?" I asked, now feeling like I had been manipulated after all. He heard the note of annoyance in my voice.
"Yes, but I was and have been very interested in you for some time," he quickly replied. "Anyway, my mother found out about the research, as I said, and was angry about it and said all sorts of nasty things to me. All the rest I told you was true: how she fixed up the house to erase the event and the history and ignore any references to it."
"And then you start to go out with me and ask me to the prom," I said, understanding. He didn't reply, so I turned on him. "She thinks that's sick, right? She thinks I'm sick, as sick as my mother, and she doesn't want you to have anything to do with me, especially go out with me and ask me to the prom."
He didn't try to deny it.
"What she thinks and what she wants doesn't matter to me," he said. "She's not going to run my life."
"Great," I said, turning away and pouting. "What am I supposed to do?"
"Nothing. Like I said at the start, nothing will change between us."
"What about your father? What does he say?"
"My father's always taken the easiest way out. He gives her what she wants and does his own thing " "What does that mean exactly, Craig?"
"Well, I can't bring you to the house anymore. I wanted you to understand why not."
"And? C'mon, what else?" I demanded.
"My father's threatening to take away my car and my allowance. But," he added quickly, "I've got my own money. I've put away a ton, and they can't do anything about that. I could easily rent a car for the night of the prom, or we could go with the others in the limousine."
I felt my insides tighten like a fist. It made it hard for me to breathe. I was like a leper in this village. He wasn't wrong to say that nothing had changed. Nothing had. Despite my changing appearance and more socializing, I was still
considered an undesirable in this village.
"I'm not proud of my parents," he continued. "The truth is, Alice, I can't wait to leave home, go to college, and start my own life. So don't you dare think that anything I do or say now is your fault."
"It doesn't make me feel too good, Craig."
"We'll just ignore it," he said. "Just forget about them. It's not your problem anyway. It's mine, and I'll handle it. The only reason I'm telling you now is because I thought you might not understand why I wasn't bringing you around to meet my parents, or just in case--"
"What?"
"The gossip spreads and your grandparents hear about it. My mother can be very vicious when she doesn't get what she wants."
"Great. Just what I need, another dog yapping at my heels in this community," I muttered.
"Listen to me, Alice," he said, slowing down and pulling to the side of the road so he could turn to me to speak. "I'm telling you that if the choice is between you and my parents, my mother especially, I'm choosing you."
"I appreciate that, Craig. I just hate being the cause of anyone else's unhappiness," I said.
"You're not the cause!" he cried, the frustration building in his face, his eyes. "She's the cause of her own unhappiness. And my father's. And mine!"
He looked like he was going to burst a blood vessel in his temple.
"Okay, okay."
"If you back out of our prom date because of this, I'll be far more miserable, Alice."
I nodded.
"I'm sorry," he said. "But we're going to have a good time anyway, the best time, and if she wants to eat her own heart out over it, let her."
I took a deep breath. Was life always going to be this way for me, dramatic ups and dramatic downs? My grandmother and I were so happy while I was going for my gown. Everyone in my family was happy. When or if they learned about this, it would be devastating to them, too. They would be angry and miserable for me. Maybe, somehow, we could keep it from them.
I'll he like my mother I
thought.
pretend. I'll
imagine. I'll make up stories. 1'll do anything to keep the darkness out of our fortress.
-
"Okay," I said, nodding. "We'll ignore them. Whatever you work out will be fine with me."
He smiled. "Great. I knew you'd rise to the occasion. That's why I wasn't afraid to tell you the truth."
"Just do that always, Craig, tell me the truth from now on, no matter what it is. If anyone can handle it, I can," I said.
He laughed and leaned over to kiss me. "If I didn't have the first game of the baseball play-offs today, I'd ask you to cut school with me and we'd go off for a long ride, maybe even into New York City."
"And get us both into more trouble? Let's not do anything to throw any more wood on the fire," I said.
"Yeah, you're right. Besides, I can't risk doing anything that would get me suspended and thrown off the team now."
"So, finally, we know what's most important to you," I teased, and he laughed.
He started away again. "You know what I did after she and I had this argument yesterday?"
"I can't imagine," I said.
"I pinned the picture you drew of me at bat on my wall. She nearly had a heart attack."
That's all I need,
I thought to myself,
to cause another death in that house.
Craig was true to his word. After we parked in the school lot, he made me promise that I would never ask about the problem or bring it up. He swore that he wouldn't either. The chatter in the school was all about the baseball game anyway. We were playing against a school nearly twice our size, a school that had won the championship four times. We had yet to win it once. Almost all our teachers ended their classes with good luck wishes for the team.
Craig wasn't able to take me to the game. His coach insisted he ride on the team bus, but he gave his car to one of his closer friends, Gerry Martin, specifically to drive me to the game. I was sure I was as nervous as any of the ballplayers. Most of our senior high was in attendance.
It was a hard-fought pitching match. According to Gerry, Bobby Robinson was pitching as well as, if not better than, he ever had, but the opponent had a pitcher of equal talent, and both teams were held to two hits by the time the ninth inning began. Mickey Lesman made an error that put one of their players on base to start the inning, and then a deep fly ball advanced him to second. They got their third hit after that and scored a run. Bobby struck out the next two players, but we were down to three outs. One of the opportunities for us was Craig. He had grounded out, popped out and been called out on strikes. When he got up this time, we already had one out. Everyone from our school was holding his and her breath. I saw some of the girls look my way.
Craig took his time, measured each pitch, and worked it to a full count. Unfortunately, he went for a bad pitch then and struck out. I could feel the hope go out of our side. It was like a punctured tire. When our last player popped out, the game ended and we were out of the play-off.
There was a funeral atmosphere immediately. As Gerry and I walked to the car, I felt as if some of the other students, especially the girls, were looking at me as if I were somehow to blame for Craig's failure at bat. In a way I thought I might have been, because I knew that although he was acting indifferent to his troubles at home, it had to be eating away at him.
He refused to talk about it. He blamed himself and his eagerness. I didn't dare suggest it had anything to do with our problem with his parents or, more specifically, his problem. I knew what he wanted: It was to be like it didn't exist, and although I couldn't stop thinking about it, we didn't discuss it directly. The only thing he did say over the weekend was there wasn't exactly a truce at his house, just a quiet lull. His father had laid down the threats, and he and his mother were simply doing a minimum of talking to each other. It was one of those situations where each side was waiting for the other side to blink.
The week of the prom, however, Craig's father lowered the boom on his privileges because of his continued defiance. He took away Craig's car so he couldn't pick me up for school or take me home. He didn't have to ride the bus himself. He could have gone with one of his teammates to school and even had him pick me up, but instead, as an act of further defiance, he got onto the same bus I got on and we sat together. It amplified the chatter about us and, because I was no longer being picked up, brought the news home to my grandparents.
We had almost made it without their finding out about the turmoil, but my grandmother just happened to be home the first morning I had to ride the bus, and I could see in her face that she was already full of questions because of that. The community gossip lines began ringing, so that by the time I was home from school, she and my grandfather had their ears stuffed. Like usual, they saved the discussion for dinner.
"Is there a problem between you and Craig, Alice?" my grandfather began. I could see from the look on my grandmother's face that they had discussed how to deal with me and Craig. They'd developed a strategy. My grandfather was, after all, a lawyer.
"Not between us, no," I said.
"Why isn't he picking you up for school then?"
"His father took away his car privileges," I said. I wasn't going to lie; I just wasn't going to spill it all out at once.
"And why is that?"
I put my fork down and folded my hands.
"Craig's mother is upset that he's seeing me," I began. "And especially upset that he asked me to be his prom date."
"1 knew it," my grandmother said, slamming her palm down on the table and making the dishes and silverware jump. "I just knew it. That woman--"
"Easy," my grandfather told her. He put her on pause. She barely blinked an eye. "Did Craig tell you why she's upset?"
"It's because of my mother, because of what happened in their house, because she thinks I've inherited evil or something." I said. "She's redone the house from top to bottom inside to erase the possibility that there is anything in it that my mother might have touched or walked upon or even seen."
"Yes, we knew the Harrisons had done that," my grandfather said.
"You were in the house then?" my grandmother asked.
"Just once. That day Craig and I met in town and he took me home. His parents weren't there," I quickly added. I wondered if I should tell them about the research he had done on the Pearson murder. Something told me to hold back on that.
"You saw the whole house?" she asked.
"No."
She was quiet. I could see she'd rather not know anything more about it.
"So what's Craig going to do? Has he decided against taking you to the prom?" my grandfather asked.
"No. He's, taking me."
"The Harrisons can't be pleased," my
grandmother told my grandfather. "It doesn't make for a pleasant experience, Michael. Maybe you should have a word with Tom Harrison."
"And say what? They have a right to control what their own son does, Elaine."
"We're going to the prom," I emphasized. "We've already decided. Craig has the money he needs, and he has access to another automobile, or we could join two other couples and go in a limousine."
"Not very pleasant," my grandmother muttered, shaking her head. "Damn that woman."
"Elaine."
"It's not fair to Alice," she said, gesturing at me as if my grandfather had to be told where and who I was. "If I hear that she is spreading any stories . . ."
"I doubt that she's doing that," my grandfather said, but not with confidence.
"I'm sorry, honey," my grandmother said. "If you feel you don't want to go to the prom with Craig now, don't worry about it. You'll have other uses for that gown. I'm sure."
"Oh no, we're going," I said. I had worked on my self-confidence and built my indifference and determination along with Craig. This was no time to retreat. "I'm not going to let someone tell me I'm not good enough."
"Good for you," my grandfather said, smiling "I'm sure Greta Harrison will realize how foolish she's being."
"Don't count on it. If she had her nose any higher, she'd be on oxygen," my grandmother said, and they both laughed.
I smiled. Craig's mother did look like someone who thought she walked constantly on a red carpet. The few times I had seen her since Craig and I had been going out, I couldn't help but stare and even study her. Parents, after all, at minimum, were the pool from which we drew our own characteristics. What, if anything, had Craig drawn from such a woman? Was it her arrogance that he toned down to strong self-confidence? Everyone needed that; that was good. He had some of her good physical characteristics, her hair, eyes. I imagined that so much more of him, however, had come from his father, who was as strong and handsome looking. Between the lines and small references, I understood that his father had a good sense of humor and was liked by most people. Craig said he was a perfect politician, especially in regards to his mother.
"Well, you just let us know if anything nasty happens, Alice," my grandmother said. "And if there's anything you two need. Maybe you can lend him your car, Michael," she suggested.
He shook his head.
"That's a little too much involvement, Elaine."
"You're thinking more like an attorney and less like a grandfather," she countered. His face immediately turned a little crimson. "But you're probably right," she added quickly. "Just let us know, Alice," she concluded.