Al’s Blind Date: The Al Series, Book Six (4 page)

Polly let out one of her super-duper Bronx cheers, one that made the rafters ring. Her father had taught her how. He takes Polly to see the Yankees play now and then. Polly has made an in-depth study of how to give a Bronx cheer. She's very good at it.

“Ouch,” Al said, holding the receiver away from her ear. “That hurt. All right for you. Next time you call up, I'm putting you on hold.”

After she'd hung up, I said, “Does that mean we'd be blind dates?”

“You got me, lieutenant,” Al said. “All I know is it's a tea dance and I don't like the sound of that. I don't even like tea. Probably we'd have to slop down gallons of tea and I don't have a tea-dance dress or shoes or a hat. Or gloves.” She gave me a shot of her bilious eye. “I have a feeling deep in my heart that when you go to a tea dance, you wear gloves. You know my mother. She's been trying to get me into a pair of white gloves as long as I can remember. I'll tower over him. I know I will. Probably I'll have to dance with him the entire time. Two whole hours. Probably no one will cut in or anything.”

“What does that mean?” I asked her.

“When a boy cuts in on you”—Al resumed pacing around the rug, staring at the ceiling—“it means he taps the shoulder of the boy you happen to be dancing with on account of he wants to dance with you himself. Then you change partners.” Al took a few deep breaths. She was starting to hyperventilate. She always hyperventilates when she's nervous.

“So, when you're fat and ugly and your hair is full of split ends, and no one wants to dance with you, including the kid you're dancing with”—Al spread her hands wide—“you're stuck with the same guy until the music stops.

“My mother told me that when she was young she always used to be cut in on quite a lot. She always tells me stuff like that. I wish she wouldn't,” Al said.

“Why?” I said.

“Because I don't want to know if she was cut in on and she was popular and all that junk,” Al said. “It makes me feel bad because she wants me to be cut in on and popular too and I won't. Ever. Be popular, that is.”

“Don't be a ninny,” I told her. “You will too. Remember what Mr. Richards said. He said we'd both be stunners someday. He knew what he was talking about. He was a very wise man. Hang in there.”

“Listen.” Al turned to me and her face was fierce. “Who cares. Look at it this way. The kid's fifteen and already a junior. He doesn't know any girls to ask to his tea dance, so he has to get his cousin to scrounge up a couple. That means he's no hotshot or anything, right? No big deal.”

“You're absolutely right,” I said.

“And what's more,” Al said, very glum, “probably he could be Napoleon in my epic poem when they make it into a movie on account of he's the same size as Napoleon, which I happen to know is about five feet two inches tall.”

“I thought that role was going to Michael J. Fox,” I reminded her.

“Oh, it is, it is,” Al said. “But in case Michael J. has a bellyache or some other malady, this tea-dance guy, who is so short he only comes up to my sternum, could step into the role in a trice. He's Napoleonesque, as they say.”

“Napoleon as a teenager, that is,” I said.

“Yeah. You got it. Napoleon as a teenager,” Al said. “And we all know nobody ever cut in on him, right?”

Five

The next morning I opened the apartment door and almost fell over Al. She was leaning against the wall, staring down at her feet.

She stuck one of her legs out, with the foot pointing like an arrow straight at me.

“Whaddaya think?” she said. “I'm not sure they're me.” She made a face. “The real me, that is.”

“They aren't anyone,” I said, glad she'd asked. Those shoes were plenty grotty, all right. They reminded me of witch shoes, long and flat, with nerdy little heels.

“Gunboats,” Al said glumly. “Big black gunboats. Why does she buy me shoes anyway? They're my feet, aren't they? I'm entitled to pick out my own shoes. If I bought shoes for her, she'd have a cow. And my toe's right up to the end already. I can be crippled for life if I wear these babies.”

Al's mother buys her stuff at the store where she's in Better Dresses on account of she gets a twenty percent employee discount. Some of the things she buys Al loves, like her lavender sweater. Others she hates.

Al buzzed for the elevator, still staring at her feet. Shoes can do that to you, the wrong shoes, I mean. The elevator bounced to a stop and the door creaked open. The woman from the top floor stood there with her miserable little dog that thinks he owns the world. He had these tiny little eyes and a nose you can look up, if you're close enough and you stomach can handle it, and see all the way inside his head. He looks as if he's wearing a body wig. Plus, he smells. He is a totally disgusting little dog. Sometimes he's on a leash, sometimes she drapes him over her shoulder, giving him little pats as if he was a baby and she's burping him. Today he was nestled on her neck like a live fur piece, looking at us with his tiny eyes filled with hostility. The tip of his tiny tongue stuck out of his mouth, and you can't tell me he wasn't sticking his tongue out at us. He was like one of those wizened little heads people bring back from the rain forests of Brazil.

“Hello,” we said, skinning to the back of the car. The woman inclined her head slightly, just barely acknowledging our existence. She had on a black-and-white polka-dotted raincoat and a hat to match, although there wasn't a drop of rain in sight. She always wears black lipstick and her cheekbones are hollowed out with brown blush. I think she's in the cosmetics business. She looks to me like the kind of person who's never been a child. Probably back when she was our age, they didn't have teenagers. My father says teenagers hadn't been invented yet when he was a boy.

You have to take what my father says with a grain of salt, however. Behind the woman's back we made faces at her dog. Al put her thumbs in her ears and waggled her fingers at him, and I pushed up my nose and pulled my eyes down. The dog's eyes rolled wildly and he snorted at us.

“What's his name?” Al asked in her phony sweetsy voice.

“Sparky,” the woman said. At the sound of his name, Sparky thrashed around, letting out a series of nervous little farts. Al held her nose and I fought the giggle attack I could feel building inside me. I swallowed hard and the giggles receded.

Sparky's mom put him down on the floor, and Sparky sniffed at our ankles and heaved daintily.

Al tapped the woman on the shoulder and said, “I think your dog's going to be sick.”

“Oh, he never gets sick,” Sparky's mom said with great conviction, not even turning to look. Whereupon Sparky let fly. All over one of Al's new shoes. She jabbed an elbow into my ribs, red faced, not wanting me to miss anything. It wasn't a big barf, as Sparky was a very small dog, but it was a barf nevertheless. We laughed nervously. Al didn't seem to mind about the barf hitting her new shoe. In fact, she perked up considerably.

“Whoa, Sparky,” Al said as Sparky finished barfing and began to pee on her other new shoe.

In a stage whisper, Al said, “Sparky peed on my shoe.” The woman stared straight ahead. Sparky shook himself triumphantly and his long hair flew every which way as he rearranged his little self after the unexpected flurry of activity. The elevator thudded to a stop, and when the door opened Sparky's mom whisked Sparky out so fast his little feet skimmed the floor.

“They're ruined,” Al said happily, showing me her shoes in the harsh light of day. “Look. They'll never be the same. I can't wear them ever, ever again.” And she did a couple of bumps and grinds to celebrate.

“Here,” I said, handing her a tissue. “You might be able to save 'em if you wipe 'em off right away. They'll be good as new. All I can say is, I'm glad your mother didn't pay full price for those little beauties.”

“Please.” Al held up her hand. “God sent Sparky to me because I'm a good person. Sparky had a mission in life, which was to louse up these shoes. I must think of a suitable reward.”

“How about a one-way ticket on the Staten Island ferry?” I said.

“Or perhaps a gift certificate for the Chic Chien,” Al suggested.

We wandered toward school, both of us in a good mood.

“Why do you suppose she named him Sparky?” I said.

“Probably because her boyfriend gave him to her and he's an auto mechanic,” Al said.

“Yeah, and Sparky bears a strong resemblance to a spark plug, right?”

“Yeah, and the best part's when she looks up Sparky's nose,” Al said. “It reminds her of her boyfriend.”

“Gross!” I said. We both got a little hysterical. Actually, for a day that had started out plenty zilchy, it was turning out pretty well.

When we got to school the bell was about to ring. We watched Mr. Keogh break up a fight outside the boys' room. Mr. Keogh used to be our homeroom teacher. He used to call Al Al, but ever since he took us to the Bronx to visit his father in the old-people's home, and Al did her Mother Zandi fortune-telling routine, he calls Al Mother Zandi.

“How's business, Mother Zandi?” Mr. Keogh asked Al, straightening his bow tie.

“Not a heck of a lot going on right now, Mr. Keogh,” Al replied. “It's our slow season. How's your father doing?”

“About the same. Sometimes he knows me, sometimes not.” Mr. Keogh looked sad. “The doctors say that's the way it'll be with him. Some bright days, some dark. My father's a good man. It seems to me he deserves better.”

We agreed, and I thought that my father deserved better too. I can't imagine my father ever being in an old-people's home and made up my mind then and there that I'd never let that happen to him.

To cheer Mr. Keogh up, we told him about Sparky and Al's new shoes.

Mr. Keogh laughed so hard tears came to his eyes. He had to take out his handkerchief and blow his nose and wipe his eyes before he could go back to class.

“I'm glad I ran into you two,” he told us. “You're always good for a laugh.”

“A good laugh is good for the soul,” we said in unison.

“Right you are, girls. And my soul needed a laugh in the worst way,” Mr. Keogh said. “Thanks.” And he walked away.

“Mr. Keogh is very spry for a man of forty-one,” Al told me.

“Mr. Richards was very spry for a man of advanced years too,” I said. “And he was right when he said a good laugh is good for the soul.”

“He usually was,” Al said. “Right, that is.”

“Did you tell your mother about the free tryout at Al's Health Club?” I asked her.

“No,” Al said. “I figure what she don't know don't hurt her, et cetera. What I say is let's just go for it. Did you tell yours?”

“No,” I said. “I figure likewise.”

Six

The idea came into my head without warning; full blown, perfect, beautiful. Why not ask Ms. Bolton if she'd like to come to Al's Health Club for a free tryout? Nothing like a good workout to get your mind off your problems, I always say.

No sooner had the thought occurred to me than I heard Al's special ring: two, then one, then two.

“It's Al!” Teddy roared, beating me to the door against all odds. I stuck out my left foot, which is bigger than the right one, and he soared over it like an Olympic champion.

“You can't come in!” he shouted, flinging the door open. “We're quarantined!” A kid in Teddy's class had the mumps and the doctor said he was quarantined until he got over the contagious part. Teddy was mad with jealousy. He longed to be quarantined too.

“Get lost, buster,” I said, shoving him aside. “Come on, Al. We need our privacy. I've got something very important to discuss.”

“Yeah,” she said, “me too.” Then Teddy leaped on her, hoping to wrestle her to the ground. But she was too strong for him. She got his head in a tight grip and he was powerless.

“Slap me five, bro,” Al said when at last she freed Teddy. “How's it going, o prince of the realm? What's happening, man? How's things up in the nutmeg state, as we aficionados call it?”

It blows Teddy's mind when Al talks that way. She might as well be talking in tongues, but he eats it up.

Teddy visits our cousins up in Connecticut a lot. When he comes home he's more impossible than when he left. The things that go on up there, Teddy tells us, shaking his head despairingly, are beyond belief. He hints at all kinds of outrageous events. I guess the kids up there figure Teddy's the big cheese from the Big Apple and probably spends most of his time hanging out in massage parlors and checking out the porno films in Time Square.

“We saw some Mafia guys this time,” Teddy told Al. He's got a thing about every second person in Connecticut being a Mafia guy.

“We were standing in line at the movies,” Teddy went on. “And they were right ahead of us. They were real stuff, all right.”

“How'd you know?” Al asked.

“On account of the lumps,” Teddy said.

“The lumps,” Al said.

“Yeah. That's how you tell they're Mafia guys,” Teddy said. “They got these lumps under their jackets. That's the tip-off.”

“What kind of lumps?” Al wanted to know.

“Rods,” Teddy said, softly so my mother wouldn't hear. “Guns. They pack their rods in holsters under their jackets in case they get ambushed. There's lots of people trying to rub 'em out. They have a price on their heads. That's what my cousin Craig says and it's true.”

Craig's eleven. He calls all the shots. What he says is what Teddy believes.

“Come on,” I said, pulling Al toward my room. “We haven't got all night.”

We heard my mother coming. Teddy jumped as if he'd been stung by a wasp and hid behind the curtains. “Shhh,” he said, finger to lips. “Don't tell her. If she knew she wouldn't let me go there anymore.”