Are You Alone on Purpose? (10 page)

“So buy another paper,” said Mrs. Shandling, lunging across the table to try to grab the magazine away from her husband, who held it out of her reach. But both of them were watching Alison.

Next to Alison, Adam was floating pancake pieces in a sea of maple syrup, using a fork to navigate them in an ordered circle around the rim of his plate, totally absorbed. When they were very small, when Adam was simply Adam and not her brother with whom something was wrong, Alison had played games like this with him, giggling hysterically whenever he did. She wondered briefly if Adam had missed her when she stopped playing. He'd never seemed to. He was the same whether she was there in spirit, or just in body.

“No, it's okay, I'll go,” she'd answered her father. She had dealt calmly with her parents' are-you-sures, because suddenly she
was
sure. She felt the way she'd felt when she was in elementary school, and the other kids made fun of Adam. She'd realized then she had to defend him, and herself. Walking away would only make it worse.

She didn't look back as she got out of the car with Adam. Adam was used to coming to the Roths' now. He went right up the unswept walk, up the new wooden ramp, leaving sneaker prints in the thin snow for Alison to follow. Rabbi Roth was at the door. He always was. Alison figured he must watch for them. Well, for Adam.

“Good to see you,” he said. Alison noticed that his blue flannel shirt was misbuttoned, and that his shirttail wasn't completely tucked in at the back of his pants.

“Hi,” she replied. Adam didn't say anything. Alison looked around. The living room was different, emptier. The coffee table was gone, and the newspaper piles had been cleared away. The rug was still there, though, and it had wheel tracks on it. The wall-to-wall carpet had too deep a pile. It ought to go completely, Alison thought.

The room was also empty of Harry. Somehow she'd expected him to be right there in the living room when she came in, sitting in his wheelchair, ready to spit malice. Ready to attack first.

She followed the rabbi and Adam into the kitchen for a glass of the orange juice that, ritualistically, Adam always drank before they went off to the study. Also no Harry.

He's in his bedroom, Alison thought. He's hiding from me. She was suddenly certain of it. Why? It wasn't like him. He wouldn't be afraid of Alison. Of a bunch of kids, maybe, but not of Alison alone.

Had he seen any other kids yet? Alison would be scared of that, if she were him.

“Well, Adam and I are off,” Rabbi Roth was saying to her. “Have a seat somewhere. I see you have books to read. That's good.”

Alison nodded. She always had a book. The rabbi seemed even more awkward with her than usual. She decided to be direct. “Where's Harry?” she asked. “I'd like to say hi.”

The rabbi blinked. Stuttered. “Uh. In his room. Resting. I didn't want him to disturb you.”

You're worried about
me
being disturbed? thought Alison. Not him? “It's okay,” she said aloud, just as she had to her parents earlier. She drained her orange juice and placed the glass carefully in the sink before turning to smile at him. “You go on. I know Adam's anxious to get started. I'll just go say hi to Harry.” She slipped past the rabbi, feeling his astonishment and his anxiety, but ignoring it. He was an easy person to ignore. She went down the hall to Harry's bedroom door. It was an inch ajar.

So. He'd been listening. Now
that
was like him. Yes. Smiling grimly to herself, Alison knocked. Then some instinct she hadn't known she possessed took over. Without waiting for an answer, she pushed the door all the way open, and looked unwaveringly into Harry's astonished eyes. “Hi,” she said.

He wasn't in his wheelchair. He was sitting on the edge of the bed, still in pajamas, with the wheelchair—the folding kind—next to him. Possibly he'd just propelled himself out of the chair and onto the bed. His hair was a mess, way too long, and uncombed. But aside from that he didn't look too bad. Just pale. Taller, if you could say that about someone sitting down. His cheekbones stuck out, and his nose, and they hadn't the last time Alison had seen him. Last June. More than eight months ago.

He recovered quickly from the shock of her intrusion, from her unaccustomed aggression. “Shandling,” he snarled. “Didn't anyone ever teach you to wait for an invitation? I suppose you'd barge right in on someone taking a piss, too.” He glared, just as Alison had thought he would.

“No,” said Alison. She was amazed at her coolness. She stepped into the room and closed the door behind her, still holding the three paperback books. She leaned against the door, looking at Harry. Let his father wonder what was going on. He wouldn't interfere, not unless she and Harry started shouting. And he had to stay with Adam, anyway. “So,” she said to Harry. “So.” And then suddenly her sangfroid fled. She couldn't remember any of the things she'd planned to say. She kept her face blank. Her mind whirled.

“So,” Harry mimicked. “So what the hell are you doing here?”

Alison found her voice. “I came with my brother.”

“I meant what the hell are you doing in my bedroom. I can't believe you're supposed to be so fucking smart. Are you sure you're not brain-damaged like your brother? Huh?”

I am smart enough to handle this, Alison thought. It's the same old routine, isn't it? But it was hard to remember that she sympathized with Harry. That maybe she owed him.

He was looking at her now, taking stock of her as she had of him. She was abruptly conscious of how the ponytail she wore exposed her face, of the stiffness of her new, leggier, jeans, and of her breasts beneath her sweater, cupped by a bra she hadn't needed last year.

“I wanted to see if you were still a complete jerk,” she said finally, quietly. “I don't know why I had any doubts.”

“Well, there's nothing different about me,” Harry said. His eyes narrowed. “I still hate your guts, you spoiled little rich bitch. Think you're so smart. Think you're better than everybody else.”

Alison felt all the air leave her lungs.

“So get out of my face,” Harry finished, his voice barely a whisper. “I've had enough. Get out of my room. Get out of my fucking
life
.”

Alison's eyes were drawn to his legs as if mesmerized by them. They looked ordinary enough, thin in the maroon pajama bottoms, bare white feet sticking out at the ends.

She could not look away.

“I said get the fuck out of my life!” Harry repeated. “
Leave me alone
.” If he hadn't been whispering, it would have been a scream.

Alison managed to force her eyes up his body, to his face, as white as his feet. She looked into his eyes. She thought he was about to lose it, and begin screaming at her.

Her head, miraculously, cleared.

She reached behind her with one hand for the doorknob. “I can't leave you alone,” she said. The words came from somewhere deep inside her, and she knew, however horrible, they were true. “And I won't.” With her other hand, like a child throwing food to a lion at the zoo, she tossed the books she'd brought for Harry onto his bed beside him.

Then she opened the door, turned, and fled.

F
or the next two Saturdays, Harry flatly refused to go to Sabbath services at the synagogue. He didn't plan to go ever again.

His father couldn't make him. “What?” Harry had said the first time. “You're going to push me screaming in the wheelchair?” His father had stared at him. Then he had left the room and, a little later, walked off to the synagogue without Harry.

And for the first time in his life, Harry had spent Saturday morning watching TV.

His father kept asking, though. This morning, he had sat right down with Harry in the kitchen and taken the sports page away from him and told him that he really wanted him to come. He understood how Harry's faith might be wavering, but it was important to keep up the form of things. That was what life was about. And he could assure Harry that everyone at the synagogue really wanted to see him. They asked about him all the time. They were concerned.

“Yeah, I bet,” said Harry.

Finally his father had begged. He had even offered to take the car. God would understand, he'd said. It was in the Talmud that you could make allowances for sickness, and—

“I'm not going,” Harry had interrupted. “And that's final.” He had wheeled himself out of the kitchen.

His father had left without him. In a few more weeks, Harry figured, even his father would get the idea. But, to help him along, he kept the TV on, even after his father got home.

 

Later that afternoon, when the Celtics game broke for commercials, Harry pressed the remote. Bowling. Click. A documentary about heart disease. Click. Blonde on Home Shopping Club in a suede suit. Back to the game, but they were advertising Bud Dry. Click click click.

Well. Sports, of course, but besides that it looked as if he hadn't been missing much all these years of no TV on Saturday. Not that that was the point. He clicked back to the game. The commercials had to end sometime.

Maybe if they had cable. He'd never ask, though. He wasn't going to ask for a damn thing.

He wondered if his father knew he had the TV on. The door to Harry's bedroom was closed. He clicked up the volume.

Okay, third period. Boston had the ball. Pass. Score. 76
–
54. It wasn't much of a game. Maybe he'd switch to bowling.

He clicked up the volume again.

Nothing.

He had to get out of the house. Over two weeks, and he'd gone out only for his appointments with Eileen and Dr. Jefferies.

He almost thought he missed the rehab.

No, he didn't. He just wasn't sleeping too well. But he wouldn't take those pills. There was no way.

He had school on Monday. Dr. Jefferies had prodded him about it both times he'd seen her. Hey, change of pace. Nice to know she had other interests besides his mother's death and his relationship with his father.

And, of course, tomorrow was Sunday. Time for round three with Alison Shandling.

The books she'd brought that first time, week before last, were over there stacked on top of his bookcase. Harry hadn't read them. He had told her what to do with them last week, when she'd barged in for the second time.

At least she'd waited for his reply to her knock before entering. She just hadn't paid any attention to it. She'd walked in, looked straight at him, closed the door. This time he'd been dressed, and in his chair. He'd been ready. He'd suspected she might pull something again.

“Hi,” she'd said. She had a couple of Diet Coke cans and a bag of potato chips that she must have brought with her because his father sure hadn't bought them, and, of course, she had a book, tucked under one arm. “Catch.” She threw a Coke underhand.

Harry had caught it, but not because she knew how to aim. If he'd missed, he thought, she would have picked it up and tried to hand it to him. He put it down on the floor next to his chair. “Get out of here,” he said, really quite pleasantly.

“I hope you like barbecued potato chips. They're my favorite.” Alison was pulling out the desk chair, reversing it next to the desk so that it faced him, and sitting down, placing her Coke and book on the desk and starting to open the chips. She had a little trouble. It was a large bag, and she kept her head down while she pulled at it. Her fingers slipped on the package. And suddenly Harry knew she was scared, the way he'd always known that sort of thing about other kids. He could smell it.

It calmed him. This was his room. This was his house. “Why don't you give it to me?” he said.

She looked up.

“I'll open it. My arms work.” Harry watched while she got up slowly, took a half step forward, and reached out and over to hand the bag to him, keeping herself well away. Yes. Definitely scared, he thought. Even physically scared.

His chair was now nearer the door than she was. He wondered if she'd noticed.

He smiled at her.

He ripped open the potato chips. Then, putting the bag down in his lap, he wheeled his chair closer to her, moving it right in front of the door. Their knees were almost touching. She couldn't get out now until he let her, not unless she were to push him out of the way, and she would never do that. That was another thing he always knew, what another kid would or wouldn't do in a fight. He held out the bag.

Harry saw Alison's eyes flicker to the door, but they lingered only a moment. She didn't crack too easily, but he could still sort of see what she was feeling underneath. That was one reason she had made a good target for him the year before; she was someone he could hurt but who wouldn't cry and attract attention and who didn't have a lot of friends.

Uncertainly, Alison took the bag. “Don't you want some?” she said.

Harry decided to wait and say nothing. He'd sit there, blocking the door, silent. She'd get more and more scared. Finally, when she couldn't stand it anymore, she'd make some excuse, say she had to leave. Get up. Fumble with her book and the chips and the Coke. And then she'd have to ask him to get out of her way.

Harry smiled. He looked at her, but Alison shifted her eyes away before it could develop into a staring contest. “Well,” she said. She reached into the bag, took out a large chip, and bit into it. A few crumbs dribbled down onto her blue and gray sweater, onto her breasts. Deliberately, Harry looked at them and let his eyes stay there a long moment. He looked at her face just to check. Yes, she was turning red. She was reaching, awkwardly, to brush off the crumbs and then pausing, not sure what to do about them. She'd last three minutes, tops.