I was tired of baking in the sun, so I got up and jumped in the pool. Elizabeth and Patrick jumped in too.
“How did you do on the psych interview?” I asked Patrick.
“Got an A minus,” said Patrick.
“Why the minus?”
“Because I should have asked a few more questions.”
“What kind of an interview was it?” asked Elizabeth.
“I had to interview someone about childhood experiences so we could see if there was any connection between what had gone on in childhood and what was going on now.”
“Sounds interesting,” said Elizabeth.
Patrick grinned. “She was an interesting girl.”
“So was there any correlation?” I asked.
“That’s what we’re working on this week, when we pool our results. It’s not a valid study.”
“I’m grateful for that,” I said. “I’d hate to have you know something about me that I didn’t know.”
I wasn’t paying as much attention to Patrick right then, though, as I was to Pamela. She was sitting around with the others, but it looked as though her mind was a thousand miles away. I realized what I’d been missing this summer; the old, outrageous, fast-track Pamela, who always seemed a step or two ahead of the rest of us. Even at camp she’d seemed to take a backseat in whatever we did; and watching her now—her knees pulled up to her chest, her eyes on a tree—I vowed to give her more time and attention before school started.
“Okay,” she said the next day when I called her, just to talk. “I got the whole story.” I could hear a new CD by the Velvet Pistols playing in the background.
“Of what?” I asked.
“Of what happened between Patrick and Penny.”
“Who did you get it from? Patrick or Penny?”
“Karen.”
“Oh, come
on,
Pamela! You can’t believe half of
what Karen tells you. If she doesn’t have any good gossip, she’ll make it up.”
“She got it straight from Penny.”
“I’ll bet.”
“Well, do you want to hear it or not?”
Of course I did.
“Penny just felt that she came second in Patrick’s life.”
“Second to what?”
“I’m not sure, but that’s what she told Karen. His courses, maybe. Probably you.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“She said that a couple of times Patrick even made the mistake of calling her “Alice.”
I had to smile. “I can imagine how Penny took to
that
!”
“Well, it wasn’t just that. She also said that a lot of the time she didn’t think he was all there.”
“Now what did she mean by that? Patrick’s one of the brightest guys I know!”
“She meant that he wasn’t all that focused on her. He had his mind on other things.”
“That’s Patrick,” I said. “But I can’t imagine why she’d suspected I was in the picture again. Except for that e-mail message from Patrick, we hadn’t seen or spoken to each other since school let out.”
“That’s not what Penny thinks.”
“So why doesn’t she ask
me
?”
“Oh, come on. She wouldn’t humiliate herself like that. Admit it, now. Doesn’t it give you even the slightest satisfaction to know that
she’s
jealous of
you
?”
“Yes,” I said, laughing.
“And isn’t there just the teeniest, tiniest bit of satisfaction in knowing that after she took him away from you, he was the one who lost interest?”
“Yep,” I told her.
“You and Patrick ought to go out sometime right under her nose, just to get even.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” I said.
“I don’t understand you, Alice. It’s not a sin to want to rub it in a little.”
“Maybe I like my new freedom,” I told her.
In the background, the lead singer for the Velvet Pistols was shouting out the words. I’m not even sure you could call it singing:
“I wanna make you,
I wanna break you,
Baby, you’re mine tonight.”
And then the band, all the guys together, started moaning a sort of syncopated “
Uh
-huh,
Uh
-huh,
Uh
-huh,” which was supposed to sound like they were having sex, I guess.
Finally, Pamela said, “I’m really down, Alice.
Everyone else has a job with
people
for the rest of the summer. All I’ve got for company are dogs. Find out exactly when Lester’s moving, will you? I want at least one thing to look forward to.”
Dad seemed to need me more around the house once I was back. I’m not sure what it was, but it was as though he’d lost his bearings after Sylvia postponed the wedding. I guess I’d call him distracted, but not quite coming apart at the seams. Maybe everyone has a limited amount of patience, I thought, and he had about used his up.
I mentioned this at the Melody Inn.
“His mind is on Sylvia, that’s the problem,” I said to Marilyn Rawley, after we had unpacked some boxes UPS had delivered. Marilyn is one of Lester’s old girlfriends, who works for Dad as his assistant manager.
“I’ve noticed,” Marilyn said, scooping up her long brown hair in back and planting it firmly on top of her head with a wide comb. “I had to remind him last week that our paychecks were due. The music instructors hadn’t been paid.”
But I was staring at her hand. I reached up and took hold of her ring finger. There was a small oval diamond set in white gold.
“Marilyn?” I said, studying her face, and she broke into a wide smile. “That guy you’ve been going out with? Jack?”
She nodded.
I didn’t know whether to smile or cry. I had
so
wanted Lester to marry Marilyn! More than any of the other girls he ever dated—Crystal Harkins, even—I’d wanted it to be Marilyn.
She understood, because she put a finger to my lips and said, “Don’t say it.”
I swallowed, then managed to congratulate her. “Have you told Dad?” I asked.
“No. Jack just proposed last night.”
“Oh, Marilyn, Jack is so lucky! I hope he knows how lucky he is, and I hope you’ll be deliriously happy every day for the rest of your life!” I burbled.
She hugged me and laughed. “
No
body is happy every day of her life, Alice. But when he asked me, I just knew he was the right one.”
I spent the rest of the afternoon straightening the merchandise in the Gift Shoppe and wrapping purchases and making change and wondering how you knew when you’d met the “right one.” How soon had Dad known that about Sylvia? A lot sooner, I guess, than Sylvia knew that about Dad.
Gwen had even thought for a while that Legs was “the one” for her. Just how wrong can you be?
“Your shirts aren’t back from the laundry yet because you didn’t send them out,” I told Dad one evening. “Your laundry bag is still in your closet. Want me to take them in for you?”
He looked exasperated. He also kept forgetting to pick up milk and bananas—the things we use up faster than anything else—so I’d begun checking the refrigerator regularly and walking to the 7-Eleven to get them when I saw we were running low. Checking his shirts. He had worked so hard to get the house ready for Sylvia, and who knew when she’d come back?
After dinner he went out to putter around in the garden, pulling weeds, spreading a little mulch, watering. Then he went up to his room, and I saw him sitting at his desk when I walked by.
Later, when Les and I were cleaning up the kitchen, Sylvia called.
“Dad’s up in his room writing a letter to you,” I said. “I’ll get him.”
“Well, let me talk to you first, Alice. How
are
you? I don’t think we’ve talked since you went to camp.” Her voice was as lilting as ever.
“Oh, I’m fine. I had a really good time, but I like being home for the rest of the summer.”
“I know how you feel. I wish
I
could be home. How’s Ben holding up? Really.”
“He’s missing you,” I said.
“Oh, I know. And I’m missing him terribly.”
“How’s Nancy?”
“Better. Her kidneys are starting to function again. She still needs dialysis, but not as often. We’re hopeful.”
“Will you… will you be back before Christmas?” I asked plaintively.
“Oh, definitely,” she said. “But I don’t want to get Ben’s hopes up that I’m coming back too much sooner until we know for sure. How are
you
doing, Alice?”
“I’m marking time,” I told her.
“How?”
“Everything’s on hold.”
“The wedding, you mean.”
“Yes.” I swallowed. “I looked at the calendar this morning and…”
“I know,” she finished for me. “The day we were supposed to be married. I’ve been feeling sad all day.”
“Me too. But the one exciting thing that’s happening is that Lester’s moving out,” I told her. “Well, exciting and sad both, I guess.”
“What?”
“It’s a really good deal. He gets the apartment
rent-free. I’ll let Dad tell you all about it, but Lester said I could visit whenever I wanted.” Somehow it seemed that the more people I talked to about Lester’s moving, the more generous I made Lester sound. “I just wish you were here, though, to take care of Dad, Sylvia. Then I’d have one less person to worry about.”
“Why? Alice, what’s wrong?”
“He’s sad. He’s forgetful. He forgets to take his shirts to the laundry, to stop at the store, to pay all the bills. All he does is mope around and work in the garden.”
“You’d better get him to the phone, Alice. I think your dad needs to hear some sweet talk about now.”
I grinned. “Okay.”
I started upstairs to get Dad just as he was on his way down to refill his coffee cup.
“It’s Sylvia, Dad,” I said.
His face lit up like Christmas. “Sylvia?” He lunged for the phone, pulled out the telephone stool, and sat down, his back against the wall. His face broke into a hundred little smiling crinkles.
“Sweetheart,” he said, adjusting the phone to his ear, and in that moment I heard her say, “Hi, you old, forgetful honey bear.…” And I knew it was time for me to clear out.
I went upstairs to sort through my things for the
laundry and saw the glow of Dad’s lamp coming from his room. I walked to the doorway. There were his reading glasses on the desk beside a pen and paper. As much as I knew I shouldn’t, I tiptoed over to his chair.
I told Sylvia he was writing to her,
I said to myself.
All I’m going to do is take a quick peek and make sure I’d told the truth.
He must have started the letter on the other side of the page, because the first line was a continuation of something else. But then I read:
Sylvia, darling, do you know this poem?
It’s all I can think
about these days. Sixteenth
century, I think:
O western wind, when wilt thou blow
That the small rain down can rain?
Christ, that my love were in my arms
And I in my bed again!
I swallowed and tiptoed out of the room. Never mind the first two lines. I wasn’t even sure what they meant. But the last two! There was something about that poem so urgent, so intense. I could almost feel the longing rise up from the paper. How different it seemed from that Velvet Pistols song: “I wanna make you, I wanna break you.…”
If anyone deserved to be deliriously happy for the rest of their lives, it was Dad and Sylvia.
I was at Pamela’s house the following week when something happened. Both Elizabeth and I were there. We were lying on Pamela’s bed, actually, looking through a magazine, when we heard the doorbell ring and Mr. Jones’s footsteps crossing the hall.
“Is it for me, Dad?” Pamela called, and we waited.
Then, almost seconds after we heard the front door open, we heard it close again, hard, with a bang. There was a loud knocking, and then somebody obviously was leaning against the doorbell.
Dingdong-dingdong-dingdong-dingdong.…
“Dad?” Pamela called, and we all sat up, listening.
We heard the door open again, a muffled angry exclamation from Mr. Jones, and then a woman’s voice saying, “… just to talk. Please!”
Bang!
went the door again.
“Mom!” gasped Pamela.
“Oh no!” said Elizabeth.
Dingdong-dingdong-dingdong-dingdong…
“Do you want us to leave?” Elizabeth asked Pamela. “We could go out the back.”
“No! I don’t want to be here alone with those lunatics!” Pamela said, grabbing hold of us. “He could at least talk to her.”
At that moment the doorbell did stop ringing.
“Did you know she was in town?” Elizabeth asked.
“I knew she wanted to come, but I didn’t know when.” Pamela absently flipped a few more pages of the magazine, but she wasn’t looking at them and neither were we.
All at once something hit our window. Pamela rolled off the bed so fast, she kicked me in the leg and pulled us down with her. On the way down she grabbed at the light switch, and the light went out.
“Don’t even breathe,” said Pamela.
We sat on the floor, our backs against the bed. Another piece of gravel hit the window.
“Pamela,” her mom called from outside.
Downstairs the front door opened again, and we heard Mr. Jones say in a low voice, “If you don’t leave, I’m calling the police.”
“Go ahead. We’re not divorced, remember. You can’t keep me out of our house,” Mrs. Jones yelled at him.
“Dad,” Pamela shouted as he shut the door again. “Don’t you dare call the police. At least
talk
to her! Maybe then she’ll go.”
“In a pig’s eye,” said her father.
But there was no more gravel at the window. No more calling.
“Do you think she’s gone?” I whispered.
“Heck no,” said Pamela.
Ten minutes went by, though, and nothing happened. But Pamela wouldn’t turn on the light. Her dad went back to the TV.
“Man, I wish she’d stayed in Colorado,” Pamela said.
“But maybe… if she’s really sorry for walking out on you… he could just give her one more chance?” said Elizabeth.
“How can he give her one more chance if he hates her?” Pamela asked. “She humiliated him. I don’t think he’ll ever forgive her.”
“That’s a sin,” said Elizabeth.