The Truth About Alice(26)

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about Alice Franklin, not only does she understand this, she understands all of my strange, obscure cultural and historical references and she can even engage with me in long conversations about quantum mechanics.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!).