The Truth About Alice(34)

“What are you looking at?” I asked, motioning to the trophy case.

“Oh, I guess I’m wondering how many of these people ever left Healy,” she said, peering back at some old photos from the seventies, complete with long hair and bell-bottoms.

“Probably not many.”

“Probably you’re right. So, are you ready for break?”

“I certainly am,” I answered. “Are you?”

Alice shook her head ruefully but she smiled. “Do you even have to ask that question?”

We stood there for a moment, and then my food-starved brain made its move.

“Alice, would you like to come over to my house to have lunch? To celebrate the next two weeks without Healy High?”

Alice mastered a response that was the perfect blend of politeness and shock. She smiled and opened her eyes wide at the exact same moment. For that small space of time, it was as if we had been transported back in time. Back to the days before the rumors and the bathroom stall and the banishment. Back to the days when someone like me asking someone like Alice Franklin over to his house for lunch would be akin to successfully confirming the existence of the fourth dimension.

Impossible.

But it was not that time. It was now, and after Alice processed what I was saying, she said, “Okay, sure. Yes. That would be great.”

“My grandmother is making grilled cheese sandwiches,” I said, and I instantly regretted saying anything so stupid. I sounded like a kindergartner. Alice had been to parties where people smoked marijuana and got drunk. Regardless of the validity of the rumors about her and Brandon Fitzsimmons, Alice Franklin was almost certainly not a virgin, yet here I was, a virgin talking about grilled cheese sandwiches.

“I like grilled cheese sandwiches,” she said.

“Well,” I told her, “good. But unfortunately, I don’t have any shitty Lone Star beer to go with it.”

Alice laughed, and I was pleased at myself for coming up with such a reply and pleased she got the reference.

As we walked out of the school, there were groups of students clumped together in the front of the main entrance. Some were wearing Santa hats to celebrate the season. Others were texting or playing with their phones. I could feel eyes on us as the two of us strolled past.

“Well, Kurt,” she whispered, and her voice sounded even more appealing in a whisper, “how does it feel to be seen walking the streets with the biggest slut in Healy High?”

“Probably the same as you feel walking the streets with the school’s biggest weirdo,” I answered back.

Alice laughed, and I joined in, and my heart journeyed down to my stomach and back again.




My grandmother did have grilled cheese sandwiches waiting for me, and when she saw Alice, she acted surprised for a moment and then became the hostess she prides herself on being.

“Would you like some milk? Some juice?” she asked, poking around the refrigerator.

“Water’s fine, thank you,” Alice answered, and after my grandmother got her a glass of ice water she disappeared, leaving Alice and me sitting in what grandmother calls the breakfast nook.

“This is good,” Alice said, taking a bite.

“Yeah, it is,” I said. “My grandmother’s a really good cook.”

“You’ve lived with her almost all your life?” Alice asked. “Ever since your parents died?”

“Yes,” I answered, and I admired the way she just asked me directly about my mother and father. Not like grandmother’s church friends who refer to my parents’ “passing on” in some vague, strange way as if they just disappeared one day while out and about.

“Why were you guys living in Chicago, anyway?”

“My mother was a professor of history at Northwestern. My father worked in the education department at the Art Institute.”

“Wow,” Alice said. “Smart. But that makes sense, I guess. Where’d they meet?”

“In college. At Rice. Did you know my father was the first and only student from Healy High ever to go there?” I said it not to brag, but just because it’s always amazed me that one of the best schools in the country is a little over an hour away and not more students from Healy attend or even apply.

“Maybe you’ll go,” Alice told me. “I’m sure someone as smart as you could get in, too.”

I shrugged. I haven’t thought much about where I’ll go to school after my senior year. I’m sure my grandmother would love it if I went to Rice and stayed close by. Still, there’s a part of me that would love to go to school in Chicago. When I told this to Alice, she asked if it was because I miss it.

“I don’t remember it well enough to miss it,” I said. “But I guess I feel on some level like I should go back there. Like it was my destiny to live there, and I need to let my destiny play out.” I cringed inside for using the word destiny. I was afraid it made me look strange or like I was the type of nerd who plays Dungeons and Dragons.

But Alice just nodded like she understood. “You would have had such a different life if you’d stayed there, wouldn’t you? I mean, you know. Educated parents. A big city. Lots of opportunities.”

“That’s true,” I said. I’d only considered how different things would have been for me millions of times, even as I tried to make peace with my existence in Healy and the circumstances that brought me here. “Then again, I’m sure there would have been aspects of living in Chicago that I wouldn’t have enjoyed. And I would have missed out on certain aspects of living here.”