The Truth About Alice(45)

“Alice,” I said, and I waited until she made eye contact with me again before I kept going, “look, if you want to start coming around my table at lunch again, you know, just to say hi, it might be a way to start smoothing things over. I mean, if you’re interested.”

She just stared at me, expressionless.

“I mean, I know you’ve been hanging out a lot with Kurt Morelli and everything,” I said, although it occurred to me that I hadn’t seen the two of them together much these past few weeks. “So maybe you’re not even interested or whatever. But I’m just putting it out there.”

Alice just kept looking at me. Not in a mad way, I don’t think. But just sort of staring like she couldn’t believe what she was hearing. I guess if I had been her I wouldn’t have believed it either. I gave it one more shot. “Are you getting your hair done to go to the dance with Kurt?”

Alice gave me one of her big honking laughs that she was known for and that I hadn’t heard all year, but it was cut with a tone that sounded super bitter. “No, I’m not going to the dance with Kurt Morelli or anyone else. And I don’t hang around with him anymore, anyway,” Alice said. “He’s no different from anyone else in this town.”

I was surprised by what she said, but I was also sure that Alice couldn’t be more wrong. Kurt Morelli had been different from everyone in Healy since the day he’d moved here back in elementary school, and he’d been proving he was different ever since.

“Oh, sorry. I thought he was your friend.”

“Well, I thought a lot of people were my friends,” Alice said. It could have come out sounding a lot icier than it did, but the way Alice said it—like she was just flatly stating the facts we both knew were true—made her words feel like they were hanging right over me. I thought about the Slut Stall. Part of me wanted to tell her I’d only written in it that one time and everything, but I didn’t think Alice would care if it had been one time or twenty.

“I’m sorry I brought up Kurt,” I answered. “I thought you guys liked hanging out together, but I guess I was wrong. I know he’s sort of freaky deaky or whatever, but you can’t say he’s anything like the rest of us. First off, he hung out with you when no one else would, and it honestly seemed like you guys were having a good time. Plus, he’s, like, a crazy genius. He knows more than the teachers.”

Alice just looked away, down at the floor. “Yeah, well. I guess I have a way of turning everything around me into shit. Maybe he was my friend. Maybe he wasn’t. I don’t know anymore. Whatever.”

“Fine. I was just saying.”

A few more moments of silence passed, but Alice broke it this time.

“Who are you going to the dance with?”

“Jacob Saunders,” I said with a shrug. Jacob was a graduating senior and captain of the varsity basketball team, and if you want me to be honest he was about as exciting as a bag of hammers.

Just then Misty stuck her head out and told us she was so sorry she was running late and did we mind waiting just a few more seconds?

I rolled my eyes at Alice and she rolled her eyes back at me. Then Alice picked up her copy of Teen Vogue and started reading it again. I figured she was done talking, so I grabbed a magazine and we sat there reading in silence until Ms. Cooper left and Mindy called for Alice to come on back.

Just before she disappeared behind the reception area, Alice turned around and said, “Have a good time at the dance.”

“Thanks,” I answered.

I felt pretty good about what I had said, and I hoped Alice was grateful I’d said it. After all, she had to have known that me being nice to her in the cafeteria would be a sign to everybody else that it was time to stop the mess that had been going on all year. She had to know I had that kind of power.

But the truth is, I knew there was a pretty good chance Alice would never come by my table on Monday or any other day. The truth is, I wouldn’t blame Alice Franklin if she never talked to me or anyone else in this town again.

There are some things, like your eighth grade boyfriend kissing some other girl at a middle school dance, that are easy to forgive.

And there are some things that are just unforgivable.





Alice

It’s a long walk to get to where I’m going, almost to the other side of town. I think it seems longer than it really is since spring in Texas lasts about two weeks, so essentially it’s already summer which means it’s ridiculously hot. We have a few weeks left of school and the heat is just all-consuming. Every year it arrives and people act like they can’t believe it’s already here again. Like maybe if they’d been good all year long the 100-degree weather would somehow pass us by just once.

But it shows up every year, whether we like it or not.

I guess that’s one of the reasons I’ve chosen to make this walk in the evening. The heat isn’t so bad then, even if there are a few mosquitoes around, and it’s actually sort of peaceful to walk the Healy streets at dusk. Maybe one of the two or three good things about living in this crappy town is it’s small enough that you can walk pretty much anywhere to get there.

Even if it is hot enough to melt tar.

Like just the other week, I’d walked to the Curl Up and Dye to get my hair cut.

On the way there I’d had to walk past the Pizza Hut and the Wal-Mart and the elementary school, and just like I did whenever I had time alone to think, I thought about the rejection.