The Truth About Alice(7)

Brandon got more action than any other guy I knew. He’d even slept with Ms. Sanchez, this chick who teaches Spanish part-time at Healy High. She’s like twenty-four with a pretty great body, and Brandon said he needed help with Spanish and he just showed up at her house, and according to Brandon they did it on the kitchen table while her husband was at work.

I’ve only done it once. The summer before sophomore year when I was fifteen. It was at the beach and it was this girl named Tessa, and her family was staying at the beach house next to my family’s beach house, and we did it one night down on the sand after we’d gone for a walk. I found us this sort of private hiding spot near some rocks and we did it. Tessa brought the condoms. All I could think about when it was over was at least I could finally say I did it. Tessa and me still text sometimes, but this summer our families didn’t go down to the beach at the same time.

Brandon was always getting after me to get with someone else. I’m not saying this to sound like a dick or anything, but I could probably get action with lots of girls in our class in about five seconds if I wanted to. But for some reason a lot of the girls in our class annoy the piss out of me. They always act like everything is some stupid huge crisis or drama or whatever, and they always want to talk about everything for five hundred years. They remind me of grackles sitting around on a telephone wire getting ready to swoop at some worm.

It was like Brandon was reading my mind the afternoon of Elaine’s party, because after we talked about Kurt Morelli, he said, “Speaking of *, you should try to get some action tonight with Maggie Daniels. Her panties get wet every single time you walk by her locker.”

“Jesus, man,” I said, trying to drag out the last of my last Natty Light.

“Whatever, dude, it’s true.”

Then, I guess just so I could be saying something, just so I could be getting the attention off of me, I said, “What about you and Alice Franklin? Just the other day I saw you checking her out when we were all hanging out in the parking lot.”

I don’t know why I picked Alice since Brandon checked out just about every girl he ever saw in the parking lot and everywhere else. I guess she was just sort of floating around in my head. I mean, Alice and me had known each other since before we could even be aware that we knew each other. Me and her were even in the same day care at the Methodist church near my house when we were little.

Brandon said, “Alice Franklin? Hell. I haven’t messed around with her since that middle school dance when Elaine lost her shit.”

“You’ve never done it with Alice?” I asked. I guess that surprised me because Alice was definitely a chick who had done it. She started having boyfriends in fifth grade. She kind of had a reputation for being a little crazy. Like how in eighth grade she made out with Brandon at the graduation dance even though he showed up with Elaine. Plus there was that rumor about her and that lifeguard at Healy Pool North.

“No, I’ve never done it with Alice, but now you’ve gone and put an idea in my head,” Brandon said. He peered over at Kurt Morelli who had stopped mowing the lawn and had his hands on his hips and was just staring out at nothing.

“Hey, Kurt, my man. Wanna come up and have a beer?” I don’t know why Brandon said this seeing as we had no beers left and Kurt Morelli is a pretty weird dude, but I think Brandon was pretty wasted by then.

“No libations, thank you sir,” Kurt yelled up, waving his right hand at us like a salute, and Brandon and me just looked at each other like what the hell is this guy talking about.

So after that me and Brandon peeled ourselves off the roof and we went inside, and I had to steady myself for a little while before I felt sober enough to drive home. I laid back on Brandon’s twin bed with the football bedspread he’s had since he was ten.

“Do? You? Want? To? Sleep? With? Me?” Brandon said out loud as he texted Elaine about the beer for the party, like making it look like was texting Elaine about doing it with him. But he was just joking about Elaine. Elaine was sort of old news to Brandon. I knew now he was really thinking about Alice Franklin because he kept bringing her up.

“I’ve never done it with a girl with real short hair before like that,” Brandon said. “I hope doing it with Alice wouldn’t be like doing it with a dude. Because that would be gross. That would be gay.”

Man, I felt hot and tired that day. At that moment I didn’t even know if I wanted to go to the party. The Natty Light made me feel like going to sleep, but even as I thought that, I knew I would be going to the party to drink even more Natty Lights. There wasn’t anything else to do.

“Maybe you are gay,” I said. “You’ve seen me naked two hundred times.”

“Dude, if you think I’m looking at you in those showers, you are one sick bastard,” Brandon said.

I rolled over onto my stomach and sank my face into the football bedspread. It smelled like sweat and Tide. Brandon was saying something else about Alice Franklin’s tits.

Sometimes I wonder if I hadn’t put the idea of her into Brandon’s head, everything that happened wouldn’t have happened. Because sometimes when Brandon got an idea into his head, it was like trying to sack him when he was about to throw a touchdown pass. What I mean is, it was impossible.

But that afternoon in Brandon’s bedroom lying face down with my head sort of spinning, I didn’t know that one day I would wonder what if. All I knew that afternoon was that I was drunk and I was Brandon Fitzsimmons’s best friend and we were some of the best football players Healy had ever seen, and that night me and him were going to go to Elaine O’Dea’s party.