Patiently Alice (11 page)

“Al, will you please shut up for five seconds? Her sister is very ill in Albuquerque, and Sylvia’s flying out there. The wedding’s been postponed.”

“Oh, Lester!
No
!”

“I’m afraid so. Dad’s pretty disappointed, as you can guess, but he agrees there’s nothing else to do. Nancy was in the hospital for a bowel operation, and she’s developed septicemia. Blood poisoning. It can be really serious.”

“How can she be having a bowel operation? She’s supposed to be Sylvia’s maid of honor!”

“Tell that to her bowels. She didn’t plan it, Al.”

“But how long will Sylvia be gone?”

“Till her sister’s out of danger and recovering, I imagine.”

“But… but that could be a long time! Sylvia and Dad could have the wedding, and
then
she could go to Albuquerque! Lester, she and Dad were
this close
to getting married! First she goes to England. Now she’s going to Albuquerque. Doesn’t she care anything about Dad’s feelings? Doesn’t she—”

“Al,” Les said sternly, “grow up.”

I stopped cold. “What?”

“You’re talking like an eight-year-old.”

“But it’s
true!
Dad will be so hurt! If it’s going to take a long time for her sister to get better, they could get married and go on their honeymoon, and
then
Sylvia could take care of her!”

“Her sister could die.”

I stared at Lester. “It’s… it’s that serious?”

He nodded. “And what kind of honeymoon do you think they would have with Sylvia worried constantly about Nancy?”

“What kind of wedding will they have if Nancy
dies
?” I countered. My shoulders slumped and I sat with my legs apart, arms dangling between my knees. “I was all set to be her bridesmaid. She took my measurements and everything!”

“So is this about your feelings or Sylvia’s?”

I felt like crying, but I saw Craig and Ross glance at me from across the clearing, and Lester’s admonition to grow up kept the tears back, I guess.

I sighed instead. “Is there anything I can do? Does Dad want me to come home now?”

“No, not at all. He’s driving Sylvia to the airport this afternoon, and I told him I’d look in on you while I was up here—make sure the guys were treating you with respect.”

I kicked his foot and we laughed. It felt good to laugh about
something.

“They’re really nice,” I said. “The assistant counselor’s part is hard, though. It’s
work
keeping track of the kids, but the guys are fun.”

“
How
much fun?” Lester said, raising one eyebrow.

“Well,” I teased, “for one thing, we went swimming one night, and the guys were naked.”

“Whoa!” Lester said, and looked at me hard.

“The girls had their clothes on, though.”

“Yeah? Paint me a picture,” Les said.

So I told him how we had sat on the boys’ clothes and how the guys had come out and thrown us in. I wanted to tell him just enough to make him nervous but not enough to make him worry. Then Elizabeth and Pamela came out of the dining hall and sauntered over.

“Hi, handsome,” Pamela said, sitting down next to Lester so that their thighs touched. She’s shameless.

“Hey! How’s it going?” he asked her.

“Great!” said Elizabeth. “The boys are terrific!”

“Yeah?” said Les.

“We went to a bar the other night,” Pamela told him.

“A
restaurant,
” I corrected. “We didn’t drink, Lester, and an older counselor drove. It was pure, wholesome fun.”

“I’ll bet,” said Lester.

“You don’t have to worry about a thing,” said Pamela. “Besides, Elizabeth brought condoms.”

“Pamela!” Elizabeth yelled.

Lester looked at her, then at me.

“They’re for Pamela,” I said.

“Alice!” cried Pamela.

Lester looked around. “I take it there
is
adult supervision up here?”

“Yes, Lester. We’re perfectly fine.” I turned to Pamela and Elizabeth. “Sylvia’s sister is sick and the wedding’s been postponed. She’s flying to Albuquerque this afternoon.”

“Oh, Alice!” they said together.

“It’s not the end of the world,” I told them, trying to summon a little maturity. “I guess it will be a fall wedding. Whenever Nancy gets better, that is.…”

“So, are you going to show me around?” Les asked.

“Sure.” I jumped up and grabbed his arm. The
kids were all in the dining hall now having their snack, so Pamela and Elizabeth went with us. We showed Lester the river and the canoes, the paths in the woods, and then Pamela and Elizabeth went back to the dining hall while Les and I walked to the overlook.

It was a really gorgeous afternoon—not too hot—and we could see layers of mountains, fading as clouds moved by, then coming into focus again. Les put his arm around me, and this time I felt the tears coming.

“I… f-feel so sorry for Dad,” I gulped.

“So do I. But it will all work out, Al. When you’ve got somebody to share your troubles, it’s a lot easier. He still has Sylvia, you know.” And then, realizing that I didn’t have a boyfriend, he said, “And even if you
don’t
have somebody special, you—”

“Cool it, Lester. I’m not about to jump off the overlook because Sylvia postponed the wedding,” I said.

He laughed and gave my waist a little tug. “Okay. Let’s talk about you. What’s the deal about the condoms?”

“Elizabeth brought some,” I said. And added, laughing, “A ribbed Trojan with a lubricated tip.”

Lester choked.
“Elizabeth?”

I grinned. “She said they’re for Pamela, except
she gave them to Gwen, and I don’t know who has them now.”

“You’re not sharing
condoms,
are you?”

“Les, I’m not even having sex. Relax.”

“Whew!” he said. “Okay. I’m relaxed. It
is
a nice place up here. I hope you’re having a good time.”

“I am. I’m glad I came.”

We walked back and I introduced him to a few of the guys. Then Les talked a few minutes with Jack Harrigan, and finally he drove away.

There’s mail call every day at three o’clock, and I went up to the office to see if I got something. I didn’t. There was an envelope for Pamela, though. If any one of the assistant counselors needed a letter, I thought, it was Pamela. First her mom got everyone upset by leaving the family, and then she got them upset by saying she wanted to come back. Pamela seemed not to even want to think about it.

“Hey, Pamela! For you!” I said, waving the letter, and sat down beside her on the steps. As soon as she saw the postmark, though, her face clouded up. I looked the other way while she read it.

“Guess who’s coming to town,” Pamela said, crumpling up the letter into a tight little ball, then angrily squeezing it again for good measure.

“I don’t know,” I said, hesitating.

“Mom.”

I studied her for a moment. “She really is, then! She wrote you from Colorado? How did she get the address up here?”

“Who knows? She finds out everything.”

“When is she coming?

“She doesn’t say. I don’t want to be around when she shows up,” Pamela said determinedly. “Let me stay at your place or something when she does, Alice! There’ll probably be a big scene, and I just don’t think I could take it. I can’t understand why she’d even want to come back if Dad doesn’t love her anymore.”

“You don’t think… maybe… they could work things out?”

“It’s too late for that. It’s been too long. Dad hates her.”

We were both quiet for a minute or two.

“What do you
want
to happen?” I asked finally.

“I just want it
over,
one way or another. I hate this waiting around, wondering what will happen next. I either want them together or I want them apart.”

I thought how often I’d felt something like that for the past couple of years about Dad and Sylvia. Except I’d never wanted them apart. I’d
always
wanted them to be together.

That night,
our
night, none of the older counselors was available to drive us into town, so the six of us girls decided to sneak down to the river early and go skinny-dipping, just to say that we had. Doris, who felt she was on the verge of a cold, didn’t want to go in but said she’d be our lookout.

“We’ll just take a short swim before the guys start looking for us,” Pamela said with a giggle. But we were all secretly hoping that the guys would find out where we’d gone and… Well, who knows what we were hoping. Just for something exciting to happen, I guess.

We weren’t foolish enough to leave our clothes on the bank, though. We wadded them up and stuck them in the fork of a low tree. When we got down to our underpants, we wore them to the water’s edge, then gave them to Doris to put in the tree for us, and dived in. Elizabeth refused to take
off either her underpants or her bra, so there we were; one girl on the bank fully clothed; one girl in the water in her underwear; and four girls in the river naked.

We swam quietly, giggling to each other, feeling very risqué. When the guys didn’t come down right away, I noticed, none of us suggested we get out, even though the water was frigid and I could feel my teeth chattering. We just kept swimming around, watching the path to the dining hall. I noticed Pamela’s voice getting a little louder, just in case the guys were within earshot. And soon, down the path they came—all six of the male assistant counselors.

What we did, of course, was shriek and duck down under the water, swimming a little downriver to pretend we weren’t there, which was ridiculous. And then
they
were in the water, all their clothes on the bank, and after we got over being semi-embarrassed and silly, we just swam around and talked, and it seemed to me we were pretty grown-up, Gerald included.

“Was that your boyfriend or your brother I saw you with this afternoon?” Craig asked me.

“My brother. Les. My dad’s wedding’s been postponed because my new mom’s sister is sick,” I explained.

“Tough luck,” said Craig.

“I’m going to feel so much better when they’re finally married,” I told him. “Dad’s been waiting a long time.”

“Yeah, sure,” I heard Joe murmur, and the others laughed.

I didn’t say any more about Dad and Sylvia. I didn’t want people guessing about their private lives when they didn’t even know them. So I just dog-paddled around, thinking how strange and exciting it felt to be swimming at night. The sky was cloudy, though, and we couldn’t see much of anything except a ball of white somewhere back on the bank, which I realized, finally, was our ball of underwear in the fork of the tree.

Both Elizabeth and Pamela were swimming around Ross like sharks, I thought. Gwen and Joe were nuzzling off by themselves, G. E. was talking with Doris, who was sitting on an overturned canoe, and the rest of us were just floating about, enjoying a free swim without the little kids.

As I watched Gwen and Joe, though, who were now kissing, their lips and who knows what else locked together, I began to wonder if the directors of this camp knew what they were doing. We were running on hormones, everyone said, and here we were, away from home, totally naked, in the dark, and… Maybe they figured there was safety in numbers. G. E. slid into the water next.

There was a sudden rustling in the bushes, the quick thud of feet, and suddenly, with a loud “Hi-
yah
!” Jack Harrigan did a cannonball in the river, splashing everyone within ten yards. He was the only one besides Elizabeth and Doris
not
naked. Maybe the directors
did
know what they were doing.

“So how’s the fishing?” he asked, and his voice held a grin.

“Not so good,” Andy joked. “The babes aren’t biting.”

“Speak for yourself,” came Joe’s voice, and I heard Gwen laugh.

“Maybe you’re using the wrong bait,” said Richard’s dad.

“Hey, we’ve got a river, a breeze, a night, a moon…,” said Ross.

“No moon,” said Andy.

“Okay, skip the moon. But…”

With the guys talking to Richard’s father, we girls felt it was safe to swim downstream, sneak out, and get our clothes. Doris had retrieved our bundle of underpants from the tree and brought them down to a row of bushes, then went back to get the rest of our pants and shirts. We climbed out, one after the other, and dressed.

“Darn!” said Pamela. “Just when things were heating up.”

“Ross kissed me!” Elizabeth whispered excitedly.

“How could you tell who it was? It was dark,” said Pamela, and she didn’t sound pleased.

“I think he was going around kissing everyone,” I said, trying to defuse a potential quarrel. “Some-body touched me underwater.”

“Probably Gerald,” said Elizabeth, to take
me
down a peg or two.

“It’s going to be hard to go back home with Mom and Dad hovering around all the time, knowing where I am every living minute,” said Elizabeth, zipping up her jeans.

“Everyone should be so lucky,” said Tommie.

“Lucky how?”

“Most of these kids don’t have anyone to hover.”

“I guess so,” said Elizabeth. “Just the same, tonight was really fun.”

“Till Richard’s dad showed up, anyway,” said Pamela. “I suppose Richard’s the establishment spy.”

“I don’t think so,” I said. “He’s too nice.”

“Then how else did his dad know to come swimming with us?
Some
body must have told him that the guys were swimming nude last week,” said Tommie.

Suddenly I remembered.

“Lester!”
I cried. “
He
was talking with Jack Harrigan before he left.”

“Kill him for us,” said Pamela.

•••

I felt the need to call home. I was going to give Lester a piece of my mind, for one thing, but what I really wanted was to hear Dad’s voice and find out how he was doing. I went to the office later that night and dialed. The phone rang so many times, I was afraid I’d get the answering machine, but then Dad picked it up.

“Dad? Did I wake you?” I asked. “Did you go to bed early?”