Alice Bliss - Laura Harrington [13]
The farmers and their wives were leery of Angie at first, even with old man Beeman vouching for her. But Angie sits in their linoleum-floored kitchens drinking coffee from percolators, adding sugar and cream until they laugh at her. The year she left her own Thanksgiving dinner to follow the fire trucks out to the Holschers’ farm for the worst kind of fire, a barn fire, and stayed until every horse and cow was accounted for—the dead animals named and mourned, the living safely housed in temporary quarters—and sat, again, in the kitchen, her coat scorched, ash in her pretty hair; that was the year they took her in. Edna Holscher held her hand at the kitchen table, whispering in her ear so that Hank, pouring whiskey, couldn’t hear: Don’t let this be what ruins us, Angie; don’t let this be the last straw.
And here she is, driving nearly an hour to sit in Edna’s kitchen and cry because Edna will understand and because really, where else does she have to go?
Alice found her dad’s blue shirt in the hamper the day she decided to do laundry because no one had any clean underpants left in their drawers. She set the shirt aside instead of tossing it into the washer. She laid it out on her bed for an afternoon, then put it under her pillow for a few nights. Now she’s wearing it. Every night she airs it out and every day she rolls the cuffs up half a turn. She had to spot clean the left front when she inadvertently got into the middle of a ketchup fight in the cafeteria. She hates the fact that the Dad-ness of the shirt is evaporating. She still likes wearing it, though, no matter what Ellie says. Her mom just rolls her eyes. Alice thinks the two of them are planning an intervention so she’s started to get very smart about where she airs it out each night.
Henry slams through the backdoor with a blast of clean, cold air, shouting, “Good morning, Mrs. Bliss!” just like he does every morning, whether she’s in the kitchen or not. Henry’s energy is just the catalyst they need to grab jackets and backpacks and get out the door.
On the way to the elementary school, Henry teaches Ellie and Alice a new round he has written especially for Ellie. It features about four hundred mentions of the word fart. He gets Ellie giggling so hard Alice thinks she’s going to wet her pants. Henry grabs Ellie’s recorder out of her backpack so he can play the tune and make big, fat splat sounds every time they sing the word fart! Tears are streaming down Ellie’s face and she has to stop walking and cross her legs to keep from peeing.
Henry is the only person Alice knows who would sing, play music, and dance around like a maniac to make a second grader laugh. In public. Henry is also capable of walking to school carrying his clarinet case in front of him—sideways,which is so awkward, you think who carries anything like that?—while at the same time banging his knees against the case to work out some complicated rhythm for jazz band. This sort of thing used to mortify Alice; now it makes her laugh.
When they reach the grammar school bus circle, Ellie grabs her recorder from Henry and sprints to catch up to Janna. Alice and Henry head off across the playground and up the hill and through the playing fields that separate the schools. Henry pulls out his iPod and offers Alice one earbud.
“Listen to this, Alice.”
They listen for a bit, walking shoulder to shoulder.
“Who is it?”
“Art Tatum. You ever hear of him?”
She shakes her head.
“He makes the piano rock. Listen to the way he rolls those bass notes.”
She listens.
Henry reaches out his left hand, imitating what he hears with his fingers, as though he’s playing air piano. It’s amazing the way he can do that. He’s got his eyes half closed, he’s making funny faces, he’s lucky he doesn’t trip and break a leg. He opens his eyes and glances over at her, a grin on his face.
“Good, huh?”
“Yeah,” she says, grinning back at him. “Really good.”
March 15th
Two days later Alice is sitting in the kitchen, in the chair closest to the phone hanging on the wall, her homework scattered across the table, untouched.