Alice Bliss - Laura Harrington [20]
Alice abandons The Catcher in the Rye and looks up into the darkness. The velvet curtain smells old and musty, and everything around them is shrouded in shadow. She’s trying not to think about her father, about waiting and waiting for the letters that are taking forever to get to them, about the too quick, too hurried call when he first arrived, with every other word breaking up on them, none of them certain that anything they were saying was actually getting through.
She scoots over until she’s lying underneath the piano. Here she can feel the sound reverberating in the floor below her and in the piano above her. She closes her eyes and breathes with Henry’s playing, until the notes are inside her heartbeat and the notes are in her breathing and the notes are flowing through her veins.
March 24th
After her last class the following day, American history, Mr. Herman hands Alice a blank piece of paper with her name at the top of it, and wants an explanation as to why Alice didn’t even bother to try answering one single question on yesterday’s pop quiz. She looks out the window, looking for an answer maybe, and sees the track team lope out onto the track.
“Do I need to call your parents?”
She drags her attention back to Mr. Herman and the blank piece of paper in her hand.
“What?”
“Your parents. Do we need to get them involved?”
“No. No. Definitely not. You don’t need to call them. I wasn’t feeling well.”
“You should have told me.”
“I didn’t really realize until it was too late.”
“You should have come to me after class, then.”
“Can I make up the test?”
“I’m afraid not.”
She steals a quick look at him. He’s being a hard-ass because he thinks she’s a good student and maybe he can shock her back into line. She thinks, I used to care about this; I used to be able to care about this, when her attention is drawn back to the runners outside on the track.
“I’m gonna miss my bus, Mr. Herman.”
“Don’t let this happen again, Alice.”
“I won’t.”
She is released; she is walking out the door, running down the hall, and slamming through the back doors that lead out to the playing fields and the track. Dumping her backpack and jacket on the ground, she jogs over to the coach.
“Can I run?” She asks.
“Can you?”
“I don’t know. I want to run.”
“What’s your name?”
“Alice Bliss.”
He makes a note on his clipboard.
“Grade?”
“Tenth.”
“You have any shorts? Sneaks?”
“I’ve got these,” indicating her battered Chucks.
“Take it easy, okay? We’re just warming up. It’s our first day outdoors.”
“Okay, okay, but I can run?”
“We’ll see about that.”
Alice sprints to catch up with the runners who are doing laps and falls in beside a tall redheaded girl who looks like she knows what she’s doing. The girl turns her head and gives Alice a half smile. Alice in her jeans feels like a mule next to this gazelle, but it’s fun to try to match her stride, to lift her head, the way this girl does, to begin to sweat. She’s feeling the cool early-spring air and the clouds crossing the sun, and her body, she’s feeling her body, and her legs are starting to ache and feel heavy, but it doesn’t matter; she’s running, she’s breathing, and for a second, for a tantalizing series of seconds, she’s feeling free.
That night B.D., the coach, calls her mother and tells her that maybe they should get her a pair of running shoes. And shorts and a T-shirt and a sweatshirt, too. Angie wants to know what this is all about.
Alice just says, “I guess I joined the track team.”
March 31st
Alice makes a deal with Henry so he’ll pick up Ellie and take her home with him on the days she has practice, which is turning into every day. Henry doesn’t seem too happy about this, but Ellie loves it. Ellie and Mrs. Grover have started to play Scrabble. Ellie is memorizing all of the acceptable two letter words.