Alice Bliss - Laura Harrington [32]
Write me. I love your letters. And I love you.
Dad
April 14th
There is no practice today. B.D. is sick or something. Alice feels lost.
Drifting past the high school playing fields, headed for the cutthrough to the elementary school, Alice crosses the track, starts up the hill and steps in dog poop. Shit! All these people who walk their dogs here; they know the leash laws! They know that kids use these paths. Idiots! She’s stumbling around trying to wipe the crap off in the grass, and looks up to see John Kimball laughing at her. The cutest guy in school who has never so much as glanced her way ever, not even once, not that she cares; now he takes a moment from doing something spectacular on the baseball field, now he decides to stop and look at her.
“Asshole!” she shouts. Which only makes him laugh louder. “Asshole!” she shouts again and to her amazement, he drops his mitt and heads over to her.
“Hey, I’m sorry.”
“Go away.”
“Listen—”
“You’re just making it worse.”
“No, that was stupid. I didn’t mean—”
“Didn’t mean what? You’re so full of shit.”
“You’re crying.”
“No, I’m not!”
“I didn’t know you could cry and be mad at the same time.”
“You don’t know much, do you?”
“Okay, okay,” he says, and starts backing off, still looking at her.
She looks down and can’t believe her sneaker. This must’ve been some really big dog.
“Alice, right?” He calls out to her.
“What?”
“Your name’s Alice, right?”
She looks past John and sees Stephie and Jeremy Baskin holding hands, standing with a bunch of kids, and realizes they’ve been watching and of course they’re laughing. They’re all laughing at crazy Alice Bliss.
Fuck you, Alice thinks, as she heads blindly toward the path through the woods. She’s stumbling around like an idiot and tripping over rocks and careening into branches, which are lashing her face. Is that blood? Is her face scratched? Oh, who cares, she just wants to get this shit off her sneaker; she’s madly scraping away on rocks, on roots, in the leaves and pine needles, and good god—it’s almost coming up over her socks! when Henry appears.
“Alice, what are you doing here?”
Why does he sound so mad, she wonders as she grabs the sweatshirt she’s got tied around her waist. She can’t believe she is wiping her face and blowing her nose on her favorite sweatshirt.
“I thought you had track.”
She rolls up the sweatshirt and stuffs it in her backpack.
“It was canceled.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“What difference does it make?”
“What difference does it make?! I’ve been leaving band practice early every day for three weeks to pick up Ellie. Not that you’ve noticed! Not that you care! Not that you’ve ever even bothered to say thank you!”
“I didn’t—”
“What is that smell?”
She looks at her shoe.
“Oh, my God, that’s gross.”
And he turns and heads back to school.
“Where are you going?”
“Maybe if I make it through a whole rehearsal once or twice Mr. Brooks won’t drop me from band and take away my clarinet solo.”
“Why are you so mad at me?”
“Jeez, Alice! You are not the only person on the planet!”
Well, I know that, Alice thinks, as she watches Henry hurry away from her. She looks at his thin back and narrow shoulders and lowslung pants and too heavy backpack, filled with homework he will actually complete, and those awful black lace-up shoes he wears just to be different. She looks at his shaggy thick hair and his beloved Red Sox hat that his brother gave him. She tries to remember the last time Henry was this mad at her and thinks it might have been her birthday party when she turned seven. The two of them spent weeks planning that party, they even had a theme, the Wizard of Oz, and his mom baked one of her amazing cakes that had the characters all over the top of it, and Henry dressed up as the Cowardly Lion. And then Alice forgot about Henry completely in her excitement over all the other little girls in their Dorothy dresses.
She’s late picking up Ellie, even later than she thought. The teacher who got stuck waiting—looks like Mrs.