Chapter Fifteen

“How’s Al?” my mother asked. “Have you had a fight?”

“She’s O.K., I guess,” I said, blowing my nose. “Why do you want to know?”

“Well, I haven’t seen her in a couple of days and that’s sort of unusual. I just wondered if you’d had a misunderstanding or if she was sick or something.”

She started shredding the cabbage for supper. “Ordinarily, you two live in each other’s pockets.”

“I have other friends, don’t forget,” I said. “You are always saying we see too much of each other. So we have decided to have other friends.”

“Fine,” my mother said. “But why don’t you ask her over for supper tonight? Isn’t she usually alone for supper? It wouldn’t be much fun, I should think, to eat alone all the time.”

“You may not think so, but she doesn’t have anyone to tell her to go to bed, stop watching TV, do your homework, stuff like that.”

“I know,” my mother said. “That’s what I mean.”

“She is probably over at Susie’s house. Or Wendy’s.”

My mother put lotion on her hands. She does this all the time but I have noticed that my father does not carry on the way men do in TV commercials when their wives use hand lotion, about how soft and everything their hands are. About how they’re as white and pretty as before they got married. Sometimes you have to stop and think about things like that.

“Run down the hall and see if she’s there, please, like a good girl. I made too much chili and I’ve got coleslaw and she loves coleslaw.”

I went but I didn’t run. I walked. Very slowly. I rang Al’s bell. Just a regular ring, nothing special.

“Hi,” I said.

Al said, “Hello.”

“My mother wants to know if you want to come to supper tonight,” I said.

Al looked like she’d have to think if she had a previous engagement. My mother does the same thing.

“I don’t know,” she said. “I have a lot of homework.”

“My mother said to tell you we’re having chili.”

“Oh,” said Al.

“And coleslaw,” I said. “And Al, I’m sorry.”

“About what?” Al said.

“About the stupid dumb thing I said the other day. About fathers thinking daughters were a big deal. I could kill myself, it was so dumb.”

“That’s all right,” Al said. “I didn’t think anything about it.” She smiled. “Tell your mother that I would like to come. Very much. That is very nice of her.”

“O.K.,” I said. “Come at six. See you.”