“TELL ME ABOUT IT,” I begged Frannie. “Come on. Please?”
Frannie just shook her head and laughed, as if I were making a really ridiculous request. She fiddled with the pages of her American History assignment. We were studying election regulations and trends. “It was a silly date, Alison,” she said. “It was nothing. We just kind of walked around. You know you aren’t interested in that. Now tell us about the Lindsays’ party. I was thinking about you Saturday night. They have such a super house. That marvelous curving brick drive and that beautiful portico with all the white pillars. Like Cinderella or something. That must have been some dance!”
“I hear they actually have a ballroom right in the house,” said Lisa. “Is that true, Alison? I mean, it is a big house, but it doesn’t look large enough to have a real ballroom.”
“Oh, tell us about it!” cried Jan. “Suzanne Lindsay’s picture was in the newspaper and she looked absolutely beautiful. I bet you had a super time, didn’t you, Alison?”
“It was okay. Just a dance. The decorations were nice, though.” I wanted to hear about Frannie’s date. Her little brother Joey had sold the most candy bars of anybody in his elementary school, raising money for playground equipment. But the day they had to be delivered, Joey was throwing up, so Frannie waded through ice and slush and old blackened snow to make the deliveries for him. And who should volunteer to walk with her but Dick Fraccola! I’d love to go anywhere with Dick, especially laughing our way through the snow with a box of candy bars.
“It was okay,” Jan mimicked me. “Just a dance.” She and Frannie and Lisa rolled their eyes at each other. “Miss Jet Set here can’t even be bothered to describe the party of the season.”
“Aftah all, dahling,” said Frannie, affecting an accent, “they’re such a bore when you’re out night after night.”
I often wondered what they thought I did at these parties. Did they really see me as Cinderella, taking the social scene by storm? I’d told them often enough that for me these parties were work, but they never seemed to hear me. They always thought I was just being a pain.
“Did you wear your scarlet satin number?” said Lisa.
“No, that’s too gaudy for an engagement party,” I said. “At an engagement party the bride is the star and the musicians have to be pretty low-key. I wore my white velveteen costume.”
“Gosh, I envy you,” said Lisa, and from her voice I thought she really did. “The most exciting party I’ve ever been to was Halloween, bobbing for apples at Kevin’s house.”
I’d never been to Kevin’s. He gave a lot of casual parties. They had a big basement with an old jukebox, a pinball machine, a few electronic games, and of course a good stereo set; the kids went there a lot. You knew you were in if you dropped in at Kevin’s a lot. Kevin had asked me. Once. I’d had to decline. I remember the occasion vividly, because I had felt so completely stupid. “Oh, Kevin,” I said, “I’d love to!” I proceeded to drop all my books trying to pull out my engagement calendar, and my Math book smashed Kevin’s foot. “I’m sorry,” I said desperately. “It’s okay,” said Kevin, “I only walk on the bottoms. Can you come?” I bent over to gather up my books, when a girl tripped over me and I went sprawling. After Kevin had gathered me and my books and relocated us in a corner, he said a third time, very patiently, “Can you come?”
I opened my calendar, and Kevin actually gasped at the list of activities I had there. What with term papers, exams, combo practice, music deadlines, and all the gigs Ralph had lined up, the calendar was pretty impressive. Just looking at my schedule exhausts me. I never see how I’m going to live through the month, juggling everything; and every time I turn over a new page I’m sort of amazed, and I think, I really did live through the month.
“I’m sorry,” I said, and I was really, painfully, terribly sorry. “I have a dinner.”
“Oh,” said Kevin. “Well, have fun.” He stacked my books carefully in my arms and pointed me toward my next class and he never asked me again.
The dinner was the induction of officers for the Junior League’s new year. It was the most boring thing I ever endured—some of the gigs Ralph lines up can be pretty dull.
Sometimes, in the cafeteria line or at the school bus stop, Kevin mentions my schedule to someone. “Forget Alison,” he says, although he’s nice about it and smiles—as if he’s proud of me. “She’s probably tickling the ivories for the governor, or something.”
And once Pete Fox asked me to go to the library and study with him. We had a huge, frightening test coming up in Biology: the skeletal, muscular, digestive, and reproductive systems of every little beast we’d studied. “I wish I could, Pete,” I said, checking my calendar, “but I have a rehearsal.”
“You can skip a rehearsal,” said Pete. “You must know all that stuff cold by now.”
“No,” I said helplessly. “There’s always a new hit to learn, or a different kind of music for an unusual gig. Smoothing out the rough spots from the last performance. Working out transitions. Spacing…”
But Pete was bored by that. And hurt, I think. He really thought there was no reason for me not to skip the rehearsal except that I didn’t want to study with him.
The only person who agreed that I couldn’t possibly skip a rehearsal was our football captain, Michael MacBride, who said he personally liked to kill people who missed football practice. I said, “Gee, sort of cuts down on the lineup, doesn’t it?” Mike laughed and touched my shoulder as he passed on, and that was the closest I have ever come to a boy-girl chat.
Furthermore, Pete Fox never quite forgave me for getting an A-minus on that Biology test when he got a C-plus. He was positive I’d skipped the rehearsal anyhow and studied by myself. I tried to describe how Lizzie and Alec quizzed me all through the practice. Ralph would say, “Okay, let’s listen to that record again. Now get that modulation right this time, you jerks,” and Lizzie would say, “Okay, Alison, what two kinds of ribs does a frog have?” After I’d listened very hard to the modulation I’d say, “Fused and carpel,” and Alec would say, “Discuss the digestive system of the earthworm.” Then Ralph would scream, “There’s got to be a keyboard player somewhere who’s out of high school!”
It was fun studying with the combo, but I’d far rather have studied with Pete Fox. After all, Lizzie, Rob, and Ralph are all in their twenties. (Alec is nineteen and rather spaced-out. He took a year off between high school and college to “find himself” and, as Lizzie says, he’s finding less and less each week.)
But when I tried to tell Pete about the combo, he only got the idea that the combo was more fun for me than he was, and he went off bristling and annoyed and hurt.
I dragged myself out of my daydreams and listened to Jan and Lisa and Frannie going on and on about the Lindsay party. “Really,” I said to them helplessly, “It wasn’t that exciting. More than half the guests were Mr. and Mrs. Lindsay’s age, or even older, and we did a lot of slow dances, waltzes, and foxtrots, and we didn’t do much rock at all. We had requests going back to Jerome Kern and—”
“Forget the music,” said Jan impatiently. “Tell us about the party!”
But for me the music had been the party.
“What did everybody wear?” demanded Jan. “What did the bride wear?”
I tried to remember what the bride had worn. I tried to remember something besides the awful buffet and that moment when Ralph smiled evilly at me. “There was this old lady in a golden sheath,” I said finally.
“Sheesh!” said Jan, furious with me. “Don’t be such a snob. Talk with us for a change.”
The bell rang for classes and I had to go in the opposite direction from them.
Sometimes I felt that music, far from being the international language that binds everybody together, had become a wedge between me and my friends. Even the people I knew who were musical—played in the marching band or took piano lessons—didn’t understand.
But then, I didn’t know how to explain myself, anyway.
People asked me about it often enough. You’d think I would have found an easy, logical answer to describe me and music.
I watched Jan and Lisa and Frannie go off together and wondered what they were saying about me. I won’t care about it, I told myself. I’ve bungled a lot of friendships and that’s that. In two years, I’ll be at college, I’ll be a music major, I’ll be with people who understand. Until then I’ll just have to endure high school.
That sounded fine. It carried me about five steps down the hall toward Latin, when I saw, way ahead of me, a boy and a girl sneaking a quick kiss before breaking apart to go their separate ways for the next class.
Two years? I thought miserably. Hang in here alone for two whole years?
I had this overwhelming desire to have somebody love me for myself, not my fingers on the keyboard. To have somebody want to kiss me, not hear me play an old hit tune. I thought how much more warm and wonderful it would be to stroke a boy’s hand instead of ivory, and then I felt absolutely stupid for thinking like that.
My footsteps were getting slower and slower.
The hallways cleared and in another moment I would be late.
Boys, I thought. I don’t even have time to daydream like a normal person, let alone make friends and start dating.
It isn’t worth it, I thought. I’ll tell Ralph I’m quitting. I’m so lonely it hurts and music just isn’t that important.
I scurried alone down the stairs to Latin.