But not in the way Alice thought in that moment.
Not like that.
Not in exchange for answers to her Algebra II homework.
So I was not completely lying when I said, “No. No, Alice. Not at all. I just want to help you.”
I must have seemed somewhat sincere because Alice stopped frowning. But she still seemed distrustful of my actions. I wasn’t sure what to say next, so I just sat there, certain this plan was hopeless. I’d made a total ass of myself.
And then Alice pushed back from the kitchen table, and I was convinced she was about to kick me out, but she just sighed, a big hefty sigh that was almost too big for someone so small. Then she said, “Why are you being so nice to me anyway?”
“Because…” I answered. And I thought about the rumors swirling around Alice. The ones I’d surreptitiously gleaned in the hallways and during passing periods before and after classes.
The party. The sexual texts. The abortion.
I thought about the stall on the second floor that I’d heard students talking about, so recently covered in graffiti about Alice Franklin. They’re calling it the Slut Stall.
Alice was waiting for an answer to her question about why I was being so nice. Her face was silent, staring steadily at me.
“Because…” I said again. “Because … I guess I think you deserve it.”
The moment I said it I knew it was exactly the right response.
I also knew it was one hundred percent true.
Alice didn’t kick me out. She looked down at the kitchen floor for a minute, and then she brought her big brown eyes back to look at me.
“Can you help me with one more problem?” she said, opening her book up again.
“With as many as you want,” I told her, and I reached for a pencil.
Kelsie
These are the things that keep running through my brain even though I don’t want them to:
• The Slut Stall.
• Telling people about Alice and the abortion.
• The Really Awful Stuff that happened to me last summer.
• Alice and Tommy that night at Elaine’s party.
• Tommy Cray in general.
• Alice Franklin in particular.
• Whether or not I deserve to go to hell if there actually is a hell for me to go to.
It’s like my brain has been working so crazy hard at not thinking about certain things that I don’t really have time to appreciate the fact that I’m a full-fledged popular girl now. I sit with Elaine and Maggie and all their friends every single day, right in the middle of the noise and the inside jokes and the attention. I hang out at Elaine’s house a lot and we gossip about everything. And it’s really fun. I would be a huge, ridiculous liar if I told you it isn’t fun.
But.
Still.
The other day I noticed Alice talking to Kurt Morelli in the hallway. Elaine and me and some of the other girls were walking by and there they were. Alice was standing there in her gray sweatshirt and jeans, her arms squeezed up tight around her chest with her hands tucked under her armpits. Like she was trying to shrink into nothing. Kurt was acting like he didn’t know where to look or put his body, like he was just really uncomfortable being alive. Alice was saying something and Kurt was nodding his head and it was the weirdest image I’d seen in a long time.
“What the hell is that about?” Elaine muttered to me, and not all that quietly either.
“Oh my God,” I said, because it was the only thing I could think of.
“I hope he doesn’t get her pregnant,” somebody added, and we all sort of collapsed into each other, giggling. The thought of Kurt and Alice doing it was so hilarious that we had to hold each other up to keep from passing out with laughter.
I don’t know if Alice heard what we said or not.
Seeing her talking to Kurt Morelli was totally bizarre. Even though I know the other girls don’t feel the same way, there is still a little part of me that sees Alice as this unattainably cool girl in my freshman homeroom on the first day of high school. The kind of girl who swore out loud with total confidence and deemed me worthy of being her friend even though my mom was way too crazy into religion and I didn’t know how to put on eyeliner. The kind of girl who acted like getting asked out by a guy was the most boring thing in the whole world because it happened to her, like, every single day.
So seeing Alice talking to the strangest guy in school was really unsettling.
But the truth is, even though there’s some of me that can remember what it was like to meet the Incredible Alice Franklin way back in ninth grade, mostly it feels like the real Alice Franklin has moved away. Or turned into a ghost or a different person. Like she’s transformed into a gray sweatshirt with legs.
There’s another thing on the list of things I try not to think about. And that is that first time Alice hung out at my house. We wandered into my den, and my brain was working overtime trying to think of what to say to sound cool, and she ran her raspberry-colored fingernails over the spines of all my mom’s religious books, including Jesus Calling and Power of a Praying Wife. I remember how my cheeks flared up super hot as she peered at some of the covers. I remember holding my breath as she looked around the room and took in all the Christian stuff on the walls.
“My mom’s really intense about the religion thing,” I said, “but I’m, um, totally not.” I hoped my mother couldn’t overhear our conversation from back in the kitchen. Denying your faith in the Lord was the ultimate no-no.
“Oh,” said Alice like she hadn’t even noticed. “That’s cool. I mean, I believe in God and everything. No big deal.”
I remember how my shoulders sank ten feet with relief when she said that.
I miss her. I actually miss her. I know I always got jealous of her and I know she lied to me about giving Mark Lopez a blow job and I know that one of the guys she (probably/maybe) slept with at Elaine’s party was Tommy Cray. I know that when I’m the most upset about The Really Awful Stuff, I blame her for it even though logically that doesn’t make sense … I miss her. I miss doodling on magazines and ordering pizza and eating an entire pan of brownies together just because we could. I miss watching corny, crazy musicals like Cry Baby and The Apple and singing the songs out loud. I miss asking her questions about what sex is like and having sleepovers and watching her call boys in the middle of the night and do a really bad Chinese accent and ask if they wanted extra egg rolls with their order. And I miss gossiping and texting in class to fight off our boredom.