Chapter Six

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Brenda handed Alison the early edition of the Times the following Monday morning and sat down without comment beside her in the fifth row of the theater. Alison opened to the classified section and searched for a minute before finding the ad.

B.P. Mr.H. Worst Director World Front Everyone

"You cannot tell Mr. Hoglan that," Alison said, not really surprised. This was only number three, but in a queer sort of way, she was already getting used to the Caretaker's messages. "It would hurt his feelings."

"I'm not worried about his feelings. I'm worried about getting kicked off the play."

"But you hate playing Essie."

"How can you say that? Or are you just so anxious to run the whole thing?"

"Right. I'd look real cute on stage answering my own questions." Alison was getting a might fit of Brenda's jealousy. "So, are you going to do it?"

"Do I have a choice? I don't want a brick wall to fall on me." Brenda glanced at the door, thier sleepyhead cast stumbling in followed by their bright-eyed teacher. She added, "I just hope the jerk gives me half an excuse to chew him out."

With the opening night of You Can't Take It with You rapidly approaching, Mr. Hoglan wanted them to run through all of act one today, finishing the other two acts Tuesday and Wednesday morning. Everyone seemed comfortable with their lines. Unfortunately, Fran had yet to return the props--God knew what she was doing with them. So far, Fran had been able to stall Mr. Hall. She didn't want to repaint Teddy until she was sure the Caretaker was through enjoying the goat. Kipp thought she should go ahead with the job, collect the money, get another command to restyle it as a pig, received another request to fix it, and keep collecting the money. Fran did not think that was funny.

Alice did not appear on stage until approximately ten minutes into the play so Alison sat in the seats not far from Mr. Hoglan and waited to see if Brenda had the guts to carry through.since there were few nondrama students present, she briefly wondered how the Caretaker would know if Brenda had committed the foul deed or not. then she had the disturbing idea that the Caretaker must be present. She scrutinized the six people unconnected with the play who were watching the rehearsal--three girls, three guys-- and didn't recognize a single one. They must be either freshmen or sophomores, aspiring actors, too young, so it would seem, to be behind such a complex scheme. Then she realized that if Brenda did tell Mr. Hoglan off, the whole school would know about it by break, and the rest of the city by lunch. One way or another, if he or she had listening ears, the Caretaker would know what had gone down.

One thing you had to give to Brenda, she didn't hesitate. She had hardly appeared on stage when she began to do Essie's idiotic stretching exercises in an unusually obscene manner--spread-eagled and the like. Mr. Hoglan called for a halt.

"Brenda," he said kindly, wattling his way to the front, tugging thoughtfully at his gray beard, not knowing he was about to have a professional qualifications severely questioned. "This is not an audition for Hair. Why are you being so . . . suggestive?"

"I don't know what you mean," Brenda said.

Mr. Hoglan did not like to argue. "Could you please perform Essie's limbering exercises as you have done for the last three weeks?" He turned back toward his spot in the last row. Brenda stopped him with a word.

"No."

Mr. Hoglan paused. "What did you say?"

"I'll do them the way I feel is best. You're the one who's always telling us to be natural on stage. Well, that's exactly what I'm doing, letting it all hang out. Although I don't know why I listen to you at all. To tell you the truth, I think you're the worst director in the entire world."

Fine, Alison thought, she had got the line out. Now if she could tactfully withdraw, Mr. Hoglan might let it pass.

But either Brenda thought the Caretaker would want more blood or else she was really speaking her mind; and when Brenda started on the ladder, a brick wall couldn't have shut her up. Alison began to squirm in her seat.

"Brenda," Mr. Hoglan said, startled, "that's very unkind of you. I think you should apologize."

"This is a free country. I can speak my mind. You have your tastes and I have mine. And our tastes are far, far apart. Of course, I'm not a perfect Essie. I was never meant to play such a dumb cluck. But you said I didn't 'have the right look for Alice.' So why did you pick Alison over me? I'll tell you why. Because you're a talentless, pompous, burned out---"

"Enough!" Mr. Hoglan said sharply, his red cheeks puffing up like a beaver's. Alison felt terrible for him. "Since that is how you feel, young lady, your part will go to someone with more appreciative. Please excuse yourself from the room."

Brenda swallowed painfully, lowering her head, realizing she had let herself get carried away. But as she trudged down the stage steps, passing the instructor, she did not stop to apologize. She walked straight for the door. Alison flew after her, catching her in the hallway. Tears were forming at the corners of Brenda's eyes but she would not let herself cry.

"Are you OK?" Alison asked.

"I'll live." Then she stopped and gave a lopsided smile. "How was I?"

Alison put an arm around her shoulder. "It was a great performance. I'm sure the Caretaker would be proud."

Tony asked Alison on a date the day after Brenda's parents grounded their daughter for two weeks for shooting her mouth off. The proposal happened under fairly trite circumstances. They were passing in the hallway and she just happened to drop off the books. He stopped to help, and when she was all in one piece and through thanking him, he asked if she was busy Friday night. She did it again. She said "yes" when she meant "no." But he got the picture.

Alison dressed for the date with care, several times in fact, hampered by a lack of information on what Tony had planned. She donned an expensive flowered dress, squeezed into a pair of tight jeans, finally settling on what seemed a compromise, a green plaid skirt and a white turtlenecked sweater. She worked on her makeup for an hour and discovered when she was cover girl perfect that she was allergic to an ingredient in a previously untried blush---she couldn't stop sneezing. She was washing it all off when she start Tony's Ford Tempo cruising up her deserted block. She was lucky to get on her lipstick.

Tony charmed her mother and reassured her father, and still Alison was glad when they were out of the house and seated in his car. He was wearing dress slacks but an undistinguished short-sleeved shirt, and she decided their attire was fairly matched. The upholstery had a fresh new smell.

"Is this car yours?" She asked.

He smiled. "That's right, I had this Tempo when we went to the mall. It actually belongs to my dad. My car looks like Kipp's did after it hit the wall."

She liked how he was not out to impress her with what neat wheels he drove, like so many other guys. When he had taken her out to lunch, she had been amazed to discover he was not even remotely like she had imagined. Where had her suave iron-nerved athlete gone? She didn't know and she didn't care. He was very much the dreamer. One revelation had summed up the afternoon. He had told her he hated football.

He started the car. "What would you like to do?"

Make out, Alison thought. "I'm hungry, that is, if you're hungry . . . would you like to eat?"

"Sure. I know a joint that serves Weight Watchers french fries."

She laughed. "My diet, oh yeah, I'm over that. Right now, I could eat a cow. That is, if we can find a restaurant around here. You know, Tony, I could have met you back in a normal section of town. You didn't have to drive all the way out here."

They rolled forward, Tony studying the empty houses, the wide blank windows, the unstained concrete driveways, the deserted sidewalks. "Are you still the only people in this tract?"

"Nobody here but us chickens. It looks like it's going to stay that way for a while. I went for a walk around sunset yesterday and ran into one of the brokers who has been showing the houses. Before, he'd told me that difficulties with a group-financing package were slowing buyers from moving in. But now it seems the developers are having major cash-flow problems. The contractors haven't all been paid and there're lawsuits and liens and bad blood and i can have my choice of over two hundred different bedrooms!" She made the joke to soften the edge that had automatically begun to creep into her voice. At first the empty area had spooked her, the way her steps echoed like pursuing footfalls, how her words called back to her as they rebounded off the silent walls. But now the lack of humanity was outright weighing on her soul. More and more, she felt she was being watched.

Still, she continued her twilight walks. The fright drew as well as a repelled her. It was as if she was searching for something she intuitively felt she needed to find to be safe.

"Do they have a guard to protect against vandalism?"

Alison nodded. "Harry, yeah. He drives around in this tiny security cart. He's always drunk. The Hell's Angels could show up in force and he probably wouldn't notice them."

"I'll be careful not to run him over," Tony said, picking up speed, wrapping through the maze to the street that led to the freeway a few miles south. "And don't worry about me having to come out this way. I enjoy driving." He grinned. "Especially when I can see where I'm going."

It was the only reference made to the incident all night. They both deserved as break.

They drove forever and ended up in a restaurant not far from Grant High. Tony explained that, since he was such a local hero, the meals would be on the house. It was a joke she believed while she was ordering her lobster. But he had New York steak so she didn't feel so bad, and she really was starving. She'd read that love--or maybe it had been lust--stimulated the appetite. They planned to go to a movie after dinner but they talked so long over dessert that they missed the last show. They ended up flying a kite in the park across from the school. Alison had never flown a kite at night. You couldn't see the silly thing and knew it was up there somewhere only by the tug on the string. When they were done, Tony simply let it go.

The evening went by in a flash. On the drive home, Alison began to worry what was going to happen. She had no intention of giving up her virginity on the first date---she would put up a fair fight, so she told herself---but she was kind of hoping to put some tarnish on her good girl image. With Tony, knowing that he had gone out with Amazon Joan, she wasn't sure what to expect. He had in fact talked about Joan over dinner. he had said dating Joan was more like being in a war than being in a relationship, and he was, "filing for conscientious objector status" which sounded encouraging to her.

He parked directly in front of her house and she was disappointed. Necking would have been much simpler around the block. They certainly wouldn't have had to rent a motel room. He turned off the ignition and looked at her for a long time. The streetlights weren't working and she couldn't read his expression. "I had a great time," he said finally.

"I bet you say that to all your girls." She smiled, clapping her hands together to keep them from shaking.

"You're right," he said. He reached over and pulled her toward him. He had his arm around her and had kissed her once before she knew what had happened. Just her luck, her first important kiss and she had missed it. His lips, however, were still only inches away and she prepped her brain to make a permanent record of all the sensations to come. "What was your name anyway?" he asked.

"Ralph," she whispered. She could see his eyes--that was all. His hand had slipped down her right side. It kind of tickled but she didn't want to laugh and spoil the mood.

"You know," he said, running his other hand through her curls, "you have incredibly beautiful hair for a Ralph."

My middle name is Susie." And that was the honest truth. She wanted him to kiss her again, preferably soon. Her parents would have heard the car pull up. Their bedroom was on the opposite side of the house but her dad might, if she didn't come inside shortly, come to the front door. But Tony seemed content to play with Ralph's hair. "I had a great time too . . . ahh . . . what was your name?"

"Call me Tony."

"Tony. Tony?"

"Yeah?"

She kissed him. It was a hard deep one and it lasted a while and as the seconds turned into minutes, she felt a pleasant falling sensation, like she was a warm tropical cloud and another part of her was rain that she was releasing to earth. Perhaps she was being overly romantic. She decided it was a distinct possibility when she slipped off the seat and bumped her head on the dashboard, her legs bunching around the stick shift. So much for her falling rain. Her skirt ran up her legs practically to her hips and if her dad decided to check on them now, her relationship with Tony would be history.

"You have nice legs," he observed, offering his hand. She made it back into her seat without major difficulty.
"Thank you."

"Are we in danger here?"

She laughed softly. "It depends on what you're afraid of."

He had a hand resting on her bare knee and the other one was tracing erotic circles inside her ear and this was not her imagination;his touch was a pure delight. "If it's of my dad, yes."

"Dads don't frighten me. I'm bigger than most of them."

"What does frighten you?" She asked absently, leaning back, closing her eyes, his hand moving from her leg to her chin. She waited for the kiss that never came.

"You. It's easy to be with you, tok easy, maybe." He traced her lower lip lightly, sending a nice shiver to the base of her spine, then withdrew both of his hands and sat back. She opened her eyes, feeling a pang. He was staring up the road.

"What is it?" she asked.

"Nothing."

This uncomfortable moment wasn't supposed to be in evening's script. He was hers tonight, wasn't he? "Joan?" she mumbled, feeling sore.

"No."

"Tony, you can tell me."

"No," he said, raising his voice. He added quietly, "it isn't another girl."

Now wait a second, she thought. Tony wasn't . . . his calling her Ralph . . . he couldn't be . . . what the hell is going on here? "Is it Ralph?"

That caught him off gaurd and she was infinitely relieved to see him smile and shake his head. "No, I'm old fashioned. I still think girls are prettier than boys."

"Then what is it? Can't you tell me?"

He did not answer right away. His attention seemed drawn far off, or perhaps he was so closely considering her question that he had forgotten her. The effect was the same and she no longer felt his closeness. "It's not my place to talk about it," he said finally. "I shouldn't have brought it up. I'm sorry." He touched the keys. "I should be getting home."

"Tony?" she pleaded softly, putting her hand on his shoulder. This was no way to say good-bye. Left this way, up in the air, she might not be able to get to sleep tonight. He wouldn't look at her.

"Sweet dreams, Alison. I really like you."

"But can't we go out together again?" she asked, dying a bit waiting for his answer. He glanced up the road, at the rows of empty houses, and frowned.

"That might not depend on you or me," he said.

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