Patiently Alice
Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
A Summer of Surprises for Alice
It’s the summer after Alice’s freshman year, she’s survived her breakup with Patrick, and she and her friends are looking forward to their jobs as assistant camp counselors. Alice feels as if she’s finally gotten a handle on life.
But Alice soon learns that the only thing she can count on is change. Pamela’s mother is contemplating coming home, Lester is contemplating leaving home, and even Alice’s father’s romance with Miss Summers hits an unexpected snag. But most surprising of all are the shocking revelations about some of Alice’s closest friends. Can Alice keep up with all the changes around her?
Read more about Alice at http://www.SimonandSchuster.com/Alice
Look inside for a complete list of Alice books.
SIMON PULSE
Simon & Schuster, New York
Cover photograph copyright © 2003 by Nick Vaccaro
Cover designed by Russell Gordon
www.simonandschuster.com
1004
PHYLLIS REYNOLDS NAYLOR is the author of more than one hundred books, but the Alice books are some of her most favorite to write. She lives in Bethesda, Maryland, with her husband, Rex, and they are the parents of two grown sons.
* * *
Patiently Alice
Books by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
SHILOHBOOKS
Shiloh
Shiloh Season
Saving Shiloh
THE ALICE BOOKS
Starting with Alice
Alice in Blunderland
Lovingly Alice
The Agony of Alice
Alice in Rapture, Sort of
Reluctantly Alice
All But Alice
Alice in April
Alice In-Between
Alice the Brave
Alice in Lace
Outrageously Alice
Achingly Alice
Alice on the Outside
The Grooming of Alice
Alice Alone
Simply Alice
Patiently Alice
Including Alice
Alice on Her Way
THE BERNIE MAGRUDER BOOKS
Bernie Magruder and the Case of the Big Stink
Bernie Magruder and the Disappearing Bodies
Bernie Magruder and the Haunted Hotel
Bernie Magruder and the Drive-thru Funeral Parlor
Bernie Magruder and the Bus Station Blowup
Bernie Magruder and the Pirate’s Treasure
Bernie Magruder and the Parachute Peril
Bernie Magruder and the Bats in the Belfry
THE CAT PACK MYSTERIES
The Grand Escape
The Healing of Texas Jake
Carlotta’s Kittens
Polo’s Mother
THE WITCH BOOKS
Witch’s Sister
Witch Water
The Witch Herself
The Witch’s Eye
Witch Weed
The Witch Returns
THE YORK TRILOGY
Shadows on the Wall
Faces in the Water
Footprints at the Window
PICTURE BOOKS
King of the Playground
The Boy with the Helium Head
Old Sadie and the Christmas Bear
Keeping a Christmas Secret
Ducks Disappearing
I Can’t Take You Anywhere
Sweet Strawberries
Please DO Feed the Bears
BOOKS FOR YOUNG READERS
Josie’s Troubles
How Lazy Can You Get?
All Because I’m Older
Maudie in the Middle
One of the Third Grade Thonkers
BOOKS FOR MIDDLE READERS
Walking Through the Dark
How I Came to Be a Writer
Eddie, Incorporated
The Solomon System
The Keeper
Beetles, Lightly Toasted
The Fear Place
Being Danny’s Dog
Danny’s Desert Rats
Walker’s Crossing
BOOKS FOR OLDER READERS
A String of Chances
Night Cry
The Dark of the Tunnel
The Year of the Gopher
Send No Blessings
Ice
Sang Spell
Jade Green
Blizzard’s Wake
This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
First Simon Pulse edition October 2004
Copyright © 2003 by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
SIMON PULSE
An imprint of Simon & Schuster
Children’s Publishing Division
1230 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10020
www.SimonandSchuster.com
All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.
Also available in an Atheneum Books for Young Readers hardcover edition.
Designed by Sonia Chaghatzbanian
The Library of Congress has cataloged the hardcover edition as follows:
Naylor, Phyllis Reynolds.
Patiently Alice / Phyllis Reynolds Naylor.—1st ed.
p. cm.
Summary: The summer after ninth grade, Alice and her friends spend three weeks working as assistant counselors at a camp for disadvantaged children and cope with all kinds of changes.
ISBN-13: 978-0-689-82636-8 (hc.)
ISBN-10: 0-689-82636-2 (hc.)
[1. Camps—Fiction. 2. Poor—Fiction. 3. Friendship—Fiction. 4. Remarriage—Fiction. 5. Family life—Fiction. 6. Single parent families—Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.N24 Pat 2003
[Fic]—dc21 2002012887
ISBN-13: 978-0-689-87073-6 (pbk.)
ISBN-13: 978-1-4391-1581-7 (eBook)
ISBN-10: 0-689-87073-6 (pbk.)
To my new Alice editor, Caitlyn Dlouhy.
Welcome.
Contents
One: Leaving Home
Two: Into the Wilds
Three: Around the Campfire
Four: Wet
Five: Gerald
Six: A Little Lesson in Growing Up
Seven: Night Out
Eight: News from Silver Spring
Nine: Going Coed
Ten: The Great Kelpie Hunt
Eleven: Girl Talk
Twelve: Home
Thirteen: Viva la Difference
Fourteen: The Big Announcement
Fifteen: The Go-Between
Sixteen: Confession
Seventeen: Celebration
Patiently Alice
1
* * *
Leaving Home
The summer between ninth and tenth grades, I learned that life doesn’t always follow your agenda.
I had signed up to be an assistant counselor at a camp for disadvantaged kids. Somehow I had the idea that at the end of three weeks I could get the little girls in my cabin feeling like one big happy family. First, though, I had to talk myself into going.
I was sitting at the breakfast table watching Dad pour half-and-half in his coffee, and I decided that was a metaphor for my feelings. Half of me wanted to go to camp the following morning, and half of me wanted to stay home and be in on the excitement of Dad’s marriage to Sylvia two weeks after I got back.
I wanted something to happen. I wanted at least one thing to be resolved. Everything seemed up in the air these days—Dad’s engagement to Sylvia, Pamela’s mother leaving th
e family, Elizabeth’s quarrels with her parents, Lester’s on-again off-again relationships with women, Patrick and I breaking up. My life in general, you might say.
“Are you eating that toast or just mauling it?” asked Lester, my twenty-something brother, who was leaving soon for his summer class at the U of Maryland. “That’s the last of the bread, and if you don’t want it, I do.”
I slid my plate toward him. “I can’t decide whether to go to camp or stay here and be helpful,” I said.
“Be helpful,” said Lester. “Go to camp.”
I turned toward Dad, hoping he might beg me to stay.
“I can’t think of a single reason why you shouldn’t go, Alice,” he said. “Sylvia’s got everything under control.”
That’s what I was afraid of. Not that she shouldn’t be in control. It was her wedding, not mine. But Sylvia had just got back from England, where she’d been teaching for a year, the wedding was about six weeks off, and if they had done any planning, I hadn’t heard about it.
“I thought you were supposed to start planning a wedding a year in advance,” I said.
“We’re just having a simple ceremony for friends and family,” Dad said, turning the page of his newspaper and folding it over. He looked like a cozy teddy bear in his white summer robe with floppy sleeves, and for a moment I felt like going over and sitting in his lap. He’s lost a little weight, though, on purpose. I know he wants to look handsome and svelte for the wedding, but he’ll always look like a teddy bear to me.
I lifted my glass of orange juice and took a sip. “You’re not just driving over to the courthouse to be married by a justice of the peace, are you?” I asked suspiciously. Maybe it was going to be even simpler than simple. I felt I couldn’t stand it if Sylvia didn’t wear a white gown with all the trimmings. She had already told Dad she didn’t want a diamond engagement ring, and that, according to Pamela Jones, was sacrilege. “How can it be forever if you don’t have a diamond?” she’d said.
“Of course we’re not getting married in a courthouse,” said Dad, and told me they were still planning to have the wedding at the church on Cedar Lane in Bethesda. That was perfect, because it was sort of where they’d met.
Miss Summers was my seventh-grade English teacher at the time, and—because Mom died when I was in kindergarten—I’ve been looking for a new mom ever since. A role model, anyway. And Sylvia, with her blue eyes and light brown hair, her wonderful smile and wonderful scent, seemed the perfect model for me and the perfect wife for Dad. All I had to do was get them together, so I’d invited her to the Messiah Sing-Along at Cedar Lane, and the rest is history.
Well, not quite. It’s taken all this time to make it stick. But she finally gave up her old boyfriend, our junior high assistant principal, Jim Sorringer, for Dad. And now the wedding is set for July 28, and I wanted details. It had seemed impolite to start asking Sylvia questions the minute she got off the plane.
“Long gown and veil?” I asked Dad.
“No, he’s wearing a suit,” said Lester.
“Is Sylvia wearing a long dress?” I asked.
Dad smiled. “I haven’t seen it yet.”
“Orchestra?”
“A piano trio of a good friend of mine, Martin Small,” said Dad.
“Three pianos?”
“Piano, violin, and cello,” Dad said.
“You want him to fill out a questionnaire, Al?” Les asked. My full name is Alice Kathleen McKinley, but Dad and Lester call me Al.
“Something like that,” I said, and grinned. Then I said it aloud: “I just want to feel needed, Dad. I want to make absolutely sure this wedding takes place. Maybe I ought to stay home and help out.”
“If you want to feel needed, hon, you could hardly find a better place than Camp Overlook—all those kids needing attention like you wouldn’t believe.”
That was true, and I knew I couldn’t back out anyway. Pamela Jones, Elizabeth Price, and Gwen Wheeler were going to be assistant counselors along with me. We’d been interviewed, received our instructions, gone through a day of orientation and training, and tomorrow we’d get on one of the buses taking the kids up into the Appalachian Mountains.
The phone rang for the fourth time that morning.
“I’m outta here,” said Lester, scooting back from the table and picking up his books. “See you, Dad.” Lester himself was looking pretty svelte these days. He has thick brown hair—on the sides, anyway. It’s a little thin on top. He’s taller than Dad, but I’ll bet he looks a lot like Dad did when he was Lester’s age. Handsome as anything. All my girlfriends are nuts about him.
I went to the phone in the hallway and picked it up. “Hello?”
“Toilet paper,” came Elizabeth’s voice.
“What?”
“We’d better bring our own. No telling what kind they have at camp,” she said. “And tampons.”
“I’ve already thought of that,” I said. “But I still need to buy a sports bra.”
“And I need a baseball cap to keep the sun out of my eyes,” said Elizabeth. “You want to run over to the shops on Georgia Avenue?”
“I’ll meet you outside,” I said.
Elizabeth lives just across the street, and we were on our way in five minutes. We were trying to think of things we may have forgotten.
“Breath mints,” said Liz.
“Mosquito repellent,” I suggested.
“Imodium, in case we get the runs,” she went on.
I glanced over at her, beautiful Elizabeth with her long dark hair and thick eyelashes, who was studying the list in her hand, covering every conceivable thing that might cause her embarrassment while off in the wilderness. She was wearing jeans and a white T-shirt, and was beginning to look more filled out again after a season of skinniness that had worried not only Pamela and me, but her folks as well.
“Watch out,” I said, steering her away from a signpost. Gwen and Pamela and I joke sometimes that we never have to worry about anything, because Elizabeth will do our worrying for us. Which isn’t exactly true, of course. We just worry about different things.
We got the bra and the cap and stopped at the drugstore for the rest. I was heading for the checkout counter with my mosquito repellent when Elizabeth called, “One more thing, Alice.”
I went back to find her looking at men’s hair tonic and shaving cream.
“Now what?” I asked.
“Just a minute,” was all she said.
I leaned against the shelves behind me and noticed how hair products for men took only half the space of hair stuff for women. Maybe because women have twice as much hair, I thought, smiling to myself. I’m letting my hair grow long now. It’s almost as long as Elizabeth’s, but Pamela still wears hers short, and looks more sophisticated.
I was anxious to get home and finish packing, so when I saw Elizabeth moving slowly along the display a second time, I said, “What are you looking for? Let me help.” Maybe she was supposed to buy something for her dad.
“Oh… something,” said Elizabeth.
“What? I want to get home.”
“Alice, I promised myself I wouldn’t leave this store until I found them,” she said. And then, looking quickly around, she whispered, “Condoms.”
“Condoms?” I yelped. I couldn’t help myself.
Elizabeth clapped one hand over my mouth, but there was no one in our aisle to hear. I jerked her hand away.
“Are you nuts?” I said. “Who for?”
“Anyone,” Elizabeth said determinedly. And then she added, “Well, for Pamela, mostly. Just in case.”
“Pamela?”
“Well, you know how moody she’s been lately.”
“In case of what? She’s moody so she needs condoms?”
“Her mother and everything.”
“Her mother needs condoms?”
“Oh, Alice, when someone’s as upset as Pamela, she could do all sorts of things you wouldn’t expect. We don’t know who she’s going to meet or wh
at the guys are like, and she’ll be away from home.…”
“So will we!” I said.
“Look,” she told me, “I was reading this article—‘If He Won’t, Then You Should’—and it said that especially when a girl is away from home, she should have back-up protection in case she’s in a situation she can’t control.”
I don’t know where Elizabeth finds this stuff.
“If she can control it enough to get a guy to put on a condom, I’d think she could also get herself out of there,” I said.
“Okay, but we don’t know what’s going to happen at camp, right?”
“Hardly that!” I said.
“But just in case, I’ll have condoms for anyone who needs them,” she told me.
I sighed. Elizabeth has been trying so hard to be cool lately that she’s getting bizarre. But right then she looked like a little Mother Superior trying to protect us all, and it struck me as pretty funny.
“Maybe condoms are in the plumbing section,” I said.
“What?” She turned and looked at me.
I tried not to laugh. “You know… you put them on a man’s… uh… faucet.”
She gave me a sardonic smile. “Be serious.”
“Toy counter? When you want to play?” I suggested. “Automotive needs? In case you do it in the backseat of a car?”
“Alice!”
“How about over with the school supplies? No, I’ve got it! In men’s wear!”
She ignored me. “I wonder if we need a prescription.”
“Let’s go home,” I told her.
“No!”
A clerk appeared at the end of our aisle with a box of deodorants and began shelving them. I pushed Elizabeth forward. “Go ask him,” I said.
The man looked up. “Can I help you?” he asked. He was a plump guy of about thirty, friendly and businesslike.
“Yes,” Elizabeth said, her words coming in a rush, cheeks pink, “I wonder if you could tell me where I could find men’s condoms.”
The clerk paused only a moment, then said, in the same businesslike manner, “Aisle eight, next to women’s sanitary products.”
Now Elizabeth’s face turned crimson. The clerk immediately returned to his deodorants, and I pushed Elizabeth around the corner into the next aisle, where we collapsed against each other, trying not to laugh out loud.
