Alice, part one
Sep 24 '08
The Bottom Line Copyright 2008 David MacDonald
This story is extremely long. It took me over a year to write it, and somehow it managed to be a good 37,000 words. I'm sure you'll find some flaws here and there because I ran out of patience in terms of editing it. I also wonder if the characters are little more than one-dimensional stereotypes - I kind of regret how I depict the teenage characters, especially Brittany, but there's no use in a complete rehaul of the story right now....
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Alice would often have a romance with aging books, her heart stirred by the texture of the paper, by the musty smell borne from years of neglect. She would persist with her passion in spite of the occasional tendency to drop into a fit of sneezing if she cracked open a text ailing from the dust and dampness of lengthy and improper storage.
What had made her sympathize to those lonely, abandoned books was how those simple organic things, mere slips of paper formed from the sludge and pulp of felled trees, containing words and ideas planted by the living blood of writers, had patiently and quietly yearned for any kind of affection. A hand caressing the soft cover, the eyes reading and making an honest effort to understand everything it said.
Alice often dealt with books, words and ideas in her position as a high school teacher. She assumed the authority to move young minds somewhere beyond their mundane and temporal experience, beyond their Friday night wanderings through restaurant parking lots, malls and darkened sidewalks, to visit new worlds nestled within the pages of a particularly compelling title But persuasion was a perpetual struggle.
When Alice began her teaching career nearly 20 years ago, the lure of television was her main competition. Students hoped and prayed the book they were assigned to read was adapted into a film. Many of them would suffer through some boring movie that wasn’t even in colour if it meant not straining one’s eyeballs over some tedious black font on a page. This often happened, despite the fact that a student would inevitably get the test wrong because what he or she was recalling was something that had been slightly adjusted or outright changed in its transit from page to screen.
Now Alice would have wanted to pray herself that her students would use such an old-fashioned tactic as renting a video. In this age, every book report that came across her desk carried with it a major dose of suspicion, as she wondered which one of these reports was lifted wholesale from some sneaky website offering free copies of previously composed reports.
Alice had considered herself a technophobe. She long resisted the need to purchase a computer, not for any firm reason except that she hadn’t thought she needed one. As long as you could get a good grip of a pen and had some paper to write on, then you were okay. People wrote letters on paper, they wrote stories on paper, they even wrote book reports with it.
But considering what passed for handwriting these days among the youth who attended her school, perhaps the conversion to computers came just at the right time. With computers, everyone’s handwriting was uniform and legible.
And her colleagues were all using computers anyway. The Department of Education gave them all e-mail addresses - even Alice got one. The fact was that occasionally a student will want to pass in an assignment (even one that wasn’t plagiarized) or ask a question through e-mail. This was a good invention for any student who may have had a paralyzing fear of standing within a five-foot radius of a teacher or any other authority figure.
Eventually Alice decided she’d buy a laptop. She feared the first day, when she stuck her toes into the mechanical waters and explored all of the intricate parts of the machine. All those different programs, with all of those different commands. She couldn’t expect to remember all of the rules, she thought. File, edit, format, help - definitely help was what she needed.
But she soon found that she could use it, and ended up resorting to it more often than she could have imagined. She would even take it to her frequent Saturday trips to the coffee shop overlooking University Avenue, including today.
There was a time she would have sat in this coffee shop with a cup of tea or a glass of water - tap water, never from the bottle - and a blueberry muffin, with a book in her hand. She would have done this every once in a while for many years - in fact, for much of the time she had been teaching she would have also spent time at this coffee shop on a Saturday afternoon.
But more often than not the laptop came along with the book. If she got bored with her book, she’d surf on some websites, look up some information on any of the current authors on her classroom schedule, something to spice up the discussion between her and the students.
Alice didn’t really want to stare at the screen for hours, though. Sometimes she would just look out the window, her chin resting on her clenched fingers, watching the people walking along the sidewalks, or the cars as they attempted to back up from the parking spots and into the street again. She saw the employee on duty - a tall, skinny guy who looked to be just into university - go out with a bottle of Windex to wipe the storefront window clean.
She hadn’t noticed the voices coming from the sidewalk, or the owners of those voices as they walked on by, as they peered into the window ever so quickly even as they ceased to stop moving. One of them had said “Mrs Prouse,” suggesting that it was unexpected for someone like her to be sitting in a coffee shop with a laptop on the table like a normal person. Those two girls who voiced her name would have probably done the same thing, if they could have afforded the laptop.
Alice wasn’t really focusing on any specific person or object. She just wanted her eyes to relax for a few moments, to escape from the quick barrage of information she had let herself get swept away in. She let her vision go limp, as the objects around her became abstract and indistinct.
“Lost in thought, my friend?” asked a voice.
Alice shifted her eyes toward the origin of the voice, the voice she recognized as Tina’s. “Oh, hi, I didn’t even see you come in.”
“I just got here; came back from a wedding.”
It took a few seconds for Alice to focus on the objects around her once again, and on the outlines of her friend as she sat down on the seat across from her. Tina was wearing a simple but lovely black dress that shimmied all along her body and down just near her ankles. It was one of those low-cut dresses that showed off some impressive cleavage. Her slightly tanned skin that painted her arms and face added to the beauty. But her hair, which had the beginnings of length around her head, was slightly unkempt, with strands of hair crisscrossing over her head.
“You look elegant,” Alice said, smiling.
“If you wonder why my hair is all tangled, I was sitting in one of the cars following the ceremony. The top was down, of course - we were yelling and waving at everyone, while Tim was honking the horn. Damn, there really was no point in doing my hair today was there?”
“You still look great,” Alice responded.
“Sure, I do.... that’s why I’ve attended five weddings and haven’t got married myself yet. I even caught the bouquet at two of them.... what gives?”
Alice didn’t have the same kind of luck. She had been to weddings but was never lucky enough to catch the bouquet. As if some superstitious folly would have made a difference in her lovelife.
“I’ve got a wedding dance to go to very soon, too,” Tina said. “Another one of my friends also got married today... what are the odds of that?”
“Must be a sale on wedding dresses.”
“Oh, Alice, you’re so naive - the more expensive the better. You know how these things go, go big or go home. So what are you doing tonight?”
Alice smiled as she rested her head in one of her hands, as if she were embarrassed about something. “Playing with this laptop, I think. Maybe checking a few papers.”
“On a Saturday? Holy sh*t, Alice - no wonder we’re single. It’s great when we’re in our 20s - all sorts of stuff to do and people to do it with. But now.... they’re all married... except us.”
The idea of two weddings in one day clearly got Tina to thinking about the concept. “Oh well, I’m 42 - I’m not worried about it,” said Alice.
“Yea, neither am I. My mother gave up on asking me about that a long time ago. Anyway... I better get going to Wal-Mart to pick up some things - some snacks and pop.”
“You’ll be the most attractive shopper there.”
“Well...... Bryan told me I shouldn’t go in like this because my boobs will probably fall out of my dress.” making a gesture to emphasis her point.
Alice laughed. “Well, that could happen if you’re not careful.”
“Everyone’s seen them anyway,” Tina said, with a tone of dismissal.
Alice laughed out loud at Tina’s shocking confession, which turned out not to be as shocking as it sounded. “Oh, excuse me, Alice,” Tina laughed. “I don’t mean *these* boobs!”
“That’s good....” Alice said, still laughing. “I was worried you might have been the most popular person on the Internet.” Alice was aware people did use the Internet to investigate such things.
“It would be a sad, sad world if I were....” Tina said, as she rose from her seat. “If people were staring at photos of some nameless stranger and her breasts for entertainment, what does that say about us.....”
Alice clasped her fingers together and rested her chin upon them. “I think it says ... we’re incredibly bored people.....”
“Gee thanks. I was hoping you’d say it meant I was incredibly hot.” she said with a wry grin.
“Have fun tonight,” Alice said kindly.
“Thanks.” as she walked past the clock on the wall on the way to the exit. Alice noticed the clock reading 5:05 pm. She was actually getting herself ready to leave herself, but she had to sit for a few remaining minutes to mull things over in her head first.
She had to wait until she knew for certain that Tina could not see her and wonder where she was going in such a hurry, after having already suggested her night would be uneventful. Alice had told her a lie, and didn’t want to give her friend any ideas as to why she did so.
But it was necessary, she would have told herself. After all, there are always portions of your life that are known only to yourself. For Alice, this was just one of those portions that were withheld from the public, spoken record.
It was more than a year ago when Alice met Thomas. His daughter was one of Alice’s students in Grade 11 English. Brittany hadn’t been doing exceptionally well, at least not to Alice’s demanding standards. She hadn’t failed yet, but she was only scraping by at around 60 per cent.
When Brittany and her father came to parent-teacher interview night, they were going to hear the truth. Brittany had to try harder, and push herself if she wanted to get a decent grade before entering her final year in high school. The way it stood now was that she wasn’t reading her assigned texts to completion. Her reports were not very original, just spouting off stuff she probably read on the Internet but was smart enough to reword in such a way that she could not be technically accused of plagiarism. If she was going to keep dragging her feet, she wasn’t going to be adequately prepared for post-secondary.
“Your daughter is a delightful person,” Alice said when she and Thomas started with the serious discussion. “She always has a lovely smile when she talks with her friends before class, and she never disrupts the class.....” Alice often spoke in that calming, folksy accent that lingered even though it had been years since she moved away from Newfoundland.
“But... I have to say she’s... struggling.” A good word to use when the student was sitting right there. She didn’t want to say “hasn’t done so well in class.” Struggling sounds more noble. “She only came out with a 58 per cent last term.....”
Thomas looked at her daughter for a moment. Of course, he already knew of her low mark; this was no surprise. He then returned his glance to the teacher, with a look that shimmered with a self-conscious levity.
“Well... you give the students some pretty tough books to read. I don’t blame her for struggling,” he said.
Alice gave a grimace with her soft, wide lips. She knew from her experience that a lot of the parents who came through the door with their students probably would have an even more pronounced struggle with the materials. Many adults of a certain age who live in this province didn’t even graduate high school. The student doing poorly was nevertheless more successful with his or her education than their own parents.
“I understand,” Alice said, “Brittany.... do you find your assigned work difficult?”
The teenager, who probably wanted to appear confident but instead looked defeated and timid, had her head downturned slightly before looking at her teacher with a shy smile. “Yea... sometimes.”
“When I was in school I found it difficult too. I read all that pretentious, antiquated Shakespeare - all that verse that didn’t even rhyme, for God’s sake - and thought, oh, how could anyone understand this stuff. But - if you look into it, it’s not really that bad. It’s quite enriching.”
Brittany almost seemed to want to be convinced her teacher was correct, but the concept intimidated her, even with the encouraging smile Ms Prouse gave.
But Thomas was merely dismissive of Alice’s sentiment. “My kids are here to get a good education, and to hopefully get a good job. I don’t see how reading all these books from hundreds of years ago is going help her to get work.”
“Well, she’s not going to get a good job if she doesn’t pass,” she said. Alice didn’t want to admit it, but she hated moments like this. She hated how the parents would try to rewrite the rules when things weren’t going well for their kids. This man can complain all he wants, but that won’t change the fact that the more education you have, the more eligible you are for certain jobs. Or did he want Brittany to be a gas station attendant all her life?
“Lady, I work at a construction firm. I don’t expect a flagger on the side of the road to hold a sign saying anything more complex than “Stop” and ‘Drive Slowly’.”
The nerve endings around Alice’s eyes twitched at the word ‘lady.’
“Just .... give her a break,” he continued.
Alice exhaled. She didn’t want to have an argument. Schools were paid for by the taxpayers, who expected their kids to pass no matter what. Why are we paying for you if my kids can’t pass your class, they might say.
“I’ll.... I’ll see what I can do.” Alice mouthed her empty statement while looking at Brittany, who continued to hide her shame, badly. Alice wished she could help her, but she could not force her to change her ways. Brittany would have to figure all that out for herself.
Brittany did pass. Of course, Alice didn’t have full control over this, as she only taught one of Brittany’s courses. Nevertheless, Alice did give Brittany a 60 per cent. Brittany did enough to scrape by, Alice reasoned. She wasn’t a fully-quantified disaster, so why humiliate her with a failing grade over only writing her essays with, say, 500 words instead of the required 600? Even if Brittany didn’t quite reach the conclusion of her thoughts as a result? Compromises like that were just part of the job.
*
Nearly a year passed before Alice and Thomas saw their paths cross once again, although the stories on the precise moment this actually happened would have differed for each party.
Alice had made an appointment for a haircut one Saturday afternoon. And somehow this surprised Thomas as he happened to walk past the storefront.
He was about to retrieve Brittany from the nearby mall. He had custody of her that particular weekend. Her mother dropped her off at the mall, so she could meet friends who were already there, while Thomas had what he thought was the more strenuous task of retrieving not only his daughter but her three friends, who lived across town.
He grumbled about that. He wondered if he was just a chauffeur for all of these parents who didn’t want to take responsibility for their kids. He didn’t even know these people - and yet his ex-wife just flippantly said that, yea, my bum of an ex-husband will pick up the kids and drive them back home.
And that’s when he saw her - Brittany’s teacher. The woman who punished his daughter for not reading all that pretentious garbage, for not matching up to her haughty elitism. And yet this teacher was patronizing a business that ordinary people like himself would go to.
“She gets her hair done at First Choice haircutters?” he mumbled to himself. His first thought was that she ought to have been at some fancy salon where only women who paid $40 hung out.
But upon further consideration, he recalled that her hairstyle wasn’t a complicated construction. It was like a buzz cut, but slightly longer. It must have felt like bristles protruding from her head. With that butch hairdo she might have been a lesbian.
Not that he objected to lesbians. Of course. But he felt a bit unsettled not having known she was teaching Brittany’s class - perhaps she was sneaking in some dyke references during class. Why didn’t he think of saying that on parent/teacher day? But he only ever thought of his good ideas long after the fact.
*
“So how do you like that?”
“Looks fabulous,” Alice remarked, running her fingers through the compact strands of hair on her head. “This will certainly keep me cool for the summer. Don’t need all of those extra layers.”
She slid her glasses back on before walking to the cash register.
“Most customers who want their hair short like that are those preteen boys who think it’s real cool to have short, short hair,” said the hairdresser. Alice’s hair wasn’t quite that short, but the hairdresser thought the parallel was close enough to make the point.
“I like to go to the beach and feel the breeze tickle my scalp,” said Alice. “Makes me shiver all over in a good way.”
“I see,” said the hairdresser, amused by the woman’s unusual nature.
Alice paid for the haircut and then walked out into the late spring air. The mild breeze ran its aggressive fingers along her head continuously as she paced to her car. She saw a car with a man and three teenage girls driving by, and thought to herself how long and tired-looking her hair would have been, if she had to have been in charge of three teenage girls each and every day.
She went to one of the clubs further downtown so she could wait for Tina, who was planning to meet her very soon. The two were going to link up and then head off to a house party at a friend of Tina’s.
Alice decided to get herself a bottle of beer in the meantime, to give herself a head start before the evening began. She was anticipating this evening if only because it was an opportunity to meet up with people who weren’t her colleagues. It was good to see different people every once in a while.
The club was quiet at 6 pm, with a few pairings at scattered tables around the room. Alice was the only one sitting alone, she thought, until she noticed somebody else also drinking alone.
She merely glanced at him for a second or two, as he sat three tables down on the right hand side of the room. She barely tried to focus on his face, before she turned back to her own beer.
Drinking alone in a public area wasn’t exactly a noble profession. If one was bored, it was less of a humiliation to just go to the liquor store and do all one’s drinking while watching TV or reading a book. That’s what Alice normally did.
She sort of hoped this guy wasn’t some pathetic creature who drowned his own sorrows in drink, who had nowhere to go so came here just to say to himself that he went out of the house today.
She finished her beer, but was going to hold off on more until she got to the party. She wanted to feel good, not show up to the party fully trashed.
Although if she were trashed, it would make for some interesting conversation, she thought. Especially if any of them knew she was a teacher. If children had been permitted to go to such parties, what they would have learned could perhaps have made them question the point of being taught by individuals who supposedly had all the answers, who knew how to guide a children into the proper direction.
She could hear the bottoms of the shoes cracking against the hardwood floor as the single man took himself out of the club. She assumed those sounds came from him, as she later happened to notice the bartender wiping off the now-unoccupied table.
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Member: David Macdonald
Location: Prince Edward Island
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Alice, a story in nine parts, posted on Sept 24, 2008 - http://www.epinions.com/content_5241348228
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