Alice, conclusionSep 24 '08 Write an essay on this topic.
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The Bottom Line Copyright, 2008 David MacDonald -- comments please
The teachers’ party would be a compelling distraction from the emotional aches Alice had received today, she reasoned. The school year was coming to an end in any case, and there was little point in holding on to crushed emotions as a result of individuals she would probably never see again after graduation night. Or at least until the ten-year reunion, at which time Brittany will probably either have forgotten about this incident, or laugh ruefully at herself for nearly sabotaging her own graduation. Many of the guests were already at the party when Alice arrived. A pair of them were sitting on the couch, having a laid-back conversation, while a few others were standing in the kitchen holding some beers, while others were on the back deck enjoying the cool spring nighttime air. “Hey, everyone, what did I miss?” Alice greeted to the pair on the couch. “You made it!” said Bob. “Looking good as always.” “Oh, thank you, you flatter me more than I deserve,” she responded. “It’s just an old black dress.” “Nah, you always come up with your own unique style,” he said. He must have become newly aware of some aspect of her, or perhaps he kept his compliments tucked away during work hours. “Where’s Nancy? I thought she was coming.” Bob and Catherine looked at each other, smiling at the secret they appeared to be sharing and unwilling to reveal to this inquisitor. “Ah, a couple of them are upstairs; not sure what it’s all about....” he said, evasively. “Sounds a little kinky,” Alice teased. “You’ve just made me more determined to find out.” “Sure Alice!” Bob said. “I’m sure you’d wholly approve of their activities.” “Maybe I’ll put it in the curriculum for next term,” Alice joked as she walked to the staircase. She heard laughter from upstairs, laughter which grew louder as she came nearer to the top of the stairs. The laughter came from two women in one of the rooms, further down the hall. Alice thought there was something peculiar about the way they were laughing, almost as if the owners of those voices were possessed by something. Alice found the room, and prodded her head inside. “Hi,” she said with some uncertainty. “Something sounds interesting....” she spoke before halting at the strange odour. It reeked of marijuana. “Hey Alice, thanks for coming and being our chaperone!” Nancy smiled. She and another instructor, Shannon, began to laugh once again. In the state they were in, the two women would probably laugh at a death announcement. Nancy had a few makeshift marijuana cigarettes in her hand, and was lighting up another one. “You can join us if you want,” she said, touching Alice’s head. Nancy seemed absorbed with the texture of Alice’s short hair against the tender skin of her palm. Alice couldn’t help but to gasp, but she was more amused than disturbed. “Nancy! I don’t believe it, you took pot to the party.” “Oh, what are you going to do, send me to the principal? She’s downstairs sitting on the deck, by the way,” Nancy joked. “Sometimes you have to be stoned just to get through the semester, or at least to celebrate the end of it.” “I have to smoke it just to get through the students’ rather impressive text-message-alded handwriting,” laughed Shannon. “I ... wish I could say I was truly surprised at you,” Alice said. “I suppose you’re a part of that drug pipeline you were talking about a few days ago.” “I... I don’t know what you mean,” Nancy said, pretending to be clueless. “I just got these from someone I know. I didn’t want to tell you about *this* before the party in case word spread around. After all, you wouldn’t want your students talking about your recreational drug use....” Or one’s recreational physical affairs, Alice considered. But Alice failed at being discreet; who is to say that Nancy’s own methods won’t be her own undoing. “Oh, sh*t, this is terrific stuff, girl,” Nancy said. “Damn, sometimes I wish I weren’t a teacher. Then I could have told poor Susan to get a hit of ecstasy or something. Best feeling I’ve ever had in my life. I recommend it for everyone!” Nancy laughed once again. “You, at your age!” Shannon scoffed, taking a draw from her own cigarette. “Oh, it was a few years ago. And I only recommend it *once*. You see, I was smart - unlike some of those drug addicts who don’t understand moderation. I took it once one night with the girls in Halifax before we went to the casino - it was so crazy, made me forget all of my problems, it took me completely out of reality. But once was enough - I’m not stupid.” Alice felt herself getting woozy, possibly from the odour, or from the words coming out of her coworker. “And besides, I’m still a lot younger than this girl is over here,” Nancy said, pointing to Alice. “Want to join us, there’s enough for one more.....” Alice wanted to strike these two foolish women for even daring to flaunt their disregard for the notion of guiding children down the proper path. For lying to themselves every day when they enter the confines of school property, and meet with the many teenagers trying to survive the jungle that is life. “After all, Alice,” Shannon said. “You’re no innocent yourself, I’m sure. You and your secret affairs.” Nancy whispered, “I told you not to talk about it,” and gave her a mock-slap on the arm. Alice felt a jump within her rib cage at Shannon’s knowledge of what Alice had at this point given up hope in as something that would remain private. “Oh, come on Alice, I’d love to hear the story,” Shannon said, seemingly genuinely interested, as if wanting to wrap Alice into her blanket of confidence. “What story?” Alice asked, hoping to play the ignorant. Nancy laughed. “Alice, Alice, Alice... don’t play dumb with me. We *all* knew, dear. Every day I would come to work and read the lines of your face, and get lost in your secret life. I could understand how you thought you could keep it away from the rest of us. You tried your best, and for that, I salute you!” “You mean, you knew... and you didn’t even ask me about it?” “Well, dear, it wasn’t any of my business. I mean, if I were in your shoes... I’m sure I’d resort to trolling around for divorced or widowed parents of my students too!” Nancy and Shannon laughed once again at these allegedly clever observations. “But the Facebook thing...” Shannon added, “...I’m sorry about that. We had no idea...that was wrong. Those f*cking students of ours can be such idiots.... wonder why the school boards don’t ban computers from the schools....” “Because we wouldn’t be able to send joke e-mails to each other during lunchtime, honey!” Nancy responded. Again with the laughter between the coconspirators. These two women were merely coworkers; they weren’t truly friends. If Nancy had been a friend, Alice reasoned, she would have at least attempted to introduce the topic, ask for any details to see if this new man made you happy, etc. Then again, Nancy was also not one to introduce the topic of her apparently occasional drug use in regular conversation either. Alice felt even more like the victim. It was one thing to find oneself a victim of cyber-bullying, perpetuated by people not even half her age. It was another thing when her coworkers had an impression of her as a desperate oddball. So her crime was that she was single, unmarried, unlike all of these supposedly happy people, with their swell marriages and their 2.5 kids and white picket fences. She felt angry. But she couldn’t storm out of the room and give her co-workers ammunition for more gossip. She decided she had to pretend everything was okay. She reached out her hand, took one of the loose cigarettes housed in Nancy’s hand, and lit it up. And so the three women, all of them, ended up trading stories and gossip, enhanced by the drug-induced calmness that allowed words and emotions to flow freely but without any true anger or bitterness. Alice forgot about her earlier anger, and instead felt better than she had in a long while. She felt a heavy weight lift from her chest. For a moment, she thought to observe that sometimes peer pressure to use illicit substances could yield positive results - yet another important life lesson, alas, one all three women could not reveal to their impressionable students. * “What are you thinking about?” asked Tina, sitting across the table from her. The sounds of her words cut through the collage of voices that hovered like cigarette smoke across the recreation centre. “Oh....” Alice sighed, as she revealed only selected portions of her reverie. “Just thinking about the streets of Montreal. About gazing at the St Lawrence River from a 30-storey window. About wanting to discover the exciting nightlife....” “You mean none of this excites you?” Tina teased, waving her hand towards the activity behind them. “Seeing a couple you barely have any interest in celebrate their first night of wedded bliss?” “I’m sorry for being such a b*tch,” Alice joked. “I can’t stand happiness if it’s not my own.” “Oh, you’re such a grumpy date,” Tina said. Tina had invited her to the reception which took place following Valerie and Douglas’s wedding ceremony. Alice had only met the couple once, at the same party where she also first got to know Thomas as someone besides the parent of a former student. Alice only vaguely remembered the couple when Tina asked her if she wanted to come to the reception. She had joked that Alice was her back-up in case she couldn’t find a date for the event. “Come with me for a snack; it might make you feel better,” Tina said. “Help get your mind off of whats-his-name.” Alice obliged. She and Tina approached the buffet table, joining a handful of others sorting through the caterer’s handiwork. Fried chicken, hot winds, salads, lasagna - and just when you thought you couldn’t handle any more, dessert at the end of the line. One thing that all guests appreciated at any event was free food, something which some of those same guests would regret dearly afterwards. “I wonder how much all of this costs,” asked Tina, placing a chunk of lasagna on her plate. “All this food, when we could’ve just went back home for supper before coming back here.” Alice nodded, without thinking of anything to say. Her tastes leaned toward salads, which weren’t quite as sloppy and greasy on her plate. “This hall must have cost a pretty penny - this is a demand-intensive place,” continued Tina. “There’s bingos, receptions, all sorts of things. And that lovely wedding dress of hers. Four figures for something she’ll only ever wear once.....” The couple were sitting at a wide table, along with other assorted members of their families, on the other side of the hall. They looked happy if a little overwhelmed as they occasionally talked amongst themselves. “....they spend all this money, and for what? So a few years from now they’ll get annoyed with each other enough that they’ll experience playful thoughts of pushing the other off a cliff.....” Tina said. Alice laughed. “Tina! You’re awfully cynical about this lovely night!” “Hey, don’t comment; you’re my partner in crime. We’re the ones who can’t be given away to matrimonial slavery.” The two women began to laugh, leaning toward each other as if trying to conceal their conspiracy from the other guests. Their mannerisms were enough to pique the curiosity of a few who were hovering near the buffet table, and making guesses as to what the two women were conferencing about. One woman who moved in front of Tina and Alice picked up a couple of pieces of fried chicken. “Terrific meal, isn’t it?” she said. “Yes, it’s a lovely setup,” Tina replied. “They put a lot of work into this.” “Did you guys get up to the bar yet?” “No!” Tina said, surprised at her own admission. “But that sounds like a great idea... I need something to wash down all this,” referring to the food on her plate. Drinking seemed like a fine idea to Alice as well. The fog that drifted inside her head as a result of a beer or two was enough to obscure any lingering regrets from a situation which she ought to have forgotten by now, she believed. She really didn’t want to eat; she just wanted that first beer. But Tina was already stabbing her lasagna with her fork. She was more patient. It was clear that she was far past the age where getting the alcohol into the system was the first priority. Alice wondered if Brittany was just another statistic. Another “high-school student” who thought boozing it up in some friend’s basement while their parents were out was the highest form of fun one could have on a weekend. Maybe that was a good thing - maybe her drunken state would be more preferable to the stunted personality she tried very hard to maintain. Perhaps intoxication would have brought out a glimmer of the person she used to be before her parents divorced. “Gaah! Lasagna is never good cold.....” Tina said. “It’s like eating rubber.... why didn’t we come up when dinner was served?” “Well, aren’t I glad I chose the salads....” “Maybe we ought to have that drink now.” Tina chose a cooler, a bright green liquid, while Alice went for the Molson Canadian. Alice thought, I’m not like Brittany. In drinking, she wants to find herself again. I, on the other hand, want to forget. Alice speculated. And speculation as to the reasons this teenager she barely knew would drink was all she would accomplish. She wasn’t going to ask. Asking somebody why they drink is like asking somebody why they eat fast food. But Alice’s thoughts persisted. As she began her first beer, her speculation turned to the chance that Thomas was doing the same thing at this very moment. He would have been sitting on his couch, probably watching Hockey Night in Canada, or perhaps another rerun of Everybody Loves Raymond or some other lame sitcom. He was probably by himself as Brittany would not be in the house at that time. She was probably out with her friends, enjoying what could very well be one of their final times together before they move on to another stage in their lives. And why was he drinking? Alice needed to come up with a reason. Just because he was alone, she guessed, with little to do. He finished his job for the week and had some downtime until Monday. His friends were all married, or had girlfriends, so actual social outings were few and far between. At 39, he was too old to be able to find friends so easily. Alice wasn’t much older. But at least she had Tina to keep her company. It was easier for women, anyway. Women could always gravitate towards each other if they were in need of companionship. But men would build a wall around themselves, stubbornly carrying it with them everywhere they went while claiming it wasn’t there. They were always so inadequate when it came to just being themselves. “Can I ask you something? Why didn’t you tell me you were going out with Thomas?” Tina asked. “I... I don’t know. Perhaps I wasn’t even sure it was worth talking about,” Alice said. “Hmm,” Tina took another drink. “I didn’t even know you two were seeing each other until Douglas told me about it not too long ago. It .... felt a bit strange to hear gossip about your friend...” “There’s not really much to talk about.... it was a very brief exchange. It was a very insignificant moment of my life.” She was intrigued that Douglas knew about the affair. Thomas obviously must have bumped into Douglas, at a coffee shop, a restaurant, or on the street somewhere. And how did *she* enter into the conversation? How did Thomas describe her? Was it in good terms? But she would never find out; she’d have no reason to ask. “If it hadn’t been so insignificant, Alice, I’m sure you would have told me about it, right?” “Right...” “You’d probably be telling me that you’d be renting this hall next week for your own wedding reception!” Tina teased. “And I’d have to bite my tongue and wish you good luck!” The two women continued to eat their dinners and drink their beer. The reception progressed to include the usual wedding speeches and the like. And after a while, Valerie, the bride, still wearing her snow white wedding gown, got off from her seat and walked to the other side of the head table. “She’s ready to throw the bouquet,” Tina whispered. Alice watched as twenty or so women gathered on the dance floor. They were brought together as a group, as one large mass of anticipation for a typical wedding ritual. The woman, who had a soft and inviting face, had an expression of modest satisfaction. She smiled as if she hoped that someone in the crowd would soon experience the relief she felt at this very moment, the relief of knowing she was qualified to get married. It was a relief that neither Tina nor Alice ever experienced. Even as they affectionately mocked it, even as they didn’t feel a part of this group of women, comprised of friends and family of the bride and groom, they paced a few steps closer. Not enough to be part of the group, but close enough that if the bride threw the bouquet a few feet too far, they could conceivably catch it. But Alice had no illusion about how her luck would change if she caught a bouquet. She was 42 now - she had long ago built walls around the idea of marriage. She had long ago ran away from the urge to join something that now looked more like some oddly capitalist notion of uniting two people for the purposes of propagating the species and increasing the amount of consumption for one individual dwelling. It no longer brought forth any human emotion for her, or so she would claim. “So do you think you can catch it?” Alice asked Tina. Tina may not have had that academic approach to marriage, despite her disparaging comments. Maybe Tina had sat alone in the middle of the night, wondering if or when someone would devote his life just to her. Maybe she cried like those women in the sappy romantic movies when they were so despondent over finding someone. If Tina did so, she was an expert at covering it up. “That depends,” Tina responded. “Do I really want to spill my drink just so I can trample over some other greedy women?” The bride turned her back to the crowd, her movement only encouraging the group of women to tremble even more with anticipation. The bouquet shot into the air, as if propelled by a cannon, before gravity slowly halted its ascent, forcing it to go downward. All the women squealed and laughed as they stretched out their arms. They laughed in the spirit of frivolity, even as their fingers were twitching in some kind of desperate act, superstitiously grasping at the hope of receiving something better than their current state. Alice, however, was in fear of catching the bouquet. The pressure to follow through and to somehow magically persuade someone to get down on his knees and slip a ring on her finger between now and some reasonable time in the future was too immense for her liking. And, besides, she probably would have dropped her beer, glass shattering and liquid oozing all over the floor, if she made the attempt at winning this silly contest. Neither of those options were worth the trouble. END  |
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