Al’s Blind Date: The Al Series, Book Six Read online

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  Al’s Blind Date

  The Al Series, Book Six

  Constance C. Greene

  To all children

  who love to read

  One

  “Blind date! I would never never go on a blind date!” Thelma cried, fluffing up her back hair so her bangle bracelets jangled noisily.

  “Blind dates are tacky. My mother says they were tacky in her day and they still are. No really popular girl”—and Thelma smiled complacently down at her chest … “would be caught dead on a blind date.”

  It was Sunday. We were having lunch at Polly’s. Sunday is usually togetherness day for Al and her mother, but today Al was off the hook due to the fact her mother was whooping it up at some fancy do at the Plaza.

  Some days we discuss world affairs, some days politics. Today we were into blind dates.

  “I don’t believe I know any really popular girls, Thel,” Al said, smiling. “And never say never, kid. It’s bad luck.”

  “What’s that you’re cooking, Polly?” I asked.

  “Hollandaise,” Polly said. “For the eggs benedict. You have to stir it constantly or it’ll lump up on you.”

  “Mr. Richards!” Al and I said in unison, on account of that’s what he told us when he was teaching us to make white sauce.

  “Eggs Benny,” Thelma said. “Yum. What are you two, clones or something?” She was all bent out of shape, I think, probably because of what Al said about not knowing any really popular girls. Thelma’s had six dates. Well, one doesn’t count because it was with her cousin. She didn’t tell us that; Polly did. Al doubts the other five bozos even exist but so far, nobody’s been able to prove anything.

  “Next thing you know,” Thelma said, “you two will be wearing matching dresses or something nauseating like that.” Thelma ruffled her back hair again and her bracelets got noisy. Thelma thinks her arms are sexy, Al says. But then, she also thinks her teeth and her elbows and other parts too numerous to mention are also sexy.

  “Oh, we already have matching dresses,” Al said. “We’re very cute together. When we wear them, people think we’re twins.”

  “What are they, dotted swiss with matching bloomers and puffed sleeves?” Thelma drawled.

  “Actually,” Al drawled back, “they’re leather.”

  “Yeah,” I spoke up. “Mine’s red and hers is black.”

  “I don’t believe it,” Thelma snapped. “You two in leather dresses. I could die laughing.”

  “Try,” Al said.

  “Soup’s on!” Polly shouted. “Mange, mange!” and we all filed to the stove carrying our plates.

  “Eggs Benny are my very favorite, Polly,” Thelma said. “Yum.”

  “Yum yum,” Al said, stony faced.

  We sat down and dug in.

  “What would we do without you, Pol?” I said.

  “Starve, probably,” Polly said.

  “I knew a boy named Benny in California,” Al said. “He was an egghead too. He could already read in first grade. Benny was very smart, but on the first day of school he wet his pants and everybody laughed and he went home and didn’t show up for a week. Our teacher told us we should be very careful about laughing at someone because as sure as you’re born, she said, we’d all do something embarrassing someday and then people would laugh at us and we’d know how Benny felt. She said we should be kind because there’s too little kindness in this world. And she said everyone needs kindness. I never forgot that.”

  Polly nodded. “Little kids are very cruel sometimes. But so are big kids. I think you have to learn to be kind. I don’t think you’re born kind, I mean. I think you have to be taught kindness.”

  “Lots of adults are unkind, too,” Al said. “It’s not just kids. I don’t think you learn it, I think it’s in your genes. You’re either born kind or you’re not.”

  “Well, my mother says good manners and kindness sort of go hand in hand,” I said. “That’s why she’s such a bug on good manners.”

  “This is turning into a very philosophical conversation,” Thelma said in her bored way.

  It was kind of philosophical, I thought, pleasantly surprised.

  We all had seconds of the eggs Benny to clear our heads.

  “Speaking of blind dates,” Polly said, “Evelyn might get married to a guy she met on a blind date. She fell madly in love with him because he’s got two little kids and if she marries him, that means she’ll be a stepmother and she says she’s always wanted to be a stepmother.”

  Evelyn is Polly’s off-the-wall older sister.

  “Who’s she marrying?” Al said.

  “He’s this really nice guy, kind of old, about thirty-five or so,” Polly said. “His wife left him to find herself.”

  “Suppose she finds herself and comes back? What then?” Al said. “Couldn’t that get kind of hairy?”

  “Who knows?” Polly said. “My father says Evelyn changes her mind and her plans so often it doesn’t pay to worry.”

  “Why does she want to be a stepmother?” Thelma asked.

  “Well, she loves little kids and she figures if she’s a stepmother, that means she doesn’t have to have kids of her own, which means she won’t get stretch marks,” Polly told us.

  “Stretch marks?” I said.

  “They’re what you get when you’re pregnant,” Polly explained. “The baby grows bigger and bigger, so your stomach stretches and it leaves marks on your stomach that don’t go away. And Evelyn figures if she had stretch marks she could never wear a bikini again.”

  This was followed by a small silence while we all contemplated Evelyn in a one-piece suit complete with skirt.

  “I’ll have to think about that for a while, Polly,” Al said. “Toss it around and see how it comes out. But listen to my blind-date story, which I think is very romantic. I read it last week. There’s this dude called the earl of Wistwick, see. He meets some lovely on a blind date and marries her two weeks later, thereby renouncing his claim to the throne. He was sixteenth in line to the throne, you see, and she swept him off his feet and he’s no longer sixteenth in line; he’s nowhere. How about that for a blind date, huh?”

  “Who’s the earl of Wistwick, anyhow?” Thelma asked, voicing the thoughts of us all. “And why’d he have to renounce his claims to the throne just because he got married?”

  “I thought you’d never ask,” Al said with a big grin. “He had to renounce his claim to the throne because royalty doesn’t recognize divorce and the earl’s bride is the divorced mother of two, that’s why. She just swept him off his little feet. The earl is thirty-nine, you see, and his bride is twenty-five, so it was high time the earl got hitched.”

  There wasn’t a whole lot to be said to that, so we finished our eggs Benny and waited for dessert.

  Polly put a blue bowl with apples and pears in it in the center of the table.

  “Fruit,” Polly said.

  “Fruit,” said Al, who had hoped for lemon meringue pie. “Parfait. Fruit is very slimming, I hear.”

  “Yeah,” Thelma said. “Take a few apples, Al.”

  “Who were the fifteen guys ahead of the earl?” I asked, seeing the storm clouds gather on Al’s face. “That’s a lot of guys lined up for the throne, if you ask me. I’d sure hate to be hanging by my thumbs until those other guys were eliminated. What’s the big deal about renouncing his claim to the throne, anyway?”

  “Listen, the earl was really into royalty,” Al said. “He dreame
d of the day when he’d hoist his scepter and don his ermine mantle and climb up there, master of all he surveyed. He also liked the perks, the trips on the royal yacht, stuff like that. Those were great eggs Benny, Polly.”

  Thelma turned to me and said, “Does she know this earl person? I mean, is he a personal friend or something?”

  “Not that I know of,” I said.

  “I think that’s a fabulous story, Al,” said Polly. “Very romantic. To give everything up for love. Terrific.”

  Al beamed. “You’ve got it, Pol. Me too. I love it. And to think that they got it all together on a blind date. Fantastic. The crowning touch.” She looked surprised, then said, “The crowning touch. Get it? Parfait.”

  We all stared at Al.

  “She’s a très weird person,” Thelma said.

  “Well, I don’t know about you guys,” Al said, “but I can hardly wait for my first blind date. I can see him now, a superstar on a Yamaha, all in black leather, jacket and puttees and helmet, and me in my black leather dress. We’ll ride into the sunset with his chains clanking like an armful of bracelets.”

  “That wasn’t kind,” I told Al on our way home. “You didn’t have to say that about the bracelets.”

  “O.K., and she didn’t have to say that about me taking some apples for slimming, either,” Al said.

  “Thelma’s a bird,” I said. “Ignore her.”

  “Yeah, a vulture,” Al said. “I never should’ve had seconds. As a matter of fact, I never should’ve had firsts. I’m bulging.”

  When we got off at our floor, I asked Al if she wanted to come in and listen to my new tapes.

  “No offense,” she said, “but I’ve got to go weigh myself. If the earl of Wistwick landed me as his blind date, he’d still be single and sixteenth in line to the throne.” She lifted a hand in salute.

  “Have a weird day, comrade,” she said.

  I had a sudden, perfect thought.

  “Hey,” I said, “the earl’s entitled, isn’t he? I mean, if he wants to marry a divorced mother of two, he’s entitled. Right?”

  Al did a couple of bumps and grinds and grinned at me.

  “You have unexpected depths, o skinny one,” she said and went inside.

  I never should’ve had seconds either, I decided.

  Two

  When Al turned fourteen last month, she went into a tailspin. She decided Al was a babyish name. Plus it lacked class and pizzazz. So we thrashed around for a while, trying to come up with something jazzy: Zandra, Sandy, Alex.

  Nothing fit.

  Then she wrapped her head in a turban and decided to call herself Mother Zandi. When our homeroom teacher, Mr. Keogh, asked us to visit the old people’s home his father was in, Al told fortunes in a deep, dark, swami-type voice. The seniors loved her. She wowed ’em. My father says you call that a boffo performance. Now, whenever she feels like it, Al turns into Mother Zandi, her alter ego, so to speak.

  When I first knew her, Al was a little on the plump side. Then she stopped pigging out and dropped a lot of flesh. Al fights the battle of the bulge constantly. Right now, I think she’s losing it. Again.

  I’m not saying a word, but last week I think I saw Al’s behind wiggle. In gym class. I thought I should tell her, then I rethought and kept my mouth shut. If there’s one thing that drives Al bonkers, it’s a behind that wiggles; her own or anyone else’s.

  In the early days of our friendship, Al wore Chubbies.

  Chubbies, according to Al, are a fate worse than death.

  Al’s mother, since she works in Better Dresses and all, is extremely weight and fashion conscious. She thinks if you’re more than a size ten you better shape up or ship out.

  Next morning Al was waiting in the lobby with a long face.

  “Check this,” she said, pulling up her sweater to show me the safety pin holding her skirt closed.

  “Nice, huh?” Al said, glum as could be. “I knew I never should’ve had seconds at Polly’s. My mother will flip. It’s brand new. She’ll probaby send me to a fat farm for my Christmas present.”

  “Maybe the fat farm will be near where Brian lives,” I said, trying to look on the bright side.

  “You’re a riot,” she said.

  “I wasn’t trying to be,” I said. “It just happened.”

  “It’s creeping avoirdupois,” Al grumbled. “There’s no sense kidding myself. I could lie, say the skirt must’ve shrunk at the cleaners, except it hasn’t been to the cleaners. I’m headed for the fat farm, that’s for sure. Along with the rest of the cows.”

  Al has lots of ups and downs. I’m always cheering her up. Or trying to. Al’s very demanding. I have to stand by her. She’s my best friend. In the long run, she’s worth it. It’s just that in the short run I sometimes run out of steam.

  With her stomping along, muttering to herself, and me bringing up the rear, you should pardon the expression, we set off for school.

  I was right. Her behind did wiggle. Oh, boy. I hoped no one but me would notice. I prayed no one would say anything to her.

  When Al gets in the pits, she zones out. Tunnel vision takes over. She started to cross against the light at Eighty-sixth Street and a taxi driver yelled at her. She blinked and tugged nervously at her skirt.

  “I thought when I became fourteen I’d have it made,” Al said. “But no, it’s the same old rat race. The same old ugly face in the mirror, the same old head of hair full of split ends. Instead of a face lift, maybe I oughta get a head lift. You know, a whole new head. Something plastic surgeons have not yet come to grips with. Whaddaya think?”

  “Well,” I said, “if you keep walking in front of cabs, something’s bound to happen. You might wind up in the emergency room. Where you would then meet a most adorable intern. I understand lots of interns are adorable and mostly unmarried on account of they’re married to their jobs and don’t have time for romance.”

  “Who does?” Al said. “Romance is on its way out. Romance is dead. Romance is kaput. People never send other people a dozen long-stemmed roses anymore. Or a box of chocolates. When was the last time somebody sent you a dozen long-stemmed roses or chocolates? When, I ask you.”

  She stopped walking and stared at me.

  “Me?” I said. “Moi?” Well …” I pretended to think. “Let’s see.”

  “You’re such a turkey,” Al sighed. “I bet you never even got a Valentine from a boy.”

  “Sure I have. From my father. He’s a boy, isn’t he?”

  Al snorted. “I bet Brian’s not sending me a Valentine. Probably he’s ditched me for a girl who plays the tuba in the school band and has this cool uniform with brass buttons and wears little white boots with tassels on ’em.”

  “If she totes a tuba, she must be pretty strong,” I said.

  Al scowled at me and I could see I’d said the wrong thing.

  “Don’t sweat it,” I told her. “Valentine’s Day is ages away. I wouldn’t worry if I was you.”

  “Your problem is,” Al said in a cool voice, “you are the kind of person who goes through life blithely without a worry in your pointed little head. You make me sick.”

  “Yeah, well, you make me sick too,” I said. “You worry enough for both of us. You should be more like me; fat, dumb, and happy, then you’d …”

  If I could’ve bitten off my tongue, I would’ve. What a thing to say to Al, of all people. Fat, dumb, and happy was just an old-fashioned expression I’d heard my mother use. It didn’t mean anything personal. It didn’t mean Al was any of those things. But I knew, from the way she hunched her shoulders and put her head down as she ran up the school steps, that I’d been tactless. One more time.

  When I got to our homeroom, Al wasn’t there. Our new homeroom teacher, Ms. Bolton, was at her desk, marking papers. I feel sorry for Ms. Bolton. So does Al. She doesn’t seem to have made friends. The other teachers are polite but not particularly friendly. Once Al and I were on the bus and we saw Ms. Bolton walking with a man. She looked really
happy, the only time I’ve seen her look that way.

  Ms. Bolton wears big baggy sweaters, full skirts, and red tights. Almost every day she wears the same thing. I think she might change her luck if she changed the color of her tights. I would like to suggest this to her but feel it’s none of my business. Al and I have decided that she must be one of those people who, through no fault of her own, doesn’t relate to others. Al says that, psychologically, Ms. Bolton is the sort others shun. She read about this sort of person in some medical journal and she’s decided that’s Ms. Bolton’s problem. I think we should do something to try to help her. But I don’t know exactly what.

  “Hello, Ms. Bolton,” I said. She raised her head and for a minute I don’t think she registered. Her eyes looked blank. Then she came to, said hello back to me, and went on working. She’s not much for small talk, I guess.

  I went to my desk and began to clean it out. Even though we’d only been back at school a few weeks, it was already crammed with junk. I’m basically quite untidy. I mean, I can live with a mess. But because I wanted to keep busy, I made a big show of gathering up some gum wrappers and scratch sheets I’d doodled on and carrying them up to the wastebasket.

  Ms. Bolton went on working. I might have been the Invisible Man, for all she noticed.

  Then, as I made my way back to my desk, I heard her make a funny noise. “Sorry?” I said, turning to look at her. Her head was down on her desk. Then Al showed up. It was me and her and Ms. Bolton in the room.

  “Que passe?” Al said.

  “Maybe she’s sick,” I said.

  Ms. Bolton’s head stayed down. I think she was crying. Her shoulders moved, but she didn’t make a sound.

  Al went to her and touched her on the arm.

  “Can we help?” she said. I wish I’d thought of doing or saying that.

  Ms. Bolton lost it then. Completely. I mean, she bawled. Really loud.

  “You think we should call somebody?” I asked Al.

  Ms. Bolton must’ve heard. “No,” she said, raising her head. “Please. I’ll be all right. Just give me a minute.”