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

Tears streamed down her face. Her hair was wild. So were her eyes.

  “I’ll get some water,” Al whispered and she skinned out. I stayed put, not knowing what else to do.

  Ms. Bolton took a few gulps of air and shook her hair out of her eyes.

  “I’m all right, really,” she said. She blew her nose and smiled weakly at me. “My life just isn’t what … well, it’s hard to explain. It just isn’t what I’d hoped. I’ll get it together soon.”

  Al came back, saving me from having to reply.

  “Here.” Al thrust a small paper cup at Ms. Bolton.

  “Thanks.” She drained the cup and smiled a watery smile. “I’m sorry, kids. Thanks. I don’t want to lay my problems on you. Do me a favor. Don’t say anything about this to anyone, O.K.?”

  We heard someone coming. Hastily, Ms. Bolton ran a comb through her hair and her face assumed a somewhat more cheerful look.

  Wouldn’t you know. Martha Moseley bustled in, full of herself, as usual.

  “Ms. Bolton,” she said, “I know it’s not due until next week, but I did my English assignment early. I got carried away. My poem is about going to a graveyard and studying the gravestones, what they say.” Martha slid her eyes sideways, checking to see if we were properly impressed.

  “When I read my poem to my mother,” Martha continued, “she actually cried. She was totally overcome at the beauty of it. The images. My father said I should send my poem to one of the little magazines. The ones that don’t pay much but that, artistically, a true poet should aim for. Do you think I should, Ms. Bolton?”

  “How about your father?” Al said. “Was he totally overcome too?”

  “What’s your poem going to be about, Alexandra?” Martha said in a snippy voice. “Eating popcorn at the movies?”

  “Actually …” Al spoke so slowly I knew she was stalling for time. “Actually, it’s shaping up pretty well. It’s going to be an epic poem. Sort of like the Iliad. It relates a hero’s advantages and accomplishments.” From the rush of words, I knew Al had been inspired. She was really getting into it.

  “An epic’s very long, you see, Martha. You can’t just dash it off. It takes a lot of time. Mine’s an epic poem and the hero is Napoleon.”

  I gasped. She was going for the gold on this one, I thought. Napoleon was no small potatoes.

  “There’s been talk of making it into a film,” Al said. Even Ms. Bolton looked impressed.

  “Starring Michael J. Fox as Napoleon. They’re about the same size. So he’d be perfect for the role. Michael J. Fox, I mean. My agent’s working on it now.”

  Martha opened her mouth to say something, thought better of it, and bustled over to her desk. I thought I saw smoke coming out of her ears, but I couldn’t be sure.

  “Well done,” I told Al. “That gives you one point for one-upmanship.”

  Ms. Bolton laughed a bit shakily.

  “Sounds good, Al,” she said. “I’ll be eager to see the final results.”

  “Actually,” Al said, frowning fiercely at the blackboard, “it’s still in the planning stage. I’m still thinking it out in my head. I haven’t actually written any of it yet.”

  “Actually, Al, I didn’t think you had,” Ms. Bolton said.

  Three

  “I can’t get over her crying like that,” Al said. We were on our way home, friends again. We never stay mad at each other for long.

  “Who does that remind you of?” Al pushed her nose against the butcher’s window. From his window displays, I’d say he’s a very artistic butcher. Last week he had a whole pig with an apple stuck in its mouth. That pig had the saddest little eyes I ever saw. The week before that, a bunch of lamb chops dressed in frilly pantaloons danced in a circle. But today just a side of beef hung out, naked and alone.

  “Martha Moseley,” I said. That cracked us both up.

  “Maybe she’s broke,” Al said after we’d calmed down. I knew she meant Ms. Bolton, not Martha Moseley. “Teachers don’t make big bucks, you know.”

  “No, I think it’s her boyfriend,” I said. “She wants him to make a commitment and he won’t.”

  “Yeah, he’s most likely the divorced father of two, and his kids don’t like Ms. Bolton.” Al gave me a piercer. “I think she must be very gullible and falls for any charlatan who buys her a beer. I don’t think she knows squat about life.”

  “Not like us women of the world, you mean,” I said. “Well, whatever’s bothering her, we should try to help. But how?”

  “Ah, you ask the cosmic question to which I do not have the cosmic answer,” Al said. Then she grabbed me and hissed, “Look! Up Ahead! Do you see what I see?”

  “It’s only a man in a skirt,” I said, yawning. “Big deal. Maybe his mother always wanted a girl.”

  “It’s a bagpiper, you turnip,” Al told me.

  A man wearing kilts and carrying bagpipes over his shoulder came toward us. His face was wide and red and he had a bristling mustache.

  “I bet he’s from Scotland,” Al said. “I absolutely love bagpipes. They sound so sad and desolate and they make me feel as if Laurence Olivier is chasing me across the moors, hollering, ‘Cathy! Cathy!’ at me.”

  “Laurence who?” I said.

  “Laurence Olivier. Wuthering Heights. Heathcliff.”

  “Oh, that Laurence Olivier,” I said, remembering. “Who’s Cathy?”

  “Merle Oberon, turd.”

  “Oh,” I said again, smiling at the memory. “Trouble with that scenario is, kiddo, you don’t look much like old Merle.”

  “You really know how to hurt a guy,” Al grumbled.

  The man in kilts must’ve seen us staring at him. As he drew near, he smiled and gave us a little salute.

  “Are you from Scotland?” Al asked him. She can be pretty bold when it behooves her, I thought.

  “That I am, lassie,” he said. “Do you know Scotland, then?”

  “Not really,” Al said, blushing a little. “But I’ve read tons of books about it. I would love to go there someday. Some of my ancestors are Scottish. I’d like to see the moors and the heather. And I think I’d like to try some haggis.”

  “Ah, yes, haggis,” the man said. “Oh, you make me miss it right this moment. I’m from Glasgow myself. I’m here in your great city for a few days and already I’m homesick and longing for a taste of it.”

  “What’s haggis?” I said.

  “It’s the Scottish national dish, lass,” he said to me. “It’s the sheep’s intestines boiled in its stomach along with a bit of oatmeal.”

  “I thought you’d never ask,” Al said to me, grinning. I felt my stomach heave. I rejected the whole idea of haggis. Such a thing couldn’t be true.

  “I absolutely love the bagpipes,” Al said, breathless.

  In answer, the man blew us a few notes on his pipes. People stopped to listen. It was indeed a sad and lonely sound.

  “Now that’s a bonnie sound, isn’t it?” the man said. “You’ll not find a bonnier one if you travel the world over. You must come to Glasgow someday.”

  “Oh, I plan to,” Al said. “When I save up enough money. I hear it’s very beautiful and the people are really hospitable.”

  Any minute now, I thought, they’ll start exchanging telephone numbers.

  “That it is,” the man agreed, and he saluted us again and walked away jauntily, skirts swinging as he shouldered his pipes.

  “He has nice legs,” I said, admiring him from afar. “Maybe we should’ve asked him if he was married. Maybe he’s lonely. We could’ve fixed him up a blind date for Ms. Bolton.”

  “You’re out of your gourd,” Al said. “You can’t ask a total stranger if he’s married or if he’d like a blind date with your teacher. Suppose he’s a serial killer or something. Just because he plays the bagpipes and has nice legs doesn’t mean his heart is pure.”

  I had to admit she had a point.

  “Maybe we should’ve warned him about Rockefeller Center,” I said. “In those kilts he might be
in tough shape.” Rockefeller Center Plaza is a regular wind tunnel. Lots of folks have lost their wigs and umbrellas, and it can be dangerous once that wind gets under your skirt.

  “It’s got so I can’t let you out of the house alone,” Al said, glaring at me. “You’re becoming very bold, know that?”

  “Look who’s talking,” I said. “You’re the one who picked him up, not me. I wonder if his underpants are plaid too, to match his kilt. I’d sure like to find out.”

  Al shook her head and tch-tched at me. “You have to admit he was pretty cute,” she said. “A true Scottish gentleman. I dig that lassie routine, but I’m not sure he’s Ms. Bolton’s type. I bet she’d go more for the pretty type, like the guys in the Ralph Lauren ads.”

  “That type is very, very boring,” I said. “They never smile and you know why? Because they’re worried their tie is crooked or their socks don’t match. Or their hair isn’t on straight. They’re not interested in you, their interested in them.”

  “How about if we suggest to Ms. Bolton she put one of those ads in the personals column in the paper?” Al suggested. “You know, ‘caring nonsmoker, into sunsets and red setters.’”

  “Talk about blind dates! That’s about as blind as you can get, I figure,” I said.

  “They usually say ‘photo a must,’” Al went on. “That’s so you know what you’re getting into. But suppose you’re ugly as sin, your nose is all over your face, and you’re snaggletoothed. What then?”

  “You send in a photo of your beautiful sister,” I said. “And the guy falls into instant love with her and writes back saying ‘How about Saturday night?’ What then?”

  “Problems, problems,” Al said airily. “Let’s cross here. I want to check out the puppies in the pet shop. If my mother would let me, I’d take the brown-and-white one with the curly tail.”

  But the pet shop was gone, along with the puppies. In its window a big sign said

  FREE OFFER! SEE INSIDE! TIGHTEN YOUR BOD!

  FURM, TONE, IMPROVE YOUR SHAPE!

  JOIN AL’S HEALTH CLUB.

  FREE OFFER! SEE INSIDE!

  A man with a big belly stood in the doorway, yelling at the moving men.

  “Watch it! Break that and it’ll cost ya!” he hollered.

  “That must be Al,” Al said. “Not only is he an entrepreneur in the fitness game, he’s also a heck of a speller. Check ‘firm.’ Should we tell him?”

  “I like it that way,” I said. “Check the abs and the gluts,” I whispered. “How about the pecs?” Al whispered back. That cracked us up.

  The man with the big belly wandered over to us. “Let us in on the joke, girls.”

  “Begging your pardon, sir,” Al said.

  The fat man’s lips moved in a twitchy way. Was he smiling?

  Al has this theory that if you address people as ‘sir’ they immediately like you because they think you respect them.

  “Begging your pardon, sir,” she said again. She’d been reading The Return of the Native; that’s the way they talked in Thomas Hardy’s day.

  Sure enough, I noticed that every time she called him sir he looked a little less threatening. His was a face that only a mother could love. That was one of my mother’s expressions, some of which are quite good. Al gave them another shot of “Begging your pardon, sir,” which I figured was overdoing it. By the time she’d finished with him, he wore a big smile; probably a first for him.

  “What’s on your mind, girlie?” he asked Al.

  “What happened to the pet shop?” Al said. “It was here only last week. We came to see the puppies, sir.”

  That was it for the sirs. The guy was soft as a grape by now.

  “Gonzo,” he said gruffly. “The guy can’t handle the rent raise. He’s gotta pack up his pooches and split. It’s no skin off my nose. I’m in for a bundle, all this high-class machinery. Borrowed from my mother-in-law. She gives me a break, charges ten percent interest instead of her usual twenty. What a sweetheart.

  “Hey!” he hollered as the moving men carried a big machine across the sidewalk. “That’s a cross-country ski simulator,” he told us proudly. “All that and more is what you’re gonna find inside. You want a free tryout, you got it. You from around here?”

  We nodded, although it wasn’t really our neighborhood.

  “Inside we got our tanning machine, you wanna glow all year long,” he said. “We also got available shiatsu and Swedish massage. Not to mention an Olympic weight room complete with a roto curl bar and a squat rack.”

  “Hey, neat,” Al said.

  “What’s a squat rack?” I asked but got no answer.

  “Sounds good, sir.” Al dealt the coup de grace with her final sir. He was hers.

  “Come by tomorra, why dontcha? Just ask for me and you’ll try our equipment, then spread the word that Al’s is the best of the best.”

  “All right, boys.” He turned his attention to the moving men. “Let’s see if the two o’ youse can handle this one here.”

  “What’s a squat rack?” I said again as we headed for home.

  “How do I know. A rack you squat on, I guess,” Al said.

  “You think we should take him up on it?” I said.

  Al shrugged. “Why not. What’ve we got to lose.”

  Four

  We had tuna casserole for supper that night. Figures. My father was away on a business trip. We never have tuna casserole when he’s home.

  When I complained, my mother said, “Your father works very hard. He deserves a good dinner.”

  “That’s a very sexist remark,” I told her. “You work hard, I work hard. We also deserve a good dinner.”

  “How about me?” Teddy shouted. “I work hard too. I deserve a good dinner just as much as you guys.”

  When my mother went out of the room, I said, quietly, “What you deserve, Ted, is a big bowl of dog food. It’s chock full of nutrients and vitamins. Plus, it makes fur grow. You eat it, you’ll most likely be the furriest kid in the fourth grade.”

  “Yeah.” Teddy drooped all over the table, as boneless as an octopus. “Only if I ate dog food, I’d probably only bark instead of talk.”

  I looked cross-eyed at him and he barked loudly.

  “Bath time, Teddy,” my mother said.

  Teddy said woof woof to her.

  “I bet you have fleas too, don’t you, sweetheart?” I whispered. In answer, Teddy wiped his snotty little nose on me and shouted woof woof while shaking himself madly and brushing off tons of fleas onto me.

  “I’m calling Hubie!” Teddy cried, racing to the phone. After he barked at Hubie a while, Hubie must’ve hung up. Teddy banged the receiver down and rolled around, taking bites out of his own arm and barking up a storm.

  “You should study to be a bone specialist,” I told him. “You have the head for it.”

  That stopped him cold. His mouth dropped open and I heard the wheels in his head creaking as he tried to figure that one out. I went to my room, filled with the glow that comes from having had the last word.

  The telephone rang. My mother got it on the second ring. Maybe it was my father calling, which he sometimes does when he’s out of town.

  Suddenly I had to go to the bathroom. Doing math does that to me.

  “It was Polly,” my mother said. “I told her you’d call her back when you finished your homework. She said it was a matter of life and death. I told her to put both of them on hold. She said she’d try Al.”

  “What’d she want?”

  “Oh, she said something about a tea dance. Her cousin or some relative. I’m not sure.” Vaguely she waved the crossword puzzle at me. “This one’s tough,” she said. “A five-letter word for coercion, ending in y.” She tapped her teeth with her pencil, a sure sign she doesn’t know the word. She always saves the puzzle for after supper. She claims her head is at its best then.

  I finished my math, fast. Polly’s line was busy. So was Al’s. I knew it. They were talking to each other.

 
; “I’m just going to Al’s for a sec,” I told my mother.

  My mother frowned at me and from her expression I could tell she was far away. Good. I like her far away sometimes. I escaped.

  I knocked twice. Al didn’t answer. I knew her mother was out for dinner, so I tried the door. It was unlocked. I slid into Al’s apartment.

  “I’m here!” I hollered so she wouldn’t think I was a burglar.

  “She’s here,” I heard her say. She was on the phone in her mother’s bedroom, probably with her shoes off so as not to get the bedspread dirty.

  “Yeah,” Al said. “I’ll ask her. She just got here. She’s been running. She looks sort of wild eyed, like someone’s been after her. Sure. I’ll put her on. You can spring it on her yourself.” Al handed me the telephone.

  “What’s up, Polly?” I said.

  The receiver was warm, almost hot. They’d been chewing the fat for a long time.

  “I’m sounding you out,” Polly said. “My cousin Harry—you know, the one I told you about who’s got one blue eye and one brown one—well, he goes to this boys’ academy on West Eightieth Street and they’re having a tea dance next month and he asked me to fix him up. Harry’s sort of shy, you see, and he doesn’t know any girls. He has a friend. The friend also wants to be fixed up. So I thought of you and Al.”

  “What does ‘fix up’ mean?” I said.

  “It means he wants a date,” Polly said.

  “You mean a blind date?” I said. “Like what we were talking about on Sunday? Is that what you’re driving at?”

  “Well,” said Polly, “I guess you could call it that. If you want.”

  “What’s Harry got going for him besides one blue eye and one brown one?” I asked.

  “Not a heck of a lot,” Polly said. “Except for his brain. He’s supersmart. His board scores are fab. He’s fifteen and already a junior. He skipped fifth grade, he was so smart.”

  “How come you don’t go with him to this tea dance?” I said.

  “I already asked her that,” Al said, pacing around the rug. “I can’t tea-dance. All I can do is disco.” And she discoed around, showing a lot of arm motion.

  “The thing is,” Polly went on, “this tea dance is sponsored every year by the junior class and you can’t go if you don’t bring a date. Harry’s really uptight about it. He’s a nice guy, so I said I’d help him out. It only goes from four to six. That’s only two hours. You can handle two hours, can’t you?”