Al’s Blind Date: The Al Series, Book Six (6 page)

“I really have to go,” I said, edging toward the door.

“Will you and your friend, the heavy-set girl, come on Saturday for a small party?” Sparky's mom said. “I'm introducing my nephew to my friends and I thought you two would be just the right age.” She narrowed her eyes to slits and leaned close to me as if she was checking to see how old I was. I realized she probably needed glasses and was too vain to wear them. I've seen women in the supermarket with their faces all scrunched and their eyes almost closed, trying to figure out what it was in the packages they were buying. I've never seen any men doing that, only women. That's strange but true.

“My friend?” I said stupidly. If Al ever heard herself described as heavy set she'd freak, totally and absolutely.

“The girl you're always with. I think her name begins with an
A,”
said Sparky's mom.

I waited, unwillingly to give her Al's name.

“What is that child's name anyway?” Sparky's mom said.

“We call her Mother Zandi,” I said. “She tells fortunes.”

“How very peculiar,” Sparky's mom said. “She tells fortunes, you say. Oh, I've got it!” and she snapped her fingers. “Allison. That's it, Allison.”

“Her real name is Alexandra,” I said, “but we call her Al.”

“I knew it began with an
A
!” Sparky's mom cried. “Of course. Grand. Would you ask Alexandra if she'd like to join us on Saturday? I'd love it if you'd both come. We'll have loads of refreshments and I just know you two and Josh will hit it off. You'll be crazy about each other. Then you people could go off somewhere to dance or whatever takes your fancy. Dance, perhaps. You do dance, don't you? Disco. That's it, disco, isn't it? All that thrashing around and the music so loud it addles the brains, but still, it's the style. One has to go with what's in style, doesn't one? Never mind. You could all go out on a date and that would be divine. Wouldn't it be divine?”

A date, I thought. A blind date. Al and I were in demand. Our date books would soon be full up. First a tea dance, now this. I got very tired just thinking about it all.

“I'll have to ask my mother,” I said, the total nerd.

“Well, of course you will. Would you like me to call her, explain about the party and all?”

“No,” I said hastily. The last thing in the world I wanted was for Sparky's mom to call my mom.

“I'll let you know,” I said.

When I got back with the milk, my mother was on the telephone. She was talking to her sister up in Connecticut, my aunt Tess. Tess' husband had left her for another woman and she was plenty bitter.

Perfect. I put the milk in the refrigerator and zipped down the hall to Al's. My mother would be good for at least half an hour talking to Tess.

“Enter, infidel!” Al threw open the door. She had on her AL(exandra) T-shirt, her sweat pants, and her red shoes. Plus she had a scarf tied around her head.

“How's this?” she asked, turning so I could get the total affect. “Good, huh? Just right for the Nautilus machine. I'm trying the roto curl bar first, then I'm going for the leg press and the super pullover. I'm all set.”

“You better bag the shoes,” I told her. “They'll never let you in with those beauties on. And what's with the headdress? You been doing the windows or something?”

“This is my wimple,” Al said, very dignified.

“And a wimple's what a wimp wears, right?” I thought that was pretty funny, but Al didn't crack a smile.

“You jest,” she said. “I, Mother Zandi, am searching for my past and future self. I have placed myself back in time. I see myself as I was in my life before this one.”

“And that's when you wore your wimple,” I said.

Al inclined her head. I think that meant yes.

“In ancient times”—Al made her voice very deep—”I was a woman in the Temple of Dendur. I had a white cat. I was thought to be a witch. In those days, all witches had white cats. It was a rule.”

“Maybe instead of being a woman in the Temple of Dendur,” I said, “you were a white cat.”

“Hey!” Al snapped out of her Mother Zandi persona. “Neat. Very good. I like that. O.K., so I was a white cat in the Temple of Dendur. Creeping about listening, hearing all secrets, telling none. White cats were thought to be messengers of Satan. I think it was Satan. Or was that black cats. Anyway, you get the picture. What are you here for, o messenger of the gods? What news bringeth thee for me?”

“You'll never guess,” I said. “We, thee and me, are invited to a party by Sparky's mom. What thinketh you of thateth?”

“Holy Toledo, don't tell me she's throwing a birthday bash for the little bugger,” Al said. “I can't stand it.”

“Nope. She's throwing a bash for her nephew, who's not only brilliant, he's also a darling boy and he's coming to visit her this weekend.”

“She wants both of us?” Al said. “And there's only one nephew. How come?”

“She says after the refreshments if we hit it off the way she thinks we will, we can go discoing.”

“You know what this is,” Al said. “This is a blind date, pure and simple. She sets us up, we never laid eyes on each other before, we hit it off, we go on a date. Awesome.”

I nodded.

Dramatically, Al stripped off her wimple and stepped out of her red shoes.

“Excuse me,” she said. “I have to go to the bathroom.”

I sat there, thinking about the meaning of life. Of being popular. Of blind dates. Of what the heck this was all about.

Al returned.

“Are you up for it?” she asked me.

“If you are,” I said.

“How tall is he?”

“I don't know. Maybe we better call her up and ask.”

“What's Sparky's mom's name?” Al wanted to know.

“I don't know,” I said again. “I always call her Sparky's mom.”

“You think she'd be listed in the phone book that way?” Al said.

Nine

My mother would know. She always knows things like people's last names, how many times they've been married, how many kids they've had, where the money comes from. Minutiae, I believe it's called.

“What's the name of that woman on the top floor?” I asked her, casual as heck, peeling potatoes like a pro. “The one with the scroungy little dog.”

My mother was making pie crust and didn't answer. I thought she hadn't heard, although as I said, her hearing's first rate. She doesn't miss a cough or a sneeze, even if it's midnight and I have a pillow over my face. She never misses the sound of the top of the cookie jar being lifted by experts, which I consider myself and which Teddy certainly is.

“Out of there!” she hollers. “It's almost dinnertime. You'll spoil your appetite.” One of the things I look forward to about growing up and moving out is not having my mother's ears around. I know I'll miss her like crazy, but the ears I can do without.

“There,” she said, putting the final crimp on the crust.

“Her name's Mrs. Olmstead. He was president of a copper company and the money's his. Third husband, I believe. No children.” My mother brushed the top of the crust with egg white to give it a professional glaze.

“Now she raises funds. Sells tickets for benefits to all her friends, gets the right people to take a table at a charity ball. That sort of thing. She used to be vice-president of a fragrance company. In everyday language, kid, that's perfume. She's not friendly. We've been in the building almost ten years and I think she's said hello twice. I can take her or leave her.” My mother opened the oven and shoved the pie in.

“Why?”

Just when I'm sure she's lost the train of thought, she zeros in. She kills me. She really does.

“She invited me and Al to a party she's giving for her nephew,” I said. “She's having lots of young people and refreshments.”

“Well, for pity's sake.” My mother looked at me with something like admiration. At least, I think that's what it was.

“What did you do to get in her good graces? Or what did Al do? I'm flabbergasted. Flummoxed, you might even say,” my mother said.

“Well,” I said, wondering if I could trust my mother not to tell Al's mother. “Sparky ruined Al's new shoe, you see.” I told her about the barf and the pee and how delighted Al was that her shoe was ruined on account of she'd hated those shoes that her mother bought her.

“So Al's kind of grateful to the mutt,” I explained. “Even if he is sort of repulsive.”

“He's all of that,” my mother agreed. “Imagine being cooped up with that face all day. Imagine having to take him to the park, where he has to be followed around with one of those dreadful pooper scoopers. Imagine having to scoop up his poop. I'd be embarrassed to be seen scooping up my dog's poop.”

I burst out laughing. “You looked so funny when you said that!” I said. “You cross your heart and hope to die you won't tell Al's mother, though. She might get mad.”

“What do you take me for, a squealer?” my mother said indignantly. “I won't say a word, though I do think Mrs. Olmstead ought to at least offer to get Al's shoe cleaned. Are you going to her party, you and Al?”

“I said I'd let her know,” I said. “I wasn't sure you'd let me.”

“Of course I'll let you,” my mother said. “It's only upstairs. If the nephew turns out to be a bummer, come on down. Besides, I'd like to know what her apartment is like. She had it decorated last year by one of the top New York designers. I understand it cost the earth. So keep your eyes peeled. I think she has silk walls in the drawing room and her dining room is black.”

My mother set her mouth in that way that she has when she disapproves strongly of something.

“A black dining room is not good form, it seems to me,” she said, pressing her lips into a thin line. “What's the nephew like, did she say?”

“She said he was brilliant and a darling boy,” I said.

My mother clapped a hand to her forehead. “Oh-oh,” she said. “Beware of brilliant darling boys. How old is he?”

“I didn't ask,” I said.

“How tall is he, then?”

“I didn't ask that either. You sound just like Al. She always thinks boys are going to be midgets, that they're going to come up to her sternum or her belly button or something. She has a thing about it.”

“That's because she's tall,” my mother said. “I was always tall for my age too. And for some inexplicable reason, the short boys went for me straight away and all the tall boys seemed to prefer the short girls. Unfair, but that's the way it was. I know how Al feels.”

I'd never thought of it until that minute. How tall was Brian? Al had never told me. All she talked about was Brian's big muscles and how he made the city boys look like Charlie Brown.

“Mom,” I said, “did you ever go on a blind date?”

“Why, I was the blind-date queen of the eighth grade,” my mother said proudly. “In that grade alone, I had three blind dates. Each one was with the brother of a friend who needed a date in the worst way and couldn't get one. One of my friends charged her brother fifty cents when I said I'd go to the dance with him. It was a finder's fee, she said. He put up a good fight, but in the end he paid her, and afterward she told me she should've charged him a buck. I thought I was worth at least a buck. Maybe more.”

“Was it fun? Did you have a good time?” I asked her.

“No,” she said. “I can't honestly say it was fun. We were both too uptight. But I'd never been on a date and I felt I was ready to get my feet wet. We didn't have a single thing in common. He was bored and so was I. He'd been to dancing school, so he knew how to dance. I'd been to dancing school too, but I wasn't a very good dancer. He left me to dance with a girl in a pink dress. Her name was Felicia. Oh, how I hated her. I could hardly wait for the evening to end. Then there was the business of what I should do if he tried to kiss me. That kept me awake nights. You see, in those days,” my mother said, giving me a piercer, “a kiss was a big deal.” She fell silent and had a little smile on her face. I guess she was thinking about those olden days of her youth.

“Did he try?” I asked. I didn't want to seem too eager. All I wanted was for her to go on and on, leaving nothing out.

“I think he did,” she said. “Remember, this was long ago. He sort of lunged at me and almost knocked me off our front steps. I lunged the other way and we missed contact by a good five feet. And when I went in, there was Tess, sitting on the living-room couch in her nightgown, pretending to read a book. She was waiting up for me because our parents had gone to the movies or something. ‘What happened?' she asked me. I can still see her, wide eyed, wanting some tale of wild events, so, of course, I made some up. I went all out, until Tess' eyes were so wide I could see myself in them as if they were a mirror. That was the best part of the evening, telling Tess my version of what hadn't happened.”

My mother laughed at the memory.

“Oh, Mom,” I said. “I wish I'd known you when you were young.”

“Yes,” my mother said. “Just think. You might've been the friend whose brother I went to the dance with for a fifty-cent finder's fee.”

“You'd never go out with Teddy!” I said, shocked. “Not in a million years.”

Ten

The next morning Al and I skinned down the service stairs instead of waiting for the elevator. We didn't want to take the chance of running into Sparky's mom. We still hadn't decided whether we'd take her up on her invite.

“What's that?” I pointed to Al's book bag, which was stuffed with what looked like a bunch of old clothes.

“My sweats,” Al said. “I figured we might give the health club another shot on our way home. After all, Al did seem a kindly gentleman.” She gave me her owl eye for an instant. “So I'm prepared. How about you?”