It was an ordinary evening for them, and Johnny didn't come home until Alice was already in bed, reading.
“How was Becky?” his mother asked, peering at him over her reading glasses. She had just started to wear them, and Johnny said he liked them, which made her smile.
“She has a date tomorrow night,” he said victoriously.
“How did that happen?” Alice looked stunned. They had just been talking about how sad her life was.
“She met a guy at work today. He's a junior at UCLA, and he took a semester off to work for his father. He called tonight to ask her out.” He sounded pleased as he told her, but he had mixed feelings about it. His name was Buzz and he was really handsome, and bright and nice. His father owned a chain of liquor stores, and he drove a Mercedes. He even liked kids, and had three brothers and two sisters himself. “I'm not sure he's good enough for her,” Johnny told his mom, looking pensive. “But he looked okay to me when he walked into the drugstore. He went to the same high school we did. He recognized Becky as soon as he walked in. He graduated the year we were sophomores, and he always liked her, but he never asked her out before.”
“Did you set that up for her?” his mother asked him with curiosity and admiration. It had been a nice thing for him to do, if he had, and he looked as though he felt good about it too.
“I think so,” he said. He was not entirely sure yet of either his effect or his powers. “Charlie's still up, by the way. Isn't it kind of late for her?”
“Not really,” his mother smiled. He was so grownup now, in some ways, and still her little boy in others. “She's fourteen. You went to bed even later than that at her age,” she said, amused by his policing his sister, just as she saw Jim walk into the room, looking tired. Neither of them had heard him come in, and he seemed more sober than he usually was at that hour.
“Who were you talking to?” he asked, looking straight at her.
“Oh … I… myself … I do that sometimes when I'm alone.” She tried to look nonchalant.
“You'd better watch that,” he teased her. “People are going to start saying funny things about you.” She nodded, and Johnny left discreetly, and went to his own room. “You've been in awfully good spirits for the past few days. Any special reason?”
“Just feeling better, I guess. I think my ulcer's healing.” And she didn't seem as consumed with grief as she had been. He had noticed that about her. He had noticed a number of things. The nice dinner she'd made for them that night, the easy way she talked to him. She didn't seem as agonized or as strained. The kids were in better shape too. He just wished that business was better. But at least their family seemed to be slowly on the mend, not that any of them would ever forget losing Johnny, or be the same again. Nor could he forgive himself for the accident he'd had with Bobby, and what the trauma of it had cost him. A lifetime of silence would serve to remind him of his own part in it, no matter how he might try to forget, or what methods he used to anesthetize himself.
They lay in bed and talked for a while that night, and she couldn't help wondering if he was drinking less, or just tolerating it better. It was hard to tell. And as though to confirm it, the next morning she found half the beers untouched in the six-pack next to his chair in the living room. She put them back in the refrigerator, just as Johnny came down the stairs in his varsity jacket. He had asked her to drive him to Pam's beauty school that morning. There was something he wanted to see there, and Alice had nothing else to do so she'd agreed to drive him. She loved driving him places, just the way she had when he was a little boy. She had always enjoyed the time they spent together in the car.
“What exactly am I supposed to say to Pam when we walk in?” Alice asked in the car as she drove him. He was playing with the radio, and switching from one station to the other, enjoying all his favorite music. He was having a ball.
“Boy, I really missed that,” he said, looking happy, as she laughed, and reminded him that she had never visited Pam at work before, and she might find it a little odd. “Tell her you want to get your hair done.”
“And then what? Why are we going there?”
“I'm not sure yet. There's someone I'm supposed to see. I figured it out last night. I'll tell you about it later,” he said, putting the volume up so high that he could no longer hear her. And five minutes later, they were at the beauty school, and Pam looked startled to see Alice when she walked in.
“Are you okay?” She looked a little euphoric to Pam. Pam was beginning to wonder if they had put Alice on Prozac for her ulcer. She had been behaving just a little oddly, and she seemed strangely cheerful now all the time.
“I'm fine. I just thought it might be fun to get my hair done.”
“Why? Are you going somewhere?”
“I'm going out to lunch afterward,” Alice explained, trying to look normal, but feeling a little odd as she saw Johnny play with one of the dryers while she and Pam talked. “Don't play with that,” Alice said, looking distracted, as Pam stared at her. She had no idea what Alice was talking about.
“Don't play with what?”
“I meant, don't play with my hair. Let's just do it.”
“Sure, Alice, no problem,” Pam said in a soothing tone. She was genuinely worried about her, but Alice looked fine, and she seemed to be in good spirits. Her ulcer was obviously getting better. But she was definitely a little strange these days.
Pam got one of the students to wash Alice's hair, and a few minutes later she assigned another student to give her a trim, and a third one was going to set it. And through it all, Johnny came and went with an official air. He looked very busy. And when he came back an hour later, his mother's hair was done, in a very stylish pageboy. And he had a man in tow. He was a rep from a line of hair products. He told Pam he was based in L.A., but had come to the area to introduce his products at local beauty salons and schools like this one. He was wearing a coat and tie, his hair was cut short, he looked respectable, and he was pleasant and interesting as he chatted with Pam and Johnny's mother. Alice thought he was very good looking, although Pam seemed not to notice. She wasn't interested in meeting men. But they were still talking when Alice left. Pam had refused to let her pay for her new hairdo and smiled as she waved good-bye.
“Did you do that?” she asked her son, and he feigned innocence.
“Do what?”
“Bring that guy in, with the line of hair products. Did you have anything to do with that, Johnny?”
“I have better things to do than fix Becky's mom up with a blind date. That is not why I came here,” he said, looking dignified well beyond his years.
But Alice was not convinced. “I just wondered.”
Bobby smiled when he saw her hair, when they picked him up at school that afternoon. Johnny sat in the backseat with him, and the radio was still blaring on the way home, as Johnny sang to the music, and Bobby nodded. He loved having Johnny around again. Everything around him was always so full of life, and full of fun. As a child Bobby's age, Johnny had loved getting into mischief. And he was no different now. He was obviously having a good time being home, and visiting Bobby and his mother. So much so that when he went home, he took Bobby out to the backyard and shot some baskets with him. They were still out there when Charlotte came home, looking glum, having flunked her French test. But she smiled when she saw Bobby trying valiantly to sink a basket. She couldn't see her older brother, standing only inches away.
“Here, let me show you how,” she said, taking the ball from him. She dribbled it a few times, and then sank it neatly on the first try, and showed her brother how she did it.