Al’s Blind Date: The Al Series, Book Six (11 page)

“Don't be such a pill,” I told her. “It's a party. Smile. Act as if you're enjoying yourself.”

When we got back to where Josh had been, he was gone.

“Maybe someone kidnapped him,” Al said, noticeably brightening.

“You wish,” I said.

“Hey.” The call came from a nearby couch.

“Rats,” Al said.

Josh had a friend with him. He had big chipmunk cheeks and aviator glasses and wore a vest.

“He must be your date,” Al said, grinning for the first time.

We didn't know where else to go, so we walked over.

“This is Mark,” Josh performed the introductions. “He's my best buddy.”

The four of us chatted up a storm.

“So what's new in the Big Apple?” Mark said.

“Where are you guys from?” Al asked.

“Cincinnati,” Mark said.

“What do you do for kicks in Cincinnati?” Al said.

“We mostly hang out at the mall,” Mark said. Josh may have fallen asleep by then, for all we knew. He sure wasn't talking.

“Lots of action going on at the mall.” Mark smiled slyly.

“Give me a for instance,” Al said.

“Oh,” Mark said, surprised. “The usual. You know. Dates, dances, flicks, video games.”

“Oh, wow,” Al said.

I said, “We don't have malls in the city,” because I thought it was time for me to say something.

“Well, what do
you
do for kicks?” Josh asked. “Go for walks in Central Park and wait to be mugged?”

“We're into health clubs, weight lifting, Nautilus machines, all that,” Al said nonchalantly. “Sometimes we take in a jazz joint or two, if it starts getting really late. I mean, those joints don't get a buzz on until well after midnight.”

“Jazz, huh.” Josh whipped out a pocket knife and started to clean his fingernails. “I'm into Willie Nelson. Willie's my boy.”

“How come no socks?” Al asked, pointing to Mark's bare ankles.

Mark clutched himself, as if to warm the ankles, and said, “We don't wear socks in Cincinnati. It's not cool.”

“Whaddaya do when it snows?” Al said.

Josh put his hand over his mouth and whispered something in Mark's ear.

“My mother always told me it was impolite to whisper,” I said. I know I sounded like an awful prig, but she did say that and I believe it's true.

Suddenly Josh said, “Like your shoes,” to Al. “They're very, very funky.”

“You do?” Al's eyes widened in surprise. “They're yours.” And she started to remove her shoes. Both boys backed off.

“We got something to tell you,” Josh said. He jabbed Mark in the ribs. “Tell 'em, boy,” he ordered.

“Josh wants me to tell you he has the major hots for Diane,” Mark said solemnly.

“No kidding?” Al said in her supersarcastic voice.

“Just in case you get any ideas,” Josh said. “Diane has a body that won't quit.”

Al and I traded looks.

“Well, Al wants me to tell you she has the major hots for Brian and he has muscles that won't quit,” I said. “He also works out and he's very, very jealous.”

Al put her shoes back on and said, “We better split. Nice knowing you.”

The boys from Cincinnati zoned out. I guess they figured they were in way over their heads with us city girls. We looked for Sparky's mom to say thank you for a nice time, but she wasn't around.

“Talk about wet behind the ears!” Al exploded when we hit the elevator button to take us down to home and safety.

“What's with the shoe bit?” I said.

“Well, you know how you read about some rich eccentric person, how when someone says ‘I like your diamond ring' or ‘I like your gold watch' the rich eccentric person whips off the watch or the ring and says, ‘It's yours,' and hands it over to the person who admired it. I've always wanted to do that. It's a beau geste.” Al gave me her owl eye. “So I figure if the bozo from Cincinnati admires my funky shoes, they're his. I unload 'em on just the right person. The thing of it is”—and Al turned melancholy—“they would've been way too big. His feet were eensy.”

She sucked her cheeks in and crossed her eyes.

“Social encounters of the third kind are extremely taxing,” she said. “I'm whipped.”

“What time is it?” I said.

“Seven-oh-seven,” Al said, checking her Swatch. “Come on in and I'll nuke us a couple of hot dogs and we can play Russian Bank. You don't want to go home this early. Your mother and father will think you didn't have a good time.”

“I like your watch,” I said as Al opened the door.

She turned and looked at me over her shoulder.

“Tough beans, baby,” she said.

Seventeen

“How'd it go?” my father asked. “Meet any cute boys?”

“Well, not exactly cute,” I said. “Kind of weird, actually.”

“Oh? Where from?” he said.

“Cincinnati,” I said.

“Oh, Cincinnati,” my father said.

“Let's put it this way, Dad,” I told him. “It wasn't exactly love at first sight.”

“It almost never is,” he said.

When I brought my mother breakfast in bed on Sunday morning, I told her Al and I planned to go to the health club that afternoon.

“Health club?” she said. “I don't think a health club's exactly the kind of place a girl of your age should go. Isn't it full of seedy, sweaty people?”

“Mom, we're not talking pool hall here,” I said. “We're talking fitness. It's where people go to work out and firm up their bodies. Mostly the people are yuppie types. Power brokers, that kind of stuff. They lift weights and all that.”

“Yeah, and they all look like Cher, I bet,” she said. “In my day, weight lifters were not considered suitable companions for thirteen-year-old girls,” and she shot me a piercer over the rim of her orange-juice glass.

“Mom, things are different now,” I said.

“Oh, don't give me that,” she said.

“These guys just opened the business,” I said, “and they're looking for customers. Our teacher, Ms. Bolton, went there and it turned out she's really into working out. She's got a figure that won't quit, although you'd never know it on account of she wears clothes that are very big for her.”

“What's
that
mean, a figure that won't quit?” my mother asked.

“I don't know,” I admitted. “This guy we met at the party yesterday said his girlfriend had a figure that won't quit, so I told him Al had a boyfriend named Brian with muscles that won't quit. I figured that ought to fix him.”

“And did it?” my mother said, trying not to laugh.

“Who knows. They were nerdy types from Cincinnati.”

“Oh, Cincinnati,” my mother said. “I used to go out with a boy from Cincinnati. I was crazy about him. Then I noticed he kept track of every penny he spent, wrote the dollars and cents down in a little book he carried with him. I decided maybe he wasn't good husband material. It's the little things that count, don't forget.”

“I'll clean up the kitchen,” I said. She hadn't said I couldn't go.

“Be home by five,” my mother told me. “You know I worry if you're out after dark.”

I almost said, “It doesn't get dark until six” but decided against it. No sense in pushing my luck.

“I'm glad you're better, Mom,” I said. “Al said when her mother went to the hospital she planned on who she'd live with if her mother died. She said I didn't have to worry if anything happened to you because I have more family than she does.”

“It seems to me you and Al are awfully ready to wipe us off the face of the map if we spend a couple of days in bed,” my mother said, fluffing up her back hair the way Thelma does, but quietly, on account of she doesn't wear bangle bracelets.

I kissed her. “You're a good woman, Mom,” I told her.

“Go on and go,” she said. “And comb your hair. It's a mess.”

Al and I ate standing up so we wouldn't dirty the clean counters. “I like your hair that way,” I told her. Her mother had fixed Al's hair in a French braid.

“Yeah. She said it makes my face look thinner. Between you and me, I think she's full of it,” Al said glumly. “I'm up for cheek surgery. How about it?” She blew out her cheeks at me.

“You look like a blowfish,” I said.

“I am making a fashion statement,” Al said. “One minute I'm in pigtails, the next in a French braid. Am I a kid or am I a hotshot?”

My father wandered into the kitchen looking bemused. He said hello and wandered out as he had come.

“Did you ask your mother about whether your father was romantic or not?” Al asked me.

“I forgot,” I said. “I will.”

“I brought my sweats just in case we land another freebie,” Al said. “I bet he gives us one.”

“Bet you he won't.”

“Five bucks,” Al said. We shook on it. She owes me about a hundred bucks, but she says I owe her about two hundred, on bets alone. We never pay, we just bet.

When we finally started out, the sun had gone under a bunch of dark clouds and a cold wind had sprung up.

“Do you think this is real life?” Al asked me as we hurried to beat the rain. “This, I mean,” and she made a lavish gesture that took in our surroundings: the street, the buildings, the city. “Is this the real world or is it a fake?”

It's a good thing I was used to her mood swings, otherwise I couldn't handle them.

“It's as real as you make it, I guess,” I said.

“Suppose it's not real, suppose it's phony,” Al said. Her mood had darkened, along with the sky. “Suppose we never find out what the real world is like. Suppose we keep on fooling ourselves that we're kids, but we grow up, get out of school, make lots of money in jobs we love, get married, have kids, and that's it.”

“Whaddaya mean, that's it?” I said. “That sounds like quite a lot.”

“Maybe I want more out of life,” she said.

“That's why we're going to Al's Health Club,” I said. “So you can have more. More abs, more pecs, more gluts, and a much, much tighter behind,” and I sped along the pavement as fast as I could so she couldn't catch up with me.

“Help ya?” asked a burly lady behind the desk, wearing a peaked hat with NAPA written across the front and a set of earphones attached.

“Is Al here?” we asked her.

“Al?” For a second her roving glance lit on us and she even smiled. Then she looked over our heads as if she was searching for Al in the corners. “I think he's in back. Things are kinda rocky, what with deliveries and all. Stuff doesn't show up, he goes ape. Better not bother him today. He's like a gorilla today, a gorilla what just sat on an ant heap.” The lady gave out a short, sharp laugh that sounded like a dog barking.

“How's business?” Al said.

“Good,” the lady said, nodding vigorously. “Not bad, good. You shoulda been here yesterday. The joint was jumping. Saturdays are best. You get your money people in on Saturdays. They want to shape up, look sleek for a big night on the town. You get your bank presidents, your Madison Ave. types.

“Sundays, like today,” the lady continued, “you get your basic weirdos. You wouldn't believe the weirdos Sundays bring in. Our clientele goes to church, we got a big church-going crowd, believe it or not. Sundays,” the burly lady leaned over the counter, tapping one long, perfect, red nail against the glass, “are for weirdos. This morning I have a gentleman, he comes in and wants the machine he's using to face north so he faces north too when he's working out, so he can be aligned with the planets. That what he says, ‘aligned with the planets.' You ever heard that before? No, me neither,” she said, as if Al and I had spoken.

“They tell you all the nuts are in California these days,” the burly lady went on, obviously wound up, “but don't you believe them. There are plenty of nuts in these parts, a lot of 'em around. They eat Sunday dinner, come down here to work it off. There's all these starving people we got, living in doorways and boxes and all. They could use some of the dough these people spend on getting their bodies in shape. Think of the little kids who don't eat their supper on acount of there's no supper to eat. Think of it if you want to drive yourself nuts. Yes, darling. Help ya?” the burly lady said, calming down.

A lady in red stood in front of the desk, biting her lips.

“My fiancé lives in Seattle,” she said, “and he only gets east once a month and I wondered if we could both use the same membership.”

“Listen, darling,” the burly lady said, “if it was up to me, you could bring your boyfriend any old time. But I'm not the boss lady. Check with Al. He's the boss. And like I'm telling these girls here, Al's a regular gorilla which sat on an ant heap today. Try him next week, why dontcha.”

Al and I moved off and sat on a bench and watched people work out on the Nautilus machine.

“How about if I slip into the dressing room and into my sweats?” Al said.

“Try it. If it doesn't work, so you tried,” I said.

We looked for Ms. Bolton, but she wasn't around. She'd said she might come on Sunday.

“Probably she's out on a blind date,” Al said.

We'd decided to split and were halfway to the door when we saw Big Al come storming out of the back, his arms waving, eyes wild.

“Everybody outa here!” he shouted. He rushed toward us, swerving, flapping his arms like some kind of wounded bird.

“Out! Ya hear me? I said Out and I mean Out! All youse! Out!” As we watched, astounded and astonished, Al seemed to swell, as if he'd been filled with air. His face was practically purple.

Some people moved toward the door sideways, like crabs, keeping an eye on Al to make sure he kept his distance. Some stayed where they were, riding bicycles, running in place, working out with their eyes closed, paying him no mind. Lots of New Yorkers are used to bizarre behavior and don't let it get to them.