Reluctantly Alice Read Online Free PDF Page B

vegetables we picked up on the way home.”
    â€œShe doesn’t want vegetables. She wants you! Ever since she found out you’d been visiting Helen Lake at her cottage, she’s been really upset. She keeps quizzing me about what you did and who you saw while we were at Ocean City. I’m not telling you to date Janice Sherman. All I’m saying is that if you want to live a long healthy life, don’t take them both out at the same time.”
    Dad stopped eating entirely. Every time he raised his fork to his mouth, his eyes would glaze over and he’s put it back down again. “By Jove,” he said finally. And then, “Al, I wonder if you’re right.”
    â€œOf course I’m right. If you proposed to Janice Sherman tomorrow, you’d be married by Tuesday.”
    â€œBut what did I ever do? What did I ever say that gave her the slightest encouragement?”
    â€œI don’t know what you’ve said, Dad, but you’ve taken her to concerts now and then.”
    â€œOnly as a friend. Only because we’re both interested in the same music.”
    â€œ I know that, Dad, and you know that, but she doesn’t. I think she hoped it would lead to more.”
    Dad pushed his chair away from the table. “Oh, blast it!”
    But the evening wasn’t over yet. About six thirty Lester came home from work, and as soon as he stepped in the kitchen, he handed me a sheet of notebook paper. “Okay, Al, which one did it?”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œPamela or Elizabeth?” he asked.
    I stared at the sheet of paper. LESTER, YOU ARE ONE TERRIFIC HUNK , it read in big block letters. I ADORE YOU .
    My stomach sank. “Where was it?” I asked weakly.
    â€œUnder my bedroom door this morning.”
    Somebody, obviously, had either printed it in the night while I was asleep and slipped it under Lester’s door, or done it before breakfast while the others were getting dressed. I read it again. If it had been written in script, I could have guessed, but this had me stumped.
    â€œPamela,” I said finally. “It’s got to be Pamela.”
    â€œIs she the one with the Lady Godiva hair who tried to crawl in bed with me at the beach cottage?”
    â€œShe just did it as a joke, Lester. She crawled right out again.”
    â€œWell, I don’t want little notes appearing under my door, okay? I’ve got Marilyn and Crystal to worry about without some skinny-legged twelve-year-old spying on me and leaving notes that somebody else might see. Which one was spying on me from your room last night?”
    â€œBoth of them,” I told him. “You now have four girls who would die for you, Lester. I can’t understand it, but you do.”
    Dad understood it. “You want to go to Mexico, Les? Just the two of us?”
    Lester didn’t know he was kidding. “ Mexico? When?”
    â€œNow. Tonight. Tomorrow. I don’t care.”
    Lester looked at Dad, then at me.
    â€œHe has two women who would die for him,” I explained.
    â€œOh,” said Lester.
    At the bus stop on Monday, I said, “Your ‘hunk’ didn’t think it was funny, Pamela.”
    â€œWhat?” said Pamela.
    â€œThat note under Lester’s door. He wants you to stopspying on him and slipping notes under his door. You’ll just make him mad.”
    â€œWhat are you talking about?” asked Pamela.
    And then I noticed that Elizabeth’s face was tomato-soup red again. I stared.
    â€œYou?” I said. And when she didn’t answer, I said, “Elizabeth, I never heard you use the word ‘hunk’ in your life.”
    â€œI figured that’s what his girlfriends call him.”
    I still couldn’t believe it. Elizabeth, the nun-to-be, having a crush on Lester the Crude.
    â€œElizabeth,” I said earnestly, “he actually drinks ketchup right out of the bottle. He sweats. He belches. He does everything