What They Always Tell Us Read Online Free PDF Page A

fleshy body, dyed-blond hair. She goes heavy on the makeup, heavy on the perfume she always wears. Today, since they checked in, they have fooled around twice, and as far as that goes, she is good at it. And yet James is still bored.
    Since the Alabama football team isn’t playing this weekend, he doesn’t really care about the other games on TV. The movies on cable are stupid, or else they’ve seen them before. They ran out of beer—kept cool in the small ice bucket provided by the hotel—an hour ago. Why he only brought a six-pack, he has no idea. And he forgot his stash of vodka.
    Now what?
    That is what Alice is asking. “What should we do?” she says, drawing out the “do” like it has three syllables or something.
    “I dunno,” James says, pretending to watch the movie on TV. It’s a comedy with teens, though James knows that all the actors in this movie aren’t his age at all, but twentysomethings, probably living fabulous lives in Hollywood, not stuck in high school hell.
    Alice lies next to him, on her back, wearing just her bra and panties—both lacy and a pink color that she probably thinks looks classy but doesn’t. James is just in his boxers, though he sort of wants to put his clothes back on. Alice is not touching him, but any minute now he is sure she will start rubbing his body—his mostly smooth chest, tight tummy, then down farther, to try to get him excited. She’s very touchy-feely. “We could go somewhere,” Alice says.
    James doesn’t respond. He wishes
she
would go somewhere: home. He thinks he’d rather be bored on his own. But the hotel is paid for, and Alice paid half, and he knows they are both here at least until the morning. Besides, they’d planned this night weeks ago, when James found out his parents were going to be away at a wedding. At the time, the idea excited him, the “badness” of it all. At the time, he liked this Alice a lot more than he does now.
    “I know a girl from Hillcrest, and she’s having a party in Northport somewhere,” Alice says.
    Alice, James knows, doesn’t have many girlfriends at Central High. It’s probably because she stole some girl’s boyfriend during freshman year, and the girls all turned on her in an act of female solidarity. Alice mostly just hangs out with the guy she happens to be dating. So he’s surprised to hear about this other girl at Hillcrest. Maybe girls at other schools don’t know about her reputation. “I’m not going to some hick’s party,” James says.
    “She’s not a hick. Don’t be such an asshole.”
    “Hillcrest?” James says. “Yeah right.” Hillcrest is a county school, about six miles south of the city limits off Highway 69, and everyone knows all the kids who go there are hicks and rednecks. Alice isn’t a hick. But James knows that people—even his own friends—think she’s sort of trashy. Low class. She’s not like the other girls he has dated—Helen, Mary Margaret, and Clare—all girls from good families, with good taste, nice things, outwardly good manners. This is why he is with Alice now. He was bored with those girls, with their fake primness and shallow vanity. But now he is bored with Alice. He can’t win.
    “Why can’t I just come over to your house?” she’d asked when James had told her that his parents were going to be out of town all weekend.
    “My brother will be there,” he’d said.
    “So, won’t he stay out of your hair?”
    “Yeah, I guess. But he’ll still be there, hanging around. He gets on my nerves. Just his presence.” He couldn’t really describe this, not to Alice, at least. She doesn’t have siblings, and she barely knows a thing about Alex—except what everyone else at school knows. Alex the nutcase. That’s how everyone thinks of him now, though they’d never say so to James’s face. Because James knows he’s considered “popular.” He plays soccer and tennis, though he gave up soccer last year after making varsity tennis, because he’s