Alice and I

So, you want to know about Alice huh? Yeah, I’ll tell you about her. Shit, well, Alice was the kind of girl you could sit with at the bar and just by the way she held herself, you could tell she was a messy cook. She’d flail her cigarette, coming close to singeing the person next to her. Grabbing her wine, she’d make her point and simultaneously red drops would splash from the glass. In between words she would slowly lick the remaining drops off her fingertips. This is her beauty, the fact that her story is more important than split wine. Little things like this, you can just tell she makes a nasty mess when she cooks.

She was real, and because of that she was the only female that I actually spent time with. We were in our earlier twenties, but we acted like adolescents. Days were spent running through the woods, passing a burning joint back and forth, and pretending we were lost in a world of battles, ships, and romance. Sitting on a tree branch extended over the river, we would play her favorite game which consisted of questions like, “If you could be a famous person from history who would it be?” “Describe a mystical fantasy world you would like to spend a day in,” and “If you could make love with one famous person, dead or alive, who would it be?” I immediately responded with Marilyn Monroe, and Alice with Gene Wilder. She has this obsession with Gene and because of this, I can’t even tell you how many times I’ve watched Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Every scene she would say, “God, just look at him!” arms stretched out towards the T.V.

She had long brown hair, border line black, hazel eyes, and a face so stunning and exotic it literally took your breath away. About once a month we’d go to this bar called The Artist’s Corner. It was a hole in the wall jazz club, with low ceilings, those centerpiece candles that made the room glow red and the best lounge singers I’d every heard. Alice would dress up in her flapper outfit, a fitted, strapless, black and red dress with those dangly things on the bottom. I’d wear my stripped Dickie overalls, a hot pink tube top and a railroad conductor’s hat. Can’t you just picture us? I mean when the two of us were together we were a goofy looking pair. So anyway, we would walk into the club, smiling at the regulars as we filtered through the stagnant smoke. This was the kind of place that every customers was a regular, heads turned when you walk by, and they let you know that you were out of place. The people there liked us, and although we were young, we somehow fit in. When we walked past this guy Don’s table, the two of us would hunch over, turn our eyes to look at him, and snap our fingers with the bass line as we walked past. Don always said, “Ladies,” as he grabbed the brim of his hat and nodded. We would walk past the band, a piano, bass, drum kit and a singer, and drop a few dollars into the tip jar, winking at the Henry the piano player. After finding a table, Alice would order a merlot, myself a vodka gimlet. From time to Henry would let us sing, and every time we busted out “You Go to My Head” by Billie Holliday. Without fail, Alice would get too drunk and I, of course, would drive us home, her sleeping in the passenger seat.

So this one time we went to a used book sale. We arrived around three thinking it was open; only to find out that it didn’t open until four. Well, there was a line about three blocks long outside the high school hockey arena. The diversity of people standing around us was amazing. There were several mothers with their impatient children, holding onto their crotches, praying they wouldn’t pee. A bum stood next to Alice and kept trying to talk to her about politics. There were a few professors around that I recognized from the U. Just loads of different people, anticipating the opening of the gates. And let me tell you, when those gates opened, people fucking sprinted in. Alice and I stood there and laughed as we watched people run from table to table, throwing books into their boxes. One man threw off his coat, while racing from section to section. After filling his box, he’d put a pre-made sign on top of it that said, “Property of James Roberts.” He was sweating bullets, I mean sweat poured off his brow; the whole scene was extremely dramatic. I was convinced that either these people owned used bookstores and business was bad these days, or they were all completely neurotic.

We mingled through the swarms of people, picking up hidden treasures here and there and whenever I needed to find Alice I would look at the sea of people and listen. She was kicking her box across the floor as she moved down the rows, her arms flailing with each kick. Once I heard her, I’d look, spot her and head to that section. The last time I went to get her, I found her in the children’s section, fighting with a boy, ten years old or so, over a book. Guess which book… Yeah, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. They were standing on opposite sides of the table, each holding on to an end of the book. I walked over, ripped the book from both their hands, gave it to the boy and told her it was time to go. Grumpy, she kicked her box to the check out line. She said, “That was the first edition you know.” I smiled at her, and looking at the ground, she slowly smiled back. We proceeded to her house, where we sparked two cigarettes and silently delved into our books.

Oh man, I forgot to mention the coolest thing about our friendship; we met while we were dancing. We were at this Fourth of July party out in the country; our friends are in a band, and they were playing a show for their close friends. So we were dancing, and at this point everyone else was passed out on the lawn around us, so we were basically the only two conscious. The two of us were completely lost in the music and simultaneously we looked up, made eye contact and gave each other that smile, that smile that says, “Hell yeah! I know you were there too!” The funny thing is we didn’t talk to each other that night. It wasn’t until we saw each other at the bar; I just walked up to her, introduced myself and we talked until close. We swapped numbers and have been friends ever since. It’s funny how people never meet like that anymore. You always need a mutual friend to meet or to hang out with you as some sort of buffer. You know what I mean? Well, not with Alice and me.

The two of use are similar in several respects. We knew each other for about six months until she showed me a part of her emotional side. I knew she was going through some rough times with her boyfriend, but she never talked about it. So one night at the bar, (yes, you’re seeing a trend here, we liked the bar) we were talking and I just cut her off and said, “Why don’t you ever talk about Justin? He’s your fucking boyfriend and I don’t know shit about him.” She looked me square in the eyes and started talking. That night was a breakthrough, for both of us.

One day we were sitting on the edge of the river, and if you haven’t noticed by now, we were pretty impulsive when around each other. There were these tall stone sides that hugged the river, and that is where we were sitting. It was the first really hot day of spring, and so it felt twenty degrees hotter than it really was. I told her I wanted to jump in the river. At that moment, we looked at each other with glints in our eyes, and I started to empty my pockets. She followed. We discussed the situation for a bit and before I knew it, she was counting down, “Three, Two, One, GO!” I saw her leap off, so I did the same. Little did we know, the river was only three feet deep there. She fucked up her knee pretty bad. The river carried us for a while, the two of us screaming and laughing. I eventually grabbed on to a pipe, and she clung to my leg. When Alice pulled herself out of the river, her putsy ass slipped again and she scrapped her legs, arms and part of her face! Oh man, I tried not to laugh too hard, but she is so fucking putsy that I couldn’t help but laugh, it’s so Alice.

That was one of the best days I’ve ever had with Alice- we hopped on our bikes and went back to her apartment. We both took a shower, and sitting in our towels having a “smoke and a chat”. Alice was lying on her bed and I was on the couch across the room. She put her cigarette out and beckoned me to come over. I walked over to her bed and sat beside her. She took my cigarette, put it out and grabbed my face with her hands. She paused for a minute and looked at me, closely examining my face. She drew me in and kissed me. I slowly shifted my body, moving my leg over hers, my arms supported my torso, and I pulled our towels off. My blood pumped with excitement as I slowly lowered my skin onto hers. She rubbed my thighs and slowly ran her nails up my back, to cup my face again. I kissed her ear lobes, leaving hot heavy breaths on her neck. There is something irresistible about a woman’s neck. The lines from the earlobe, down the chin and to the neck are so delicate. Those lines on Alice’s chin reflected the light in a way that accentuated her pores, and the tiny beads of sweat that emerged. Sweat rolled off my brow and landed on her chest, gradually rolling down between her breasts. Her body is beautiful; she has full breasts, hips and a meaty belly on her. She has real substance, the way women should be. We rolled around her bed, the floor and to the cold kitchen tile. Each movement was slow and deliberate; each breath indicated what the other enjoyed. We paused from time to time to look into each other’s eyes. Her upper lip had beads of salty sweat that kept emerging after each kiss. Our blood rushed and clitorises throbbed; there was something erotic about being with a woman. We knew how to please each other, each movement of her tongue was soft, delicate and exactly where I wanted it. After she finished she gradually moved up my body, kissing my stomach, my breasts, my neck, my lips. We smiled, both beyond satisfied and drifted to sleep.

That was our only afternoon of ecstasy. It was amazing, and later we laughed at how long we had been waiting for that to happen. It was beautiful, it truly was.

It was about a month after that, when she packed up her apartment and went back to her parent’s house. She was moving to India, where she is right now, to work in an orphanage. I haven’t seen her for five years. We write on a regular basis, but it’s nothing like being with Alice in person. A spark just flies between the two of us. I leave in almost seven months, damn, I can’t wait. God only knows what India will bring us.