Plumly School – THURSDAY, APRIL 8, 1965
Back at school – good to be back. Sunday in Washington we went to the Smithsonian and saw the Air Force and Space exhibits. They had Lindbergh’s and Wright’s first planes. Hard to believe anyone ever had the nerve to jump off a cliff in one of these plywood gliders. We also saw a spaceship and the Foucault pendulum. It always goes in a straight line but the earth is turning under it. Cool. Lots of people say the concept of space makes them feel small – it doesn’t have that effect on me. It makes me feel big to be a member of such an important species, even when I’m practically failing math. Attempting to explain this idea to Genevieve got me nicknamed “The Wonder Girl”. She is too sarcastic.
We saw the First Ladies’ inaugural dresses – the one I wanted was Abigail Van Buren’s. Daddy didn’t like the exhibit. He kept saying, “Boy, she was one big babe!” We all agreed Bess Truman’s was the absolute worst.
Genevieve called a friend from Plumly and we went on a double date (he isn’t really her boyfriend.) We got to drive around Washington in a convertible, and went to see The World of Henry Orient, which we thought, was supposed to be funny but was actually sad. Genevieve had to leave because she was bawling uncontrollably but apparently Jim didn’t mind because he wanted to be alone with her anyway. I didn’t mind my date, Dick. He was all right. When we got back to the car we discovered someone had blocked us in and we had to drive several hundred yards on the sidewalk. Fortunately there were no cops around. It was really late at that point and we had to get back to the Fairfax so we could wake up early and go to Plumly next morning. Plumly! How I’ve missed you!
THURSDAY, APRIL 15, 1965
You probably thought I was dead it’s been so long since I’ve written. No such luck. Still imprisoned in this mortal coil. Phil broke up with me for no reason at all, and the boys who have asked me out since then are hardly a promising lot. Barry I turned down on principle (I don’t want to be seen with him) and Jed worries me. He’s just weird and I don’t think it’s a good weird. He’s like those guys who get arrested for shooting a lot of strangers. He’s obsessed with the military, which does not bode well. I can’t figure out why Phil broke up with me, although he said it wasn’t me. At least I don’t have to worry about his hair any more. He used to style it into a kind of dog-doo pile on his head and I just couldn’t get him to stop. It’s a shame when a girl has so little effect on a guy.
Krissy and I aren’t speaking because we both want the same boy and at the Stone House pep rally last night it looked like I had him (we were having a balloon fight.) Richard Johnson is English, he’s very good looking (an especially good body, very manly) and he keeps coming to talk to me at my workjob, but he doesn’t ask me out so I think I’m going to have to sacrifice him to keep the peace on the home front. He’s making me do too much work. Some guys at Boys End don’t believe in dating – mostly the intellectuals – that makes it very hard. They want us to just sort of come together by suction, like amoebas. Thank God for the jocks. They like to know what the game is and the rules are – if it wasn’t for them we would fall into chaos. He also doesn’t send KOBS and my parents have been making noises like I’m too young to go to the Junior/Senior. So it’s probably hopeless anyway. I’ll have to do what all the other lovestruck idiots do - concentrate on English Lit.
MONDAY APRIL 19, 1965
Up to the minute report: I got a 91 in English History, which was a great relief. I don’t mean to sound conceited, but I’m the smartest one in that class (and I’m including the English teacher.) I got 100 in English grammar, which is truly amazing because I usually don’t do well in courses I have a serious philosophical beef with. (Much of English grammar is just plain ridiculous.)
I know you want to know how the Rich race is going. Well, it’s a disaster. The more distant I get with Rich the more interested he gets. Not enough to ask me out, just incessant hanging around. Krissy was asked to the Junior/Senior by Crow the sumo wrestler and she’s going with him because he’s a date. He pays her a lot of attention, sending her balloons, flowers, cards and good FOOD with which you could buy anything – I mean literally anything – at this school. It’s a tragic commentary on life in this mausoleum that a steady supply of English toffee ice cream could enslave the hardiest.
Still, Krissy refuses to give up on Rich but she doesn’t have a chance – I can see that now that I know him. She dimples up, talks baby talk and teases him in a too-obvious way. He’s very polite but there’s a distinct danger that she’ll get thrown up on if she keeps this up. I’ve discovered that Rich loves sailing. Obviously I have an edge in this department. Poor Krissy doesn’t know a stanchion from a stallion. We were both talking to him after dinner last night and I discovered she’s been sending him KOBs with bubble gum in them – was I surprised! I think she’s making herself cheap and I’ve half a mind to tell her so. I must say I was looking goddess like in white Levis and a red shell on my way to checkout. Krissy, alas, looked like the fifth Beatle. This Carnaby Street thing is not working for her.
This afternoon he was hanging around the pay phones when I went to call Mom and Dad. He always acts like he was waiting for me, but I’m starting to think it could just be an act. He was holding his violin because he was supposed to be having a lesson but for some reason it didn’t happen. He played for me. I asked him why he doesn’t join orchestra but he said they were too brassy. He told me about how he’s been suspended from two schools (he never told Krissy this but I’m not surprised – Plumly is Last Chance Gulch for far too many persons of the male persuasion. He also told me he has a crush on his Big Sister (it’s Sydney Close) so not too surprising but still tactless of him to discuss it in front of me - another strike against him. As we were separating he took the red light bulb out of the exit sign and gave it to me as a kind of memento. I thought it was sort of cute but I guess I can see why he keeps getting suspended from places.
WEDNESDAY, MAY 12, 1965
Krissy’s on a meal per and I’m skipping checkout which makes a deten but I’ve really let my work pile up so I’m just going to work through and catch up. Starting any minute now – soon as I finish this. My pictures came today – I can’t help wishing I didn’t look like that. One of my eyes is bigger than the other, my nose is crooked and I have a lopsided smile like an alligator. Still I was able to send one to Preston Pugh, he’s been begging me. I have to admit I am encouraging him because there’s a lot of status in getting mail and I was also worried I wouldn’t have a date to the Tennis Court dance and I would have to import him. (I would die rather than make the first move with that sly sunuva Rich.) Fortunately neither of these horrible eventualities came to pass – the junior class has just discovered I’m alive and four boys have been asking me out steadily. Still the most promising candidate is Beales – he’s going to be class president next year – senior class – so that’s cool. He’s clever and funny but somewhat lacking in the height department.
Little does he know I ‘m attracted to big blonds with hairless chests (sigh.) Beales is very hairy – he’s a tennis player and all this black hair is sprouting every which way out from under his whites. When I told Rich I was going to the tennis court dance with Beales I was hoping for a little jealousy but instead he told me Beales has the biggest you know what on campus. I thought that was an odd remark and it makes me wonder a lot more about Rich than about Beales. (Krissy can have him. She may discover she’s bitten off a mouthful of cotton candy – precisely nothing.) Still, judging from slow dances with Beales, I think he may be right. I really like Beales and he seems to be totally smitten with me (he always calls me “The Lady Alysse”) but I can’t wear really high heels with him. Tonight was a Turnabout dance - late dating at the Cabin. Beales seemed to think I should ask him – so I did – and now we’re a Couple and nobody will ask em anywhere unless we have a Public Break Up. Oh well. Fun so far.
I am writing a book report on The Way to the Lantern for French History – it is about an actor who said he takes comfort from history, that people were born, made love and died. I wish he hadn’t put the dying part immediately after the making love part – this is the kind of thing that worries us virgins. For fun I am reading a life of Fanny Kemble. She is a very interesting person although I find her comments on theatre and acting pretty hard to take. For a Victorian she was pretty wild – always knee deep in rushing brooks, climbing lofty crags and throwing herself full length on the hearthrug. Very reminiscent of You Know Who.
When she was an old lady toting up the experiences of wonder and joy that had been hers I got depressed trying to add up mine. Sadly few. Then I remembered I’m only fifteen, not eighty and I cheered right up. Some time left. Must remember to live abundantly with a fiery heart so that I have some youthful glory too to warm me in my old age. Fifteen minutes to midnight and the tears are still drying on my cheeks. I say goodbye to childhood.
Thursday, May 13, 1965
Class pictures. I call mine Lady Horseface (horseface with a flip) but Beales liked it so much he bought a frame for it. On the other hand Beales’ picture makes him look like a character in Wind and the Willows. I guess it’s all that hair. At 7:15 while I was under the hairdryer I got a call from my parents. I was accepted into theatre camp! I cried and told everyone. Even Krissy said she was happy for me – probably because I gave up Rich “The Impossible Dream”. I’ve been happy ever since – hard to contemplate a summer in Brockton.
When I’m this happy it’s hard to write – I feel like an overgrown exclamation point. That’s probably why all great writers were miserable human beings.
Sunday, May 16, 1965
I’ve got my lamp on even though it’s lights out so I’ll probably get caught but I’m too excited to mess around with that cheap plastic flashlight. Besides, Krissy is up and messing around with her scrapbook — she flew home this weekend for her home Junior Senior. My parents would NEVER do that. Fortunately the Rez sounds like the German army whenever she makes a move – we’ll probably hear her coming. Krissy bought me an ice cream cone so I carried her luggage down to the racing shed which is where you catch the van. She said the school doesn’t look so bad when you’re leaving it. She sounded positively nostalgic. I think it looks like a Victorian insane asylum at the best of times. You can almost see the place where the Home for Incurables sign used to be. I was afraid all this nostalgia meant she was bound to be killed in a plane crash, but no such luck. I still have to share a room. When Heidi Weiss’ roommate was in a car accident they let her use the infirmary bathroom which is the only place where you can take baths. I heard she was furious when her roommate came home and now they’re not speaking.
Saturday night was Camp Suppers. As usual the freshman girls were in every room but their own trying to find out what everyone else was going to wear.
“I’m wearing white jeans and a red shell.”
“I’m wearing my new green shorts.”
“I’d wear shorts except they’re madras and they’re ripped.”
It’s the little things like this that make us different from the animals. Fortunately for me (if not for Beales) I don’t care whether I’m in style or not. I’m a trendsetter, rather than a follower. I wore my sweatshirt inside out because it has a really interesting pattern on the other side.
“Camp Suppers” is basically a cookout down at the lake. I had three hamburgers and a hotdog but it’s not as much as it sounds like. They stamp on the meat to get it as flat as possible and then they cut it with cookie cutters. Really! I’ve seen it! Then there was oatmeal with raisin cookies and brownies and in and out canoe races. Once you’re out of a canoe it’s really hard to get back in. Beales was angry at me because I was laughing so hard we didn’t win. He says we didn’t win because I couldn’t get into the canoe because I was laughing and I think we didn’t win because he couldn’t get into the canoe because he was angry.
This is why when summer comes I will just drift elegantly away. Men! Beales is too much work – dating him is like taking an extra class. Even Kip is starting to look good. Beales thinks he’s got me figured out (he’s a straight A student so he thinks he’s smart) but that’s my protection - like an armadillo shell or porcupine quills - I make myself deceptively simple. I got even with Beales by challenging him to a tree-climbing contest. Trees love me. I couldn’t fall from a tree if I tried.
Beales was afraid and he didn’t want me to know he was afraid. Tree-climbing is just not his sport (I’ve seen him throw discus with those huge hairy arms.) But when we got to the top I made it worth his while - we made out. I have a psychic sense of when someone is going to kiss me. Beales turns out to be a shy but impassioned kisser – he kisses all over my face. You don’t have to worry how far a boy is going to go if you’re in a tree, so I could really give myself to the experience. We didn’t go in till a quarter after ten and I spent the rest of the night in deep thought. Maybe Beales is bearable after all.
