Reluctantly Alice Read Online Free

Friday—I’d thought I had the worst problems in the family because I was in the first seat in the front row in World Studies class, and how when I went to bed Friday night, I figured that Lester had a lot worse problems than I had. By the time I was through working my three hours at the Melody Inn, though, I knew it was Dad who had the most trouble of all.
    There are two women who work at the Melody Inn—Janice Sherman, the assistant manager, who takes care of the sheet music department, and Loretta Jenkins, who runs the Gift Shoppe at the back of the store. Loretta chews gum and has wild curly hair, while Janice Sherman looksand acts like a lady banker. She dresses in suits and scarves and has a smile that stretches just so far and no farther. She’s also had a crush on my dad ever since we moved to Maryland, I think, and I’m not sure Dad knows it.
    The worst part, though, is that she let us use her beach cottage at Ocean City for a week in August because I think she thought it would help Dad fall in love with her, even though she was back in Silver Spring minding the store. Instead, Dad fell for the lady in the beach house next to hers. And when I walked into the Melody Inn on this particular Saturday in early September, I had the feeling that somehow Janice had found out. I was assigned to help her in sheet music, and I happened to notice that she wasn’t smiling at all. Her lips didn’t even stretch.
    â€œCheck in this order, Alice,” she said, “and make sure that we got all five copies of Chopin’s Mazurkas , eleven copies of Bach’s Preludes , and all the single titles listed on this sheet. If they check out, then copy the prices on these stickers and put one on each piece of music.”
    â€œOkay,” I told her, and waited for her to say, “How’s school going?” or “How are things at your house?” or any of the other things she usually says to me on Saturdays. She didn’t.
    Here were Dad and Lester each involved in womantroubles. I began to feel really lucky that Patrick and I were back to just being friends again, and I didn’t have to worry about who to love first or best or most. Dad’s problem, though, was that he didn’t even know he had one. As far as Dad was concerned, Janice was just his assistant manager whom he took to concerts once in a while, but as far as Janice was concerned—I could see it in her eyes—she wanted to end up Mrs. Ben McKinley some day, only she never told Dad about it and he never guessed.
    It’s really awkward when you know something’s wrong, but you can’t talk about it. Janice Sherman was nice to me; she was just awfully quiet, as though her thoughts were a million miles away. Well, a hundred and fifty miles, anyway: Ocean City, Maryland. So after I got all the sheet music checked in and price stickers on everything and the music filed away in the drawer, I said, “It was really nice of you to let us use your beach cottage, Janice. We all had a really great time.”
    â€œApparently so,” said Janice, sort of sadly, I thought.
    I knew I’d done it again. I considered putting a Band-Aid over my mouth to keep it shut until Monday morning so I couldn’t do any more damage than I already had. But then I discovered that I could get in just as much trouble not saying anything at all. Because just before I went homeat noon, Janice said, “Well, I’m glad your family could use my cottage, Alice. It’s a shame to let it sit there empty when someone could be enjoying it. Did you have any visitors?”
    All sorts of alarms went off in my head, and I knew I’d have to be careful. I knew right away that she wondered if the woman next door had come over. The woman had, as a matter of fact, but she and Dad had stayed out on the front porch talking. She never came in.
    â€œThe only people we had overnight were friends of mine,” I told