Free Patiently Alice by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor

embarrassed !”
    “So what did you tell him?” Tommie asked. “That you wanted some ribbed condoms with a lubricated tip?”
    “No! I just said I wanted some men’s condoms.”
    “Men’s condoms?” Pamela shrieked, and we were off again.
    Elizabeth sat helplessly down on her bunk bed. “He sent me over to women’s sanitary products, and right beside them were all these little boxes with pictures of a man and woman doing romantic stuff.”
    “So why did you choose this kind?” Gwen asked.
    “I liked the sunset,” Elizabeth said, and we doubled over. She told the rest of the story then: the lines at the checkout counter, the price check…
    “Liz, it could only happen to you,” said Pamela.
    “Yeah, but why are you giving them to me?” Gwen said to Elizabeth. “You think the first time I go out with a guy I’m going to get naked?”
    “Don’t get mad,” said Elizabeth. “I just don’t want any of us to get into trouble.”
    “If you don’t want them, Gwen, I’ll take them,” Pamela offered, plucking the box from Gwen’s hand. “If Ross and I hook up…”
    “I didn’t buy them for you and Ross!” said Elizabeth hotly.
    “Don’t tell me we’re going to have a catfight right here,” said Tommie. She grabbed the condoms out of Pamela’s hand and turned to Doris.
    “You take them,” she said.
    “I’m in enough hot water as it is,” Doris said. “I’m lucky I didn’t get kicked out of camp. Nope. I don’t plan to worry about this stuff till I’m married.”
    “We could give them to Gerald,” said Tommie.
    “G. E.?” we all asked in surprise.
    “Yeah. He’s been following me around all afternoon telling me how he’s turned on by girls who get along with kids—how it means they’d make good wives and mothers.”
    I stared. “That’s what he told me this morning! The very same thing.”
    We all looked at each other. “Now there’s a guy who wants to fall in love,” said Gwen. “So who’s going to put him out of his misery?”
    “Don’t look at me,” said Doris.
    We all turned toward Elizabeth.
    “Let’s tell him Elizabeth loves her little brother,” Pamela said.
    “Yeah, let’s say that she adores kids and that her greatest wish in life is to be a faithful wife and mother,” said Gwen.
    “Hey, guys!” said Elizabeth.
    “I’ll say she lets them snuggle up to her in bed,” said Tommie.
    “Oh, stop it!” Elizabeth said, swatting at us.
    We finished getting ready and probably looked the best we had since we’d come. We’d showered,blow-dried our hair, put on lip gloss and mascara. Two of the paid counselors, Phil and Sue, were going to take us to a restaurant called the White Rooster, and after the mandatory lecture from Jack about none of us going into the bar section, nobody leaving the building and going off alone, we set off in the camp’s minibus.
    It felt good to get away for the evening. Everything seemed dark and mysterious on the winding dirt road with no lights other than those on the minibus.
    Sue had the radio going, and when we weren’t chattering away, we were humming along with the music—everyone but me, of course. I won’t even hum in public; clearly, I was the only counselor at Camp Overlook who couldn’t carry a tune.
    Suddenly Elizabeth leaned against my shoulder and whispered, “So who has them, do you know?”
    “Has what?” I whispered back.
    “The condoms. Nobody gave them back.”
    “I don’t know,” I told her. “The last person who had them was Tommie, I think. Or was it Pamela?”
    I felt Elizabeth stiffen beside me, but then the lights of the White Rooster came into view, and we soon piled out of the car.

7
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Night Out
    “C’mon,” Phil said, and led us over to a table by the dance floor in the restaurant. It was a big high-ceilinged room with bare rafters overhead and old signs decorating the walls—signs advertising Burma-Shave and Ivory Flakes and twenty-five-cent chili dogs. We ordered sodas, and they