A Distinct Memory of Alice

            I looked up to see Alice's face next to mine. "Do you mind? It's math class," I whisper. 

            "But Adam invited you to his party, James!" Her face still had that insane grin on it. I swear, this girl must be crazy. You had to be, to survive our math teacher's math class and still walk out of the room with a smile. And Alice is smiling even while the math class is going on. 

            I swear, that girl is weird.

            "I don't do parties, Alice," I mumble as I catch sight of our professor glaring at me. I bend my head down to my notebook, to make it look like I'm taking notes. Alice is impervious to the teacher's glare--have I mentioned that she's a regular math genius, too?

            I told you she was weird.

            Anyway, she's still whisper-shouting her enthusiasm about the party, what she's going to wear, what I'm going to wear--wait, what?

            "I told you, I'm not going to any party!" The whole class grabbed at the chance to be distracted from the equation (which we were supposed to be solving) on the board, and all fifteen pairs of eyes were now trained on me. 

            "Your social life, as with your math grades, leave a little to be desired, Mr. Sanchez," said the professor, pushing his glasses up on his nose, "To be attending any...parties." He smiled acerbically. 

            Wait for it...

            "So, tell me, what is your answer to that simple quadratic equation on the board?" He gestured with his chalk-dusted hand. "What is the equations's factors?"

            "Uh..." I tried to stall for time by flipping through my notes. Oh crap, oh crap, oh crap!

            "Here, James!" The Mexican Jumping Bean, a.k.a. Alice, proved that she could whisper. She whispered the answer to me, and I quickly wrote it down.

            "Uh, x is negative two, and y is positive sixteen, sir." He blinked, then turned away from me. 

            "Very well, Mr. Sanchez. And now..."

            I tuned the droning voice out of my head. Before Alice could continue her crazy campaign to get me to go to Adam's party, the bell rang and I high-tailed it out of there.

            I went to the party after all. Alice greeted me as soon as I got inside the door, and I was dumbstruck by her. She was out of her usual shirt-and-jeans outfit, and looked amazing in a dress. 

            "I knew you'd come, James!" I didn't correct her that she already knew I was coming. She grabbed my hand and steered me through the house. 

            "Want to sit outside where the music isn't so loud?" She shouted over the throbbing music. 

            "Yes!" I said, not even bothering to mask my relief, and she smiled.

            Mostly, we talked that night. About why we had drifted apart. Why we only talked now. 

            "You have to admit, I did make the second move," she said, grinning at me, "You know you never would have talked to me if I didn't give you an excuse to."

            I snorted. "Yeah, right." But deep inside, I knew that what she was saying was true.

            We sat in silence for a few minutes, the throbbing beats of music from the party like a faint undercurrent in the other night sounds.