Alice in Lace by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor

Author:Phyllis Reynolds Naylor [Naylor, Phyllis Reynolds]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: fiction, GR
ISBN: 9780689803581
Goodreads: 1837272
Publisher: Atheneum Books for Young Readers
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

• • •

After school, Pamela asked us to go with her to McDonald’s to apply for a job. She had a list of other places that usually hire teenagers. She’d tell them she was six months’ pregnant and see how many rejections she got. We figured how many places we could hit on or near Georgia Avenue that had been hiring now that their summer help was back in school.

“But if they say no, how can you prove it’s because you’re pregnant?” Elizabeth asked.

“Because one of you will go in first and fill out an application, and after you come out, I’ll go in and ask if they’re hiring. If they take your application but not mine, then we’ll know.”

“You don’t look very pregnant,” I told her. “You need a pillow.”

“Come on over to my house, Pamela,” Elizabeth said. “My mother will make you look very pregnant.”

Mrs. Price herself looked very, very pregnant.

“Six months’ pregnant, huh?” she asked Pamela. “Let’s try a small flat decorator pillow, and see how that looks under a maternity top.”

She bound it to Pamela’s body with a long cotton scarf, then slipped a maternity top over Pamela’s head.

We stared at the transformation.

“It … it looks so real!” gasped Elizabeth.

“It feels weird!” Pamela told us, patting her artificial abdomen.

It was weird. In Mr. Everett’s course it was as though someone had put our lives on fast-forward.

Before we left the house for McDonald’s, Mrs. Price said, “What you have to remember now, Pamela, is to sit and stand a little slower than usual, and rest one hand lightly on your tummy, as if to quiet the baby down. It does a lot of kicking, you know. Feels like giant hiccups in your abdomen. Pretend that every time you change position you’re going to get a kick in the gut unless you do it slowly.”

Pamela practiced a couple times.

“It doesn’t hurt to huff and puff a little,” said Elizabeth’s mother.

We set out, but couldn’t stop giggling. People looked at us, especially at Pamela. Especially her abdomen.

“This is so weird,” Pamela kept saying, but I knew she was having fun.

“Just don’t go into labor or try anything dumb,” Elizabeth warned, not at all sure about it.

When we got to McDonald’s, I went in first and asked if I could fill out an application. They handed one right over. I gave a phony name and age, of course, because I really don’t want to work there.

Then we went to the diner, and Elizabeth asked for an application. After she filled hers out, we went back to McDonald’s again, and stayed out of sight while Pamela went in. She was out within a minute.

“They said I could fill out an application, but I would find the work difficult because I’d be on my feet all day,” she told us.

“At least they were honest,” I said.

We went back to the diner. They told Pamela they were no longer hiring. We goofed around down the block for a while, and then I went in the diner and asked about work.

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