The Pursuit of Alice Thrift

“All the time. It’s a pyramid system. They start with seven, and prune every year.”

He sighed. Even Leo couldn’t put a positive spin on my prospects.

I walked over to the counter and came back with the coffeepot. “Let’s just say my answer to that question had been ‘personal’ instead of ‘professional.’ Would you have some insights? Have you noticed me doing anything egregious during social exchanges?”

Leo upended the sugar dispenser and let several teaspoonfuls pour into his cup.

“Be honest,” I said.

He squirmed in his chair, closed one eye. “If you put a gun to my head, I’d probably say that at times you remind me of my sister-in-law Sheila.”

Leo had twelve siblings, so there was always a family member he could cite as a role model or bad apple. “I hasten to add that Sheila is probably the smartest of any of my brothers’ wives.”

“But?”

“But she’s not the person I’d marry if I had my eye on the governor’s mansion.”

I said, “Massachusetts doesn’t have a governor’s mansion.”

Leo closed his eyes, exhaled as if exasperated.

“Is your brother running for something?” I asked.

Leo shook his head.

I said, “I ran for office once, in high school, but I lost. I would have been perfect for the position of class secretary because I’d taken shorthand one summer and would have been able to take the best notes of anyone else, but apparently that mattered very little.”

“Everything in high school is a popularity contest—which can’t be a startling revelation to you.”

I tried to remember back to the three straight years I ran, and for the three straight years I was trounced by girls who weren’t even members of the National Honor Society.

“Don’t take this wrong,” said Leo, “and don’t answer if you don’t want to, but did you date in high school?”

He didn’t let me answer. He patted my hand and said, “No matter. What a stupid and shallow question, right? As if you’d even remember. My high school social life is certainly a blur.”

He poured himself a second bowl of cereal and filled it to the rim with milk. “The guy who calls here? Is he a friend?”

“I had dinner with him once.”

“And?”

“And he’d like to do it again.”

“Have you called him back?”

I said no.

“No, permanently, or no, not yet?” he asked.

“He’s not my type,” I said.

Leo offered no rebuttal, but I knew what he was thinking: How could Alice Thrift, workaholic wallflower, have collected any data or constructed a model on something as theoretical as her type?

4 We Entertain (#ulink_33fe9c8c-300c-59cb-8029-7e7cb108a68d)

THIS IS WHAT we imagined: Nurses and surgical residents conversing in civilian garb. RNs impressing MDs with their previously underappreciated level of science and scholarship. Exhausted doctors sipping beer while sympathetic nurses circulated with pinwheel sandwiches. Doctors asking nurses if they could compare schedules and find free Saturday nights in common.

When every nurse accepted our invitation and every resident declined, Leo and I had to scramble to provide something close to even numbers. I volunteered to call my medical school classmates who were interning in Boston—there were two at Children’s, some half dozen at MGH, a couple more at Tufts, at BU …

“Friends?” he asked.

“Classmates,” I repeated.

I know what was on his mind: my unpopularity. That the words party and Alice Thrift were oxymoronic, and now Leo was experiencing it firsthand. I said, “Let’s face it: I have no marquee value. My name on the invitation doesn’t get one single warm body here, especially of the Y-chromosome variety.”

“We’re going to work on that,” said Leo.

“On the other hand, since I’m not known as a party thrower, my invitees will expect a very low level of merriment.”

Leo said, “Cut that out. It’s not your fault. We’re aiming too high. Interns are exhausted. If they have a night off, they want to sleep.”

I said, “That’s not true of the average man, from what I’ve read.”

“And what is that?” Leo asked.

“I’ve heard that men will go forth into groups of women, even strangers, if they think there’s a potential for sexual payoff.”

“What planet are you living on?” Leo asked. “Why do you sound like an anthropologist when we’re just bullshitting about how to balance our guest list?”

We were having this conversation in the cafeteria, Leo seated, me standing, since I usually grabbed a sandwich to go. He didn’t think I ate properly, so after he’d rattled a chair a few times, I sat down on it.

“If I called my single brothers, not counting Peter,” he said, “and they each brought two friends, that would be six more guys.”

“Is Peter the priest?”

“No, Joseph’s the priest. Peter doesn’t like women.”

“Okay. Six is a start.”

I unwrapped my cheese sandwich, and squeezed open the spout on my milk carton. “I know someone,” I finally said.

“Eligible?”

I nodded. So eligible, I thought, that he was pursuing Alice Thrift. “Not young, though. Forty-five. And widowed.”

“Call him. Forty-five’s not bad. Maybe he could bring some friends.”

I said, “Actually, he’s the one leaving those messages.”